The hedge along which Sir Thomas Picton's division was stationed, and through which the Scots Greys, with the Royals and the Inniskillens, headed by Lord Uxbridge, made their glorious and decisive charge at the close of the action, is almost the only one in the field of battle. The ground is occasionally divided by some shallow ditches, and in one place there is a sort of low mud dyke, which was very much broken and beaten down. This was not on the ground our troops occupied, but rather below the French position; and excepting this, the whole field of battle is unenclosed. The ground is, however, very uneven and broken, and the soil a strong clay. It belongs to different farmers, and bore crops of different kinds of corn; but it is entirely arable land, and, excepting a very small piece on the French side, none of it was in grass.
Against the left wing of our army the attacks of the French were furious and incessant. Buonaparte had stationed opposite to it the chief body of his Corps de Réserve, and fresh columns of troops continually poured down, without being able to make the smallest impression upon the firm and impenetrable squares which the British regiments formed to receive them. It was Buonaparte's object to turn the left wing of our army, and cut it off from the Prussians, with whom a communication was maintained through Ohain, and who were known (at least by the commanders of the British army) to be advancing.[25] The Duke expected them to have joined before one o'clock, but it was seven before they made their appearance.
On the top of the ridge in front of the British position, on the left of the road, we traced a long line of tremendous graves, or rather pits, into which hundreds of dead had been thrown as they had fallen in their ranks, without yielding an inch of ground. The effluvia which arose from them, even beneath the open canopy of heaven, was horrible; and the pure west wind of summer, as it passed us, seemed pestiferous, so deadly was the smell that in many places pervaded the field. The fresh-turned clay which covered those pits betrayed how recent had been their formation. From one of them the scanty clods of earth which had covered it had in one place fallen, and the skeleton of a human face was visible. I turned from the spot in indescribable horror, and with a sensation of deadly faintness which I could scarcely overcome.
On the opposite side of the road we scrambled up a perpendicular bank, through which the road had evidently been cut. It was upon this eminence that the Duke of Wellington stood, beneath the memorable tree, from the commencement of the action, surrounded by his staff. It was here, we were told, that in the most critical part of it he rallied the different regiments, and led them on again in person to renew the shock of battle. Here we stood some time to survey the field.
Immediately before us, nearly in the hollow, was the farm-house of La Haye Sainte, surrounded by a quadrangular wall, full of holes for musketry. At the commencement of the action it was occupied by the British, and it formed the most advanced post of the left centre of our army. It was gallantly and successfully defended by a detachment of the light battalion of the German Legion, until nearly the close of the day, when their ammunition was exhausted; it was impossible to send them a supply, as all communication with them was cut off by the enemy, who at length succeeded in carrying it, after a most obstinate resistance; but its brave defenders only resigned its possession with their lives.
On the opposite side of the road, a little behind La Haye Sainte, and immediately below the ground occupied by Sir Thomas Picton's division, is a quarry which was surrounded by British artillery at the commencement of the battle. Towards the close of the action it was filled with the wounded, who had taken refuge in it as a shelter from the shot and shells, and from the charge of the cavalry—when, horrible to relate! a body of French Cuirassiers were completely overthrown into this quarry by a furious charge of the British, and horses and riders were rolled in death upon these unfortunate sufferers. The ghastly spectacle which it exhibited next morning was described to me by an eye-witness of this scene of horror. On the left, in the hollow between the two armies, we saw the hamlet of Ter la Haye, which was occupied by British troops;—its possession was never disputed by the enemy, although it was close advanced upon their position. Beyond it, still farther to the left, were the woods of Frischermont, and the road to Wavre, from which the Prussians issued through a narrow defile, and advanced to attack the right flank of the French.
These woods bounded the prospect on that side. On the right stood the ruins of Château Hougoumont (or Château Goumont, as the country-people called it), concealed from view by a small wood which crowns the hill. It formed the most advanced post of the right centre of our army, and it was defended to the last with efforts of successful valour, almost more than human, against the overpowering numbers and furious attacks of the enemy. The battle commenced here about eleven o'clock. The French, suddenly uncovering a masked battery, opened a tremendous fire upon this part of our position, and advanced to the attack with astonishing impetuosity, led on, it is said, by Jerome Buonaparte in person, while Napoleon viewed it from his station near the Observatory on the opposite height. They were completely repulsed by the bravery of General Byng's brigade of Guards, but they succeeded in carrying the wood, which was occupied by the Belgic troops. The French, however, after a dreadful struggle, were driven out of the wood again by the Coldstreams and the third regiment of Guards, and never afterwards were able to regain possession of it. The Black Brunswickers behaved most gallantly. In retrieving the consequences of the misconduct of the Belgic troops, and in defending the Château and the garden, the British Guards performed prodigies of valour, though they suffered most severely. Lieutenant General Cooke, Major-General Byng, Lord Saltoun, the lamented Colonel Miller, who died as he had lived—a brave and honourable soldier; Captain Adair, Captains Evelyn and Ellis; Colonels Askew, Dashwood, and D'Oyley, with many others, particularly distinguished themselves by their steady gallantry and personal valour. The house was consumed by fire, and numbers of the wounded perished in the flames; yet the British maintained possession of it to the last, in spite of the incessant and desperate attacks of the enemy, who directed against it a furious fire of shot and shells, under cover of which large bodies of troops advanced continually to the assault, and were driven back again and again with tremendous slaughter. Without the possession of this important post the right flank of our army could not be attacked; it formed what is called the key of the position; from its elevation it commanded the whole of the ground occupied by our army, and had it been lost, the victory to the French would scarcely have been doubtful.
Opposite, but divided from it by a deep hollow, were the heights occupied by the French, upon which, at some distance, and secure from the storm of war, stands the Observatory, where Buonaparte stationed himself at the beginning of the action, and whence he issued his orders, and commanded column after column to advance to the charge, and rush upon destruction. His "invincible" legions, his invulnerable Cuirassiers, in vain assaulted the position of the British with the most furious and undaunted resolution. In vain the vast tide of battle rolled on—like the rocks of their native land, they repelled its rage.—Squares of infantry received the onset of the French columns; directed against them a steady and uninterrupted fire of musketry, and stood firm and unshaken beneath the most tremendous showers of shot and shell. Every vacancy caused by death was instantly filled up: the enemy vainly sought for an opening through which they might penetrate the impenetrable phalanx; and when at last they receded from the ineffectual attack, the British cavalry rushed forward to the charge, and, notwithstanding their superiority of numbers, drove them back with immense slaughter. But I am relating the history of the battle, forgetful that I am only describing the field.
From the spot where we now stood I cast my eyes on every side, and saw nothing but the dreadful and recent traces of death and devastation. The rich harvests of standing corn,[26] which had covered the scene of action we were contemplating, had been beaten into the earth, and the withered and broken stalks dried in the sun, now presented the appearance of stubble, though blacker and far more bare than any stubble land.
In many places the excavations made by the shells had thrown up the earth all around them; the marks of horses' hoofs, that had plunged ankle deep in clay, were hardened in the sun; and the feet of men, deeply stamped into the ground, left traces where many a deadly struggle had been. The ground was ploughed up in several places with the charge of the cavalry, and the whole field was literally covered with soldiers' caps, shoes, gloves, belts, and scabbards; broken feathers battered into the mud, remnants of tattered scarlet or blue cloth, bits of fur and leather, black stocks and havresacs, belonging to the French soldiers, buckles, packs of cards, books, and innumerable papers of every description. I picked up a volume of Candide; a few sheets of sentimental love-letters, evidently belonging to some French novel; and many other pages of the same publication were flying over the field in much too muddy a state to be touched. One German Testament, not quite so dirty as many that were lying about, I carried with me nearly the whole day; printed French military returns, muster rolls, love-letters, and washing bills; illegible songs, scattered sheets of military music, epistles without number in praise of "l'Empereur, le Grand Napoléon," and filled with the most confident anticipations of victory under his command, were strewed over the field which had been the scene of his defeat. The quantities of letters and of blank sheets of dirty writing paper were so great that they literally whitened the surface of the earth.