“General Craufurd wanted glory, so he stopped on the wrong side of the river, and now he is knocked over to the right side. The French general won’t be content until his men try to get on the wrong side also, and then they will be knocked back. Well! both will claim a victory, which is neither here nor there, but just in the middle of the river. That’s glory!” Then firing his musket he fell into the ranks. Even to the letter was his prediction verified, for General Craufurd published a contradiction of Massena’s dispatch.
This sarcasm was enforced by one of a tragic nature. There was a fellow-soldier to Pigot, a north of Ireland man, named Stewart but jocularly called the Boy because of his youth, being only nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength. He had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence beyond the river, and was one of the last men who came down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning round, he regarded the French with a grim look, and spoke aloud as follows. “So! This is the end of our boasting. This is our first battle and we retreat! The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.” Then striding forward in his giant might he fell furiously on the nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them!
Still more touching, more noble, more heroic was the death of Sergeant Robert M‘Quade. During M‘Leod’s rush this man, also from the north of Ireland, saw two Frenchmen level their muskets on rests against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy; the present Sir George Brown, then a lad of sixteen, attempted to ascend at the fatal point, but M‘Quade, himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, saying with a calm decided tone “You are too young Sir to be killed,” and then offering his own person to the fire fell dead, pierced with both balls!
Battle of Busaco. (Sept. 1810.)
Soon after Craufurd’s combat, Almeida was betrayed by some Portuguese officers, and Massena, who had previously menaced both lines of invasion, adopted that of the Mondego. This river, flowing between the Estrella mountain and the Sierra de Caramula, is separated by the latter from the coast, along which the Royal road runs from Oporto to Lisbon. The roads on each side of the river were very rugged, and at the southern end of the valley crossed by two mountain ridges, namely, the Sierra de Murcella on the left bank, the Sierra de Busaco on the right bank. Wellington had prepared the former for battle, and General Hill was coming to it by the military road, but Massena, aware of its strength, crossed to the right of the Mondego, and moved by Viseu, to turn Wellington’s flank and surprise Coimbra; he however knew nothing of Busaco, which covered that city, and so fell into the worst road and lost two days waiting for his artillery. Meanwhile his adversary also passed the Mondego, and sending troops to the front broke the bridges on the Criz and Dão, mountain torrents crossing the French line of march.
Coimbra could not then be surprised, yet Massena could from Viseu gain the Royal coast-road and so reach Coimbra, turning the Busaco position; he could also repass the Mondego and assail the Murcella; wherefore the allied army was necessarily scattered. Hill had by forced marches reached the Murcella; Spencer was detached to watch the Royal coast-road; the light division, Pack’s Portuguese, and the cavalry, were in observation on the Viseu road; the remainder of the army was in reserve at the fords of the Mondego, to act on either side. In this state of affairs happened a strange incident. The light division had established its bivouac towards evening in a pine-wood, but a peasant advised a removal, saying it was known as the Devil’s wood, that an evil influence reigned, and no person who slept there had ever escaped it. He was laughed at, yet he did not fable. In the night all the troops, men and officers, seized as it were with sudden frenzy, started from sleep and dispersed in all directions: nor was their strange terror allayed until voices were heard crying out that the enemy’s cavalry were amongst them, when the soldiers mechanically ran together and the illusion was dissipated.
After some delay Massena moved down the Mondego and Busaco was then occupied by the English general. His line was eight miles long, flanked on the right by the river, and on the left connected with the Caramula by ridges and ravines impervious to an army. A road along the crest furnished easy communication, and the ford of Pena Cova, behind the right, gave direct access to the Murcella ridge. Rugged and steep the face of Busaco was, yet the summit had space for the action of a few cavalry and salient points gave play to the artillery, while the counter-ridge offered no facility to the enemy’s guns. When it was first adopted some generals expressed a fear that the Prince of Essling would not attack—“But if he does I shall beat him” was Wellington’s reply: he knew his obstinate character.
Massena had three army corps, Ney’s, Junot’s, and Reynier’s, with a division of heavy cavalry under Montbrun; and as he knew nothing of the Torres Vedras lines, and despised the Portuguese, he was convinced the English would retreat and embark. A great general in dangerous conjunctures, he was here, from age and satisfied ambition, negligent, dilatory, and misled by some Portuguese noblemen in his camp. Instead of marching with his whole army compact for battle he retained Junot and Montbrun in the rear, while Ney and Reynier, restoring the bridges over the Criz, drove the English cavalry into the hills, forced back the light division with a sharp fight, and crowned the counter-ridges in front of Busaco.
Ney seeing that Busaco was a crested mountain and could not hide strong reserves, that it was only half-occupied and the troops were moving about in the disorder of first taking up unknown ground, wished to attack at once; but Massena was ten miles in rear, and an officer sent to ask his assent was kept two hours without an audience and then sent back with an order to await the prince’s arrival.[12] A great opportunity was thus lost, for Spencer had not then come in, Leith was only passing the Mondego, Hill was on the Murcella, scarcely twenty-five thousand men were in line, and there was unavoidable confusion and great intervals between the divisions.
Ney and Reynier wrote in the night to Massena, advising an attack at daybreak, yet he did not come up until midday with Junot’s corps and the cavalry, and then proceeded leisurely to examine the position. It was now completely manned. Hill had the extreme right, Leith was next in line, Picton next to Leith. Spencer’s division and a regiment of dragoons were on the highest crest in reserve, having on their left the convent of Busaco. In front of Spencer a Portuguese division was posted half-way down the mountain, and on his left, in front of the convent, was the light division, supported by a German brigade and the 19th Portuguese Regiment. Cole’s division closed the extreme left, on a line with the light division and covered, flank and front, by impassable ravines. There were long intervals in the line, but the spaces between were unassailable, artillery was disposed on all the salient points, skirmishers covered all the accessible ground, and so formidable did the position appear that Ney now strongly objected to an attack. Reynier however, a presumptuous man, advised one, and Massena made dispositions for the next morning.