CHAPTER V.
The 15th the pontoons were laid over the Guadiana,1812. March. about four miles from Elvas, at a place where the current was dull, two large Spanish boats were arranged as flying bridges; and the 16th, Beresford, who had again joined the army, crossed the river, drove in the enemy’s posts, and invested Badajos with the third, fourth, and light divisions, and a brigade of Hamilton’s Portuguese; in all fifteen thousand men.
Soult was then before the Isla, Drouet’s division, of five thousand men, was at Villafranca, and Darricau with a like force was at Zalamea de Serena near Medellin; wherefore general Graham passing the Guadiana with the first, sixth, and seventh divisions of infantry, and two brigades of cavalry, directed his march by Valverde, and Santa Martha, upon Llerena, while Hill moved from Albuquerque by Merida upon Almendralejos. These covering corps were together thirty thousand strong, nearly five thousand including the heavy Germans who were at Estremos being cavalry; and as the fifth division was now on the march from Beira, the[Appendix, No. IX.] Section 1. whole army presented about fifty-one thousand sabres and bayonets, of which twenty thousand were Portuguese. Castaños had repaired to Gallicia, but the fifth Spanish army under Morillo and Penne Villemur, being about four thousand strong, passed down the Portuguese frontier to the Lower Guadiana, intending to fall on Seville when Soult should advance to the succour of Badajos.
As the allies advanced, Drouet marched by his right to Hornaches, in the direction of La Serena and Medellin, with a view to keep open the communication with Marmont by Truxillo. Hill then halted at Almendralejos, and Graham took post at Zafra, placing Slade’s cavalry at Villafranca; but Marmont had moved his sixth division from Talavera towards Castile, through the Puerto de Pico, on the 9th, and the four divisions and cavalry quartered at Toledo had recrossed the Tagus and marched over the Guadarama, the whole pointing for Valladolid. Thus it was already manifest that the army of Portugal would not act in conjunction with that of the south.
THIRD ENGLISH SIEGE OF BADAJOS.
This fortress has before been described. TheVol. III. Appendix, No. IX. garrison composed of French, Hessian, and Spanish troops, was now near five thousand strong including sick. Phillipon had since the last siege made himself felt in all directions, for he had continually scoured the vicinity of the place, destroyed many small bands, carried off cattle, almost from under the guns of Elvas and Campo Mayor, and his spies extended their researches from Ciudad Rodrigo to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to Ayamonte.
He had also greatly improved the defences of the place. An interior retrenchment was made in the castle, and many more guns were there mounted; the rear of fort Cristoval was also better secured, and a covered communication from the fort itself, to the work at the bridge-head, was nearly completed. Two ravelins had been constructed on the south side of the town, and a third was commenced, together with counterguards for the bastions; but the eastern front next the castle, which was in other respects the weakest point, was without any outward protection save the stream of the Rivillas. A “cunette” or second ditch had been dug at the bottom of the great ditch, which was also in some parts filled with water; the gorge of the Pardaleras was enclosed, and that outwork was connected with the body of the place, from whence powerful batteries looked into it. The three western fronts were mined, and on the east, the arch of the bridge behind the San Roque, was built up to form an inundation, two hundred yards wide, which greatly contracted the space by which the place could be approached with troops. All the inhabitants had been obliged, on pain of being expelled, to lay up food for three months, and two convoys with provisions and ammunition had entered the place on the 10th and 16th of February, but Phillipon’s stores of powder were still inadequate to his wants, and he was very scantily supplied with shells.
As the former system of attack against Cristoval and the castle, was now impracticable, lord Wellington desired to assail one of the western fronts which would have been a scientific operation; but the engineer represented that he had neither mortars nor miners, nor enough of guns, nor the means of bringing up sufficient stores for such an attack. Indeed the want of transport had again obliged the allies to draw the stores from Elvas, to the manifest hazard of that fortress, and hence, here, as at Ciudad Rodrigo, time was necessarily paid for, by the loss of life; or rather the crimes of politicians were atoned for by the blood of the soldiers.
The plan finally fixed upon, was to attack the bastion of Trinidad, because, the counter-guard there being unfinished, that bastion could be battered from the hill on which the Picurina stood. The first parallel was therefore to embrace the Picurina, the San Roque, and the eastern front, in such a manner that the counter-batteries there erected, might rake and destroy all the defences of the southern fronts which bore against the Picurina hill. The Picurina itself was to be battered and stormed, and from thence the Trinidad and Santa Maria bastions, were to be breached; after this all the guns were to be turned against the connecting curtain, which was known to be of weak masonry, that a third breach might be made, and a storming party employed to turn any retrenchments behind the breaches in the bastions. In this way the inundation could be avoided, and although a French deserter declared, and truly, that the ditch was there eighteen feet deep, such was the general’s confidence in his troops, and in his own resources for aiding their efforts, that he resolved to storm the place without blowing in the counterscarp.
The battering train, directed by major Dickson, consisted of fifty-two pieces. This included sixteen twenty-four-pound howitzers, for throwing Shrapnel shells, but this species of missile, much talked of in the army at the time, was little prized by lord Wellington, who had early detected its insufficiency, save as a common shell; and partly to avoid expense, partly from a dislike to injure the inhabitants, neither in this, nor in any former siege, did he use mortars. Here indeed he could not have brought them up, for besides the neglect of the Portuguese government, the peasantry and even the ordenança employed to move the battering train from Alcacer do Sal, although well paid, deserted.
Of nine hundred gunners present, three hundred were British, the rest Portuguese, and there were one hundred and fifty sappers volunteers from the third division, who were indeed rather unskilful, but of signal bravery. The engineer’s parc was established behind the heights of St. Michael, and the direction of the siege was given to general Picton. General Kempt, general Colville, and general Bowes alternately commanded in the trenches.
In the night of the 17th, eighteen hundred men, protected by a guard of two thousand, broke ground one hundred and sixty yards from the Picurina. A tempest stifled the sound of their pickaxes, and though the work was commenced late, a communication, four thousand feet in length, was formed, and a parallel of six hundred yards three feet deep, and three feet six inches wide, was opened. However, when the day broke the Picurina was reinforced, and a sharp musketry interspersed with discharges from some field-pieces, aided by heavy guns from the body of the place, was directed on the trenches.
In the night of the 18th two batteries were traced out, the parallel was prolonged both on the right and left, and the previous works were improved. On the other hand the garrison raised the parapets of the Picurina, and having lined the top of the covered way with sand-bags, planted musketeers there, to gall the men in the trenches, who replied in a like manner.
The 19th lord Wellington having secret intelligence that a sally was intended, ordered the guards to be reinforced. Nevertheless, at one o’clock some cavalry came out by the Talavera gate, and thirteen hundred infantry under general Vielland, the second in command, filed unobserved into the communication between the Picurina and the San Roque; a hundred men were prepared to sally from the Picurina itself, and all these troops jumping out at once, drove the workmen before them, and began to demolish the parallel. Previous to this outbreak, the French cavalry forming two parties had commenced a sham fight on the right of the parallel, and the smaller party pretending to fly, and answering Portuguese, to the challenge of the picquets, were allowed to pass. Elated by the success of their stratagem, they then galloped to the engineer’s parc, which was a thousand yards in rear of the trenches, and there cut down some men, not many, for succour soon came, and meanwhile the troops at the parallel having rallied upon the relief which had just arrived, beat the enemy’s infantry back even to the castle.
In this hot fight the besieged lost above three hundred men and officers, the besiegers only one hundred and fifty; but colonel Fletcher, the chief engineer, was badly wounded, and several hundred entrenching tools were carried off, for Phillipon had promised a high price for each; yet this turned out ill, because the soldiers, instead of pursuing briskly, dispersed to gather the tools. After the action a squadron of dragoons and six field-pieces were placed as a reserve-guard behind St. Michael, and a signal post was established on the Sierra de Venta to give notice of the enemy’s motions.
The weather continued wet and boisterous, and the labour of the works was very harassing, but in the night of the 19th the parallel was opened in its whole length, and the 20th it was enlarged; yet a local obstacle and the flooding of the trenches, rendered the progress slow.
In the night of the 20th the parallel was extended to the left, across the Seville road, and three counter-batteries were commenced; but they were traced, in rear of the parallel, partly because the ground was too soft in front to admit of the guns moving; partly for safety, because the batteries were within three hundred yards of the San Roque, and as the parallel, eighteen hundred yards long, was only guarded by fourteen hundred men, a few bold soldiers might by a sudden rush have succeeded in spiking the guns if they had been placed in front of the trench. A slight sally was this day repulsed, and a shoulder was given to the right of the parallel to cover that flank.
The 21st the enemy placed two field-pieces on the right bank of the Guadiana, designing to rake the trenches, but the shoulder, made the night before, baffled the design, and the riflemen’s fire soon sent the guns away. Indications of a similar design against the left flank, from the Pardaleras hill, were also observed, and a guard of three hundred men with two guns, was posted on that side in some broken ground.
In the night another battery against the San Roque was commenced, and the battery against the Picurina was finished; but heavy rain again retarded the works, and the besiegers having failed in an attempt to drain the lower parts of the parallel, by cuts, made an artificial bottom of sand-bags. On the other hand the besieged thinking the curtain adjoining the castle was the true object of attack, threw up an earthen entrenchment in front, and commenced clearing away the houses behind it. A covered communication from the Trinidad gate to the San Roque, intended to take this supposed attack in reverse, was also commenced;La Marre’s Siege of Badajos. but the labour of digging being too great, it was completed by hanging up brown cloth, which appeared to be earth, and by this ingenious expedient, the garrison passed unseen between those points.
Vauban’s maxim, that a perfect investment is the first requisite in a siege, had been neglected at Badajos to spare labour, but the great master’s art was soon vindicated by his countrymen. Phillipon finding the right bank of the Guadiana free, made a battery in the night for three field-pieces, which at daylight raked the trenches, and the shots pitching into the parallel, swept it in the most destructive manner for the whole day; there was no remedy, and the loss would have been still greater but for the soft nature of the ground, which prevented the touch and bound of the bullets. Orders were immediately sent to the fifth division, then at Campo Mayor, to invest the place on that side, but these troops were distant and misfortunes accumulated. In the evening heavy rain filled the trenches, the flood of the Guadiana ran the fixed bridge under water sank twelve of the pontoons, and broke the tackle of the flying bridges; the provisions of the army could not then be brought over, and the guns and ammunition being still on the right bank, the siege was upon the point of being raised. In a few days, however, the river subsided, some Portuguese craft were brought up to form another flying-bridge, the pontoons saved were employed as row-boats, and in this manner the communication was secured, for the rest of the siege, without any accident.
The 23d the besieged continued to work at the entrenchments covering the front next the castle, and the besiegers were fixing their platforms, when at three o’clock the rain again filled the trenches, the earth, being completely saturated with water, fell away, the works everywhere crumbled, and the attack was entirely suspended.
The 24th the fifth division invested the place on the right bank of the Guadiana, the weather was fine, and the batteries were armed with ten twenty-fours, eleven eighteens, and seven five-and-a-half-inch howitzers. The next day, at eleven o’clock, these pieces opened, but they were so vigorously answered, that one howitzer was dismounted and several artillery and engineer-officers were killed. Nevertheless the San Roque was silenced, and the garrison of the Picurina was so galled by the marksmen in the trenches, that no man dared look over the parapet; hence, as the external appearance of that fort did not indicate much strength, general Kempt was charged to assault it in the night.
The outward seeming of the Picurina was however fallacious, the fort was very strong; the fronts were well covered by the glacis, the flanks were deep, and the rampart, fourteen feet perpendicular from the bottom of the ditch, was guarded with thick slanting pales above; and from thence to the top there were sixteen feet of an earthen slope. A few palings had, indeed, been knocked off at the covered way, and the parapet was slightly damaged on that side, but this injury was repaired with sand-bags, and the ditch was profound, narrow at the bottom, and flanked by four splinter-proof casemates. Seven guns were mounted on the works, the entrance to which by the rear was protected with three rows of thick paling, the garrison was above two hundred strong, and every man had two muskets. The top of the rampart was garnished with loaded shells to push over, a retrenched guard-house formed a second internal defence, and finally, some small mines and a loop-holed gallery, under the counterscarp, intended to take the assailants in rear, were begun but not finished.
Five hundred men of the third division being assembled for the attack, general Kempt ordered two hundred, under major Rudd of the seventy-seventh, to turn the fort on the left; an equal force, under major Shaw of the seventy-fourth, to turn the fort by the right; and one hundred from each of these bodies were directed to enter the communication with San Roque and intercept any succours coming from the town. The flanking columns were to make a joint attack on the fort, and the hundred men remaining, were placed under captain Powis of the eighty-third, to form a reserve. The engineers, Holloway, Stanway, and Gips, with twenty-four sappers bearing hatchets and ladders, guided these columns, and fifty men of the light division, likewise provided with axes, were to move out of the trenches at the moment of attack.
ASSAULT OF PICURINA.
The night was fine, the arrangements clearly and skilfully made, and about nine o’clock the two flanking bodies moved forward. The distance was short, and the troops quickly closed on the fort, which black and silent before, now seemed one mass of fire; then the assailants running up to the palisades in the rear, with undaunted courage endeavoured to break through, and when the destructive musketry of the French, and the thickness of the pales, rendered their efforts nugatory, they turned against the faces of the work and strove to break in there; but the depth of the ditch and the slanting stakes at the top of the brick-work again baffled them.
At this time, the enemy shooting fast, and dangerously, the crisis appeared imminent, and Kempt sent the reserve headlong against the front; thus the fight was continued strongly, the carnage became terrible, and a battalion coming out from the town to the succour of the fort, was encountered and beaten by the party on the communication. The guns of Badajos, and of the castle now 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 first escaladed the place in front where the artillery had beaten down the pales, and the other assailants had thrown their ladders on the flanks in the manner of bridges, from the brink of the ditch to the slanting stakes, and all were fighting hand to hand with the enemy. Meanwhile[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2, Letter C. the axe-men 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, Gips, and Oates, of the eighty-eighth, fell wounded on or beyond the rampart; Nixon of the fifty-second was shot two yards within the gate; Shaw, Rudd, and nearly all the other officers had fallen outside; and it was not until half the garrison were killed, that Gaspar Thiery, the commandant, and eighty-six men, surrendered, while some, not many, rushing out of the gate, endeavoured to cross the inundation and were drowned.
The French governor hoped to have delayed the siege five or six days by the resistance of Picurina, and had the assault been a day later, this would have happened; for the loop-holed gallery in the counterscarp, and the mines, would then have been completed, and the body of the work was too well covered by the glacis to be quickly ruined by fire. His calculations were baffled by this heroic assault, which lasted an hour, and 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 either forgot, or had not time to roll over the shells and combustibles arranged 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 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 the Picurina was taken, three battalions of reserve advanced to secure it, and though a great turmoil and firing from the town, continued until midnight, a lodgment in the works, and a communication with the first parallel, were established, and the second parallel was commenced. However at day-light the redoubt was so overwhelmed with fire, from the town, that no troops could remain in it, and the lodgment was entirely destroyed. In the evening the sappers effected another lodgment on the flanks, the second parallel was then opened in its whole length, and the next day the counter-batteries on the right of Picurina exchanged a vigorous fire with the town; but one of the besiegers’ guns was dismounted, and the Portuguese gunners, from inexperience, produced less effect on the defences than was expected.
In the night of the 27th a new communication from the first parallel to the Picurina was made, and three breaching batteries were traced out. The first to contain twelve twenty-four pounders, occupied the space between the Picurina and the inundation, and was to breach the right face of the Trinidad bastion. The second, to contain eight eighteen pounders, was on the site of the Picurina, and was to breach the left flank of the Santa Maria bastion. The third, constructed on the prolonged line of the front to be attacked, contained three Shrapnel howitzers, to scour the ditch and prevent the garrison working in it; for Phillipon had now discovered the true line of attack, and had set strong parties in the night, to raise the counter-guard of the Trinidad and the imperfect ravelin covering the menaced front.
At day-break these works being well furnished with gabions and sand-bags, were lined with musqueteers, who severely galled the workmen employed on the breaching batteries and the artillery practice also 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 musquetry then became so destructive that the men were withdrawn and threw up earth from the inside.
In the night of the 27th the second parallel was extended to the right, with the view of raising batteries, to ruin the San Roque, to destroy the dam which held up the inundation, and to breach the curtain behind; but the Talavera road proved so hard, and the moon shone so brightly, that the labourers were quite exposed and the work was relinquished.
On the 28th the screen of gabions before the batteries was restored and the workmen resumed their labours outside; the parallel was then improved, and the besieged withdrew their guns from San Roque; but 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 which was therefore dismantled. The enemy had also during the night observed the tracing string, which marked the direction of the sap in front of San Roque, and a daring fellow creeping out just before the workmen arrived, brought it in the line of the castle fire, whereby some loss was sustained ere the false direction was discovered.
In the night the dismantled howitzer battery was re-armed, with twenty-four pounders, to play on the San Roque, and a new breaching battery was traced out on the site of the Picurina, against the flank of the Santa Maria bastion. The second parallel was also carried by the sap across the Talavera road, 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 the San Roque was ruined by the enemy’s fire, and the besieged continued to raise the counter-guard and ravelin of the Trinidad and to strengthen the front attacked. On the other hand the besiegers during the night carried the sap over the Talavera road, and armed two breaching batteries, with eighteen pounders, which the next day opened against the flank of Santa Maria; but they made little impression, and the explosion of an expense magazine killed many men and hurt others.
While the siege was thus proceeding Soult having little fear for the town, but expecting 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 with the view of keeping open the communication with Marmont by Medellin and Truxillo; but Graham and Hill marched against their flanks and forced them into the Morena by the Cordova roads; and on the other side of the country Morillo and Penne Villemur, were lying close on the lower Guadiana waiting their opportunity to fall on Seville when Soult should advance. Nor were there wanting other combinations to embarrass and delay the French marshal; for in February, general Montes being detached, by Ballesteros, from San Roque, had defeated Maransin on the Guadajore river, driving him from Cartama into Malaga. After this the whole of the Spanish army was assembled in the Ronda hills, with a view to fall on Seville by the left of the Guadiana while Morillo assailed it on the right of that river. This had obliged Soult to send troops towards Malaga, and fatally delayed his march to Estremadura.
Meanwhile Marmont was concentrating his army in the Salamanca country, and it was rumoured that he meant to attack Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington was somewhat disturbed by this information; he knew indeed that the flooding of the rivers in the north, would prevent a blockade, and he was also assured that Marmont had not yet obtained a battering train. But the Spanish generals and engineers had neglected the new works and repairs of Ciudad Rodrigo; even the provisions at St. Joa de Pesquiera had not been brought up; the fortress had only thirty days’ supply, Almeida was in as bad a state, and the grand project of invading Andalusia was likely to be baulked by these embarrassments.
On the 30th Soult’s advance from Cordova being decided, the fifth division was brought over the Guadiana as a reserve to the covering army; but Power’s Portuguese brigade, with some cavalry, of the same nation, still maintained the investment on the right bank, the siege was urged forward very rapidly, forty-eight pieces of artillery were in constant play, and the sap against St. Roque advanced. The enemy was equally active, his fire was very destructive, and his progress in raising the ravelin and counter-guard of the front attacked was very visible.
The 1st of April the sap was pushed close to the1812. April. San Roque, the Trinidad bastion crumbled under the stroke of the bullet, and the flank of the Santa Maria, which was casemated and had hitherto resisted the batteries, also began to yield. The 2d the face of the Trinidad was very much broken, but at the Santa Maria the casemates being laid open, the bullets were lost in their cavities, and the garrison commenced a retrenchment to cut off the whole of the attacked front, from the town.
In the night a new battery against the San Roque was armed, and two officers with some sappers gliding behind that outwork, gagged the sentinel, placed powder-barrels and a match against the dam of the inundation, and retired undiscovered, but the explosion did not destroy the dam, and the inundation remained. Nor did the sap make progress, because of the French musketeers; for though the marksmen set against them slew many they were reinforced by means of a raft with parapets, which crossed the inundation, and men also passed by the cloth communication from the Trinidad gate.
On the 3d some guns were turned against the curtain behind the San Roque, but the masonry proved hard, ammunition was scarce, and as a breach there would have been useless, while the inundation remained, the fire was soon discontinued. The two breaches in the bastion were now greatly enlarged and the besieged assiduously laboured at the retrenchments behind them, and converted the nearest houses and garden walls into a third line of defence. All the houses behind the front next the castle were also thrown down, and a battery of five guns, intended to flank the ditch and breach of the Trinidad, was commenced on the castle hill, but outside the wall; the besiegers therefore traced out a counter-battery, of fourteen Shrapnel howitzers, to play upon that point during the assault.
The crisis of the siege was now approaching rapidly. The breaches were nearly practicable, Soult, having effected a junction with Drouet and Daricau, was advancing; and as the allies were not in sufficient force to assault the place and give battle at the same time, it was resolved to leave two divisions in the trenches, and to fight at Albuera with the remainder. Graham therefore fell back towards that place, and Hill having destroyed the bridge at Merida, marched from the Upper Guadiana to Talavera Real.
Time being now, as in war it always is, a great object, the anxiety on both sides redoubled; but Soult was still at Llerena, when on the morning of the 5th the breaches were declared practicable, and the assault ordered for that evening. Leith’s division was even recalled to the camp to assist, when a careful personal examination of the enemy’s retrenchments caused some doubt in lord Wellington’s mind, and he delayed the storm, until a third breach, as originally projected, should be formed in the curtain between the bastions of Trinidad and Maria. This could not, however, be commenced before morning, and during the night the enemy’s workmen laboured assiduously at their retrenchments, regardless of the showers of grape with which the besiegers’ batteries scoured the ditch and the breach. But the 6th, the besiegers’ guns being all turned against the curtain, the bad masonry crumbled rapidly away, in two hours a yawning breach appeared, and Wellington, having again examined the points of attack in person, renewed the order for the assault. Then the soldiers eagerly made themselves 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.
The British general was so sensible of Phillipon’s firmness and of the courage of his garrison, that he spared them the affront of a summons, yet seeing the breach strongly entrenched, and the enemy’s flank fire, still powerful, he would not in this dread crisis, trust his fortune to a single effort. Eighteen thousand daring soldiers burned for the signal of attack, and as he was unwilling to lose the service of any, to each division he 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, to cross the Rivillas river, and to scale the castle walls, which were from eighteen to twenty-four feet in height, 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, and a real assault on the distant bastion of San Vincente, where the glacis was mined, the ditch deep, the scarp thirty feet high, and the parapet garnished with bold troops well provided; for Phillipon, 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 general Colville, and colonel Andrew Barnard, were to march against the breaches. They were furnished like the third and fifth divisions with ladders and axes, and were preceded by storming parties of five hundred men each with their respective forlorn hopes. The light division was to assault the bastion of Santa Maria; the fourth division to assault the Trinidad, and the curtain; and the columns were divided into storming and firing parties, the former to enter the ditch, the latter to keep the crest of the glacis.
Besides these attacks, major Wilson of the forty-eighth 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 on the bridge-head.
At first only one brigade, of the third division, was to have attacked the castle, but just before the hour fixed upon, a sergeant of sappers having deserted from the enemy, informed Wellington that there was but one communication from the castle to the town, whereupon he ordered the whole division to advance together.
This was the outline of the plan, but many nice arrangements filled it up, and some were followed, some disregarded, for it is seldom that all things are strictly attended to in a desperate fight. Nor were the enemy idle, for while it was yet twilight some French cavalry issued from the Pardaleras, escorting an officer who endeavoured to look into the trenches, with a view to ascertain if an assault was intended; but the picquet on that side jumped up, and firing as it run, drove him and his escort back into the works. Then the darkness fell and the troops only awaited the signal.
Vol. 4. Plate 9.
EXPLANATORY SKETCH
of the SIEGE of
BADAJOS
1812.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.
ASSAULT OF BADAJOS.
The night was dry but clouded, the air thick with watery exhalations from the rivers, the ramparts, and the trenches unusually still; yet a low murmur pervaded the latter, and in the former, lights were seen to flit here and there, while the deep voices of the sentinels at times proclaimed, that all was well in Badajos. The French, confiding in Phillipon’s direful skill, watched, from their lofty station, the approach of enemies, whom they had twice before baffled, and now hoped to drive a third time blasted and ruined from the walls; the British, standing in deep columns, were as eager to meet that fiery destruction as the others were to pour it down; and both were alike terrible for their strength, their discipline, and the passions awakened in their resolute hearts.
Former failures there were to avenge, and on either side, such leaders as left no excuse for weakness in the hour of trial; and the possession of Badajos was become a point of honour, personal with the soldiers of each nation. But the strong desire for glory was, in the British, dashed with a hatred of the citizens on an old grudge, and recent toil and hardship, with much spilling of blood, had made many incredibly savage: for these things render the noble-minded indeed, averse to cruelty, but harden the vulgar spirit. Numbers also, like Cæsar’s centurion who could not forget the plunder of Avaricum, were heated with the recollection of Ciudad Rodrigo, and thirsted for spoil. Thus every spirit found a cause of excitement, the wondrous power of discipline bound the whole together as with a band of iron, and, in the pride of arms, none doubted their might, to bear down every obstacle that man could oppose to their fury.
At ten o’clock, the castle, the San Roque, the breaches, the Pardaleras, the distant bastion of San Vincente, and the bridge-head on the other side of the Guadiana, were to have been simultaneously assailed, and it was hoped that the strength of the enemy would shrivel within that fiery girdle. But many are the disappointments of war. An unforeseen accident delayed the attack of the fifth division; and a lighted carcass, thrown from the castle, falling close to where the men of the third division were drawn up, discovered their array, and obliged them to anticipate the signal by half an hour. Then, every thing being suddenly disturbed, the double columns of the fourth and light divisions also moved silently and swiftly against the breaches, and the guard of the trenches, rushing forward with a shout, encompassed the San Roque with fire and broke in so violently that scarcely any resistance was made.
But a sudden blaze of light and the rattling of musketry indicated the commencement of a most vehement combat at the castle. There general Kempt, for Picton hurt by a fall, in the camp, and expecting no change in the hour, was not present, there general Kempt, I say, led the third division; he had passed the Rivillas, in single files by a narrow bridge, under a terrible musketry, and then reforming, and running up the rugged hill, had reached the foot of the castle when he fell severely wounded, and being carried back to the trenches met Picton who hastened forward to take the command. Meanwhile his troops spreading along the front reared their heavy ladders, some against the lofty castle, some against the adjoining front on the left, and with incredible courage ascended amidst showers of heavy stones, logs of wood, and bursting shells rolled off the parapet, while from the flanks the enemy plied his musketry with a fearful rapidity, and in front, with pikes and bayonets, stabbed the leading assailants or pushed the ladders from the walls; and all this attended with deafening shouts, and the crash of breaking ladders, and the shrieks of crushed soldiers answering to the sullen stroke of the falling weights.
Still, swarming round the remaining ladders, these undaunted veterans strove who should first climb, until all being overturned, the French shouted victory, and the British, baffled, but untamed, fell back a few paces, and took shelter under the rugged edge of the hill. Here when the broken ranks were somewhat re-formed the heroic colonel Ridge, springing forward, called, with a stentorian voice, on his men to follow, and, seizing a ladder, once more raised it against the castle, yet to the right of the former attack, where the wall was lower, and an embrasure offered some facility. A second ladder was soon placed alongside of the first, by the grenadier officer Canch, and the next instant he and Ridge were on the rampart, the shouting troops pressed after them, the garrison amazed, and in a manner surprised, were driven fighting through the double gate into the town, and the castle was won. A reinforcement, sent from the French reserve, then came up, a sharp action followed, both sides fired through the gate, and the enemy retired, but Ridge fell, and no man died that night with more glory—yet many died, and there was much glory.
During these events, the tumult at the breaches was such as if the very earth had been rent asunder and its central fires were bursting upwards uncontrolled. The two divisions had reached the glacis, just as the firing at the castle had commenced, and the flash of a single musket discharged from the covered way as a signal shewed them that the French were ready; yet no stir was heard, and darkness covered the breaches. Some hay-packs were then thrown, some ladders were placed, and the forlorn hopes and storming parties of the light division, about five hundred in all, had descended into the ditch without opposition, when a bright flame shooting upwards displayed all the terrors of the scene. The ramparts crowded with dark figures and glittering arms, were seen on the one side, and on the other, the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava; it was the touch of the magician’s wand, for a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder-barrels.
For an instant the light division stood on the brink of the ditch, amazed at the terrific sight, then, with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion, flew down the ladders, or disdaining their aid, leaped, reckless of the depth, into the gulf below; and nearly at the same moment, amidst a blaze of musketry that dazzled the eyes, the fourth division came running in and descended with a like fury. There were however only five ladders[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2. for both columns, which were close together, and a deep cut made in the bottom of the ditch, as far as the counter-guard of the Trinidad, was filled with water from the inundation; into this watery snare the head of the fourth division fell, and it is said that above a hundred of the fuzileers, the men of Albuera, were there smothered. Those who followed, checked not, but as if such a disaster had been expected, turned to the left, and thus came upon the face of the unfinished ravelin, which, being rough and broken, was mistaken for the breach, and instantly covered with men; yet a wide and deep chasm was still between them and the ramparts from whence came a deadly fire wasting their ranks. Thus baffled, they also commenced a rapid discharge of musketry, and disorder ensued; for the men of the light division, whose conducting engineer had been disabled early, and whose flank was confined by an unfinished ditch intended to cut off the bastion of Santa Maria, rushed towards the breaches of the curtain and the Trinidad, which were indeed before them, but which the fourth division were destined to storm.
Great was the confusion, for now the ravelin was quite crowded with men of both divisions, and while some continued to fire, others jumped down and ran towards the breach, many also passed between the ravelin and the counter-guard of the Trinidad, the two divisions got mixed, and the reserves, which should have remained at the quarries, also came pouring in, until the ditch was quite filled, the rear still crowding forward, and all cheering vehemently. The enemy’s shouts also, were loud and terrible, and the bursting of shells and of grenades, the roaring of the guns from the flanks, answered by the iron howitzers from the battery of the parallel, the heavy roll and horrid explosion of the powder-barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets, made a maddening din.
Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged.
Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immoveable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.
At the beginning of this dreadful conflict, colonel Andrew Barnard had with prodigious efforts separated his division from the other, and preserved some degree of military array; but now the tumult was such, that no command could be heard distinctly, except by those close at hand, and the mutilated carcasses heaped on each other, and the wounded, struggling to avoid being trampled upon, broke the formations; order was impossible! Yet officers of all stations, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out, as if struck by a sudden madness, and rush into the breach, which yawning and glittering with steel, seemed like the mouth of some huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. In one of these attempts, colonel Macleod of the forty-third, a young man, whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war, if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, was killed. Wherever his voice was heard, there his soldiers gathered, and with such a strong resolution did he lead them up the fatal ruins, that when one behind him, in falling, plunged a bayonet into his back, he complained not, and continuing his course was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. But there was no want of gallant leaders, or desperate followers.
Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach to it impeded by deep holes, and cuts made in the ditch, the troops did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, “Why they did not come into Badajos?”
In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless fire above, and withal a sickening stench from the burnt flesh of the slain, captain Nicholas, of the engineers, was observed by Mr. Shaw, of the forty-third, making incredibleNow lieut.-col. Shaw Kennedy. efforts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw having collected about fifty soldiers of all regiments joined him, and although there was a deep cut along the foot of this breach also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers at the head of their gallant band, rushed up the slope of the ruins; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent, a concentrated fire of musketry and grape, dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth! Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone! After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive, but unflinching, beneath the enemy’s shot, which streamed without intermission; for, of the riflemen on the glacis, many leaping early into the ditch had joined in the assault, and the rest, raked by a cross-fire of grape from the distant bastions, baffled in their aim by the smoke and flames from the explosions, and too few in number, had entirely failed to quell the French musketry.
About midnight, when two thousand brave men had fallen, Wellington, who was on a height close to the quarries, sent orders for the remainder to retire and re-form for a second assault; for he had just then heard that the castle was taken, and thinking the enemy would still hold out in the town, was resolved to assail the breaches again. This retreat from the ditch was, however, not effected without further carnage and confusion, for the French fire never slackened, and a cry arose that the enemy were making a sally from the distant flanks, which caused a rush towards the ladders; then the groans and lamentations of the wounded who could not move, and expected to be slain, increased, many officers who had not heard of the order, endeavoured to stop the soldiers from going back, and some would even have removed the ladders but were unable to break the crowd.
All this time the third division was lying close in the castle, and either from a fear of risking the loss of a point which ensured the capture of the place, or that the egress was too difficult, made no attempt to drive away the enemy from the breaches. On the other side however the fifth division had commenced the false attack on the Pardaleras, and on the right of the Guadiana, the Portuguese were sharply engaged at the bridge; thus the town was girdled with fire, for general Walker’s brigade having passed on during the feint on the Pardaleras, was escalading the distant bastion of San Vincente. His troops had advanced along the banks of the river, and reached the French guard-house, at the barrier-gate, undiscovered, for the ripple of the waters smothered the sound of their footsteps; but just then the explosion at the breaches took place, the moon shone out, and the French sentinels, discovering the columns, fired. The British troops immediately springing forward under a sharp musketry began to hew down the wooden barrier at the covered way, while the Portuguese, being panic-stricken, threw down the scaling-ladders. Nevertheless the others snatched them up again, and forcing the barrier, jumped into the ditch; but the guiding engineer officer was killed, and there was a cunette, which embarrassed the column, and when the foremost men succeeded in rearing the ladders, the latter were found too short, for the walls were generally above thirty feet high. Meanwhile the fire of the French was deadly, a small mine was sprung beneath the soldiers’ feet, beams of wood and live shells were rolled over on their heads, showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch, and man after man dropped dead from the ladders.
Fortunately some of the defenders having been called away to aid in recovering the castle, the ramparts were not entirely manned, and the assailants, having discovered a corner of the bastion where the scarp was only twenty feet high, placed three ladders there under an embrasure which had no gun and was only stopped with a gabion. Some men got up,[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2. but with difficulty, for the ladders were still too short, and the first man who gained the top was pushed up by his comrades and then drew others after him, until many had gained the summit; and though the French shot heavily against them, from both flanks and from a house in front, they thickened and could not be driven back; half the fourth regiment entered the town itself to dislodge the enemy from the houses, while the others pushed along the rampart towards the breach, and by dint of hard fighting successively won three bastions.
In the last of these combats general Walker leaping forward, sword in hand, at the moment when one of the enemy’s cannoneers was discharging a gun, fell covered with so many wounds that it was wonderful how he could survive, and some of the soldiers immediately after, perceiving a lighted match on the ground, cried out a mine! At that word, such is the power of imagination, those troops whom neither the strong barrier, nor the deep ditch, nor the high walls, nor the deadly fire of the enemy could stop, staggered back appalled by a chimera of their own raising, and in this disorder a French reserve, under general Viellande, drove on them with a firm and rapid charge, and pitching some men over the walls, and killing others outright, again cleansed the ramparts even to the San Vincente. There however Leith had placed colonel Nugent with a battalion of the thirty-eighth as a reserve, and when the French came up, shouting and slaying all before them, this battalion, about two hundred strong, arose, and with one close volley destroyed them.
Then the panic ceased, the soldiers rallied, and in compact order once more charged along the walls towards the breaches, but the French, although turned on both flanks and abandoned by fortune, did not yet yield; and meanwhile the detachment of the fourth regiment which had entered the town when the San Vincente was first carried, was strangely situated, for the streets were empty and brilliantly illuminated, and no person was seen; yet a low buzz and whisper were heard around, lattices were now and then gently opened, and from time to time shots were fired from underneath the doors of the houses by the Spaniards. However, the troops with bugles sounding, advanced towards the great square of the town, and in their progress captured several mules going with ammunition to the breaches; but the square itself was as empty and silent as the streets, and the houses as bright with lamps; a terrible enchantment seemed to be in operation, for they saw nothing but light, and heard only the low whispers close around them, while the tumult at the breaches was like the crashing thunder.
There, indeed, the fight was still plainly raging, and hence, quitting the square, they attempted to take the garrison in reverse, by attacking the ramparts from the town-side, but they were received with a rolling musketry, driven back with loss, and resumed their movement through the streets. At last the breaches were abandoned by the French, other parties entered the place, desultory combats took place in various parts, and finally general Viellande, and Phillipon who was wounded, seeing all ruined, passed the bridge with a few hundred soldiers, and entered San Cristoval, where they all surrendered early the next morning upon summons to lord Fitzroy Somerset, who had with great readiness pushed through the town to the draw-bridge ere they had time to organize further resistance. But even in the moment of ruin the night before, the noble governor had sent some horsemen out from the fort to carry the news to Soult’s army, and they reached him in time to prevent a greater misfortune.
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 Badajos! 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!
Five thousand men and officers fell during this siege, and of these, including seven hundred Portuguese, three thousand five hundred had been stricken in the assault, sixty officers and more than seven hundred men being slain on the spot. The five generals, Kempt, Harvey, Bowes, Colville, and Picton were wounded, the first three severely; about six hundred men and officers fell in the escalade of San Vincente, as many at the castle, and more than two thousand at the breaches, each division there losing twelve hundred! And how deadly the strife was, at that point, may be gathered from this, the forty-third and fifty-second regiments, of the light division, alone lost more men than the seven regiments of the third division engaged at the castle!
Let any man picture to himself this frightful carnage taking place in a space of less than a hundred square yards. Let him consider that the slain died not all suddenly, nor by one manner of death; that some perished by steel, some by shot, some by water, that some were crushed and mangled by heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery explosions; that for hours this destruction was endured without shrinking, and that the town was won at last, let any man consider this and he must admit that a British army bears with it an awful power. And false would it be to say that the French were feeble men, for the garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline behaving worthily. Shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do justice to the bravery of the soldiers? the noble emulation of the officers? Who shall measure out the glory of Ridge, of Macleod, of Nicholas, or of O’Hare, of the ninety-fifth, who perished on the breach, at the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for that desperate service? Who shall describe the springing valour of that Portuguese grenadier who[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2. was killed the foremost man at the Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that desperate soldier of the ninety-fifth, who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets? Who can sufficiently honour the intrepidity of Walker, of Shaw, of Canch, or the resolution of Ferguson of the forty-third, who having in former assaults received two deep wounds, was here, with his hurts still open, leading the stormers of his regiment, the third time a volunteer, and the third time wounded! Nor would I be understood to select these as pre-eminent, many and signal were the other examples of unbounded devotion, some known, some that will never be known; for in such a tumult much passed unobserved, and often the observers fell themselves ere they could bear testimony to what they saw; but no age, no nation ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who stormed Badajos.
When the extent of the night’s havoc was made known to lord Wellington, the firmness of his nature gave way for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a passionate burst of grief for the loss of his gallant soldiers.