Casal Novo

The Action at Casal Novo
March 14th

Troop Movements

The morning starts with a thick fog
Marchand's Div (6C) holds Casal Novo, while the rest of the 6th Corps and the 8th Corps retreat towards Miranda de Corvo. Mermet's Div (6C) stop at a strong position between Casal de Azan and Villa Seca in support of Marchand.

The Action

Erskine (!!!) orders the Light Div picquets (Rifles) forward into Casal Nova in thick fog, on the assumption that the French have retired. When they come under heavy fire, Erskine sends in 3 Cos (???!!) of the 52nd to "clear out the French" (11 battalions). Eventually he has the entire Light Div pinned down by the French, and suffering significant losses, until the 3rd Div turns the French flank and Marchand retires behind Mermet's position to the heights of Chão de Lamas.

Mermet's position is turned (Light Div around the French right, 3 Div around their left) and he falls back to Marchand at Chão de Lamas.

This position is threatened by the 4th Div while being flanked: Lt Div and Pack's Port around the French right, 3rd Div around the French left. and the French retire to Miranda de Corvo and it's bridge over the Eça where Junot's 8th Corps and Montbrun's Reserve Cavalry are waiting to cover them.

4th Div are ordered towards Espinhal to link up with Nightingall. This threatens to cut off the 2nd Corps (Reynier) and Massena orders them to join the rest of the army at Miranda.

From Harry Smith (95th)

... The next turn up was at Condesia [Condeixa]; the next at Casal Nova [14 Mar], where we had as heavy a skirmishing fight as ever occurred. We Light Division gentlemen had our full complement of fighting, for the French were oblige to hold a village to give their column time to retire, and if the Duke's orders had been obeyed, our Division ought not to have attacked until the 3rd and 4th Divisions wer well up on the Frenchmen's left. I lost several men that day, as did all our Companies, and particularly the 52nd. Poor Major Jack Stewart,* a dear little fellow, a friend of mine, was shot through the lungs and died in three days, ...; Strode, a Lieutenant, received his death-wound while talking to me, etc.

From Johnny Kincaid (95th)

March 14th. - Finding at daylight that the enemy still continued to hold the strong ground before us, some divisions of the army were sent to turn their flanks, while ours attacked them in front.

We drove them from one stronghold to another, over a large track of very difficult country, mountainous and rocky, and thickly intersected with stone walls, and were involved in one continued hard skirmish from daylight until dark. This was the most harassing day's fighting that I ever experienced.

Daylight left the two armies looking at each other, near the village of Illama. The smoking roofs of the houses showed that the French had just quitted and, as usual, set fire to it, when the company to which I belonged was ordered on picquet there for the night. After posting our sentries, my brother-officer and myself had the curiosity to look into a house, and were shocked to find in it a mother and her child dead, and the father, with three more, living, but so much reduced by famine as to be unable to remove themselves from the flames. We carried them into the open air, and offered the old man our few remaining crumbs of biscuit, but he told us that he was too far gone to benefit by them, and begged that we would give them to his children. We lost no time in examining such of the other houses as were yet safe to enter, and rescued many more individuals from one horrible death, probably to reserve them for another equally so, and more lingering, as we had nothing to give them, and marched at daylight the following morning.

Edward Costello: "Autobiography of a Soldier" (95th)

Having cleared the houses 'a way', we proceeded to Casal Nova, where we came up with the incendiaries, whom we found perfectly prepared to receive us. The country all about was greatly intercepted by old walls, and afforded excellent facilities for skirmishing. In a few seconds some of our division was observed moving upon our right, and we were ordered instantly to extend, and at it we went. After several hours' hard fighting, kept up with great spirit on both sides, we compelled the enemy to retire, but not before we had lost an excellent officer in the person of Major Stewart, who received a shot through the body. He was led by two buglers to the rear, where he died shortly after. The death of this officer gave a step to my old Captain O'Hare, who obtained the majority.

In this skirmish Lieutenant Strode also received a severe (mortal) wound. This officer in action always carried a rifle, for the skilled use of which he was celebrated. A man of our company named Pat Mahon received three balls on the hip at the same instant, and so close together that a dollar might have covered the three holes they made.

The enemy still continued the retreat, their skirmishers, at times, making short stands to keep our rifles in check, and a few of their rear sections occasionally pouring a running fire into us. We drove them, however, through the village of Casal Nova. Some of the French for a few minutes here availed themselves of pieces of dilapidated walls, but as soon as we commenced outflanking them, they all retreated, with the exception of one man, who, to our surprise, remained loading and firing as if he had a whole division to back him. I scarcely know what could have induced me to fire at this poor fellow alone, and exposed as he was to at least twenty other shots; but my blood was up, through his having once aimed at me, his ball whizzing close by as I approached. Be that as it may, I had got within fifty yards when I fired. In an instant I was beside him, the shot had entered his head, and he had fallen in the act of loading, the fusil tightly grasped in his left hand, while his right clutched the ramrod. A few quick turns of the eye as it rolled its dying glances on mine turned my whole blood within me, and I reproached myself as his destroyer. ...