A few minutes before seven o’clock the storm began, by the sudden rush of the 2/5th, under Major Ridge, from behind the convent of Santa Cruz, across the open ground towards the ditch on their left of the castle. The governor had expected no attack from this side, the troops on the walls were few, and it was only under a very scattering fire that the battalion hewed down the gate in the palisades, got down into the ditch, and then planted their ladders against the fausse-braye. They were established upon it within five minutes of their start, and then, turning to their left, drove along its platform, chasing before them a few small parties of the enemy. In this way they soon arrived at the heap of ruins representing the spot where fausse-braye and inner wall had been wellnigh battered into one common mass of débris. Here they found the 94th, who had entered the ditch at the same time as themselves, but a little to their left, and had met with equally feeble resistance, already beginning to mount the lower slopes of the breach. Thus by a curious chance these two subsidiary columns arrived at the crucial point a little before the forlorn hope of the main storming-column. Mackinnon’s brigade, starting from the parallels, had to climb over the parapets of the trenches, and to cross rougher ground than the 5th and 94th: they were also hindered by the tremendous fire opened upon them: all the attention of the French had been concentrated on them from the first, as their route and their destination were obvious. Hence, unlike Campbell’s battalions, they suffered heavily before they crossed the glacis, and they were delayed a little by waiting for the hay-bags which were to help their descent. When the storming-party, under Major Manners of the 74th, reached the breach, it was already covered by men of the 5th and 94th. The whole, mixed together, scrambled up the higher part of the débris under a deadly fire, and reached the lip of the breach, where they found before them a sixteen-foot drop into the level of the city, on to ground covered with entanglements, beams, chevaux de frise, and other obstacles accumulated there by the prescience of the governor. On each flank, for the whole breadth of the wall, was a cutting, surmounted by a parapet, on which was mounted a 24-pounder firing grape downwards on to them.
The head of the column had scarcely gained the lip of the breach when it was raked by the simultaneous discharge of these two guns, which absolutely exterminated the knot of men at its head. At the same time an explosion took place lower down, from some powder-bags which the enemy had left among the débris and fired by means of a train. The impetus of the column was checked, and it was some little time before more men fought their way up to the summit: a second discharge from the two flanking guns made havoc of these, and shut in by the cuts, upon a space of about 100 feet wide, with the impracticable descent into the town in front, the assailants came to a stand again. The only way out of the difficulty was to cross the cuts, and storm the parapets behind them. This was done at both ends: on the one side a small party of the 88th, throwing down their muskets, so as to have hands to climb with, scrambled over the gap and slew with their bayonets the gunners at the left-hand gun, before they could fire a third round: they were followed by many men of the 5th, and a footing was gained on the ramparts behind the obstacle[188]. On the right flank Major Wylde, the brigade-major of Mackinnon’s brigade, found a few planks which the French had been using to bridge the cut before the storm, and which they had thrown down but neglected to remove. These were relaid in haste, and a mass of men of the 45th rushed across them under a dreadful fire, and forced the right-hand retrenchment. The garrison, giving way at both ends, fired a mine prepared under a postern of the upper wall as they retired[189]. This produced an explosion much more deadly than the one at the commencement of the storm; it slew among others General Mackinnon, the senior brigadier of the 3rd Division, whose body was found thrown some distance away and much blackened with powder.
Meanwhile, even before the fighting at the great breach was over, the fate of Ciudad Rodrigo had been settled at another point. The storm of the lesser breach by the Light Division had been successful, after a shorter fight and with much less loss of blood. Vandeleur’s brigade here conducted the assault, headed by 300 volunteers from the three British regiments of the division under Major George Napier of the 52nd: Lieutenant Gurwood of the same regiment had the forlorn hope of 25 men. The column did not come under fire for some time after leaving cover, but the assault had been expected, and a keen watch was being kept. Nevertheless the ditch was reached without any great loss, and the stormers leaped in, unaided for the most part by the hay-bags which 150 of Elder’s caçadores were to have cast down for them, for the greater part of the Portuguese were late in arriving[190]. They then began to plant their ladders, but the forlorn hope went wrong in an odd way, for moving too far to the left along the fausse-braye they scrambled up and over a traverse[191] which had been built across it, so finding themselves still on the same level. The head of the main storming party was better directed, and poured up the breach, which was very narrow but clean and clear: the only obstacle at its head was a disabled gun placed horizontally across the gap. Another piece, still in working order, had a diagonal view of the whole slope. The first discharge of this gun, crammed with grape, shattered the head of the column: Major Napier was dashed down with a mangled arm, Colonel Colborne, who was leading the 52nd, got a ball in the shoulder, and several other officers fell. At about the same moment General Craufurd, who was standing on the glacis above the ditch, directing the movements of the supports, received a bullet which passed through his arm, broke two ribs, and finally lodged in his spine. By his mortal hurt and the almost simultaneous wounding of his senior brigadier, Vandeleur, the command of the Light Division passed to Andrew Barnard of the 95th, who was leading the rear brigade.
But the division had been started on its way up the breach, and the gun on its flank got no second opportunity to fire. After its first discharge the survivors at the head of the column, now led by Uniacke and W. Johnston both of the 95th, dashed furiously up the remaining few feet of débris and reached the summit. The voltigeurs facing them broke before the onset, and since there were here no traverses or cuts to prevent the extension of the troops to right or left as they reached their goal, many hundreds were soon in possession of the ramparts on each side of the breach. The men of the 52nd wheeled to the left and swept the ramparts as far as the Salamanca gate, which they found walled up: the 43rd and Rifles turned to the right, and came upon the French retreating from the great breach, where the 3rd Division were just bursting through. Some of them arrived just in time to suffer from the final explosion which killed Mackinnon and so many of his brigade[192].
With their line forced in two places simultaneously, the garrison could do no more: there was a little fighting in the streets, but not much. The majority of the garrison retired to the Plaza Mayor in front of the castle, and there laid down their arms in mass. At the same time the two Portuguese subsidiary attacks had succeeded. O’Toole’s caçadores, headed by the light company of the 2/83rd, had not only captured by escalade the outwork against which they were directed, but found and hewed down its sally-port by which they got entrance into the town. Pack’s brigade, on the other side of the place, stormed the redan in front of the Santiago gate, and lodged themselves therein, capturing its small garrison. The governor and his staff had taken refuge in the castle, a mediaeval building with a lofty square tower commanding the Agueda bridge. They had hardly any men with them, and wisely surrendered at the first summons[193].
Seven thousand excited and victorious soldiers, with all traces of regimental organization lost, were now scattered through the streets of Ciudad Rodrigo. This was the first time on which the Peninsular Army had taken a place by assault, and the consequent confusion does not seem to have been foreseen by any one. But while the officers and the steady men were busy in collecting the French prisoners, throwing open the gates, and seeing to the transport of the wounded into houses, the baser spirits—and in every battalion, as Sir John Colborne remarks[194], there were in those days from fifty to a hundred incorrigibles—turned to plunder. The first rush was to the central brandy-store of the garrison, where hundreds got drunk in a few minutes, and several killed themselves by gorging raw spirits wholesale. But while the mere drunkards proceeded to swill, and then turned out into the streets firing objectlessly in the air, the calculating rascals set themselves to the plunder of private houses, which was a more profitable task than rummaging the French magazines. There was an immense amount of unlicensed pillage and wanton destruction of property—inexcusable in a place where only a small minority of the people were Afrancesados, and the majority had been getting ready to welcome their deliverers. The officers did their best to restore order, ‘the voice of Sir Thomas Picton was heard with the strength of twenty trumpets proclaiming damnation to all and sundry, while Colonels Barnard and Cameron with other active officers, seized the broken barrels of muskets, which were lying about in great abundance, and belaboured misdemeanants most unmercifully[195].’ But active officers could not be everywhere—three houses, including the spirit store in the great square, were set on fire by drunken plunderers, and it was feared that a conflagration might arise, which fortunately did not happen, for the solid stone structures were not easily kindled. The disorder, however, did not reach the shameful pitch which was afterwards seen at Badajoz and St. Sebastian. A competent observer, present at all three sacks, remarks that ‘no town taken by assault suffered less than Rodrigo. It is true that soldiers of all regiments got drunk, pillaged, and made great noise and confusion in streets and houses, despite of every exertion of their officers to prevent it. But bad and revolting as such scenes are, I never heard that either the French garrison, after its surrender, or the inhabitants suffered personal indignities or cruelty from the troops[196].’ There were apparently no lives lost, except those of a few men shot accidentally by their drunken comrades, and of certain drunkards who perished in the spirit store. The greater part of the men were under control long before dawn, and were collected by their officers on the ramparts: they marched out next morning, when the 5th Division, newly arrived at the front from its distant cantonments in Beira, came into the town. By an unfortunate accident an explosion of an unsuspected magazine took place, just as the French prisoners were being marched out, and some of them and of their escort were killed[197]. The storming regiments made a strange spectacle as they left the town. ‘As we marched over the bridge dressed in all varieties imaginable, some with jack-boots on, others with white French trousers, others in frock-coats with epaulettes, some even with monkeys on their shoulders, we met the 5th Division on their way to repair the breaches. They immediately formed upon the left of the road, presented arms, and cheered us. I was afterwards told that Lord Wellington, who saw us pass, inquired of his staff, “Who the devil are those fellows[198]?”’
The garrison, out of a little under 2,000 men present when the siege began, showed 60 officers and 1,300 rank and file of unwounded prisoners. Eight officers had been killed, 21 wounded, and about 500 rank and file, mostly on the day of the assault. The artillery and engineers suffered most—of 8 artillery officers in the place 5 were killed or wounded, of three engineer officers two fell.
The British and Portuguese loss during the whole siege was 9 officers killed and 70 wounded, and of other ranks 186 were killed and 846 wounded, with 10 missing—apparently deserters. Of these, 59 officers and 503 rank and file fell in the actual storm. The tables appended at the end of this volume demonstrate that the 3rd Division suffered far more heavily than the Light—the battalions with the greatest losses were the 2/5th and 94th, which were early on the great breach and got the benefit of the explosion. Of the 9 officers killed or mortally hurt two were generals, Craufurd and Mackinnon. The death of the former, who lingered in great agony for four days, though shot through to the spine, was no small event in the war: his talents were sadly missed in its latter years: an outpost officer of his capacity would have been invaluable to Wellington during the fighting in the Pyrenees in 1813, when the Light Division, though regimentally as good as ever, much lacked the skilful leading of its old chief. He was a man with many friends and many enemies: of his merits and defects I spoke at length in another place[199]. Here I feel compelled to quote nothing more than the words of his friend, Lord Londonderry—the Charles Stewart of the Peninsular War. ‘He was an officer of whom the highest expectation had been formed, and who on every occasion found an opportunity to prove that, had his life been spared, the proudest hopes of his country would not have been disappointed, and he was a man to know whom in his profession without admiring him was impossible. To me his death occasioned that void which the removal of a sincere friend alone produces. While the memory of the brave and the skilful shall continue to be cherished by British soldiers, he will not be forgotten, and the hand which scrawls this humble tribute to his worth must be cold as his own, before the mind which dictates it shall cease to think of him with affection and regret[200].’
