FORMERLY A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE,
LATE CAPTAIN IN THE BRITISH LEGION, AND NOW ONE OF THE WARDENS OF
THE TOWER OF LONDON;
COMPRISING
NARRATIVES OF THE CAMPAIGNS IN THE PENINSULA UNDER THE
DUKE OF WELLINGTON,
AND THE SUBSEQUENT CIVIL WARS IN SPAIN.
What, must I tell it thee?
As o’er my ev’ning fire I musing sat
Some few days since, my mind’s eye backward turn’d
Upon the various changes I have pass’d—
How in my youth with gay attire allur’d,
And all the grand accoutrements of war,
I left my peaceful home: Then my first battles,
When clashing arms, and sights of blood were new:
Then all the after-chances of the war;
Ay, and that field, a well-fought field it was.
COUNT BASIL.
Second Edition.
LONDON:
COLBURN AND CO., PUBLISHERS,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1852.
[ii]LONDON:
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
[iii]TO
GENERAL SIR A. F. BARNARD, K.C.B, K.C.H.
&c. &c. &c.
COLONEL OF THE RIFLE BRIGADE,
AND GOVERNOR OF CHELSEA COLLEGE,
THIS VOLUME
Is most respectfully Dedicated,
BY THE AUTHOR,
EDWARD COSTELLO.
[v]
PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.
So many Lives of Soldiers have already been written,and by abler pens than mine, and so many tales havearisen out of the chequered scenes of the late PeninsularWar, and the short existence of the British Legion,that I dare not be very sanguine of creating for mywork any great degree of interest.
But every man’s life is a volume of change, felt andexpressed according to his peculiar dispositions andfeelings, which are as varied under a military as theycan be under a civil life. Could the never to be forgottenTom Crawley but give his own detail!—couldLong Tom of Lincoln, once one of the smartest of ourregiment, now the forlorn bone-picker of Knightsbridge,but pen his own eventful track—could Wilkie,Hetherington, Plunket, and many others of thosehumbler heroes, conquerors in such well-contested fieldsas Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, and Waterloo, &c.,whose exploits form the principal attractions in thisvolume, and whose stubborn spirits and perfora