The Corunna Campaign 1808 - 1809

Interactive Map of Portugal and Spain

                Following the ejection of the French from Portugal in August, 1808, the British began preparations to join the Spanish attempt to drive the French completely out of Spain. The summer had seen the French suffer a reversal in following the conclusion of Marshal Murat's operations in June. On July 22, an entire French corps under General Dupont had been forced to surrender at Baylen, causing the intrusive French King Joseph Bonaparte and his armies to retreat to defensive positions on the Ebro River by Aug. 15, a few days before the Battle of Rolica.

            The plan of operations was for Gen. Sir George Moore to march to from his concentration point at Oporto to Burgos and there combine with another British army under Gen. Sir David Baird. There they were to advance to the Ebro River and cooperate with the Spanish armies against their common enemy. Moore received his orders to advance on Oct. 6, 1808 and was on the move on the 18th towards Salamanca. By 4th December after more than a month of marching over the mountains of Portugal and the frontier, the last of his columns had reached Salamanca.

While the British army retreated through the mountains, Crawford's Light Brigade faced about several times to hold back the French

            The 82nd Regiment had been left behind at Oporto by Moore as part of a covering force for Portugal, under the overall command of Gen. Sir John Craddock, but was called upon by Moore to join the army at Salamanca not long before he began marching further into Spain; the corps was therefore on the move sometime very early in December.[1] Moore set off north with his army for a rendezvous with Baird on the 5th of December. He united with Baird’s army who had marched from Galicia at Mayorga on the 20th. Only sometime after the 23rd of December did the 82nd finally catch up with Moore, probably as he was encamped at Sahagan, the furthest point in the British advance, making the 82nd's march to the rendezvous a 3-week affair. There the regiment joined Maj. Gen. Fane’s Brigade along with the 1/38th and 1/79th, as part of Lt. General Mackenzie Fraser’s 3rd Division. A return from December 19, a few days before the regiment joined Moore, shows the 82nd at this time mustered a relatively healthy 812 men all ranks.[2]

            The strategic situation at this juncture was now totally different than in August. In that interval, two Spanish armies in succession had been crushed by Napoleon himself. The Emperor reached Burgos on 11 November and was intent upon destroying the heavily outnumbered British army or at least driving it from the Peninsula. On Dec. 27 Napoleon was at Valladolid and Moore was in full retreat towards the coast and the safety of the British fleet. From here, the march became hazardous and brutal, as after the army passed Astorga the route entered mountainous terrain, the season was in full winter with its attendant snow and freezing weather, and to make matters worse, a rag-tag army of 9,000 Galicians had fallen in with Moore, completely deficient in food muskets and even boots!

George Wood was not on this march, as he had fallen ill at Lamego as his regiment marched to join Moore in early December, so we have no first-hand account of the 82nd’s experiences during this campaign. No doubt, it was a trying time, far from the victorious days back in August. The morale of the army had seriously declined once the retreat had begun. There were reports of many soldiers falling out of the march to pillage and plunder. Some British soldiers were apparently even killed by Spanish peasants for their depredations. There is no record of the 82nd taking part in the rear-guard operations. The regiment's main ordeal on this campaign  was its long march in bad weather over hard terrain from the first days December, 1808, until it reached Corunna over a month later.

The Battle of Corunna, January 16, 1809

The British army finally reached Corunna on the Galician  coast on 11 January, 1809. While loading of baggage onto transports commenced almost immediately, the expedition did not get away without a fight. The French army, now under Marshal Soult[*] arrived on January 15. Moore drew the the British army up on the high ground south of the promontory, with the 82nd, under Fraser, posted off to the right rear in reserve, in front of the town proper, and did not see any of the fighting to come. On the 16th Soult launched a general attack on the entire position, concentrating his most powerful thrust on the British left flank. This attack was parried but bloody fighting developed along the ridge around the village of Elvina, which changed hands repeatedly throughout the day. Here Sir John Moore was mortally wounded by a cannon-ball and command devolved to Sir John Hope. The battle soon died down into a long-range artillery duel with the French having been unable to penetrate the British position. Hope was able embark his entire force by the end of the next day, with no further harassment from the exhausted French.

Battle of Corunna Map

                    The Battle of Corunna ended a disastrous campaign for the British, as none of their objectives were accomplished and they were completely evicted from Spain. Major amounts of British material were cast aside and captured by the French. Losses during the campaign were in the range of 8,800 men; at Corunna it is estimated both sides lost about 900 men each.[3] Although there are no casualty returns for the 82nd from the Battle of Corunna itself, quite possibly due to it having little part in the actual fighting that day, it is known that the regiment lost 1 in 4 men during this arduous and unsuccessful campaign. Only 602 officers and men of the corps offloaded from transports in England after having sailed from Corunna. Subtracted from a return of 830 men dated Oct. 10, 1808, before the regiment left Lisbon, a deficiency of 228 is attained: either captured, sick, missing, or dead.[4]  The 82nd would need time to convalesce and recruit its strength. This it did with help from its depot battalion and the regiment was back in action later in 1809 as part of another debacle: the Walcheren expedition. Meanwhile, a company of convalescents the 82nd had left behind in Portugal campaigned with Wellington in Spain.

The Battle of Corunna by T. Yung, showing the French view of the British battle lines

___________________________________________________________

Back to Top | Main Index| Next Chapter