On the 16th of May, 1813, the Eighty-Eighth broke up from its cantonments at Leomel, and joined in the general advance of the army into Spain, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Macpherson. In the course of the march an accident occurred both annoying and prejudicial to the regiment. In order to facilitate the movements of the army, to render the column of march less encumbered, and to lessen the fatigue of the troops, it was customary, when not in the presence of the enemy, to proceed either by brigades or single corps: Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane’s brigade, of which the Eighty-Eighth formed part, moved by regiments. The Eighty-Eighth, on the route from Leomel to St. Jean de Pasquera, arrived at a spot where the road branched off in different directions, one leading to its proper point of destination, the other descending into the steep and precipitous country which forms the left bank of the Douro. By some unaccountable ignorance or misconception on the part of its guide, the regiment took the wrong road, and after struggling for some time through a series of rugged defiles, found itself at a late hour in the evening embedded in the mountains, and as distant from St. Jean de Pasquera as it had been when starting from its cantonments at Leomel. Some men died of the heat and fatigue, but the esprit de corps sustained the regiment through the long and severe forced march, across a country deeply intersected with ravines, thickly covered with gum cistus, and traversable only by goat-paths, by which it rejoined its division.
On the 27th of May the regiment entered Spain, and on the 20th of June, it was posted near the river Bayas, when dispositions were made for attacking the enemy in his position in front of Vittoria.
The troops were under arms an hour before daylight on the 21st, and the third and seventh divisions were destined to attack the enemy’s centre; but the French, having weakened their centre to support their flanks, which were first attacked, the centre column of the allied army did not meet with serious opposition. In front of the Eighty-Eighth the enemy occupied a hill of considerable elevation, from which he was forced by that regiment, while the Forty-Fifth and Seventy-Fourth made flank movements round its base, the French retiring to a second hill in the rear of their former position. The Eighty-Eighth, which had hitherto been in column, now deployed into line, and notwithstanding a heavy fire of musketry and artillery, continued to advance, till the enemy having rallied and brought up fresh troops, there was momentary halt by order of Sir Thomas Brisbane, who commanded the brigade. At this instant Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton coming up, and feeling displeased at the halt, made use of some harsh expressions to the Eighty-Eighth as the leading corps, which led to an immediate explanation from Sir Thomas Brisbane, when the regiment again moved forward and headed the brigade in the attack upon the town of Vittoria. During the day the Eighty-Eighth charged several times, but the enemy never waited to receive them, and it was generally observed among the soldiers, that so far as this regiment was concerned, King Joseph’s army at Vittoria proved decidedly the worst fighting army they had encountered.
The loss of the regiment at Vittoria was one officer, Ensign Saunders, and thirty rank and file killed; four officers, Captain M‘Dermott, and Lieutenants Flood, Fitzpatrick, and Faris; two serjeants, and one hundred and ninety-five rank and file wounded; in all, two hundred and thirty-two.
The expressions used by Sir Thomas Picton became afterwards the subject of remonstrance, and even of a memorial to the Duke of Wellington. The result was that, after due explanations, a letter satisfactory to the regiment was addressed by Sir Thomas Picton to Sir Thomas Brisbane, as Commander of the brigade, declaring that, after the many instances of gallantry he had witnessed in the Eighty-Eighth, it could never have been his intention to cast any reflections on that corps, by words uttered in a moment of irritation, and adding, that his divisional order after the battle should be received as a sufficient proof of this. The following is an extract of that order:—
“Division Orders, 23rd June, 1813.
“Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton congratulates Major-General the Honourable Sir C. Colville, Major-General Brisbane, and Major-General Power, upon the conspicuous services rendered by the brigades under their several commands towards the brilliant success of the 21st of June instant. He requests to assure the commanding officers, officers, non-commissioned officers and men of their corps and regiments, that their conduct did not fail to excite his warm admiration, and to increase the confidence he has always felt in the command of the third division,” &c.
On the 28th of July, two companies of the Eighty-Eighth had an opportunity of earning distinction for themselves and their corps under the immediate eye of the whole third division, as well as of a strong and select body of the French. The attempt of Marshal Soult to raise the siege of Pampeluna, which had been invested by the Duke of Wellington’s army shortly after the battle of Vittoria, and the series of actions which took place between the covering army and that of Soult in the passes of the Pyrenees between the 25th and 30th of July, which ended in the complete repulse of the French, gave rise to the display of British valour with a splendour never exceeded in the annals of war. The allied army was posted immediately in front of Pampeluna, the right in front of the village of Huarte, the third division being to the right, and those of Lieutenant-General Cole, and Major-General the Honourable E. Pakenham, together with the Spaniards, to the left. The main efforts of Soult during the day were directed against the allied left, but about five in the afternoon, some of his tirailleurs were pushed forward as if to feel the countenance of the third division, and ascertain whether its position would be seriously defended or not. The light company of the Eighty-Eighth, commanded by Captain Robert Nickle (late Lieutenant-Colonel of the Thirty-Sixth Foot) was ordered to drive them back, which it speedily accomplished: a select body of French, headed by an officer of the staff, who had volunteered for that service, now advanced to support the repulsed tirailleurs, and two battalion companies of the Eighty-Eighth hurried to the assistance of their comrades. The skirmish, fought in sight of the two armies, took almost the type of a national trial of skill and courage; the French rushed forward with their characteristic impetuosity, shouting “Vive l’Empereur;” the Connaught rangers, accompanied by the cheers of their division, met them with the bayonet, and overthrew them at the first onset. The French commanding officer was left on the field mortally wounded; Captain Nickle, as soon as the conflict was decided, went up to render any assistance in his power to his fallen antagonist, and, finding him already dead, tied his handkerchief on the point of his sabre, and waving it towards the retreating French, beckoned to them to return for the body of their officer, which they did, and carried him off to render the last honours to his remains.
During the movements of the succeeding day, when the allied army resumed the offensive, a heavy column of French infantry was routed by Major-General Brisbane’s brigade, and the greater part made prisoners by the Forty-Fifth, Seventy-Fourth, and Eighty-Eighth. After this the third division re-occupied the pass of Roncesvalles, where it remained till the 8th of August, when Major-General Brisbane’s brigade was relieved by Colonel Downie’s brigade of Spaniards, and proceeded by the valley of Los Alduides to the pass of Maya.
On the 31st of August the whole of the third division crossed the frontiers of France, and Major-General Brisbane’s brigade occupied the pass of Echalar, replacing there the Seventh division, which had proceeded to reinforce the troops before St. Sebastian; on the 4th, however, it returned to the pass of Maya, and on the 15th resumed its old position near the village of Erisoun, and remained in the valley of Bastan till the 7th of October, when, in consequence of the left of the army having crossed the Bidassoa and entered France, the Eighty-Eighth and the rest of the division moved to the village of Zagarramundi to the right and in front of the pass of Echalar.