"Camp, or Bivouac, near Pena Macor,
August 9th, 1811.
"My last (from Campo Mayor, I believe) informed you that, the foe being no longer to be dreaded in that quarter, the army was moving into cantonments along the frontier, and that we (that is, the 7th Division) were to occupy Nissa, or Niza. Such did take place, and all indulged in the fond hope that we should enjoy a little otium for a month or so; but, alas, it is willed otherwise, for we are once more in motion, and are so far advanced northwards, retracing our footsteps to the Coa. What is to be done, or the cause of this sudden movement, is a mystery, and I believe only known to the Lord of Lords—in this country, N.B.! I do not myself think any serious attack will again be made by Monsieur François, and in my opinion it is only a little ruse of Baron Douro's to distract him—harass—or what you will, and causing a 'diversion in the south,' as we say in Greek, &c., &c. Whatever may be the cause, it is no little annoyance to be so constantly on the march in this hot weather, and in a country more wretched than you can possibly imagine. Not an article of any description is to be purchased, and were it not for our rations we should be literally starved. We have not been under a roof for this some time; every day we take up fresh ground, and seek shelter in the woods, which luckily abound, or we should actually be grilled alive. As yet I have held out tolerably well, being unwilling to give in while there is a prospect of anything going on. How long I shall last I cannot say, for we are all getting sickly. The Regiment has no more than 300 men. When his lordship sends dispatches, it is said that he stops private letters; he probably dipped into mine and saw their brilliancy, so fearing to be eclipsed he arrested their progress. This may account for their non-receipt!"
"Villa Mayor, upon the Coa,
19th August 1811.
"I wish I could convey to you anything new and interesting relative to this country, or what is likely to be the result of such apparently protracted operations. I am most positively in the utmost obscurity; mystery is the order of the day, really I believe because no one but the lord of lords is enlightened, and I sometimes doubt whether he is always so, such is the fluctuating state of Spain, and probably the difficulty of gaining intelligence of the real movements of the foe. The whole army still remains cantoned upon this frontier; the advance upon the Agueda, with pickets probably as far as Ciudad Rodrigo. They talk of a siege, but I do not hear of the arrival of the battering train, which may possibly be en route from Oporto. You will hardly suppose us to be in such ignorance, but true it is, for one division scarce knows how the other is posted; but as there is one tolerable fair directing head, it is of no moment of what materials are composed those who act in so confined a sphere.
"The French don't appear to have made any movement, still occupying Plasencia and the contiguous country. Ciudad Rodrigo has but a garrison of 1500 men. A considerable body at Salamanca, but nothing to oppose us if we choose to invest that place or make an advance, which is not, I think, likely. The French to do anything here must assemble in great force and bring forward their supplies, which you know is difficult in any country, much more so in such a barren desert as this is. The grand puzzle now is, what has been the cause of this rapid and unexpected movement from the Tagus to the Coa, when every one supposed we should be resting till the autumn? Be sure to send the fishing-rod. I'm longing to whip the Coa."
From this letter, as well as from many other letters, one sees how very little was known, even to senior officers of regiments, as to what was going on, or what was likely to happen. This is a matter which is often forgotten by the layman, who is apt to think, when reading the history of a campaign, that the regimental officers failed on certain occasions to appreciate the situation, and therefore failed to do the right thing at the right moment. Whereas, in nine cases out of ten, in all probability the regimental officers were completely in the dark as to the intentions of the commander of the forces; and if the officers knew little of the operations in progress, or of the reason for movements, the men in the ranks knew still less. Thus we constantly find in the Peninsular letters and journals of regimental officers and soldiers—at any rate at the beginning of the war—expressions of distrust in the generals, grumblings at having to perform forced marches for no apparent reason, and disgust at being ordered to retreat at the moment when they expected to give battle. But, as the war progressed, the men learned to take things as they came, and made no attempt to reason out the whys and the wherefores of strategical movements. The discipline which had been drilled into the soldiers taught them that it was not necessary for them to exercise their reasoning powers until they were in actual touch with the enemy, and the officers seldom thought ahead of the immediate tactical situation.
It must be remembered that a century ago few of the rank and file could read or write, and few of the regimental officers were students of the theory of the art of war. It was not possible, therefore, for these officers and men to work out any great strategical scheme, especially as they had no means of learning anything of the enemy's movements going on at a distance. Hints and rumours filtered through from the staff officers, and were greedily seized upon for discussion in the bivouacs, but in the generality of cases they were quite erroneous and frequently misleading. So the regimental officers contented themselves with living in the present, without troubling about problems of strategy, and they were quite unable to fathom the mystery of the part played by politics in the war. It will be noticed that Sam Rice, at the time a senior regimental officer, in his letters declines to discuss politics, and says little about strategy.
In the vast store of literature dealing with the Peninsular War, there are many volumes of officers' letters and journals, principally of officers who served on the staff, and so to a certain extent behind the scenes. Moreover, the majority of these books were written up and edited years after the war had come to an end, and after every movement in the various campaigns had been thoroughly discussed. There are few books by regimental officers containing their views written down at the time and not altered before publication, and in such as there are we find questions of strategy either avoided or dismissed in a few words, and even questions of tactics only vaguely referred to. For but vaguely did these regimental officers ever know whither they were going, or for what purpose, from one month's end to the next. It was enough for them to be told that their regiment would march at a certain hour in a certain direction, and that what would happen afterwards would depend on circumstances. As soon as touch was gained with the enemy, the regimental officers and the men were given a general idea of the existing tactical situation and what it was intended that they should do. But even then they were not told all, and as often as not they went into action knowing no more about the dispositions of the enemy than they could see with their own eyes. Consequently there were occasions when, with a little more information—a slight dispersal of the "fog of war"—they might have crushed their enemy beyond recovery, instead of merely crippling him.