The second day after the storming of Rodrigo our brave General Crauford died of his wound, and the chief part of the officers of the Rifles went to pay the last tribute to his remains. He was borne to the grave by four Sergeant-Majors of his own division, and was buried in the breach where he fell. The Duke of Wellington attended the funeral of the gallant veteran; who, though most strict in discipline, was averse to punishment, and was beloved by the men for his justice and care for them, as well as for his bravery. The following incident, of which I was an eye-witness, will serve to show his character.
I happened to be on guard one day, when General Crauford came riding in from the front with his orderly dragoon, as was his usual custom, when two of our men, one of them a corporal, came running out of a house with some bread which they had stolen from the Spaniards; they were pursued by a Spanish woman crying lustily, “Ladrone! Ladrone!”—thief! thief! They were immediately pursued by the General and his orderly; the bread was given back to the woman, and the men were placed in the guard-house. The next day they were tried by a brigade court-martial, and brought out to a wood near the town for punishment. When the brigade was formed, and the Brigade-Major had finished reading the proceedings of the court-martial, General Crauford commenced lecturing both men and officers on the nature of their cruelty to the harmless inhabitants, as he called the Spaniards. He laid particular stress on our regiment, who, he said, committed more crimes than the whole of the British Army. “Besides, you think,” said he, “because you are riflemen, and more exposed to the enemy’s fire than other regiments, that you are to rob the inhabitants with impunity; but, while I command you, you shall not:” then turning round to the corporal, who stood in the centre of the square, he said, with a stern voice, “Strip, Sir.”
The corporal, whose name was Miles, never said a word until tied up to a tree, when turning his head round as far as his situation would allow, and seeing the General pacing up and down the square, he said, “General Crauford, I hope you will forgive me.” The General replied, “No, Sir, your crime is too great.” The poor corporal, whose sentence was, to be reduced to the pay and rank of a private soldier, and to receive a punishment of one hundred and fifty lashes, and the other man two hundred, then addressed the General to the following effect:
“Do you recollect, Sir, when you and I were taken prisoners, when under the command of General Whitelock, in Buenos Ayres? We were marched prisoners, with a number of others, to a sort of pound surrounded with a wall.—There was a well in the centre, out of which I drew water with my mess-tin, by means of canteen straps, I collected from the men, who were prisoners like myself.—You sat on my knapsack; I parted my last biscuit with you. You then told me you would never forget my kindness to you. It is now in your power, Sir. You know how short we have been of rations for some time.”
These words were spoken by the corporal in a mild and respectful accent, which not only affected the General, but the whole square. The bugler, who stood waiting to commence the punishment close to the corporal, received the usual nod from the Bugle-Major to begin. The first lash the corporal received the General started, and turned hurriedly round, said, “What’s that, what’s that; who taught that bugler to flog? Send him to drill—send him to drill! He cannot flog—he cannot flog! Stop! stop! Take him down! take him down! I remember it well—I remember it well!” while he paced up and down the square, muttering to himself words that I could not catch; at the same time blowing his nose, and wiping his face with his handkerchief, trying to hide the emotion that was so evident to the whole square.
While untying the corporal a dead silence prevailed for some time, until our gallant General recovered a little his noble feeling, when he uttered, with a broken accent, “Why does a brave soldier like you commit these crimes?” Then beckoning to his orderly to bring his horse, he mounted and rode off. It is needless to say that the other man also was pardoned, and in a few days the corporal was restored to his rank. On the death of Captain Uniacke, Captain Smith, now the celebrated Sir Harry Smith, was appointed Captain of my company. He being on the staff, his brother, Lieutenant Thomas Smith, now Barrack Master at Chatham, took command.
On the fourth day, after we had taken the town, the company received orders to pay the last tribute to our Captain, Uniacke. We marched under the command of Lieutenant Smith, and arrived at Gallegos about twelve o’clock. The men having plenty of money, which they had obtained at Rodrigo, got drinking, and actually while conveying the body to the grave, stumbled under the weight of the coffin, and the lid not having been nailed down, out rolled the mangled remains of our brave Captain, to the consternation of a number of French officers, en parole (prisoners from Rodrigo). One more careless than the rest viewed the occurrence with a kind of malicious sneer, which so enraged our men, that one of them taking the little tawny-looking Italian by the nape of the neck, kicked his hind-quarters soundly for it.
I could not, at the time, help remarking the very undersized appearance of the Frenchmen. They were the ugliest set I ever saw, and seemed to be the refuse of their army, and looked more like Italians than Frenchmen.
On our return to El Bodon, one of the men overpowered with liquor, laid himself down to sleep in the wood that separates the road from Gallegos. Poor fellow, it was his last sleep, for on the roll being called, a party was sent in search of him, and discovered his body under a tree, torn to pieces by the wolves, which greatly infested that part of Spain.
I now have to relate one of those melancholy incidents peculiar to a soldier’s life, that occurred while we remained at El Bodon. On taking Rodrigo we had captured, among others, ten men who had deserted from our division. These were condemned to be shot. The place of execution was on a plain near Ituera, where our division was drawn up, forming three sides of a square; the culprits, as usual, being placed in front of a trench, dug for a grave, on the vacant side.