Chapter XVI
COMBAT OF THE 10TH DECEMBER—HARRY SMITH’S DREAM AND THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.
The following day we moved into a most beautiful country, intersected with hedgerows, and the finest and sweetest second crop of hay I ever saw, which our horses rejoiced in. We took up our posts in front of Arbonne [15 Nov.], and the following day had a sharp skirmish at our advanced posts. We halted here a day or two, and then moved on to a line more approaching Bayonne. The first Brigade occupied the Chateau d’Arcangues [17 Nov.], of which Johnny Kincaid recounts some anecdotes; the second the Chateau of Castilleur, where Colonel Colborne packed the 52nd Regiment as close as cards; and the 2nd Battalion, 95th Regiment, and the 1st and 3rd Caçadores also had cover. Our posts were here very close upon each other, and we had far more skirmishing and alarms than usual.
Upon the morning of the 9th December, the 1st and 7th Divisions came close up to our rear, which led us to suppose something was going on. The enemy in our front were alarmed, and stood to their arms. Shortly after these Divisions moved to our right, for the purpose of crossing the river [Nive], and our Division moved on to drive back the enemy’s picquets in the direction of Bayonne. To occupy his attention, our Riflemen formed up before the firing commenced close to the enemy’s strongest post, on the high-road to Bayonne, where we had been watching each other for several days. When I and Beckwith, the A.Q.M.G., rode up and ordered our people to advance, not a shot was fired. The French saw we were going to attack, but did not withdraw their picquet. We beckoned to them to do so, but they would not take the hint. We then actually fired some shots over their heads. There was positively a reluctance on our part to shoot any man in so cold-blooded a manner. The moment a shot was fired the affair became general, and we drove in the French picquets, who rapidly retired, and we had little fighting all day. In the evening, having effected the demonstration required, the Division retired to its old ground, and we resumed our usual line of picquets.
On the following morning [10 Dec.], having a presentiment the enemy would create a considerable diversion upon the left of our army, I was with our most advanced picquets before daylight. I had not been there many minutes, when I was joined by Beckwith, and soon after up came Colborne. We said, “The enemy are going to attack us.” Colborne said, “No; they are only going to resume their ordinary posts in our front.” I said, “But look at the body in our immediate front, and a column far off, evidently moving on the 1st Division,” which was on the extreme left. It was evident we should be attacked immediately, and I said so, but Colborne asserted it was no such thing. I prayed him to allow me to order my Brigade under arms. At last he consented, and, although I rode at the utmost speed, our troops were barely out in time, so furiously did the French drive us back. They took the Chateau of Castilleur from us, making at the same time a heavy attack on that of Arcangues. Much of our baggage fell into the enemy’s hands, although they could not carry it off. My wife had barely time to slip on her habit and jump upon her horse; her Vittoria pug-dog in the scuffle was left behind, so sharp was the fire on the Chateau. A bugler of the 52nd Regiment, however, knew pug, whipped him up, and put him in his haversack. This was nearer a surprise than anything we had ever experienced. For some time the enemy possessed our quarters and bivouac, and—what was of great importance to Tom Fane—rifled his portmanteau. They also carried off a goose which was fattening for our Christmas dinner. We soon repaid our friends with interest and retook our position, but it was one of as heavy attacks as I have ever witnessed.
In the afternoon of that day, the enemy made a most vigorous attack on Sir J. Hope, particularly at the Mayor’s House of Biaritz,[45] sharply skirmishing with us at the same time to occupy our attention. I thought then, and I think now, if my Brigade had been moved on the left of the attack on Sir J. Hope, it would have caused the enemy great loss, as his flank was exposed, but the Duke of Wellington knew better, and never attempted hazardous and little affairs, but ever played a great and safe game.
That evening the Regiments of Nassau and Frankfort walked over to us from the French lines into those of the 7th Division at Arbonne. Colonel Beyring,[46] Count Alten’s A.D.C., was said to have been for some time with them, and it was evident the Duke knew about their intention.
Upon the 11th [Dec.] we had some partial skirmishing. The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade struck their tents for the purpose of moving their ground. The enemy were most alarmed, and took up their ground to receive us. That night, when our armies were dismissed, rations were served out. In my life I never heard such a row as among the French when preparing to cook. I was posting the night’s sentries, when I saw a French officer doing the same. I went towards him, and we civilly greeted each other. I said I wished to speak to him. He came up with the greatest confidence and good humour. I showed him my vedette, and then remarked that his was too far in advance and might create an alarm at night when relieving. He said he did not see that, but to please me, if I would point out where I wished he should be, he would immediately move him—which he did. He presented his little flask of excellent French brandy, of which I took a sup, and we parted in perfect amity.
When I returned to Colborne, who was in the Chateau, I found him lying asleep before a fire just as he had got off his horse. I did not awake him, nor had I anything to eat. Sleep at night readily supplies the place of food, and hunger at night on that account is not nearly so acute and painful as in the morning, when your day’s work is before you. Down I lay, without one thought in the world, from exhaustion. I had a long dream, its purport that the enemy had attacked my father’s house (the front of which opened to the street, the back into a beautiful garden, by what we children called “The Black Door”). My father had my mother in his arms; I saw them as plainly as ever I did in my life, he carrying her through the Black Door, at the moment calling out, “Now, some one shut the door; she is safe and rescued.” At the instant I sprang on my feet, and in our usual military words in cases of alarm, roared out in a voice of thunder, “Stand to your arms.” Colborne was on his feet like a shot, the light of the fire showed me the room and my delusion, and I said, “Oh, sir, I beg your pardon; I have been dreaming.” He said, in his noble way, “Never mind, it is near daylight, and it shows that, asleep or awake, you are intent on your duty.” He lay down, and was asleep in a moment. I never felt so oppressed in my life, so vividly was depicted to my mind the scene described, and I took out of my pocket a little roster of duties and picquets bound in calf-skin, and noted down the hour and particulars of my dream. In a few days I received a letter from my afflicted father,[47] telling me my mother died on Sunday morning, Dec. 12, at one o’clock, at the very moment I cried out, “Stand to your arms.” Such is the fact. When I lay down, I was tired and exhausted, as before expressed. I had not a thought in the world of home or anything, nor was I prepared for the probability of the event. I presume to make no remarks on such intimations from God alone, but the whole day I was heavy and oppressed, nor did I ever shake off the vivid impression until the receipt of the letter put me in possession of the loss I had sustained.
[Illustration: SIR HARRY SMITH’S BIRTHPLACE, WHITTLESEY.
(The “Black Door” is seen to the right.)
From a photograph by A. Gray, Whittlesey, 1900.
[Opposite p. 156.]
Her dying moments were perfectly composed; to the last she blessed her two sons engaged in the wars of their country, and died saying, “Would I could have seen them after their dangers and good conduct!” Among all our relations and friends we receive kindness and attention and unbounded love, but the love of a mother is distinct in character; youth in distress turns to the mother for sympathy and pardon; in joy it desires to impart its feeling to the mother, who participates in it with the warmth of a mother’s heart. The mother is the friend, the counsellor, the pardoner of offences, and, happen what may, the mother ever clings to her offspring. When I first parted from my mother to join my Regiment, the French Army was assembled at Boulogne, and every day was full of news that the French were coming. We dined early that day, I and my father, who was kindly to accompany me to Brabourne Lees, in Kent. At dinner I held up manfully. Then I ran to the stable to part with a beautiful little horse I had reared almost from a foal—he was thoroughbred, and carried me hunting in such a style that no one could beat me. I threw my arms round Jack’s neck, and had a good cry. I saw my poor mother observed what I had been doing, and a smile of approbation curled upon her placid lip. The awful moment now approached: the buggy was at the door. I parted with my dear brothers and sisters (five boys and five girls) tolerably well, my poor mother glad to observe in me a force of character which she hoped in greater and more eventful scenes I might evince. It came next to her turn. She seized me in her arms, and wept awfully. Suddenly, with an effort I shall never forget, her tears were dried, she held me at arm’s length, and, gazing at me most intently, said, “I have two favours to ask of you: one is that you never enter a public billiard-room; the next—our country is at war—if ever you meet your enemy, remember you are born a true Englishman. Now, God bless and preserve you, which I hope He will, and listen to the constant, the fervent prayers, I will offer up for your welfare.” I exclaimed, “Dear mother, I promise!” God knows the first request I have honestly fulfilled, the latter I hope I have—at least, my superiors and comrades ever gave me credit for a bold and courageous bearing. I returned to her beloved embrace after South America, and got a commission for my brother Tom, and again to her nearly naked and a skeleton after the retreat to Coruña. I was covered with vermin, and had no clothes but those on my back. To her alone did I impart what, although I felt no disgrace, I did not want to be known. She dressed me, and put me in a hot bath, and we preserved our secret mutually inviolate. I soon again left her for Talavera, restored to health by her care, never to see her again, but our intercourse by letters was constant. The last she received from me was after we had carried the heights of Vera in such a brilliant manner, and it told her that for my conduct I was promised the brevet rank of Major. May every soldier obey the fifth commandment as I did! I never was in a situation of appalling death, mortality, and danger, but my mother’s words rang in my ears, “Remember you were born an Englishman.” My dear wife participated and sympathized in all my grief, for I admit it was excessive, saying ever, “I have lost father and mother, and my brother died in my arms of his wounds. Your home and relatives you have still left, while I live alone for you,—my all, my home, my kindred.”
The morning after my dream [12 Dec.] I was very early at our advanced posts, and I saw some French soldiers coming on in a very unusual manner to attack us, while the mass of their force were dismissed in bivouac. The 1st Caçadores had the advance. I never saw the French so daring since the retreat to Coruña, and they were most excellent shots, and actually astonished our Caçadores. Colborne, hearing a smart firing, rode up, and stopped in the road opposite one of the barricades of our picquets. I said, “I don’t know what the devil we have got in our front to-day. Don’t stand there, you will be shot in a moment!” He laughed, but would not move. In a second a ball went through his cap just above his noble head. He moved then and laughed. “Look at the fellows,” he says, “how viciously they come on; it is evident it is no general attack, for the troops in their bivouac are not under arms. They want this post.” “Which,” says I, “they will have in ten minutes, unless I bring up the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade,” for our Caçadores were evidently not equal to their task. Colborne says, “Fetch them!” In a very short time our Riflemen came up. By this time the enemy had driven in everything beyond the barricade, and were prepared to assault it. Our 95th fellows had a few men wounded as they were coming up the road, before they could be extended, which made them as savage as the enemy, who were capering about the fields in our front as if drunk. Our fellows turned to, and soon brought them to repent any pranks or exposure. We took a few prisoners, and ascertained the Regiment was the 32nd Voltigeurs, a crack corps of Suchet’s army which had joined the night before, when we heard all the noise going on in the bivouac. These gentlemen had ever previously been venturous and laughed at the tales of British prowess; that morning’s lesson, however, seemed to have made converts of them, for I never after observed any extra feats of dancing; but Colborne and all of us were perfectly astonished when the fact was known, and our 2nd Battalion 95th Regiment were rather elated in having thus shown themselves such able instructors.
We were very much on the alert all day, and a few shots were exchanged. At night our picquets were strengthened, for we were not aware if our friends, the new Voltigeurs, intended a fresh prank. After these three days’ fighting and vigilance, the enemy withdrew close to Bayonne, their and our advanced posts being nearly as before. Notwithstanding the loss of our goose, we had a capital Christmas dinner, at which, of course, we had the Commissary of the Brigade, and induced him to find us champagne, which many commissaries were able to do.
XVII. CAMPAIGN OF 1814: BATTLE OF ORTHEZ—ANECDOTE OF JUANA SMITH
From the Chateau of Castilleur we moved more into the mountains to the rear and to our left of Ustaritz, where we never saw the enemy [Jan. 1814]. Our time was spent in shooting, and exploring the mountains. While we were in this position forage was very scarce, and we chopped up the furze-bushes very small by way of hay. It is astonishing how it agreed with the horses. The natives use it in the same way for their cattle.
We remained in this position until the end of February, when we moved, reaching Orthez on the 26th. Here our Division had one of the sharpest skirmishes in a town which I ever saw. Orthez is situated on both sides of the Gave de Pau and has a bridge, which the enemy held with great jealousy. On the afternoon of this day, the Duke and his head-quarters came up. It was his intention to have fought the battle that afternoon, had the 3rd Division been able to reach its position in time. I heard the Duke say, “Very well, Murray, if the Division does not arrive in time, we must delay the attack till to-morrow. However, I must have a sleep.” He folded his little white cloak round him, and lay down, saying, “Call me in time, Murray.” Murray awoke the Duke, saying, “It is too late to-day, my Lord.” “Very well, then, my orders for to-morrow hold good.”
At dark we withdrew all our posts out of Orthez but a picquet near the bridge in the town, and at daylight [27 Feb.] we crossed by a pontoon bridge below Orthez, and marched over difficult ground. We saw the enemy very strongly posted, both as regards the elevation and the nature of the ground, which was intersected by large banks and ditches, while the fences of the field were most admirably calculated for vigorous defence. As we were moving on the right of the 3rd Division, Sir Thomas Picton, who was ever ready to find fault with the Light, rode up to Colonel Barnard. “Who the devil are you?” knowing Barnard intimately. “We are the Light Division.” “If you are Light, sir, I wish you would move a little quicker,” said in his most bitter and sarcastic tone. Barnard says very cool, “Alten commands. But the march of infantry is quick time, and you cannot accelerate the pace of the head of the column without doing an injury to the whole. Wherever the 3rd Division are, Sir Thomas, we will be in our places, depend on it.”
We were soon engaged, but less for some time than the troops to our right and left. I never saw the French fight so hard as this day, and we were actually making no advance, when the Duke came up, and ordered the 52nd Regiment to form line and advance. The Battalion was upwards of seven hundred strong. It deployed into line like clockwork, and moved on, supported by clouds of sharpshooters. It was the most majestic advance I ever saw. The French, seeing this line advance so steadily, were appalled; their fire, which at first was terrific, gradually decreased as we neared. The Divisions on our right and left also moved on. The battle was won.
In this advance the 52nd suffered considerably. The present Duke of Richmond, then Lord March, a Captain in the corps, received a severe wound in the side; the ball still annoys him. The Duke himself also got a crack on his knee, which lamed him for several days. When Lord March lay on the ground after the attack, I went to bring up Maling, Surgeon of the 52nd Regiment. As soon as he arrived, to my horror, he poked his forefinger into the wound to trace the course of the ball. At this moment up rode Lord Fitzroy Somerset, and Lord March’s brother, Lord George Lennox, awfully affected, believing the wound mortal. Lord March said, “Maling, tell me if I am mortally wounded, because I have something I wish to impart to George.” Maling said, “If you will be quiet, you will do very well.” Maling did not think so. However, Lord March made a miraculous recovery. I never knew a finer young fellow, braver or cooler. In those days, he would not have opposed his kind patron, the Duke, as he did subsequently. That every peer and every other man should speak out his mind according to his conscience, I earnestly desire; but, as Duke of Richmond, he opposed the Duke of Wellington politically in a manner rather partaking of personal hostility than political consistency.[48] Every admirer of Lord March in the army, and he had many, lamented the course he pursued.
But to the fight. We drove the enemy in great confusion before us. On this occasion, I literally lost a Battalion of my Brigade, the 1st Caçadores, for two days, they got so mixed with the 6th Division. The night I found them, after much diligence, I and my Brigadier, Barnard, got into a little sort of inn, kept by an old soldier disabled in Bonaparte’s Italian campaigns. He did not require to be told the wants of a soldier, but from habit and sympathy turned to like a “good ’un” to cook us some dinner. As he was hard at work, he said to Barnard, “Ah, the French are not always victorious, and I see war now is [not?] what it was when I served. The Cavalry give way first, then come the Artillery, and then follow the Infantry in disorder.” He became in the course of the evening very eloquent over his own wine, and told us some very amusing stories. The next morning, when Barnard paid him for everything we had consumed, he was perfectly thunderstruck. I shall never forget his astonishment or his “Eh bien! monsieur, comme vous voulez.”
The baggage reached us early the following day [1 March], and in the afternoon we forded the Adour, which was deep, rapid, and broad. My wife had ridden over the field of battle, and described it as covered with dead, dying, and wounded. She observed an extraordinary number of wounds in the head. These were due to the fact that, owing to the cover of the high banks before described, the head only was vulnerable or exposed. She saw one fine fellow of an Artilleryman with both his arms shot off, which he said occurred while he was ramming down the cartridge into his own gun. She offered him all she had in the eating or drinking way, but he most disdainfully refused all.
The same afternoon we made a long and rapid march on Mont de Marsan, where a Division of Cavalry and Marshal Beresford and his head-quarters preceded us. We did not reach Mont de Marsan until some hours after dark. We were ordered to take up quarters for the night, but so full of Cavalry and head-quarters was the place, and all scattered over the town, not collected, as we Light Division used to be by streets and regiments as if on parade, we had great difficulty in getting in anywhere.
The night was showery, with sleet drifting, frosty and excessively cold. My poor wife was almost perished. We at last got her into a comfortable little house, where the poor Frenchwoman, a widow, lighted a fire, and in about half an hour produced some bouillon in a very handsome Sèvres slop-basin, saying this had been a present to her many years ago on the day of her marriage, and that it had never been used since her husband’s death. She, therefore, wished my wife to know how happy she was to wait on the nation who was freeing France of an usurper. The widow was a true “Royaliste,” and we were both most grateful to the poor woman. The next day we were ordered back to St. Sever, on the high-road to Toulouse, and parted with our widow with all mutual concern and gratitude, our baggage being left to follow. We had a very showery, frosty, and miserable long march over an execrable road, after which we and Barnard got into a little cottage on the roadside. At daylight the following morning we were expecting to move, but, having received no order, we turned to to breakfast, my wife relating to Barnard the kindness she had received the previous night and the history of the basin. To our horror in came my servant, Joe Kitchen, with the identical slop-basin full of milk. The tears rolled down my wife’s cheeks. Barnard got in a storming passion. I said, “How dare you, sir, do anything of the sort?” (he was an excellent servant.) “Lord, sir,” he says, “why, the French soldiers would have carried off the widow, an’ she had been young, and I thought it would be so nice for the goat’s milk in the morning; she was very angry, though, ’cos I took it.”
Barnard got on his horse, and rode to head-quarters. About ten o’clock he came back and said the Duke told him the army would not march until to-morrow. My wife immediately sent for the trusty groom, old West, and said, “Bring my horse and yours too, and a feed of corn in your haversack.” She said to me, “I am going to see an officer who was wounded the day before yesterday, and if I am not back until late, do not be alarmed.” Young as she was, I never controlled her desire on such occasions, having perfect confidence in her superior sense and seeing her frequently visit our wounded or sick. I went to my Brigade, having various duties, just before she started. It became dark, she had not returned, but Barnard would wait dinner for her, saying, “She will be in directly.” She did arrive soon, very cold and splashed from hard riding on a very dirty, deep, and wet road. She laughed and said, “Well, why did you wait dinner? Order it; I shall soon have my habit off.” Barnard and I exclaimed with one voice, “Where have you been?” “Oh,” she says, “do not be angry, I am not taken prisoner, as you see. I have been to Mont de Marsan, to take back the poor widow’s basin.” I never saw a warm-hearted fellow so delighted as Barnard. “Well done, Juana, you are a heroine. The Maid of Saragossa is nothing to you.” She said the widow cried exceedingly with joy, but insisted on her now keeping the basin for the milk, which my wife would on no account do. She had ridden that day thirty miles and had every reason to expect to meet a French patrol. I said, “Were you not afraid of being taken prisoner?” “No, I and West kept a good look-out, and no French dragoon could catch me on my Spanish horse, Tiny.” She was tired from the excessive cold, but the merit of her act sustained her as much as it inspired us with admiration. The story soon got wind, and the next day every officer in the Division loaded her with praise. It was a kind and noble act which few men, much less a delicate girl of sixteen, would have done under all the circumstances. Our worthy friend, Bob Digby, of the 52nd Regiment, Barnard’s A.D.C., overhearing my wife’s orders to West, after she had started, most kindly followed and joined my wife on the road, for, as he said, he was alarmed lest she should fall in with a patrol.
Chapter XVIII
CAMPAIGN OF 1814: AT GÉE, NEAR AIRE—BATTLE OF TARBES—BATTLE OF TOULOUSE—END OF THE WAR.
On our advance [9 March, etc.], we were for some days at a village called Gée, near Aire, where the 2nd Division, under Sir W. Stewart, had a brilliant little affair.
But I must first interpose an anecdote. One of his A.D.C.’s, his nephew, Lord Charles Spencer, a Lieutenant of the 95th Regiment, was mounted on a very valuable horse which he had paid more for than he could afford, contrary to the advice of Sir William. In driving the French through the town, Lord Charles’s horse was shot on the bank of a large pond, into which he himself was thrown head foremost. (The fire at this moment was very heavy, and in a street more balls take effect than in the open.) Sir William very quietly says, “Ha, there goes my poor nephew and all his fortune,” alluding to the price he paid for his horse.
I have often heard Colonel Colborne (Lord Seaton) affirm that if he were asked to name the bravest man he had ever seen (and no one was a better judge), he should name Sir William Stewart. Although he gave me my commission, I never saw him under fire. If he exceeded in bravery my dear friend, Sir Edward Pakenham, he was gallant indeed. Pakenham’s bravery was of that animated, intrepid cast that he applied his mind vigorously at the moment to the position of his own troops as well as to that of the enemy, and by judicious foresight ensured success, but he never avoided a fight of any sort.
The village of Gée was to the right of the high-road to Toulouse, the River [Adour] running to our right. The Cavalry were posted on the main road, their advance vedettes looking on to the village of [Tarsac?] where the enemy were very alert and obstinate in resisting our approach.
On the day the army advanced,[49] the French Cavalry made a fierce resistance in the village, and when driven out, made some desperate charges on the chaussée, in one of which the officer in command was cut down while gallantly leading his Squadron. An officer of our 15th Hussars (I think Booth), having admired his gallant bearing, dismounted to his assistance. He said he believed he was not mortally wounded, and he requested to be carried to the Chateau in the village he had so gallantly fought for, where his father and family resided. This peculiar tale may be relied on, like everything else, as I hope, which I have asserted. For several days it was the usual topic of conversation, and when any one came from the rear, inquiry was always made if the French Captain who was wounded and in his fathers house, (we never knew his name), was doing well. We learnt afterwards that he perfectly recovered, but the sword wound had stamped him with a deep scar.
At Gée we had several alerts, and our baggage for some successive days was loaded for hours. On one of these occasions the old housekeeper of a large house which Barnard occupied, and whom he had paid for many a fat fowl and fish out of tanks, etc., came into the room where my wife remained waiting to join the troops, seized my wife and vowed she would put her to death, grasping her with a fiend-like strength. Fortunately, at this moment my servant returned to say the Division were not to march, and rescued my poor affrighted and delicate wife. We afterwards learnt that this violent woman, if anything excited her, was afflicted with temporary insanity, and she had been put in a rage below, and came up to vent her spleen on my poor wife. We were in this house for two or three days after, but my wife had been so alarmed she would never allow her servant to quit her. The latter was a powerful woman of the 52nd, rejoicing in the name of Jenny Bates.
While in this village, Charlie Beckwith, the Q.M.G., came to me and said, “Harry, I want a Company for picquet immediately.” I named the Corps, 1st Battalion 95th, who had one ready accoutred in waiting, as we always had in positions subject to alerts. It was out in five minutes, and Charlie Beckwith marched to point out where the officer commanding was to post it. I invariably went out with every picquet when possible. On this occasion I had other duty. In the afternoon I got on my horse to look for my picquet. I met Charlie Beckwith in the village. He said, “I will ride with you.” We did not find the picquet where we expected—on our side of a bridge (beyond which was a comfortable village). Having heard no firing, we were not alarmed for the safety of the Company, still we could not find it. We rode to the bridge, the object of the officer’s watch, saying, “There will surely be a sentry upon it.” We rode up and found one certainly, but on the enemy’s side. We asked where the Company was. The vedette was an Irishman. “By Jasus, the Captain’s the boy. It was so rainy and cold on the plain, he harboured us all comfortably, like the man that he is, in the village.” The French were in the habit of patrolling into this village in force, and, although the Captain had so posted himself as I do believe he would have been able to hold his own until the Division came up, it would have cost us a fight to rescue him from the far side of the bridge, which he ought never to have crossed. So the Captain got a blowing-up, and the Company had to make their fires in a cold, wet, and miserable bivouac. I never had a picquet out from the Brigade without visiting it so as to judge how it was posted, and how to withdraw it either at night or in case of abrupt necessity.
We had also a sharp skirmish at Vic Begorre, but the brunt of it fell on the 3rd Division, where one of the most able officers got himself killed where he had no business to be—Major Sturgeon, of the Staff. I hold nothing to be more unsoldierlike than for officers well mounted to come galloping in among our skirmishers. The officers of companies have always some little exertion to restrain impetuosity, and your galloping gentlemen set our men wild sometimes. We Light Division, while ever conspicuous for undaunted bravery, prided ourselves upon destroying the enemy and preserving ourselves; for good, light troops, like deer-stalkers, may effect feats of heroism by stratagem, ability, and cool daring.
At Tarbes [20 March] we fell in with the enemy, strongly posted, but evidently only a rear-guard in force. The Duke made immediate dispositions to attack them, and so mixed up did we appear, that we concluded a large number of the enemy must be cut off. The Light Division, however, alone succeeded in getting up with them. Our three Battalions of the 95th were most sharply engaged. Three successive times the enemy, with greatly superior force, endeavoured to drive them off a hill, but the loss of the enemy from the fire of our Rifles was so great that one could not believe one’s eyes. I certainly had never seen the dead lie so thick, nor ever did, except subsequently at Waterloo. Barnard even asked the Duke to ride over the hill and see the sight, which he consented to do, saying, “Well, Barnard, to please you, I will go, but I require no novel proof of the destructive fire of your Rifles.”
At this period we lived capitally. It was delightful to see one of our soldiers with a piece of cold bacon, slicing it over his bread like an English haymaker.
We had at this time exceedingly wet weather. Notwithstanding the fulness of the Garonne, however, after a feint or two and some skilful demonstrations to deceive the enemy, the Duke succeeded [4 April] in throwing over the 3rd, 4th, and 6th Divisions with as much ease as he had previously overcome what seemed to others insurmountable difficulties. These Divisions were strongly posted under Marshal Beresford as a tête du pont. They were barely established on the opposite side when such a torrent of rain fell, our bridge could not stem the flood. It was hauled to the shore, and, of course, our communication cut off. Marshal Beresford had every reason to apprehend an attack, for the enemy, being in his own country, possessed perfect information, and would know the moment the bridge was impassable. The Marshal wrote very strongly to the Duke, who was ferried over in a little boat with one or two of his Staff, while their horses swam across. His Grace quickly but narrowly examined the position, which was excellent, behind a very difficult ravine. “Beresford,” said the Duke, “you are safe enough; two such armies as Soult’s could make no impression on you. Be assured, he is too clever a General to attempt to drive you into the river.” Our Division was immediately opposite the bridge, but on the left, or opposite bank, to the Marshal. The river soon subsided sufficiently to enable us to relay the bridge, and at daylight on the 10th of April the Light Division crossed, followed by the remainder of the army, except Lord Hill’s corps, which was posted on the Pyrenees side of Toulouse. It was evidently the Duke’s intention to attack Soult’s position this day. Nor were we long on the march before each general officer had his point of rendezvous designated.
The battle of Toulouse [10 April] has been so often fought and refought, I shall only make two or three remarks. Sir Thomas Picton, as usual, attacked when he ought not, and lost men. The Spaniards made three attacks on a very important part of the enemy’s position defended by a strong redoubt. The first was a very courageous though unsuccessful attack; the second, a most gallant, heavy, and persevering one, and had my dear old Light Division been pushed forward on the right of the Spaniards in place of remaining inactive, that attack of the Spaniards would have succeeded. I said so at the moment. The third attempt of the Spaniards was naturally, after two such repulses, a very poor one. At this period, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the Duke’s Staff began to look grave, and all had some little disaster to report to His Grace, who says, “Ha, by God, this won’t do; I must try something else.” We then saw the heads of the 4th and 6th Divisions coming into action immediately on the right flank of the enemy, having been conducted to that particular and vulnerable spot by that gallant, able, and accomplished soldier, my dear friend, John Bell, A.Q.M.G., 4th Division.
I must record an anecdote of John. He was mounted on a noble English hunter, but the most violent and difficult horse to manage I ever rode to hounds, and would of course, in a fight, be equally so. This animal knew by the mode in which she was mounted whether her rider was an artist or not, and in a moment would throw her rider down by way of fun. Colonel Achmuty, a noble fellow, would ride John Bell’s horse awkwardly, and she would then plunge like a devil, but if ridden, she was as quiet as possible. John Bell had on this horse a very large and high-peaked Hussar saddle, with his cloak strapped on the pique before, a favourite mode of General Robert Craufurd, who indeed gave Bell the identical saddle. Over this pique Craufurd’s black muzzle could barely be discovered (he was a short man), so entrenched was he. In conducting their Divisions, the Staff officers moved on small roads through a country intersected by deep and broad ditches full of water. Many of them attempted to ride on the flanks, but no one succeeded but Bell on his fiery horse. At one ditch John Bell was fairly pitched over the pique on to the neck of his horse, a powerful mare six feet high. “Oh,” says John, in telling this story, “Ah, to get there was extraordinary, but wait! The horse tossed up her head, and by some violent exertion pitched me over the pique back again to my saddle.” “Oh, John!” I exclaimed, “how is that possible?” “With that, Harry, I have nothing to do.”
But to the fight. The 4th and 6th Divisions were brought up in most gallant style, carrying redoubt after redoubt, which were ably defended by the enemy. It was the heaviest fighting I ever looked at, slow owing to the redoubts. The ground was gained step by step, and so was the battle of Toulouse. Our Cavalry lost a brilliant opportunity of distinguishing themselves and punishing the rearguard of the French.
This battle appeared to me then, and does the more I reflect on it, the only battle the Duke ever fought without a weight of attack and general support. It was no fault of the Duke’s. There are fortunate days in war as in other things. Our attacks were commenced by that of the 3rd Division; then came those of the Spaniards, in which the Light Division did not support as the 4th Division supported us at the heights of Vera. Thus, until the afternoon, we literally had done rather worse than nothing. The success of this battle is to be attributed mainly to the 4th and 6th Divisions, but I will ever assert that the second attack was most heavy and energetic, and would have succeeded if my dear old Division had been shoved up. As a whole, the French lost a great number of men and were thoroughly defeated. The French have now agitated a claim to the victory, which they are as much borne out in as they would be in claiming the victory at Waterloo.
The next day [11 March] various were the reports flying about camp as to peace, etc. In the afternoon I was posting a picquet, and in riding forward no nearer than usual to a French sentry, the fellow most deliberately fired at me. I took off my cocked hat and made him a low bow. The fellow, in place of reloading his musket, presented arms to me, evidently ashamed of what he had done.
Peace was soon made known. The French moved out of Toulouse, and we occupied it. (The most slippery pavement to ride over in Europe is that of the streets of Toulouse.) My Division was most comfortably cantoned in the suburbs. I and my wife, and two or three of my dear old Rifle comrades—Jack Molloy and young Johnstone (not the Rifle hero of Badajos and Ciudad Rodrigo, old Willie)—had a delightfully furnished château. We got a French cook, and were as extravagant and wanton in our ideas as lawless sailors just landed from a long cruise. The feeling of no war, no picquets, no alerts, no apprehension of being turned out, was so novel after six years’ perpetual and vigilant war, it is impossible to describe the sensation. Still, it was one of momentary anxiety, seeing around us the promptitude, the watchfulness, the readiness with which we could move and be in a state of defence or attack. It was so novel that at first it was positively painful—at least, I can answer for myself in this feeling. I frequently deemed the old Division in danger, who had never even lost a picquet, or, to my recollection, a sentry, after so many years’ outpost duty.
We had one melancholy duty to wind up our period of war—the funeral of poor Colonel Coghlan, 61st Regiment. The officers of the army attended, the Duke himself as chief mourner. Many is the gallant fellow we had all seen left on the field or with some trifling ceremony consigned to his long home; but this funeral, in the midst of a populous city, in a graveyard, after a ceremony in a Protestant chapel, where the corpse was placed, in the custom of our home and infancy, while the service was read by a clergyman, after death in the last battle, and nearly at the end of it, too—all so tended to excite our comrade-like feelings, it positively depressed us all, for the love a soldier bears another tried and gallant soldier is more than fraternal.
Toulouse, a royalist city, soon rushed into the extravagant and vivacious joy of France. We had theatres, balls, fêtes, etc., until the army moved into regular cantonments. There we had plenty of room and quarters, no squabbling about the shade of a tree in bivouac, or your stable being previously occupied by cavalry or artillery horses. Abundance of food, drink, and raiment, and the indolence of repose, succeeded the energetic and exciting occupation of relentless and cruel war. I had a safeguard in a lovely young wife; but most of our gallant fellows were really in love, or fancied themselves so, and such had been the drain by conscription of the male population, you never saw a young Frenchman. The rich and fertile fields in this part of France were cultivated by female exertion.
My Division went to Castel Sarrasin [towards the end of April]. This place is situated on the Tarne, which divides it from Marsac, where were a body of French troops; but, as they seldom came to visit us, we seldom encroached upon them, for the Napoleonist officers were brutally sulky and so uncivil, John Bull could not put up with it with impunity. This part of France is a garden, and the views, trees, beautiful rivers, etc., and the idleness rendered it a perfect Elysium. I say “idleness;”—because it was so totally novel, it was amusing. Fortunately—for we were nine months in arrear of pay—money was so scarce that a trifle of ready money produced a great deal. Among the rich inhabitants money was never seen, any more than young men. Rents were paid in produce, wages in kind, purchases made by barter. Oh, dear John Bull, grumbling, still liberal John Bull, had you witnessed, felt, and suffered all this, and then had the best rooms in your house occupied by soldiers (for, however orderly, there is much riot and fun ever going on amongst them), you would now wear the yoke of the national debt as a light burden!
Chapter XIX
HARRY SMITH PARTS FROM HIS WIFE BEFORE STARTING FOR THE WAR IN AMERICA.
My happiness of indolence and repose was doomed to be of short duration, for on the 28th of August I was in the Battle of Bladensburg, and at the capture of the American capital, Washington, some thousands of miles distant. Colborne, my ever dear, considerate friend, then in command of his gallant Corps, the 52nd, sent for me, and said, “You have been so unlucky, after all your gallant and important service, in not getting your Majority, you must not be idle. There is a force, a considerable one, going to America. You must go. To-morrow we will ride to Toulouse to headquarters; send a horse on to-night—it is only thirty-four miles—we will go there and breakfast, and ride back to dinner.” I said, very gratefully, “Thank you, sir; I will be ready. This is a kind act of yours;” but as I knew I must leave behind my young, fond and devoted wife, my heart was ready to burst, and all my visions for our mutual happiness were banished in search of the bubble reputation. I shall never forget her frenzied grief when, with a sort of despair, I imparted the inevitable separation that we were doomed to suffer, after all our escapes, fatigue, and privation; but a sense of duty surmounted all these domestic feelings, and daylight saw me and dear Colborne full gallop thirty-four miles to breakfast. We were back again at Castel Sarrasin by four in the afternoon, after a little canter of sixty-eight miles, not regarded as any act of prowess, but just a ride. In those days there were men.
On our arrival in Toulouse, we found my name rather high up—the third, I think—on the list of Majors of Brigade in the A.G.’s office desirous to serve in America. We asked kind old Darling who had put my name down. He said, “Colonel Elley,” afterwards Sir John. He had known my family in early life, and was ever paternally kind to me. He had asked my ever dear friend, General Sir Edward Pakenham, to do so, which he readily did. Colborne then said, “My old friend Ross, who commanded the 20th Regiment while I was Captain of the Light Company, is going. I will go and ask him to take you as his Major of Brigade.” Ross knew me on the retreat to Coruña, and the affair, in a military point of view, was satisfactorily settled. But oh! the heaviness of my heart when I had to impart the separation now decided on to my affectionate young wife of seventeen years old! She bore it, as she did everything, when the energies of her powerful mind were called forth, exclaiming, “It is for your advantage, and neither of us must repine. All your friends have been so kind in arranging the prospect before you so satisfactorily.” At the word “friends” she burst into a flood of tears, which relieved her, exclaiming, “You have friends everywhere. I must be expatriated, separated from relations, go among strangers, while I lose the only thing on earth my life hangs on and clings to!”
Preparation was speedily made for our journey down the Garonne, which we performed in a small boat, accompanied by our kind friend Digby. My wife was to accompany me to Bordeaux, there to embark for England with my brother Tom, who had recently suffered excessively in the extraction of the ball he had received in his knee five years previously at the Coa. The great difficulty I had was to get my regimental pay (nine months being due to me), and I only did so through the kindness of our acting-paymaster, Captain Stewart, and every officer readily saying, “Oh, give us so much less the first issue, and let Smith have what would otherwise come to us.” Such an act, I say, testifies to the mutual friendship and liberality we acquired amidst scenes of glory, hardship, and privation.
Before I left my old Brigade, the 52nd Regiment, the 95th Regiment (Rifle Brigade now), the 1st and 3rd Caçadores,[50] with whom I had been so many eventful years associated—and I may say, most happily—all gave me a parting dinner, including the good fellows, the Portuguese, whom I never had any chance of seeing again. Our farewell dinner partook of every feeling of excitement. The private soldiers, too, were most affectionate, and I separated from all as from my home. The Portuguese are a brave, kind-hearted people, and most susceptible of kindness. We had also ten men a Company in our British Regiments, Spaniards, many of them the most daring of sharpshooters in our corps, who nobly regained the distinction attached to the name of the Spanish infantry in Charles V.’s time. I never saw better, more orderly, perfectly sober soldiers in my life, and as vedettes the old German Hussar did not exceed them. The 52nd Regiment I was as much attached to as my own corps, with every reason.
My old 1st Battalion embarked at Dover just before Talavera, 1050 rank and file. During the war only 100 men joined us. We were now reduced to about 500. There was scarcely a man who had not been wounded. There was scarcely one whose knowledge of his duty as an outpost soldier was not brought to a state of perfection, and when they were told they must not drink, a drunken man was a rare occurrence indeed, as rare as a sober one when we dare give a little latitude. My old Brigade was equal to turn the tide of victory (as it did at Orthez) any day.
It was early in May when we left Castel Sarrasin, where we had been happy (oh, most happy!) for a month—an age in the erratic life we had been leading. We were quartered in the house of a Madame La Rivière, an excellent and motherly woman, a widow with a large family and only one son spared to her—the rest had perished as soldiers. Never was there a more happy and cheerful family, and never did mother endeavour to soothe the acute feelings of a daughter more than did this good lady those of my poor wife. We often afterwards heard of her in Paris in 1815.
Our voyage down the Garonne in our little skiff was delightful. We anchored every night. In youth everything is novel and exciting, and our voyage was such a change after marching! The beauties of the scenery, and the drooping foliage on the banks of the river, added to our enjoyment. We landed each night at some town or village, and ever found a comfortable inn which could give us a dinner. After such privations as ours, the delight of being able to order dinner at an inn is not to be believed. On reaching Bordeaux, the most beautiful city I was ever in, I found I had only three or four days to prepare to reach the fleet and the troops embarked in the Gironde (a continuation of the Garonne), and that I was to embark on board his Majesty’s ship the Royal Oak, 74, Rear-Admiral Malcolm, for the troops under General Ross were destined for a peculiar and separate service in America. I did, of course, all I could to draw the attention of my poor wife from the approaching separation. There was a theatre, various spectacles, sights, etc., but all endeavour was vain to relieve the mind one instant from the awful thought of that one word “separation.” Digby was most kind to her. He had an excellent private servant, who was to embark with her for London. My brother Tom was to her all a brother could be, and in the transport she was to proceed in were several old and dear Rifle friends going to England from wounds. I wished her to go to London for some time before going down to my father’s, for the benefit of masters to learn English, etc.—for not a word could she speak but her own language, French, and Portuguese,—and to every wish she readily assented.
Time rolls rapidly on to the goal of grief, and the afternoon arrived when I must ride twenty miles on my road for embarcation. Many a year has now gone by, still the recollection of that afternoon is as fresh in my memory as it was painful at the moment—oh, how painful! To see that being whose devotedness in the field of three years’ eventful war, in a life of such hardship at the tender age of fourteen, had been the subject of wonder to the whole community, in a state bordering on despair, possessing, as she did, the strong and enthusiastic feelings of her country-women—who love with a force cooler latitudes cannot boast of—this was to me an awful trial, and although she had every prospect of care and kindness, to be separated conveyed to the sensitive mind of youth (for I was only twenty-four[51]) every anguish and horror that is to be imagined. I left her insensible and in a faint. God only knows the number of staggering and appalling dangers I had faced; but, thank the Almighty, I never was unmanned until now, and I leaped on my horse by that impulse which guides the soldier to do his duty.
I had a long ride before me on the noble mare destined to embark with me. On my way I reached a village where I received the attention of a kind old lady, who from her age had been exempt from having any troops quartered on her; but, the village being full of Rifle Brigade, Artillery, and Light Division fellows, the poor old lady was saddled with me. The Artillery readily took charge of my horse. The kind old grandmamma showed me into a neat little bedroom and left me. I threw myself on the bed as one alone in all the wide world, a feeling never before experienced, when my eye caught some prints on the wall. What should they be but pictures in representation of the Sorrows of Werther, and, strange though it be, they had the contrary effect upon me to that which at the first glance I anticipated. They roused me from my sort of lethargy of grief and inspired a hope which never after abandoned me. The good lady had a nice little supper of côtelettes de mouton, and the most beautiful strawberries I ever saw, and she opened a bottle of excellent wine. To gratify her I swallowed by force all I could, for her kindness was maternal.
We soon parted for ever, for I was on horseback before daylight, en route to Pauillac, a village on the Garonne, where we were to embark. On my ride, just at grey daylight, I saw something walking in the air. “It is like a man,” I said, “certainly, only that men do not walk in the air.” It advanced towards me with apparently rapid strides, and in the excited state of mind I was in, I really believed I was deluded, and ought not to believe what I saw. Suspense was intolerable, and I galloped up to it. As I neared my aeronaut, I found it a man walking on stilts about twenty-five feet high. In the imperfect light and the distance, of course the stilts were invisible. The phenomenon was accounted for, and my momentary credulity in I did not know what called to mind stories I had heard recounted, evidently the results of heated imaginations. This walking on stilts is very general in the deep sands of this country.
On reaching Pauillac, I found my trusty old groom West waiting for me. He led me to a comfortable billet, where my portmanteau, all my worldly property, and my second horse, which was to embark with me, were reported “All right, sir.” Old West did not ask after “Mrs.,” but he looked at me a thousand inquiries, to which I shook my head. I found a note for me at our military post-office from dear little Digby, as consolatory as I could expect.
I was detained two days at Pauillac, in the house of another widow, an elderly lady (all women in France of moderate or certain age were widows at this period). One morning I heard a most extraordinary shout of joyful exclamation, so much so I ran into the room adjoining the one I was sitting in. The poor old woman says, “Oh, come in and witness my happiness!” She was locked in the arms of a big, stout-looking, well-whiskered Frenchman. “Here is my son, oh! my long-lost son, who has been a [prisoner] in England from the beginning of the war.” The poor fellow was a sous-officier in a man-of-war, and, having been taken early in the war off Boulogne, for years he had been in those accursed monsters of inhuman invention, “the hulks,” a prisoner. He made no complaint. He said England had no other place to keep their prisoners, that they were well fed when fed by the English, but when, by an arrangement with France at her own request, that Government fed them, they were half starved. The widow gave a great dinner-party at two o’clock, to which I was of course invited. The poor old lady said, “Now let us drink some of this wine: it was made the year my poor son was taken prisoner. I vowed it should never be opened until he was restored to me, and this day I have broached the cask.” The wine was excellent. If all the wine-growers had sons taken prisoners, and kept it thus until their release, the world would be well supplied with good wine in place of bad. Poor family! it was delightful to witness their happiness, while I could but meditate on the contrast between it and my wretchedness. But I lived in hope.
Chapter XX
VOYAGE TO BERMUDA—RENDEZVOUS IN THE CHESAPEAKE—BATTLE OF BLADENSBURG AND CAPTURE OF WASHINGTON—HARRY SMITH SENT HOME WITH DISPATCHES.
That afternoon, after seeing my horses off, I embarked in a boat, and I and all my personal property, my one portmanteau, reached the Royal Oak, at her anchorage a few miles below, about eight o’clock. I found General Ross had not arrived, but was hourly expected. We soldiers had heard such accounts of the etiquette required in a man-of-war, the rigidity with which it was exacted, etc., that I was half afraid of doing wrong in anything I said or did. When I reached the quarters, the officer of the watch asked my name, and then, in the most gentlemanlike and unaffected manner, the lieutenant of the watch, Holmes (with whom I afterwards became very intimate), showed me aft into the Admiral’s cabin. Here I saw wine, water, spirits, etc., and at the end of the table sat the finest-looking specimen of an English sailor I ever saw. This was Admiral Malcolm, and near him sat Captain Dick, an exceedingly stout man, a regular representation of John Bull. They both rose immediately, and welcomed me on board in such an honest and hospitable manner, that I soon discovered the etiquette consisted in nothing but a marked endeavour to make us all happy. The fact is that Army and Navy had recently changed places. When I joined the Army, it was just at a time when our Navy, after a series of brilliant victories, had destroyed at Trafalgar the navy of the world. Nine years had elapsed, and the glories of the Army were so fully appreciated by our gallant brothers of the sea service, we were now by them regarded as the heroes whom I well recollect I thought them to be in 1805.
The Admiral says, “Come, sit down and have a glass of grog.” I was so absorbed in the thought that this large floating ship was to bear me away from all I held so dear, that down I sat, and seized a bottle (gin, I believe), filled a tumbler half full, and then added some water. “Well done!” says the Admiral. “I have been at sea, man and boy, these forty years, but d—— me, if I ever saw a stiffer glass of grog than that in my life.” He afterwards showed me my cabin, telling me he was punctual in his hours. “I breakfast at eight, dine at three, have tea in the evening, and grog at night, as you see; and if you are thirsty or want anything, my steward’s name is Stewart, a Scotchman like myself—tell the Marine at the cabin door to call him and desire him to bring you everything you want.” I shall never forget the kindness I received on board the Royal Oak, and subsequently on board the Menelaus (commanded by poor Sir Peter Parker), and from every ship and every sailor with whom I became associated. Our Navy are noble fellows, and their discipline and the respect on board for rank are a bright example to the more familiar habits of our Army.
General Ross arrived next morning, with his A.D.C., Tom Falls, a Captain in the 20th, and Lieut. De Lacy Evans (subsequently of great notoriety), both as good-hearted fellows as ever wore a sword. The fleet sailed in the afternoon. The troops all embarked in men-of-war, with the lower-deck guns out. We had on board a Company of Artillery; otherwise the force consisted of the 4th Regiment, the 44th, and the 85th. We had a very slow but beautiful passage to St. Michael’s, one of the Western Islands, where, as Admiral Malcolm said, “that d——d fellow Clavering, the Duke of York’s enemy, had the impudence to call on me,” and we embarked live bullocks, fruit, and vegetables.
The parts capable of cultivation in this island are most fertile, and the inhabitants (all Portuguese) looked cheerful and happy. I could then speak Portuguese like a native. One day on shore I walked into a large draper’s shop, where I was quite struck by the resemblance of the man behind the counter to my old clerk, Sergeant Manuel. After some little conversation, I discovered he actually was his brother. At first I doubted it, but he fetched me a bundle of letters in which my name frequently appeared. It was an extraordinary rencontre, and my friend Señor Manuel’s attention to me was very “gostozo” indeed.
We sailed for Bermuda in a few days. It was a long passage, but we had fine weather until we neared Bermuda, when we fell in with a violent thunderstorm, which carried away the mizen topmast of the Royal Oak.
Much of my time was spent with my friend Holmes, and many is the time I have walked the quarter-deck with him. In any state of grief or excitement, some one who participates and sympathizes in your feeling is always sought for, and this warm-hearted fellow fully entered into all I must feel at the fate of my wife—a foreigner in a foreign land, to whom, though surrounded by many kind friends, everything was strange, everything brought home the absence of that being on whom her life depended.
On reaching Bermuda we found the 21st Regiment awaiting us, and a communication from the Admiral, Cochrane, Commander-in-chief of the Navy (who commanded on the coast of America 170 Pennons of all descriptions), that a Battalion of Marines was organized under Colonel Malcolm, the Admiral’s brother, upwards of 800 strong, so that General Ross’s force became respectable. The Admiral proposed to rendezvous in Chesapeake Bay so soon as possible.
Ross organized his force into three Brigades, one commanded by Colonel Thornton, the second by Colonel Brooke, the third, which comprised all Naval auxiliaries, by Colonel Malcolm. A Brigade-Major was appointed to each. I was put in orders Deputy Adjutant-General; Evans, Deputy Quartermaster-General. The price of things on this spot in the ocean was enormous; I, Evans, Macdougall, of the 85th, Holmes of the Navy, etc., dined on shore at the inn one day, and were charged fifteen Spanish dollars for a miserable turkey; but the excellent fish called a “groper” made up for the price of the turkey.
General Ross left the troops here, and proceeded to join the Naval Commander-in-chief in a frigate. I was the only Staff officer left with Admiral Malcolm, who was quite as much a soldier in heart as a sailor; he prided himself very much on having brought home the Duke of Wellington (when Sir A. Wellesley) from India, and he landed his army at Mondego Bay, before Vimiera. I never saw a man sleep so little: four hours a night was plenty, and half that time he would talk aloud in his sleep, and if you talked with him would answer correctly, although next morning he recollected nothing.
To get from the anchorage at Bermuda is difficult, and the wind was contrary, and appeared so likely to continue so, that the Admiral resolved on the boldest thing that was ever attempted, viz. to take the whole fleet through the North-east Passage—a thing never done but by one single frigate. There was only one man in the island who would undertake to pilot the 74 Royal Oak through. The passage is most intricate, and the pilot directs the helmsman by ocular demonstration, that is, by looking into the water at the rocks. It was the most extraordinary thing ever seen, the rocks visible under water all round the ship. Our pilot, a gentleman, said there was only one part of the passage which gave him any apprehension. There was a turn in it, and he was afraid the Royal Oak was so long her bows would touch. When her rudder was clear, on my honour, there appeared not a foot to spare. The breeze was very light; at one period, for half an hour, it almost died away. The only expression the Admiral was heard to make use of was, “Well, if the breeze fails us, it will be a good turn I have done the Yankees.” He certainly was a man of iron nerves. The fleet all got through without one ship touching. The Admiral’s tender, a small sloop, ran on a rock, but was got off without injury.
At night, after the fleet was well clear (and the bold attempt was of every importance to the success of our expedition, which, as we now began to observe, evidently meditated the capture of Washington), we had rather a good passage to the mouth of the Chesapeake, where we met the Admiral Chief in Command and General Ross. We did not anchor, having a leading wind to take us up the bay. We were going ten knots when the frigate struck on the tail of a bank, with a crash like an earthquake; she got over, however, without injury. We anchored off the mouth of the Patuxen, the river which leads to Washington.
Next day all the Staff were assembled on board the Tonnant, and all the Admirals came on board. We had present—Sir A. Cochrane, Admiral Cockburn (of great renown on the American coast), Admiral Malcolm, Admiral Codrington, Captain of the Fleet, and, if I recollect right, Sir T. Hardy, but he left us next day. After much discussion and poring over bad maps, it was resolved the force should sail up the serpentine and wooded Patuxen in the frigates and smaller vessels. This we did, and it was one of the most beautiful sights the eye could behold. The course of the large river was very tortuous, the country covered with immense forest trees; thus, to look back, the appearance was that of a large fleet stalking through a wood. We went up as far as we could, and the Navy having very dexterously and gallantly burned and destroyed Commodore Barney’s flotilla, which was drawn up to oppose our passage [19, 20 Aug.], the army was landed about thirty-six miles from Washington. I cannot say my dear friend General Ross inspired me with the opinion he was the officer Colborne regarded him as being. He was very cautious in responsibility—awfully so, and lacked that dashing enterprise so essential to carry a place by a coup de main. He died the death of a gallant soldier, as he was, and friendship for the man must honour the manes of the brave.
We fell in with the enemy on our second day’s march, well posted on the eastern bank. We were told that the only approach to their position was by a bridge through the village of Bladensburg. The day we landed, a most awful spectacle of a man named Calder came in to give us information. He was given in my charge, the secret service department having been confided to me. The poor wretch was covered with leprosy, and I really believe was induced to turn traitor to his country in the hope of receiving medical [aid] from our surgeons, in the miserable state of disease he was in. If such was his object, he is partly to be pardoned. He was a very shrewd, intelligent fellow, and of the utmost use to us. He was afterwards joined by a young man of the name of Brown, as healthy a looking fellow as he was the reverse, who was very useful to us as a guide and as a scout.
When the head of the Light Brigade reached the rising ground, above the bridge, Colonel Thornton immediately proposed to attack, which astonished me [Battle of Bladensburg, 24 Aug.], We old Light Division always took a good look before we struck, that we might find a vulnerable part. I was saying to General Ross we should make a feint at least on the enemy’s left flank, which rested on the river higher up, and I was in the act of pointing out the position, guns, etc., when Colonel Thornton again proposed to move on. I positively laughed at him. He got furiously angry with me; when, to my horror and astonishment, General Ross consented to this isolated and premature attack. “Heavens!” says I, “if Colborne was to see this!” and I could not refrain from saying, “General Ross, neither of the other Brigades can be up in time to support this mad attack, and if the enemy fight, Thornton’s Brigade must be repulsed.” It happened just as I said. Thornton advanced, under no cloud of sharpshooters, such as we Light Division should have had, to make the enemy unsteady and render their fire ill-directed. They were strongly posted behind redoubts and in houses, and reserved their fire until Thornton was within fifty yards. Thornton was knocked over, and Brown, commanding the 85th Light Infantry, and Captain Hamilton, a noble fellow from the 52nd, were killed, and the attack repulsed. “There,” says I, “there is the art of war and all we have learned under the Duke given in full to the enemy!” Thornton’s Brigade was ordered to hold its own until the arrival of the Brigade consisting of the 4th and 44th under Brooke, many men having dropped down dead on the march from the heat, being fat and in bad wind from having been so long on board. As the Brigades closed up, General Ross says, “Now, Smith, do you stop and bring into action the other two Brigades as fast as possible.” “Upon what points, sir?” He galloped to the head of Thornton’s people, and said, “Come on, my boys,” and was the foremost man until the victory was complete. He had two horses shot under him, and was shot in the clothes in two or three places. I fed the fight for him with every possible vigour. Suffice it to say we licked the Yankees and took all their guns, with a loss of upwards of 300 men, whereas Colborne would have done the same thing with probably a loss of 40 or 50, and we entered Washington for the barbarous purpose of destroying the city. Admiral Cockburn would have burnt the whole, but Ross would only consent to the burning of the public buildings. I had no objection to burn arsenals, dockyards, frigates building, stores, barracks, etc., but well do I recollect that, fresh from the Duke’s humane warfare in the South of France, we were horrified at the order to burn the elegant Houses of Parliament and the President’s house. In the latter, however, we found a supper all ready, which was sufficiently cooked without more fire, and which many of us speedily consumed, unaided by the fiery elements, and drank some very good wine also.[52] I shall never forget the destructive majesty of the flames as the torches were applied to beds, curtains, etc. Our sailors were artists at the work. Thus was fought the Battle of Bladensburg, which wrested from the Americans their capital Washington, and burnt its Capitol and other buildings with the ruthless firebrand of the Red Savages of the woods. Neither our Admirals nor the Government at home were satisfied that we had not allowed the work of destruction to progress, as it was considered the total annihilation of Washington would have removed the seat of government to New York, and the Northern and Federal States were adverse to the war with England.
We remained two days, or rather nights, at Washington, and retired on the third night in a most injudicious manner. I had been out in the camp, and when I returned after dark, General Ross says, “I have ordered the army to march at night.” “To-night?” I said. “I hope not, sir. The road you well know, for four miles to Bladensburg, is excellent, and wide enough to march with a front of subdivisions. After that we have to move through woods by a track, not a road. Let us move so as to reach Bladensburg by daylight. Our men will have a nights rest, and be refreshed after the battle. I have also to load all the wounded, and to issue flour, which I have also caused to be collected.” (I had seized in Washington everything in the shape of transport, and Baxter, the Staff Surgeon, brought away every wounded man who could travel.) General Ross said, “I have made the arrangement with Evans, and we must march.” I muttered to myself, “Oh, for dear John Colborne!”
We started at nine, and marched rapidly and in good order to Bladensburg, where we halted for about an hour to load the wounded. The barrels of flour were arranged in the streets, the heads knocked in, and every soldier told to take some. Soldiers are greedy fellows, and many filled their haversacks. During a tedious night’s march through woods as dark as chaos, they found the flour far from agreeable to carry and threw it away by degrees. If it had not been for the flour thus marking the track, the whole column would have lost its road. Such a scene of intolerable and unnecessary confusion I never witnessed. At daylight we were still not three miles from Bladensburg. Our soldiers were dead done, and so fatigued, there was nothing for it but to halt and bring into play the flour, which was soon set about, while we Staff were looking out like a Lieutenant of the Navy in chase, to see the Yankees come down upon us with showers of sharpshooters. Thanks to their kind consideration they abstained from doing so, but we were very much in their power.
I now began to see how it was that our Light Division gentlemen received so much credit in the army of the dear Duke. I recommend every officer in command to avoid a night march as he would the devil, unless on a good road, and even thus every precaution must be taken by all staff officers to keep up the communications, or regularity cannot be ensured. I have seen many night marches, but I never yet saw time gained, or anything, beyond the evil of fatiguing your men and defeating your own object. You may move before daylight, i.e. an hour or two, if the nights are light. By this means, about the time the column requires collection, daylight enables you to do it. You have got a start of your enemy, your men are in full vigour either to march rapidly or, in case of difficulty, to fight. But avoid night marches. However, owing to their want of knowledge of the art of war, the enemy on this occasion allowed us to get to our boats perfectly unmolested.
On one of the days we were near Washington a storm came on, a regular hurricane. It did not last more than twenty minutes, but it was accompanied by a deluge of rain and such a gale that it blew down all our piles of arms and blew the drums out of camp. I never witnessed such a scene as I saw for a few minutes. It resembled the storm in Belshazzar’s feast,[53] and we learnt that even in the river, sheltered by the woods, several of our ships at anchor had been cast on their beam ends.
We gave out we were going to Annapolis, and thence to Baltimore to re-act the conflagration of Washington, and the bait took. Some American gentlemen came in under a flag of truce, evidently to have a look at us, but avowedly to ask how private property had been respected. Their observations were frustrated by our vigilance. I was sent out to receive them, and nothing could exceed their gentlemanlike deportment. I loaded them with questions about roads, resources, force, etc., etc., at Annapolis and Baltimore. It was evident they took the bait, for that night we heard their army was off in full force to Annapolis, leaving us quietly to get down to our ships. We made arrangements for the care and provisioning of the wounded we had left at Bladensburg, and the attention and care they received from the Americans became the character of a civilized nation.
We reached our landing-place unmolested, and at our leisure embarked our army, which began to suffer very much from dysentery. A long sea voyage is the worst possible preparation for long and fatiguing marches. The men are fat, in no exercise, have lost the habit of wearing their accoutrements, packs, etc.—in short, they are not the same army they were on embarcation. Before our men left the Gironde, thirty miles a day would have been nothing to them.
General Ross, just before we went on board, sent for me (there never was a more kind or gallant soldier), and said, “Smith, the sooner I get my dispatch home the better. As you know, it is nearly ready, and as poor Falls, my A.D.C., is too unwell, it is my intention you should be the bearer of my dispatches, and that Falls should go home for the benefit of his health.” This most unexpected arrangement set me on the qui vive indeed. I had not been in England for seven years. Wife, home, country, all rushed in my mind at once. The General said, “A frigate is already ordered by the Admiral.”
This day my information man, Calder the Leper, came to me, and told me that Brown had been taken and would be hung. I was much distressed. Although one cannot admire a traitor to his country, yet I was some degree of gratitude in his debt, and I said, “Well, Calder, but can we do nothing to save him?” “Well, now I calculate that’s not to be denied, and if I hear General Ross say, ‘If I catch that rascal Brown, I will hang him like carrion,’ he may be saved, for I would go at once among our people (they will not injure me), and I will swear I heard General Ross say so.” I immediately went to the General. On the first view of the thing, his noble nature revolted at making an assertion he never intended to abide by. At length, however, to save the poor wretch’s life, he consented, and in course of a desultory conversation with Calder, dovetailed the words required into it. I saw Calder catch at it. When he left the General’s tent, he said to me, “Well, now, I calculate Brown may yet live many years.” He left us that night with a purse of money and a long string of medical instructions for the benefit of his health from one of our surgeons. “Ah,” says he, “this will save me” (meaning the medical advice); “I can save Brown.” I had an hieroglyphical note from him brought by a slave, just before I sailed [30? Aug. 1814], to say “All’s right, you may reckon.” I told this story afterwards to the Prince Regent. He was exceedingly amused.
The Iphigenia frigate, Captain King, was to take me home, and Captain Wainwright of the Tonnant was to be the bearer of the naval dispatches. Sir Alexander Cochrane, Admiral Cockburn, and Evans, burning with ambition, had urged General Ross to move on Baltimore. The General was against it, and kindly asked my opinion. I opposed it, not by opinions or argument, but by a simple statement of facts.
“1. We have, by a ruse, induced the enemy to concentrate all his means at Baltimore.
“2. A coup de main like the conflagration of Washington may be effected once during a war, but can rarely be repeated.
“3. The approach to Baltimore Harbour will be effectually obstructed.” “Oh,” says the General, “so the Admirals say; but they say that in one hour they would open the passage.” I laughed. “It is easier said than done, you will see, General.” (The passage defied their exertions when tested.)
“4. Your whole army is a handful of men, and the half of them are sick from dysentery.
“5. Your success in the attack on Washington is extraordinary, and will have a general effect. Your success on Baltimore would add little to that effect, admitting you were successful, which I again repeat I doubt, while a reverse before Baltimore would restore the Americans’ confidence in their own power, and wipe away the stain of their previous discomfiture.”
General Ross says, “I agree with you. Such is my decided opinion.” “Then, sir, may I tell Lord Bathurst you will not go to Baltimore?” He said, “Yes.” I was delighted, for I had a presentiment of disaster, founded on what I have stated.
The day we were to sail in the Iphigenia, as I left the Tonnant, kind-hearted General Ross, whom I loved as a brother, accompanied me to the gangway. His most sensible and amiable wife was at Bath. I promised to go there the moment I had delivered my dispatches, and of course I was charged with a variety of messages. In the warmth of a generous heart he shook my hand, and said, “A pleasant voyage, dear Smith, and thank you heartily for all your exertions and the assistance you have afforded me. I can ill spare you.” My answer was, “Dear friend, I will soon be back to you, and may I assure Lord Bathurst you will not attempt Baltimore?” “You may.” These were the last words I ever heard that gallant soul utter. He was over-ruled: attempted Baltimore [12 Sept. 1814], failed, and lost his noble life. A more gallant and amiable man never existed, and one who, in the continuance of command, would have become a General of great ability. But few men, who from a Regiment to a Brigade are suddenly pushed into supreme authority and have a variety of conflicting considerations to cope with—Navy, Army, country, resources, etc., are at the outset perfectly at home.
The Iphigenia had a most extraordinary passage from the Chesapeake to our anchorage at Spithead. We were only twenty-one days. The kindness I received from Captain King I shall never forget. The rapidity of our voyage was consonant to my feelings and in perfect accordance with my character.
Chapter XXI
HARRY SMITH ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND—REUNION WITH HIS WIFE IN LONDON—INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCE REGENT—DINNER AT LORD BATHURST’S—A JOURNEY TO BATH—HARRY SMITH INTRODUCES HIS WIFE TO HIS FATHER—VISIT TO WHITTLESEY—HE RECEIVES ORDERS TO RETURN TO AMERICA UNDER SIR EDWARD PAKENHAM.
Wainwright and I started from the George Inn, Portsmouth, which I well knew, with four horses at five o’clock. I do not know what he considered himself, but I was of opinion that, as the bearer of dispatches to Government, I was one of the greatest men in England. Just before we started, our outfit merchant and general agent, tailor, etc., by name Meyers, who had been very civil to me going out to South America, begged to speak to me. He said, “I find the Iphigenia is from America, from the Chesapeake: that little box under your arm contains, I see, dispatches.” “Well,” I said, “what of that?” “If you will tell me their general purport, whether good news or bad, I will make it worth your while, and you may secure some pounds for a refit.” At first I felt inclined to knock him down. On a moment’s reflexion I thought, “every one to his trade,” so I compromised my feelings of indignation in rather a high tone of voice, and with “I’d see you d—— first; but of what use would such general information be to you?” He, a knowing fellow, began to think the pounds were in my thoughts, so he readily said, “I could get a man on horseback in London two hours before you, and good news or bad on ‘Change’ is my object. Now do you understand?” I said, “Perfectly, and when I return to America I shall expect a capital outfit from you for all the valuable information I have afforded you. Good-bye, Meyers.”
Oh! the delight of that journey. I made the boys drive a furiously good pace. D—— me, if I had rather be beating off a leeshore in a gale, tide against me! The very hedgerows, the houses, the farms, the cattle, the healthy population all neatly clothed, all in occupation; no naked slaves, no burned villages, no starving, wretched inhabitants, no trace of damnable and accursed war! For seven years, an immense period in early life, I had viewed nothing beyond the seat of a war, a glorious war, I admit, but in that glory, death in its most various shapes, misery of nations, hardships, privations, wounds, and sickness, and their concomitants. The wild excitement bears a soldier happily through. My career had been a most fortunate one. Still the contrast around me was as striking as the first appearance of a white and clothed man to a naked savage. The happy feeling of being in my native land once more, in health and in possession of every limb, excited a maddening sensation of doubt, anxiety, hope, and dread, all summed up in this—“Does your young wife live? Is she well?” Oh! the pain, the hope, the fear, and the faith in Almighty God, who had so wonderfully protected me, must have turned the brain if endurance had continued, for I had never heard of her since we parted.
At twelve o’clock we were in London, and drove to Downing Street, where I lodged my dispatches; then we sought out a bivouac, I and poor Falls. The navy man was off to the Admiralty. Every inn was full near Downing Street, at least where I desired to be. At last we got to the Salopian Coffee-house in Parliament Street. The waiter said, “One spare bedroom, sir; nothing more.” “Oh, plenty!” we said. We had been feasting on the road on that indigenous-to-England luxury of bread, butter, cream, and tea. All we wanted was an hour or two’s sleep, for, at that time of night, as to finding any one, we might as well have been back in America! The chambermaid said, “Only one room, sir.” “Plenty,” we said. “But only one bed, gentlemen!” “Plenty,” we said. “Bring up the portmanteau, West.” When we got to the room and proceeded (West and I) to divide this copious bed into two by hauling half the clothes on the floor, according to our custom of seven years, the astonishment of the poor chambermaid is not to be described. We bundled her out and were asleep before a minute.
By daylight I was in a hackney coach, and drove to the British (the Scotch) barracks of my old Rifle comrades. There I asked the porter the name of any officer he knew. At last he stammered out some. “Colonel Ross? What regiment?” says I. “He had a green jacket when he came up.” I knew it was my dear friend John Ross. “Where is the room?” I said. “Oh, don’t disturb the gentleman, sir; he is only just gone to bed.” Says I, “My friend, I have often turned him out, and he shall quickly be broad awake now.” He showed the room. In I bolted. “Halloa, Ross, stand to your arms.” “Who the devil are you?” “Harry Smith,” I said; “fall in.” Our joy was mutual. “Well, but quiet, John; is my wife alive and well?” “All right, thank God, Harry, in every respect as you would wish. I was with her yesterday.” “Where, John? where?” “In Panton Square, No. 11.” It is difficult to decide whether excess of joy or of grief is the most difficult to bear; but seven years’ fields of blood had not seared my heart or blunted my naturally very acute feelings, and I burst into a flood of tears. “Oh, thank Almighty God.” Soon I was in Panton Square, with my hand on the window of the coach, looking for the number, when I heard a shriek, “Oh Dios, la mano de mi Enrique!” Never shall I forget that shriek; never shall I forget the effusion of our gratitude to God, as we held each other in an embrace of love few can ever have known, cemented by every peculiarity of our union and the eventful scenes of our lives. Oh! you who enter into holy wedlock for the sake of connexions—tame, cool, amiable, good, I admit—you cannot feel what we did. That moment of our lives was worth the whole of your apathetic ones for years. We were unbounded in love for each other, and in gratitude to God for all His mercies. Poor little Pug was, in her way, as delighted to see me as her more happy mistress, and many an anecdote was told me of her assisting by moaning pitifully when my wife grieved aloud, as she was sometimes induced to do.
This happy reunion effected, I was off to Downing Street, where my Lord Bathurst received me in the kindest manner, and said, “The intelligence you bring is of such importance, the Prince Regent desires to see you. We will go immediately.” I said, “My Lord, be so good as to allow me to take the map I brought you.” “It is here.” And off we started to Carlton House. We were shown into a large room where Lord Bathurst fortunately left me for half an hour, which enabled me somewhat to allay my excited imagination and return to the battlefields. I was soon deep in thought, when a sort of modesty came over me at the idea of approaching England’s (actual) king. I gave my head a toss, saying, “I never quailed before the dear Duke of Wellington, with his piercing eye, nor will I now, and General Ross begged of me to talk;” for His Royal Highness, the story went, complained that “the bearer of dispatches will never talk.” Johnny Kincaid says I was an “impudent fellow.” At any rate, I determined, if I saw His Royal Highness really desired me to be communicative, I would not be unready. While I was forming all sorts of plans for both attack and defence, in came Lord Bathurst: “The Prince will see you.” So I said, “My Lord, if we were in camp, I could take your Lordship all about, but I know nothing of the etiquette of a court.” So he says, “Oh, just behave as you would to any gentleman; His Highness’s manner will soon put you at ease. Call him ‘Sir,’ and do not turn your back on him.” “No,” says I, “my Lord, I know that; and my profession is one of ‘show a good front.’” In we went to the Prince’s dressing-room, full of every sort of article of dress, perfumes, snuff-boxes, wigs, every variety of article, I do believe, that London could produce. His Highness rose in the most gracious manner, and welcomed me to his presence by saying, “General Ross strongly recommended you to my notice[54] as an officer who can afford me every information of the service you come to report, the importance of which is marked by the firing of the Parliament and Tower guns you now hear.” I could not refrain from smiling within myself at Harry Smith of the Light Division sitting with the Prince Regent, and all London in an uproar at the news he brought. I was perfectly thunderstruck at the military questions the Prince asked me. He opened a map of America, and then referred to the plan of Washington I had brought home, with the public buildings burnt marked in red. He asked the name of each, and in his heart I fancied I saw he thought it a barbarian act. On all other topics he spoke out. I said it was to be regretted a sufficient force had not been sent to hold Washington. His Highness said, “What do you call a sufficient force?” I said, “14,000 men.” He very shrewdly asked on what I based such an opinion. I talked of Navy, of population, etc., and perfectly satisfied His Highness I did not give an opinion at random. He asked a variety of questions, and laughed exceedingly when I told him the anecdote of Calder’s promising to save Brown. When I got up to leave the room, and was backing out, His Highness rather followed me, and asked if I were any relation of his friend, Sir —— Smith, in Shropshire. I said, “No.” He then said, “I and the country are obliged to you all. Ross’s recommendations will not be forgotten, and, Bathurst, don’t forget this officer’s promotion.” It was the most gentlemanlike and affable interview I could possibly imagine.
That evening I was to dine at Lord Bathurst’s at Putney. I never met a more amiable-mannered man than Lord Bathurst; and his secretary, Punch Greville,[55] volunteered to drive me out in his tilbury. When I got into the drawing-room, who should be there but my dear friend Lord Fitzroy Somerset? He had been recently married. At dinner I sat between Lady Fitzroy and an elderly gentleman whose name I did not know, and, as the party was small, and I the lion, every one induced me to talk. Lord Fitzroy and I across the table got back into Spain; and, of course, as I regarded the Duke of Wellington as something elevated beyond any human being, and I was in high spirits, I did not hesitate to launch forth our opinion of him. The elderly gentleman who sat next me said, “I am very glad to hear you speak in such raptures of the Duke. He is my brother.” I laughed, and said, “I have not exceeded in anything, to the best of my judgment.” After dinner Lord Fitzroy Somerset and I had a long talk. He had travelled after Toulouse, in a little carriage from Bordeaux to Cadiz with the Duke, and their conversation frequently turned on the Army. Fresh are the words on my mind at this moment. “The Duke often said to me, ‘The Light, 3rd and 4th Divisions were the élite of my army, but the Light had this peculiar perfection. No matter what was the arduous service they were employed on, when I rode up next day, I still found a Division. They never lost one half the men other Divisions did.’” I was delighted, for this was what we so prided ourselves on. I have often heard our soldiers bullying one another about the number such a Company had lost, always attaching discredit to the loss. It was a peculiar feeling, and one which actuated them throughout the war, combined with the most undaunted bravery and stratagem as sharpshooters.
But I must revert to domestic matters. My wife had refused all the entreaties of my family to leave London before my return. She availed herself of masters, and saw so many friends daily. She had a forcible impression that I should not be long away. We started for Bath, and I wrote to my father to come to London in a few days, and we would return with him to Whittlesea. We found poor Mrs. Ross in the highest spirits at the achievement of our arms under her husband. Poor thing! at that very moment of her excessive happiness he was in a soldier’s bloody grave. The delight of our journey to and from Bath is not to be described. Everything was modern, novel, and amusing to my wife: every trifle called forth a comparison with Spain, although she admitted that there was no comparison between our inns and the Spanish posadas, so accurately described in Gil Blas. No brutal railroads in those days, where all are flying prisoners. We dined where we liked; we did as we liked. At the last stage back into London, my wife, in looking at a newspaper (for she began to read English far better than she spoke), saw my promotion to the rank of Major—“The reward,” she said, “of our separation.”
[Illustration: JUANA SMITH.
From a picture painted in Paris in 1815.
[Opposite p. 218.]
On arrival in London we found my father had arrived from the country. I had not seen him for seven years. In this period he had been deprived of his devoted wife, leaving him eleven children, I, of a mother; for everything that word comprises in its most comprehensive sense I had lost. Our pleasure at meeting, as may be supposed, was excessive, while we mingled our tears for the departed. As my wife had just come off a journey, and it was late in the afternoon, I would not show her to my father until she was dressed for dinner: a little bit of vanity and deception on my part, for I led him to believe she was of the stiff Spanish school, as stately as a swan and about as proud as a peacock. She liked the fun of the deception, and promised to dress in full Spanish costume, and act up to the supposition. In she came, looking—oh! if I could but describe her! but in place of acting either the swan or the peacock, she bounded into my fathers arms, who cried like a child, between joy, admiration, astonishment and delight at seeing so young and beautiful a creature who had gone through so much, and showed a heart evidently framed for love. She was now nearly eighteen, but a woman—not a girl, and certainly a person of most distinguished appearance, especially in her Spanish costume; not handsome, if beauty depends on regularity of features, for she had the dark complexion of the fairer part of her countrywomen, but with a colour beneath the clearest skin of olive which gave a lustre to her countenance—a countenance illumined by a pair of dark eyes possessing all the fire of a vivid imagination, and an expression which required not the use of speech. Her figure was beautiful, and never was any costume so calculated to exhibit it in perfection and in all its graces as that of her native land. She had a profusion of the darkest brown hair; teeth, though not regular, as white as pearls; with a voice most silvery and sweet in conversation, and she would sing the melancholy airs and songs of constancy of her country (so celebrated for them) with a power and depth of voice and feeling peculiar to Spain. Her foot and ankle were truly Spanish. She danced beautifully. Thus it was that the natural grace of her figure and carriage was developed, while the incomparable elegance and simplicity of her manner was a thing not to be forgotten, rarely to be met with. Her pronunciation of English at this period was most fascinating, and when she wanted a word, the brilliancy and expression of the eye would supply it. It flashed perpetually as she spoke, and filled up the intervals her slight knowledge of our language could not supply. She was animated and intelligent, with a touching tone of confidence and gentleness which made the hearer a willing listener to her words, but still her meaning was supplied by her vivid countenance. Such was the being my affectionate and kind-hearted father held locked in his paternal embrace, the faithful wife of his son. They were ever afterwards friends in every sense of the word, and, as he was the best and boldest horseman I ever saw in my life, and she could ride beautifully and any horse, they were inseparable. Poor “Old Chap,” my war horse, which, together with her Andalusian “Tiny,” I had sent to him, was dead, but, the morning after our arrival at Whittlesea, we were taken to the stall. There was Tiny in such condition! The meeting between my wife and the horse was, as she said, that of compatriots in a foreign land. It was rendered still more amusing by the little pug and horse equally recognizing each other, for many a day had Tiny carried Pug. (My dear little thorough-bred horse I had so cried over[56] was still alive and fresh, but alas! I had grown out of his memory. He was standing in the next stall, and had acquired the name of “Old Jack.”) My wife let Tiny loose, to the alarm of my father, who expected to see him fly off full speed into his garden, which he prided himself on considerably. To his astonishment, and to mine too (for my father told me the groom could barely lead him), she says, “Now don’t make a noise, and he will follow me like a dog,” which he did into the drawing-room, occasionally licking her hand or face when she allowed him. The saddle, however, was soon on him, and, as if proud to show off that he was broken in like a Mameluke’s, she figured him so that few Mamelukes, jerreed[57] in hand, could have touched her with effect.
In the midst of [happiness] I had the most melancholy visit to pay to my mothers tomb. If ever souls on earth could commune, I was so fascinated by the hallowed spot, which contained all which I so adored from my infancy, my consoler, my counsellor, my guide to the holy hill of God, I really believed I heard her speak when I prayed over her head and again vowed my promises at parting. Oh! that she could have lived to know my elevation, my being the bearer of dispatches to our King, that she could have seen my wife, that she could have shared, Heaven bless her, in the happiness of her children around! This one blank was for the moment all I lacked. I consoled myself that while we were revelling on earth with every uncertainty before us, she, my mother, was in heaven, where I dare firmly believe she is, for God is gracious and bountiful.
On my return from that hallowed and sacred spot, I found letters from the Horse Guards. The first was to order me to London immediately, the next was to tell me what I little anticipated. General Ross, contrary to his own opinion and his promise, had attempted Baltimore [12 Sept.], failed, as I anticipated, and lost his gallant life from not following the dictates of his own good sense and ability. My dear friend Sir Edward Pakenham was appointed to succeed him. I was appointed A.A.G. to the increased force going out! I had been nearly three weeks under the paternal and hospitable roof—my only holiday for years—when that blighting word “separation” was again to be imparted to my faithful and adoring wife; and, cut off from all social ties of happiness and endearment, I was again immediately, in the very middle of winter, to encounter the stormy Atlantic and all the horrors of war in the distance. It is only a repetition of the former tale to talk of my poor wife’s distress. It was agreed she was to accompany me to London, and my father was to bring her back; and twenty-four hours later, while brothers and sisters re-echoed each others’ promises, and indeed feelings, of affection, we started back to London, with hearts as heavy as they were light coming down. I little thought then of what I had to go through, witness, and endure, but, if I had, my task would still have been to affect a cheerfulness in the prospect of more promotion which, I avow candidly, I did not feel. However, I was a soldier, and as much wedded to my profession and a sense of duty as any man, so I lit up my torch of hope and did all in my power to cheer and comfort her I so loved.
On our arrival in London I immediately went to poor dear Sir Edward Pakenham, who was delighted to see me, and said that we must be in Portsmouth in a few days, and that the Statira frigate was waiting for us. I then sought out Macdougall of the 85th, who before I left the Army had been acting, in place of sick Falls, as A.D.C. to poor Ross, and I readily learned all that occurred before the service lost that gallant soldier. My firm and faithful friend John Robb, surgeon of the 95th when I joined, was appointed Inspector-General of Hospitals, and he and I agreed to send our baggage by coach, and go down together to Portsmouth in a post chaise on Sunday afternoon, for the Statira was to sail on Monday. Old West was started off per coach, and at three o’clock on Sunday, the — November, the horrible scene of parting was again to be endured. It was less painful to me than the first, I admit, for my dear wife was now known and beloved by all my family; but to her the dread of separation, and separation for the exploits of war, was as painful as before, and, when I tore myself from her, which I was literally obliged to do, that heart must be hard indeed that was not, as mine was, ready to break. I can see her now, with her head resting on the chimney-piece (as I left the room, and took a farewell glance) in a state bordering on despair. My father, too, was awfully overcome.
In a few minutes I was rolling on my road to Portsmouth, deeply absorbed, I admit, but my companion Robb was a man of strong mind, of whom I had a high opinion, and not to appear desponding before him, I exerted all my energy and began to talk of my plans on my return. Robb said—the only thing I ever heard him say that I thought would have been as well unsaid—“Oh, that’s capital! a fellow going out to be killed by an American Rifleman, talking of what he will do when he comes back!” Now, such is the perversity of human nature, this so put up my blood, that grief and anguish were mitigated in a determined spirit of opposition.
We arrived at the George at twelve at night, and found West, who reported all right. We found an order directing us to be on board by ten o’clock, as the ship would get under weigh at twelve, and we knew that our men of war are punctual fellows.
The next morning, at breakfast, we directed old West to parade our portmanteaus. My kit had increased just double, viz. I had now two portmanteaus. “Here they are, sir,” says West. “Why, that is not mine, West!” He overhauled it, and soon agreed with me. We went to the coach; there was no other. So I opened it, and, to my horror, in place of my things, it contained the dirty linen of a Frenchman and his silk stockings and evening pantaloons, etc., etc. Upon a little inquiry from poor old West, we learned that two coaches were loading at the same time, one for Dover, the other for Portsmouth. It was evident, therefore, my red coats were in company with my French friend. In my portmanteau were all my boots, my uniform, and my flannel waistcoats. We were to embark immediately, and I had nothing for it but to go to my friend,[58] and tell him, “Now’s the time for the outfit: I have lost my portmanteau.” He very kindly undertook to write to Charing Cross and send back the Frenchman’s, and in three weeks after the failure at New Orleans my portmanteau was sent out to me by my dear friend John Bell. It is a very odd coincidence that, on my first going abroad to South America, I lost my kit and all my large stock of silver given me by my poor mother—some teaspoons, etc. On that occasion I never recovered anything.
Chapter XXII
SAILS WITH SIR EDWARD PAKENHAM ON THE EXPEDITION AGAINST NEW ORLEANS—REVERSE OF 8 JANUARY, 1815, AND DEATH OF PAKENHAM—SIR JOHN LAMBERT SUCCEEDS TO THE COMMAND, APPOINTS HARRY SMITH HIS MILITARY SECRETARY, AND WITHDRAWS THE FORCE.
We soon reached our frigate, and oh, so crowded as she was!—Sir Edward Pakenham and all his Staff, the Commanders of the Engineers and Artillerymen with their Staff, and about thirty passengers! The most of us slept in cots in the steerage. Young D’Este, the real Duke of Sussex,[59] was a fund of great amusement, the most gentlemanlike, kind-hearted young fellow possible, affable to a degree, and most unpretending; but he had a thirst for obtaining information, I never beheld before. Consequently he laid himself open to some very peculiar replies to his queries. He proved himself on shore, like all the royal family, a gallant and intrepid soldier, and the best shot with a rifle for a youth that I have almost ever seen. He attached himself passionately to me on board and on shore, and if he ever became Elector of Hanover, I was to have been his Secretary.
We had a very agreeable party of gallant old Peninsular soldiers, and dear Sir Edward was one of the most amusing persons imaginable—a high-minded and chivalrous fellow in every idea, and, to our astonishment, very devoutly inclined; and Major Gibbs, who was afterwards killed on the same day as Sir Edward, was a noble fellow.
The Statira was a noble frigate; she had a full complement of men, and was in crack order, having every individual on board but the individual who had put her in—that Irish Captain Stackpoole, of duelling celebrity, who had very shortly before been shot in the West Indies by a Lieutenant of another ship on whom he saddled a quarrel originating in an occurrence when both were middies. The Lieutenant denied all recollection of it to no purpose. Stackpoole insisted on his going out. The Lieutenant, it was said, had never fired a pistol in his life, but at the first shot Stackpoole fell dead. I never saw a body of officers and men more attached than these were to their last Captain. Every one had some anecdote of his kindness and ability as a seaman. The propensity which cost him his life can be attributed, I am firmly of opinion, to nothing but a strain of insanity upon that particular subject alone. His prowess as a shot with a pistol, it was asserted, was inconceivable, but “the battle is not always to the strong.”
On this voyage I had two opportunities of writing to my wife, or, rather, sending her the sheets of a sort of journal which she made me promise to keep. Our Captain, Swaine, a neighbour of mine in Cambridgeshire, was of the old school, and made everything snug at night by shortening sail, to the great amusement of poor Stackpoole’s crew, accustomed to carry on night and day. But for this, we should have been off the mouth of the Mississippi at the time when Sir Edward was informed a fleet and his army would rendezvous for an assault on New Orleans. As it was, we did [not] reach the fleet until [25 Dec.] three days after the landing had been effected, and our army under Major-General Sir J. Keane, now Lord Keane (as noble a soldier as our country ever produced) had sustained a sharp night-attack. Stovin, the A.G., had been shot through the neck, and I was at the head of the department.
I never served under a man whose good opinion I was so desirous of having as Sir Edward Pakenham, and proud was I to find I daily succeeded. I was always with him, and usually lay in my cloak in his room. The second day after we reached General Keane [28 Dec.], the army was moved up to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, or to attack, if we saw it practicable. I was that day delighted with Sir Edward: he evinced an animation, a knowledge of ground, of his own resources and the strength of the enemy’s position, which reminded us of his brother-in-law, our Duke. The Staff were very near the enemy’s line, when I saw some riflemen evidently creeping down and not farther off than a hundred yards, and so I very abruptly said, “Ride away, Sir Edward, behind this bank, or you will be shot in a second. By your action you will be recognized as the Commander-in-Chief, and some riflemen are now going to fire.” The American riflemen are very slow, though the most excellent shots. My manner was so impressive he came away. As we were returning that evening he called me to him, and said, “You gentlemen of the Craufurd school” (he was very fond of our old Light Division) “are very abrupt and peremptory in your manner to your Generals. Would you have spoken to Craufurd as you did to me to-day?” I said, “Most certainly, for if I had not, and one of us had been killed or wounded, and he became aware I observed what I did when I spoke to you, he would have blown me up as I deserved. He taught us to do so.” How my dear friend Sir Edward laughed!
We soon found that, with our present force, the enemy’s position was impregnable. A Brigade was, however, daily expected, under Sir J. Lambert. While we were looking out with our telescopes, Sir Edward turned very abruptly to me, and said, “Now for a Light Division [opinion]. What do you say, Smith, as to the practicability of an attack on the enemy’s line?” I replied, “His position is strong—his left being on an impracticable morass, his right on the Mississippi; the ground is a dead flat, intersected with ditches which will impede our troops. The enemy has, literally, a breastwork, and plenty of men upon it, and their fire will sweep the plain with unerring precision, causing us great loss; for we can produce no fire, flank or otherwise, to render them uneasy or unsteady. As yet, the enemy has not occupied the opposite bank of the river. He has two armed vessels in the river. We must destroy these as soon as possible, possess the right bank of the Mississippi, enfilade the enemy’s position with our fire (the width of the river being only from seven to eight hundred yards), and, so soon as we open a fire from the right bank, we should storm the work in two, three, or more columns.” “You Rifle gentlemen have learnt something, I do believe.” I did not know at the time whether he said this in jest or not, for he was a most light-hearted fellow; but, when we got back to the house we put up in, he sent for me. He had a plan of the works and position of the enemy before him, and said, “Smith, I entirely [concur] in all you said in the field to-day. In the meanwhile, we must facilitate our communications by roads in our rear, etc. I will erect batteries and destroy the ships, and, when the batteries are complete, they shall open on the enemy. If they can destroy the enemy’s defence in any part, or silence the fire of his batteries, the army shall storm at once. Lambert’s arrival is very uncertain.” I remarked, if Lambert’s arrival was so uncertain, we had no alternative, and under any circumstances the ships must be destroyed and batteries erected, whether Lambert’s force arrived or not.
We succeeded in destroying one ship—we might have destroyed both. We erected several batteries, their defences principally sugar-casks,—for here on the plain, on the banks of the Mississippi, if you dug eight inches, water followed: hence to erect batteries with earth was impracticable, and we had not sufficient sand-bags. The defences of our batteries, therefore, were reported complete on the night of the 31st December. The army was formed into two columns of attack—one threatening the right flank, the other the left, and a party was hid in the reeds in the morass on the enemy’s left flank with orders to penetrate, if possible, and disturb the enemy’s left.
At daybreak on the 1st of January, 1815, our troops were formed, and our batteries opened. They had not the slightest effect on the enemy. On the contrary, his shot went through the imperfect defence, caused our noble artillerymen great loss, and silenced our batteries. Hence there was no attack, and Sir Edward still more strenuously adhered to the necessity of occupying the right bank of the river. The troops were withdrawn, except such strong picquets as were left to protect the guns in the [batteries].
Poor Sir Edward was much mortified at being obliged to retire the army from a second demonstration and disposition to attack, but there was nothing for it. It came on to rain in the evening, and was both wet and cold. Sir Edward slept in a little house in advance of his usual quarters. He told me to stay with him, and all his Staff to return to the usual house. He said, “Smith, those guns must be brought back; go and do it.” I said, “It will require a great many men.” “Well,” he says, “take 600 from Gibbs’s Brigade.” Off I started. The soldiers were sulky, and neither the 21st nor the 44th were distinguished for discipline—certainly not of the sort I had been accustomed to. After every exertion I could induce them to make, I saw I had no chance of success—to my mortification, for to return and say to Sir Edward I could not effect it, was as bad as the loss of a leg. However, the night was wearing, and my alternative decided; so I told him as quietly as I could. He saw I was mortified, and said nothing, but jumped up in his cloak, and says, “Be so good as to order my horse, and go on and turn out Gibbs’s whole Brigade quietly.” They were under arms by the time he arrived, and by dint of exertion and his saying, “I am Sir Edward Pakenham, etc., and Commander-in-Chief,” as well as using every expression to induce officers and soldiers to exertion, just as daylight appeared he had completed the task, and the Brigade returned to its ground. As we were riding back Sir Edward said, “You see, Smith, exertion and determination will effect anything.” I was cruelly mortified, and said, “Your excitement, your name, your energy, as Commander-in-Chief with a whole Brigade, most certainly has done that which I failed in with 600 men, but I assure you, Sir Edward, I did all I could.” His noble heart at once observed my misery. He said, “I admire your mortification; it shows your zeal. Why I barely effected, with all the exertion of the Commander-in-Chief, and, as you say, a Brigade, what I expected you to do with one-fourth of the men!” He might have added, “and I did with some of the guns what you dare not even recommend to me.” Oh, how I was comforted! To fall in his estimation would have been worse than death by far.
In a day or two we had information that Lambert’s Brigade, the 7th Fusiliers and the 43rd Foot, [had arrived]. Two such Corps would turn the tide of a general action. We were rejoiced! Sir Edward then made preparations to cross the river, and so to widen a little stream as to get the boats into the Mississippi. The story has been too often told to repeat. Lambert’s Brigade landed, and, upon a representation made to Sir Edward by Major Sir G. Tylden, who was an Assistant Adjutant-General like myself, but a senior officer (as kind a fellow as ever lived), that, in Stovin’s incapacity from his wound, he must be at the head of the Adjutant-General’s Department, Sir Edward sent for me. “Smith,” he said, “it was my intention you should have remained with me, Tylden with Lambert; but he claims his right as senior officer. You would not wish me to do an unjust thing when the claim is preferred?” I said, with my heart in my mouth, “Certainly not, sir.” (I do believe I was more attached to Sir Edward, as a soldier, than I was to John Colborne, if possible.) “You must, therefore, go to Lambert. I will [enter] this arrangement in Orders; but, rely on it, I shall find enough for you and him to do too.”
The night of the 7th January, the rivulet (or bayou, as then called) was reported dammed, and the boats above the dam ready for the banks of the Mississippi to be cut. The water within the banks was higher than the level of the water in the bayou, consequently so much water must be let into the bayou as to provide for the level. In the meanwhile, the enemy had not been asleep. They had been apprised of our operations to establish ourselves on the right bank; they had landed the guns from the second ship (which we ought to have destroyed), and were respectably in possession of that which we must turn them out of. Sir Edward Pakenham went to inspect the bayou, the boats, etc. I heard him say to the engineer, “Are you satisfied the dam will bear the weight of water which will be upon it when the banks of the river are cut?” He said, “Perfectly.” “I should be far more so if a second dam was constructed.” The engineer was positive. After dark the banks were cut, the dam went as Sir Edward seemed to anticipate, and the delay in repairing it prevented the boats being got into the river in time for the troops under Colonel Thornton of the 85th to reach their ground and make a simultaneous attack with the main body, according to the plan arranged. Sir John Lambert’s Brigade, the élite 7th Fusiliers and 43rd, were in reserve. Sir Edward said, “Those fellows would storm anything, but, indeed, so will the others, and when we are in New Orleans, I can depend upon Lambert’s Reserve.” We were all formed in three columns [8 Jan.], about 6000 British soldiers and some sailors: a column under Colonel Renny of the 21st were destined to proceed on the banks of the river and right of the enemy, and carry a powerful battery which enfiladed the whole position: General Keane’s Brigade was to assail the enemy’s right-central position: General Gibbs’s Brigade to attack well upon the enemy’s left: General Lambert’s Brigade to be in reserve nearer Gibbs’s Brigade than Keane’s.
About half an hour before daylight, while I was with General Lambert’s column, standing ready, Sir Edward Pakenham sent for me. I was soon with him. He was greatly agitated. “Smith, most Commanders-in-Chief have many difficulties to contend with, but surely none like mine. The dam, as you heard me say it would, gave way, and Thornton’s people will be of no use whatever to the general attack.” I said, “So impressed have you ever been, so obvious is it in every military point of view, we should possess the right bank of the river, and thus enfilade and divert the attention of the enemy; there is still time before daylight to retire the columns now. We are under the enemy’s fire so soon as discovered.” He says, “This may be, but I have twice deferred the attack. We are strong in numbers now comparatively. It will cost more men, and the assault must be made.” I again urged delay. While we were talking, the streaks of daylight began to appear, although the morning was dull, close, and heavy, the clouds almost touching the ground. He said, “Smith, order the rocket to be fired.” I again ventured to plead the cause of delay. He said, and very justly, “It is now too late: the columns would be visible to the enemy before they could move out of fire, and would lose more men than it is to be hoped they will in the attack. Fire the rocket, I say, and go to Lambert.” This was done. I had reached Lambert just as the stillness of death and anticipation (for I really believe the enemy was aware of our proximity to their position) [was broken by the firing of the rocket]. The rocket was hardly in the air before a rush of our troops was met by the most murderous and destructive fire of all arms ever poured upon column. Sir Edward Pakenham galloped past me with all his Staff, saying, “That’s a terrific fire, Lambert.” I knew nothing of my General then, except that he was a most gentlemanlike, amiable fellow, and I had seen him lead his Brigade at Toulouse in the order of a review of his Household Troops in Hyde Park.[60] I said, “In twenty-five minutes, General, you will command the Army. Sir Edward Pakenham will be wounded and incapable, or killed. The troops do not get on a step. He will be at the head of the first Brigade he comes to, and what I say will occur.” A few seconds verified my words. Tylden came wildly up to tell the melancholy truth, saying, “Sir Edward Pakenham is killed. You command the Army, and your Brigade must move on immediately.” I said, “If Sir Edward Pakenham is killed, Sir John Lambert commands, and will judge of what is to be done.” I saw the attack had irretrievably failed. The troops were beat back, and going at a tolerable pace too; so much so, I thought the enemy had made a sortie in pursuit, as so overpowering a superiority of numbers would have induced the French to do. “May I order your Brigade, sir, to form line to cover a most irregular retreat, to apply no other term to it, until you see what has actually occurred to the attacking columns?” He assented, and sent me and other Staff Officers in different directions to ascertain our condition. It was (summed up in few words) that every attack had failed; the Commander-in-Chief and General Gibbs and Colonel Renny killed; General Keane, most severely wounded; and the columns literally destroyed. The column for the right bank were seen to be still in their boats, and not the slightest impression had been made on the enemy.
Never since Buenos Ayres had I witnessed a reverse, and the sight to our eyes, which had looked on victory so often, was appalling indeed. Lambert desired me, and every Staff Officer he could get hold of, to go and reform the troops, no very easy matter in some cases. However, far to the rear, they (or, rather, what were left) were formed up, Sir John meanwhile wondering whether, under all the circumstances, he ought to attack. He very judiciously saw that was impossible, and he withdrew the troops from under a most murderous fire of round shot. Soon after this we heard the attack on the right bank, which succeeded easily enough. The extent of our loss was ascertained: one-third.
The Admirals came to the outlying picquet-house with faces as long as a flying jib: a sort of Council of War was held. I had been among the troops to find out how the pluck of our soldiers [stood]. Those who had received such an awful beating and been so destroyed were far from desirous to storm again. The 7th and 43rd, whose loss had been trifling, were ready for anything, but their veteran and experienced eyes told them affairs were desperate. One Admiral, Codrington, whose duty as Captain of the Field was to have seen it supplied with provisions, said, “The troops must attack or the whole will be starved.” I rather saucily said, “Kill plenty more, Admiral; fewer rations will be required.” A variety of opinions were agitated. I could observe what was passing in Sir J. Lambert’s mind by the two or three remarks he made. So up I jumped, and said, “General, the army are in no state to renew the attack. If success now attended so desperate an attempt, we should have no troops to occupy New Orleans; our success even would defeat our object, and, to take an extreme view, which every soldier is bound to do, our whole army might be the sacrifice of so injudicious an assault.” A thick fog was coming on. I said, “We know the enemy are three times our number. They will endeavour immediately to cut off our troops on the right bank, and we may expect an attack in our front. The fog favours us, and Thornton’s people ought to be brought back and brought into our line. The army is secure, and no farther disaster is to be apprehended.” The General was fully of my opinion, as was every officer of experience. I think my noble friend, “fighting MacDougall,” was the only one for a new fight. That able officer, Sir A. Dickson, was sent to retire Thornton, and, thanks to the fog, he succeeded in doing so unmolested, though, at the very time our people were crossing the river, a powerful body of the enemy (as I had supposed they would) were crossing to dislodge Thornton; and the woods on the right bank so favoured their species of warfare, that Thornton would have met the fate he did at Bladensburg but for Lambert’s cool judgment. This was my view of the position then, and it is now.
The number of wounded was three times what the Inspector-General Robb was told to calculate on, but never did officer meet the difficulties of his position with greater energy, or display greater resources within himself. He was ably assisted in the arrangements of boats, etc., by that able sailor, Admiral Malcolm, and I firmly assert not a wounded soldier was neglected.
Late in the afternoon I was sent to the enemy with a flag of truce, and a letter to General Jackson, with a request to be allowed to bury the dead and bring in the wounded lying between our respective positions. The Americans were not accustomed to the civility of war, like our old associates the French, and I was a long time before I could induce them to receive me. They fired on me with cannon and musketry, which excited my choler somewhat, for a round shot tore away the ground under my right foot, which it would have been a bore indeed to have lost under such circumstances. However, they did receive me at last, and the reply from General Jackson was a very courteous one.
After the delivery of the reply to General Lambert, I was again sent out with a fatigue party—a pretty large one too—with entrenching tools to bury the dead, and some surgeons to examine and bring off the wounded. I was received by a rough fellow—a Colonel Butler, Jackson’s Adjutant-General. He had a drawn sword, and no scabbard. I soon saw the man I had to deal with. I outrode the surgeon, and I apologized for keeping him waiting; so he said, “Why now, I calculate as your doctors are tired; they have plenty to do to-day.” There was an awful spectacle of dead, dying, and wounded around us. “Do?” says I, “why this is nothing to us Wellington fellows! The next brush we have with you, you shall see how a Brigade of the Peninsular army (arrived yesterday) will serve you fellows out with the bayonet. They will lie piled on one another like round shot, if they will only stand.” “Well, I calculate you must get at ’em first.” “But,” says I, “what do you carry a drawn sword for?” “Because I reckon a scabbard of no use so long as one of you Britishers is on our soil. We don’t wish to shoot you, but we must, if you molest our property; we have thrown away the scabbard.”
By this time our surgeon had arrived. There were some awful wounds from cannon shot, and I dug an immense hole, and threw nearly two hundred bodies into it. To the credit of the Americans not an article of clothing had been taken from our dead except the shoes. Every body was straightened, and the great toes tied together with a piece of string. A more appalling spectacle cannot well be conceived than this common grave, the bodies hurled in as fast as we could bring them. The Colonel, Butler, was very sulky if I tried to get near the works. This scene was not more than about eighty yards away from them, and, had our fellows rushed on, they would not have lost one half, and victory would have been ours. I may safely say there was not a vital part of man in which I did not observe a mortal wound, in many bodies there were three or four such; some were without heads; there were others, poor fellows, whom I recognized. In this part of America there were many Spaniards and Frenchmen. Several soldiers and officers gathered round me, and I addressed them in their own language. Colonel Butler became furious, but I would not desist for the moment, and said, “The next time we meet, Colonel, I hope to receive you to bury your dead.” “Well, I calculate you have been on that duty to-day,” he said. God only knows I had, with a heavy heart. It was apparently light enough before him, but the effort was a violent one.
At night it was General Lambert’s intention to withdraw his line more out of cannon shot, for we were on a perfect plain, not a mound as cover, and I and D’Este (His Royal Highness, as I used to call him) were sent to bring back Blakeney’s Brigade. Blakeney was as anxious a soldier in the dark as he was noble and gallant when he saw his enemy. He would fain induce me to believe I did not know my road. I got all right, though, with the aid of D’Este, who, if the war had lasted, would have made as able a soldier as his ancestor George the Second. I did not regard myself, though, as Marlborough, who was little employed on any retiring duty.
That night I lay down in my cloak, in General Lambert’s room, at twelve o’clock, so done that all care or thought was banished in sleep. Before daylight [9 Jan.] I awoke to the horror of the loss of the man I so loved, admired, and esteemed, and to the feelings of a soldier under such melancholy circumstances. Those feelings could be but momentary. It was my duty to jump on my horse and see what was going on at our post, which I did, after returning Almighty God thanks. Thence to the hospital to render the Inspector whatever aid he required in orderlies, etc. Robb deserved and received the highest encomiums for the arrangements, which secured every care to our wounded.
In returning from the outposts, I met General Lambert. Upon my assuring him everything was perfectly quiet, he said, “I will now ride to the hospital.” “I was just going there, sir, and will ride with you.” The General said, “You must have been pretty well done last night, for I did not see you when I lay down.” “Yes, I had a long day, but we Light Division fellows are used to it.” “Smith, that most amiable man and cool and collected soldier, Secretary Wylly, will take home the dispatches of the melancholy disaster, and of the loss of his General and patron, and I offer for your acceptance my Military Secretaryship.” I laughed, and said, “Me, sir! I write the most illegible and detestable scrawl in the world.” “You can, therefore,” he mildly said, “the more readily decipher mine. Poor Pakenham was much attached to you, and strongly recommended you to me.” I had borne up well on my loss before, but I now burst into a flood of tears, with—“God rest his gallant soul.” From that moment to the present, dear General Lambert has ever treated me as one of his own family. Our lamented General’s remains were put in a cask of spirits and taken home by his Military Secretary, Wylly, who sailed in a few days with dispatches of no ordinary character—a record of lamentable disaster, and anything but honour to our military fame.
It was resolved to re-embark the army, and abandon the idea of further operations against the city of New Orleans, for the enemy had greatly added to his strength in men and works on both banks of the river. This decision was come to although we were expecting reinforcements, the 40th and 27th Regiments, and that noble soldier, Sir Manley Power. The enemy continually cannonaded our position, and caused us some loss. We were obliged, however, to maintain an advance position to cover effectually the embarcation of all the impedimenta, etc., invariably giving out as a ruse that we were only disencumbering ourselves of wounded, sick, etc.
I was sent in, also, with a flag of truce to propose an exchange of prisoners. Two Companies of the 21st Regiment and many of our Riflemen had crowned the works, and, not being supported by the rush of the column, of course were taken prisoners. (It was all very well to victimize[61] old Mullins[62]; the fascines, ladders, etc., could have been supplied by one word which I will not name,[63] or how could these two Companies have mounted the works?) Similarly we had several men of theirs taken the night the enemy attacked General Keane.[64]
In the negotiations for this exchange I was always met by a Mr. Lushington, General Jackson’s Military Secretary, a perfect gentleman, and a very able man. He was well known in London, having been Under Secretary of the Legation. I never had to deal with a more liberal and clear-headed man. His education had not been military, however, and in conversation, by questions, etc., I always induced him to believe we had no intention of abandoning our attempts. On the afternoon when our prisoners were mutually delivered, I said, “We shall soon meet in New Orleans, and after that in London.” He was evidently impressed with the idea that we meant to attack again, and I led him to the supposition that a night attack would succeed best. We parted excellent friends, and shook hands, and many notes of courtesy passed between us afterwards.
So soon as it was dark [18 Jan.] our troops began to move off, and about twelve o’clock all were well off the ground, and the picquets were retired. As we were so engaged, the enemy heard us, and in a moment opened a fire along their line, evidently under the belief that our night attack was actually about to be made. We retired, up to our necks in mud, through a swamp to our boats, and the troops and stores, etc. were all embarked in three days without interruption, or any attempt whatever, on the part of the enemy.
Thus ended the second awful disaster in America it had been my lot to be associated with—Buenos Ayres and New Orleans. In the circumstances of both, many military errors may be traced. But in the case of Buenos Ayres, Whitelock is more abused than he merits. General Leveson-Gower was the great culprit; an overbearing, disobedient man, whose first disobedience, like Adam’s, entailed the misfortune. He was ordered, when advancing on Buenos Ayres, not to engage the enemy before it was invested. He did engage, beat them, and might, in the melée, have possessed the city. That he neglected, and he ought to have been dismissed our service, probably with greater justice than Whitelock, whose orders were wantonly disobeyed, and the Church of San Domingo shamefully surrendered. Had it been held, as it might, it would have enabled Whitelock, from the base of his other success, to have made an attempt either to rescue the force in San Domingo, or again to have moved against the city. Whitelock’s plan of attack was injudicious, too many columns, no weight and ensemble, and when he knew the city was fortified at every street, he should have effected regular lodgments and pushed forward from their base. The troops behaved most gallantly.
Poor dear Sir Edward Pakenham, a hero, a soldier, a man of ability in every sense of the word, had to contend with every imaginable difficulty, starting with the most unwise and difficult position in which he found the Army. By perseverance, determination, and that gallant bearing which so insures confidence, he overcame all but one, which he never anticipated, a check to the advance of British soldiers when they ought to have rushed forward. There was no want of example on the part of officers. The fire, I admit, was the most murderous I ever beheld before or since; still two Companies were successful in the assault, and had our heaviest column rushed forward in place of halting to fire under a fire fifty times superior, our national honour would not have been tarnished, but have gained fresh lustre, and one of the ablest generals England ever produced saved to his country and his friends.
In General Lambert’s dispatches he was good enough to mention me.[65]
Chapter XXIII
CAPTURE OF FORT BOWYER—DISEMBARCATION ON ILE DAUPHINE—END OF THE AMERICAN WAR—VISIT TO HAVANA AND RETURN-VOYAGE TO ENGLAND—NEWS OF NAPOLEON’S RETURN TO POWER—HARRY SMITH AT HIS HOME AT WHITTLESEY.
After the Army was somewhat refreshed, an attempt on Mobile was resolved on, for which purpose the fleet went down to the mouth of Mobile Bay. Here there was a wooden fort of some strength, Fort Bowyer, which some time previously had sunk one of two small craft of our men-of-war which were attempting to silence it. It was necessary that this fort should be reduced in order to open the passage of the bay. It was erected on a narrow neck of land easily invested, and required only a part of the army to besiege it. It was regularly approached, and when our breaching batteries were prepared to burn or blow it to the devil, I was sent to summon it to surrender. The Americans have no particular respect for flags of truce, and all my Rifle education was required to protect myself from being rifled and to procure a reception of my flag. After some little time I was received, and, upon my particular request, admitted into the fort, to the presence of Major Lawrence, who commanded, with five Companies, I think, of the 2nd Regiment. I kept a sharp look-out on the defences, etc., which would not have resisted our fire an hour. The Major was as civil as a vulgar fellow can be. I gave him my version of his position, and cheered him on the ability he had displayed. He said, “Well, now, I calculate you are not far out in your reckoning. What do you advise me to do? You, I suppose, are one of Wellington’s men, and understand the rules in these cases.” “This,” I said, “belongs to the rule that the weakest goes to the wall, and if you do not surrender at discretion in one hour, we, being the stronger, will blow up the fort and burn your wooden walls about your ears. All I can say is, you have done your duty to your country, and no soldier can do more, or resist the overpowering force of circumstances.” “Well, if you were in my situation, you would surrender, would you?” “Yes, to be sure.” “Well, go and tell your General I will surrender to-morrow at this hour, provided I am allowed to march out with my arms and ground them outside the fort.” “No,” I said, “I will take no such message back. My General, in humanity, offers you terms such as he can alone accept, and the blood of your soldiers be on your own head.” He said, “Well, now, don’t be hasty.” I could see the Major had some hidden object in view. I said, therefore, “Now, I tell you what message I will carry to my General. You open the gates, and one of our Companies will take possession of it immediately, and a body of troops shall move up close to its support; then you may remain inside the fort until to-morrow at this hour, and ground your arms on the glacis.” I took out pen and ink, wrote down my proposition, and said, “There, now, sign directly and I go.” He was very obstinate, and I rose to go, when he said, “Well, now, you are hard upon me in distress.” “The devil I am,” I said. “We might have blown you into the water, as you did our craft, without a summons. Good-bye.” “Well, then, give me the pen. If I must, so be it;” and he signed. His terms were accepted, and the 4th Light Company took possession of the gate, with orders to rush in in case of alarm. A supporting column of four hundred men were bivouacked close at hand with the same orders, while every precaution was taken, so that, if any descent were made from Mobile, we should be prepared, for, by the Major’s manner and look under his eyebrows, I could see there was no little cunning in his composition. We afterwards learned that a force was embarked at Mobile, and was to have made a descent that very night, but the wind prevented them. We were, however, perfectly prepared, and Fort Bowyer was ours.
The next day [12 Feb.] the Major marched out and grounded his arms. He was himself received very kindly on board the Tonnant, and his officers were disposed of in the Fleet. The fellows looked very like French soldiers, for their uniforms were the same, and much of the same cut as to buttons, belts, and pipe-clay.
In a few days after the capture of this fort the Brazen sloop-of-war arrived with dispatches [14 Feb.]. The preliminaries of peace were signed, and only awaited the ratification of the President, and until this was or was not effected, hostilities were to cease. We were all happy enough, for we Peninsular soldiers saw that neither fame nor any military distinction could be acquired in this species of milito-nautico-guerilla-plundering-warfare. I got a letter from my dear wife, who was in health and composure, with my family all in love with her, and praying of course for my safe return, which she anticipated would not be delayed, as peace was certain. I for my part was very ready to return, and I thanked Almighty God from my heart that such fair prospects were again before me, after such another series of wonderful escapes.
Pending the ratification, it was resolved to disembark the whole army on a large island at the entrance of Mobile Bay, called Isle Dauphine.[66] This was done. At first we had great difficulty in getting anything like fresh provisions; but, as the sea abounded with fish, each regiment rigged out a net, and obtained a plentiful supply. Then our biscuit ran short. We had abundance of flour, but this began to act on the men and produce dysentery. The want of ovens alone prevented our making bread. This subject engrossed my attention for a whole day, but on awakening one morning a sort of vision dictated to me, “There are plenty of oyster-shells, and there is sand. Burn the former and make mortar, and construct ovens.” So I sent on board to Admiral Malcolm to send me a lot of hoops of barrels by way of a framework for my arch. There was plenty of wood, the shells were burning, the mortar soon made, my arch constructed, and by three o’clock there was a slow fire in a very good oven on the ground. The baker was summoned, and the paste was made, ready to bake at daylight. The Admiral, dear Malcolm, and our Generals were invited to breakfast, but I did not tell even Sir John Lambert why I had asked a breakfast-party. He only laughed and said, “I wish I could give them a good one!” Oh, the anxiety with which I and my baker watched the progress of our exertions! We heard the men-of-war’s bells strike eight o’clock. My breakfast-party was assembled. I had an unusual quantity of salt beef and biscuit on the table, the party was ready to fall to, when in I marched at the head of a column of loaves and rolls, all piping hot and as light as bread should be. The astonishment of the Admiral was beyond all belief, and he uttered a volley of monosyllables at the idea of a soldier inventing anything. Oh, how we laughed and ate new bread, which we hadn’t seen for some time! At first the Admiral thought I must have induced his steward to bake me the bread as a joke, when I turned to Sir John and said, “Now, sir, by this time to-morrow every Company shall have three ovens, and every man his pound and a half of bread.” I had sent for the Quartermasters of Corps; some started difficulties, but I soon removed them. One said, “Where are we to get all the hoops?” This was, I admit, a puzzle. I proposed to make the arch for the mortar of wood, when a very quick fellow, Hogan, Quartermaster of the Fusiliers, said, “I have it: make a bank of sand, plaster over it; make your oven; when complete, scratch the sand out.” In a camp everything gets wind, and Harry Smith’s ovens were soon in operation all over the island. There were plenty of workmen, and the morrow produced the bread.
The officers erected a theatre, and we had great fun in various demi-savage ways. Bell, the Quartermaster-General, dear noble fellow, arrived, and a Major Cooper, and, of some importance to me, my stray portmanteau. I was half asleep one morning, rather later than usual, having been writing the greater part of the night, when I heard old West say, “Sir, sir.” “What’s the matter?” “Thank the Lord, you’re alive.” “What do you mean, you old ass?” “Why, a navigator has been going round and round your tent all night; here’s a regular road about the tent.” He meant an alligator, of which there were a great many on the island. The young ones our soldiers used to eat. I tasted a bit once; the meat was white, and the flavour like coarsely-fed pork.
In this very tent I was writing some very important documents for my General; the sandflies had now begun to be very troublesome, and that day they were positively painful. I ever hated tobacco, but a thought struck me, a good volume of smoke would keep the little devils off me. I called my orderly, a soldier of the 43rd, and told old West, who chawed a pound a day at least, to give him plenty of tobacco, and he was to make what smoke he could, for of two evils this was by far the least. The old Peninsular soldiers off parade were all perfectly at home with their officers, and he puffed away for a long time while I was writing, he being under my table. After a time he put his head out with a knowing look, and said, “If you please, sir, this is drier work than in front of Salamanca, where water was not to be had, and what’s more, no grog neither.” I desired West to bring him both rum and water. “Now, your honour, if you can write as long as I can smoke, you’ll write the history of the world, and I will kill all the midges.”
The ratification at length arrived [5 March], and the army was prepared to embark. Sir John Lambert, Baynes his Aide-de-camp, and I were to go home in the Brazen sloop-of-war, with a Captain Stirling, now Sir James, who was ultimately the founder of the Swan River Settlement. A more perfect gentleman or active sailor never existed: we have been faithful friends ever since. As many wounded as the Brazen could carry were embarked, and we weighed with one of our noble men-of-war.
As soon as the word was given, we sailed to the Havannah for fresh provisions. We spent a merry week there, when Stirling and I were inseparable. We were all fêted at the house of a Mr. Drake, nominally a wealthy merchant, but actually in every respect a prince. I never saw a man live so superbly. He put carriages at our disposal; one for Sir John Lambert, and one for me and Stirling. He was married to a Spanish woman, a very ladylike person, who played and sang beautifully. I could speak Spanish perfectly, and the compatriot connexion I told her and her maiden sisters of made us friends at once. My spare time, however, was spent in the house of the Governor, Assuduco, who had a daughter so like my wife in age, figure, etc., and speaking English about as much as she could, I was never so much amused as in her society; and my wife and she corresponded afterwards. We stayed in the Havannah a week, and the public drives brought us all back again to the Prado of Madrid. Although the beauty of the ladies of the capital was wanting, the costumes were equally elegant.
The celebrated Woodville, the cigar manufacturer, asked us to a public breakfast at his house, four or five miles out of the city. He was about six feet two, as powerful a man as I ever saw; his hair in profusion, but as white as snow; the picture of health, with a voice like thunder. He was rough, but hospitable, and after breakfast showed us the various processes of his manufactory, and the number of hands each went through. “Now,” says he, “Sir John, I have another sight to show you, which few men can boast of.” With his fingers in his mouth, he gave a whistle as loud as a bugle, when out ran from every direction a lot of children, of a variety of shades of colour, all looking happy and healthy. Not one appeared above twelve or thirteen. “Ah,” he said, “report says, and I believe it, they are every one of them my children.” “Count them,” he said to me. I did; there were forty-one. I thought Stirling and I would have died of laughing. Sir John Lambert, one of the most amiable and moral men in the world, said so mildly, “A very large family indeed, Mr. Woodville,” that it set Stirling and me off again, and the old patriarch joined in the laugh, with, “Ah, the seed of Abraham would people the earth indeed, if every one of his descendants could show my family.”
After a week of great amusement we sailed from Havana. The harbour and entrance are perfectly beautiful: the works most formidable, but the Spaniards would not let us inside. Sailing into the harbour is like entering a large gateway; the sails are almost within reach of the Moro rock, and there is a swell setting into the harbour, which gives the ship a motion, as if every wave would dash her on the Moro.
In the Gulf of Florida we encountered a most terrific gale, wind and current at variance, and oh, such a sea! We lay to for forty-eight hours; we could not cook, and the main deck was flooded. Sir John and I never got out of our cots: he perfectly good-humoured on all occasions, and always convincing himself, and endeavouring to convince us, that the gale was abating. The third morning Stirling came to my cot. “Come, turn out; you will see how I manage my craft. I am going to make sail, and our lubberly cut may set us on our beam-ends, or sink us altogether.” A delightful prospect, indeed. He was and is a noble seaman, all animation, and he was so clear and decided in his orders! Sail was made amid waves mountains high, and the Brazen, as impudent a craft as ever spurned the mighty billows, so beautifully was she managed and steered, rode over or evaded seas apparently overwhelming; and Stirling, in the pride of his sailor’s heart, says, “There, now, what would you give to be a sailor?” It really was a sight worth looking at—a little bit of human construction stemming and resisting the power of the mighty deep.
As we neared the mouth of the British Channel, we had, of course, the usual thick weather, when a strange sail was reported. It was now blowing a fresh breeze; in a few minutes we spoke her, but did not make her haul her main-topsail, being a bit of a merchantman. Stirling hailed as we shot past. “Where are you from?” “Portsmouth.” “Any news?” “No, none.” The ship was almost out of sight, when we heard, “Ho! Bonapart_er_’s back again on the throne of France.” Such a hurrah as I set up, tossing my hat over my head! “I will be a Lieutenant-Colonel yet before the year’s out!” Sir John Lambert said, “Really, Smith, you are so vivacious! How is it possible? It cannot be.” He had such faith in the arrangements of our government, he wouldn’t believe it. I said, “Depend upon it, it’s truth; a beast like that skipper never could have invented it, when he did not even regard it as news: ‘No, no news; only Bonaparte’s back again on the throne of France.’ Depend on it, it’s true.” “No, Smith, no.” Stirling believed it, and oh, how he carried on! We were soon at Spithead, when all the men-of-war, the bustle, the general appearance, told us, before we could either see telegraphic communication or speak any one, where “Bonaparter” was.
We anchored about three o’clock, went on shore immediately, and shortly after were at dinner in the George. Old West had brought from the Havannah two pups of little white curly dogs, a dog and bitch, which he said were “a present for missus.” They are very much esteemed in England, these Havana lapdogs; not much in my way.
The charm of novelty which I experienced on my former visit to England after seven years’ absence, was much worn off, and I thought of nothing but home. Sir John and I started for London in a chaise at night, and got only as far as Guildford. I soon found our rate of progression would not do, and I asked his leave to set off home. At that time he was not aware of all my tale. I never saw his affectionate heart angry before; he positively scolded me, and said, “I will report our arrival; write to me, that I may know your address, for I shall most probably very soon want you again.” My wife and Sir John were afterwards the greatest friends.
So Mr. West and I got a chaise, and off we started, and got to London on a Sunday, the most melancholy place on that day on earth. I drove to my old lodgings, where I had last parted from my wife. They could assure me she was well, as she had very lately ordered a new riding-habit. So I ordered a post-chaise, and ran from Panton Square to Weeks’ in the Haymarket, and bought a superb dressing-case and a heavy gold chain; I had brought a lot of Spanish books from the Havannah. So on this occasion I did not return to my home naked and penniless, as from Coruña.
I got to Waltham Cross about twelve o’clock. I soon found a pair of horses was far too slow for my galloping ideas; so I got four, and we galloped along then as fast as I could wish. I rattled away to the Falcon Inn in my native place, Whittlesea; for I dare not drive to my father’s house. I sent quietly for him, and he was with me in a moment. The people were in church as I drove past. My wife was there, so as yet she was safe from any sudden alarm. She and my sisters took a walk after church, when servants were sent in every direction in search of them, with orders quietly to say that my father wanted my sisters. A fool of a fellow being the first to find them, and delighted with his prowess, ran up, shouting, “Come home directly; a gentleman has come in a chaise-and-four”—who, he did not know. My poor wife, as he named no one, immediately believed some one had arrived to say I was killed, and down she fell senseless. My sisters soon restored her, and they ran home, to their delight, into my arms. My wife and I were never again separated,[67] though many an eventful scene was in store and at hand for us.
[Illustration: ST. MARY’S, WHITTLESEY.
From a photograph by A. Gray, Whittlesey, 1900.
[Opposite p. 260.]
We were now all happiness. During my few months’ absence nothing had occurred to damp their contentment; so we all blessed God Almighty that I had again been protected in such awful situations both by land and sea, while so many families had to grieve for the loss of their dearest relatives. Pug and Tiny recognized me. I heard from Sir John Lambert that he was to be employed with the army assembling at Brussels under the Duke, that I had better be prepared to join him at a few hours’ notice, that my position near him would require horses. I knew that “Major of Brigade” was the berth intended for me. My wife was to accompany me again to the war, but nothing affected us when united; the word “separation” away, all was smooth. All was now excitement, joy, hope and animation, and preparation of riding-habits, tents, canteens, etc., my sisters thinking of all sorts of things for my wife’s comfort, which we could as well have carried as our parish church. My youngest brother but one, Charles, was to go with me to join the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, as a Volunteer,[68] and his departure added to the excitement. I never was more happy in all my life; not a thought of the future (though God knows we had enough before us), for my wife was going and all the agony of parting was spared.
I immediately set to work to buy a real good stud. Two horses I bought at Newmarket, and two in my native place; and as Tiny the faithful was voted too old, as was the mare I had with me in Spain and Washington, I bought for my wife, from a brother, a mare of great celebrity, bred by my father, a perfect horse for a lady who was an equestrian artist.
In a few days I had a kind letter from Sir John Lambert, saying I was appointed his Major of Brigade; and as he was to proceed to Ghent in Flanders, recommending me, being in Cambridgeshire, to proceed viâ Harwich for Ostend, as I must find my own passage unless I went on a transport. West was therefore despatched with my four horses viâ Newmarket for Harwich, and I intended so to start as to be there the day my horses would arrive.
The evening before we started, my father, wife, sisters, myself, and brothers had a long ride. On returning, at the end of the town, there was a new stiff rail, with a ditch on each side. I was riding my dear old mare, that had been at Washington, etc., and off whose back poor Lindsay had been killed;[69] she was an elegant fencer, and as bold as in battle. I said to my sisters, “I will have one more leap on my war-horse.” I rode her at it. Whether she had grown old, or did not measure her leap, I don’t know, but over she rolled. One of my legs was across the new and narrow ditch, her shoulder right upon it; I could not pull it from under her. I expected every moment, if she struggled, to feel my leg broken, and there was an end to my Brigade Majorship! I passed a hand down, until I got short hold of the curb, and gave her a snatch with all my force. She made an effort, and I drew my leg out, more faint than subsequently in the most sanguinary conflict of the whole war. I never felt more grateful for an escape.
Chapter XXIV
HARRY SMITH AND HIS WIFE START TOGETHER FOR THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN—GHENT—BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
My wife and I and my brother Charles were to start in a chaise at three o’clock the next morning. I never saw my poor father suffer so much as at thus parting from three of us at once, and feeling that his companion, my wife, was lost to him. He said, “Napoleon and Wellington will meet, a battle will ensue of a kind never before heard of, and I cannot expect to see you all again.”
We reached Harwich in the afternoon, found West, his horses, and all our things right, and went to the Black Bull, from whence I had embarked years before for Gottenburgh. There we found my old acquaintance, the landlord, Mr. Briton, a man as civil as full of information. He said I had no chance of embarking at Harwich, unless I freighted a small craft that he would look out, and fitted it up for my horses.
Next day I came to terms with the skipper of a sloop of a few tons’ burden, himself and a boy the crew. I couldn’t help thinking of the 74’s and frigates in which I had been flying over the ocean. We measured it, and found there was just room for the horses, and a hole aft, called a cabin, for my wife and self and brother. I did not intend to embark the horses till the wind was fair—a fortunate plan, for I was detained in the Black Bull by foul winds for a fortnight. The wind becoming fair, in the afternoon we embarked all our traps. Mr. Briton amply provided us with provisions and forage, and brought his bill for myself, wife, brother, two grooms, five horses, lady’s maid, sea stock, etc. I expected it to be fifty or sixty pounds; it was twenty-four and some shillings, and we had lived on the fat of the land, for having been half-starved so many years, when once in the flesh-pots of England, we revelled in a plenty which we could scarcely fancy would last.
A gentle breeze carried us over to Ostend in twenty-four hours, where we landed our horses by slinging them and dropping them into the sea to swim ashore. My wife’s noble mare, which we called the “Brass Mare” after her son of that ilk, when in the slings and in sight of the shore, neighed most gallantly, and my wife declared it an omen of brilliant success. We went to the great inn of Ostend. The difference between it and our late bivouac, the Black Bull, is not to be described. I found an English horse-dealer there. I bought two mules of him and a stout Flanders pony for our baggage, and in three days we were en route for Ghent, stopping one night at Bruges, where was an excellent inn, and the best Burgundy I had drunk up to that hour. My wife was delighted to be once more in campaigning trim.
When we reached Ghent we found Sir John Lambert had reached it the day before. Louis XVIII. was there, his Court and idlers, and Ghent was in as great a state of excitement as if the Duke of Marlborough was again approaching. I found our Brigade were all New Orleans Regiments—three of the best regiments of the old Army of the Peninsula, the 4th, 27th, and 40th, and the 81st in garrison at Brussels. We were ordered to be in perfect readiness to take the field with the warning[70] we had been so many years accustomed to.
Louis held a Court while we were there. I was near the door he entered by. He was very inactive, but impressive in manner. He laid his hand on my shoulder to support himself. His great topic of conversation was how delighted he was to see us, and how much he was indebted to our nation. A more benign countenance I never beheld, nor did his subsequent reign belie the benignity of his expression.
While at Ghent I waited on Sir John Lambert every morning just after breakfast for orders. On one occasion we heard a voice thundering in the passage to him, “Hallo there, where the devil’s the door?” I went out, and to my astonishment saw our noble friend Admiral Malcolm. “Why, where the devil has Lambert stowed himself? The house is as dark as a sheer hulk.” He was delighted to see us, and sang out, “Come, bear a hand and get me some breakfast; no regular hours on shore as in the Royal Oak.” He had been appointed to the command of the coast. He was very much attached to the Duke. During our stay at Ghent we had Brigade parades almost every day, and my General, an ex-Adjutant of the Guards, was most particular in all guard mountings, sentries, and all the correct minutiæ of garrison. The three regiments were in beautiful fighting trim, although the headquarters ship with the Grenadiers, the 27th, had not arrived from America. Poor 27th! in a few days they had not two hundred men in the ranks.
As we anticipated, our march from Ghent was very sudden. In an hour after the order arrived we moved en route for Brussels. We reached Asche on the afternoon of the 16th June. The rapid and continuous firing at Quatre Bras, as audible as if we were in the fight, put us in mind of old times, as well as on the qui vive. We expected an order every moment to move on. We believed the firing to be at Fleurus. As we approached Brussels the next day [17 June], we met an orderly with a letter from that gallant fellow De Lancey, Q.M.G., to direct us to move on Quatre Bras.
In the afternoon, after we passed Brussels, the scene of confusion, the flying of army, baggage, etc., was an awful novelty to us. We were directed by a subsequent order to halt at the village of Epinay, on the Brussels side of the forest of Soignies, a report having reached his Grace that the enemy’s cavalry were threatening our communication with Brussels (as we understood, at least). The whole afternoon we were in a continued state of excitement. Once some rascals of the Cumberland Hussars, a new Corps of Hanoverians (not of the style of our noble and gallant old comrades, the 1st Hussars), came galloping in, declaring they were pursued by Frenchmen. Our bugles were blowing in all directions, and our troops running to their alarm-posts in front of the village. I went to report to Sir John Lambert, who was just sitting quietly down to dinner with my wife and his A.D.C. He says very coolly, “Let the troops——; this is all nonsense; there is not a French soldier in the rear of his Grace, depend on it, and sit down to dinner.” I set off, though, and galloped to the front, where a long line of baggage was leisurely retiring. This was a sufficient indication that the alarm was false, and I dismissed the troops and started for the débris of a magnificent turbot which the General’s butler had brought out of Brussels. This was in the afternoon.
Such a thunderstorm and deluge of rain now came on, it drenched all that was exposed to it, and in a few minutes rendered the country deep in mud and the roads very bad. All night our baggage kept retiring through the village.
In the course of the night, Lambert’s Brigade were ordered to move up to the position the Duke had taken up in front of the forest of Soignies, and our march was very much impeded by waggons upset, baggage thrown down, etc. [18 June]. We met Sir George Scovell, an A.Q.M.G. at head-quarters, who said he was sent by the Duke to see the rear was clear, that it was choked between this and the Army, and the Duke expected to be attacked immediately; our Brigade must clear the road before we moved on. Our men were on fire at the idea of having to remain and clear a road when an attack was momentarily expected, and an hour would bring us to the position. The wand of a magician, with all his spells and incantations, could not have effected a clear course sooner than our 3000 soldiers of the old school.
This effected, General Lambert sent me on to the Duke for orders. I was to find the Duke himself, and receive orders from no other person. About 11 o’clock I found his Grace and all his staff near Hougoumont. The day was beautiful after the storm, although the country was very heavy. When I rode up, he said, “Hallo, Smith, where are you from last?” “From General Lambert’s Brigade, and they from America.” “What have you got?” “The 4th, the 27th, and the 40th; the 81st remain in Brussels.” “Ah, I know, I know; but the others, are they in good order?” “Excellent, my lord, and very strong.” “That’s all right, for I shall soon want every man.” One of his staff said, “I do not think they will attack to-day.” “Nonsense,” said the Duke. “The columns are already forming, and I think I have discerned where the weight of the attack will be made. I shall be attacked before an hour. Do you know anything of my position, Smith?” “Nothing, my lord, beyond what I see—the general line, and right and left.” “Go back and halt Lambert’s Brigade at the junction of the two great roads from Genappe and Nivelles. Did you observe their junction as you rode up?” “Particularly, my lord.” “Having halted the head of the Brigade and told Lambert what I desire, ride to the left of the position. On the extreme left is the Nassau Brigade[71]—those fellows who came over to us at Arbonne, you recollect.[72] Between them and Picton’s Division (now the 5th) I shall most probably require Lambert. There is already there a Brigade of newly-raised Hanoverians, which Lambert will give orders to, as they and your Brigade form the 6th Division. You are the only British Staff Officer with it. Find out, therefore, the best and shortest road from where Lambert is now halted to the left of Picton and the right of the Nassau troops. Do you understand?” “Perfectly, my lord.” I had barely turned from his Grace when he called me back. “Now, clearly understand that when Lambert is ordered to move from the fork of the two roads where he is now halted, you are prepared to conduct him to Picton’s left.” It was delightful to see his Grace that morning on his noble horse Copenhagen—in high spirits and very animated, but so cool and so clear in the issue of his orders, it was impossible not fully to comprehend what he said; delightful also to observe what his wonderful eye anticipated, while some of his staff were of opinion the attack was not in progress.
I had hardly got back to Lambert, after reconnoitring the country and preparing myself to conduct the troops, when the Battle of Waterloo commenced. We soon saw that where we should be moved to, the weight of the attack on Picton would be resisted by none but British soldiers. For a few seconds, while every regiment was forming square, and the charge of Ponsonby’s Brigade going on (which the rising ground in our front prevented us seeing), it looked as if the formation was preparatory to a retreat. Many of the rabble of Dutch troops were flying towards us, and, to add to the confusion, soon after came a party of dragoons, bringing with them three eagles and some prisoners. I said to General Lambert, “We shall have a proper brush immediately, for it looks as if our left will be immediately turned, and the brunt of the charge will fall on us.” At this moment we were ordered to move to the very spot where the Duke, early in the morning, had expected we should be required. Picton had been killed, Sir James Kempt commanded on the left of the road to Genappe, near La Haye Sainte; his Division had been already severely handled, and we took their position, my old Battalion of Riflemen remaining with us.
The Battle of Waterloo has been too often described, and nonsense enough written about the Crisis,[73] for me to add to it. Every moment was a crisis, and the controversialists had better have left the discussion on the battle-field. Every Staff officer had two or three (and one four) horses shot under him. I had one wounded in six, another in seven places, but not seriously injured. The fire was terrific, especially of cannon.
Late in the day, when the enemy had made his last great effort on our centre, the field was so enveloped in smoke that nothing was discernible. The firing ceased on both sides, and we on the left knew that one party or the other was beaten. This was the most anxious moment of my life. In a few seconds we saw the red-coats in the centre, as stiff as rocks, and the French columns retiring rapidly, and there was such a British shout as rent the air. We all felt then to whom the day belonged. It was time the “Crisis” should arrive, for we had been at work some hours, and the hand of death had been most unsparing. One Regiment, the 27th, had only two officers left—Major Hume, who commanded from the beginning of the battle, and another—and they were both wounded, and only a hundred and twenty soldiers were left with them.
At this moment I saw the Duke, with only one Staff officer remaining, galloping furiously to the left. I rode on to meet him. “Who commands here?” “Generals Kempt and Lambert, my lord.” “Desire them to get into a column of companies of Battalions, and move on immediately.” I said, “In which direction, my lord?” “Right ahead, to be sure.” I never saw his Grace so animated. The Crisis was general, from one end of the line to the other.
That evening at dark we halted, literally on the ground we stood on; not a picquet was required, and our whole cavalry in pursuit. Then came the dreadful tale of killed and wounded; it was enormous, and every moment the loss of a dear friend was announced. To my wonder, my astonishment, and to my gratitude to Almighty God, I and my two brothers—Tom, the Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, who had, during the day, attracted the Duke’s attention by his gallantry, and Charles, in the 1st Battalion, who had been fighting for two days—were all safe and unhurt, except that Charles had a slight wound in the neck. In the thunderstorm the previous evening he had tied a large silk handkerchief over his stock; he forgot to take it off, and probably owed his life to so trifling a circumstance. There was not an instance throughout the Army of two brothers in the field escaping.[74] We were three, and I could hardly credit my own eyes. We had nothing to eat or drink. I had some tea in my writing-case, but no sugar. It had been carried by an orderly, although in the ranks. He found me out after the battle, and I made some tea in a soldier’s tin for Sir James Kempt, Sir John Lambert, and myself; and while we were thus regaling, up came my brother, of whose safety I was not aware.
Captain McCulloch of the 95th Regiment wished to see me. He was a dear friend whom I had not seen since he was awfully wounded at Foz d’Aruz [Foz de Aronce] on Massena’s retreat, after having had seven sabre-wounds at the Coa, in Massena’s advance, and been taken prisoner. He was in a cottage near, awfully wounded. I found him lying in great agony, but very composed. “Oh, Harry, so long since we have met, and now again under such painful circumstances; but, thank God, you and Tom are all right.” I had brought all my remaining tea, which he ravenously swallowed. The ball had dreadfully broken the elbow of the sound arm, and had passed right through the fleshy part of his back, while the broken bone of the arm previously shattered at Foz d’Aruz was still exfoliating, and very painful even after a lapse of years. I got hold of a surgeon, and his arm was immediately amputated. When dressed, he lay upon the stump, as this was less painful than the old exfoliating wound, and on his back he could not lie. He recovered, but was never afterwards able to feed himself or put on his hat, and died, Heaven help him, suddenly of dysentery.
No one, but those who have witnessed the awful scene, knows the horrors of a field of battle—the piles of the dead, the groans of the dying, the agony of those dreadfully wounded, to whom frequently no assistance can be rendered at the moment; some still in perfect possession of their intellect, game to the last, regarding their recovery as more than probable, while the clammy perspiration of death has already pounced upon its victim; others, again, perfectly sensible of their dissolution, breathing into your keeping the feelings and expressions of their last moments—messages to father, mother, wife, or dearest relatives. Well might Walter Scott say—
“Thou canst not name one tender tie But here dissolved its relics lie.”
Often have I myself, tired and exhausted in such scenes, almost regretted the life I have adopted, in which one never knows at any moment how near or distant one’s own turn may be. In such dejection you sink into a profound sleep, and you stand up next morning in fresh spirits. Your country’s calls, your excitement, honour and glory, again impel, and undauntedly and cheerfully you expose that life which the night before you fancied was of value. A soldier’s life is one continued scene of excitement, hope, anticipation; fear for himself he never knows, though the loss of his comrade pierces his heart.
Before daylight next morning [19 June] a Staff officer whose name I now forget, rode up to where we were all lying, and told us of the complete déroute of the French, and the vigorous pursuit of the Prussians, and that it was probable that our Division would not move for some hours. At daylight I was on horseback, with a heart of gratitude as became me, and anxious to let my wife know I was all right. I took a party of each Regiment of my Division with me, and went back to the field; for I was now established as Assistant-Quartermaster-General.
I had been over many a field of battle, but with the exception of one spot at New Orleans, and the breach of Badajos, I had never seen anything to be compared with what I saw. At Waterloo the whole field from right to left was a mass of dead bodies. In one spot, to the right of La Haye Sainte, the French Cuirassiers were literally piled on each other; many soldiers not wounded lying under their horses; others, fearfully wounded, occasionally with their horses struggling upon their wounded bodies. The sight was sickening, and I had no means or power to assist them. Imperative duty compelled me to the field of my comrades, where I had plenty to do to assist many who had been left out all night; some had been believed to be dead, but the spark of life had returned. All over the field you saw officers, and as many soldiers as were permitted to leave the ranks, leaning and weeping over some dead or dying brother or comrade. The battle was fought on a Sunday, the 18th June, and I repeated to myself a verse from the Psalms of that day—91st Psalm, 7th verse: “A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.” I blessed Almighty God our Duke was spared, and galloped to my General, whom I found with some breakfast awaiting my arrival.
So many accounts and descriptions have been given of the Battle of Waterloo, I shall only make one or two observations. To those who say the ultimate success of the day was achieved by the arrival of the Prussians, I observe that the Prussians were part of the whole on which his Grace calculated, as much as on the co-operation of one of his own Divisions; that they ought to have been in the field much sooner, and by their late arrival seriously endangered his Grace’s left flank; and had Napoleon pushed the weight of his attack and precipitated irresistible numbers on our left, he would have forced the Duke to throw back his left and break our communication with the Prussians. The Duke’s army was a heterogeneous mass, not the old Peninsular veterans; young 2nd Battalions most of them, others intermixed with the rabble of our allied army. Thus the Duke could not have counter-manœuvred on his left, as he would have been able with his old army; and we had one Division under Colville far away to our right.
Napoleon fought the battle badly; his attacks were not simultaneous, but partial and isolated, and enabled the Duke to repel each by a concentration. His cavalry was sacrificed early in the day. If Napoleon did not desire to turn our left flank, and the battle is to be regarded as a fight hand to hand, he fought it badly.
By a general attack upon our line with his overpowering force of artillery, followed up by his infantry, he might have put hors-de-combat far more of our army than he did. His cavalry would have been fresh, and had he employed this devoted and gallant auxiliary late in the day as he did early, his attempts to defeat us would have been far more formidable.
His artillery and cavalry behaved most nobly, but I maintain his infantry did not. In proof, I will record one example. On the left, in front of the 5th Division, 25,000 of the Young Guard attacked in column. Picton was just killed, and Kempt commanded. It is true this column advanced under a galling fire, but it succeeded in reaching the spot where it intended to deploy. Kempt ordered the Battalion immediately opposite the head of the column to charge. It was a poor miserable Battalion compared with some of ours, yet did it dash like British soldiers at the column, which went about. Then it was that Ponsonby’s Brigade got in among them, and took eagles and prisoners.
As a battle of science, it was demonstrative of no manœuvre. It was no Salamanca or Vittoria, where science was so beautifully exemplified: it was as a stand-up fight between two pugilists, “mill away” till one is beaten. The Battle of Waterloo, with all its political glory, has destroyed the field movement of the British Army, so scientifically laid down by Dundas, so improved on by that hero of war and of drill, Sir John Moore. All that light-troop duty which he taught, by which the world through the medium of the Spanish War was saved, is now replaced by the most heavy of manœuvres, by squares, centre formations, and moving in masses, which require time to collect and equal time to extend; and all because the Prussians and Russians did not know how to move quicker, we, forsooth, must adopt their ways, although Picton’s Division at Quatre Bras nobly showed that British infantry can resist cavalry in any shape. It is true the Buffs were awfully mauled at Albuera, but what did my kind patron, Sir William Stewart, order them to do? They were in open column of companies right in front, and it was necessary at once to deploy into line, which Sir William with his light 95th had been accustomed to do on any company: he orders them, therefore, to deploy on the Grenadiers; by this the right would become the left, what in common parlance is termed “clubbed;” and while he was doing this, he kept advancing the Grenadiers. It is impossible to imagine a battalion in a more helpless position, and it never can be cited as any criterion that a battalion must be in squares to resist cavalry. At the Battle of Fuentes d’Oñoro, the overwhelming French cavalry, having rapidly put back our very inferior force, were upon a regiment of infantry of the 7th Division, to the right of the Light Division, before either were aware. The French advance of the Chasseurs Britanniques, I think (it was one of the mongrels, as we called those corps, anyhow), was imposing, heavy, and rapid (I was close to the left of our infantry at the time), but it made not the slightest impression on the regiment in line; on the contrary, the Chasseurs were repulsed with facility and loss.
But to return to our narrative. A party was sent to bury the dead of each regiment as far as possible. For the Rifle Brigade, my brother Charles was for the duty. In gathering the dead bodies, he saw among the dead of our soldiers the body of a French officer of delicate mould and appearance. On examining it, he found it was that of a delicate, young, and handsome female. My story ends here, but such is the fact. What were the circumstances of devotion, passion, or patriotism which led to such heroism, is, and ever will be, to me a mystery. Love, depend upon it.
That afternoon we moved forward by the Nivelles road. I had to go into my General’s room. I was not aware he was there, and entered abruptly. He was changing his shirt, when I saw he had received a most violent contusion on his right arm. It was fearfully swelled (in those days our coat-sleeves were made very large), and as black as ebony from the shoulder to the wrist. “My dear General,” I said, “what an arm! I did not know you had been wounded.” “No, nor you never would, if accident had not shown you.” He made me promise to say nothing, about which I compromised by saying, “To no one but to a surgeon, whom you must see. An arm in that state, if inflammation succeed, might slough, and you would lose it.” The General would not see a surgeon, and thank God he got well.
But turn we now to the poor wife. I left her at daylight on the 18th, prepared to get on her horse and go to Brussels, to await the result of the storm of war which I had prepared her for. Her tale of wonder must form a separate and distinct narrative.
XXV. JUANA’S STORY.[75]
When the troops had moved forward on the morning of the 18th June, I, as you directed, got on my horse and went to Brussels, intending to await the result of the pending battle. On arrival I found my baggage and servant in the great square, and an order had just arrived for the whole of the baggage of the army to move on the road towards Antwerp, and afterwards to cross the canal about five miles from Brussels, at a village on the Antwerp side. On reaching the village I dismounted, the baggage was unloaded, and West was endeavouring to get something for me to eat in the inn. It was about five o’clock. Suddenly an alarm was given that the enemy was upon us. West brought my mare to the door as quickly as I could run downstairs, but from the noise, confusion, and everything, my horse was perfectly frantic. West succeeded in tossing me up, but my little pug, Vitty, was still below. I said, “Now, West, give me my dog;” when, as he put her into my lap, I dropped my reins. West, knowing I always gathered up my reins before I jumped up, let go, and off flew the mare with such speed that, with the dog in my lap, it was all I could do for some time to keep my seat. I had the snaffle rein in my hand, but I could not restrain her; the curb rein was flying loose, and I couldn’t stoop to get hold of it. She flew with me through the streets of Malines, across a bridge over the river, the road full of horses and baggage, still flying away, away, until I was perfectly out of breath. I saw a waggon upset lying immediately before me across the road, and I knew that if I could not turn her on one side, I must inevitably be knocked to pieces. The mare would not answer my snaffle rein, and I felt her charge the waggon as at a fence to leap it. The height was beyond the spring of my horse. As the animal endeavoured to leap, the loose curb rein caught. This brought her at once to a halt, and I was precipitated on her head, pug and all. I had come at this rate eight miles, over a road covered with mud and dirt. The mare was as much out of breath as I was. I managed to get back into the saddle, and felt that now was my only chance to get hold of the curb. I succeeded in doing so, and we were then on terms of equality.
Having righted my habit, I looked back and saw some five or six men on horseback, whom of course I construed into French Dragoons, although, if I had considered a moment, I should have known that no Dragoon could have come the pace I did; but I was so exhausted, I exclaimed, “Well, if I am to be taken, I had better at once surrender.” The first horseman proved to be one of my servants, riding one of the Newmarket horses, having taken the animal from West against his orders. The others were a Commissary, an officer of the Hanoverian Rifles, and an officer, I regret to say, of our own Hussars. I addressed myself to the Hussar, who appeared the oldest of the party. “Pray, sir, is there any danger?” (I had forgotten almost all the little English I knew in my excitement.) “Danger, mum! When I left Brussels the French were in pursuit down the hill.” “Oh, sir, what shall I do?” “Come on to Antwerp with me.” He never pulled up. During the whole conversation we were full gallop. One of the party says, “You deserve no pity. You may well be fatigued carrying that dog. Throw it down.” I was very angry, and said I should deserve no pity if I did.
Our pace soon brought us to Antwerp, where the Hussar was very civil, and tried to get me a room in one of the hotels. This he soon found was impossible, as all the English visitors at Brussels had fled there. We must now go to the Hôtel de Ville and try for a billet. Whilst standing there, the officer having gone inside, I was an object of curious attention. I was wet from head to foot with the black mud of the high-road. On my face the mud had dried, and a flood of tears chasing each other through it down my cheeks must have given me an odd appearance indeed. While standing on horseback there, an officer of the English garrison, whom I did not know (he must have learnt my name from my servant) addressed me by name. “Mrs. Smith, you are in such a terrible plight, and such is the difficulty of your getting in anywhere, if you will come with me, I will conduct you to Colonel Craufurd, the Commandant of the Citadel; his wife and daughters are most kind and amiable people, and readily, I know, would they contribute with happiness anything to your comfort.” My situation was not one to stand on delicacy. I therefore promptly accepted this offer, leaving my kind Hussar in the Hôtel de Ville. When I arrived, nothing could exceed the kindness of all, which was as striking at the moment as it seems to me now. I was stripped from a weight of mud which, with my long riding-habit, I could hardly move under. A shower of hot water again showed my features, and I was put in the clothes of good Mrs. Craufurd, a very tall woman; and in these comfortable dry clothes I was nearly as much lost as in the case of mud I had been washed out of.
The hospitality of this night ought to have soothed me, but the agony of hope, doubt, and fear I was in absorbed every other feeling, although I was so sensible of kindness.
The next day [19 June] the officer who had so kindly brought me to Colonel Craufurd came to tell me a great quantity of baggage was momentarily arriving: could I give him any directions or clue to find mine? In about an hour he returned with my spare horses, old trusty West, who had never left anything behind, my baggage, and my maid.
In the afternoon we heard of the battle having been fought and won, but no news of my husband. So, contrary to the wishes of my kind host and hostess, I ordered my horse to be ready at three o’clock in the morning to rejoin my husband, whatever shape fate had reduced him to. It was all I could do to resist the importunity of those kind people who wished me to remain. But at three o’clock [20 June] West and I were on horseback, desiring baggage, servants, and horses to follow. In conversation with West, I ascertained that at the village we fled from, my mattrass, and in it my dressing-case (bought on a Sunday at Weeks’[76]) with all my fortune, two Napoleons, had been left in the inn. When I arrived, I asked the landlord of the little wretched inn about it. He pretended he knew nothing, but old cunning West got information in the stable-yard, and gave a boy five francs to conduct him to the hayloft where my treasure was. West soon transported what he called ours to me, and upon opening it, I found my important dressing-case there untouched. I had something in the shape of breakfast. In the mean time my servants had arrived, the lost mattrass was restored to the baggage, and West and I, in light marching order, started for Brussels. We were only five miles away, and arrived by seven in the morning.
Seeing some of our Rifle soldiers, with an eagerness which may be imagined, I asked after my husband, when to my horror they told me that Brigade-Major Smith of the 95th was killed. It was now my turn to ask the “Brass Mare” to gallop, and in a state approaching desperation I urged her to the utmost speed for the field of battle to seek my husband’s corpse. The road from Brussels to the field almost maddened me, with wounded men and horses, and corpses borne forward to Brussels for interment, expecting as I was every moment to see that of my husband, knowing how he was beloved by officers and soldiers. The road was nearly choked which was to lead me to the completion, as I hoped, of my life; to die on the body of the only thing I had on earth to love, and which I loved with a faithfulness which few can or ever did feel, and none ever exceeded. In my agony of woe, which of course increased as my expectations were not realized (it was now Tuesday), I approached the awful field of Sunday’s carnage, in mad search of Enrique. I saw signs of newly dug graves, and then I imagined to myself, “O God, he has been buried, and I shall never again behold him!” How can I describe my suspense, the horror of my sensations, my growing despair, the scene of carnage around me? From a distance I saw a figure lying; I shrieked, “Oh, there he is!” I galloped on. “No, it is not he! Find him I will, but whither shall I turn?” O ye in peaceful homes, with every comfort around you, you wonder how I did not sink under my afflictions, a foreigner in a strange land, thus at once bereft of my all! I will tell you. Educated in a convent, I was taught to appeal to God through Jesus Christ. In this my trouble I did so. At this moment, as a guardian angel, a dear and mutual friend, Charlie Gore, A.D.C. to Sir James Kempt, appeared to me. In my agony and hope, hope alone of finding the body, I exclaimed, “Oh, where is he? Where is my Enrique?” “Why, near Bavay by this time, as well as ever he was in his life; not wounded even, nor either of his brothers.” “Oh, dear Charlie Gore, why thus deceive me? The soldiers tell me Brigade-Major Smith is killed. Oh, my Enrique!” “Dearest Juana, believe me; it is poor Charles Smyth, Pack’s Brigade-Major. I swear to you, on my honour, I left Harry riding Lochinvar in perfect health, but very anxious about you.” “Oh, may I believe you, Charlie! my heart will burst.” “Why should you doubt me?” “Then God has heard my prayer!” This sudden transition from my depth of grief and maddening despair was enough to turn my brain, but Almighty God sustained me. Gore told me he had returned to Brussels to see poor Charlie Beckwith, who had lost, or must lose, his leg; and that he was then in the act of looking for the grave of our mutual friend, poor Charlie Eeles. Gore said, “I am now going to Mons: can you muster strength to ride with me there?” I said, “Strength? yes, for anything now!” and we reached Mons at twelve o’clock at night. I had been on the same horse since three in the morning, and had ridden a distance from point to point of sixty miles; and after all the agony, despair, relief, and happiness I had gone through in one day, I ate something, and lay down until daylight next morning [21 June], when I rapidly pushed on to Bavay, on my really wonderful thoroughbred mare.
I first met Sir John Lambert, who showed me where Enrique was to be found. Until I saw him, I could not persuade myself he was well, such a hold had my previous horror taken of my every thought and feeling. Soon, O gracious God, I sank into his embrace, exhausted, fatigued, happy, and grateful—oh, how grateful!—to God who had protected him, and sustained my reason through such scenes of carnage, horror, dread, and belief in my bereavement.
[Narrative resumed.]
I was afterwards told all this, and I could not but reflect on what we had all gone through since the morning we had parted with my father, and how his prediction of a terrific struggle had been verified. Our adventures formed the subject of a long letter, and from him came one soon after.
“Never did I receive two letters with such pleasure as your two last after the glorious Battle of Waterloo. For three of you, my sons, to have been so hotly engaged, and to have come off unhurt, must not have been chance or fate; but Providence seems to have watched over you all and protected you. How grateful ought we all to be to the Almighty God! I assure you my prayers have ever been offered up to the Throne of Grace for the protection of you all, and a safe return to England.”
This letter is now on my table before me, fresh as when written,[77] while the author, God bless him, has mixed with the earth to which all must return. He lived to the age of 87, and died in Sept. 1843, a strong and healthy man until within a few months of his dissolution. It is difficult to say whether he was the more proud of having three sons at Waterloo, or grateful to Almighty God for their preservation.
Chapter XXVI
MARCH TO PARIS—HARRY SMITH QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL OF THE RESERVE—HE BECOMES LIEUT.-COLONEL AND C.B.—THE 6TH DIVISION MOVED FROM NEUILLY TO ST. GERMAIN—THE DUC DE BERRI AS A SPORTSMAN—ON THE REDUCTION OF THE 6TH DIVISION HARRY SMITH REJOINS HIS REGIMENT AS CAPTAIN—MARCH TO CAMBRAY—HE IS MADE MAJOR DE PLACE OF THAT TOWN.
Our march to Paris was unaccompanied by anything to relate except that I had a gallop round Mons and a good look on Malplaquet, but could picture to myself no position, while I felt as a soldier standing on the classic ground of the gallant achievements of my country and our former army of heroes (for I regard Marlborough and Wellington as the greatest men England or the world ever produced). But the latter days of Wellington are as conspicuous for ability and energy as the days of his youth. Poor Marlborough dwindled into imbecility, and became a miser. To Wellington his country has ever been enthusiastically grateful, while Marlborough, by ill-treatment, was driven into voluntary banishment. Although I love Wellington with a fervour which cannot be exceeded, I pray my God he may never outlive his mental faculties, but leave this world and the country and cause he has so eminently served while that world and country are still in admiration and wonder. Alava, the Spanish General, so attached and devoted to the Duke (by-the-bye, he was a Captain of a Spanish battleship or frigate, I forget which), told me and Juana two years after the Battle of Waterloo that the night after that eventful day, the Duke got back to his quarters at Waterloo about nine or ten at night. The table was laid for the usual number, while none appeared of the many of his staff but Alava and Fremantle. The Duke said very little, ate hastily and heartily, but every time the door opened he gave a searching look, evidently in the hope of some of his valuable staff approaching. When he had finished eating, he held up both hands in an imploring attitude and said, “The hand of Almighty God has been upon me this day,” jumped up, went to his couch, and was asleep in a moment. At this period he was not aware of the extent of his wonderful victory.
When we approached the capital, we found the French army strongly posted in a position near St. Denis and the previously shamefully abandoned post of Mont Martre. From this position we expected to have to drive them, but a day or two’s suspense relieved us. In a day or two we went to see the entrée of Louis into Paris—a humble spectacle indeed compared to the magnitude of the struggle that brought it about.
Lieut.-General Sir Lowry Cole had now arrived to take the command of the 6th Division, previously under Lambert. The 5th, 6th, and Brunswickers composed the Reserve, about 17,000, Sir James Kempt, the senior General, commanding; whose Quartermaster-General, Sir William Gomm, gave all orders for marching, bivouac, etc. Now it became my province to do so, and I never felt more proud than in having the movement and arrangement of march of 17,000 soldiers.
Our army was in the environs of Paris, the 5th Division at Clichy, the 6th at Neuilly, the Brunswickers near Clichy. The house I and my wife occupied in the town of Neuilly we found was a sort of country residence belonging to a nice old lady in Paris. There was a beautiful and most productive garden, and an establishment of regular gardeners. When I sent for the head man and desired him to take to his mistress the vegetables he was accustomed to send her, and to obey her orders, whatever they were, he was thunderstruck. I said, “If the garden is not kept in real good order, then I will show you what an Englishman is.” The poor old lady, hearing this, came out to thank us, and we often dined with her in Paris. She lived in great style, and was of use to my wife in showing her milliners, etc., for a refit à la mode was necessary.
Our life was now one of continued pleasure and excitement—nothing but parties at night and races by day. At these I was steward. The crowd of foreign officers being very unruly in riding in after the race-horses, I put some proper fellows of soldiers at the distance-post (who, having resisted many a charge of French cavalry, cared little for an unarmed galloping man), with orders to run the rope across to stop this disorder. My orders were obeyed, as I expected, and that gallant hero, Marshal Blucher, not seeing the rope, rode his horse full speed against it and fell, and in the crash the noble old fellow broke his collar-bone, to my annoyance and distress.
While one day walking in my garden at Neuilly, my old friend Tom Fane, who had come to Paris as one of the sight-seers, came full gallop up to me and Juana, “Hurrah, Harry, the Gazette has arrived! You are Lieutenant-Colonel, and here is a case for you; it has some order in it, I think. I found it at the Military Secretary’s office, and, being to your address, brought it. Let me open it.” It was the Order of Companion of the Bath, which pleased poor Tom more than it did me. Thus again had I and Juana cause to be grateful to Almighty God, not only for perfect safety, but for worldly distinction and promotion. It was barely fourteen months since the Battle of Toulouse. I had crossed the Atlantic to and from America four times; fought a gallant action, and captured the metropolis of that world; brought home dispatches, and received £500; was in communication with ministers, and honoured by a long audience of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent; again went out; again was under fire for three weeks, and in the sanguinary disaster at New Orleans; was in the Battle of Waterloo, and had been promoted from Captain to Lieut.-Colonel and Companion of the Bath; without a wound; restored to my wife in health and contentment, and nothing to distress or annoy me beyond the loss and wounds of so many gallant and dear friends. Cold must that heart be which could not feel to its inmost core God Almighty’s providence.
While in our cantonments around Paris we had frequent reviews with Emperors, Kings, etc., as spectators, and nothing could exceed the style and bearing of our army. The conduct, too, was exemplary. The taking down of the horses from Venice, from the Place du Carrousel; the execution of poor Ney, that hero of reality, not romance; the desire of Blucher to destroy the bridge of Jena, which the Duke of Wellington prevented; the escape of La Vallette, etc., kept us all in a state of excitement, while the lions of Paris, then the entrepôt of every article of value in the arts, afforded daily occupation. Not a valuable picture in Europe but was in the Place du Carrousel. It was my delight to stand, often an hour at a time, looking at Paul Potter’s small painting of the bull and the peasant behind the tree, and I have been so fascinated I have expected the bull to charge.
[Illustration: LIEUT.-COLONEL HARRY SMITH.
From a picture painted in Paris in 1815. [Opposite p. 294.]
In the autumn [1815] it became necessary to move the army into more permanent quarters, and my Division, the 6th, was sent to St. Germain, that magnificent and ancient resort of former kings. The woods were in perfect order, and cut into beautiful foci and avenues like radii of circles, for hunting in the French style. The Duke de Berri had hounds, and was passionately fond of the sport. The stag was turned out, there were relays of hounds in couples, and huntsmen of various denominations with large French horns, all in a costume de chasse, with large cocked hats and a couteau de chasse by their sides. The carriages, full of ladies of the court and others, assembled in one of the foci, or centres, from which the avenues radiated. When the stag crossed into another part of the wood, the carriages galloped to the “focus” of that part of the forest where the hunt was now going on, and such a crash of horns as there was to denote that the stag had changed his direction! The Duke went galloping up and down the avenues, changing very frequently from one fat brute of a horse to another. My wife and I, who went out every day and galloped after the Duke, an ill-tempered fellow, up and down the avenues, were barely able to keep our real good hunters warm. It was, however, capital fun, although foreign to our ideas of hunting. I always fancied myself a figure in a tapestry, hunting being a favourite subject for that kind of delineation.
At the mort (or death), or when the stag was at bay, there was always a great row of horns and shouting, but no dog-language. On one occasion the stag, a noble animal, was at bay, and fiercely contending with the hounds. The Duke de Berri jumped off his horse and drew his couteau de chasse, making great demonstration of going up to the stag, while his courtiers were screeching, “Oh, monsieur, monsieur, prenez garde, pour l’amour de Dieu.” He reminded me of the Irish hero, “Hold me, Jim; you know my temper,” for the Duke had no real idea of doing anything of the sort, although, when the poor noble animal had been shot by some of the piqueurs, the Duke then ran in valorously and dipped his couteau in the beautiful animal’s chest. For this feat a lot of us were determined to play the Duke a trick, and the next hunting-day we contrived to break down the paling of the forest and to induce the stag to bolt. We succeeded to our hearts’ content, and away into the open went stag safe enough, the hounds in no wind after him. The Duke and all his equipage were soon planted, and he was in a furious passion. The couteau de chasse was not required that day.
The most ridiculous thing is that they do not let the hounds “tear him and eat him” while their blood is up. The stag is taken to the kennel and skinned, and all the meat cut into small pieces and put again into the hide, and the hounds then, in this cold-blooded way, rush at a mess, instead of the whole pack, in a state of excitement, falling on the hunted animal reeking with fatigue.
We were all amused one day at observing a man elegantly mounted on an English horse in the full costume of the French chasse (couteau, etc.), when who should this be but our own dear Duke! He looked so neat and smart, and we had such a laugh. He himself had a beautiful pack of hounds and some boxed stags, which gave runs sometimes, but he was not of the age for a sportsman.
About this time I and Will Havelock set on foot a pack of foxhounds. We sent to England for hounds. The numbers of our pack being thirteen couple, we sent to Brussels for [five couple more] from the Prince of Orange’s establishment. This pack afterwards became a capital one.
On the conclusion of the treaty between the Allied Powers and France, by which an Army of Occupation was designated to remain on the northern boundary of France for three or five years, the large armies (except their quota of the contingent) marched back to their respective countries. Of the British Army four Divisions alone were to remain. Mine was reduced, and being no longer on the staff, I joined my regiment. Some of my old comrades said to Charlie Beckwith, who had also joined, “Now, how will Harry Smith, after a career of such extended authority, like to come back to the command of a Company?” Charlie says (for he loved me), “In the execution of his duty and care of his Company he will be an example to us all.”
My corps was moved again into the environs of Paris preparatory to its march to the north. I was now visited by the deepest distress and grief, for three days expecting the death of all I loved and cherished—my dear wife. Nothing but vigour of mind and a good constitution saved her. I had encountered many previous difficulties, dangers, and disasters, but never aught like this. God in His continued mercy spared her to me. Praised be His Name.
She was scarcely fit to move when we marched from Paris to Louvres [16 Jan. 1816] and an adjacent village. My Company went to Vernais. We were again under Sir John Lambert, who had been moved from one Brigade to another. My wife drove herself in my tilbury; I marched with my men. We had a large cold château as a quarter, with a very civil landlord. I had with me the hounds—eighteen couple. He put them up most kindly, and appeared delighted—so much so that I had no delicacy in asking him to get me a dead horse or to buy a dying brute for a few shillings. To my astonishment, he regarded the request as a direct insult. It was all I could do to make him understand I had no idea of offending. He was with difficulty appeased, but I saw he never forgot the dead horse, any more than the Antiquary’s nephew the “phoca or seal.”
From hence we marched to Cambray, around which place and Valenciennes the greater part of the army was to be cantoned. Three fortresses were to be garrisoned by us. The Duke’s head-quarters were to be at Cambray. One day Major Balvaird came to me. He was my commanding officer (I being only a Brevet Lieut. Colonel and Captain under his command). He was an excellent fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever lived, a bosom friend, and a Scotchman with a beautiful accent. “Weel, Harry, mi mon, the deevil is in it. I have an order to send a Captain to the depôt at Shorncliffe. You are the first for my duty, my lad. You canna be more hurt at being ordered than I am to order you. So be prepared. There is a just ane chance for you, but you must be prepared.” My mortification was excessive, for with my habits, hounds, horses, and wife, etc., the income I should get in England was not at all to my desire. However, I said nothing to my wife, always hoping something might turn up.
On the march one night my Company was in a wretched little village, my quarters a miserable dirty little farmhouse. On any other occasion I should have cared more than my wife herself, but she was still very delicate, and I was awfully afraid of a relapse. It was February, and the cold very severe. In watching her, I did not go to sleep until just before it was time to jump up and march, when I had a curious dream that the Duke of Wellington sent for me and said, “Smith, I have two staff-appointments to give away, you shall have one,” and that as I went out, poor Felton Hervey, the Military Secretary, said, “You are a lucky fellow, Harry, for the one you are to have is the most preferable by far.” I told my wife this dream, and said, “Mark my words if it does not turn out to be true.”
On reaching our cantonment at Bourlon, a little beyond Cambray, I had just put up my Company when General Lambert sent for me. “Smith,” he says, “I am ordered to send a field officer to Cambray, who, in conjunction with an officer of Engineers, is to take over Cambray, its guns, stores, etc., from the French Commander and Engineers. It may lead to something further. I therefore wish you to start at daylight; the duty is important.” His wish was my law. Off I started. I had scarcely completed the transfer when the General Orders were put into my hand in which I saw I was appointed Major de Place, or Town-Major of Cambray, and Charlie Beckwith Major de Place of Valenciennes, each with the pay or allowance of Assistant Quartermaster-General, to which department we were to report. Thus my dream was verified, for, as Cambray was headquarters, and I had none of that horrid duty, billeting on the inhabitants, which was attached to Valenciennes (the headquarters A.Q.M.G. being desired to do it), I was given the better place of the two, as Hervey said in my dream.
Chapter XXVII
CAMBRAY, 1816-1818—SPORT AND GAIETY—THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON—HARRY SMITH RECEIVES A VISIT FROM HIS FATHER.
Soon after our establishment at Cambray, I received a note from one of His Grace’s Aides-de-Camp. “The Duke desires you will come to him immediately, and bring with you the sheet of Cassini’s map of the environs of Cambray.” Fortunately I had this map. I asked myself what in the name of wonder the Duke could want. Off I cut. “Well, Smith, got the map?” I opened it. “Now, where is my château?” “Here, my lord.” “Ah, the coverts are very well shown here. Are there foxes in all these?” “Yes, my lord, too many in every one.” “Well, then, hounds must always know their own country”—he drew his finger as a line across the map. “Now, your hounds hunt that side, mine this.”
On one occasion, when Lord Castlereagh was staying with His Grace, the former wanted to see some coursing in France, and about 2 o’clock in the afternoon the Duke sent for me to bring some greyhounds. We went out, and were lucky in finding, and killed a brace. I never saw a man in such spirits as the Duke. He rode like a whipper-in.
I once trained some greyhounds for the Duke, almost puppies, against some of the same age which that noble fellow, Sir Edward Barnes had bred. We were to meet near the Duke’s château, where there were plenty of hares. We had great sport to beat Sir Edward every match. My wife rode her “Brass” seventeen miles before we looked for a hare. The Duke made her one of his umpires. She rode every course, and back again at night.
Poor Felton Hervey was prejudiced against Spanish greyhounds, and he and the present Duke of Richmond got out some English hounds to the Peninsula to beat my celebrated “Moro,” which Harry Mellish, a gallant hero alike as soldier and sportsman, declared the best dog he ever saw in his life. Of course the English dogs had no chance.
While at Cambray I had two dogs, sons of the “Moro,” and we had a great coursing party—the Duke of Wellington, Lord Hill (who had beautiful English greyhounds), Sir Hussey Vivian, etc. We were near the Duke’s château, where there were plenty of right good hares. Hervey objected to my Spaniards running. We had been coursing all day and not a hare was killed, so I rode up to the Duke and said, “My lord, this won’t do. A hare must be killed to go to the château.” The Duke said, “Ah! but how?” “My Spaniards should kill you a hare, my lord.” The sun was almost down. Felton Hervey says, “Lord Hill’s ‘Laura’ and ‘Rattler’ shall get a hare. We will put them in slips; Smith shall call ‘Loo,’ and if they don’t kill their hare, then let the Moro blood try, and I will halloo them out of their slips.” At it we went. A hare jumped up under the nose of Lord Hill’s dogs. I hallooed. The hare hadn’t twenty yards’ law. “Ah,” says the Duke, “you gave the hare no chance.” “Plenty, my lord. They won’t kill her.” After a terrific course she fairly beat them. Hervey was very angry. It was nearly dark, when hares run like devils. My dogs, two brothers, were in the slips. So late in the evening hares are sly. One jumped up sixty yards off, and Hervey hallooed. The honesty of the field went with me, and all sung out, “Shame, Hervey! your dogs were close to their hare.” “Never mind,” I said. “My lord, you shall have the hare.” I was on that wonderful horse Lochinvar, and never did I so ask him to go along. My dogs soon closed with their hare, when I knew, if they once turned her with such a law, she was ours. We had a terrific course, and killed her in a bank, within three yards of a covert where she would have been safe. I galloped back in triumph with my hare, for not a horse could live with Lochinvar, and I threw the hare down at his Grace’s feet. Hervey was furious, and insisted that I and Lochinvar acted third greyhound. I did not, and I gained accordingly. The Duke laughed, and turned round to go home, saying, “Thank you for the hare, Smith. We should have gone home without one but for your Spanish greyhounds.”
Coming home from riding one afternoon, I overtook the Duke on the bank of the canal, all alone. When I rode up I must either pass him, or saddle myself on him as companion, neither of which etiquette or delicacy tolerated. After my usual salutation, the Duke, with his brilliant imagination in trifles as well as things of moment, said, “If not in a hurry, ride home with me.” After a little talk about hounds, greyhounds, etc., he said, “What! no dogs with you?” I said, “On Sundays, my lord, I never take them out.” “Very proper,” he said, “although I fear in our late struggle we respected Sunday but little. All our great battles were fought on that holy day which ought to be.” “Yes,” said I, “my lord, so was Trafalgar, and so was that dire disaster, New Orleans.” “Was it?” he said. “You were there, were you not?” “Indeed was I, my lord.” His Grace never mentioned dear Sir Edward Pakenham, and of course I never did, although my heart was full of him. “Tell me all about it.” I did so. “What! the troops stood and fired in column, did they? What corps?” I named them. “Ah,” he said, “they had not been accustomed to victory, but it was quite right to keep two such corps as the 7th Fusiliers and the 43rd in reserve.” “We ought not to have landed where we did, my lord.” “Certainly not,” he said. “I was consulted about those lakes, and I immediately asked, ‘Is there navigation there for purposes of trade?’ When I was answered ‘No,’ I said, ‘Then it is injudicious to use them to land an army, and craft of any size will never get up to land the troops.’”
I had received and carried many orders from his Grace, but of course never held a military conversation with him before. I was never so struck as by the pointed questions he asked and the more rapid questions my answers elicited. In half an hour’s ride he was perfectly acquainted with all I could tell him, and said, “I am glad I have had this conversation with you. It agrees as nearly as may be with the opinion I had previously formed. If you are not engaged, you and Juana come and dine with me to-day. Her friend Alava will be there.” I was as proud as may be, because I knew by this his Grace was satisfied with my explanation. How I longed to tell him how I loved and admired his brother-in-law, Sir Edward Pakenham! But although I talked of “the General,” I never made use of the magic word (to me at least) “Pakenham.”
One night, at a great ball at the Duke’s, the Prince and Princess Narinska were present, and a lot of Russian and Cossack officers. The Princess was the only Russian lady, a very beautiful and accomplished woman. The Duke wished that the mazurka should be danced in compliment to her, but none of our ladies would stand up with the Princess. So the Duke came up to my wife, and took her hand: “Come, Juana, now for the Russian fandango; you will soon catch the step.” A young Russian came forward as her partner. The Princess danced elegantly, and the Duke was as anxious as I was that Juana should acquit herself well. She did, and he was as pleased as possible.
The Duke was in great spirits in those days, and whenever he was surrounded by Emperors and Kings he showed himself the great man that he was. His attention to them was most marked, but we ever observed that his Grace felt he was the representative of our King and country, and we could see the majesty and still the delicacy with which he conducted himself.
On one occasion the King of Prussia begged to see as many of the British Army by themselves as could be collected, and the majority were assembled not far from the pillar erected by the French in honour of the victory of [Denain[78]], and which was equally in honour of the Duke of Marlborough. (The French never gained a battle until [Marlborough] was so madly taken away by the intrigues of the British Government.) The King arrived much before his time, and our troops were not formed to receive him. The Duke’s quick eye detected his approach in the distance, and he says, “Hallo, Fremantle, there he is! He will be upon us before we are ready, and we can’t keep him back with picquets. Ride up and make him take a long détour until you see we are ready, although a few minutes will suffice us.” Our troops were in position like lightning, and it was beautiful to see the Duke so animated, so cool, so proud of his Army and the rapidity with which we all moved to act up to his wishes. He was altogether very popular with his Army, but not so much so as after Toulouse. He felt that everything that occurred at his headquarters must be a precedent for the guidance of all the Armies he was in command of, and he was frequently rigid, as it seemed, to extremes, particularly in all cases of disputes between officers and the French inhabitants. At Cambray it was part of my duty to receive all complaints, and, generally speaking, our own people were the aggressors. When the French were, his Grace demanded that their authorities should make an equal example. This correct principle of action was as highly extolled by all thinking men as it deserved, especially as the French had degraded themselves all over the world (except in dear old England which we protected) by acts of cruelty, oppression, and tyranny towards the inhabitants. The Duke said, “We are Englishmen and pride ourselves on our deportment, and that pride shall not be injured in my keeping.” On parting with his Army, he thanked the British contingent after all the others. “He begs them to accept his best acknowledgments for the example they have given to others by their own good conduct, and for the support and assistance they have invariably afforded him to maintain the discipline of the Army.” This I thought at the time, and I do so more now, was the highest compliment his Grace could pay us. We had saved Europe, and now we were thanked for our conduct in quarters, when in occupation of the country of our enemy, who had been the oppressors of the world; although, as good does come out of evil, so has Europe been wonderfully improved owing to the liberal principles moderately derived from the madness of French democracy.
Our life in Cambray was one excess of gaiety. My dear old friend and commander, Sir Andrew Barnard, had been appointed Commandant, so that, surrounded by my old generals, friends, and comrades, I was at home at once. We were both young; my wife was beautiful. We were fêted and petted by every one. I was the huntsman of a magnificent pack of hounds, steward of races, riding steeplechases, etc. My wife was taken the greatest notice of by every one, especially by the Duke, who, having known her as a child, always called her his Spanish heroine, Juana. She rode beautifully hunting, was the best of waltzers, and sang melodiously. We were surrounded by the best society. All England’s nobility poured forth to see the lion of the day, the Dukes headquarters. No wonder that in the midst of this gaiety and in this land of plenty, after the life of hardship and privation which we had led, we should have been somewhat intoxicated by the scene around us, and I spent a lot of money which, had I saved it prudently, would have now nearly accumulated to a fortune. I had prize-money for the Peninsula, for Washington, and for Waterloo paid at this period. I had money left me by my grandmother. All went as fast as I could get it.
In 1817, I and a friend went to look over the field of Waterloo. The wood of Hougoumont had been cut down, which very much altered the appearance of the ground, as did the want of troops, etc. To those unaccustomed to look at ground with and without troops, the difference cannot well be explained. I trod, however, upon this immortal field with a thrilling sensation of gratitude to Almighty God, first for personal safety and for the additional honour and glory my country’s Army had acquired there, and next for the beneficial results to Europe ensured by the achievement of that wonderful battle. The left of the position as well as the centre was as during the battle, with the exception of the many tombs and monuments erected to mark the spots where lay interred so many gallant spirits, and many is the burning tear I shed over the mounds of some of my dearest friends, many of England’s brightest sons and rising soldiers. No one can feel what a soldier does on such a spot, especially one who was in the midst of the strife. But nothing struck me so forcibly as the small extent of the field. It appeared impossible that so many thousands of troops could have contended on so constricted a space, the one spot on earth which decided the fate of Emperors and Kings, and the future destiny of nations.
Every year we had a grand review of the whole Army of the contingencies. One year the Duke of Kent was the Review-Marshal. The last year of occupation, viz. the third, we had an immense sham-fight, which ended on the heights of Fimare, where the Army passed in review [23 Oct.] the Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, the Grand Duke Constantine, the Grand Duke Michael, etc. In the course of the day the Duke, riding with their Majesties, saw Juana. He called her up and presented her to the Emperor of Russia, “Voilà, Sire, ma petite guerrière espagnole qui a fait la guerre avec son mari comme la héroine de Saragosse.” The Emperor shook her hands, and asked her to ride for some time with him as she spoke French fluently, when he put a variety of questions to her about the war in Spain, all of which she could answer as intelligently as most officers. At night she danced with the Grand Duke Michael, an excellent waltzer. When the Emperor’s courtiers observed the attention paid by the Emperor to my wife, they sought out the husband. I was in my Rifle uniform. One fellow said, “Are you aware to whom Madame has had the honour to be presented?” “To be sure,” I said, saucily, “and by whom—the greatest man in the world.”
That night, riding into Valenciennes on the pavé, both sides of the road being covered with troops marching to their cantonments, it was very cold, and I was clapping my hands on my shoulders, à l’anglaise, when my wife says, “You have lost your Star of the Bath.” I had felt something catch in the lace of my sleeve, so I turned back. A column of Russian Cuirassiers were marching over the ground I had traversed, and the sides of the road being excessively dusty, I said to myself, “What nonsense! I can never find it,” and was in the act of turning back to my wife, when a flat-footed dickey dragoon horse, having set his hollow foot upon it, tossed it under my horse’s nose out of the dust upon the pavé. It is a most ridiculous occurrence to record, but my astonishment at the time was excessive. The star was bruised by the horse’s foot, in which shape I wore it twenty-nine years.
The period of occupation was now reduced to three years, and the Army was prepared to withdraw—to our mortification, for we should have been delighted with two years more. It was now, on winding up my private accounts which had been miserably neglected, I discovered my money was far exceeded by my debts. I therefore, as one of my auxiliaries, put up to raffle, for 250 napoleons, a celebrated thoroughbred horse, the Young Lochinvar, by Grouse, out of Dab Chick, Vandyke’s dam. This horse I had bought for a large sum in my native town, just before the Battle of Waterloo, from a gentleman who had bought him at Newmarket for an immense price and whose circumstances compelled him to become a bankrupt. My father was aware of his pending situation, and just on the eve of it bought Lochinvar. I had ridden him hunting three years; he was the only horse in the Army that was never planted in the deep fields of France. As a horse he was as celebrated as His Grace was as a General, 16 hands high and equal to 14 stone, It went to my heart to part with him. My wife said, “Oh, I will have a ticket.” “Oh, nonsense, it is only throwing five napoleons away.” However, she had her own way, as wives always have (especially Spanish wives), and, by another piece of my continued good luck, her ticket won the horse, and I had Lochinvar in my stable, while the 245 napoleons readily found claimants. It was a piece of fortune I was very grateful for. I loved the horse, and he carried me in that stiff county of Kent afterwards, as he had ever done elsewhere.
From the day on which I presented my billet to my landlord in Cambray, I was much struck with his manly bearing and open conduct. He was a man of a large family, a Monsieur Watin, and his brother, also with a family, resided with him. He showed me all his house and his stables (he had built a kitchen and servants’ rooms for any one who should be quartered on him). He said, “In this life, happiness is not to be attained, but it must not be impeded. I am aware of the way French officers behave in quarters. I hear you English are less exigeant. This part of the house I reserve for myself and my brother, the rest I give to you.” And I certainly had the best, for he only reserved to himself one sitting-room. I said, “I have more than enough.” “No, no,” he said, “when you give a soirée you shall have this too.” I was three years in his house, and I never had a word with either him or any member of his family. On the contrary, nothing could be more amicable. In the course of the second year my father came and paid me a visit for near three months. Never was man more happy and delighted. He was fond of field sports and of flowers. The Bishop of Cambray had a magnificent garden, and many an hour did my father spend there. When he arrived, of course I begged him to tell us what he liked best at table. “Oh, anything,” he says, “only take care your French cook does not make the pastry with oil, which I know they do, but with butter.” I had an excellent cook, and I told him to be careful about his pastry, which was, of course, made with oil. Every day my father praised the pastry. After some weeks I let him into the secret. “Ah,” says he, “such through life is prejudice.” He was far from disliking French wines. The day he left us—“Well it is very true that you and the poor man of the house live very friendly, but you have the whole nearly. I shall go home now and pay my taxes with delight. Even were they double, readily would I pay rather than have such a fellow as you and your establishment quartered on me!” Poor dear father! I had been your pet son. Everything I practised that was manly, you taught me, and to my equestrian powers and activity, which first brought me into notice, did I owe my rapid rise in the service.
[Illustration: JOHN SMITH.
(Sir Harry Smith’s father.)
From a picture painted by J. P. Hunter, Somersham, Hunts, May, 1837.
[Opposite p. 314.]
The day having at length arrived when we were to leave Cambray, [27 Oct.?] Sir Andrew Barnard and I were asked to at least twenty breakfasts. My first was with the family on whom we were billeted, and if they had been our nearest relations no greater feeling could have been evinced. Monsieur Watin was a great carpenter. To him I gave a capital chest of tools, to his brother, who was a sportsman (in his way), I gave one of Manton’s double-barrelled guns, and my wife made many presents to the female part of the family. Then came my nineteen breakfasts with Barnard. We positively sat down a few minutes with all our hosts and ate something; both of us laughing and saying, “We have been together in situations when the sight of such breakfasts would have been far from objectionable, but ‘enough is as good as a feast.’” I never was so tired of the sight of food. I felt as though I never could feel the sensation of hunger again. All this attention, however, was very gratifying, and upon parting with our worthy family, as our carriage drove through the streets, there was nothing but waving of handkerchiefs and adieus. The garrison had marched two days before. The most complimentary letter I ever read was addressed to the Commandant Barnard by the Mayor, a Monsieur Bethune, a Bonapartist too, to the purport that, although every Frenchman must rejoice at the cessation of the foreign occupation of his country, as individuals he and all the city would and must ever remember the English with gratitude for their generosity and liberality, and for the impartial justice ever shown by Barnard during his three years’ Commandantship. In a French fortress the Commandant has far more authority than the Prime Minister in England. Thus we parted from Cambray, where we had had three years’ gaiety amidst the wealth and aristocracy of England, in the country of an enemy that had contended and struggled to subdue our own in a most sanguinary war by sea and land, lasting with but little intermission from 1798 to 1815. The garrison of Cambray was composed of a Brigade of Guards,—the 1st Battalion Grenadiers under Colonel the Hon. William Stewart, and the Coldstreams under Colonel Woodford. I never before or since served with such correct soldiers, and they had the very best non-commissioned officers. There were peculiarities in the mode in which the officers performed their duties, but, according to their own rules, it was a lesson of rectitude, zeal, honour, and manliness. I quite agree with Johnny Kincaid that the officers in our Army who come from our aristocracy are ever most zealous as officers, and certainly most agreeable as companions, and I have now served with most corps of the Army, Hussars, Guards, Infantry, etc.
Chapter XXVIII
RETURN TO ENGLAND (1818)—HARRY SMITH REJOINS HIS REGIMENT—SHORNCLIFFE—GOSPORT—DISCHARGE OF THE PENINSULAR VETERANS.
On reaching Calais I could not avoid calling to memory the British possession of that celebrated fortress, for so many years the bone of contention and strife. All was bustle and embarcation. We embarked in a small vessel [31 Oct.?], and the wind obliged us to go to Ramsgate. The London Custom House had provided for baggage to be examined at Ramsgate as well as at Dover, and nothing could be more liberal and gentlemanlike than the Custom House officers (of course acting under instructions). My wife had an immense box of French dresses which, being all extended on account of the large flounces then worn, required great room. While I was passing my baggage, one of the officers said, “And that large box—what does it contain?” I said, “My wife’s dresses.” “I have not the least doubt of it, sir, as you say so, sir; but I declare I never saw such a box of ladies’ dresses in my life before.” Then came her guitar. “What is this?” “Oh, hand it along, it’s naught but a fiddle.”
The celebrated Cavalry officer, Sir John Elley, a very tall, bony, and manly figure of a man, with grim-visaged war depicted in his countenance, with whiskers, moustaches, etc. like a French Pioneer, came over to Dover during the time of our occupation of France. He was walking on the path, with his celebrated sword belted under his surtout. As the hooking up of the sword gave the coat-flap the appearance of having something large concealed under it, a lower order of Custom officer ran after him, rudely calling, “I say, you officer, you! stop, stop, I say! What’s that under your coat?” Sir John turned round, and drawing his weapon of defence in many a bloody fight, to the astonishment of the John Bulls, roared out through his moustache in a voice of thunder, “That which I will run through your d——d guts, if you are impertinent to me!”
My Regiment was at Shorncliffe, and thither I and my wife proceeded, parting with many friends of the Guards, some of whom she has never seen since. I was given an entirely new Company, that is, one composed of recruits. I interceded with Colonel Norcott, however, to give me a few of my dear old comrades into each squad, and with their help and example I soon inspired the rest with the feelings of soldiers. There was a pack of hounds too in the neighbourhood, and though it is a stiff, bad country, fox-hunting is fox-hunting in any shape, and I had two noble hunters, Lochinvar and a celebrated mare, besides the “Brass Mare” for my wife. My whole income at the moment was my pay, 12_s._ 6_d._ a day. One day, after a capital run with the hounds, Mr. Deedes asked me to dine with him, and I had a post-chaise to go in to dinner, which cost me 17_s._ Thus—
“How happy’s the soldier who lives on his pay, And spends half-a-crown out of sixpence a day!”
My Battalion was ordered to Gosport, and soon after at Shorncliffe, which had been the depôt of the Regiment during the whole war, not a Rifleman was left. I marched [about Dec. 24-28] in command of the Headquarters Division, all our old soldiers. Neither they nor I could help remarking the country as a difficult one to make war in. You would hear the men, “I say, Bill, look at that wood on the hill there and those hedgerows before it. I think we could keep that ourselves against half Soult’s Army. Ah, I had rather keep it than attack it! But, Lord, the war’s all over now.”
When I first joined at Shorncliffe we heard of nothing but “the French are coming over.” We have been in among them, I take it, since. They never could have got to London through such a stiff country. We would have destroyed the roads and cut down the trees to make those d——d things they used to do—abattis[79]; besides, where would be the use of all their capering cavalry, etc.?
During this march, when the men were billeted in the inns and scattered over the country, I could not divest myself of the feeling of insecurity I had acquired after so many years’ precautionary habits; and although I repeated to myself a hundred times daily, “You are in England,” the thought would arise, “You are in the power of your enemy.” Before dismissing the men, I always told them the hour I should march in the morning, and men who were billeted either ahead or on the sides of the road were to join their Companies as I arrived. During the whole march I never had a man absent or irregular. Such a band of practised and educated soldiers may never again traverse England.
My wife posted from Shorncliffe into Sussex—to Beauport, Sir John Lambert’s temporary seat, where the kind family insisted on her staying until I came to fetch her to Gosport, which I did soon after. On arrival at Gosport we were led to believe we should be a year or two there, and we began to (what is called) make ourselves comfortable.
We had a great number of guards and sentries literally over nothing. One night, however, on visiting the different guards and counting them, I found every man present. I asked, “What! no man on sentry?” “Oh no, sir; the 86th, whom we relieved, say they always bring in all sentries at night.” “Why, this is a new way—new to us.” “Certainly,” the sergeants said.
The following day I and two or three officers went to inspect every sentry’s post. We found some with orders “to see that no one took that gun away” (a 32-pounder dismounted), one “to see as them goats did not leave the rampart.” He was one of our soldiers, and I said, “Confound you, did you take such an order from a storekeeper?” He said, “Why, I hardly look on it as a horder, only civil-like of me; and you know, sir, goats were worth looking after at Dough Boy Hill” (near Almaraz, so called from our having nothing to eat for three weeks but dough and goats’ flesh, and very little of either).[80] I represented all this to Lord Howard of Effingham, who very readily entertained the report, and sentries were all taken off, where not required. Colonel Norcott soon after joined.
While we were here 300 of our oldest and best soldiers were discharged. Every one came to say farewell to my wife; and there was a touching parting between officers and soldiers, now about to be dispersed through Great Britain, after so many years’ association under such eventful circumstances. There was not one who could not relate some act of mutual kindness and reciprocity of feeling in connexion with the many memorable events in which they had taken part. I and many of the officers marched several miles on the road with these noble fellows. In the Barrack Square they had prayed me to give them the word of command to march off. “Sure,” says an Irishman, “it’s the last after the thousand your honour has given us.” I did so; but when the moment arrived to part every man’s tears were chasing each other down his bronzed and veteran cheeks. They grasped their officers’ hands,—“God bless your honour!” then such a shout and cheer. Such feelings in times of peace are not, cannot be acquired. My faithful old West was of the party; but he parted from me and his mistress in our house. Poor faithful, noble fellow, as gallant as a lion, he had been with me from Vimiera and Coruña until 1819.
The 18th June, the first anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo which we had spent in England, was such a day throughout the Regiment, with dinners for the soldiers, non-commissioned officers, wives and children. Among the officers there was such a jubilee of mirth, mingled with grief for our lost comrades, as must be conceived, for never was there a Regiment in which harmony and unanimity were more perfect.
In the autumn the manufacturing districts, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, etc., became much disturbed, and our soldiers, who invariably know everything first, insisted on it we should go to Glasgow. My Company was out at target practice with others, when we heard the assembly sound. “Hurrah for Glasgow!” said the men. We all marched home, and found we were to embark on board a man-of-war immediately. By four o’clock that afternoon [18 Sept.] we were all on board the Liffey. Sir James Kempt had succeeded Lord Howard of Effingham in the command at Portsmouth, and proud he was to see one of his old Battalions in peace the same ready soldiers they were in war. My wife remained behind to go in the Spartan frigate, which had been recently fitted up for the Duchess of Kent. The Captain put her up superbly, and she reached Leith Roads in time to join my Company on the march.[81]