Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  But the task was too enormous, as Surgeon Walter Henry describes:

  There lay a frightful heap of fourteen or fifteen hundred British soldiers, many dead but still warm, mixed with the desperately wounded, to whom no assistance could be given. There lay the burned and blackened corpses of those that had perished by the explosions, mixed with those that were torn to pieces by round shot or grape, and killed by musketry, stiffening in their gore, body piled upon body, involved and intermixed into one hideous and enormous mass of carnage; whilst the morning sunbeams, falling on this awful pile, seemed to my imagination pale and lugubrious as during an eclipse. At the foot of the castle wall, where the 3rd Division had escaladed, the dead lay thick, and a great number were to be seen about the San Vincente bastion at the opposite side of the works. A number had been drowned in the cunette of the ditch, near the Trinidad bastion, but the chief slaughter had taken place at the great breach. There stood still the terrific beam across the top, armed with its sharp and bristling sword blades, which no human dexterity or strength could pass without impalement. The smell of burned flesh was yet shockingly strong and disgusting.

  If drink was the prime reason for the poor casualty evacuation, a choice between plunder and rape vied for second. Actually, rape was a term rarely used by our Victorian memorialists: vaguer references to ‘violation by men mad with passion’ and ‘deeply injured females’ being deemed preferable, and quite right too. Few Spanish ladies led a charmed life on the night of 6 April 1812, and the days and nights that followed. There were enough coded references: Costello’s ‘Appalling shrieks of hapless women’, Blakeney’s similar ‘Piercing shrieks of frantic women’, McGrigor’s ‘The shrieks of women’, Cooke’s ‘The poor nuns in deshabille’, Costello’s ‘Two daughters ... the mother too ... dragged from their hiding place ... without dwelling on the frightful scene that followed ...’, Grattan’s ‘Perhaps not one female in this vast town escaped injury’, and McGrigor’s ‘Very few ladies, old or young, escaped violation by our brutal soldiery, mad with brandy and passion.’

  Surgeon McGrigor also related the story of Philippon’s two daughters, and what happened to them – or didn’t – by the 88th (Connaughts):

  In one street, I met General Phillipon, the governor, with his two daughters, holding each by the hand; all three with their hair dishevelled, and with them were two British officers, each holding one of the ladies by the arm, and with their drawn swords making thrusts occasionally at soldiers who attempted to drag the ladies away. I am glad to say that these two British officers succeeded in conveying the governor and his two daughters safely through the breach, to the camp. At any other time, the rank and age of General Phillipon, bare-headed with his grey whiskers streaming in the wind, would have protected him from any soldiers. When I saw them pulling at these two ladies, and endeavouring to drag them away from their father, and two young officers who so gallantly defended them at the peril of their lives, I could not forbear going up, and endeavouring with threat to bring to the recollection of two soldiers of my old regiment, the 88th, how much they tarnished the glory which the Connaught Rangers had ever earned in the field, by such cowardly conduct.

  Philippon was of course a special case, and his daughters ditto; but protection of the fair sex was not entirely absent. The nineteen-year old Joe Donaldson, 94th, tells us ‘Many risked their lives in defending helpless females and although it was rather a dangerous place for an officer to appear, I saw many of them running as much risk to prevent inhumanity, as they did the preceding night in storming the town.’ And then there is the romantic case of Captain Harry Smith, 95th, and the fourteen-year-old Juana Maria De Los Delores De Leon. Kincaid:

  Was sitting at his tent flap outside the town when two young ladies approached. The elder, whose husband was a Spanish officer, begged protection and food. They had been assaulted – blood dripped where ear-rings had been torn out – and their fine house wrecked ... she stood by the side of an angel – A being more transcendently lovely I have never before seen – and one more amiable, I have never yet known! Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness – more English than Spanish; her face, though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature’s fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her; and I did love her; but I never told my love, and in the meantime another and more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! But yet I was happy, for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortune claimed – a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!

  The impudent fellow was Harry Smith. Three days later they were married, Lord Wellington himself giving away the bride, the start of a long marriage and service in India and South Africa. Nearly thirty years after her death in 1872, her name was on every Victorian’s lips as the scene of another famous siege – Lady Smith.

  If alcohol was the first self-awarded indulgence for the stormers, and sex for some, coinage must always be high on the list of needs, preferably silver or the great dream – gold. The search for portable, concealable wealth drove much of the wrecking of house interiors and the deliberate violence towards the inhabitants, to discover where caches lay buried. For every Spanish resident, during the siege, would have thought long and hard as to the best hiding places for his wealth, bank deposits being unknown. The men from their Rodrigo experiences knew that in the next few hours they might just transform their personal finances. It was all a question of getting there first, into the finer properties.

  Ned Costello, feeling faint from his wounds, entered a house off the market place:

  I sat at the fire, which was blazing up the chimney, fed by mahogany chairs broken up for the purpose. Then I heard screams for mercy from an adjoining room. I hobbled in and found an old man, the proprietor of the house, on his knees, imploring mercy of a soldier who had levelled his musket at him. With difficulty, I prevented him from being shot. The soldier complained that the Spaniard would not give up his money, so I immediately informed the wretched landlord in Spanish, as well as I was able, that he could only save his life by surrendering his cash. Upon hearing this, and with trembling hands, he brought out from under the mattress of the bed, a large bag of dollars enveloped in a night-cap. The treasure must have amounted to 100-150 dollars. By common consent, it was divided among us. The dollars were piled on the table in small heaps according to the number of men present, and called out the same as messes in a barrack-room. I confess that I participated in the plunder, receiving about 26 dollars for my own share.

  Poor pickings for Costello. At Vitoria some fourteen months later he ‘came by’ over £1,000 pounds in gold and silver doubloons and dollars. Such were the dreams of many.

  And when the alcohol produced its inevitable change to men’s nature – an increased aggression – with perhaps for some the frustrations of unsatisfactory sex or not finding treasure, there also came a mindless urge to destroy. As John Cooke puts it ‘The place was completely sacked by our troops. Every atom of furniture was broken and mattresses ripped open in search of treasure. One street was strewn with articles knee deep. A convent was in flames ... the town was alive, with every house filled with mad soldiers, from the cellar to the once solitary garret.’ Or Grattan: ‘If they entered a house that had not been emptied of all its furniture or wine, they proceeded to destroy it.’ Or William Brown with final succinctness: ‘What could not be carried away they, in near wantonness, destroyed.’

  And much was indeed carried away, to the various regimental camps, where an air of drunken freedom prevailed: ‘Some of them had dressed themselves in priests or friars garments – some appeared in female dresses, as nuns etc.; and, in short, all the whimsical and fantastical figures imaginable almost were to be seen coming reeling out of the town, for by this time they were nearly all drunk.’ (William Surtees). And in the 94th’s camp ‘The camp during the day, and for some days after, was
like a masquerade, the men going about intoxicated, dressed in the various dresses they had found in the town: French and Spanish officers, priests, friars and nuns, were promiscuously mixed, cutting as many antics as a mountebank.’ (Joe Donaldson).

  Later that first afternoon, 7 April, with no sign of the indiscipline abating, the order was issued that ‘It is now full time that the plunder of Badajoz should cease, and the Commander of the Forces requests that one officer and six steady NCOs of each regiment be sent into the town at 5am next morning to bring away any stragglers.’ No notice being taken, however, by troops no longer in hand, next day a brigade of Portuguese entered the town – only to melt away to join the looters. Wellington saw and heard for himself the embarrassing drunkenness which prevailed: ‘There he comes with his long nose, let’s give him a salute.’ And half a dozen musket-balls whistled over his head, and his staffs; a feu-de-joie too far, or too close, their disappearing cry of ‘There goes the ol’ chap who can leather the French’ was too much. A further order was issued on 8 April at 11pm:

  The Commander of the Forces is sorry to learn that the Brigade in Badajoz instead of being a protection to the people, plunder them more than those who stormed the town. The Commander of the forces calls upon the staff officers of the army, and other officers of regiments to assist him in putting an end to the disgraceful scenes of drunkenness and plunder which are still going on in Badajoz.’

  A triple gallows was put up in the main square next morning (9 April).

  If it is true that the threat alone sufficed, Rifleman Castles for one came too close: ‘I observed a sort of gallows erected,’ said Rifleman Costello

  with three nooses hanging from them, ready for service. Johnny Castles, a man of our company, and as quiet and as inoffensive a little fellow as could be, but rather fond of a drop, but not that distilled by Jack Ketch and Co, had a near escape. He was actually brought under the gallows in a cart and the rope placed round his neck, but his life was spared. Whether this was done to frighten him or not I cannot say; but the circumstances had such an effect on him that he took ill and was a little deranged for some time after.

  Who wouldn’t be?

  Gradually, gradually, order was restored. Exhausted by the exertions of the storm and the poisonous alcohol of the sack, we can readily support Napier’s view that ‘The tumult rather subsided than was quelled.’

  While many officers sensibly made themselves scarce during all this mayhem, some chose to walk back to the walls when daylight came, especially to the breaches which in darkness had proved so impossible; now a curiosity as to their nature was only natural. A further common reason to view old ground was to find the fate of friends, not seen thereafter.

  George Simmons:

  I saw my poor friend Major O’Hare lying dead upon the breach. Two or three musket balls had passed through his breast. A gallant fellow, Sergeant Flemming, was also dead by his side, a man who had always been with him. I called to remembrance poor O’Hare’s last words before he marched off to lead the advance. He shook me by the hand saying, ‘A Lieutenant Colonel or cold meat in a few hours.’ I was now gazing upon his body lying stretched and naked amongst thousands more.

  John Cooke:

  One man only was at the top of the left breach (the heaps of dead had, as a matter of course, rolled to the bottom) and that was one of the 95th Rifles, who had succeeded in getting his head under the chevaux-de-frise, which was battered to pieces, and his arms and shoulders torn asunder with bayonet wounds ... Poor McLeod, in his 27th year, was buried half-a-mile from the town, on the south side, opposite our camp, on the slope of a hill. We did not like to take him to the miserable breach, where, from the warmth of the weather, the dead soldiers had begun to turn, and their blackened bodies had swollen enormously; we therefore laid him amongst some young springing corn, and, with sorrowful hearts, six of us (all that remained of the officers able to stand) saw him covered in the earth. His cap, all muddy, was handed to me, being without one, with merely a handkerchief round my bruised head, one eye closed, and also a slight wound in my head.

  The country was open. The dead, the dying, and the wounded, were scattered abroad: some in tents, others exposed to the sun by day, and the heavy dew by night. At length, with considerable difficulty, I found my friend Madden, lying in a tent, with his trousers on and his shift off, covered with blood, and bandaged across the body to support his broken shoulder, laid on his back, and unable to move. He asked for his brother – ‘Why does he not come to see me?’ I turned my head away; for his gallant young brother [a captain of the 52nd] was amongst the slain.

  Joe Donaldson:

  Here all was comparatively silent, unless here and there a groan from the poor fellows who lay wounded, and who were unable to move. As I looked round, several voices assailed my ear begging for a drink of water; I went, and having filled a large pitcher which I found, relieved their wants as far as I could.

  When I observed the defences that had been made here, I could not wonder at our troops not succeeding in the assault. The ascent of the breach near the top was covered with planks of wood firmly connected together, staked down, and stuck full of sword and bayonet blades, which were firmly fastened into the wood with the points up; round the breach a deep trench was cut in the ramparts, which was planted full of muskets with the bayonets fixed in the earth up to the locks. Exclusive of this they had shell and hand grenades ready loaded, piled on the ramparts, which they lighted and threw down amongst the assailants. Round this place death appeared in every form, the whole ascent was completely covered with the killed, and for many yards around the approach to the walls, with every variety of expression in their countenance, from calm placidity to the greatest agony. Anxious to see the place where we had so severe a struggle the preceding night, I bent my steps to the ditch where we had placed the ladders to escalade the castle. The sight here was enough to harrow up the soul, and of which no description of mine could convey an idea. Beneath one of the ladders, amongst others, lay a corporal of the 45th Regiment, who, when wounded, had fallen forward on his knees and hands, and the foot of the ladder had been, in the confusion, placed on his back. Whether the wound would have been mortal, I do not know, but the weight of the men ascending the ladder had facilitated his death, for the blood was forced out of his ears, mouth, and nose.

  Robert Blakeney:

  When I arrived at the great breach, the inundation presented an awful contrast to the silvery Guadiana; it was fairly stained with gore, which through the vivid reflection of the brilliant sun, whose glowing heat already drew the watery vapours from its surface, gave it the appearance of a fiery lake of smoking blood, in which were seen the bodies of many a gallant British soldier. The ditches were strewn with killed and wounded; but the approach to the bottom of the main breach was fairly choked with dead. A row of chevaux-de-frise, armed with sword blades, barred the entrance at the top of the breach and so firmly fixed that, when the 4th and Light Divisions marched through, the greatest exertion was required to make a sufficient opening for their admittance. Boards fastened with ropes to plugs driven into the ground within the ramparts were let down, and covered nearly the whole surface of the breach; these boards were so thickly studded with sharp pointed spikes that one could not introduce a hand between them; they did not stick out at right angles to the board, but were all slanting upwards. In rear of the chevaux-de-frise the ramparts had deep cuts in all directions, like a tanyard, so that it required light to enable one to move safely through them, even were there no opposing enemy. From the number of muskets found close behind the breach, all the men who could possibly be brought together in so small a place must have had at least twenty firelocks each, no doubt kept continually loaded by persons in the rear. Two British soldiers only entered the main breach during the assault; I saw both their bodies. If any others entered they must have been thrown back over the walls, for it is certain that at dawn of 7 April no more than two British bodies were within the walls near the main bre
ach. In the Santa Maria breach not one had entered. At the foot of this breach the same sickening sight appeared as at that of Trinidad: numberless dead were strewn around the place. On looking down these breaches, I recognised many old friends, whose society I had enjoyed a few hours before, now lying stiff in death.

  A final very sad and scarcely believable piece by Johnny Kincaid, showing how three days after the storm limbless men still awaited succour:

  and, in passing the verge of the camp of the 5th Division, we saw two soldiers standing at the door of a small shed, or outhouse, shouting, waving their caps, and making signs that they wanted to speak to us. We rode up to see what they wanted, and found that the poor fellows had each lost a leg. They told us that a surgeon had dressed their wounds on the night of the assault, but that they had ever since been without food or assistance of any kind, although they, each day, had opportunities of soliciting the aid of many of their comrades, from whom they could obtain nothing but promises. In short, surrounded by thousands of their countrymen within calls, and not more than 300 yards from their own regiment, they were unable to interest any one on their behalf, and were literally starving. It is unnecessary to say that we instantly galloped back to the camp and had them removed to the hospital.