In September, 1811, when the latter was forced to retire beyond the Guadalaviar, he left Charles O'Donnel with four thousand men on the side of Segorbe; and on investing Saguntum in October, he sent him with Villa Campo's division and San Juan's cavalry to Betera. There O'Donnel was attacked by Harispe, though well posted in rear of a canal, and having his centre protected by a chapel and some houses; but the French advanced with such fury, that the Spaniards were swept away by the first fire.
In the war of 1823, General O'Donnel commanded a corps of Royalists, which were destroyed by the troops of Torrijos, the Constitutionalist; and soon after, his wife, the Condesa de O'Donnel, had a narrow escape from a party of the Empecinado, who were sent to Valladolid to take her prisoner, but were repulsed by the troops of the Marshal Duke of Reggio.
Charles O'Donnel was now Captain-General of Old Castile, and as such, in the month of August, he summoned and took from its insurgent garrison, under General Jalon, the citadel of Ciudad Rodrigo. By the convention between them, it appears that the governor of the fortress undertook to obey any orders he might receive direct from the king; but displayed great distrust of the royalists and the Irish commander. After this, the latter marched into Estremadura, everywhere crushing the Constitutionalists, and enforcing the supremacy of the king. In August his head-quarters were at Salamanca, and in October at Algesiras. This war, in which the absolute power of Ferdinand was fatally enforced by the bayonets of France under Marshal Lauriston, the Duke of Reggio, and others, soon ended; but though smothered for a time, the restless spirit of the Spaniards soon again broke forth into a flame, and most fatally for the house of O'Donnel, as shall be shown in the sequel.
Joseph O'Donnel, who had been serving with his brothers against the common enemy, was appointed by the regent, the Conde de Abispal, to succeed Blake in command of the Murcians and Valencians in May, 1812. He collected the remains of these two armies, remodelled them with great energy, raised new levies, and during the illness of Marshal Suchet mustered fourteen thousand men in the neighbourhood of Alicant.
These operations, with others in Catalonia, brought on the battle of Castalla in July, when, with 6000 foot, 700 horse, and eight guns, he fought General Harispe on the mountains; but on the rough pathway and a narrow bridge near Biar, the Spanish infantry were borne down by the weight and fury of the French cuirassiers, and forced to retreat, leaving 3000 slain on the field. O'Donnel, who had made incredible exertions to gain the day, and had fired two pieces of cannon at the bridge with his own hands, attributed his defeat to the disobedience and inability of San Estevan, who commanded his cavalry, and who, by holding that force aloof, took no share in the battle. Pursued by the French cuirassiers, Joseph fled by the Jumella road, and reached the city of Murcia, where he was joined by General Maitland's armament from Sicily, and thus saved from destruction; but he unwisely required that officer to abstain from all requisitions for forage and rations from the neighbouring country. Maitland assented, and immediately sank under the unnecessary difficulties thus created. In August, when O'Donnel was at Yecla with 6000 men, the Cortes passed a severe censure upon him for his conduct at the battle of Castalla; so severe, indeed, that his brother, the Conde de Abispal, a proud and haughty soldier, resigned his high command during the campaign, which ended in Wellington's retreat from Burgos; and then the weakness of the Spanish Government became more than ever apparent.
On the 6th of December, when at Malaga, Joseph wrote a long letter to General Donkin, concerning the malheur at Castalla, in which we find his knowledge of English so imperfect that he was obliged, after a dozen of lines, to adopt and end it in French; and after this unfortunate defeat we hear no more of him.
Alexander O'Donnel, the third brother, was colonel of a regiment of Spanish infantry, and served with it in the Danish Isles under Romana. Attacked there by overwhelming numbers, they effected their escape in 1808; but on being made captives at Espinosa, they entered the French ranks to the number of 4500, and served in Napoleon's Continental war, until they were all taken prisoners by the Russians on the retreat from Moscow, when they were brought back to Spain in British ships, under the care of Captain Hill of the Royal Navy. One of the Spanish corps which returned after this strange career of military service was the regiment of Don Alexander O'Donnel, which had been fully equipped by the Emperor Alexander in 1812, and for which the daughter of General Betancourt embroidered a pair of colours. It was styled the Imperial Alexander Regiment, and under O'Donnel distinguished itself in the national cause till after the disasters of 1823.
Henry O'Donnel, Conde de Abispal, who, like his brother, had been serving with success and distinction in the battles of the Peninsula, was a brave, reckless, and determined soldier, possessed of military talents of a very high order, together with a heedlessness of his own life and of the lives of others. Passing, with honour to himself, through all the subaltern ranks, he was a colonel of Spanish infantry in 1809, when Blake ordered him to command in the attack upon Sauham's posts near Brunola, where, on the 31st August, he had the mortification of seeing the place retaken, after he had carried it at the point of the bayonet.
On the 26th September, as related in the memoir of Blake, he led the advanced guard in the brilliant attempt to relieve Gerona. On the 13th October he broke out of the city, sword in hand, hewed a passage through the French blockade, and, falling on Sauham's quarters sabre à la main, forced that general to fly in his shirt, and successfully achieved one of the most daring enterprises of that memorable siege. In 1810, on succeeding Blake in command of the Catalonians—an appointment bestowed by the provincial Junta, who heard of his high reputation—he attacked Marshal Augereau with great fury, and drove him into Gerona. He took up a position at Vich, but on the approach of the French retired to the Col de Sespina, where he led a charge so fierce and decisive, that Sauham's battalions were hurled from the hills in confusion upon the plain. Marching to Manresa, he summoned the Miguelets from Lerida to his colours. These were a species of banditti who infested the mountains, and were armed with pistols, daggers, and blunderbusses. With 12,000 men, Henry O'Donnel took up a position at Maya in February, and harassed the French before Vich, where he fought and lost a severe battle, and was forced to retreat to the Sierras, and from thence to Tarragona, leaving a fourth of his men dead on the field.