COLONEL GURWOOD.
In the eighth volume of the Duke of Wellington’s Despatches page 531, colonel Gurwood has inserted the following note:—
“Lieutenant Gurwood fifty-second regiment led the “forlorn hope” of the light division in the assault of the lesser breach. He afterwards took the French governor general Barrié in the citadel; and from the hands of lord Wellington on the breach by which he had entered, he received the sword of his prisoner. The permission accorded by the duke of Wellington to compile this work has doubtless been one of the distinguished consequences resulting from this service, and lieutenant Gurwood feels pride as a soldier of fortune in here offering himself as an encouraging example to the subaltern in future wars.”—“The detail of the assault of Ciudad Rodrigo by the lesser breach is of too little importance except to those who served in it to become a matter of history. The compiler however takes this opportunity of observing that colonel William Napier has been misinformed respecting the conduct of the “forlorn hope,” in the account given of it by him as it appears in the Appendix of the fourth volume of his History of the Peninsular War. A correct statement and proofs of it have been since furnished to colonel William Napier for any future edition of his book which will render any further notice of it here unnecessary.”
My account is not to be disposed of in this summary manner, and this note, though put forth as it were with the weight of the duke of Wellington’s name by being inserted amongst his Despatches, shall have an answer.
Colonel Gurwood sent me what in the above note he calls “a correct statement and proofs of it.” I know of no proofs, and the correctness of his statement depends on his own recollections which the wound he received in the head at this time seems to have rendered extremely confused, at least the following recollections of other officers are directly at variance with his. Colonel Gurwood in his “correct statement” says, “When I first went up the breach there were still some of the enemy in it, it was very steep and on my arrival at the top of it under the gun I was knocked down either by a shot or stone thrown at me. I can assure you that not a lock was snapped as you describe, but finding it impossible that the breach from its steepness and narrowness could be carried by the bayonet I ordered the men to load, certainly before the arrival of the storming party, and having placed some of the men on each side of the breach I went up the middle with the remainder, and when in the act of climbing over the disabled gun at the top of the breach which you describe, I was wounded in the head by a musquet shot fired so close to me that it blew my cap to pieces, and I was tumbled over senseless from the top to the bottom of the breach. When I recovered my senses I found myself close to George,[2] who was sitting on a stone with his arm broken, I asked him how the thing was going on, &c. &c.”
Now to the above statement I oppose the following letters from the authors of the statements given in the Appendix to my fourth volume.
Major-General Sir George Napier to Colonel William Napier.
“I am sorry our gallant friend Gurwood is not satisfied with and disputes the accuracy of your account of the assault of the lesser breach at Ciudad Rodrigo as detailed in your fourth volume. I can only say, that account was principally, if not wholly taken from colonel Fergusson’s, he being one of my storming captains, and my own narrative of that transaction up to the period when we were each of us wounded. I adhere to the correctness of all I stated to you, and beg further to say that my friend colonel Mitchell, who was also one of my captains in the storming party, told me the last time I saw him at the commander-in-chief’s levee, that my statement was “perfectly correct.” And both he and colonel Fergusson recollected the circumstance of my not permitting the party to load, and also that upon being checked, when nearly two-thirds up the breach, by the enemy’s fire, the men forgetting their pieces were not loaded snapped them off, but I called to them and reminded them of my orders to force their way with the bayonet alone! It was at that moment I was wounded and fell, and I never either spoke to or saw Gurwood afterwards during that night, as he rushed on with the other officers of the party to the top of the breach. Upon looking over a small manuscript of the various events of my life as a soldier, written many years ago, I find all I stated to you corroborated in every particular. Of course as colonel Gurwood tells you he was twice at the top of the breach, before any of the storming party entered it, I cannot take upon myself to contradict him, but I certainly do not conceive how it was possible, as he and myself jumped into the ditch together, I saw him wounded, and spoke to him after having mounted the faussbraye with him, and before we rushed up the breach in the body of the place. I never saw him or spoke to him after I was struck down, the whole affair did not last above twenty-five or thirty minutes, but as I fell when about two-thirds up the breach I can only answer for the correctness of my account to that period, as soon after I was assisted to get down the breach by the Prince of Orange (who kindly gave his sash to tie up my shattered arm and which sash is now in my possession) by the present duke of Richmond and lord Fitzroy Somerset, all three of whom I believe were actively engaged in the assault. Our friend Gurwood did his duty like a gallant and active soldier, but I cannot admit of his having been twice in the breach before the other officers of the storming party and myself!
“I believe yourself and every man in the army with whom I have the honor to be acquainted will acquit me of any wish or intention to deprive a gallant comrade and brother-officer of the credit and honor due to his bravery, more particularly one with whom I have long been on terms of intimate friendship, and whose abilities I admire as much as I respect and esteem his conduct as a soldier; therefore this statement can or ought only to be attributed to my sense of what is due to the other gallant officers and soldiers who were under my command in the assault of the lesser breach of Ciudad Rodrigo, and not to any wish or intention on my part to detract from the distinguished services of, or the laurels gained by colonel Gurwood on that occasion. Of course you are at liberty to refer to me if necessary and to make what use you please of this letter privately or publicly either now or at any future period, as I steadily adhere to all I have ever stated to you or any one else and I am &c. &c.
“George Napier.”
Extract of a letter from colonel James Fergusson, fifty-second regiment (formerly a captain of the forty-third and one of the storming party.) Addressed to Sir George Napier.
“I send you a memorandum I made some time back from memory and in consequence of having seen various accounts respecting our assault. You are perfectly correct as to Gurwood and your description of the way we carried the breach is accurate; and now I have seen your memorandum I recollect the circumstance of the men’s arms not being loaded and the snapping of the firelocks.”—“I was not certain when you were wounded but your description of the scene on the breach and the way in which it was carried is perfectly accurate.”
Extract of a letter from colonel Fergusson to colonel William Napier.
“I think the account you give in your fourth volume of the attack of the little breach at Ciudad Rodrigo is as favorable to Gurwood as he has any right to expect, and agrees perfectly both with your brother George’s recollections of that attack and with mine. Our late friend Alexander Steele who was one of my officers declared he was with Gurwood the whole of the time, for a great part of the storming party of the forty-third joined Gurwood’s party who were placing the ladders against the work, and it was the engineer officer calling out that they were wrong and pointing out the way to the breach in the fausse braye that directed our attention to it. Jonathan Wyld[3] of the forty-third was the first man that run up the fausse braye, and we made directly for the little breach which was defended exactly as you describe. We were on the breach some little time and when we collected about thirty men (some of the third battalion rifle brigade in the number) we made a simultaneous rush, cheered, and run in, so that positively no claim could be made as to the first who entered the breach. I do not want to dispute with Gurwood but I again say (in which your brother agrees) that some of the storming party were before the forlorn hope. I do not dispute that Gurwood and some of his party were among the number that rushed in at the breach, but as to his having twice mounted the breach before us, I cannot understand it, and Steele always positively denied it.”
Having thus justified myself from the charge of writing upon bad information about the assault of the little breach I shall add something about that of the great breach.
Colonel Gurwood offers himself as an encouraging example for the subalterns of the British army in future wars; but the following extract from a statement of the late major Mackie, so well known for his bravery worth and modesty, and who as a subaltern led the forlorn hope at the great breach of Ciudad Rodrigo, denies colonel Gurwood’s claim to the particular merit upon which he seems inclined to found his good fortune in after life.
Extracts from a memoir addressed by the late Major Mackie to Colonel Napier. October 1838.
“The troops being immediately ordered to advance were soon across the ditch, and upon the breach at the same instant with the ninety-fourth who had advanced along the ditch. To mount under the fire of the defenders was the work of a moment, but when there difficulties of a formidable nature presented themselves; on each flank a deep trench was cut across the rampart isolating the breach, which was enfiladed with cannon and musquetry, while in front, from the rampart into the streets of the town, was a perpendicular fall of ten or twelve feet; the whole preventing the soldiers from making that bold and rapid onset so effective in facilitating the success of such an enterprize. The great body of the fire of defence being from the houses and from an open space in front of the breach, in the first impulse of the moment I dropt from the rampart into the town. Finding myself here quite alone and no one following, I discovered that the trench upon the right of the breach was cut across the whole length of the rampart, thereby opening a free access to our troops and rendering what was intended by the enemy as a defence completely the reverse. By this opening I again mounted to the top of the breach and led the men down into the town. The enemy’s fire which I have stated had been, after we gained the summit of the wall, confined to the houses and open space alluded to, now began to slacken, and ultimately they abandoned the defence. Being at this time in advance of the whole of the third division, I led what men I could collect along the street, leading in a direct line from the great breach into the centre of the town, by which street the great body of the enemy were precipitately retiring. Having advanced considerably and passed across a street running to the left, a body of the enemy came suddenly from that street, rushed through our ranks and escaped. In pursuit of this body, which after passing us held their course to the right, I urged the party forwards in that direction until we reached the citadel, where the governor and garrison had taken refuge. The outer gate of the enclosure being open, I entered at the head of the party composed of men of different regiments who by this time had joined the advance. Immediately on entering I was hailed by a French officer asking for an English general to whom they might surrender. Pointing to my epaulets in token of their security, the door of the keep or stronghold of the place was opened and a sword presented to me in token of surrender, which sword I accordingly received. This I had scarcely done when two of their officers laid hold of me for protection, one on each arm, and it was while I was thus situated that lieutenant Gurwood came up and obtained the sword of the governor.
“In this way, the governor, with lieutenant Gurwood and the two officers I have mentioned still clinging to my arms, the whole party moved towards the rampart. Having found when there, that in the confusion incident to such a scene I had lost as it were by accident that prize which was actually within my reach, and which I had justly considered as my own, in the chagrin of the moment I turned upon my heel and left the spot. The following day, in company with captain Lindsay of the eighty-eighth regiment I waited upon colonel Pakenham, then assistant adjutant-general to the third division, to know if my name had been mentioned by general Picton as having led the advance of the right brigade. He told me that it had and I therefore took no further notice of the circumstance, feeling assured that I should be mentioned in the way of which all officers in similar circumstances must be so ambitious. My chagrin and disappointment may be easily imagined when lord Wellington’s dispatches reached the army from England to find my name altogether omitted, and the right brigade deprived of their just meed of praise.”—“Sir, it is evident that the tendency of this note” (colonel Gurwood’s note quoted from the Despatches) “is unavoidably, though I do him the justice to believe by no means intentionally upon colonel Gurwood’s part, to impress the public with the belief that he was himself the first British officer that entered the citadel of Ciudad Rodrigo, consequently the one to whom its garrison surrendered. This impression the language he employs is the more likely to convey, inasmuch as to his exertions and good fortune in this particular instance he refers the whole of his professional success, to which he points the attention of the future aspirant as a pledge of the rewards to be expected from similar efforts to deserve them. To obviate this impression and in bare justice to the right brigade of the third division and, as a member of it, to myself, I feel called on to declare that though I do not claim for that brigade exclusively the credit of forcing the defences of the great breach, the left brigade having joined in it contrary to the intention of lord Wellington under the circumstances stated, yet I do declare on the word of a man of honour, that I was the first individual who effected the descent from the main breach into the streets of the town, that I preceded the advance into the body of the place, that I was the first who entered the citadel, and that the enemy there assembled had surrendered to myself and party before lieutenant Gurwood came up. Referring to the inference which colonel Gurwood has been pleased to draw from his own good fortune as to the certainty and value of the rewards awaiting the exertions of the British soldier, permit me, sir, in bare justice to myself to say that at the time I volunteered the forlorn hope on this occasion, I was senior lieutenant of my own regiment consequently the first for promotion. Having as such succeeded so immediately after to a company, I could scarcely expect nor did I ask further promotion at the time, but after many years of additional service, I did still conceive and do still maintain, that I was entitled to bring forward my services on that day as a ground for asking that step of rank which every officer leading a forlorn hope had received with the exception of myself.
“May I, sir, appeal to your sense of justice in lending me your aid to prevent my being deprived of the only reward I had hitherto enjoyed, in the satisfaction of thinking that the services which I am now compelled most reluctantly to bring in some way to the notice of the public, had during the period that has since elapsed, never once been called in question. It was certainly hard enough that a service of this nature should have been productive of no advantage to me in my military life. I feel it however infinitely more annoying that I should now find myself in danger of being stript of any credit to which it might entitle me, by the looseness of the manner in which colonel Gurwood words his statement. I need not say that this danger is only the more imminent from his statement appearing in a work which as being published under the auspices of the duke of Wellington as well as of the Horse Guards, has at least the appearance of coming in the guise of an official authority,” “I agree most cordially with colonel Gurwood in the opinion he has expressed in his note, that he is himself an instance where reward and merit have gone hand in hand. I feel compelled however, for the reasons given to differ from him materially as to the precise ground on which he considers the honours and advantages that have followed his deserts to be not only the distinguished but the just and natural consequences of his achievements on that day. I allude to the claim advanced by colonel Gurwood to be considered the individual by whom the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo was made prisoner of war. It could scarcely be expected that at such a moment I could be aware that the sword which I received was not the governor’s being in fact that of one of his aide-de-camps. I repeat however that before lieutenant Gurwood and his party came up, the enemy had expressed their wish to surrender, that a sword was presented by them in token of submission and received by me as a pledge, on the honour of a British officer, that according to the laws of war, I held myself responsible for their safety as prisoners under the protection of the British arms. Not a shadow of resistance was afterwards made and I appeal to every impartial mind in the least degree acquainted with the rules of modern warfare, if under these circumstances I am not justified in asserting that before, and at the time lieutenant Gurwood arrived, the whole of the enemy’s garrison within the walls of the citadel, governor included, were both de jure and de facto prisoners to myself. In so far, therefore, as he being the individual who made its owner captive, could give either of us a claim to receive that sword to which colonel Gurwood ascribes such magic influence in the furthering of his after fortunes, I do maintain that at the time it became de facto his, it was de jure mine.”
Something still remains to set colonel Gurwood right upon matters which he has apparently touched upon without due consideration. In a note appended to that part of the duke of Wellington’s Despatches which relate to the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo he says that the late captain Dobbs of the fifty-second at Sabugal “recovered the howitzer, taken by the forty-third regiment but retaken by the enemy.” This is totally incorrect. The howitzer was taken by the forty-third and retained by the forty-third. The fifty-second regiment never even knew of its capture until the action was over. Captain Dobbs was a brave officer and a very generous-minded man, he was more likely to keep his own just claims to distinction in the back-ground than to appropriate the merit of others to himself. I am therefore quite at a loss to know upon what authority colonel Gurwood has stated a fact inaccurate itself and unsupported by the duke of Wellington’s dispatch about the battle of Sabugal, which distinctly says the howitzer was taken by the forty-third regiment, as in truth it was, and it was kept by that regiment also.
While upon the subject of colonel Gurwood’s compilation I must observe that in my fifth volume, when treating of general Hill’s enterprise against the French forts at Almaraz I make lord Wellington complain to the ministers that his generals were so fearful of responsibility the slightest movements of the enemy deprived them of their judgment. Trusting that the despatches then in progress of publication would bear me out, I did not give my authority at large in the Appendix; since then, the letter on which I relied has indeed been published by colonel Gurwood in the Despatches, but purged of the passage to which I allude and without any indication of its being so garbled. This omission might hereafter give a handle to accuse me of bad faith, wherefore I now give the letter in full, the Italics marking the restored passage:—
From lord Wellington to the Earl of Liverpool.
Fuente Guinaldo, May 28th, 1812.
My dear lord,
You will be as well pleased as I am at general Hill’s success, which certainly would have been still more satisfactory if he had taken the garrison of Mirabete; which he would have done if general Chowne had got on a little better in the night of the 16th, and if sir William Erskine had not very unnecessarily alarmed him, by informing him that Soult’s whole army were in movement, and in Estremadura. Sir Rowland therefore according to his instructions came back on the 21st, whereas if he had staid a day or two he would have brought his heavy howitzers to bear on the castle and he would either have stormed it under his fire or the garrison would have surrendered. But notwithstanding all that has passed I cannot prevail upon the general officers to feel a little confidence in their situation. They take alarm at the least movement of the enemy and then spread the alarm, and interrupt every thing, and the extraordinary circumstance is, that if they are not in command they are as stout as any private soldiers in the army. Your lordship will observe that I have marked some passages in Hill’s report not to be published. My opinion is that the enemy must evacuate the tower of Mirabete and indeed it is useless to keep that post, unless they have another bridge which I doubt. But if they see that we entertain a favourable opinion of the strength of Mirabete, they will keep their garrison there, which might be inconvenient to us hereafter, if we should wish to establish there our own bridge. I enclose a Madrid Gazette in which you will see a curious description of the state of king Joseph’s authority and his affairs in general, from the most authentic sources.
Ever, my dear lord, &c. &c.
Wellington.