A Cavalry Officer In The Corunna Campaign 1808-1809:: The Journal Of Captain Gordon Of The 15th Hussars

By Captain Alexander Gordon

Captain Gordon led a troop of the 15th Hussars during the first of the British army’s campaigns into Spain, commanded by Sir John Moore. Unearthed and published many years after it was written by the esteemed Regimental historian Colonel Wylly, his diary bears testimony to the events of the retreat to Corunna.
Gordon writes of his adventures with verve, wit and in some places a little venom when talking of his erstwhile commander Moore; he is fulsome in his description of the Portuguese and Spanish people to whom the British had come to aid. For example when relating the qualities of a local wine he could “only compare the taste of it to a mixture of vinegar and ink”
On military matters he is no great respecter of rank, and distributes blame and praise where he believes they should be rightly apportioned. He gives a great first-hand account of the famed skirmish of Sahagun, to which he believes started a moral ascendancy of the British cavalry over their French counterparts. Despite some defective equipment and, as Gordon attributes it, dilatory conduct by the commander, he reaches Corunna unlike a number of his comrades and fellow country-men.
A fine read, which despite its format as a journal retains some pace, it gives a great view of the retreat from an expert military eye.
Author – Captain Alexander Gordon (1781-1872)
Editor – Colonel Harold Carmichael Wylly (1858-1932)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wagram Press
• Release date: Aug 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781908902009

Captain Alexander Gordon

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DEDICATED

BY PERMISSION

TO THE

OFFICERS, NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND

MEN OF THE 15TH (THE KING'S) HUSSARS

 This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING

Text originally published in 1913 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2011, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

Contents

INTRODUCTION 3

PREFACE 4

CHAPTER I 5

Departure from England—The Voyage to Corunna— Disembarkation—Corunna in 1808—The Place and the People—King Joseph and King Ferdinand 5

CHAPTER II 16

Captain Gordon leaves Corunna—Rumoured Abandonment of the Advance—Lugo—Nogales, Retreat commenced—French reported near Astorga—Joins 15th near Benevente—Zamora reached—Signs of the Enemy—Arrival at Morales 16

CHAPTER III 28

Whole of the Cavalry at Tordesillas—In Touch with the French—Orders to Advance—Severe Cold— Mayorga—Night March to Sahagun—The Action 28

CHAPTER IV 41

Advance to attack Soult at Saldana—Counter-orders—The Retreat begins—Pass through Sahagun—The Affair at Mayorga—Condition of the Horses— Recross the Ezla—Action at Benevente—State of Romana's Army—The Stragglers—Bembibere— A Shocking Spectacle—Action of Cacabelos— Strictures on Moore—Scenes of Suffering 41

CHAPTER V 55

Straggling and Disorganization increase—The Halt at Lugo—Moore offers Battle—Retreat resumed— The 15th save some of the Treasure—Army reaches Corunna—Slaughter of the Cavalry Horses—Embarkation—Arrival in England—Final Comments 55

APPENDICES 66

APPENDIX A. 67

APPENDIX B. 69

APPENDIX C. 70

APPENDIX D. 72

APPENDIX E 73

APPENDIX F. 74

APPENDIX G. 75

APPENDIX H. 76

APPENDIX I. 77

APPENDIX J. 78

APPENDIX K. 79

APPENDIX L. 81

APPENDIX M. 82

INTRODUCTION

ALEXANDER GORDON, the writer of this journal, was born in 1781. He inherited the estate of Auchlunies and, subsequently, the estates of Ellon, in Aberdeenshire, from his father, the third Earl of Aberdeen, in succession to his half-brother, the Hon. William Gordon.

He was a pupil of the Rev. Sydney Smith. He entered the army in 1803, being on July 9 of that

year appointed Cornet in the 15th Light Dragoons, becoming Lieutenant on January 22, 1805. Just

three years later he obtained a company in the 3rd West India Regiment, which, however,

he probably never joined, as almost immediately —on March 3, 1808—he was reappointed to

a troop in his old regiment, now Hussars, with which he served during the campaign under

Sir John Moore. In March, 1811, Captain Gordon transferred to the 60th Foot, and retired

by the sale of his commission on October 17. In 1847 he was awarded the Peninsular Medal

with clasp for Sahagun.

He married in 1811 Albinia Louisa, daughter of Captain Richard Cumberland (a son of Richard

Cumberland the dramatist) and Lady Albinia, daughter of the third Earl of Buckinghamshire.

Captain Gordon was a J.P. and Deputy-Lieutenant for Aberdeenshire; he died in 1872.

His journal, now in the possession of his grandson, Mr. Arthur Gordon, C.M.G., of Ellon, seems to supply something that has up to the present time been wanting in the history of the Corunna campaign ; for though many diaries and journals have been published, they deal chiefly with the doings of the other arms, and we know but little of the work of the cavalry during the advance and

retreat. The story of hardship, gallantry, and privation here set down has the advantage of being related by an officer who belonged to an arm the discipline of which remained unimpaired, and to a Regiment which, throughout the retirement, was always with the rear-guard.

The maps are from sketches executed by Captain Gordon, and his portrait, which forms the frontispiece, is from a miniature by Andrew Robertson, now in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Richard Cavendish Boyle, Captain Gordon's youngest daughter.

H. C. W.

September, 1913.

PREFACE

THE following narrative, comprising a journal of the disastrous campaign in Spain under Sir John Moore, was drawn up from notes taken on the spot, immediately after my return to England,

while the occurrences it relates were still fresh in my memory. The details refer chiefly to the

operations of my own corps, from which I was seldom absent; but during the retreat the troops

were so much concentrated that regimental officers—those of the cavalry, at least—enjoyed

opportunities of becoming acquainted with the situation and general movements of the army

superior to those afforded by staff appointments in ordinary cases.

Owing to the short period of our stay in the country; our continual moving, seldom remaining twenty-four hours in the same place; the gross ignorance of the people in general; and our imperfect knowledge of their language, which prevented a free communication with the few well-informed persons we were so fortunate as to meet with—it was extremely difficult to obtain accurate information upon any subject. It is therefore by no means improbable that I may have been led into error occasionally in my remarks on the manners and customs of the Spaniards, or in the description of the places we visited; but I noted everything as it appeared to me at the time, and if there be mistakes in these pages, I trust they are neither numerous nor important.

A. G.

THE JOURNAL OF

A CAVALRY OFFICER IN THE CORUNNA CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER I

Departure from England—The Voyage to Corunna— Disembarkation—Corunna in 1808—The Place and the People—King Joseph and King Ferdinand

[THE campaign of Vimiera was over; the French, hitherto invincible upon the Continent of  Europe, had felt in the Peninsula the weight of the British arms, and had been no less surprised than demoralized. The agreement known as the Convention of Cintra—but which had been negotiated near Torres Vedras and signed at Lisbon—had been completed: Portugal was set free and its harbours secured as the base for future operations. The three British Generals—Sir Hew Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur Wellesley—who had put their names to the Convention and to the armistice which had preceded it, had gone to England to answer for their actions before a court of inquiry, leaving in command of the British army in Portugal Sir John Moore, who had landed at Lisbon while the arrangements for the conclusion of the Convention were in progress.

Shortly before the British forces had arrived in the country, the Spaniards had defeated the French under Dupont at Baylen, when the whole population at once sprang to arms. The French army hurriedly retired behind the River Ebro, and the Spanish forces now reoccupied Madrid, and pushed forward three armies — in Biscay, beyond Tudela, and into Aragon — to oppose the French, to drive them from Spain, and even, as some boasted, to pursue them across the Pyrenees. So soon as the news of Dupont’s disaster reached Napoleon, he sent off reinforcements, and an amended scheme of operations to deal with the situation which had arisen; and finally, on October 30, 1808, he left Paris to take command in person of the army of 250,000 men now gathered in the Peninsula.

On October 6 despatches from England had reached Sir John Moore at Lisbon, informing him

of his appointment to the chief command of the army to be employed in Spain — an army which, with a force still to sail from Falmouth to Corunna, would comprise some 40,000 men. Sir John Moore's

natural exultation at his good fortune finds expression in his diary, wherein, under date of

October 14, he writes: There has been no such command since Marlborough for a British officer

The original object with which the British expeditionary force had been sent to the Peninsula—

the expulsion of the French from Portugal—had been achieved by Wellesleys victories and by the fulfilment of the terms of the Convention of Cintra; but there had been considerable uncertainty among the Ministers at home as to the direction which any future operations should take, and while Dalrymple was in chief command he had been asked to forward suggestions as to where and in what manner an army of 30,000 or 40,000 men could most profitably be employed. Two plans finally assumed prominence: either that the British should advance across the frontiers of Portugal into Spain, and, in combination with the Spanish forces, attack the French immediately in their front; or that they should re-embark, proceed to Asturias by sea, and assail the French armies in flank and rear. Finally, on September 25, it had been decided that the whole of the British army then in Portugal should act in co-operation with the Spanish forces in the North of Spain for the expulsion of the French; and it was left to Moore, when the command of the British army was ultimately confided to him, either to embark his troops and go to Corunna by sea, or to march them by land from Lisbon to Valladolid, where he hoped to effect the junction of all his forces He decided to move by land for the reasons given in his diary—viz., that the passage by sea is precarious, an embarkation unhinges, and when I get to Corunna I should still have to equip the army before I could stir, and in Galicia it might have been impossible to have found sufficient means of carriage.

But it is important to note, for it is a point which critics of Moore's operations are apt sometimes to overlook, that, in the instructions communicated at various times both to Moore himself and to his predecessors in command, it seems clear that the British force—not only a British army, but the only one England then possessed—was entrusted to him for the purpose of co-operating as an auxiliary body with formed and organized Spanish forces in the field; that these forces were believed to be not less than 100,000 strong; that the armies of France then operating in Spain were estimated at scarcely more than half that strength; while the British force could scarcely effect its concentration covered by the Spanish armies strung out, under a number of more or less independent commanders, along a front of 200 miles.

Having decided to move forward by road, Sir John Moore, mindful that the rainy season was at hand, had now to determine what route or routes he should follow. Certain inquiries as to the general

condition of the roads had been set on foot by

Dalrymple, who had, however, done little in the direction of collecting transport or supplies. The

local authorities could give Moore but small information as to whether any or which of the roads were

practicable for the passage of artillery; but the general consensus of opinion seemed to be that all the

roads north of the Tagus were impassable by guns. Moore finally decided to move by four roads, and on October 11 his leading regiments started from Lisbon on the march which was to end at Corunna, and cover the army with glory, disgrace, victory, and misfortune.

The following, then, were the routes taken from Lisbon and Elvas to Salamanca, and the troops

that traversed them:

By Coimbra and Celorico: Beresford's Brigade— 1st Battalion 9th, 2nd Battalion 43rd, and 2nd Battalion 52nd.

      Fane's Brigade—1st Battalion 38th, 1st Battalion 79th, and four companies 2nd Battalion 95th.

By Abrantes and Guarda: Bentinck's Brigade—1st Battalion 4th, 1st Battalion 28th, 1st Battalion 42nd, and four companies 2nd Battalion 95th.

Hill's Brigade—1st Battalion 5th, 1st Battalion 32nd, and 1st Battalion 91st.

By Elvas and Alcantara: Anstruther's Brigade—20th. 1st Battalion 52nd, and five companies

1st Battalion 95th.

Alten's Brigade—1st and 2nd Light Infantry of the King's German Legion.

Five companies 5th Battalion 60th also accompanied Moore's force.

One battery of artillery accompanied the Abrantes and Guarda column. It was confidently asserted, by those who seemed to Moore best qualified to know, that none of the above three roads were fit for the passage of guns, and he therefore decided, much against his better judgment, that his artillery must follow a fourth road, which led south of the Tagus by Elvas and Badajoz, crossed the Tagus at Almaraz, and thence proceeded by Talavera, the Escurial Pass, Espinar, and Arevalo. By this route marched the remaining six batteries with the army, the 18th Hussars, the 3rd Light Dragoons of the King's German Legion, and the 2nd, 36th, Jive companies of the 5th Battalion 60th, 71st, and 92nd Regiments, the whole under Sir John Hope. By this arrangement, which seems under the circumstances to have been all but unavoidable, the junction of the British forces was considerably delayed; while Hope's column, moreover, had to move in somewhat dangerous proximity to the enemy. This risk was not diminished by the fact that, owing to want of money and supplies, bad transport, and losses among his horses, Hope had to move his column in six small parties, each one day's march in rear of the other. Having seen nearly all his troops out of Lisbon, Moore started himself from that city on October 27, leaving behind him a division of British troops for the protection of the capital, Elvas, and Almeida, under Sir John Cradock, who had been sent out from home, and whose arrival in Portugal was then hourly expected. This division numbered some 9,000 men, and was made up of the 3rd Buffs, then garrisoning Almeida, the 1st Battalion 6th, 9th, 29th,