History of the Peninsular War, Volume 6 (of 6)

by Robert Southey

♦The allies enter Salamanca.♦

Marmont had apprehended this advance of the allies, and had applied for reinforcements without effect. He showed some cavalry and a small body of infantry in front of the town, and manifested an intention of holding the heights on the south side of the Tormes; but in the evening of the 16th the enemy withdrew over the river, and the allies bivouacked within a league of Salamanca. The French retired from that city during the night, leaving some 800 men in the fortifications which they had constructed there. These works commanded the bridge; the left column of the allied army therefore crossed at the ford of El Campo, a league below the city, the centre and the right at the ford of Santa Martha. The utmost joy was expressed by the inhabitants when the English entered, and women crowded to thank Lord Wellington and bless him for their deliverance. Some aching hearts there were among those who had connected themselves by marriage, or by looser ties, with the enemies of their country, but the general feeling was that of perfect and grateful joy; for though this city had suffered none of the immediate evils of war, its consequences had been severely felt there. During the three years of its captivity the French had demolished thirteen of its convents and twenty-two of its twenty-five colleges; the people had been compelled to labour upon works erected for their own subjugation; and the last act of the enemy before they left the city, was to set fire to such houses as obstructed the defence of their works, ... consisting of a fort and two redoubts. For the same reason they had previously demolished the Convent of St. Augustine, the colleges of Cuenca and ♦Siege of the forts there.♦ Oviedo, and the magnificent King’s College. The fort was formed out of the Convent of St. Vicente, a large building in the centre of the angle of the old wall, on a perpendicular cliff over the Tormes. The windows had been built up and loop-holed; on both sides it was connected by lines of works with the old wall. There was a fascine battery in a re-entering angle of the convent, not enclosed by these lines, and this was protected by a loop-holed wall, with a palisade in front. ♦Col. Jones’s sieges. 158–9.♦ The demolition of so many substantial edifices supplied timber of the best quality, and in abundance, for gates, drawbridges, palisades, and splinter proofs; and the whole was well flanked in every part. The ground to the south, which was toward the bridge, fell by a steep descent: at the bottom was a small stream flowing to the Tormes; and on the opposite bank the convents of San Cayetano and La Merced had been converted with great skill into two redoubts, with well-covered perpendicular escarpes, deep ditches, and casemated counterscarps; they were also full of bomb-proofs, made by supporting a roof horizontally and vertically with strong beams, and covering it with six feet of earth. These works were seen at once to be far more respectable than Lord Wellington had expected to find, his information amounting to little more than that some convents had been fortified. It was necessary to reduce them before the army could advance, but the means of attack had been provided on this inadequate knowledge: they consisted of only four iron eighteen-pounders and four 24-pounder iron howitzers, with an hundred rounds for each. The engineers had only 400 intrenching tools, without any stores; there were present three engineer officers, with nine men of the corps of royal military artificers; and the works were soon found to be even more formidable than they appeared.

♦June 17.♦

The sixth division broke ground before the fort. The left wing of the army moved to Villares de la Reyna, a league in advance of Salamanca; the right and centre bivouacked on the Tormes, near Santa Martha, on the right bank. Lieutenant-Colonel Ponsonby’s brigade followed the retiring enemy, and skirmished with them for two leagues. A battery was erected for breaching the main wall of the fort. It was nearly full moon; little could be done therefore during the first night. An attempt to blow in part of the counterscarp opposite to the intended breach, was frustrated by the vigilance of a dog; and an attempt at mining it failed also, the party being ordered to withdraw in consequence of the loss sustained by a plunging fire from the top of the convent. On the second night two batteries were completed: they opened the following morning, and beat down part of the wall; but the enemy’s musketry fired with great effect from loopholes in the upper windows, and their fire was more than ordinarily destructive, because of the large openings of the embrasures which were necessary for such short pieces as the howitzers. More ammunition was sent for to Almeida. Early on the third day, the lower part of the convent wall, three feet and a half thick, was pierced through, and at a single shot half the length of that face of the building came down, bringing the roof with it, and laying the interior open: the men were seen firing through the loopholes at the moment of its fall, and they of course were buried in the ruins. Carcasses were then fired into the convent, to set it on fire, but the enemy’s precautions prevented them from taking effect.

♦Marmont moves to relieve them.♦

Marmont at this time moved forward from Fuente Sabuco, making the most display of the force which he could then bring together: it was estimated at about 16,000 men. He advanced as if with a determination of giving battle, firing artillery the whole way to give the forts notice of his approach. Lord Wellington immediately formed the allied army upon the heights: his left, where the rains had formed a deep ravine, rested on a chapel; his centre was in the village of S. Christobal de la Cuesta, and his right on another eminence in front of Castellanos de los Moriscos.... The advanced posts retired before the enemy with little loss; there was a considerable cannonade on both sides; the enemy’s cavalry were dislodged by our guns from the position in which they had halted; and Marmont, after manœuvring for some time in front of the position, took up ground in the plain below it, near the village of Villares, and just out of cannon-shot, his right resting upon the great road to Toro, his left in Castellanos de los Moriscos. The allies were under arms at daylight, expecting an attack. In the course of the day the French received reinforcements, but not sufficient to justify them in bringing on an action, scarcely in exposing themselves ♦June 21.♦ to one. Both armies remained quiet in front of each other, the allies on the heights, the French close under their position, occupying Castellanos de los Moriscos in force, and having a considerable bivouac between that village and another on their right: both villages were soon completely unroofed for firewood, and there were wells in both, whereas the allies were badly off for wood and water, which were brought to them in insufficient supply from Salamanca. There was not a tree on the position; but the midsummer sun was less powerful than it usually is in that country, and the troops did not suffer from heat.

During the night, the French occupied an eminence on the right flank of the allies. Sir Thomas Graham was directed to dislodge them. The 58th and 61st carried the hill immediately, and drove them from the ground with considerable loss. The enemy’s troops got under arms, expecting a general attack, but they made no attempt ♦June 23.♦ to regain the hill. They retired in the night, and on the following evening posted themselves with their right on the heights near Cabeza Vellosa, their left on the Tormes at Huerta, their centre at Aldea Rubia, their object in this movement being to communicate with the garrison. Lord Wellington therefore changed the front of his army, placing the right at S. Martha, and the advanced posts at Aldea Lingua; and he sent Major-General Bock’s brigade of heavy dragoons across the river in order to observe the fords. By this time a battery which had been opened on the Cayetano redoubt had beaten down the palisades and injured the parapet; and when night closed 300 men from the 6th division were ordered to attack it by escalade. The undertaking was difficult, and the men seemed to feel it. Major-General Bowes went forward with the storming party; he was wounded, returned to the attack as soon as his wound was dressed, and was then killed. The enemy made so resolute a resistance, that only two ladders were reared against the redoubt, and no one mounted them: 120 men were killed or wounded in this unsuccessful attempt. On the following evening a truce was made for removing the killed and wounded; till then the French would neither allow them to be removed, nor remove them themselves.

♦June 24.♦

There had been a report on the preceding afternoon, that the enemy had crossed at Huerta. Lord Wellington was on the hill at Aldea Lingua by daybreak. It was certain that they had made some movement, but the morning was so foggy that nothing could be seen. Soon Major-General Bock’s brigade was heard skirmishing, and from their fire it was evident that they were losing ground. The French had crossed about two in the morning in considerable force; and when the fog cleared General Bock was seen retiring in the best order before superior numbers, who had also the advantage of having artillery with them. Lord Wellington, upon the first certainty that the enemy had passed the Tormes, ordered the 1st and 7th divisions, under Sir Thomas Graham, to cross and take up a position to the right in front of Santa Martha, and Major-General Le Marchant’s brigade of cavalry was sent to support General Bock; the rest of the army he concentrated between Castellanos de los Moriscos and Cabrerizas, keeping the advanced posts at Aldea Lingua. The French, who had crossed with 10,000 infantry and fourteen squadrons of horse, gained possession of Calvarasa de Abaxo; but seeing the disposition which was made for their reception, they did not venture upon an attack. About three in the afternoon they began to withdraw, and before night they had repassed the river to their former position. The allies also recrossed.

Both armies remained quiet during the following day, but on the next night a communication was carried along the bottom of the ravine between the redoubts and the fort, and a piquet was lodged under the gorge of S. Cayetano. On the morrow a supply of ammunition ♦Surrender of the forts.♦ arrived, and red-hot shot were then fired against San Vicente. By the third shot the roof of a large square tower on the convent was set on fire and consumed; but the conflagration did not spread, and during the day wherever fires broke out they were speedily extinguished. The inhabitants said that the powder in the fort was well secured; but no activity on the enemy’s part could long counteract the means of destruction which were now employed. Hot shot were fired during the whole night: by ten in the morning the convent was in flames. At the same time a breach had been effected in the gorge of S. Cayetano: the troops were formed in readiness for assaulting it, when a white flag was hoisted there, and the commanding officer offered to surrender that and the other redoubt in two hours, which time he asked for that he might represent his situation to the commandant in San Vicente. Lord Wellington offered him five minutes to march out, in which case he should preserve his baggage; but it presently appeared that he was only negotiating for the sake of gaining time, as in fact he could not venture without the commandant’s sanction to carry into effect the capitulation which he had offered. He was ordered, therefore, to take down his white flag. The commandant meantime sent out a flag of truce, and proposed to surrender San Vicente in three hours: five minutes were allowed, and as at the expiration of that short term there was no appearance of their coming out, both redoubts were stormed, and carried with little resistance. The troops moved forward against the fort: a few shot were fired from it, by which six men were killed or wounded; but with that the resistance ended: the enemy even helped the Portuguese caçadores into the work, and Lord Wellington allowed them to march out with the honours of war, but to be prisoners of war, the officers retaining their personal military baggage, and the soldiers their knapsacks. There were 36 pieces of cannon in the forts, with large depôts of clothing, and military stores of every kind: these were consigned to the Spaniards, and the works were destroyed. The prisoners were somewhat more than 700; the loss of the besiegers about 450.