The enemy’s divisions, now united, were soon formed, and seemed determined to seize the boar by the tusks; but the boar was now metamorphosed into a lion. On Major Duncan arriving with his guns and sending some beautifully directed shots with mathematical precision to dress their line, Marshal Victor retired his troops beyond the noxious range. The hill being gained, and the enemy inclined, although ashamed, to retreat, General Graham sent his aide-de-camp Captain Hope to General Beguines, requesting him to bring up the two Spanish regiments originally attached to the British division; even this turned out unpropitious. When Duncan’s fire prevailed on the enemy’s column to retire, Colonel Ponsonby, of the Quarter-Master-General’s Department, by permission of General Graham sought out the allied cavalry and brought away the German hussars. Having wound round the western point of the disputed hill, they were seen sweeping along the plain in beauty of battle; and it is my firm belief that had they not appeared at that moment we should have been immediately in motion to the front. We gave the Germans a cheer as they passed in front of our line, now formed. The enemy’s cavalry turned round and faced them stoutly, their commander placing himself some distance in their front. As the Germans closed on the enemy our cheers were enthusiastic. The brave French leader was instantly cut down; our cavalry charged right through their opponents, then wheeling round charged them from rear to front, one red coat always conspicuous, Colonel Ponsonby. The French dragoons thus broken, Rousseau’s grenadiers came to their support, and forming square covered the horsemen in their retreat. Again the British troops were on the point of advancing, when a staff officer came galloping up to say that a fresh column of the enemy were coming on the right flank of the Guards. This information alarmed us. Looking through my glass and observing them for an instant, I assured Colonel McDonald that they were Spaniards and that I knew the regiments. However some hesitation followed; thus the Spaniards who betrayed us in the morning deceived us in the afternoon. It was General Beguines who, glad to get away from La Peña, was hastily advancing with the two regiments before mentioned.
WHERE WERE THE SPANIARDS?
A second column were seen advancing from the opposite direction—Chiclana. This was supposed to be Villatte’s division, who had not been engaged during the action, having remained near the Almanza creek, in front of General Zayas. But they turned out to be the sick, marched out from the hospitals of Chiclana, who thus succeeded as a ruse in covering the retreat of the vanquished Victor.
Although at this critical juncture every British soldier felt confident that a strong body of six hundred Spanish cavalry, fired by the example of the gallant Germans, would ride forward against the reeling columns of the retiring enemy, yet they never appeared. Abandoning their calling as soldiers they remained behind, mouthing the pebbles of the beach and thus preparing with oratorical effect to extol as their own those heroic deeds in which they bore no part and from which they studiously kept aloof.
Notwithstanding the arrival of Beguines, General Graham evidently saw the difficulty and danger of making an advanced movement. The enemy, though beaten and having suffered severe loss, still retired with a stronger force in the field than the British numbered before the battle commenced. Villatte’s division were fresh, and could easily have joined Victor. Our army was crippled, half its numbers being put hors de combat; and the survivors had been for twenty-four hours under arms, sixteen of which had been passed in marching, and chiefly during the previous night. After having gained so brilliant a victory, and defeated the enemy at all points, the British general fully expected that La Peña, awaking from his torpor, would take advantage of Victor’s overthrow and lay the drowsy Spaniards on the track of his discomfited and retiring columns; but he was mistaken—such was never La Peña’s intention. At the time when Colonel Browne took up his position on the hill, the principal part of the Spanish artillery were moved along the beach road and halted about midway between the two points whence the enemy could move on to attack, the one by the western point of Barossa, the other by the eastern side of Bermeja. On this position they halted, but with their drivers mounted, ready to start at a moment’s notice for that point, whence the enemy advanced not. Thus, when Victor was perceived advancing against Colonel Browne, the great guns flew along the beach road, nor stopped until Bermeja was left far in their rear. Later, when the British troops were exposed to the hottest fire, perilously situated, their rear left open to attack by the early flight of the Spaniards from the hill, yet La Peña gave no aid, although, had he moved forward by the eastern side of Bermeja and come on the plain in that direction towards Chiclana, he would have got in rear of Marshal Victor, when the whole French army must have been destroyed or taken. But neither the roaring of cannon, his duty towards his allies, the pride of his profession, nor the independence of his country was sufficient stimulant to rouse him forward into action: La Peña was determined not to move. Yet when subsequently cashiered for his disgraceful conduct, he had the unparalleled impudence to declare that it was a great hardship to be dismissed the Service after he had gained so brilliant a victory with the allied army. And soon after the battle General Cruz-Murgeon unblushingly asserted in the public prints at Cadiz that he took both prisoners and guns during the action. Colonel Ponsonby, who undertook to refute this unfounded statement, asked me (all the other guns captured being accounted for) whether any Spaniards even seemingly assisted or were in sight when the gun, which he said he saw me in the act of charging, was captured. I replied that there was not a Spaniard in the field at the time, and that with the exception of himself and Colonel McDonald, the Adjutant-General, who rode past at the time, no individual of any corps was in sight of the flank battalion when the gun was taken, not even the Guards, who, though immediately on our right, were shut out by the intervening inequalities of the ground. But with respect to his taking four guns, General Cruz-Murgeon was partly right, the term “taking” only being erroneous. After the action was over, the Spanish general found his own guns on the same spot where he had abandoned them in the morning, silent and cold, though they should have been loudly pouring forth their hottest fire against Rousseau’s division when they were advancing against Colonel Browne’s position. This I said that I was ready to prove, having seen the guns after the Spaniards had fled. This statement being made public, the controversy ceased, and Cruz-Murgeon shrank from the paper warfare as disreputably as he had fled from the field.
Until late in the evening the British general maintained his position on the hill, when, seeing no prospect of a forward movement on the part of the Spaniards, he, as soon as it was dark, to prevent his movement being discovered by the enemy, retired down to Santi Petri point, and passed over the bridge of boats into the Isla de Leon.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE RETURN TO TARIFA AND THENCE TO LISBON.
Thus terminated the celebrated battle of Barossa, by Spaniards termed the bloody fight of the wild boar, fought under extraordinary difficulties against a gallant foe more than double in number, by harassed British troops, whose gallantry called forth the admiration of all Europe and the malignant jealousy of their allies—a battle which immortalised the genius and valour of the commanding general, who coolly directed our movements until all was prepared for the bayonet, when, laying aside the personal prudence of the experienced old commander, he displayed the vigour and impetuosity of the young soldier, leading us on to the final glorious charge. It was during this charge, and when the Guards and flank battalion united on the top of the hill, that Colonel Browne and I again met, he on the left of the household troops and I on the right of the flank battalion, with whom, from the departure of the colonel until his return, I was the only officer and consequently in command. The time of my command, as well as I can recollect, was about an hour, and that during the hottest part of the action. After mutual congratulations, my gallant colonel shook me cordially by the hand, declaring that he never could forget my services on that day, and adding that, should we both survive the action, he would in person present me to General Graham and bear full testimony to my conduct throughout the whole day. The colonel was fully aware that, had the author of these Memoirs lagged behind in consequence of a wound received early in the action, he, on his arrival on the hill, instead of finding nearly two hundred bayonets of the flank battalion well into the charge which reeled the enemy off the hill, would not have had a single man of that battalion present to command, and must consequently have been still a volunteer with the Guards. I reported to him my having charged and taken the howitzer. Here I feel called upon to state that when Colonel Browne parted to join the Guards there were not ten men of the flank battalion to be seen and not above four or five standing near us; there was nothing for him to command, and I feel thoroughly satisfied that it was by sheer bravery he was moved. Although the battalion when they originally moved forward had not the slightest prospect of success, still it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the British army and the Spanish cause to push us forward; and had we not undauntedly pressed on to attack Rufin in his position, that general would have come down in perfect order on the British troops, then in a confused mass and so entangled in the pine forest as to render any attempt at formation totally impracticable. To await an attack under such circumstances must have been attended with the most fatal results.
The extremely critical situation in which the British troops were placed cannot be more forcibly expressed than by General Graham’s own words in his orders of the following day: