These companies subsequently effected a junction with the force under General Hill, near Toledo, in October; and were engaged in repelling the attack made by a large body of troops under Soult on Sir Lowry Cole’s Division at the Puente Larga, near Aranjuez, on October 29. This gallant defence of the bridge fell entirely on the 47th Regiment and our two companies; and their loss in it was 1 sergeant and 2 rank and file killed; and Lieutenant Budgen and 8 rank and file wounded.
After these companies joined the army under Lord Wellington, the 2nd Battalion in the Peninsula consisted of six companies.
On October 21 the 1st Battalion marched to Rivas, and on the 22nd to Villa Coaxa. And as a large force of the enemy was approaching, at four o’clock on the morning of the 23rd, the Regiment was ordered to form on its alarm post, and marched to the city of Alcalá de Henares. On the 27th it proceeded to Arganda; but assembling at dark, marched back during the night to Alcalá, which it reached at daylight; and after resting in the streets made another march; and on the 30th again moved to near Madrid and halted near the Segovia gate. It was now determined to evacuate Madrid and to retreat on Salamanca, as Soult’s army was approaching in force. On the 31st, therefore, they left the neighbourhood of Madrid to the great regret of its inhabitants; the men showing by gloomy sullenness, and the women by contemptuous sneers, their opinion of our leaving them to the tender mercies of the French. The regret was shared by officers and men of the Regiment, to whom the sojourn in the capital was long one of the most pleasing recollections of their Peninsular service. They halted, on November 2, in the park of the Escurial, and on the 3rd recrossed the Sierra de Guadarrama and bivouacked near Villa Castin. Here General Hill took the command of the retreating army, Lord Wellington being engaged on the siege of Burgos. On the 4th they bivouacked near Lanza, and on the 5th marched to near Fuente de Baños. The next day they fell back to the heights between Flores de Avila and Penaranda. On the 7th the Regiment bivouacked about a league from Alba de Tormes, and next day crossing the river at the bridge of Alba, bivouacked in a wood. During this portion of the retreat their march had been without any circumstances of note; and the advanced guard of the French had not come up with them. The weather however broke up, and rain set in, and continued during the remainder of the retreat, with great violence.
At this time the portion of the army which had retreated from Burgos on the unsuccessful attempts to storm it, effected a junction with the troops falling back from Madrid, and Lord Wellington resumed the command.
On November 10 the Regiment moved into the city of Salamanca, and was quartered in the Irish College. While they remained here, on the evening of the 13th, about eight o’clock, George Simmons, being orderly officer, was ascending the stairs in order to see the men’s lights out. He met Lieutenant Firman, of the 3rd Battalion, who was on the same duty. As the stairs were extremely slippery, and the men had torn out portions of the balustrade for fuel, he advised Firman not to move further until he returned with a light. He fetched one, and as he was ascending the stairs, he was horrified at hearing a slip, and a crash below. Firman had fallen a great depth, and Simmons found him with his skull frightfully fractured and several ribs broken. He was immediately removed to his billet, where, after continuing insensible for two days, he died.
On the 14th the Regiment left Salamanca, and crossing the Tormes, took post on the heights near the Arapiles, and occupied the ground of the great victory of July 22. It was thought indeed that a second battle would be fought on the same spot; but the enemy’s forces being greatly superior to ours, Lord Wellington resolved to continue the retreat. And on the 15th, about three o’clock, the Regiment resumed its march and bivouacked that night in a wood about four miles from Salamanca. The weather still was dreadful; the rain had made the roads ankle-deep with mud; and streams, which in better weather might have been stepped over, had swollen to torrents which the men had to pass through knee-deep. They were also without provisions; and ravenous with hunger, they searched for something to eat. They found some bullocks, dead or half dead, which had fallen on the road, unable to drag the carts any further. These were immediately cut up with their swords and eaten half-toasted at the camp fires. For the soldiers were famished, and the wet wood kindled too slowly for them to wait. Some, too, groped about the wood on their hands and knees, searching for the acorns which had fallen from the oaks and cork trees, and devoured them voraciously; and though bitter and unpalatable, they stayed the pangs of hunger. Nor were these wants confined to the men; few of the officers had even a biscuit; and Costello relates how he saw Lord Charles Spencer, then a Second-Lieutenant in the Regiment, standing on some branches to keep him out of the wet, and earnestly watching a few acorns which he was trying to roast in the embers. As the only means of keeping themselves dry, the men cut down the branches of the trees and lay on them. And as the Regiment formed part of the rear-guard on this retreat, it was of course among the first under arms in the morning and the last at night, often not reaching the bivouack till some hours after the other regiments were in theirs.
On this and the preceding day, the French appeared in force on their right flank, threatening the communication of the army with Ciudad Rodrigo.
On the 16th the retreat was resumed in the same weather and under the same privations. Many of the men lost their shoes in the sticky slime of the roads, and had to march barefoot. The French cavalry hovered close behind the Regiment, but did not attack; and after dark the Riflemen bivouacked, again glad that in a wood they had at least acorns to assuage their hunger.
On the 17th they fell in before dawn. The rain still fell in torrents. Early in the day the French cavalry pressed the rear-guard, and the 1st Battalion took possession of some high and broken ground on each side of the road, and one or two companies were thrown out as skirmishers to check their advance. But as the enemy continued to press on, and were very numerous, the skirmishers were called in. When running in on the Battalion they passed Lord Wellington; he called out to them: ‘Be cool, my lads; don’t be in a hurry.’ But the French were close upon them; and they, as well as the Commander-in-Chief, were obliged to retire.