Meanwhile, St. Ruth, who had been on the march from Limerick for some days, at the head of 15,000 men, if we are to believe King James’s Memoirs, appeared beyond the Shannon and went into camp on a rising ground about a mile and a half from the town. He was soon made aware of the condition of affairs, and strengthened the castle garrison. He also had an earthen rampart constructed to protect the bridge and ford. The latter was practicable at low water only, and the summer of 1691 was exceptionally dry. The river had never been known to be so shallow within the memory of living man. This fact alone should have warned the French general to be exceptionally vigilant. He retired the brave Fitzgerald from the governorship, to which he appointed General Wauchop—a good soldier, but not an Irishman—and the French officers, Generals D’Usson and De Tesse, were made joint commandants in the town. The apologists for St. Ruth’s mistakes in front of Athlone claim that the ill-fated chief gave orders to the French commandants to level all the useless old walls near the bridge, but that his orders were neglected. As is usual in such cases, disobedience led to tragical results. Foiled in his attempt at flank operations, Ginkel determined to assault the partially destroyed bridge across the Shannon, which, under cover of a tremendous cannon fire, he did. But it was defended with Spartan tenacity. Attack after attack failed. Movable covered galleries were tried, and these contained planks wherewith to restore the broken arches. Not less than nine English batteries, armed with heavy guns, rained death on the Irish army, but still it stood unmoved, although losing heavily. Under cover of the fire of nearly fifty great guns, the English pontoniers, protected also by their galleries, succeeded in laying planks across the broken arches. They accounted their work done, when suddenly out of the Irish trenches leaped eleven men clad in armor, led by Sergeant Custume, or Costy, who, according to Sullivan, called on them “to die with him for Ireland.” They rushed upon the bridge and proceeded to tear away the planks. Instantly, all the English cannon and muskets sent balls and bullets crashing upon them. The whole eleven fell dead—shattered by that dreadful fire. Some planks still remained upon the arches. Eleven more Irish soldiers leaped from their works, and, following the example of their fallen comrades, gained the bridge and sought to throw the planks into the river. Nine of these heroes were killed before their work was accomplished. But the planks were floating down the Shannon, and two heroic survivors of twenty-two Homeric heroes regained the Irish lines! Pity it is that their names have not come down to us. Aubrey de Vere, in his fine poem, commemorating the exploit, tells us that St. Ruth, who, with Sarsfield, witnessed the glorious deed, rose in his stirrups and swore he had never seen such valor displayed in the Continental wars. Chaplain Story, with incredible meanness, tries to steal the glory of this deed from the Irish army by saying that the heroes were “bold Scots of Maxwell’s regiment.” The slander has been sufficiently refuted by O’Callaghan, Boyle, and other writers. Maxwell was a Scotchman, but he commanded Irish troops exclusively, and there was not a single Scotch battalion in the service of King James in Ireland from first to last. For further information on this point, the reader can consult O’Callaghan’s “Green Book” and “History of the Irish Brigades,” and also Dalton’s “King James’s Irish Army List,” which gives the roster of the field, line, and staff officers of each Irish regiment, including Maxwell’s. The defence of the bridge occurred on the evening of June 28. On the morning of the 29th another attempt was to have been made, but, owing to some miscalculation, was deferred for some hours. St. Ruth was ready for it when it came, and, after another murderous struggle at the bridge, where the English and their allies were led by the Scottish General Mackay, the assailants were again beaten off, their covered gallery destroyed, and their bridge of boats, which they bravely attempted to construct in face of the Irish fire, broken up. St. Ruth commanded the Irish army in person and displayed all the qualities of a good general. Success, however, would seem to have rendered him over-confident. The conflict over, he led his main body back to camp, and is said to have given a ball and banquet at his quarters—a country house now in a neglected condition and popularly known as “St. Ruth’s Castle.” The Roscommon peasants still speak of it as “the owld house in which the French general danced the night before he lost Athlone.”

By some unaccountable fatality, St. Ruth, instead of leaving some veteran troops to occupy the works near the bridge, committed them to new and untrained regiments, which were placed under the command of Acting Brigadier Maxwell. The latter, who has been—unjustly, perhaps—accused of treason by Irish writers, would seem to have shared the fatal over-confidence of St. Ruth. Therefore, no extraordinary precautions were adopted to prevent a surprise—something always to be anticipated when a baffled enemy grows desperate. Colonel Cormac O’Neill, of the great Ulster family of that ilk, happened to be on duty at the defences of the river front during the night and morning of June 29-30, and noticed suspicious movements among the English troops occupying the other side of the Shannon. Becoming alarmed, he immediately communicated his suspicions to Maxwell, observing, at the same time, that he would like a supply of ammunition for his men. Maxwell sneered and asked, “Do your men wish to shoot lavrocks (larks)?” However, O’Neill’s earnest manner impressed him somewhat, and, in the gray of the morning, he visited the outer lines, and, from what he saw, at once concluded that De Ginkel had some serious movement in contemplation. He sent immediately to St. Ruth for a regiment of veteran infantry, at the same time giving his reasons for the request. St. Ruth, it is said, sent back a taunting reply, which reflected on Maxwell’s courage. We are told that Sarsfield remonstrated with St. Ruth, who declared he did not believe Ginkel would make an attempt to surprise the town, while he was so near with an army to relieve it. English historians say that, upon this, Sarsfield apostrophized British valor and remarked that there was no enterprise too perilous for it to attempt. The discussion—if, indeed, it ever took place—was cut short by the ringing of bells and firing of cannon in the town. “Athlone is surprised and taken!” Sarsfield is credited with having said, as he observed the untrained fugitives running from the Irish trenches. “Impossible!” St. Ruth is represented to have replied, “Ginkel’s master should hang him if he attempts the capture of the place, and mine should hang me if I were to lose it!” But the uproar from the city soon showed the Frenchman that something terrible had occurred. When too late, he gave orders to rectify his mistake. The English were already in the works and could not be dislodged. Maxwell’s men had fled in disorder, most of them being surprised in their sleep, and the general and some of his officers became prisoners of war. It was the most complete and successful surprise recorded in military annals, except, perhaps, that of Mannheim by General, afterward Marshal, Ney, in 1799. It would seem that Ginkel, by the advice of Mackay, and other officers, looked for a ford, and found it by the aid of three Danish soldiers who were under sentence of death, and were offered their lives if they succeeded. They found the ford, and the Irish, seeing them approach the bank of the river fearlessly, concluded they were deserters and refrained from firing. After them plunged in sixty armored English grenadiers, led by Captain Sandys, a noted military dare-devil, and these were followed by the main body under Mackay, another experienced commander. The hour was six in the morning of June 30, and, after one of the bravest defences of which we have record, Athlone, through the infatuation of St. Ruth, was in English hands before noon on that eventful day. And so it came to pass, that after a conflict of more than a year, the defensive line of the Shannon was, at last, broken. It is estimated by most historians that Ginkel’s total loss amounted to 1,200 men and that of St. Ruth was somewhat greater, owing to the surprise. Among those killed in St. Ruth’s army were two colonels, named McGinness, Colonel MacMahon, Colonel O’Gara, Colonel Richard Grace, who fell in defence of the bridge on the 29th, and the French adjutant-general. Few officers of note fell on the English side. Ginkel, during the siege, “expended 50 tons of gunpowder, 12,000 cannon balls, 600 bombshells, and innumerable tons of stone, hurled from the mortars, when the shells were exhausted.” After the capture, the English found only a mass of ruins, and it took De Ginkel several days to put the place in some kind of repair.

CHAPTER III

The Irish Army Falls Back and Takes Post at Aughrim—Description of the Field—Disposition of the Irish Forces—Baal Dearg O’Donnell’s Apathy

BOTH history and tradition affirm that St. Ruth and Sarsfield almost came to swords’ points over the loss of Athlone, and it is still believed, in that section of Ireland, that the Irish general, indignant at the criminal blunder that had been committed by his superior, took all of his cavalry from under the Frenchman’s command and marched to Limerick. But this tradition is more than doubtful. It is, however, certain that the two leaders, who should have been so united in council, had a bitter altercation over the disaster, and were hardly on speaking terms during the few momentous days they were destined to serve together. St. Ruth was filled with rage and mortification. He felt that he had committed a grievous error, and dreaded the anger of King Louis, who was a severe judge of those who served him ill. He declared his determination to hazard all on a pitched battle. Against this resolve, Tyrconnel, who had come to the camp from Limerick, and others, protested, but in vain. St. Ruth was in no humor to be balked. Tyrconnel left the camp in dudgeon and retired once more to Limerick, which he was destined never to leave again. Having made up his mind to fight, St. Ruth at once broke camp and moved by Milton Pass, where he halted for a night, toward Ballinasloe, which stands on the river Suck and in the county of Galway. The cavalry covered the retreat, but no attempt whatever was made at pursuit.

The army took post along the fords of the Suck, as if it intended to fight in front of Ballinasloe, which was considered quite defensible, but St. Ruth’s previous knowledge of the country would appear to have determined him to retire about three and a half miles south by west of his first position, as soon as reinforcements, drawn from the abandoned, or reduced, posts along the Shannon, had joined him. In his retreat from Athlone, some of the Connaught troops, disgusted by the loss of that town and doubtful of the general’s motives, deserted, and these had to be replaced by the soldiers of the Irish garrisons broken up or depleted. About July 9, old style, St. Ruth decamped from Ballinasloe, and a few hours afterward his devoted army, which, according to our best information, consisted of about 15,000 foot and 5,000 horse and dragoons, with only nine field-pieces, defiled by the causeways of Urachree and Aughrim to the slopes of Kilcommodan Hill, where the new camp was established, on the eastern side of the eminence, facing toward Garbally and Ballinasloe. Kilcommodan, at that period, was almost surrounded by red bog, and, on the front by which De Ginkel must approach, ran a small stream, with several branches, which made the morass impracticable for horse and difficult for infantry. In our day, this morass has become meadow-land, but it is about the only natural feature that has undergone considerable change since the period of the battle. From north to south, the hill is estimated to be a little more than a mile in length, and its mean elevation is about 350 feet. The bog lay closer up to Aughrim, where stand the ruins of an old castle which commanded the narrow and difficult pass, than to Urachree, where there is another pass not particularly formidable to a determined assailant. The road through the pass of Aughrim ran then, and still runs, by Kilconnell Abbey and village—after which the French have named the battle—to Athenry, Loughrea, and Galway. The road through the pass of Urachree connects Ballinasloe with Lawrencetown, Eyrecourt, and Banagher Bridge, and also, by a branch route, with Portumna; and these were the natural lines of retreat for the Irish army in the event of disaster. Near the crest of Kilcommodan Hill are the remains of two so-called Danish raths, circular in shape, and in the one nearest to Aughrim Castle St. Ruth is said to have pitched his tent.

Most of the elevation was then a wild common, but at its base, on the Irish front, were many fields under tillage, and these small inclosures were divided from each other by thick, “quick-set” hedges, or, rather, fences, such as are still common in Ireland—formidable against the encroachments of cattle, but still more formidable when applied to military purposes. The French general had found his intrenchments ready-made, and proceeded to use them to the best possible advantage. Weak points in them were strengthened, and passageways connecting one with the other, from front to rear and from right to left, were constructed. The design was to enable the formidable Irish cavalry to aid the infantry when a crisis should arrive. In the direction of Urachree, St. Ruth caused the construction of regular breastworks, conceiving that his point of danger lay to the right, and having, as a military writer has well observed, “a fatal confidence in the strength of his left flank,” resting as it did on an old castle and “a narrow, boggy trench through which two horsemen could hardly ride abreast.” All his arrangements were completed by the 10th of July, and, according to Boyle, the author of “The Battlefields of Ireland,” his line of battle, which contemporaneous accounts say covered a front of about two miles, had its right resting on Urachree and its left upon Aughrim. The London “Gazette” of July, 1691, says that this wing of the Irish army “extended toward the Abbey of Kilconnell,” which was considerably to the left and almost in rear of Kilcommodan Hill. The Irish centre rested on the mid slope of the elevation, “between its camp and the hedgerows.” Each division consisted of two front and two rear lines; the former of infantry and the latter of cavalry. Of St. Ruth’s nine brass pieces, two were devoted to the defence of Aughrim Castle; a battery of three pieces was constructed on the northeastern slope of Kilcommodan, so as to rake the castle pass, a part of the morass, and the firmer ground beyond it, and thus prevent any hostile troops from deploying there and so threaten his left. His other battery, of four pieces, was planted on his right and swept the pass leading to Urachree. It is said that a strong reserve of horse, under Sarsfield, was posted on the west side of the hill, out of view of the approaching enemy, but that Sarsfield had been particularly enjoined by St. Ruth to make no movement whatever without a direct order from himself. Story, who ought to know, says that Sarsfield was second in command, but neither to him nor to any other of his subordinate generals did St. Ruth communicate his plan of battle, so that, if he were doomed to fall, the conflict could still be waged as he had from the first ordained it. This was St. Ruth’s most fatal error, as it placed the fate of Ireland on the life or death of a single man. He had no cannon with which to arm a battery on his centre, nor does he seem to have wanted any for that purpose—his apparent plan being to let the English infantry cross at that point, where he felt confident the Irish foot and dragoons would soon make an end of them. Although King James’s memoirs aver that St. Ruth had “a mean [i.e. poor] opinion” of the Irish infantry, until it developed its prowess in the battle, his disposition of this arm at Aughrim would not convey that opinion to the observing mind. Most of the Irish foot lacked discipline, in the strict sense of the term, but no general who had seen them fight, as St. Ruth did, at the bridge of Athlone, could doubt their courage. His expectation that the English troops sent against his centre would be roughly handled was not doomed to disappointment.

Owing to many untoward causes, a full and correct list of the Irish regiments that fought at Aughrim is not to be obtained, but Boyle holds that Colonel Walter Bourke and his brother, Colonel David Bourke, held the position in and around the castle of Aughrim; that Lord Bophin, Brigadier Henry Luttrell, and Colonels Simon Luttrell and Ulick Bourke commanded on the left; that Major-General Dorrington, Major-General H. M. J. O’Neill, Brigadier Gordon O’Neill, Colonel Felix O’Neill, and Colonel Anthony Hamilton held the centre; and that Lords Kilmallock, Galmoy, Galway, Clare, and Colonel James Talbot commanded on the right, toward Urachree. Thus it may be inferred, says the historian, that the Munster troops were on the right, the Leinster and Ulster contingents in the centre, and the soldiers of Connaught were posted on the left. The general in command of the entire infantry was William Mansfield Barker, and Major-General John Hamilton was in chief command of the horse. The discord among the chief officers in the Irish camp must have been something unusual, when to none of the distinguished commanders enumerated did the French commander-in-chief reveal his order of battle. But the historian recently quoted says, in reviewing the character of the unfortunate Frenchman: “Whatever were the foibles of St. Ruth, from his advent in the country to his retreat from Athlone, we have now to look on an entirely different character. He had learned, though at a fearful cost, that his name had no fears for his potent adversary; that deeds alone were to be the test of high emprise, and that his folly had narrowed down the campaign, and in fact the whole war, to the last resource of fallen heroes—death or victory. With this feeling, all that was vainglorious in his character at once disappeared; the mist was removed from his mind, and it shone out to the end of his short career as that of a true hero in adversity. Unlike his French predecessors, he scorned to hide his faults behind the shield of calumny; he candidly acknowledged his error and bitterly lamented it. He became courteous to his officers, affable to his soldiers, changed at once from the despot to the patriarch, and, touched by his sorrows, as much as by their own calamity, they again rallied round him and determined on a final throw for religion and liberty.”

A proclamation issued by the English Lords Justices, in the name of William and Mary, immediately after the fall of Athlone, offered inducements, in the shape of promotion and money, to such officers and soldiers of the Irish army as would desert their colors and accept service with De Ginkel. Very few traitors availed themselves of the offer, but many of those who were indignant with St. Ruth abandoned the camp and joined the irregular forces of the military Hiberno-Spanish adventurer, Baal Dearg O’Donnell, who claimed to be of the noble House of Tyrconnel, and had lately come from Spain, apparently without a settled purpose or principle. Instead of uniting his 7,000 irregulars with the regular Irish army under St. Ruth, who had no French troops whatever with him, O’Donnell assumed the airs of a hereditary Irish prince, affected to despise James as well as William, and established his camp and court in the country between Tuam and Athenry, within two short marches, if made even in ordinary time, of the Irish encampment on Kilcommodan Hill. St. Ruth summoned him to his aid, but the adventurer, whose selfish conduct some Irish writers, notably Mr. Haverty, have sought to explain and excuse, made no reply, and, to this day, he is remembered in Ireland with detestation not unmingled with contempt. His duty, when within sound of the cannon of Aughrim, was to hasten to the field and spare the fate of his gallant countrymen.