Badajoz, one of the richest and most beautiful towns in the south of Spain, whose inhabitants had witnessed its siege in silent terror for one-and-twenty days, and who had been shocked by the frightful massacre that had just taken place at its walls, was now about to be plunged into all the horrors that are, unfortunately, unavoidable upon an enterprise such as a town taken by storm. Scarcely had Count Phillipon and his garrison commenced their march towards Elvas, when the work of pillage commenced. Some—many indeed—of the good soldiers turned to the ditch of the castle and to the breaches to assist and carry off their wounded companions; but hundreds were neglected in the general and absorbing thirst for plunder. The appearance of the castle was that of a vast wreck; the various ladders lying shattered at the base of its walls, the broken piles of arms, and the brave men that lay as they had fallen—many holding their firelocks in their grasp—marked strongly the terrible contest in which they had been engaged, and presented to the eye of a spectator ample food for reflection. It was not possible to look at those brave men, all of them dead or frightfully maimed, without recollecting what they had been but a few short hours before; yet those feelings, fortunately perhaps, do not predominate with soldiers, and those sights, far from exciting reflections of a grave nature, more usually call forth some jocular remark, such as “that he will have no further occasion to draw rations”; or “that he has stuck his spoon in the wall and left off messing”—such is the force of habit. At the breaches, the Light and 4th Division soldiers lay in heaps upon each other—a still warm group; and many of those veterans, from whom the vital spark had not yet fled, expired in the arms of the few of their companions who sought to remove them to a place better suited to their miserable condition. But war, whatever its numerous attractions to a young mind may be, is but ill calculated to inspire it with those softer feelings so essential to soothe us in the moment of our distress; it must not, therefore, be wondered at that a wish for plunder and enjoyment took the place of humanity, and that hundreds of gallant men were left to perish from neglect.