Historical record of the Eighty-eighth Regiment of Foot, or Connaught Rangers

by Richard Cannon

On the first two days of Fuentes d’Onor, it was in position, but on the third and decisive day of that glorious battle it had a brilliant opportunity of distinguishing itself, and earning another honorary inscription for its colours.

The village of Fuentes d’Onor, which is situated on some low ground, with an old chapel and a few buildings on a craggy eminence at one end, had been the scene of a long, protracted, and sanguinary contest on the 3rd of May; the lower part of the village had been several times taken and retaken, and during the night each army occupied that part of the village which had remained in its possession when darkness and mutual exhaustion put a temporary stop to the battle. The following day was wholly passed in reconnoitering and manœuvres; the British force in Fuentes d’Onor was considerably reinforced from the First division, and amongst other regiments sent to aid in its defence were the Seventy-First and Seventy-Ninth. Soon after day-break on the 5th, the attack was recommenced by the French with increased numbers and renewed fury. Lord Wellington observing the serious efforts of Massena upon this point, and fully appreciating its importance, ordered the Twenty-Fourth, Forty-Fifth, Seventy-Fourth, and Eighty-Eighth British, together with the Ninth and Twenty-First Portuguese regiments, to its support.

It was now about half-past twelve o’clock; the combat in the village had lasted without intermission for eight hours during a day of oppressive heat, and our ammunition was nearly expended. The Highlanders were driven to the church-yard at the top of the town, where they were fighting with the French grenadiers over the tomb-stones and graves, while the Ninth French light infantry had penetrated as far as the chapel, only a short distance from our line, and were preparing to débouche upon our centre. Lord Wellington was on the spot, and surveyed what was passing with the immovable coolness which always characterized him; the troops in the town were nearly worn out in the contest and about to retire, when the Eighty-Eighth was ordered to their support, and changed the face of affairs. Colonel the Honourable Edward Pakenham, who was in the hottest of the fire, had inquired what regiments were in reserve; and when the Eighty-Eighth was named amongst others, asked, “Is Wallace with the Eighty-Eighth?” and on being replied to in the affirmative, said, “Tell him to come down then, and drive these fellows back; he will do the thing properly.”

The battalion was ordered to advance in column of sections, left in front, in double-quick time. As it passed down the road leading to the chapel it was warmly cheered by the troops lying at each side the wall, but the soldiers gave no cheer, no reply; they were placed, and they felt it, in a situation of great distinction; they were about to fight not only under the eye of their own general and his army, but in full view, also, of the French army; their feelings were wound up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, but there was no huzzaing, no noise, or talking in the ranks; the men, headed by their brave Colonel, stepped together at a smart pace under a very heavy fire of artillery and musketry, as steady and as silent as if on parade. The company which led this attack was commanded by Ensign William Grattan. When they came within sight of the French Ninth regiment, which was drawn up at the corner of the chapel ready to receive them, he turned round to observe the state of his men; the soldiers understood his look and action, and replied to it by a cheer, the first they had given, and which, so given, showed plainly that their hearts were in a right state.

The enemy had not remained idle spectators of this movement; a battery of eight pounders advanced at a gallop on the opposite side of the river, and opened a heavy fire on the Eighty-Eighth, hoping to annihilate it, or at least to check its progress and cripple its efforts, but the battalion, regardless of the grape which was showered upon it, continued to press on, and, in fact, suffered but slightly from the cannonade to which it was exposed. Arrived within a few yards of the chapel they were met by the Ninth French regiment, supported by some hundreds of the Imperial Guard, who rushed on with their usual impetuosity and bravery, uttering loud shouts and throwing in their fire as they advanced; the Eighty-Eighth replied with the bayonet, and rapidly closing with their enemies, so totally overthrew them, that they were not able to rally afterwards. The exhausted but brave troops that had been so seriously engaged all the morning, now joined in the pursuit, and in less than fifteen minutes from the time the Eighty-Eighth commenced its attack there was not a French combatant in the village: their whole force was driven across the rivulet, and many of the British in their pursuit fell on the French side of the stream.

About one hundred and fifty of the Old French Guard in their flight ran down a street which was one of the few that had escaped the fury of the morning attack, and the further end of which, unknown to them, had been barricaded by our troops the night before. Shut up thus in a complete cul-de-sac, the result may be easily imagined;—it was a frightful slaughter, but it was unavoidable. Troops advancing to assault a town, flushed, indeed, with victory, but uncertain whether that victory may not be wrenched the next minute from their grasp, have no time to deliberate. Some of the French Guard sought a vain refuge in bursting open the houses and ascending the chimneys, but their enemies were too close at their heels for them to succeed. This attack was headed by Lieutenant George Johnston, who, not satisfied with clearing one street, immediately proceeded to the next, where the enemy still made a show of resistance, and at length carried away by feelings very natural at such a moment, he climbed up to the top of a stone cross, erected in a square at the river’s edge, and taking off his hat waved it in defiance towards the enemy. The French, however, made no further effort to recover the place, but confined themselves to a heavy cannonade which they continued to pour into the streets, utterly regardless of its murderous effects upon their own wounded. From this cannonade the men of the Eighty-Eighth were ordered by Colonel the Honourable Edward Pakenham to shelter themselves, when they took a position behind a wall in the rear of the chapel, and soon afterwards evacuated the town, which was occupied by the light division under Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd.

When the Eighty-Eighth was ordered by Colonel Mackinnon to resume its place in brigade, the enemy’s fire had ceased, but as soon as they were seen in motion, it recommenced with double fury; the wall was knocked down in several places, and one round shot passed between Colonel Pakenham and Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, who were on horseback close to each other. It carried away the top of the wall, one of the stones striking Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace on the head and knocking his hat off, but doing him no further injury, though, for the moment, his men believed he had been killed. The regiment then quitted the place by companies in file as the safest way to avoid the effects of the cannonade: the companies returned, left in front. Colonel Pakenham, with his hat shot through the leaf, and his hand wrapped up in a pocket handkerchief, called out to Ensign Grattan as he passed at the head of the foremost company, to know where he was going, and why he left the village. Being told that it was in consequence of orders from Colonel Mackinnon, Colonel Pakenham replied, “I did not observe your number. Do as you are directed; your regiment has done enough for this day; but you may tell whatever troops you meet, that each man may as well bring a keg of ammunition under his arm, for those rascals shall never get possession of the town as long as I have life.” By four o’clock in the afternoon the regiment had joined its brigade.

The conduct of the Eighty-Eighth at Fuentes d’Onor (as at Busaco) obtained the particular notice of Lord Wellington, who, in his despatch containing the account of that battle, says, “On one of these occasions, the Eighty-Eighth, with the Seventy-First and Seventy-Ninth, under the command of Colonel Mackinnon, charged the enemy, and drove them through the village. Colonel Mackinnon has reported particularly the conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace and Lieutenant and Adjutant Stewart of the Eighty-Eighth regiment.”

The loss of the regiment was not so great as might have been expected from the brilliancy and seriousness of the affair in which it had been engaged. This comparatively small loss is to be attributed to the great steadiness and regularity of the men in their different attacks, and to the rapidity with which, on all occasions, they closed with their adversaries. Only one officer, Captain Irwin, was killed, and four wounded, viz. Lieutenants Stewart, Macalpin, and Halket, and Ensign Owgan. Of non-commissioned officers and privates, seven were killed and fifty-three wounded.

For a few days after the battle of Fuentes d’Onor, the Eighty-Eighth occupied the village of Navez de Aver, and was then ordered to the south to join the forces engaged in the siege of Badajoz. No opportunity occurred during this siege for the regiment to distinguish itself as a body, but many detached instances of intrepidity were displayed by the men as circumstances gave them an opportunity. Amongst others, on the day before the first assault on St. Christoval (the 5th of June), Private Edmund Man, of the grenadier company, was employed in repairing a damaged embrasure in one of the batteries against the castle. He was sitting outside the embrasure, pegging in a fascine, when Colonel Fletcher, the commanding engineer, who, though fearless of any danger as far as regarded himself, was particularly tenacious of allowing the soldiers to expose themselves unnecessarily, called to him, “Come in, my fine fellow, and you will do your work as well, or nearly so at all events.” “It’s hardly worth while, Colonel,” replied Man, “I am just finished, and they cannot hit me, for they have been trying it hard this quarter of an hour.” The words were scarcely out of the brave fellow’s mouth, when a round shot cut him in two, the French cannoniers cheering loudly at the same time at the accuracy of their practice.