It therefore argued considerable independence and disregard of public opinion on the part of Wellington, when he wrote home to ask that Picton might be sent out to him to command a division,[113] purely on his military record as a hard fighter. The general came out to Portugal with a name unfavourably known, and to colleagues and subordinates who were prepared to view him with a critical eye. “It is impossible to deny,” writes an officer who served under him, “that a very strong dislike towards the general was prevalent. His conduct in the island of Trinidad ... had impressed all ranks with an unfavourable opinion of the man. His first appearance was looked for with no little anxiety. When he reached the ground, accompanied by his staff, every eye was turned towards him, and his appearance and demeanour were closely observed. He looked to be a man between fifty and sixty, and I never saw a more perfect specimen of a splendid-looking soldier. In vain did those who had set him down as a cruel tyrant seek to find out such a delineation in his countenance. On the contrary, there was a manly open frankness in his appearance that gave a flat contradiction to the slander. And in truth Picton was not a tyrant, nor did he ever act as such during the many years that he commanded the 3rd Division. But if his countenance did not depict him as cruel, there was a sarcastic severity about it, and a certain curl of the lip, that marked him as one who despised rather than courted applause. The stern countenance, robust frame, caustic speech, and austere demeanour told in legible characters that he was one not likely to say a thing and then not do as he had said. In a word, his appearance denoted him a man of strong mind and strong frame.”[114]
Picton and the 88th Foot
It was considered characteristic that he ended his first inspection of the division by holding a drum-head court-martial on two soldiers who had stolen a goat, and witnessing their punishment. He then rode up to the regiment to which the culprits belonged, the 88th, and “in language not of that bearing which an officer of his rank should use,” said, “You are not known in the army by the name of Connaught Rangers, but by the name of Connaught footpads,” with some unnecessary remarks on their country and their religion.
This untoward incident was the commencement of a long feud between Picton and the 88th, which endured all through the war, and led, at the end of it, to the Rangers refusing to subscribe to the laudatory address and plate which the rest of the 3rd Division offered to their general, after nearly five years of glorious service. Yet the feud was not incompatible with a good deal of reluctant esteem on both sides. On the morning after the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo, in which the Rangers had taken a most gallant part, we are told that some of the men, more than usually elated in spirits, called out to their commander, “Well, general, we gave you a cheer last night: it’s your turn now.” Picton, smiling, took off his hat and said, “Here, then, you drunken set of brave rascals, hurrah! And we’ll soon be at Badajoz,” to which scene of even greater glory for the 3rd Division he did conduct them within a few weeks.
The considerable string of stories, true, half-true, or apocryphal, which cling round the name of Picton relate in about equal proportions, on the one hand, to his extreme intrepidity and coolness in action, and, on the other, to his vehemence alike of language and of action, which struck terror into the objects of his wrath. The best of the former with which I am acquainted comes from the same diarist, Grattan, of the 88th, whom I have already been quoting. It relates to the day of El Bodon (September 25, 1811), when the 3rd Division, caught in a somewhat isolated position owing to one of Wellington’s few tactical slips, was retreating in column across a level upland, beset by Montbrun and three brigades of French cavalry. “For six miles across a perfect flat, without the slightest protection from any incident of the ground, without artillery, almost without cavalry, did the 3rd Division continue its march. During the whole time the French cavalry never quitted us, and six light guns, advancing with them and taking the division in flank and rear, poured in a frightful fire of grape and canister. General Picton conducted himself with his accustomed coolness. He rode on the left flank of the column, and repeatedly cautioned the different battalions to mind the quarter distance and the ‘tellings off.’ At last we got within a mile of our entrenched camp at Fuente Guinaldo, when Montbrun, impatient lest his prey should escape from his grasp, ordered his troopers to bring up their right shoulders and incline towards our column. The movement was not exactly bringing up his squadrons into line, but it was the next thing to it. They were within half pistol-shot of us. Picton took off his hat, and holding it over his eyes as a shade from the sun, looked sternly but anxiously at the French. The clatter of the horses and the clanking of the scabbards were so great, as the right squadron moved up, that many thought it the forerunner of a general charge. Some mounted officer called out, ‘Had we not better form square?’ ‘No,’ replied Picton; ‘it is but a ruse to frighten us, and it won’t do.’ In half an hour more we were safe within our lines.”[115]
This was a fine example of cool resolution, and ended happily what had been a very anxious hour for Wellington. But I imagine that the occasion on which the Commander-in-Chief owed most to the commander of the 3rd Division was the storm of Badajoz. It will be remembered that on that bloody night the main attack on the breaches failed completely, despite of the desperate exertions of the 4th and Light Divisions. The attempt by escalade upon the towering walls of the castle, which proved successful and caused the fall of the fortress, had not been in Wellington’s original plan, but was suggested to him by Picton, who had viewed the breaches, and had not been convinced that they could be carried. Picton pleaded that he might be allowed to try the castle with his own division as a subsidiary operation.[116] He succeeded triumphantly, and so saved the day. If he had not made his offer, the chance of the city’s falling would have been infinitely less, even though a brigade of the 5th Division did succeed in entering Badajoz at another point remote from the fatal breaches. Though Picton got plenty of praise for his courage on this night, it was not generally known that he ought to have been praised even more for his prescience.
Picton at Badajoz
Numberless instances of Picton’s skill and tenacity might be quoted, all through the six years of his service under Wellington. But the anecdote which best illustrates his Spartan courage is one which belongs to the last three days of his life. At Quatre Bras, where his division so long held back the vehement attacks of Ney, he received a musket ball in his left side, which, though it gave a somewhat glancing blow and did not penetrate, broke two of his ribs. Believing that the battle would be continued next day, he resolved not to return himself as wounded, lest the surgeons should insist on sending him to the rear. He roughly bound up the wound with the assistance of his soldier servant, and was on his horse throughout June 17, conducting the retreat of his division. On the 18th, as every one knows, he was killed—shot through the head—while leading the decisive charge which beat d’Erlon’s corps from the heights of Mont St. Jean. Only when his body was stripped, to be laid in the coffin, was it discovered that he had gone into action at Waterloo with a dangerous, perhaps mortal, wound two days old upon him. For his side was so swollen and blackened around the broken ribs, that the surgeons thought that the neglected wound might very possibly have caused his death, if he had come unharmed through the battle of June 18.
Such virtues were not incompatible with grave faults. Picton’s violent language and reckless disregard of common forms of propriety form the subject of many tales. When he thought that the assistant engineer who guided the 3rd Division at the storm of Badajoz had led them astray, he drew his sword, and with an oath said that he would cut the blind fool down if he had gone wrong. This we have on the first-hand evidence of that officer, who was fortunately able to demonstrate that the right path had been taken.[117] A better-known tale is that of Picton and the commissary, a story which has also been attributed to Craufurd, and recently by Mr. Fortescue to General Sherbrooke. The commissary had been ordered, during one of Wellington’s long marches, to have the rations of the 3rd Division ready at a certain spot at a certain hour. They were not forthcoming, but only a series of excuses, to account for their non-arrival. Picton grimly pointed to a neighbouring tree and said, “Well, sir, if you don’t get the rations for my division to the place mentioned by twelve o’clock to-morrow, I will hang you on it at half-past.” The commissary rode straight to Lord Wellington and complained, with much injured dignity, of the general’s violent and ungentlemanly language. His lordship coolly remarked, “Oh, he said that he’d hang you, did he?” “Yes, my lord.” “Well, General Picton is a man of his word. I think you’d better get the rations up in time.” Further advice was unnecessary; the rations were there to the moment.[118] It is odd to find that many years after Picton’s death a question was asked in Parliament, and a controversy raged in the newspapers, as to which of three named commissaries was the object of Picton’s anger.
It would be wrong, however, to paint Picton as a mere vial of wrath, foaming into ungovernable rage in and out of season. When he was angry he generally had good cause; it was only the over-vehemence of his language that caused him to become a centre of legends. Odd as it may seem, the rank and file did not consider him a tyrant; it was acknowledged that he was very just, that he never punished without hearing the defence, that he was capable of pardoning, that when he hit hard he did so not without reason. A sergeant of the 45th wrote on him thus: “He was strict sometimes, especially about plunder, always talking about how wrong it was to plunder the poor people because countries happened to be at war. He used to flog the men when they were found out; but where he flogged, many generals took life. Besides this, the men thought that he had their welfare at heart. Every soldier in the division knew that if he had anything to complain of, ‘Old Picton’ would listen to his story, and set him right if he could. On the whole, our fellows always thought him a kind general, in spite of his strong language.”