After the night of blood at Almarez, Cameron and his Highlanders marched by Fuente del Maistre, Los Santos, the hill of Albuera, and many other places, bivouacking with their brigade wherever night found them, preparatory to the attack on the forts at Salamanca, and the battle there, which was fought, while Hill's division covered Lord Wellington's rear. After joining the grand army on these contested plains, the Highlanders were reviewed by their great general. Rations had been served out that morning; the sheep-heads had been assigned to the 92nd, and when they marched past by open column of companies, every sixth man carried a sheep's head in his left hand.
When Wellington entered Madrid, the Highlanders of Cameron for one night occupied the Escuriel, in the chapel of which the remains of a king and queen of Scotland (Malcolm III. and St. Margaret) are said to lie, having been conveyed to Spain in 1560. After Cameron marched to Aranjuez, his cousin, Ewen Ross, had a narrow escape from a terrible death. Having been ordered to the rear with sick and wounded from the brigade, and having no less than twelve waggons-full of officers, he reached Badajoz, after encountering many difficulties, and there found that various outrages committed by the detachment of Lieutenant H——, of the 28th, were laid to the charge of his party, such as shooting and plundering the paisanos, robbing them of burros, wine, and provisions. Lack of Spanish prevented the gallant Highlander from explaining that he was not the guilty person; and the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Badajoz, illegally tried him by a Spanish court-martial, and unscrupulously sentenced him to death! Then fearing to carry this sentence into execution, he sent him, under an escort of Portuguese horse, to Elvas, where an English officer saved him from a rabble who were bent on his destruction, and he was enabled to rejoin Cameron in safety. On this march he saved from starvation Mr. Irvine, the poor volunteer, whom he found in a state of destitution near Truxillo.
Cameron and his Highlanders endured great misery on the disastrous retreat from Burgos. Deprivation of food reduced the poor men almost to skeletons; their uniform was worn to rags; many were barefooted, and shirtless. Undeterred by the cruel exhibition of a soldier hung daily at the head of the column (for of twenty men under sentence of death for plundering, one was thus sacrificed every day), the 92nd shot some wild pigs in a wood through which they passed. Big Dugald Campbell, one of their favourite officers, drove his long claymore through the body of a boar which he pursued through the thicket, and claimed from some cazadores. This prize he shared with Cameron and other officers; but the affair drew forth a most severe reprimand from head-quarters, and this was at a time when a duro was given for a handful of oats or nuts, and when some of the officers had no other food for six-and-thirty hours than a few mushrooms or acorns.
Fassifern's regiment formed part of the small force which was left with General Howard to secure Wellington's retreat, by defending the old ruined town of Alba at the passage of the rapid Tormes. There the 50th, 71st, and 92nd made a gallant stand on the 8th of November, 1812. After a long and fatiguing march, and just when about to receive a little ration of dry bread—the first food after three days of starvation—the appearance of the whole pursuing French army under Joseph Bonaparte, summoned the brigade to man the old and shattered walls of Alba—a relic of the Moorish wars—while the sappers undermined the bridge of the Tormes. Two green hills overlooked the town and river. Between these and the wall, within pistol-shot of the 92nd Highlanders, a French staff-officer, mounted on a white charger, had the temerity to ride leisurely reconnoitring, and followed by an orderly on foot. Twenty Highlanders levelled their muskets to shoot this daring fellow, but the chivalric Cameron cried aloud:
"Recover your arms there! I will by no means permit an individual to be fired on!"
This officer who acted so boldly, and thus escaped so narrowly, proved to be no other than Marshal Soult, who, in ten minutes after, ordered eighteen pieces of cannon up to the heights, from whence they poured 1300 rounds of shot and shell on the brave brigade of Howard. This was endured until the 13th, by which time Cameron lost forty-two men killed and wounded. At daybreak, on the morning of the 14th, a despatch arrived from Wellington, directing Howard to abandon Alba, as the French cavalry, 3000 strong, had forded the river above the town and turned his flank. A Spanish garrison was left in the old castle of the Castigador de Flamencos—the walls were abandoned, and the bridge blown up. Lieutenant John Grant of the 92nd was the last officer who quitted the town, being left to bring off the sentinels, as the French entered, and he was struck by the stones as the mine under the bridge exploded, at the very heels of his party.
Wellington's admirable foresight saved Howard's brigade, which retired to winter quarters at Coria, in Leon, when, with many other officers and soldiers, Colonel Stewart of the 50th, as brave a Scot as ever drew a sword, expired of exhaustion and fatigue. A soldier of the 50th carved a rude stone to mark where this old officer was laid.
Refreshed by six months' rest in winter quarters at Banos, in a beautiful valley of Leon, overshadowed by high mountains, Cameron, after commanding the 1st brigade during General Foy's attack on Bejar, marched with his Highlanders, when the whole army advanced to turn the famous positions of Jourdan on the Ebro and Douro, and to meet him on the green plains of Vittoria, where, on the 21st of June, 1813, he again commanded the 1st brigade of Hill's division, and carried the heights of La Peubla, when the gallant Cadogan fell amid heaps, literally heaps, of his brave Highlanders.
Sir William Stuart having ordered Cameron to secure the heights, added, "yield them to none without a written order from Sir Rowland Hill or myself, and defend them while you have a man remaining." On this Fassifern ordered the pipers to strike up the "Camerons' Gathering," and the regiment advanced with great spirit and alacrity up the mountain side.
After this victory, the most decisive of the Spanish war, Cameron pushed on with his brigade towards the Pyrenees, beyond which the conqueror drove the French like a herd of sheep, and then garrisoned the heights by a chain of outposts, previous to besieging San Sebastian, and blockading Pampeluna. On this occasion the care of the important pass of Maya was entirely assigned to Cameron, with the 1st brigade, after it had crossed the Bidassoa, and skirmished with the routed French until darkness set in, on the 7th July.