Two more Eagles, it was widely reported in the Army, came into the possession of other regiments of the Third and Fifth Divisions. One of them is said to have “wanted its head and number”; but what became of them is unknown. Possibly the existence of these particular trophies was merely camp gossip. According to one story, an officer picked up one of the Eagles during the battle and “carried it about in his cap for some days.” No Eagles, however, reached head-quarters after Salamanca except those of the 62nd and 22nd, which in due course were sent to England.[27]
ONE THAT JUST ESCAPED
One Eagle narrowly evaded capture at the hands of the Hanoverian Dragoons of the King’s German Legion in the pursuit after Salamanca. It escaped—to find its way to Chelsea Hospital on a later day, as the famous trophy of our own 1st Dragoons, the “Royals,” at Waterloo. What took place when the Eagle of the 105th of the Line so nearly fell into the enemy’s hands after Salamanca is a story that in its incidents stands by itself.
General Anson’s cavalry brigade, made up of British Light Dragoons and the Hanoverians, was sent in chase to follow and break up the wreck of the defeated army. It came upon the French rearguard in the act of taking post at a place called Garcia Hernandez. In front were several squadrons of cavalry; in rear the 105th of the Line. The three battalions of the regiment were moving in column, with guns in the intervals. Not seeing the French infantry and guns at first, owing to an intervening ridge, Anson rode for the cavalry and drove them in. “Their squadrons fled from Anson’s troopers, abandoning three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were making up a hollow slope, hoping to gain the crest of some heights before the pursuing cavalry could fall on, and the two foremost did reach higher ground, and there formed in squares.” The squares at once opened fire on the horsemen, and for a moment checked them.
A SQUARE CHARGED AND BROKEN
The Hanoverian Dragoons were the nearest of the pursuers to the rearmost of the French squares, and there was no way to ride past without exposing their flank at close range. Captain Von Decken, who was leading the dragoons, on the spur of the moment took the daring decision to attack the square with the single squadron he had with him, then and there. Without an instant’s hesitation the gallant captain charged, regardless of the fierce fusillade that met him at once, from which his men went down all round. They dropped fast under fire. By twos, by threes, by tens, all round they fell; yet the rest of them, surmounting the difficulties of the ground, hurled themselves in a mass on the column and went clean through it.
The gallant Von Decken was among the first to go down, shot dead a hundred yards from the square. But a leader no less heroic was at hand. Instantly Captain Von Uslar Gleichen, in charge of the left troop, dashed to the front. He rode out to the head of the squadron, inciting his men by voice and gesture and example. Another French volley smote hard on the squadron, but the intrepid troopers galloped through it, and, bringing up their right flank, swept on towards the enemy’s bayonets, making to attack the square on two sides. The two foremost ranks of the French were on the knee with bayonets to the front, presenting a deadly double row of steel. In rear the steady muskets of four standing ranks were levelled at the horsemen. The dragoons pressed on close up, and some were trying, in vain, to beat aside the bayonets before them, and make a gap through, when an accident at the critical moment gave the opportunity. A shot from the kneeling ranks, apparently fired unintentionally, as it is said, killed a horse, and caused it with its rider to fall forward, right across and on top of the bayonets. Thus a lane was unexpectedly laid open to the cavalry. They seized the chance instantly and crowded in through. The square was broken. It was cleft apart: its ranks were scattered and dispersed. All was over in a few moments. Within three minutes the entire battalion had been either cut down under the slaughtering swords of the dragoons or had been made prisoners.
Immediately on that another Hanoverian captain, Von Reitzenstein, came sweeping by with the second squadron, riding for the second French square. These met the charge with a bold front and rapid volley, but their moral had been shaken by the startling and horrible scene they had just beheld. The front face of the second square gave way as the horsemen got close, and four-fifths of that battalion were either sabred on the spot or made prisoners.
There was yet, near by, the third battalion in its square. Its numbers had been added to by such fugitive survivors from the first and second squares as had been able to reach the place and get inside. The third squadron of the Dragoons dealt with the third square in the same way, riding boldly at it, and breaking in with deadly results, as before.
How the Eagle of the 105th was saved—it was with the first battalion in the square first broken—is not on record. It did, however, somehow, evade capture—hidden hastily perhaps beneath the coat of somebody in the handful of men who got away in the mêlée. Only the broken Eagle-pole was left, to be picked up among the dead after the fight: