Here they remained some days. And one evening about this time stormers were called for from the Light Division to lead the assault on San Vincente, the strongest of the three forts constructed by the French near Salamanca. Two men per company, the first for duty, were selected for this service; but after being marched down to the fort, they were countermanded. An assault had been attempted, and had failed on the 23rd, and on the 27th the forts surrendered. On the fall of the forts, the enemy fell back; and the Regiment made a forward movement, and marched to Castillonos. On the 29th they bivouacked at Prada de Rubiales; on the next day at Castrillo d’Aquarino; and on July 1, marching through Alejos, they were billeted in the town of Nava del Rey, where the beds in their billets were the first they had occupied for a very long time. On the 2nd they moved forward to Rueda. A pretty strong force of the enemy, of all arms, was evacuating Rueda as the Regiment entered it. This was in fact the rear-guard, which was to hold us in check till his column could file over the bridge, across the Douro, at Tordesillas. But our cavalry and Horse Artillery coming up, the latter fired some shrapnells, which did much execution, and the cavalry had a slight affair with them. Our Regiment also sent out some skirmishers, who made a few prisoners, amongst them a Sergeant-Major of hussars, whose abject terror, even to tears, excited the surprise of those who saw him. Yet this man must have been a good and probably a brave soldier; for his exchange for one of our sergeants in their hands, was asked for by a flag of truce, on the ground that he was about to become adjutant of his corps. He was accordingly exchanged a few days afterwards.
All the march hitherto from the frontier of Portugal to this place had been through an open country, devoid of trees, abounding indeed with corn, and near the rivers with vines; but with little water except in the great rivers, which were far apart. The men had therefore suffered much, marching under the full blaze of a Peninsular mid-summer sun. Their occupation of the town of Rueda, and the delicious coolness of its great wine-vaults, excavated in the sides of the hills, were a great refreshment. Unhappily the wine these vaults contained was as great a temptation, to which many yielded. So had their enemies, who had preceded them; for many of their bodies were found in the cellars: some hideously mutilated by the Spaniards.
The Regiment remained here for a fortnight; the only movement in that time being that they were on July 3 moved opposite to Tordesillas, on the left bank of the Douro, the enemy being massed in large force on the opposite bank. This movement was probably a feint, and they returned to their cantonments at Rueda.
On July 16 the Regiment marched from Rueda about nine in the evening and halted next day near Castrejon. On the evening of the 17th Kincaid had a picquet in front of the Division. Soon after sunrise a smart cannonade began behind a hill to the right of the picquet. In fact Marmont had recrossed the Douro at Tordesillas, and was making an attack on our position at Castrejon. While the picquet, alert at the sound of cannon, were earnestly watching the ground in front of them, no enemy being visible, a terrific turmoil suddenly arose behind some rising ground on their left. Uncertain whence this noise might proceed, Kincaid at once placed his picquet behind a deep ditch about a hundred yards in his rear. He had scarcely done so when a confused mêlée of horsemen dashed over the hill: two squadrons of our cavalry, two guns of Horse Artillery, and a strong body of the enemy’s cavalry, all cutting at each other; and among the rush Lord Wellington, Lord Beresford, General Bock, and their Staffs. These and the two guns took shelter behind our picquet, who could not fire, for friends and foes were mixed up in an inextricable tangle. The cavalry swept past the front of the picquet; but finding a reserve squadron of heavy dragoons, they returned again at a gallop, the French now flying before those they had lately pursued.
Some companies of the Regiment were thrown out as skirmishers to support the 14th Light Dragoons. One of these brought in a French prisoner, badly wounded, who in conversation with Lieutenant Gardiner, who was a proficient in French, was vehement in asserting that he would not have been taken, had he had a better horse. On this being repeated to his captor, he said to Gardiner: ‘Then, sir, tell him if he had the best horse in France I would bring him prisoner if he stood to fight me.’ The prisoner assured Gardiner that his horse had not been unsaddled for a week; and the state of his back, when the saddle was removed, too surely corroborated his assertion.
The army was now ordered to retire; and the country being an open plain was very favourable for cavalry. The British troops therefore were formed in quarter-distance column ready to form square at any moment. The Regiment marched in this way for upwards of ten miles, with all the regularity and steadiness of a field-day; taking up distant points to march on; and avoiding the villages in order not to lose time in passing through them. For it was a race between the two armies to gain some high land beyond the Guareña. And the French moved on our right during the whole day; often coming within 500 yards of our flank. Occasionally the enemy opened a cannonade; but on the whole this day’s march was effected without fighting. The men, oppressed by the heat, and suffocated by the clouds of dust which arose from the sandy plain, were tormented with thirst. But there was no time to halt, nor water at hand to quench it. At last, arriving at the edge of this table-land, they looked down into the vale of the Guareña, and the Riflemen hurried their pace to reach the water. The French instantly unlimbered their guns on the height above and sent some round shot among them. But our men drank of the muddy stream as they passed through it, and suffered little from the cannonade; and they bivouacked on the high ground beyond the river.
During the early part of the 19th the Regiment continued at rest on the ground of their bivouack; but in the afternoon (with the rest of the Division) they were suddenly called to arms, and commenced a movement to the right, in order to defeat Marmont’s plan of interrupting our communications with Salamanca. During this march the enemy cannonaded sharply, and one shot knocked off the head of a Rifleman, who had but just joined. When night put a stop to the march and the firing, the Regiment lay by their arms, close to the enemy’s columns. On the morning of the 20th no enemy was to be seen; as Marmont had moved forward to turn Lord Wellington’s right flank; and some intervening ground hid his troops from the Riflemen; they were put in motion and soon came in sight and in close proximity to them. Thus they marched as they had done on the two preceding days with all the regularity of a barrack-square drill, parallel to the enemy, and close to him. There was a short halt in the afternoon to refresh the men: for the heat was sultry, and the dust suffocating. With this exception they continued to march till a late hour in the evening.
On the 21st they again started at dawn, and continued to march as before till about two o’clock, when they halted near the village of Villa Moresco. A little before dark they were again in motion; and they forded the Tormes about two miles above Salamanca. The river here was very deep, and the men were nearly up to their shoulders. Hardly had they got across when rain began to fall in torrents; the night grew suddenly dark; the lightning flashed with unusual vividness, and played on the men’s arms; and the thunder crashed so close and so loud, that scared horses broke from their picquet-ropes, and rushed into the ranks of the enemy. In this turmoil the Riflemen groped their way through the murky night, up to their knees in mud, to their bivouack in a field not far from the Tormes; where they lay by their arms, without any shelter from the rain which fell heavily and incessantly during the whole night.
On the 22nd occurred the Battle of Salamanca, the only one of Wellington’s great victories in which the Regiment did not bear a prominent part. They were under arms at daylight and occupied a position on the extreme left of the British position; and during the greater part of the day the only duty they were called upon to perform was to keep the French right in check. But about five o’clock, after Lord Wellington had taken advantage of his enemy’s blunder and driven him from the field, the Regiment was ordered to advance in pursuit. They did so, and continued to press on the rear of the retreating foe till about eleven at night, when they halted near the village of Huerta. Had there been a few hours more daylight, or had the Spaniards held, as Don Carlos de España was directed to do, Alba de Tormes, Marmont’s whole army must have fallen into our hands. In this action the losses of the Regiment were inconsiderable; being 2 men of the 1st Battalion wounded, and 2 missing; and a sergeant and 4 men of the 2nd Battalion wounded.
During the pursuit on this evening a partridge was started, and ran between the line of the retreating and pursuing forces. George Simmons caught it, and committing it to his havresack, found it an agreeable addition to his supper at Huerta.