SECOND ENGLISH SIEGE, A.D. 1812.
Lord Wellington having collected his troops in the Alentejo, marched against Badajos, and commenced the siege on the 16th of March, 1812.
On the 29th, previous to the opening of the breaching-batteries, the enemy made a sortie upon the Portuguese troops under General Hamilton, who invested the place on the right of the Guadiana; but they were immediately repulsed with some loss.
On the 31st, the English began to fire upon the face of the bastion to the south-west of the angle of the fort of Trinidad, and upon the flank of the bastion Santa Maria, with twenty-six pieces of artillery formed in two batteries in the second parallel. The fire of the batteries was constant and tremendous from the 31st to the evening of April 3rd, not less than sixty-four shots per minute being thrown. On the 4th of April, a battery of six pieces was opened upon the ravelin of St. Roque.
On the evening of the 5th, the breaches were declared practicable; but as the enemy appeared to be making most formidable preparations to repel any assault, Lord Wellington determined to wait till the third breach was also practicable. This being deemed to be so by the evening of the 6th, it was resolved to storm the place without an hour’s delay.
The arrangements made for this purpose were as follows: The third division under General Picton was directed to attack the castle by escalade, while the guards in the trenches, which were furnished from the fourth division, should attack the ravelin of St. Roque, on the left of the castle. The fourth division, under Major-General Colville, and the light division, under Colonel Bernard, were ordered to attack the breaches in the bastions of Trinidad and Santa Maria. Major-General Walker, with his brigade, was to make a false attack upon the fort of Pardileras and other works on the banks of the Guadiana; and General Power, with the Portuguese troops under his command, had orders to attack the tête-du-pont and fort of San Cristoval on the right of that river.
The attack commenced exactly at ten o’clock at night. The breaches were attacked in the most gallant manner by the fourth and light divisions, who got almost to the covered way before they were perceived by the enemy. But General Phillipon had brought the bravest of his troops to that point, and every obstacle that the shortness of the time would admit of was opposed to their advance; and notwithstanding the most determined and almost desperate efforts which were made by the British to overcome these obstacles, they were three times repulsed, and were unable to effect an entry by the breaches. Many a gallant man fell a victim to his bravery, and success had almost become hopeless, when the commander was informed that General Picton was in possession of the castle.
This cheering information soon spread through the ranks, and the allied troops returned to the charge with an impetuosity that nothing could oppose, and in ten minutes more they were in possession of the place. General Walker succeeded in his attack upon the Pardileras, which was taken possession of by the 15th Portuguese infantry, under Colonel de Regoa, and the 8th Caçadores, under Major Hill. General Walker also forced the barrier on the Olevença road, and entering the covered way on the left of the bastion of St. Vincent, he descended into the ditch, and scaled the face of the bastion. Phillipon fled with a few troops to the fort of San Cristoval, but at the break of the following day he surrendered the fort and garrison.
We have here set down the prominent facts of this siege with the brevity our space commands; but if we had the opportunity for going into the details enjoyed by the elegant historian of the Peninsular war, what a world of stirring instances of devotion, bravery, and suffering we should have to relate!
Although we are bound to hold the work of a contemporary sacred, we cannot resist offering a picture of the horrors of war, given by one evidently, on other occasions, fond and proud of his profession. At the close of this siege, Sir William Napier says:—
“Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnishes the lustre of the soldier’s heroism. All indeed were not alike; hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence; but 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 fire 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, and the dead disposed of!
“Five thousand men fell in this short siege—three thousand five hundred in the assault—in a space of less than a hundred square yards!
“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.”