Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories Read online

  Groping about we came across a wounded French soldier, who told us in Spanish that we were close to the barracks. Knowing the French would not resign their liberty without a struggle, I expected a volley to be sent amongst us from the barracks, and began retracing my steps towards the square. However, I had only gone a short distance when I saw another party advancing towards me with a lighted candle. Hearing the noise of the first party in their front, they commenced firing as they advanced. Squeezing myself edgeways against a door, I awaited their arrival, then I begged them to desist from firing because there were some of their own men lower down. I then went with them and joined the first party.

  The wounded French soldiers pointed to a large gateway, and told us it was the barracks. Having a light we entered, and mounted a large stone staircase. We found ourselves in a French hospital, full of sick and wounded. Those who were able to sit up in bed did so, supplicating mercy, but they had no occasion to do so for our fellows were kind to them, and wrapped the bedclothes round them. Shortly afterwards a third party came down. Seeing a light in our window they commenced firing. The poor fellow who held the candle was shot through the head, and one or two others were wounded. The rest lay down while the firing continued, but then one man, more daring than the rest, flew to the window and cried out that they were firing on their own men.

  When this panic was over, I came downstairs, anxious to meet some of my own company to know how things were. I found a few outside, and we started in another direction, to a place with a large white house that had been used as a commissary’s store by the French. Here a crowd had assembled to break it open. They were warned off by a sentinel, a German, who was posted to guard the premises. Not heeding his threat, the throng rushed at the door. The poor sentry, true to his trust, attempted to oppose their entrance, and was run through the body by a bayonet.

  The house contained several puncheons of spirits, which the men present immediately tapped by striking in the heads. Some became madly drunk. Several wretches, who mounted the steps that had been placed against the butts to enable them to obtain the rum, fell into the liquor head first and, unnoticed by the crowd, perished. Several fights took place, and it was only the drunkenness of the parties which prevented mischief being done. To crown the whole, a light fell into one of the barrels of spirits and the place was set on fire. Many poor wretches, incapable of moving from the quantity of liquor they had swallowed, were consumed in the flames.

  The 43rd also were sucked in to the general ill-discipline. John Cooke:

  when the troops had sipped wine and the cognac brandy in the stalls, the extreme disorders commenced. To restore order was impossible; a whole division could not have done it. Three or four large houses were on fire, two of them in the market place, and the town was illuminated by the flames. The soldiers were drunk and many of them, for amusement, were firing from the windows into the street. At 1 a.m. I was in the square talking to the regimental barber, Private Evans, when a ball passed through his head. He fell at my feet dead, his brains lay on the pavement. I sought shelter.

  I found Colonel McLeod with a few officers in a large house, where we remained until daylight. I did not enter any other house in Ciudad Rodrigo. If I had not seen it, I never could have supposed that British soldiers would become so wild and furious. It was quite alarming to meet groups of them in the streets, flushed as they were with drink and desperate in mischief.

  And what of the 88th? Grattan tells us of one desperate single combat, and then turns to the growing disorder:

  Each affray in the streets was conducted in the best manner the moment would admit of, and decided more by personal valour than discipline, and in some instances officers as well as privates had to combat with the imperial troops. In one of these encounters Lieutenant George Faris, of the 88th, by an accident so likely to occur in an affair of this kind, separated a little too far from a dozen or so of his regiment, and found himself opposed to a French soldier who, apparently, was similarly placed. It was a curious coincidence, and it would seem as if each felt that he individually was the representative of the country to which he belonged: and had the fate of the two nations hung upon the issue of the combat I am about to describe, it could not have been more heroically contested. The Frenchman fired at and wounded Faris in the thigh, and made a desperate push with his bayonet at his body, but Faris parried the thrust, and the bayonet only lodged in his leg. He saw at a glance the peril of his situation, and that nothing short of a miracle could save him; the odds against him were too great, and if he continued a scientific fight he must inevitably be vanquished. He sprang forward, and, seizing hold of the Frenchman by the collar, a struggle of a most nervous kind took place: in their mutual efforts to gain an advantage they lost their caps, and as they were men of nearly equal strength, it was doubtful what the issue would be. They were so entangled with each other their weapons were of no avail, but Faris at length disengaged himself from the grasp which held him, and he was able to use his sabre; he pushed the Frenchman from him, and ere he could recover himself he laid his head open nearly to the chin. His sword-blade, a heavy, soft, ill-made Portuguese one, was doubled up with the force of the blow, and retained some pieces of the skull and clotted hair! At this moment I reached the spot with about twenty men, composed of different regiments, all being by this time mixed pell mell with each other. I ran up to Faris – he was nearly exhausted, but he was safe. The French grenadier lay upon the pavement, while Faris, though tottering from fatigue, held his sword firmly in his grasp, and it was crimson to the hilt. The appearance of the two combatants was frightful! – one lying dead on the ground, the other faint from agitation and loss of blood; but the soldiers loudly applauded him, and the feeling uppermost with them was, that our man had the best of it! It was a shocking sight, but it would be rather a hazardous experiment to begin moralising at such a moment and in such a place.

  Those of the garrison who escaped death were made prisoners, and the necessary guards being placed, and everything secured, the troops not selected for duty commenced a very diligent search for those articles which they most fancied, and which they considered themselves entitled to by ‘right of conquest’. I believe on a service such as the present, there is a sort of tacit acknowledgement of this ‘right’; but be this as it may, a good deal of property most indubitably changed owners on the night of the 19th of January 1812. The conduct of the soldiers, too, within the last hour, had undergone a complete change; before, it was all order and regularity, now it was nothing but licentiousness and confusion – subordination was at an end; plunder and blood was the order of the day, and many an officer on this night was compelled to show that he carried a sabre.

  The doors of the houses in a large Spanish town are remarkable for their strength, and resemble those of a prison more than anything else; their locks are of huge dimensions, and it is a most difficult task to force them. The mode, adopted by the men of my regiment (the 88th) in this dilemma was as effective as it was novel: the muzzles of a couple of muskets were applied to each side of the keyhole, while a third soldier, fulfilling the functions of an officer, deliberately gave the word, ‘make ready’ – ‘present’ – ‘fire!’ and in an instant the ponderous lock gave way before the combined operations of the three individuals, and doors that rarely opened to the knock of a stranger in Rodrigo, now flew off their hinges to receive the Rangers of Connaught.

  The chapels and chandlers’ houses were the first captured, in both of which was found a most essential ingredient in the shape of large wax candles; these the soldiers lighted, and commenced their perambulations in search of plunder, and the glare of light which they threw across the faces of the men, as they carried them through the streets, displayed their countenances, which were of that cast that might well terrify the unfortunate inhabitants. Many of the soldiers with their faces scorched by the explosion of the magazine at the grand breach; others with their lips blackened from biting off the ends of their cartridges, more covered with bl
ood, and all looking ferocious, presented a combination sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.

  Scenes of the greatest outrage now took place, and it was pitiable to see groups of the inhabitants half naked in the streets – the females clinging to the officers for protection – while their respective houses were undergoing the strictest scrutiny. Some of the soldiers turned to the wine and spirit houses, where, having drunk sufficiently, they again sailed out in quest of more plunder; others got so intoxicated that they lay in a helpless state in different parts of the town, and lost what they had previously gained, either by the hands of any passing Spaniard, who could venture unobserved to stoop down, or by those of their own companions, who in their wandering surveys happened to recognise a comrade lying with half a dozen silk gowns, or some such thing, wrapped about him. Others wished to attack the different stores, and as there is something marvellously attractive in the very name of a brandy one, it is not to be wondered at that many of our heroes turned not only their thoughts, but their steps also, in the direction in which these houses lay: and from the unsparing hand with which they supplied themselves, it might be imagined they intended to change their habits of life and turn spirit-vendors, and that too in the wholesale line!

  By some mistake, a large spirit store situated in the Plaza Mayor took fire, and the flames spreading with incredible fury, despite of the exertions of the troops, the building was totally destroyed: but in this instance, like many others which we are obliged to struggle against through life, there was something that neutralised the disappointment which the loss of so much brandy occasioned the soldiers; the light which shone forth from the building was of material service to them, inasmuch as it tended to facilitate their movements in their excursions for plunder; the heat also was far from disagreeable, for the night was piercingly cold, yet, nevertheless, the soldiers exerted themselves to the utmost to put a stop to this calamity. General Picton was to be seen in the midst of them, encouraging them by his example and presence to make still greater efforts; but all would not do, and floor after floor fell in, until at last it was nothing but a burning heap of ruins.

  Some houses were altogether saved from plunder by the interference of the officers, for in several instances the women ran out into the streets, and seizing hold of three or four of us, would force us away to their houses, and by this stroke of political hospitality saved their property. A good supper was then provided, and while all outside was noise and pillage, affairs within went on agreeably enough. These instances were, however, but few.

  Oman estimated 7,000 troops were now inside the town, some five times the surrendered garrison, and in the narrow streets nowhere in bodies much above a dozen or so, few with officers, of whom even fewer were silly enough to attempt to impose control. Officers and drunken soldiers never mix well, for that deference from which flows a normal acquiescence to orders is invariably diluted by the alcohol; it is a short journey from minor verbal insubordination to minor physical aggression, and beyond, especially if the officer wears a different cap badge. Just as the Great Breach gave eventual access to the mixed bayonets of seven battalions, and the Lesser to those of another six, so the mixture continued into the town, there to meet the Caçadores of O’Toole’s Portuguese via the Castle’s sally port, and Pack’s via the Santiago gate, all free of the discipline of the ranks and knowing your place, the first successful assault of a French garrison by the Peninsular field army. It was a heaven-sent opportunity for that tenth part of every regiment (described later by Sir John Colborne as ‘in every regiment we must say there are from fifty to a hundred bad characters that neither punishment nor any kind of discipline can restrain.’) The opportunity led first to the wine warehouses and then, for the majority, to the prospects of plunder.

  Colonel MacLeod’s 43rd at least tried: ‘he immediately detached officers with guards to take possession of all the stores they could find, and to preserve order. These parties ultimately dissolved themselves. If they had not done so, they would have been engaged in the streets with our own troops.’ Yet the disorder was mild by later sieges, accordingly to Jonathan Leach:

  No town taken by assault suffered less than Rodrigo. It is true that soldiers from all regiments got drunk, pillaged, and made great noise and confusion in the streets and houses. But bad and revolting as such scenes are, I never heard that either the French garrison after its surrender, or the inhabitants, suffered personal indignities or cruelty from the troops.

  Sometime after midnight some order was returning: ‘We succeeded in getting a great portion of our battalion together by 1 o’clock in the morning and withdrew with them to the ramparts, where we lay by our arms until daylight.’ (Kincaid). George Simmons too passed the night on the ramparts, but in much more comfort:

  My battalion formed up upon the ramparts and made fires, as the night was a clear and frosty one. Some men brought me wine, ham, and eggs. I soon made a hearty meal, and washed it down with some good French burgundy, put my feet to the fire, and enjoyed as calm a sleep as I ever did in my life before, for three or four hours.

  It was McLeod who also tried to restrict the taking away of plunder. According to John Cooke, he:

  Ordered Lieutenant Wyndham Madden of the 43rd to descend the small breach with twenty-five men and continue at the foot of it during the night to prevent soldiers leaving the town with plunder. At eleven o’clock that night I went to see him. He had no sinecure and had very judiciously made a large fire which showed to perfection the delinquents attempting to quit the town with plunder, in the garb of friars, nuns or enveloped in silk counterpanes; or who were laded with silver forks, spoons, and church plate. All of this was taken from them and piled up to hand over to the proper authorities on the following day. He told me that no masquerade in point of costume, or of grotesque figure, could rival the characters he stripped that night. The fire was large, and surrounded by the dead bodies of those who fell on the first onset at the foot of the breach.

  Madden was on guard until late the next day. Typically not averse to the general benefits of captured French possessions, he later noted that ‘many of our officers have got horses and mules. William [his brother in the 52nd] has got two beautiful animals, and he has promised to give me one of them.’ We must hope they enjoyed their new rides: ten weeks later William was dead, and Wyndham severely wounded, both at Badajoz.

  Next morning, at eleven o’clock on 20 January, as the fires were finally brought under control, Cooke again made his way through the corpses on the streets, this time to see the scene at the main breach.

  The ascent was not as steep as the small one, but there was a traverse thrown up at each side of it on the rampart; hence there was no way into the town, as the wall was quite perpendicular behind the breach. When the 3rd Division had gained the top of the rampart, they were enclosed and hemmed in. They had nowhere to go and the enemy continued to fire upon them from some old ruined houses 20 yards distant. I counted more than 63 soldiers of the 3rd Division dead on the terre-plein of the rampart between the traverses. I did not see one dead soldier of that Division on the French side of those traverses, but I saw some of the Light Division.

  I saw General MacKinnon lying dead on his back, just under the rampart on the inside, i.e. the town side. He was a tall, thin man, and was stripped of everything except his shirt and blue pantaloons; even his boots were taken off. There were no other dead near him, and he was not on the French side of the traverse either. There was no possibility of getting at the general without a ladder, or without traversing a considerable distance along the ramparts to descend into the town, passing through several narrow lanes, ruined houses, and over broken stone walls. The distance was at least a quarter of a mile. No human being could have accomplished it during the night.

  It is said that he was blown up, but there was no indication that such had been his fate. Neither the state of his skin, nor the posture in which he was lying led me to think it. I should think that when a man is blown up, his hands and
face could not escape. I never saw any whose face was not scorched, but MacKinnon’s was pale, and free from the marks of fire. How strange that, with the exception of the General, I did not see a soldier of the 3rd Division who had been stripped. Neither was there any officer among the dead, or else they had been carried away. I wonder if the General had been killed with all the others between the traverses, and some tender-hearted followers of the army, having taken his clothes off, had just given him a hand over the wall to place him in the position described?

  The greater portion of the Light Division lay in the ditch at the foot of the small breach. They fought on the slope, and rolled down in succession as they were killed. On gaining the ramparts – there being no interior defences – they followed the right and left as the French retreated panic-struck into the interior of the city, keeping up a running fire from the different streets, or from the massive stone buildings.

  The 3rd Division, at the first onset, had been fired on from the parapets of the ramparts, and assailed by summit of the wall. The enemy did not stand on the crest of the great breach to oppose their ascent. If they had, it would have been impossible to escape behind their traverses. They had left a space on the left of the right traverse for one man to pass at a time, but expecting the attack, they had previously blocked it up with barrels filled with earth, having placed others behind to stand on for the purpose of firing over them. Before the morning, all these barrels, except one, were thrown down the scarped wall.