A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809

by Charles Oman

Soult had suffered such a decided reverse that he had no desire to prolong the battle, while Hope—who so unexpectedly found himself in command of the British army—showed no wish to make a counter-attack, and was quite contented to have vindicated his position. He claimed, in his dispatch, that at the end of the engagement the army was holding a more advanced line than at its commencement: and this was in part true, for Elvina was now occupied in force, and not merely by a picket, and Paget on the right had cleared the ground below the heights of San Cristobal, which Lahoussaye had been occupying during the action. Some of the French writers have claimed that Soult also had gained ground[726]: but the only fact that can be cited in favour of their contention is that Foy was holding on to the southern end of Piedralonga[727]. All the eye-witnesses on their side concede that at the end of the action the marshal’s army had fallen back to its original position[728].

English critics have occasionally suggested that the success won by Paget and Bentinck might have been pressed, and that if the division of Fraser had been brought up to their support, the French left might have been turned and crushed[729]. But considering that Soult had fourteen or fifteen intact battalions left, in the divisions of Merle and Delaborde[730], it would have been well in his power to fight a successful defensive action on his heights, throwing back his left wing, so as to keep it from being encircled. Hope was right to be contented with his success: even if he had won a victory he could have done no more than re-embark, for the army was not in a condition to plunge once more into the Galician highlands in pursuit of Soult, who would have been joined in a few days by Heudelet, and in a week by Ney.

The losses suffered by the two armies at the battle of Corunna are not easy to estimate. The British regiments, embarking on the day after the fight, did not send in any returns of their casualties till they reached England. Then, most unfortunately, a majority of the colonels lumped together the losses of the retreat and those of the battle. It is lucky, however, to find that among the regiments which sent in proper returns are nearly all those which fought the brunt of the action. The 50th and 42nd of Bentinck’s brigade were by far the most heavily tried, from the prolonged and desperate fighting in and about Elvina. The former lost two officers killed and three wounded, with 180 rank and file: the Highland battalion thirty-nine rank and file killed and 111 (including six officers) wounded. The Guards’ brigade, on the other hand, which was brought up to support these regiments, suffered very little; the first battalion of the 1st Regiment had only five, the second only eight killed, with about forty wounded between them. In Manningham’s brigade the 81st, with its loss of three officers and twenty-seven men killed, and eleven officers and 112 men wounded, was by far the heaviest sufferer: the Royals may also have had a considerable casualty-list, but its figures are apparently not to be found, except confused with those of the whole retreat. Paget’s division in its flank march to ward off the French turning movement suffered surprisingly little: of its two leading regiments the 1/95th had but twelve killed and thirty-three wounded, the 1/52nd five killed and thirty-three wounded. The other three battalions, which formed the supports, must have had even fewer men disabled. Hope’s division, with the exception of the 14th and the 59th, was not seriously engaged: the few battalions which sent in their battle-losses, apart from those of the retreat, show figures such as six or ten for their casualties on January 16. Fraser’s whole division neither fired a shot nor lost a man. It is probable then that Hope, when in his dispatch he estimated the total loss of the British army at ‘something between 700 and 800,’ was overstating rather than understating the total.

Soult’s losses are even harder to discover than those of Moore’s army. His chronicler, Le Noble[731], says that they amounted to no more than 150 killed and 500 wounded. The ever inaccurate Thiers reduces this figure to 400 or less. On the other hand Naylies, a combatant in the battle, speaks of 800 casualties; and Marshal Jourdan, in his précis of the campaign, gives 1,000[732]. But all these figures must be far below the truth. Fantin des Odoards has preserved the exact loss of his own corps, the 31st Léger, one of the regiments of Mermet’s division, which fought in Elvina. It amounted to no less than 330 men[733]. The other four regiments of the division were not less deeply engaged, and it is probable that Mermet alone must have lost over 1,000 in killed and wounded. Two of his three brigadiers went down in the fight: Gaulois was shot dead, Lefebvre badly hurt. Of Merle’s division, one brigade was hotly engaged in the struggle with Manningham’s battalions, in which our 2/81st lost so heavily. The French cannot have suffered less, as they were the beaten party. Lahoussaye’s dragoons must also have sustained appreciable loss: that of Delaborde (as we have already seen) was limited to about eighteen killed and fifty wounded. Of unwounded prisoners the British took seven officers and 156 men. If we put the total of Soult’s casualties at 1,500, we probably shall not be far wrong. All the later experience of the war showed that, when French troops delivered in column an uphill attack on a British position and failed, they suffered twice or thrice the loss of the defenders: we need only mention Vimiero and Busaco. On this occasion there was the additional advantage that Moore’s army had new muskets and good ammunition, while those of Soult’s corps were much deteriorated. A loss of 1,500 men therefore seems a fair and rational estimate. The impression left by the battle on Soult’s mind was such that, in his first dispatch to the Emperor, he wrote that he could do no more against the English till he should have received large reinforcements[734]. But two days later, when Hope had evacuated Corunna, he changed his tone and let it be understood that he had gained ground during the battle, and had so far established an advantage that his position forced the English to embark. This allegation was wholly without foundation. Hope simply carried out the arrangements which Moore had made for sending off the army to England, and his resolve was dictated by the condition of his troops, who urgently needed reorganization and repose, and not by any fear of what the Marshal could do against him.

Moore, borne back to his quarters in Corunna, survived long enough to realize that his army had completely beaten off Soult’s attack, and had secured for itself a safe departure. In spite of his dreadful wound he retained his consciousness to the last. Forgetful of his own pain, he made inquiries as to the fate of his especial friends and dependants, and found strength to dictate several messages, recommending for promotion officers who had distinguished themselves, and sending farewell greetings to his family. He repeatedly said that he was dying in the way he had always desired, on the night of a victorious battle. The only weight on his mind was the thought that public opinion at home might bear hardly upon him, in consequence of the horrors of the retreat. ‘I hope the people of England will be satisfied,’ he gasped; ‘I hope my country will do me justice.’ And then his memory wandered back to those whom he loved: he tried in vain to frame a message to his mother, but weakness and emotion overcame him, and a few minutes later he died, with the name of Pitt’s niece (Lady Hester Stanhope) on his lips. Moore had expressed a wish to be buried where he fell, and his staff carried out his desire as far as was possible, by laying him in a grave on the ramparts of Corunna. He was buried at early dawn on the seventeenth, on the central bastion that looks out towards the land-side and the battle-field. Hard by him lies General Anstruther, who had died of dysentery on the day before the fight. Soult, with a generosity that does him much credit, took care of Moore’s grave, and ordered a monument to be erected over the spot where he fell[735]. La Romana afterwards carried out the Marshal’s pious intentions.

Little remains to be said about the embarkation of the army. At nine o’clock on the night of the battle the troops were withdrawn from the Monte Moro position, leaving only pickets along its front. Many regiments were embarked that night, more on the morning of the seventeenth. By the evening of that day all were aboard save Beresford’s brigade of Fraser’s division, which remained to cover the embarkation of the rest.

Soult, when he found that the British had withdrawn, sent up some field-pieces to the heights above Fort San Diego, on the southern end of the bay. Their fire could reach the more outlying transports, and created some confusion, as the masters hastily weighed anchor and stood out to sea. Four vessels ran on shore, and three of them could not be got off: the troops on board were hastily transferred to other ships, with no appreciable loss: from the whole army only nine men of the Royal Wagon Train are returned as having been ‘drowned in Corunna harbour,’ no doubt from the sinking of the boat which was transhipping them. General Leith records, in his diary, that on the vessel which took him home there were fragments of no less than six regiments: we can hardly doubt that this must have been one of those which picked up the men from the stranded transports.

Beresford’s brigade embarked from a safe point behind the citadel on the eighteenth, leaving the town in charge of the small Spanish garrison under General Alcedo, which maintained the works till all the fleet were far out to sea, and then rather tamely surrendered. This was entirely the doing of their commander, a shifty old man, who almost immediately after took service with King Joseph[736].

The returning fleet had a tempestuous but rapid passage: urged on by a raging south-wester the vessels ran home in four or five days, and made almost every harbour between Falmouth and Dover. Many transports had a dangerous passage, but only two, the Dispatch and the Smallbridge, came to grief off the Cornish coast and were lost, the former with three officers and fifty-six men of the 7th Hussars, the latter with five officers and 209 men of the King’s German Legion[737]. So ended the famous ‘Retreat from Sahagun.’

Moore’s memory met, as he had feared, with many unjust aspersions when the results of his campaign were known in England. The aspect of the 26,000 ragged war-worn troops, who came ashore on the South Coast, was so miserable that those who saw them were shocked. The state of the mass of 3,000 invalids, racked with fever and dysentery, who were cast into the hospitals was eminently distressing. It is seldom that a nation sees its troops returning straight from the field, with the grime and sweat of battle and march fresh upon them. The impression made was a very unhappy one, and it was easy to blame the General. Public discontent was roused both against Moore and against the ministry, and some of the defenders of the latter took an ungenerous opportunity of shifting all the blame upon the man who could no longer vindicate himself. This provoked his numerous friends into asserting that his whole conduct of the campaign had been absolutely blameless, and that any misfortunes which occurred were simply and solely the fault of maladministration and unwise councils at home. Moore was the hero of the Whig party, and politics were dragged into the discussion of the campaign to a lamentable extent. Long years after his death the attitude of the critic or the historian, who dealt with the Corunna retreat, was invariably coloured by his Whig or Tory predilections.