The Peninsular War was one of the most successful campaigns ever fought by the British Army. Although there have been many accounts of soldiering in Wellington's army, Ian Fletcher's new book, Voices from the Peninsula, throws light on the experiences of soldiers in that army fighting in Spain, Portugal and southern France. Drawing on rare letters, diaries and memoirs, Ian Fletcher's anthology evokes such key battles and sieges as Vimiero, Talavera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria and San Sebastian. In this exciting extract from the book an anonymous officer in the 3rd Division describes the horror of the storming of Badajoz in 1812: “On the march all was silent, except that our cannon kept up the fire at the trenches till we got within a quarter of a mile of the town when there were two or three fire balls thrown from it in different directions, one of which falling close to us, we silently whispered to each other, "Now it will begin". As the first division of our troops approached the place, the whole town appeared as if it were one mine, every yard throwing out bullets, cannon balls, etc., grape shot flying in every direction. On the fire balls striking near us, we moved out of the road to the green sward, but the cannon balls hissed by us along the grass, and the musket balls flew like hail about our heads; we immediately began, therefore, to run forward, till we were within about a hundred yards of the bridge across the first ditch, and then the balls came on so thick, that, as near as I can judge, twenty must have passed in the space of a minute, within a yard of my head. While we were running on the grass, one or two men dropped every minute and were left behind; but now they fell faster, when we came to the bridge, which was about two yards wide, and twelve yards long, the balls came so thick that I had no expectation of getting across alive. We then began to ascend the hill, and were as crowded as people in a fair. We had to creep upon our hands and knees, the ascent being so steep and rocky; and, while creeping, my brother officer received a ball in the brain and fell dead. Having got up this rock, we came to some palisades, within about twenty yards of the wall; those we broke down; but behind them was a ditch three feet deep, and just behind that a flat space about six yards broad, and then a hill thrown up, eight feet high. These passed, we approached a second ditch, and then the wall which was twenty-six feet high, against which we planted six or seven ladders. The hill is much like that at Greenwich; about as steep and as high. Just as I passed the palisaded ditch, there came a discharge of grape shot from a twenty-four pounder, directly into that flat space, and about twelve fine fellows sunk upon the ground, uttering a groan that shook the oldest soldier to the soul. Ten of them never rose again, and the nearest of them was within a foot of me; and the farthest not four yards distant. It swept away all within its range. The next three or four steps I took was upon this heap of dead! You read of the horrors of war, yet little understand what they mean. When I got over this hill, (or escarpment) into the ditch, under the wall, the dead and wounded lay so thick, that I was continually treading upon them. A momentary pause took place about the time we reached the ladders, occasioned I apprehend by the grape shot, and by the numbers killed from off the ladders; but all were soon up, and formed again in the road just over the wall. We now cheered four or five times! When we had entered the citadel, which was directly after we had scaled the wall, no shot came among us; the batteries there had been silenced before we were over, and we formed opposite the two gateways, with orders to 'let no force break through us'. I was in the front rank!” Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 109 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com