“Isla de Leon, March 6th, 1811.
“The enemy’s numbers and position were no longer objects of calculation, for there was no retreat left.”
LOSSES IN OUR BATTALION.
Under these circumstances to hesitate in pushing forward the flank battalion, not only as select troops, but also as the only British troops regularly formed, since they had not yet been entangled in the pine forest, would have shown culpable weakness and want of resolution, although the movement was consigning us as a body to certain destruction. At the commencement of the action our battalion formed a little more than a tenth of the army; yet at the close of the action our casualties both in officers and men amounted to nearly a fourth of the entire loss sustained, although every regiment was well into the fight.
The officers killed and wounded in the flank companies of the 9th and 28th Regiments alone exceeded a fifth of the total loss of officers; they were sixty-two, and of the flank companies there were thirteen, six of the 9th and seven of the 28th. But the carnage which the flank battalion suffered was never brought before the public. The casualties which took place in the different flank companies were in the official despatches put under the heads of their different regiments; thus the officers killed and wounded of the 9th Regiment flankers were returned as a loss sustained by the 9th Regiment, although at the time the 9th Regiment were doing garrison duty in Gibraltar; and the 28th Regiment, who formed the extreme left of the line, returned eight officers killed or wounded, whereas seven of those were of its flank companies with Colonel Browne’s battalion, who were led into action on the extreme right, though the Guards having moved by our rear and subsequently forming on our right, we at the close of the battle stood between the two brigades.
The battle, although it lasted little more than two hours, was extremely fierce and bloody, and its results marked the gallantry of the two nations by whom it was fought. Two thousand French, with three general officers, were either killed or wounded; and they lost six guns and an Eagle. The loss on our side consisted of five lieutenant-colonels, one major, sixteen captains, twenty-six lieutenants, thirteen ensigns, one staff, fifty-one sergeants, eleven hundred and eighty rank and file, making a total of twelve hundred and ninety-three put hors de combat. But of all the army the severest loss sustained was by the grenadiers and light bobs of the 28th Regiment; and it may truly be said that the young soldiers who filled up the vacancies left in those companies by the veterans who fell in the mountains of Galicia or at Corunna or who sunk through the swamps in Walcheren, were this day introduced to a glorious scene of action. Two-thirds of the men and all the officers lay on the battlefield: one alone of the latter was enabled to resume his legs, for he had no bone broken; he continued through the fight,—’twas the system of the old Slashers.
FRIENDSHIP AND DEATH.
The flank officers of the 28th Regiment who fell in the battle were Captain Mullins, Lieutenant Wilkinson and Lieutenant Light (Grenadiers); and Captain Bradley and Lieutenants Bennet, Blakeney and Moore. Poor Bennet was shot through the head whilst gallantly cheering on the men through an incessant shower of grape and musketry. On seeing him fall I darted to the spot and too plainly discovered the cause. It grieved me that I could not stop for an instant with my dearest friend and first companion of my youth; but friendship, however fervid, must yield to imperative duty. The men were fast falling and it required the utmost exertion to keep the survivors together, exposed, as they then were, to a murderous fire of round-shot, grape and musketry. My exertions at the moment were rather limping, as I had just been struck by a grape-shot under the hip, which for a moment laid me prostrate. I could only cast a mournful look at Bennet, poor fellow. It may be that our firm friendship conduced to his fate. A vacancy occurred in the light company a few days before the action, and I saw that Bennet would willingly fill it up; but it was an established rule, at least in the regiment, that a senior lieutenant could never be put over the head of a junior already serving in the light company. Perceiving that his delicacy prevented his asking, I prevailed upon Colonel Belson to appoint him, although my senior. With the battalion two officers only were wounded, Captain Cadell and Lieutenant Anderson. In the flank companies no officer escaped, and poor Bennet fell, to rise no more. But after all man must have a final place of rest, and the appropriate bed of a soldier is the battlefield; and it will be some consolation to his friends to know that never did a soldier fall more gallantly or on a day more glorious, and never was an officer more highly esteemed when living, nor, when he fell, more sincerely regretted by the whole of his brother officers. He was wounded about noon on the 5th; the brain continually oozed through the wound; yet strange to say he continued breathing until the morning of the 7th, when he calmly expired with a gentle sigh. A marble slab was subsequently erected in the chapel of the Government House at Gibraltar, to the memory of Bennet and of Lieutenant Light of the Grenadiers, by their affectionate brother officers who unfeignedly regretted the early fall of the two gallant youths.
A few days after the battle the 28th Regiment returned to Gibraltar and the flank battalion to Tarifa, where we joyfully reoccupied our old quarters in the houses of the truly hospitable inhabitants. I was billeted in the house of an old priest, Don Favian Durque. His sister, an old maiden lady, lived with him, and it is impossible to express the kindness and attention which I received from both. When the old lady heard that the grape-shot which struck me had first passed through an orange, a ration loaf and a roast fowl, with tears in her eyes she knelt down and with religious fervency devoutly offered up her thanks to the Blessed Virgin, who, she said, must have fed the fowl which so miraculously saved my life.
A week had not elapsed after our return to Tarifa when Colonel Browne received a letter from General Graham requesting that he would recommend any officer of the flank battalion who had distinguished himself in the late action. This was in consequence of some circumstances having come to the general’s knowledge, principally through his Adjutant-General, Colonel McDonald, and his Quartermaster-General, Colonel Ponsonby, as well as through his aide-de-camp, Captain Calvert. Colonel Browne then recommended me to the general.
Having had occasion to go to Cadiz on private affairs, I carried the colonel’s letter, upon presenting which the general delayed not a moment in sending a report on the subject to the commander-in-chief, with a strong recommendation; and during my stay in the Isla I had the honour of dining every day at the general’s table. In Colonel Browne’s letter, which he read to me, the capture of the howitzer is stated, but is not mentioned in General Graham’s report. In fact he could not well have mentioned it, having already reported the capture of all the guns in his official despatch. I cannot help thinking that had Colonel Browne not forgotten his promise to me, solemnly and spontaneously pledged on our meeting on Barossa Hill, and had he mentioned my name to General Graham before that gallant officer sent off his despatches, my promotion to a company would not have been the result of a subsequent action.