broken; yet they rallied and renewed the fight with the greatest courage and obstinacy, till Byng's Brigade came up, when Harispe was driven towards the River Lees, and General Villatte quite through the town of Aire. The 92nd pursued, and parties of both sides crossed each other at the street corners, where some fell. It was now dark, and the 92nd were quartered in the town. The French lost many men; two generals were wounded, a colonel of Engineers was killed, 100 prisoners were taken, and the great magazines fell into the hands of the conquerors. The loss of the British was 150 killed and wounded, that of the Portuguese about the same; General Barnes was wounded, and Colonel Hood killed. The casualties of the battalion were-Captain W. Fyfe, Lieutenants J. A. Durie and Richard MacDonnell wounded; one sergeant and two rank and file were killed, and one sergeant and twenty-eight rank and file wounded.* His Majesty granted permission to Lieut.-Colonel Cameron to bear on his shield the word " Aire" and a view of the town. DIVISION ORDERS. To AIRE, March 3rd, 1814. Lieutenant-General Sir William Stewart congratulates the division on its further advance and success against the enemy. the admirable conduct of the Fiftieth and Ninety-second Regiments, led by their gallant commanders and by Major-General Barnes, the good fortune of yesterday's action is decidedly attributed, which the lieutenant-general has to state to Lieutenant-General Sir Rowland Hill for the information of the Commander of the Forces. GENERAL ORDERS. AIRE, March 5th, 1814. Lieutenant-General Sir Rowland Hill congratulates LieutenantGeneral Sir William Stewart, Major-General Barnes, and MajorGeneral Byng, on the brilliant part which they bore in the action of the 2nd instant. The gallant and steady conduct of the Fiftieth Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison, and of the Ninety-second Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron, excited the admiration of all who were witnesses of it. *The nominal list of killed and wounded at this period is lost. AIRE, March 10th, 1814. DEAR SIR, The Mayor and inhabitants of this town having requested me to convey to you, with their sentiments of gratitude, the accompanying address, I feel infinite pleasure in so doing, as I deem the sentiments expressed in it justly due towards you and the distinguished regiment under your command.-I have, etc., WILLIAM STEWART, Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, (Signed) Commanding Ninety-second Highlanders. (Translation). Lieut.-General. AIRE, 9th March 1814. SIR,―The inhabitants of the town of Aire are not ignorant that if they were preserved from pillage and destruction at the close of the obstinate and sanguinary conflict of the 2nd of March, they are indebted for such preservation from that calamity to your honourable conduct, and the strict discipline which you have maintained amongst the troops under your command. Penetrated by sentiments of the liveliest gratitude towards a commander distinguished by such noble qualities, the town of Aire has charged me to be their interpreter in communicating their thanks, and to offer you the homage of their esteem.—I have, etc., CODROY, Mayor. (Signed) To Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, In the morning the wounded of both sides were placed in an hospital, and the magistrates waited on General Hill, thanking him and his troops for their forbearance in not plundering the town, and for the general good conduct of the soldiers, which gave the general, says one of them, as much satisfaction as his victory. The battalion remained in the town for ten days, and the men were provided with shoes and other necessaries. CHAPTER XXII. MEANWHILE Soult had retreated by Tarbes, having determined to make his next stand at the fortified position of Toulouse. Misfortune had caused discontent in the French army, who behaved with so much violence on the retreat that their countrymen contrasted their conduct with the discipline of the Anglo-Portuguese, who paid for everything on the spot, and Soult wrote to his Minister of War that the population appear more disposed to favour the invaders than to second the army." Many of the inhabitants, indeed, were in favour of the Bourbons and against the Government of Napoleon. In this state of affairs, Wellington had been able to detach 12,000 men to take possession of Bordeaux and retain it as a port for the Allies. Information having been received that Soult was making a movement to his left and menaced the British right, Wellington made a corresponding move, and the 92nd left their quarters at Aire on the 13th of March and advanced on the road to Pau to a position near Garlin. On the 18th the battalion marched to Conchez, the enemy retiring on the approach of the Allies; on the 19th a skirmish took place at Vic Bigorre, and the enemy retired across the Adour. The battalion halted at night in front of Vic Bigorre. On the 20th, the French made a stand at Tarbes, and the Gordons hoped to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Alexandria by a victory on the 21st; but after a combat in which Hill forced the passage of the Adour, the enemy retreated under a cannonade from that general's artillery. The nature of the country, however, prevented a pursuit by cavalry, but the 92nd, with the other troops, continued to advance. At St Gaudens, some French cavalry which were drawn up across the road were overthrown by the 13th Light Dragoons. The 92nd continued in pursuit by St Julien, constant rain impeding the operations till the 26th, when they halted at Muret. Next day Hill's troops were withdrawn to St Roque, and saw no more of the French till they got within sight of Toulouse. The division crossed the Garonne by a pontoon bridge, after considerable delay in its construction, and proceeded to Miremont, and on the 1st of April they marched fifteen miles to Cintagabelle, in order to seize the bridge over the Arriège, the intention being to attack Toulouse on the south side, while Wellington assailed St Cyprien; but the state of the roads preventing the rapid movement of artillery, Hill wisely renounced the project and recrossed the Garonne at St Roque. Here the battalion stayed till the 5th of April, when it was put into a large and handsomely furnished mansion at St Simon, the inmates of which had fled. They stayed in this comfortable situation till the floods which had obliged the British general to remain inactive had subsided, when, leaving Hill with two divisions to distract the enemy's attention in that quarter by menacing the suburb of St Cyprien on the left bank of the river, Wellington, with the main body of his army, crossed to the right bank on the 9th. Having carefully examined the enemy's position, which was admirably chosen and strengthened by field works, he gave the signal for battle at seven o'clock on the morning of the 10th of April. The 92nd advanced with Hill's troops, who drove in the French outposts, and by a vigorous attack forced the first line of entrenchments covering St Cyprien, and menaced the second line, which was so very strongly fortified that it could not be stormed. For the rest of the day Hill's troops could only remain spectators of the desperate battle which was being fought out on the opposite side of the river. They could see the dangerous flank march of Beresford's Corps, the disastrous flight of Freyre's Spaniards; how Picton, notwithstanding his instructions only to engage the enemy's Wellington had granted Freyre's request to lead the battle at Calvinet. At first the Spaniards advanced resolutely, but the fire of the French cannon and musketry thinning their ranks at every step was more than they could endure; they wavered, the French charged, and they at last broke in headlong flight. Wellington, who was at hand, covered the panic-stricken troops with Ponsonby's cavalry, the Portuguese guns, and a brigade of British infantry; the victorious French then retreated to their entrenchments, having killed and wounded 1500 Spaniards. Wellington is said to have remarked, "Well, d- me, if ever I saw ten thousand men run a race before." * * attention by a feigned attack, impetuously turned it into a real one, and was beaten back from an impracticable redoubt with the loss of 500 killed and wounded, among the former being Colonel Forbes of the 45th, one of the original officers of the Gordon Highlanders. They could hear the roar of the guns and the shouts of the combatants when Beresford repelled the attack of Taupin's Division, and observed the havoc made by the Congreve rockets,* seldom, if ever, used against infantry before. They remained an inactive but necessary part of the combination while their countrymen of the 42nd led the assault on Columbette, and gained it only to be overwhelmed, and driven out with enormous loss; re-forming, however, with other troops and declining to retire, Cole and Clinton's Brigades came to their assistance, and the French were again forced back, fighting hard. The Columbette redoubt was taken by the 79th, and at 4 p.m. the Allies, at last successful at all points, had gained the bloodstained heights. Soult withdrew his troops within the second line of defence, and the allied forces fell on the retiring columns till stopped by the fire from the têtes-de-pont on the canal, behind which the whole French army was ranged. At the same time, Hill on the other side of the Garonne drove the enemy from their second line of defence within the old city wall, so that they were now entirely cooped up within the town of Toulouse. In this terrible battle the Allies lost four generals and 4659 officers and soldiers killed and wounded, of whom 2000 were Spaniards. The French lost five generals and 3000 officers and men killed and wounded, and one piece of artillery. The Gordon Highlanders, as we have seen, took but a small part in the fighting, though they assisted to seize and to hold a most important post, thereby having a material effect on the fortune of the day. Cannon's Record does * "The roaring of the cannon and the horrific blazing of the rockets was awful and grand beyond description."-Letter from Lieutenant H. Innes, 92nd. NOTE.-War rockets were invented in 1805 by General Congreve. Sir H. Shrapnell invented the spherical case which took his name, and was first used at Vimeira.—“ History of British Army," by Colonel Cooper King. |