For two days and nights Badajos resounded with the shrieks and piteous lamentations of her defenceless victims, with groans and shouts and imprecations, varied by the hissing of fires from houses first plundered, then destroyed, the crashing of doors and windows, and the almost ceaseless report of muskets used in violence. It was not until the third day that the soldiers, exhausted by their own excesses, could be collected in sufficient numbers to bury the dead of their own regiments, while many of the wounded perished solely from want of necessary care. I had imagined that the miseries of intemperance were no unfamiliar sight to me; yet never before, or since, has it been my lot to meet the madness which characterized the eager search for liquor, on every side. An instance that occurred in our own regiment, I will relate. Several of our men, and among them some that I had known in Ireland, and should never have suspected of such conduct, broke into a cellar where was stored a large quantity of wine. There were many casks, and some of them contained wine that bore the brand of scores of years. They tore down the doors for tables, and commenced their mad feast. Bottles half emptied were thrown across the cellar, and what would have sufficed a regiment for months, was recklessly poured upon the floor. Unconscious, or not caring what they did, they stopped not to draw the wine, but, knocking in the head of the casks, proceeded to try their various qualities. At length, overcome by intoxication, they sank upon the floor, and paid the penalty of their rashness with their lives; for, when a diligent search was made for absentees, they were discovered actually drowned in the wine. Many were burned to death in houses which they themselves had fired.