It was the business of Lieut.-Gen. Hill so to engage the attention of Marshal Soult, that he should be prevented assisting the army of Marshal Marmont, opposed to Wellington. By the capture of Forts Napoleon and Ragusa at “Almaraz,” gallantly accomplished by the brigade, the separation of the two Marshals was effected, and each forced to follow his own line of retreat, at every step widening the breach.
The battle of Salamanca having cleared the way, the British advanced to Madrid; and, whilst Wellington proceeded against Burgos, Lord Hill occupied the capital. Tho concentration of the French armies for the relief of Burgos occasioned the abandonment of that enterprise, and, for the last time, compelled our army to retire towards Portugal, evacuating Madrid. “From the 27th October to the 20th November, we were exposed,” says Lieut.-Col. Cameron, “to greater hardships than I thought the human frame could bear. In most inclement weather, with the canopy of heaven for our covering, wet, cold, and hungry, we were generally marching day and night. Fifteen poor fellows of the Ninety-second fell down, and were lost. My heart bled for them.”
On reaching Alba de Tormes, an old Roman town, defended by a ruined wall, it was deemed necessary to make a stand against the pursuing enemy, who, urged forward by the vigorous Soult, sorely pressed our army. Here the brigade, entrusted with the honourable yet difficult duty of maintaining the rear guard, behaved with extraordinary gallantry. The scene is thus described by Lieut.-Col. Cameron:—“We did what we could to improve our situation during the short time left us. I threw an old door across the place where the gate once had been, and barricaded it with sticks and stones.... We had not a single piece of ordnance. Just as the clock of Alba struck two, the French columns moved to the attack, and, from that time until night, we sustained a hurricane of shot and shell from twenty pieces of cannon! Their riflemen threw themselves into ditches and ravines round the walls, but their masses never forsook the protection of their artillery, which was most dastardly for Soult, with ten thousand men!”
“It is said, that on the 8th, a French officer of high rank approached so close to the position of the Ninety-second that several muskets were levelled at him, when Cameron, disdaining to take such an advantage, promptly forbade the firing of a shot. It was Soult who was thus saved.”
Thus arrested, the French did not again disturb the retreat. Both armies going into winter quarters, the campaign of 1812 terminated.
With the first dawn of spring Wellington was again on the move. Having re-organised his army, and been strengthened by considerable reinforcements from home, with 78,000 excellent troops, he proceeded to drive the enemy before him. The French, on the other hand, discouraged by evil news from Russia, and denied that assistance they needed, because of the more urgent necessities of the Grand Army, could not be expected to act with the same energy as heretofore, yet did they exceed these anticipations.
At “Vittoria” King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan having gathered together their utmost disposable force, ventured to try the fate of battle, hoping to check the progress of the British, or at least secure a safe retreat, laden, as they were, with the spoil of the Peninsula. But the battle of Vittoria fatally disappointed them, and rescued the treasures of Spain from their avaricious grasp. In this battle, the Ninety-second Highlanders, having been ordered to seize the heights whereon the village of Puebla was perched, and hold the position to the last, with persevering valour overcame a determined resistance, pressed up the sides of the mountain, entered the village with an impetuous charge, and, after a fierce struggle, drove the enemy out.
Having gained this great victory, the British now addressed themselves to the Herculean task of forcing a passage through the defiles of the “Pyrenees” into France. Notwithstanding the stupendous efforts of Marshal Soult to retrieve the losses of Vittoria and defend these natural barriers of his country, the British still pressed “forward.” On the 20th July, 1813, whilst the brigade was threading its way through the pass of Maya, it was vigorously attacked by a corps of 15,000 French, who, forcing back that “fierce and formidable old regiment, the Fiftieth,” upon the Seventy-first and Ninety-second Highlanders, very nearly drove them out of the pass. These, however, for ten hours stood the shock of this formidable assault. “So dreadful was the slaughter, especially of the Ninety-second, that it is said the advancing enemy was actually stopped by the heaped mass of dead and dying. Never did soldiers fight better—seldom so well. The stern valour of the Ninety-second would have graced Thermopylae.” Of 750 Gordon Highlanders who were engaged, only 400 survived it scatheless, but these returned in the truest sense “conquering heroes,” having, when every cartridge was expended, and in presence of succour, decided the victory as their own by a desperate charge. Throughout the many conflicts which it needed to clear a passage through the Pyrenees, and thereafter drive so terrible a foe successively across the “Nivelle” and the “Nive,” the Ninety-second always displayed the same desperate resolution and valour.
At the sanguinary action of St Pierre, which raged with exceeding fury for three hours, cumbering a little space of one mile with more than 5000 dead and dying, the Ninety-second impetuously charged and destroyed two regiments of the enemy. Pressing onwards, the Highlanders were arrested by a fearful storm of artillery, and forced to retreat upon their comrades of the Seventy-first; who likewise yielding to the iron tempest, both found shelter and rallied behind their brethren in brigade of the Fiftieth. “Then its gallant colonel (Cameron) once more led it down the road, with colours flying and music playing, resolved to give the shock to whatever stood in the way. A small force was the Ninety-second compared with the heavy mass in its front, but that mass faced about and retired across the valley. How gloriously did that regiment come forth again to charge, with their colours flying and their national music playing as if going to a review! This was to understand war. The man who in that moment, and immediately after a repulse, thought of such military pomp, was by nature a soldier.”
Excepting at the battle of Toulouse, the Ninety-second was daily engaged with the enemy, and always with equal credit.