Five generals were wounded. More than 2,000 men fell at the breaches! Philippon surrendered early next morning. To the heroic Picton and his “fighting third” division the success was chiefly attributable. “Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness, which tarnished the lustre of the soldier’s heroism. All indeed were not alike, for hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence, but the madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders here, all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz! on the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled. The wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed of.” (_Ibid._) Let this scene be for ever engraven on our minds--let its horrors be a response to the insane clamour for war. And, notwithstanding the glories of our Peninsular campaigns, let us resolve that a sword we will never draw but in defence of our own soil! The ever memorable battle of Salamanca took place in the same month of July in which three years before had been fought the equally glorious battle of Talavera--and even in still more sultry weather, so much so that before the engagement at Salamanca, on one occasion when the French, pressing upon our rear, were scattered by the bayonet, some of our men fainted with the heat. On the eve of the battle, a terrific thunder-storm came on just as the enemy were taking up their position. The sky was kindled with incessant lightnings, and through the heavy rain which subsequently fell, the French fires could be seen along their entire line. It is a remarkable fact that nearly every one of our chief battles in the Peninsula was heralded by a storm, as if Nature sympathized in the contest. That of Salamanca was fought upon a plain surrounded by ranges of hills--one of the few open and level tracts upon which the rival armies met in the Peninsula, which seemed peculiarly adapted for such a struggle, bearing at opposite and distant points two striking rocky eminences, steep and rugged, called the Arapiles (cut out, as it were, for rival generals) on which the left of the French and the right of the Allies were posted. The battle of Salamanca lasted only forty minutes. It originated in an error of Marmont’s, which Wellington seized as thus described by Napier: “Starting up, he repaired to the high ground, and observed their movements for some time, with a stern contentment, for their left wing was entirely separated from the centre. The fault was flagrant, and he fixed it with the stroke of a thunder-bolt.” (_Hist.