"To Marshal Beresford."
Both battalions having sustained so severe a loss, the second battalion transferred its men to the first, and the officers and staff serjeants returned to England to recruit.
After the victory at Albuhera the siege of Badajoz was resumed, the Seventh forming part of the covering army. A concentration of the enemy's force having taken place, the allies withdrew behind the Caya, where they awaited the attack of their opponents. The French generals had drained the provinces of troops to assemble a powerful army; but the stern character of British soldiers had been proved, and, having relieved Badajoz, they retired without hazarding an engagement.
The allied army broke up from the Caya in July, and the Royal Fusiliers moved towards the northern frontiers of Portugal; they halted a short period at the village of Aldea de Santa Margaritta, and afterwards marched to Aldea de Bispo. Meanwhile Lord Wellington blockaded Ciudad Rodrigo.
Marshal Marmont assembled sixty thousand men, and advanced to relieve Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington's forces were not sufficiently numerous to warrant his hazarding a general engagement, excepting under very advantageous circumstances; he however held his positions; and on the 25th of September the Fusilier Brigade, under Major-General the Honourable E. M. Pakenham, advanced to sustain a small body of troops under Major-Generals Colville and Alten, which had been attacked at El Bodon by forty squadrons of French cavalry and fourteen battalions of infantry with cannon. This portion of the allied army having retrograded, the French cavalry menaced the Fusiliers; but were deterred charging by the steady and determined countenance of the brigade.
During the night Lord Wellington strengthened his position; but afterwards withdrew to a post twelve miles behind Guinaldo. The enemy coming forward with overwhelming numbers, his lordship withdrew during the night of the 26th of September, covered by the Fusiliers and a body of cavalry.
The French, pressing the British rear during the retrograde movement on the 27th of September, attacked the Fusiliers, who were halted on a height behind the village of Aldea de Pont. Lord Wellington directed the Seventh to charge in line down the hill, and supported them with some Portuguese infantry. The Royal Fusiliers dashed forward in line with the steadiness of old soldiers at a review, routed the French, and drove them down the height, to the admiration of all present; Lord Wellington witnessed the firm conduct of the Royal Fusiliers, and expressed his approbation of their steady and gallant bearing. The French were afterwards repulsed in an attempt to turn the flank of the brigade by a wood: the twenty-third Fusiliers and Portuguese Caçadores turned the French left, and Aldea de Pont was again occupied by the allies. It was, however, subsequently abandoned, and the army went into position on the Coa. The French withdrew, and the Royal Fusiliers went into quarters at Villa Ciervo. The regiment had been joined, a short time before, by three hundred and sixty-four young soldiers from England: its loss at Aldea de Pont was nine men killed; Captain Wylly, Lieutenants Barrington, Wallace, and Seaton, one Serjeant, and thirty-six private soldiers wounded.[20]
1812
On the 1st of January, 1812, the first battalion mustered upwards of thirteen hundred officers and soldiers, and it was immediately afterwards employed in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, which was undertaken in the winter. This fortress was captured by storm during the night of the 19th of January, 1812, while the French marshal was assembling an army to advance to its relief. The loss of the Royal Fusiliers, during the siege, was limited to two men killed and eight wounded. After the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo the regiment remained at the village of Cileçes el Chico, where it was detained several days by the swelling of the Agueda from heavy rains: it subsequently retired and went into cantonments.