To make his regiment as efficient as possible, he ordered that no officer who had been less than ten years in the service should ride on the march; this diminished the number of useless horses which every regiment then possessed; while to increase the number of bayonets, he turned the whole of the band into the ranks; thus, throughout the whole Peninsular War, he retained only the bagpipes, drums, and fifes. His regiment belonged to the 1st Brigade, or General Howard's, in the 2nd Division of Infantry, or Lord Hill's, with the 50th, under Colonel Stuart, and the 71st Highlanders, under Colonel Cadogan, with both of whom his fiery temper and jealousy on points of etiquette soon involved him in a coolness that lasted till they were both removed by death. The Highlanders entered Spain by the way of Albergaria, and their peculiar garb soon changed the constant cry of "Live the English," to "Viva los Escotos! Viva Don Juan Cameron, y sus valiante Escotos! Viva!"
This was when following up the retreating Massena. Notwithstanding all efforts of that general to restore the barbarities of ancient warfare, much good feeling prevailed between the French and British when out of the field. Of this, one anecdote will suffice.
A French picket in front of Cameron's regiment, were about to slay a bullock for their dinner, when the animal broke loose, and dashed across the neutral ground, where a Highlander killed it by a single ball, and his comrades proceeded immediately to cut up their prize in view of the hungry and disappointed foe, who sent over two soldiers, waving white handkerchiefs. Under these extempore flags of truce, they brought a message from their officer, saying that he was "sure Scottish soldiers were too generous to deprive his men of the only provisions they had seen for some days." The Highlanders sent them back with half the beef, several loaves of bread, and a bottle of rum. After this, they became so familiar that some of our pickets went over and drank with those of the enemy, until Wellington's order forbade it as unsafe and improper.
Cameron distinguished himself by his activity, at the head of his gallant Highlanders, in all the arduous operations of that sanguinary war. He led his regiment at Fuentes d'Onor, where it was on the right, covering a brigade of nine pounders, when it endured a severe cannonade, and had thirty-seven officers and men killed and wounded. Major Peter Grant had his arm torn off by a cannon-shot, but he survived to die lately, at a good old age, amongst his kindred in Strathspey.
The regiment was then 897 strong. Cameron was at the second siege of Badajoz, and at the surprise of Gerard's division, on the 28th of October, 1811, when, on a dark, rainy morning, and under cover of a dense mist, Sir Rowland Hill's troops attacked the village of Arroya del Molinos, or the Mills-of-the-King. In this brilliant affair, Fassifern attacked the two retreating squares of the French with his Highlanders, and breaking through one, sword in hand, formed on the other side of the Puebla, and completed the overthrow of Marshal Gerard, who had all his artillery, baggage, money, officers, horses, and 1,400 men taken. In the charge through the village, Cameron received a wound in the sword hand, and Captain M'Pherson, with whom he fought the duel at Gibraltar, was shot by his side. On this occasion the Highlanders had a parody made on the old song of "Johnny Cope," for Gerard, until he heard the pipers of the 92nd playing that popular air, believed the attack to be a mere exchange of shots between his videttes and the guerillas. Cameron's wound was a narrow escape, and is thus mentioned by an eye-witness:[5]
"The captain of the grenadier company having been wounded early in the action, the senior lieutenant, on assuming the command of it, made a false movement; on perceiving which, the colonel, greatly irritated, repeated his former orders in a voice of thunder, and, as was his usual custom when displeased, struck his left breast with his right hand, which then grasped the hilt of his sword. The last syllable of his orders had just been delivered, when a bullet, despatched by one of the enemy's riflemen, struck the first joint of his middle finger, shattered the bone, passed through the handle of the sword, and struck his breast so violently, that he relinquished the command of the battalion to Major Mitchell, in the full conviction that the ball had passed into his body. On being undeceived, the gallant colonel instantly rejoined his battalion, and, with his middle finger dangling by a small piece of skin only, remained at the head of his Highlanders to the close of the engagement."
When the French were completely driven out, and when Hill's division was on the march for San Pedro, Cameron, who had lost much blood, was conducted by Ewen M'Millan to a house in Arroya, to have the wound dressed, and the finger, which yet dangled by a sinew, cut off. On entering, they found it occupied by a noisy and tipsy party of Spanish dragoons, who, notwithstanding the rank and wound of Fassifern, endeavoured to eject him. High words ensued, and a dragoon dared to aim a blow at his head with a sabre. Cameron instinctively raised his wounded hand for protection, and had his right arm cut to the bone. Rendered furious by the sight of his master's blood, M'Millan levelled his musket at the head of the insolent Spaniard, and would have shot him dead; but Cameron, who was aware that the Conde de Penne Villamur's dragoons occupied the whole village, exclaimed—
"Desist, Ewen, for God's sake do not fire!" and struck up his foster-brother's musket, the bullet from which pierced the ceiling. He never could discover the perpetrator of this severe wound, from the effects of which he suffered long.
During the harassing marches of Hill's division in the desolate Estramadura, his native hardihood never flinched, though the miseries endured by the troops were excessive in that naked district, where they were constantly in arrears of pay, bivouacking without tents or fires, or cantoned in roofless and ruined towns, marching day and night in the wet and chill of winter, or the heat of the summer solano, when the white dust blew down the mountain passes, and the air became thick with flies; when the soil of the vast plains cracked and rent; when the perspiration rose in hazy steam above the marching columns; when comrades fought like tigers around the wayside wells and casual pools, to fill their canteens at the puddle through which, perhaps, the advanced guard had passed an hour before; when years of hardship, danger, starvation, and rags were to be endured, Fassifern never had a day's illness or absence from parade; nor did his hardy Gordon Highlanders ever lose a man by fatigue, save upon two occasions.
These exceptions were Lieutenants Marshall and Hill, two fine young officers; the first of whom died in a wretched bullock car—died of sheer starvation, as he was being conveyed into Badajoz; and the second, unable to keep up with his men, perished of the same awful death among the mountains, between Talavera and Toledo. It is said that, on many occasions, Fassifern would have starved also, but for the vigorous efforts of his foster-brother and henchman, Ewen M'Millan, who, despite Lord Wellington's orders, plundered the Dons without mercy, when the comfort of his chieftain and master required him to do so.
After incessant skirmishes and daily marches along the banks of the Tagus, and after a desperate affair of outposts at La Nava, on the 18th May, 1812, Hill marched to destroy the forts erected by the French at the bridge of Almarez. The 50th, and a wing of the 71st Highlanders, formed one column, which was destined to attack Fort Napoleon; Cameron with his regiment, and the remainder of the 71st, had orders to support the attack, and storm the tête-du-pont. Both columns were amply provided with scaling-ladders. As the troops descended a rut of the sierra, in Indian file, about midnight, Mr. Irvine, a gentleman volunteer, left his ranks to obtain a draught of water. This was contrary to express orders; and such was Cameron's strictness, that he dismissed him from the regiment on the instant, and the poor fellow was left alone among the mountains of Romangordo.
Being proud of his own regiment, Cameron had a great jealousy of the 71st Highlanders; and when the attack commenced, on some of their bullets, in the twilight and confusion, whistling over his own ranks, he called aloud—
"Seventy-first!