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When Masséna was sent to Portugal with orders from Napoleon to drive the "English leopards and their Sepoy general into the sea," Ney, acting under his directions, took Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. At Busaco, on September 27, 1810, he differed from his commander-in-chief as to the advisability of attacking the English position in front, which was strong.
In the later wars in Europe, positions have often been carried by Russian, French, and Prussian columns with their arms at a shoulder and without firing a shot. This was a triumph of momentum and the moral effect it produces; but under the cool and deadly fire of the English infantry the French columns did not succeed so well at Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes-de-Onore, Albuera, and Waterloo.
Rebuffs of the kind were not confined to the sea service, and at New Orleans our army, which numbered in its ranks soldiers of Busaco, Fuentes de Onoro, and Salamanca, met with a serious defeat.
Moreover, Wellington's views as to the efficacy of the counterstroke were identical with those of Jackson, and he had the same predilection for cold steel. "If they attempt this point again, Hill," were his orders to that general at Busaco, "give them a volley and charge bayonets; but don't let your people follow them too far."
Ney did not renew the attack, and with some desultory skirmishing the battle ended at two o'clock, and an hour's truce enabled both parties to carry off their wounded. Small parties of the French came in contact with the English skirmishers during the afternoon, but the battle of Busaco was over. "Don't call dat much of battle," Sam said discontentedly.
"We've lost one gallant thing in any case, Charley," resumed Power. "Busaco was, I'm told, a glorious day, and our people were in the heat of it. So that, if we do leave the Peninsula now, that will be a confounded chagrin. Not for you, my poor fellow, for you could not stir; but I was so cursed foolish to take the staff appointment, thus one folly ever entails another."
It was a great victory, and celebrated as the first which Wellington had gained over the French, for although at Talavera and Busaco he had repulsed the French attack, he was not in either case in a position to do more than hold his ground. Throughout this short and desperate fight the Scudamores had been fully engaged in conveying orders from one part of the field to another.
It would have been an admirable selection if the sole object of the Confederates had been to gain time, or to prevent the enemy establishing himself south of the Rappahannock; but to encompass the destruction of the enemy's whole army it was as ill adapted as Wellington's position at Torres Vedras, at Busaco, or at Fuentes d'Onor.
It was he who took the flag at Fuentes d'Onoro, cutting the Frenchman to the chin; it was he who rode at Busaco and heard the Marshal cry "Well done!"; when the shots were threshing like rain out of a black cloud at Ciudad Rodrigo, and the soldiers were falling to it like ripe grain in thunderplumps, he was in the front with every "whe e et" of the bullets at his ear bringing the moment's alarm to his teeth in a checked sucking-in of air.
Marbot's tale of the beautiful young cantinière, or woman sutler, of the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the pure-minded gallantry of the English.
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