A MEMORABLE RETREAT
Harris found a new commander-in-chief in Sir John Moore, and it was his fortune to share in the sufferings and glory of the immortal retreat to Corunna. Moore has never yet come to his true inheritance of fame as a commander. The great figure of Wellington hides him almost from human memory. Yet no British general, perhaps, ever conceived and executed a more audacious stroke of soldiership than did Moore when he made his famous stroke at Napoleon's communication, and spoiled the whole plans of that master-spirit in war for the conquest of Southern Spain, and brought him and his far-scattered columns hurrying up to the north-west angle of the Peninsula.
Napoleon had assumed in person the command of the French armies in Spain, and had 300,000 veterans under his eagles. He had shattered the Spanish armies, was in possession of the Spanish capital, and was on the point of marching to overwhelm the rich provinces as yet unravaged by war to the south. Moore, with 24,000 men under his command, resolved to strike boldly at Napoleon's communications, and so arrest the southward march of all the French columns. When, in this manner, he had paralysed the strategy of the French, Moore calculated he could outmarch all the converging columns rushing to destroy him, and escape. But he was accepting a terrific risk.
Moore's generalship, though it was followed by the tragedy of the retreat to Corunna, and his own death in the battle at that place, was perfectly successful. He wrecked Napoleon's strategy, and yet escaped his counter-stroke. He secured a breathing-space for the Spanish nation. He arrested and brought to a close Napoleon's personal career in that country. He made possible Wellington's great Peninsular campaigns. It is one of the examples of the irony of history that to Moore, one of the greatest soldiers England has produced, success brought no adequate fame, and it cost him his own life.
The second battalion of the Rifles, to which Harris belonged, joined Moore's forces at Sahagun, and the great retreat began almost immediately afterwards. On December 24 Moore turned his columns westward for their march to his sea-base at Corunna. It was a march of some 220 miles, through rugged mountainous country, with the French hanging on his rear or pushing past his flank, while the bitter tempests of the winter in Northern Spain blackened the skies above the toiling troops, and scourged them almost incessantly with snow and sleet and rain. At Astorga, Moore divided his army, and part, under Craufurd, took the road to Vigo. The Rifles formed part of Craufurd's force, and Harris's account thus sheds light on what is the least known branch of the famous retreat.
The retreat lasted in all eighteen days, and some 4000 men fell from the ranks, slain by mere hardship and exposure, during that comparatively brief period; yet the retreating British did not lose a flag or a gun in the retreat, and when they turned to bay at Corunna they proved that neither their discipline nor their fighting power had been in the least impaired by their sufferings. Harris's account is really a bit of very fine descriptive writing, though its charm lies in its simplicity and its unconscious realism. It must be remembered that when the second battalion of the Rifles joined Moore's forces at Sahagun they were worn out with long marches, and the fame of Roliça and Vimiero lay upon them. Moore's forces had up to that time seen no fighting, and still carried in face and uniform something of the freshness of barrack life:—
"At Sahagun we fell in with the army under command of Sir John Moore. I forget how many thousand men there were; but they were lying in and around the town when we arrived. The Rifles marched to an old convent, some two miles from Sahagun, where we were quartered, together with a part of the 15th Hussars, some of the Welsh Fusiliers, and straggling bodies of men belonging to various other regiments, all seeming on the qui vive, and expecting the French to fall in with them every hour. As our small and wayworn party came to a halt before the walls of the convent, the men from these different regiments came swarming out to greet us, loudly cheering us as they rushed up and seized our hands. The difference in appearance between ourselves and these new-comers was indeed (just then) very great. They looked fresh from good quarters and good rations. Their clothes and accoutrements were comparatively new and clean, and their cheeks ruddy with the glow of health and strength; whilst our men, on the contrary, were gaunt-looking, wayworn, and ragged; our faces burnt almost to the hue of an Asiatic's by the sun, our accoutrements rent and torn, and many without even shoes to their feet. However, we had some work in us yet, and perhaps were in better condition for it than our more fresh-looking comrades."
Harris describes how, just before the retreat began, he was summoned at midnight to undertake, on somewhat alarming conditions, a very practical bit of preparation for the march:—
"In the middle of the night I remember, as well as if the sounds were at this moment in my ear, that my name was called out many times without my being completely awakened by the summons. From weariness and the weight of my knapsack and the quantity of implements I carried, I was at first quite unable to gain my legs; but when I did so I found that Quarter-master Surtees was the person who was thus disturbing my rest.
"'Come, be quick there, Harris!' he said, as I picked my way by the light of the candle he held in his hand; 'look amongst the men, and rouse up all the shoemakers you have in the four companies. I have a job for them which must be done instantly.'
"With some little trouble, and not a few curses from them as I stirred them up with the butt of my rifle, I succeeded in waking several of our snoring handicrafts; and the quarter-master bidding us instantly follow him, led the way to the very top of the convent stairs. Passing then into a ruinous-looking apartment, along which we walked upon the rafters, there being no flooring, he stopped when he arrived at its farther extremity. Here he proceeded to call our attention to a quantity of barrels of gunpowder lying beside a large heap of raw bullocks' hides. 'Now, Harris,' said he, 'keep your eyes open, and mind what you are about here. General Craufurd orders you instantly to set to work and sew up every one of these barrels in the hides lying before you. You are to sew the skins with the hair outwards, and be quick about it, for the general swears that if the job is not finished in half-an-hour he will hang you.'
"The latter part of this order was anything but pleasant, and whether the general ever really gave it I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. Well knowing the stuff Craufurd was made of, I received the candle from the hands of Surtees, and bidding the men get needles and waxed thread from their knapsacks, as the quarter-master withdrew, I instantly prepared to set about the job.
"I often think of that night's work as I sit strapping away in my little shop in Richmond Street, Soho. It was a curious scene to look at, and the task neither very easy nor safe. The Riflemen were wearied, unwilling, and out of temper; and it was as much as I could do to get them to assist me. Moreover, they were so reckless that they seemed rather to wish to blow the convent into the air than to get on with their work. One moment the candle was dropped and nearly extinguished; the next they lost their implements between the rafters of the floor, flaring the light about amongst the barrels, and wishing, as I remonstrated with them, that the powder might ignite and blow me, themselves, and the general to ——. Such were the Riflemen of the Peninsular War—daring, gallant, reckless fellows. I had a hard task to get the work safely finished; but at length between coaxing and bullying these dare-devils I managed to do so, and together we returned down the convent stairs; and, finding Surtees awaiting us in the passage below, he reported to General Craufurd that his order had been obeyed. After which we were permitted again to lie down and sleep till the bugle awoke us next morning."