Assault of Picurina. (March, 1812.)
The night was fine and the stormers quickly reached the fort, which, black and silent before, then seemed a mass of fire, under which the stormers run up to the palisades in rear and endeavoured to break through; the destructive musketry and thickness of the pales rendered their efforts nugatory, wherefore, turning against the sides of the work they strove to get in there, but the depth of the ditch and the slanting stakes at the top of the brickwork again baffled them. At this time, the French shooting fast and dangerously, the crisis appeared so imminent that Kempt sent the reserve headlong against the front. The fight was thus supported and the carnage terrible. A battalion which came from the town to succour the fort was beaten back by the men in the communication, the guns from the town and castle then opened, the guard of the trenches replied with musketry, rockets were thrown up by the besieged, and the shrill sound of alarm-bells mixing with the shouts of the combatants increased the tumult.
Still the Picurina sent out streams of fire, by the light of which dark figures were seen furiously struggling on the ramparts; for Powis had escaladed in front where the artillery had broken the pales; and the other assailants, throwing their ladders in the manner of bridges from the brink of the ditch to the slanting stakes thus passed, and all were fighting hand to hand with the enemy. Meanwhile the axemen of the light division, compassing the fort like prowling wolves, discovered the gate, and hewing it down broke in by the rear. Nevertheless the struggle continued. Powis, Holloway, Gipps, and Oates fell wounded on or beyond the rampart, Nixon of the 52nd was shot two yards within the gate, Shaw, Rudd, and nearly all the other officers of the 79th had fallen outside, and it was not until half the garrison were killed, that Gaspar Thiery, the commandant, surrendered with eighty-six men, while others, not many, rushing out of the gate endeavoured to cross the inundation and were drowned.
Phillipon had thought to delay the siege five or six days by the resistance of Picurina, and one day later this would have happened; for the mines and loop-holed gallery in the counterscarp would have been completed, and the work was too well covered by the glacis to be quickly ruined by fire. His calculations were baffled by this heroic assault, which, lasting only an hour, cost four officers and fifty men killed, fifteen officers and two hundred and fifty men wounded; and so vehement was the fight throughout, that the garrison forgot or had no time to roll over the shells and combustibles on the ramparts. Phillipon did not conceal the danger accruing to Badajos from the loss of the Picurina, but he stimulated his soldiers’ courage, by calling to their recollection, how infinitely worse than death it was to be the inmate of an English prison-hulk—an appeal which must have been deeply felt, for the annals of civilized nations furnish nothing more inhuman towards captives of war than the prison-ships of England.
When Picurina was taken three battalions advanced to secure it, and though a great turmoil and firing from the town continued until midnight, a lodgement in the works and communication with the first parallel were established; the second parallel was also begun, but at daylight the redoubt was overwhelmed with fire, no troops could remain and the lodgement was destroyed. In the evening the sappers effected another lodgement on the flanks, the second parallel was then opened in its whole length, and next day the counter-batteries on the right of Picurina exchanged a vigorous fire with the town.
In the night of the 27th three breaching-batteries were traced out. The first, between the Picurina and the inundation, to breach the right face of the Trinidad. The second, on the Picurina, to breach the Santa Maria. The third, on a prolonged line of the front attacked, contained three Shrapnel howitzers to scour the ditch and prevent the garrison working in it; for Phillipon, having now discovered the true line of attack, was raising the counterguard of the Trinidad and the imperfect ravelin. At daybreak these works being well furnished with gabions and sandbags were lined with musketeers, who severely galled the workmen employed on the breaching-batteries, and the artillery practice was brisk on both sides. Two of the besiegers’ guns were dismounted, the gabions placed in front of the batteries to protect the workmen were knocked over, and the musketry became so destructive the men were withdrawn to throw up earth from the inside.
In the night of the 27th the second parallel was extended on the right, to raise batteries against San Roque and the dam which held up the inundation, and to breach the curtain behind: but the ground was hard, the moon shone brightly, the labourers were quite exposed and the work was relinquished.
On the 28th the screen of gabions before the batteries was restored, the workmen resumed their labours outside and the parallel was improved. The besieged then withdrew their guns from San Roque, yet their marksmen still shot from thence with great exactness, and the plunging fire from the castle dismounted two howitzers in one of the counter-batteries. During the night the French observed the tracing-string, marking the direction of the sap in front of San Roque, and a daring fellow, creeping out before the workmen arrived, brought it on the line of the castle fire, whereby some loss was sustained.
In the night the howitzer battery was re-armed with twenty-four pounders to play on the San Roque, and a new breaching-battery was traced on the site of the Picurina; the second parallel was extended by sap, and a trench was digged for riflemen in front of the batteries.
The 29th a slight sally made on the right bank of the river was repulsed by the Portuguese; but the sap at San Roque was ruined by the enemy’s fire, and the besieged continued to raise the counterguard and ravelin of the Trinidad, and to strengthen the front attacked. The besiegers armed two batteries with eighteen-pounders, which opened next day against Santa Maria, yet with little effect, and the explosion of an expense magazine killed many men.
While the siege was thus proceeding, Soult, having little fear for the town but designing a great battle, was carefully organizing a powerful force to unite with Drouet and Daricau. Those generals had endeavoured to hold the district of La Serena and keep open the communication with Marmont by Medellin and Truxillo, but Graham and Hill forced them into the Morena; and on the other side of the country Morillo and Penne-Villemur descended to the Lower Guadiana, to fall on Seville when Soult should advance. Nor were there wanting other combinations to embarrass and delay that marshal. In February, a Spanish army had assembled in the Ronda to fall on Seville from that side also, which compelled Soult to send troops there, and fatally delayed his march to Estremadura. Marmont was however concentrating his army in the Salamanca country, and it was rumoured he meant to attack Ciudad Rodrigo. This disquieted Wellington: for though Marmont had no battering-train, the Spanish generals and engineers had neglected the repairs of the place, and had not even brought up from St. Jão da Pesqueira the provisions given to them from the British stores: the fortress therefore had only thirty days’ supply, and Almeida was in as bad a state.
On the 30th, it being known that Soult was advancing from Cordova, the fifth division was brought over the Guadiana as a reserve to the covering army, leaving a Portuguese brigade with some cavalry of the same nation to maintain the investment on the right bank. The siege was then urged on, forty-eight pieces of artillery being in constant play, and the sap against San Roque advancing: the French fire was however destructive, and their progress in strengthening the front attacked was visible.
On the 1st of April the sap was pushed close to San Roque, the Trinidad bastion crumbled under the stroke of the bullet, and the flank of the Santa Maria, which was casemated, also began to yield. Next day the face of the Trinidad was broken, but the Santa Maria casemates being laid open the bullets were lost in their cavities, and Phillipon commenced a retrenchment to cut off the whole of the attacked front from the town.
In the night a new battery against San Roque being armed, two officers with some sappers glided behind that outwork, gagged the sentinel, placed powder-barrels and a match against the dam of the inundation and retired undiscovered. The explosion did not destroy the dam, the inundation remained and the sap made no progress, because of the French musketeers; for though the besiegers’ marksmen slew many, reinforcements were sent across the inundation by means of a raft with parapets, and men also passed unseen behind the cloth communication, from the Trinidad. But the crisis of the siege was now approaching rapidly. The breaches were nearly practicable, Soult had effected his junction with Drouet and Daricau; and Wellington, who had not sufficient force to assault the place and give battle at the same time, resolved to leave two divisions in the trenches and fight at Albuera. In this view Graham fell back towards that place, and Hill, destroying the bridge at Merida, marched to Talavera Real.
Time was now, as in war it always is, a great object, and the anxiety on both sides redoubled. Soult was however still at Llerena when, the breaches being declared practicable, the assault was ordered for that evening, and Leith’s division recalled to the siege; yet a careful personal examination caused Wellington to doubt, and he delayed the storm, until a third breach, as originally projected, should be formed in the curtain between Trinidad and Maria. This could not be commenced before morning, and during the night the French workmen laboured assiduously at their retrenchments, despite of the showers of grape with which the batteries scoured the ditch and the breach. On the 6th all the batteries were turned against the curtain, the bad masonry crumbled rapidly away, in two hours a yawning breach appeared and Wellington renewed his order for the assault. Eagerly then the soldiers got ready for a combat, so fiercely fought, so terribly won, so dreadful in all its circumstances, that posterity can scarcely be expected to credit the tale: but many are still alive who know that it is true.
Wellington spared Phillipon the affront of a summons, and seeing the breach strongly intrenched, the flank fire still powerful, he would not in that dread crisis trust his fortune to a single effort. Eighteen thousand daring soldiers burned for the signal of attack, he was unwilling to lose the service of any, and therefore to each division gave a task such as few generals would have the hardihood even to contemplate.
On the right, Picton’s division was to file out of the trenches, cross the Rivillas, and scale the castle walls, from eighteen to twenty-four feet high, furnished with all means of destruction, and so narrow at top that the defenders could easily reach and as easily overturn the ladders.
On the left, Leith’s division was to make a false attack on the Pardaleras, but a real assault on the distant bastion of San Vincente, where the glacis was mined, the ditch deep, the scarp thirty feet high, the parapet garnished with bold troops: Phillipon also, following his old plan, had three loaded muskets placed beside each man that the first fire might be quick and deadly.
In the centre, the fourth and light divisions, under Colville and Andrew Barnard, were to march against the breaches. Furnished like the third and fifth divisions with ladders and axes, they were preceded by storming parties of five hundred men, having each their separate forlorn hopes. The light division was to assault the Santa Maria, the fourth division the Trinidad and the curtain, both columns being divided into storming and firing parties, the former to enter the ditch, the latter to keep the crest of the glacis.
Between these attacks, Major Wilson of the 48th was to storm the San Roque with the guards of the trenches; and on the other side of the Guadiana General Power was to make a feint at the bridge-head.
At first only one brigade of the third division was to have attacked the castle, but just before the hour fixed, a sergeant of sappers deserted from the enemy and told Wellington there was but one communication from the castle to the town, whereupon he ordered the whole division to advance.
Many nice arrangements filled up this outline, and some were followed, some disregarded, for it is seldom all things are attended to in a desperate fight. The enemy was not idle. While it was yet twilight some French cavalry rode from the Pardaleras, under an officer who endeavoured to look into the trenches with the view to ascertain if an assault was intended, but the picquet there drove him and his escort back into the works, darkness then fell and the troops awaited the signal.