CHAPTER VII
Mortality Among Officers of Rank on Both Sides—Acknowledged English Loss at Aughrim—English and Irish Comments on Conduct of Battle
BESIDES St. Ruth, the chief officers killed on the Irish side were, according to Story’s account, General Lord Kilmallock, General Lord Galway, Brigadier-General Connel (O’Connell), Brigadier-General W. Mansfield Barker, Brigadier-General Henry M. J. O’Neill, Colonel Charles Moore, his lieutenant-colonel and major; Colonel David Bourke, Colonel Ulick Bourke, Colonel Connor McGuire, Colonel James Talbot, Colonel Arthur, Colonel Mahony, Colonel Morgan, Major Purcell, Major O’Donnell, Major Sir John Everard, with several others of superior rank, “besides, at least, five hundred captains and subordinate officers.” This latter statement has been challenged by Irish historians, who claim that non-commissioned officers were included in the list. Story omitted from the number of superior officers slain the name of Colonel Felix O’Neill, Judge-Advocate-General of the Irish army, whose body was found on the field. Of the less than five hundred Irish prisoners taken, twenty-six were general or field officers, including General Lord Duleek, General Lord Slane, General Lord Bophin, General Lord Kilmaine, General Dorrington, General John Hambleton (Hamilton), Brigadier-General Tuite, Colonel Walter Bourke, Colonel Gordon O’Neill, Colonel Butler, Colonel O’Connell (ancestor of Daniel O’Connell), Colonel Edmund Madden, Lieutenant-Colonel John Chappel, Lieutenant-Colonel John Butler, Lieutenant-Colonel Baggot, Lieutenant-Colonel John Border, Lieutenant-Colonel McGinness, Lieutenant-Colonel Rossiter, Lieutenant-Colonel McGuire, Major Patrick Lawless, Major Kelly, Major Grace, Major William Bourke, Major Edmund Butler, Major Edmund Broghill, Major John Hewson, “with 30 captains, 25 lieutenants, 23 ensigns, 5 cornets, 4 quartermasters, and an adjutant.”
Chaplain Story, to whom, with all his faults, we are much indebted for the details of this momentous battle—one of the few “decisive battles” of the world—says: “We [the English and their allies] lost 73 officers, who were killed in this action, with 111 wounded, as appears by the inserted lists [vide his History of the “Wars in Ireland”] of both horse and foot, given in two days after by the general’s command, and sent to the king.” The lists referred to acknowledged, also, 600 soldiers killed and 906 wounded. The allied losses were, no doubt, underestimated for political effect in England, which had been taught that one Englishman could kill any number of Irishmen without much fear of a fatal result to himself. And this superstition was useful, we believe, to the morale of the British soldiers of the period, whose stomachs failed them so notably when they were “up against” the defences of Limerick, as will be seen hereafter. Captain Taylor, a Williamite writer, who was present at the battle and published a graphic account of it, says that the loss of the allies (British, Dutch, Danes, Germans, and Huguenots) was little less than that of the Irish, most of the latter having fallen in the retreat after the death of General St. Ruth. Of the Anglo-Dutch troopers, there were killed by the Irish cavalry at the pass of Urachree, in the early part of the fight, 202, and wounded 125, thus showing the superior strength, reach of arm, and dexterity of the Irish horsemen. In hand-to-hand conflicts, whether mounted or on foot, the Irish soldiery, in whatever service, ever excelled, with sword or battle-axe, pike or bayonet. Clontibret and the Yellow Ford, Benburb and Fontenoy, Almanza and Albuera, Inkerman and Antietam bear witness to the truth of this assertion. As a charging warrior, the Irishman has never been surpassed, and, no matter how bloodily repulsed, an Irish regiment or an Irish army is ever willing to try again. There may be soldiers as brave as they, but none are braver, even when they fight in causes with which they have no natural sympathy. It may be set down as a military axiom that the Irish soldier is, by force of untoward circumstances, frequently a mercenary, but rarely, or never, a coward.
The principal officers who fell on the English side, at Aughrim, were Major-General Holztapfel, who commanded Lord Portland’s horse at Urachree; Colonel Herbert, killed in the main attack on the Irish centre; Colonel Mongatts, who died among the Irish ditches while trying to rally his routed command; Major Devonish, Major Cornwall, Major Cox, and Major Colt. Many other officers of note died of their wounds at the field hospital established on the neighboring heights of Garbally—now converted into one of the most delightful demesnes in Europe; and some who survived the field hospital died in the military hospitals of Athlone and Dublin. Those who fell in the battle were buried on the field, with the usual military honors.
Captain Parker, who fought in the English army in this battle, and who has left a narrative, frequently quoted by O’Callaghan, Haverty, Boyle, and other historians, says: “Our loss was about 3,000 men in killed and wounded,” and, as he was in the thick of the fight and came out unwounded, he had full opportunity, after the battle closed, to verify his figures. He certainly could have no object in exaggerating the English loss, for the tendency of all officers is to underrate the casualties in their army. And Captain Parker says, further: “Had it not been that St. Ruth fell, it were hard to say how matters would have ended, for, to do him justice, notwithstanding his oversight at Athlone, he was certainly a gallant, brave man, and a good officer, as appeared by the disposition he made of his army this day.... His centre and right wing [after his fall] still held their ground, and had he lived to order Sarsfield down to sustain his left wing, it would have given a turn to affairs on that side”—“or,” O’Callaghan says in comment, “in other words, have given the victory to the Irish.”
Lord Macaulay—anti-Irish as all his writings prove him to have been—says in his “History of England”: “Those [the Irish] works were defended with a resolution such as extorted some words of ungracious eulogy even from men who entertained the strongest prejudices against the Celtic race.” He then quotes Baurnett, Story, and, finally, the London “Gazette,” of July, 1691, which said: “The Irish were never known to fight with more resolution.”
In his interesting, but partial, “Life of William III,” published in the beginning of the seventeenth century, Mr. Harris, a fierce anti-Jacobite, says: “It must, in justice, be confessed that the Irish fought this sharp battle with great resolution, which demonstrates that the many defeats before this sustained by them can not be imputed to a national cowardice with which some, without reason, impeached them; but to a defect in military discipline and the use of arms, or to a want of skill and experience in their commanders. And now, had not St. Ruth been taken off, it would have been hard to say what the consequence of this day would have been.”
Now we will give a few comments of the Irish historians upon this Hastings of their country: O’Halloran, who was born about the time the battle was fought, and who, as a native of Limerick, must have been, at least, as familiar with soldiers who fought in the Williamite wars as we are with the Union and Confederate veterans, in Vol. I, page 106, of his “History of Ireland,” replying to some slurs cast by the Frenchman, Voltaire, on the Irish people, says: “He should have recollected that, at the battle of Aughrim, 15,000 Irish, ill paid and worse clothed, fought with 25,000 men highly appointed and the flower of all Europe, composed of English, Dutch, Flemings, and Danes, vieing with each other. That, after a most bloody fight of some hours, these began to shrink on all sides, and would have received a most complete overthrow but for the treachery of the commander of the Irish horse, and the death of their general [St. Ruth] killed by a random shot.”
On pages 532-533 of the same work, the historian says: “Sir John Dalrymple tells us that [at Aughrim] the priests ran up and down amongst the ranks, swearing some on the sacrament, encouraging others, and promising eternity to all who should gallantly acquit themselves to their country that day. Does he mean this by way of apology for the intrepidity of the Irish, or to lessen the applause they were so well entitled to on that day? Have they required more persuasions to fight the battles of foreign princes than the native troops, or are they the only soldiers who require spiritual comfort on the day of trial? I never thought piety was a reproach to soldiers, and it was, perhaps, the enthusiasm of Oliver’s troops that made them so victorious. This battle was, certainly, a bloody and decisive one. The stake was great, the Irish knew the value of it, and, though very inferior to their enemies in numbers and appointments, and chagrined by repeated losses, yet it must be owned they fought it well. Accidents which human wisdom could not foresee, more than the superior courage of their flushed enemies, snatched from them that victory, which already began to declare in their favor. Their bones yet (1744) lie scattered over the plains of Aughrim, but let that justice be done to their memories which a brave and generous enemy never refuses.”
Abbé McGeoghegan, who wrote about 1745, and was chaplain of the Franco-Irish Brigade, says in his “History of Ireland,” page 603: “The battle began at one o’clock, with equal fury on both sides, and lasted till night. James’s infantry performed prodigies of valor, driving the enemy three times back to their cannon.”
Rev. Thomas Leland, an Irish Protestant divine, who published a history of Ireland about 1763, after describing the catastrophe which befell St. Ruth, says: “His [St. R.’s] cavalry halted, and, as they had no orders, returned to their former station. The Irish beheld this retreat with dismay; they were confounded and disordered. Sarsfield, upon whom the command devolved, had been neglected by the proud Frenchman ever since their altercation at Athlone. As the order of battle had not been imparted to him, he could not support the dispositions of the late general. The English, in the meantime, pressed forward, drove the enemy to their camp, pursued the advantage until the Irish, after an engagement supported with the fairest prospect of success, while they had a general to direct their valor, fled precipitately.”
The Right Rev. Dr. Fitzgerald, Episcopalian bishop, in his “History of Limerick,” published some sixty years ago, says: “It [Aughrim] was the bravest battle ever fought on Irish soil.” The bishop, evidently, had not read the lives of Art MacMurrough, Hugh O’Neill, Hugh O’Donnell, and Owen Roe O’Neill, when he penned the words.
“Such,” writes O’Callaghan, at the conclusion of his account of it, in the “Green Book,” page 230, “was the battle of Aughrim, or Kilconnell, as the French called it, from the old abbey to the left of the Irish position; a battle unsuccessful, indeed, on the side of the Irish, but a Chæronea, or a Waterloo, fought with heroism and lost without dishonor.”
A. M. Sullivan, in his fascinating “Story of Ireland” (American edition, page 458), says, or rather, quotes from a Williamite authority: “The Irish infantry were so hotly engaged that they were not aware either of the death of St. Ruth or of the flight of the cavalry, until they themselves were almost surrounded. A panic and confused flight were the result. The cavalry of the right wing, who were the first in action that day, were the last to quit the ground.... St. Ruth fell about sunset [8.10], and about 9, after three hours’ [nearer four hours’] hard fighting, the last of the Irish army [who were not killed, wounded, or captured] had left the field.”
John Boyle, in his “Battlefields of Ireland,” quotes Taylor, an English military author who fought at Aughrim, as saying: “Those [the Irish dead] were nearly all killed after the death of St. Ruth, for, up to that, the Irish had lost scarcely a man;” and, says he, further, “large numbers were murdered, after surrender and promise of quarter, by order of General Ginkel, and among those, so murdered, in cold blood, were Colonel O’Moore and that most loyal gentleman and chivalrous soldier, Lord Galway.” This same able writer, in concluding his graphic story of the famous battle, remarks, with indignant eloquence: “It is painful to speculate on the cause that left the Irish army without direction after the death of St. Ruth. Many have endeavored to explain it, but all—as well those who doubt Sarsfield’s presence on the field as those who maintain the contrary—are lost in conjecture, and none who participated in the battle, and survived it, has placed the matter beyond speculation. So leaving that point as time has left it, what appears most strange in the connection is the absence of all command at such a conjuncture. The disposition of the Irish troops, though dexterous, was simple. The day was all but won. The foiling of Talmash (Mackay) would have been the completion of victory. A force sufficient was on his front; a reserve more than ample to overwhelm him was on its way to the ground—nay, drawn up and even ready for the word. The few British troops that held a lodgment in the hedges, at the base of the hill, were completely at the mercy of those above them. It required no omniscient eye to see this, nor a voice from the clouds to impel them forward, and, surely, no military etiquette weighed a feather in opposition to the fate of a nation. Any officer of note could have directed the movement, and many of experience and approved courage witnessed the crisis. Yet, in this emergency, all the hard-won laurels of the day were tarnished, and land and liberty were lost by default! Nor can the rashness of St. Ruth, his reticence as to his plans, his misunderstanding with Sarsfield, nor the absence of the latter, justify the want of intrepid action among those present. This stands unexplained and inexplicable, nor will the flippant appeal to Providence, whose ways are too frequently offered as an excuse for human misconduct, answer here. The want of ammunition at such a moment was, no doubt, of some import, but the concurrence of events too plainly indicates that Aughrim was won by the skill of St. Ruth and the gallantry of his troops, and that it was lost through want of decision in his general officers, at a moment the most critical in the nation’s history.”
De Ginkel’s army remained in the neighborhood of the field of battle long enough to give it an opportunity of burying all of the Irish dead, were it so disposed. The country-people remained away, in terror of their lives and poor belongings—particularly cattle—until decomposition had so far advanced as to make the task of sepulture particularly revolting. And thus it came to pass that nearly all the Irish slain were left above ground, “exposed to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; many dogs frequenting the place afterward, and growing so fierce by feeding upon man’s flesh that it became dangerous for any single man to pass that way. And,” continues Story in his narrative so frequently quoted, “there is a true and remarkable story of a greyhound [meaning the large, rapacious, and ferocious, Irish Wolf Dog that existed in those days, although extinct since the last century] belonging to an Irish officer: the gentleman was killed and stripped in the battle, whose body the dog remained by night and day, and tho’ he fed on other corps [es] with the rest of the dogs, yet he would not allow them, or anything else, to touch that of his master. When all the corps [es] were consumed, the other dogs departed, but he used to go in the night to the adjacent villages for food, and presently to return again to the place where his master’s bones were only then left; and thus he continued till January following, when one of Colonel Foulk’s soldiers, being quartered nigh hand, and going that way by chance, the dog, fearing he came to disturb his master’s bones, flew upon the soldier, who, being surprised at the suddenness of the thing, unslung his piece, then upon his back, and killed the poor dog.”
Ireland’s national poet, Thomas Moore, in the beautiful words, set to that weirdly mournful air: “The Lamentation of Aughrim,” thus pours out in deathless melody the heart of his unfortunate country:
“Forget not the field where they perished,—
The truest; the last of the brave—
All gone and the bright hopes we cherished
Gone with them and sunk in the grave.
“Oh, could we from death but recover
Those hearts as they bounded before,
In the face of high heaven to fight over
That combat for freedom once more.
“Could the chain for a moment be riven
Which Tyranny flung round us then—
No, ’tis not in man, nor in heaven,
To let Tyranny bind it again!
“But ’tis past; and tho’ blazoned in story
The name of our victor may be;
Accurst is the march of that glory
Which treads on the hearts of the free!
“Far dearer the grave, or the prison,
Illumed by one patriot name,
Than the trophies of all who have risen
On liberty’s ruin to fame!”