The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 | Page 3

Bordeaux. A variety of causes led me to
anticipate that the corps to which I was attached would certainly be
employed upon that service. In the progress of the war which had been
just brought to a conclusion, we had not suffered so severely as many
other corps; and though not excelling in numbers, it is but justice to
affirm that a more effective or better organized battalion could not be
found in the whole army. We were all, moreover, from our
commanding officer down to the youngest ensign, anxious to gather a
few more laurels, even in America; and we had good reason to believe
that those in power were not indisposed to gratify our inclinations.
Under these circumstances we clung with fondness to the hope that our
martial career had not yet come to a close; and employed the space
which intervened between the eventful 28th of April and the 8th of the
following month, chiefly in forming guesses as to the point of attack
towards which it was likely that we should be turned.
ENCAMPMENT NEAR PASSAGES.
Though there was peace between the French and British nations, the
form of hostilities was so far kept up between the garrison of Bayonne
and the army encamped around it, that it was only by an especial treaty
that the former were allowed to send out parties for the purpose of
collecting forage and provisions from the adjacent country. The
foraging parties, however, being permitted to proceed in any direction
most convenient to themselves, the supplies of corn and grass, which
had heretofore proved barely sufficient for our own horses and cattle,
soon began to fail, and it was found necessary to move more than one

brigade to a distance from the city. Among others, the brigade of which
my regiment formed a part, received orders on the 7th of May to fall
back on the road towards Passages. These orders we obeyed on the
following morning; and after an agreeable march of fifteen or sixteen
miles, pitched our tents in a thick wood, about half-way between the
village of Bedart and the town of St. Jean de Luz. In this position we
remained for nearly a week, our expectations of employment on the
other side of the Atlantic becoming daily less and less sanguine, till at
length all doubts on the subject were put an end to by the sudden arrival
of a dispatch, which commanded us to set out with as little delay as
possible towards Bordeaux.
It was on the evening of the 14th that the route was received, and on the
following morning, at daybreak, we commenced our march. The
country through which we moved had nothing in it, unconnected with
past events, calculated in any extraordinary degree to attract attention.
Behind us, indeed, rose the Pyrenees in all their grandeur, forming, on
that side, a noble boundary to the prospect; and on our left was the sea,
a boundary different it is true in kind, though certainly not less
magnificent. But, excepting at these two extremities, there was nothing
in the landscape on which the eye loved particularly to rest, because the
country, though pretty enough, has none of that exquisite richness and
luxuriance which we had been led to expect as characteristic of the
South of France. The houses, too, being all in a ruinous and dilapidated
condition, reminded us more forcibly of the scenes of violence and
outrage which had been lately acted among them, than of those ideas of
rural contentment and innocence which various tales and melodramas
had taught us to associate in our own minds with thoughts of the land
of the vine.
MARCH TOWARDS BORDEAUX
Regarded, however, in connexion with past events, the scene was
indeed most interesting; though to a stranger fresh from England--a
man, we will suppose, of retired and peaceful habits, I can readily
imagine that it would have been productive of much pain; for on each
side of the road, in whatever direction we cast our eyes, and as far as

the powers of vision extended, we beheld cottages unroofed and in
ruins, chateaux stripped of their doors and windows, gardens laid waste,
the walls demolished, and the fruit-trees cut down; whole plantations
levelled, and vineyards trodden under foot. Here and there, likewise, a
redoubt or breastwork presented itself; whilst caps, broken firelocks,
pieces of clothing, and accoutrements scattered about in profusion,
marked the spots where the strife had been most determined, and where
many a fine fellow had met his fate. Our journey lay over a field of
battle, through the entire extent of which the houses were not only
thoroughly gutted (to use a vulgar but most expressive phrase), but for
the most part were riddled with cannon-shot. Round some of the largest,
indeed, there