On The Road With Wellington by August Ludolf Friedrich Schaumann

Author:August Ludolf Friedrich Schaumann [Schaumann, August Ludolf Friedrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Napoleonic Wars
ISBN: 9781853673535
Google: 8kWaBgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 1999-05-31T02:55:53+00:00

* * *

* “Eu morre de fam.”

* This appears from Schaumann’s description to have been the disease known as “sand crack.”—TR.

* “Son Demonios!’

Elvas—Commissary in Viçosa—Heavy Duties—Mr. Augustus is made an Assistant Commissary—How he travels about the Province of Alemtejo, is welcomed and entertained by many, and returns Home safely after many Adventures—Events in Abrantes—Sudden Orders to March to the Banks of the Mondego.

FROM Badajos I rode to Elvas, where I spent a week, and then I returned to Villa Viçosa, where I was quartered first in the Rocio de San Paulo, a large open square, on which there were a few convents, and afterwards in the Rua de Cambayo. There was a great deal for me to do here. In addition to a fine hospital, there were the depots of the light infantry regiments, which, together with the generals and officers, accounted for an enormous amount of forage daily, and worried me terribly. This place was, moreover, a post on the lines of communication for all detachments destined either for the army or headquarters. Within a radius of ten miles I had requisitioned all available supplies. Every blessed day I had to ride out to Badajos, Elvas, Borba, Redondo, or Estremoz. Even in the town itself I had not a moment’s peace. I had to keep baking and slaughtering. At one moment I was with the Juiz de Fora, at another at the food purveyor’s or the magistrate’s; then, anon, I had to go to some general or other, after which I was obliged to go in person to this or that place, either preparing lists, writing letters, or making up accounts, so that when evening came I was so tired I could hardly stand on my legs. Villa Viçosa, the former residence of the Dukes of Braganza, which lies in a fairly well-cultivated valley, is a very beautiful place of only moderate size. Its regular streets are well paved, the houses are fine, and it has three large squares and an old castle, where a portion of the 11th Dragoons were quartered, and where some very fine knights’ armour was on view.

In Elvas I visited my friend, Lieutenant Ernst Poten, of the 1st German Hussars, who having been shot through the breast at Talavera, was suffering from a dangerous wound. Just outside Badajos, too, I generally called on my friend Dr. Heise, who was camping with the artillery of the legion on this side of the bridge over the Guadiana. It was true that they had very fine huts, but owing to ague they lived, as the saying is, with snakes amid roses. For the banks of the river and the morasses beyond, which are flooded in winter and exposed to a grilling heat in summer, were so unhealthy that very soon there was an outbreak of ague and typhus, to which thousands of the English army succumbed. The epidemic was so virulent that men died from it in twenty-four hours. I myself witnessed the case of a very healthy-looking gunner of the legion.

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