Memoir of the early campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, in Portugal and Spain, / By an officer employed in his army

by Earl of John Fane Westmorland

The French were more successful in the battle of Rio Seco, mention of which has already been made in the first pages of this work, yet they were unable to follow up their successes; and the noble resistance of Saragossa, under the directions of Palafox, obliged them to march a considerable corps to besiege it.

The events of this campaign were so destructive to the enemy, that Joseph resolved to quit Madrid, and seek a safer and more concentrated position behind the Ebro. The first columns of his troops began to retire from the capital upon the 30th of July, and it was totally abandoned on the 10th of August; the siege of Saragossa was also raised, and the head-quarters of the French armies were established at Vittoria. Such was the state of things when Lieutenant General Sir John Moore was ordered to carry the British army from Portugal to the assistance of the Spaniards.

The Spanish troops were generally assembled in two great corps; the left, under the orders of General Blake, in the provinces of Asturias and Biscay; the right, along the south bank of the Ebro, at Logrono, Tudela, &c., and under the command of Castanos; Palafox commanded the army of Arragon; which, (although incorporated with that of Castanos), yet yielded but an unwilling submission to his orders. The Marquis of Romana, with the troops that had been withdrawn from Denmark, had landed in Gallicia, and was moving forward to take the chief command of the troops of Blake and the whole northern army.

Sir John Moore began his march from Lisbon on the 27th of October; he determined to assemble his troops at Salamanca; but, from the difficulties of roads, and of subsistence for the army, he was induced to separate his corps, and to march them at distances so great from each other, that they no longer were of any mutual support. The infantry arrived in good order at Salamanca towards the end of November; but the cavalry and artillery, which had moved within a few leagues of Madrid, did not reach that place till three weeks or a month afterwards. Sir David Baird was sent from England with a corps of 13,000 men to Corunna, and was directed to place himself under the orders of Sir John Moore, and effect his junction with him as early as possible. This officer met with considerable obstructions from the Junta of Gallicia; he was, in the first instance, refused the permission to land; and afterwards was subjected to great inconvenience in provisioning his troops.

Soon after the arrival of Sir John Moore at Salamanca, he was apprized that Buonaparte, with a large army, was already in Spain; and that his first successes had been considerable; Sir John Moore seemed to think them decisive.

The army of General Blake was beaten at Espinora de los Monteros on the 10th and 11th of November; and the battle of Tudela on the 28th put to rout the army of Castanos. Sir John Moore had a most difficult card to play. His army was not assembled, his cavalry and artillery had not formed their junction, and a considerable distance divided him from the corps of Sir David Baird. He resolved therefore to abandon offensive operations, and directing this last-mentioned corps to retreat to Vigo, and there embark for Lisbon, he himself prepared to retire into Portugal. The direction of the French army upon Madrid changed, however, Sir John Moore’s determination. He stopped the movement of Sir David Baird, and ordered him to advance his corps to Benavente; from whence it was his intention to combine an operation with the whole British force upon the rear of Buonaparte.

General Soult commanded a corps of the French army upon the Carrion; Sir John Moore determined to attack him, and moved forward with that intention with the whole force under his command, which he had assembled on the 20th of December at Mayorga, combined with the corps of Romana upon his left. The British force amounted to 29,360 effective men. After severe marches, Sir John Moore reached Sahagun on the 21st of December, and prepared on the 23d to force the position of General Soult. He received, however, information that Buonaparte was marching upon Salamanca, and was seeking to surround his army. Sir John Moore instantly gave up the offensive, and retired in the greatest haste upon Benavente. When he arrived there, he found the advanced guard of Buonaparte’s army at a short distance from the place; and on the 29th of December, the British rear guard of cavalry distinguished itself in an affair with the cavalry of the imperial guard.

The superiority of the British was manifest on this occasion; they had in several preceding actions given samples of their bravery and good conduct; Lieutenant General Lord Paget and Major General the Honourable C. Stewart had led them on to the most decisive successes, and in an affair at Sahagun, on the 21st of December, had almost annihilated a regiment of French cavalry.

The fall of Madrid, after an inconsiderable resistance, had made a deep impression upon the mind of Sir John Moore; he looked with despondency upon the affairs of the Peninsula, after its surrender; and considered the great cause of Spanish independence completely lost. He had made one effort to relieve the southern provinces of Spain from the irruption with which they were threatened; he succeeded in diverting it against himself; and from that time he conceived that his first duty was to withdraw from the country. With that view he commenced his retreat into Gallicia; he at first determined to embark his army at Vigo; he afterwards led it to Corunna. It had been expected that he would have defended the strong ground he was passing over, but he continued his retreat, and once only, on the 8th of January at Lugo, offered battle to his pursuers[^[2]]. The enemy was neither strong enough nor mad enough to accept it; and after a retreat, the most disastrous for an unbeaten but brave and gallant army that history records, Sir John Moore arrived at Corunna on the 11th of January 1809. He took up a position in front of the town to await the arrival of the transports; fortunately they were not long delayed; they reached the harbour on the 14th; and Sir John Moore prepared to embark his troops. Happily for the honour of the British army, though we must lament the loss that ensued, the French were too proud of the reputation they had gained against other armies, to permit the embarkation to be unmolested. They attacked the British corps, reduced by fatigue, by loss upon the march, by sickness, and by the absence of its cannon, which was already on board the transports; they attacked it when mustering only 16,000 men, placed in a bad position, with its retreat cut off if beaten; yet they were completely repulsed, with very severe loss, and a part of the position which they occupied before the action, was carried at the point of the bayonet, and maintained. The loss on the side of the British was considerable; Sir John Moore fell in the arms of victory; he died a death worthy of the character he had maintained through a long life of service and renown; he fell by a cannon-shot while directing a charge against the enemy, and commanded the respect, the admiration, and regret of his brother soldiers and his countrymen. Sir David Baird was severely wounded, and obliged to quit the field, and the command-devolved upon Sir John Hope. This officer withdrew his troops from the position, and embarked them in the course of the night and succeeding day; the rear-guard was commanded by Major General Beresford, and the whole army was embarked without loss, and sailed on the 17th of January; Thus ended the second campaign in which the British troops had been engaged in the Peninsula. It would be a melancholy task to canvass it throughout; the last action was worthy of the men that have since delivered Spain from its merciless invaders; but the movements which preceded it were far from being generally approved. Great difficulties were indeed opposed to Sir John Moore; but it would appear that in his own mind they were too highly rated. He discharged his duty to his country, however, with his utmost zeal. He died fighting to maintain its glory, and his name will ever be ranked amongst its heroes.

[2]. One of the principal causes of the uninterrupted continuation of this retreat was the total failure of the Commissariat in the establishment of the Magazines which had been directed to be formed on the line of march now pursued by the army.