Victoria’s Scottish Lion

by Greenwood, Adrian; Haythornthwaite, Philip;

  112 RNRM/45.2.

  113 Hale, 46.

  114 Dawson, Observations, 14.

  115 Harris, John, 116.

  116 Dawson, Observations, 24.

  117 Fortescue, VII, 92.

  118 Anon., Observations, 119.

  119 Knottnerus, 340.

  120 Gomm, 127.

  121 Anon., Observations, 101.

  122 Kelly, 47, 33.

  123 Lee-Warner, Memoirs, 196.

  2

  Into Battle

  * * *

  ‘The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on’

  General Ulysses S. Grant

  * * *

  Two months after returning from the Scheldt, Campbell was transferred back to the 2nd Battalion, which had been stationed on Gibraltar since 2 July 1809. While Campbell had served under Moore and Chatham, the 2/9th had been fighting in Portugal under Wellesley (recently ennobled as Viscount Wellington) and was now on the Rock for rest and recuperation. Lieutenant Campbell was placed in the light company, the regiment’s skirmishers, as No. 2 to Lieutenant William Seward.* Born in Southampton, a few miles from Campbell’s school in Gosport, Seward was three months older than Campbell, had been gazetted ensign only two months before him and shared his lack of money. The light company operated as the battalion’s very own miniature light infantry corps. Its officers often had to fight hand-to-hand, so Campbell procured a short, lightweight, non-regulation version of the 1796 light cavalry sabre, probably from one of the numerous post-battle auctions of dead men’s chattels. In contrast to the swords carried by most infantry subalterns, this was a serious practical weapon, a favourite among officers who saw close action. Campbell carried it for the rest of his life.**

  The light company guaranteed Campbell a place in the thick of any fighting; the ideal place for a young, ambitious young officer to get noticed or killed. He hadn’t long to wait. Marshal Soult was known to want Tarifa, the small port just along the coast at the southernmost tip of Spain. Though of no strategic significance, it would cock a snook at British domination of the straits if the French stormed Tarifa unopposed, and so Campbell’s company, as part of a mixed detachment of 360 men, was sent as a new garrison.

  The French escaping Vitoria from A. Forbes’s Battles of the Nineteenth Century.

  Six days after their arrival on 14 April 1810, Tarifa was surrounded by 500 French soldiers on a cattle-rustling mission. A spirited sortie drove them back into the countryside. Worried the enemy might return, the Governor of Gibraltar despatched an extra four companies of the 47th Foot to beef up the garrison. This did the trick. Soult seemed content to leave Tarifa to the British; if this bagatelle tied up Wellington’s troops, so much the better. After an uneventful summer, on 15 September Campbell’s light company was relieved by the 28th Foot and returned to Gibraltar.

  Soult had bigger game in his sights. The Supreme Junta of Spain, driven by the French from Madrid during Moore’s foray into Spain, had decamped to Cadiz. Soult wanted this rebel outpost eradicated. He gave Marshal Claude-Victor Perrin 19,000 men (including engineers and artillery) to bring Cadiz to heel. By February 1810, Victor’s troops had encircled the town. Rather than waste lives in an armed assault, Victor was content to bottle up the Spanish on their isthmus and starve them out.

  As soon as the French appeared, Wellington started reinforcing Cadiz with British troops under the command of Major-General Thomas Graham, a soldier of proven courage and personal resource. For him, fighting the French was also a matter of personal vengeance. His wife had died in France at the outbreak of the revolution and Graham had been moving her remains when rampaging Jacobins ripped open the coffin, convinced that it was being used to smuggle weapons.1 Graham never forgave this desecration.

  For nearly a year he waited in Cadiz. Then in January 1811, a ‘favourable opportunity for acting offensively’ presented itself, Victor’s army ‘having been diminished by a detachment of four or five thousand men’.2 Graham had a bold scheme to raise the siege: while Victor’s gaze was on Cadiz, Graham would sail south, land near Gibraltar and, in concert with the Spanish army, march back and attack the French troops in the rear while the garrison left at Cadiz simultaneously stormed out and rushed the enemy lines. It was risky. Cadiz would be left vulnerable and the French general Sebastiani had enough men in Marbella to make trouble for Graham.

  Graham’s men left Cadiz on 21 February 1811 and landed at Algeciras the next day. Here they met up with a detachment from Gibraltar made up of the flank companies of the 2/9th, 82nd and 28th Foot, including Seward and Campbell’s light company. These six companies would form a crack flank battalion, led by Campbell’s old Tarifa garrison commander, Major ‘Mad John’ Browne (made brevet lieutenant-colonel for the campaign), and subject to Graham’s direct orders only. Graham now fielded 5,000 men.

  Thomas Graham (1748–1843). Steel engraving by H. Meyer, after T. Lawrence. (Courtesy of www.antique-prints.de)

  On the 27th a Spanish contingent of 7,000 soldiers arrived. Inexperienced, poorly equipped, dressed in a ragbag of uniforms and vapidly led by mediocre officers, they nevertheless comprised the bulk of the allied army, so supreme command now passed to Spanish general Manuel Lapena. History has little good to say about Lapena, a man who, in Blakeney’s words, mistook ‘mulish obstinacy for unshaken determination’.3 Others have been less charitable. Anthony Brett-James described him as a ‘plausible, incompetent man, whose selfishness and disloyalty were matched by his dislike of taking a decision or accepting responsibility’.Lapena’s own troops called him ‘Dona Manuela’, which, figuratively speaking, translates as something along the lines of ‘Big Girl’s Blouse’.4

  The next day the allies set out. After several fatiguing forced marches, by 5 March Lapena’s army was nearing Cadiz, and here, at Bermeja, the Spanish vanguard ran into the French. Lapena’s men fell on 2,500 troops under General Villatte, while from Cadiz Spanish general Zayas laid a bridge of boats across the harbour, so his garrison could sally forth and complete the pincer movement. Under fire from north and south, the French fell back. Lapena was pleased with the ease of his victory, but for one of Graham’s aides-de-camp it was that very ease which aroused suspicion. ‘That is not like the French’, observed Lieutenant Stanhope.5

  While Lapena’s Spanish troops were savouring their triumph, Browne’s flank battalion was still several miles away at Barrosa Hill, which was, in Graham’s view, the tactically critical position south of Cadiz. To reach Barrosa, Campbell’s men had endured another of Lapena’s all-night marches: seventeen hours without a stop for food or water. Footsore and flagging, but reassured now Lapena had put the French to flight, Campbell’s men tried to get some rest, the baggage train likewise. Nearby, the two squadrons of hussars of the King’s German Legion,* the only cavalry serving with Graham under the British flag, dismounted and loosened their saddles.6

  Instead of chasing his beaten enemy, Lapena stayed put and ordered the British north to join him. Graham protested that positioning the allied army near the isthmus leading to Cadiz would just hem them in and leave them susceptible to a French attack. Lapena compromised, allowing Browne’s flank battalion to remain at Barrosa Hill, along with five Spanish battalions as a rear guard. Graham would lead the rest of his men through the woods to the north of Barrosa Hill and, once they reached Lapena outside Cadiz, the rear guard would abandon their hill and follow. It was exactly what Victor wanted. The French troops Lapena had defeated at Bermeja were just a foretaste. Victor had redeployed most of his men to the east at Chiclana. And so as Graham left for Cadiz, Victor emerged to fall on his flank.

  Victor split his force in two, one half heading for Barrosa Hill, the other half, under General Leval, towards the woods. Campbell’s company was resting on the western slope when the French were sighted advancing from the east. An anxious Colonel Whittingham, serving with the Spanish cavalry, rode up to Browne to ask his i
ntentions. ‘What do I intend to do, sir? I intend to fight the French!’ came the reply. ‘You may do as you please, Colonel Browne, but we are decided on a retreat’, replied Whittingham. ‘Very well, sir, I shall stop where I am, for it shall never be said that John Frederick Browne ran away from the post which his general ordered him to defend!’7

  This spat was enough to convince Spanish generals Murgeon and Beguines that it was time to leave. Campbell watched as all five of their battalions, after some half-hearted skirmishing, started in full retreat.8 The baggage train followed; pack horses, nostrils flaring, careering along the sands, past upended carts circled with spilt rations and ammunition, as the able-bodied joined the desperate stampede northwards along the beach towards Cadiz and safety.

  From the brow of the hill Browne could make out enemy infantry drawing closer. With the Spanish gone, he had barely 500 men to repel 2,500 Frenchmen.9 Victor had a further 4,000 men in reserve behind them. Five hundred French cavalrymen were skirting round the hill, to seize the coast road. All that stood in their way was two German and four Spanish cavalry squadrons – that is, if Whittingham stood his ground.

  The one place offering a modicum of protection was a ruined chapel at the brow of the hill. Browne ordered a handful of men to occupy it and loop-hole the walls, while outside Campbell and Seward formed their company up with the rest, making three sides of a square, each side four men deep, with the chapel forming the fourth.10 But besides the enemy cavalry encircling them and enemy infantry heading their way, French artillery was now closing in. The flank battalion risked being surrounded and pulverised. Browne may have been quixotic but he was not suicidal. Rather than making a death-or-glory stand, he ordered his men to make for the trees.

  When Graham, in the thick pine woods to the north, received news of the French offensive in progress, ‘he seemed at first to doubt the truth of this intelligence,’ as one officer recalled, ‘but a round shot came amongst us and killed Captain Thomas of the Guards. He was then convinced of its accuracy.’11 Graham directed Colonel Wheatley’s brigade to stop Leval as he neared the wood, while the rest would double back to engage the French troops advancing on Barrosa Hill. Given the difficulty of manoeuvring an army through a forest, this gambit would take some time.

  In the interim, French infantry had overrun the chapel. As Browne led his battalion towards the trees, enemy cavalry bore down upon them, and the order to form square was barked out. ‘Be steady, my boys, reserve your fire until they are within ten paces, and they will never penetrate you’, roared Browne.12 The enemy, sabres raised, mounts snorting, accelerated towards them. Campbell’s company prepared to fire but as the French dragoons covered the final few yards, the hussars of the King’s German Legion swept past and laid into them.* The confusion gave Browne enough time to lead his men to safety. By now Graham’s troops were disgorging from the forest in disarray. The general emerged furious. ‘Did I not give you orders to defend Barrosa Hill?’ he demanded. ‘Yes, sir’, replied a stunned Browne. ‘But you would not have me fight the whole French army with 470 men?’

  Graham made it quite clear that he would, and that he would brook no denial. Browne was to turn back and retake the hill. The rest of the British army was still not out of the woods yet, and Browne’s flank battalion was the only one in a fit state to stem the French advance. Graham instructed Browne to form his 470 men into a line, two deep, to mount a frontal assault up the slope. It was the first time Campbell had led men in battle, and for all their light infantry expertise, they were to be thrown at the enemy with no tactical sophistication. For Graham, sacrificing Browne’s contingent was an acceptable price to pay to buy time for the rest of his army to regroup. So, after being so close to battle at Vimeiro and Corunna, after all the hunger, disease and death of the last three years, it looked like Campbell was to end his days as cannon fodder.

  ‘Gentlemen, I am happy to be the bearer of good news!’ Browne announced. ‘General Graham has done you the honour of being the first to attack these fellows. Now follow me, you rascals.’ And with that he strode up the hill, lustily belting out ‘Heart of Oak’.13 Campbell marched forward, cavalry sabre in hand, a few yards from Seward, their neat row of infantrymen behind them. Once across the small ravine at the foot of the hill the ground was virtually featureless, with barely a hollow to shield them from enemy fire. As the battalion advanced, eyes fixed on the summit, French artillery and infantry at first held fire and then with a deafening roar the guns on the crest of the hill exploded, scouring the hillside with grape shot. In unison the muskets of three enemy battalions fired. The effect was carnage. Two hundred of Browne’s 500 men were killed or wounded. Browne had no artillery to answer the French, and no reserves to call upon. He could only rally his men and, pointing towards the enemy, roar at them, ‘There you are, you rascals, if you don’t kill them, they will kill you. So fire away!’14

  Campbell and Seward re-formed their men in a new, tighter line, but the enemy fire was overwhelming. Another artillery volley brought down a further fifty men, leaving Browne with barely half his original force. From the 2/9th, Captain Godwin, Lieutenants Taylor and Robinson, five sergeants, one drummer and seventy men from the ranks had fallen. Godwin had been waving his sword and willing his men on when a musket ball hit him in the right hand. Seward was also among the casualties. The battalion started the day with twenty-one officers; Campbell was now one of just seven left unscathed, including Browne. As he looked around Campbell realised that with the captain and three lieutenants from the 2/9th hors de combat, command of both companies now rested with him.15

  The battalion had displayed exemplary, indeed wasteful courage, but there were limits to their endurance. Despite Browne’s order to form a new line, the men instead scattered, finding cover wherever possible, keeping up an erratic musket fire, and waiting for the inevitable charge from their enemy.16 But then to his right Campbell caught sight of movement. The 95th Rifles were streaming out of the woods, their dark green uniforms just visible in the thicker cover further round the hill. Behind them were the Guards and the artillery. Enough troops had made it through the wood to assault the hill. Browne’s men, by an act, in Oman’s words, of ‘absolute martyrdom’, had tied up the French for long enough. Now Campbell just had to hold his ground.

  Victor’s troops still had the advantage in numbers and terrain. Four battalions charged down the slope to stop the British fight-back but, as at Vimeiro, they found that their old tactic of impetus, brute force and Gallic hullaballoo failed to overawe their enemy. On top of the hill, Victor, commanding in person, ordered two battalions of grenadiers to revive the offensive. While the Guards, the 95th, and now the 67th Foot, had been fending off the French onslaught, Campbell’s men had been lying quiet. As Campbell saw the French bearing down on the British line to his right, he ordered his men to stand and fire into their flank.17 With Victor’s troops wavering, Graham rode up, shouting ‘Men, cease firing and charge!’Campbell led his two companies forward, maintaining their fire on the French flank, while the British further round the slope pushed up the hill.18

  The momentum of the battle was now with Graham. To the north-east, the British emerged from the wood in a long line, to catch Leval’s troops by surprise. The French assumed that it was merely the first wave, rather than all the troops available. Liberal use of the bayonet, with instrumental support from the Portuguese detachment, prevailed and soon the French division was taking to its heels. Leval desperately threw his reserves forward but they were so demoralised that they scarcely came within range before turning back. What really sent the French away with a flea in their ear was the capture, by the men of the 87th (commanded by Major Hugh Gough), of an Imperial Eagle,* the first of the war.

  Victor was trying to impose some order on the shambles that had once been his army, when all at once two squadrons of German cavalry charged the massed French dragoons. Their sheer audacity unmanned the French and Victor’s army started into a full retreat. Now was the moment t
o trounce them, but Graham was short on men and his Spanish allies were reluctant. Without Spanish help, Graham thought his infantry too worn out to harry the French. Though bruised and battle-scarred, Browne’s men rushed forward, in skirmishing order, ready for action, but Graham called them back.19 Victor was left to withdraw to Chiclana.

  The battle had raged for just an hour and a half. Most corps had incurred losses, but none so cruelly as Browne’s battalion. Graham had been ruthless. Kinglake, the Crimean historian, was sure that a general ‘At any fit time must be willing and eager to bring his own people to the slaughter for the sake of making havoc with the enemy, and it is right for him to be able to do this without at the time being seen to feel one pang.’20

  After Barrosa, Campbell was never so sure. He had left Gibraltar the junior lieutenant of the light company and now found himself in charge of both flank companies, filling the role of a senior captain. He was still just 18 years old. After close on three years waiting and watching, he had been at the crux of one of the bloodiest encounters of the war. Campbell modestly recorded that Graham ‘was pleased to take favourable notice of my conduct’.21 Outwardly anxious ‘to do good by stealth and blush to find it fame’, in truth Campbell had no misgivings about advertising his deeds when professional advancement required it. He knew full well the impact he had made, and in future, if ever he needed a reference, it was to Graham he turned first.

  Though the French had been soundly beaten, Graham’s ambition of raising the siege was no nearer. Both sides were left much as they had been before. Within days Victor was again master of his old entrenchments. For a man of illimitable vanity, the next logical step was to declare the Battle of Barrosa a French victory.

  Just ninety of the original 160 men from the 2/9th were fit for duty. The rest needed a surgeon or an undertaker. To add to Campbell’s problems, a new disease broke out in Cadiz, labelled the ‘black vomit’.22 Fortunately, just three days after the battle, Campbell’s depleted companies sailed for Tarifa, before returning to Gibraltar on 2 April.