Combat of Arcangues. (Dec. 1813.)
Heavy rain fell in the night, but the morning broke fair, and at dawn French soldiers were observed close to the most advanced picquet of the 43rd on the left, pushing each other about as if at gambols, yet lining by degrees the nearest ditches; a general officer was also seen behind a farmhouse within pistol-shot, and the heads of columns could be perceived in the rear. Thus warned, some companies were thrown on the right into the basin, to prevent the enemy from penetrating that way to the small common between Bussussary and Arcangues. Kempt’s foresight in delaying his march to Arbonne was now manifest, and he immediately placed the reserves of his brigade in the church and mansion-house of Arcangues. Meanwhile the French, breaking forth with loud cries and a rattling musketry, had fallen at a running pace upon the 43rd at the tongue and in the basin, while a cloud of skirmishers, descending on their left, penetrated between them and the 52nd, seeking to turn both. The right tongue was in like manner assailed, and the assault was so strong and rapid, the enemy so numerous, the ground so extensive, that to cross the common and reach the church of Arcangues would have been impossible if serious resistance had been attempted at first. Wherefore, delivering their fire at pistol-shot distance, the picquets fell back in succession, with eminent coolness and intelligence. For though they had to run at full speed to gain the common before the enemy, who was constantly outflanking them by the basin; though the ways were so deep and narrow no formation could be preserved; though the fire of the French was thick and close, and their cries vehement in pursuit, the instant the open ground was attained, the crowd of seeming fugitives turned and presented a compact and well-formed body, defying and deriding the efforts of their adversaries.
The 52nd, which was half a mile to the left, was but slightly assailed, yet fell back also to the main ridge; for though the ground did not permit Colonel Colborne to see the enemy’s strength, the rapid retreat of the 43rd told him the affair was serious. Well did the regiments of the light division understand each other’s qualities, and in good time he withdrew to the main position. On the right-hand tongue the troops were not so fortunate; the enemy, moving by the basin, reached the common before them, and about a hundred of the 43rd and riflemen were intercepted. The French were in a hollow road and careless, never doubting that the officer of the 43rd, Ensign Campbell, a youth scarcely eighteen years of age, would surrender; but with a shout he broke into their column sword in hand, and though the struggle was severe and twenty of the 43rd and thirty of the riflemen with their officer remained prisoners, he reached the church with the rest.
D’Armagnac’s division of D’Erlon’s corps now pushed close up to the bridge of Urdains, and Clausel assembling his three divisions by degrees at Bussussary, opened a sharp fire of musketry. The position was however safe. A mansion-house on the right, covered by abbatis and not easily accessible, was defended by a rifle battalion and the Portuguese. The church and churchyard were occupied by the 43rd, supported with two mountain-guns, their front being covered by a declivity of thick copse-wood filled with riflemen, and only to be turned by narrow hollow roads leading on each side to the church. On the left, the 52nd, supported by the remainder of the division, spread as far as the great basin which separated this position from the ridge of Barrouilhet, towards which some small posts were pushed: yet there was still a great interval between Alten and Hope.
As the skirmishing grew hot, Clausel brought up twelve guns with which he threw shot and shells into the churchyard of Arcangues, and four or five hundred infantry made a rush forwards, but a heavy fire from the 43rd sent them back over the ridge where their guns were posted. Yet their cannonade would have been murderous, if this musketry had not made the gunners withdraw their pieces a little behind the ridge, and caused their shot to fly wild and high. Kempt, thinking the distance too great, was at first inclined to stop the fire, but the moment it lulled the French pushed their pieces forwards again, and their shells knocked down eight men in an instant: the muskets then recommenced and the shells again flew high. The village and mansion-house on the right were defended by the riflemen, and the action, hottest where the 52nd fought, continued all day. It was not very severe, yet both French and English writers, misled perhaps by an inaccurate phrase in the public dispatch, have represented it as a desperate attack by which the light division was driven into its entrenchments; whereas the picquets only were forced back, and there were no entrenchments, save those made on the spur of the moment by the soldiers in the churchyard.