E. Weller, Litho.
London, Chatto & Windus.
BATTLE of BUSACO.
27TH SEPR 1810.
It is not for me to describe the position of Busaco, or the particulars of the fight. It is enough for this record to note that in the centre of the side of the Sierra projects a hill forming a sort of natural bastion, and connected with the mountain itself by a neck, depressed below the level of the projecting hill. Among the rocks and broken ground on the sides of this hill were disposed the Riflemen of this Battalion; while in the hollow behind it Craufurd had concealed the 43rd and 52nd. Scarcely had day dawned on the 27th, when the enemy made his advance. Loison’s division climbed the road leading up the face of the projecting hill, though galled by the fire of the Riflemen and Ross’ guns. Yet they came on, the Riflemen, as the French pressed up the hill, running in on their supports and forming in the hollow between the spur and the mountain. At last the leading section topped the hill, and then, and not till then, Craufurd gave the signal; the bugles sounded, and eighteen hundred men sprang as from the earth. Instantaneously they gave a volley; the head of the column after one destructive fire from the leading section reeled; Craufurd ordered a charge; and soldiers, arms, knapsacks and caps rolled in a confused mass down the precipitous hill. The French column was wedged in the road, the leading sections were driven back on the still advancing rear, and all turned back in utter confusion. Then they came under the fire of the whole Division which far overlapped their flanks; and through the narrow street of Sula they fled, trampling the living and the dead. The Battalion and some Caçadores were ordered to pursue them; and General Simon, who commanded the attacking brigade, and many others were made prisoners by the Light Division.
No further attack was made on this position; but the enemy’s skirmishers swarmed in the valley, and kept the Battalion employed till the afternoon, when Craufurd received a flag of truce with General Simon’s baggage, and granted a temporary cessation of arms. Leach mentions that, during that time, he went down into Sula, and met officers and men of Loison’s division, who acknowledged their loss to be very heavy; one of them asserting that his company, which mounted the hill 120 strong, could only muster 27 men after their repulse.
The time limited for the truce having expired, the French seemed disposed to keep possession of the village of Sula; but Lord Wellington, who happened to be at hand, ordered a company of the Battalion to go down and drive them out: which they did in a very short time, and established a picquet there.
On the 28th no movement took place; but on the morning of the 29th, owing to an attempt on Massena’s part to turn Lord Wellington’s position by getting round by Coimbra, the English army broke up and fell back at a very early hour. About nine the Battalion followed, forming, as usual, part of the rear-guard, with some cavalry; and at night halted in a wood some miles from Busaco. On October 3 they reached Pombal; on the 5th Batalha; and on the succeeding days, in incessant rains, proceeded to Alemquer, where they arrived on the 9th. On the 10th they were pressed by the French advanced guard, and after a little skirmishing fell back to Arruda in a tempest of rain.
Thus they reached the Lines of Torres-Vedras, of which no description is needed here. The portion of the lines this Battalion occupied was on the right centre of the position, and on the fortified heights immediately behind Arruda, having advanced posts in front of the town. In very wet weather the Battalion were allowed to shelter themselves in Arruda during the day, but always returned to their bivouack on the heights during the night.
While the Battalion remained in these lines the enemy made several reconnaissances, which occasionally brought on affairs of picquets. On one of these occasions, on October 14, a sharp affair took place near Sobral between the advanced guard of the 8th Corps d’Armée and the light troops of Sir Brent Spencer’s division. In this skirmish a company of the 3rd Battalion, which had lately arrived from England and had been detained on its way to Cadiz by Sir Brent Spencer, as the Regiment was his,[81] was engaged, and Captain Percival and Lieutenant Eeles were severely wounded, and several men killed and wounded. These young soldiers (as George Simmons observes) ‘behaved like Riflemen, and were complimented.’
On the 23rd, Simmons and Hopwood, being on picquet with Mitchell’s company near Villa Matos, observed two French soldiers entering a house in their front in search of provisions. Taking three men of the picquet with them, they crawled to an avenue which screened them from a vedette who was stationed on a rising ground to give the foragers notice of any danger. Entering the house they seized the men, who were armed, and one of whom snapped his musket at his assailants, but it missed fire. The Riflemen found a large barrel of wine in the house; and the officers sending back one of the men for all the canteens he could find at the picquet while the others kept a good look-out, filled sixty, destroyed the rest of the barrel, and led off their two prisoners to the picquet.