SURRENDER OF PHILLIPON.
Towards morning the firing ceased; and the 4th and light divisions passed through the breaches over the broken limbs and dead bodies of their gallant comrades. A great part of the garrison were made prisoners during the night by the 5th Division; but Phillipon, with most of the officers and a portion of the men, retreated across the Guadiana into Fort Cristoval. He demanded terms of capitulation next morning; but Lord Wellington gave him ten minutes to consider and straightway prepared the guns to batter the place. However, that was prevented by Phillipon surrendering at discretion.
As soon as light served and communication between the castle and the town opened, I bent my way along the ramparts towards the main opening in the Trinidad bastion. The glorious dawn of day, contrasted with the horrible scenes which I had witnessed, filled the mind with joy. The sun rose in majesty and splendour, as usual in the blooming month of April, which in that climate is as our May. The country around was clothed in luxuriant verdure, refreshed by recent dew, which still clinging to each green leaf and blade in diamond drops reflected the verdant hue of the foliage upon which it hung till diamonds seemed emeralds. A thousand nameless flowers, displaying as many lovely colours, were on all the earth. Proudly and silently the Guadiana flowed, exhibiting its white surface to the majestically rising orb which gave to the ample and gently heaving breast of the noble stream the appearance of an undulating plain of burnished silver. On its fertile banks the forward harvest already promised abundance and contentment even to the most avaricious husbandman. The fruit trees opened their rich and perfumed blossoms; the burnished orange borrowing colour of the sun glowed in contrast with the more delicate gold of lemon; and everywhere grey olive trees spread ample boughs—but here, alas! they were not the emblems of peace. Every creeping bramble and humble shrub made a fair show that morning; birds sang in heaven; all sensitive and animated nature appeared gay and seemed with grateful acknowledgments to welcome the glorious father of light and heat. The lord of creation alone, “sensible and refined man,” turned his back on the celestial scene to gloat in the savage murders and degrading obscenity that wantoned in devoted Badajoz.
When I arrived at the great breach the inundation presented an awful contrast to the silvery Guadiana; it was fairly stained with gore, which through the vivid reflection of the brilliant sun, whose glowing heat already drew the watery vapours from its surface, gave it the appearance of a fiery lake of smoking blood, in which were seen the bodies of many a gallant British soldier. The ditches were strewn with killed and wounded; but the approach to the bottom of the main breach was fairly choked with dead. A row of chevaux de frise, armed with sword-blades, barred the entrance at the top of the breach and so firmly fixed that when the 4th and light Divisions marched through, the greatest exertion was required to make a sufficient opening for their admittance. Boards fastened with ropes to plugs driven into the ground within the ramparts were let down, and covered nearly the whole surface of the breach; these boards were so thickly studded with sharp pointed spikes that one could not introduce a hand between them; they did not stick out at right angles to the board, but were all slanting upwards. In rear of the chevaux de frise the ramparts had deep cuts in all directions, like a tanyard, so that it required light to enable one to move safely through them, even were there no opposing enemy. From the number of muskets found close behind the breach, all the men who could possibly be brought together in so small a place must have had at least twenty firelocks each, no doubt kept continually loaded by persons in the rear. Two British soldiers only entered the main breach during the assault; I saw both their bodies. If any others entered they must have been thrown back over the walls, for certain it is that at dawn of the 7th no more than two British bodies were within the walls near the main breach. In the Santa Maria breach not one had entered. At the foot of this breach the same sickening sight appeared as at that of Trinidad: numberless dead strewed the place. On looking down these breaches I recognised many old friends, whose society I had enjoyed a few hours before, now lying stiff in death.
DEAD AT PEACE, LIVING AT PLAY.
Oppressed by the sight which the dead and dying presented at the breaches, I turned away and re-entered the town; but oh! what scenes of horror did I witness there! They can never be effaced from my memory. There was no safety for women even in the churches; and any who interfered or offered resistance were sure to get shot. Every house presented a scene of plunder, debauchery and bloodshed, committed with wanton cruelty on the persons of the defenceless inhabitants by our soldiery; and in many instances I beheld the savages tear the rings from the ears of beautiful women who were their victims, and when the rings could not be immediately removed from their fingers with the hand, they tore them off with their teeth. Firing through the streets and at the windows was incessant, which made it excessively dangerous to move out. When the savages came to a door which had been locked or barricaded, they applied what they called the patent key: this consisted of the muzzles of a dozen firelocks placed close together against that part of the door where the lock was fastened, and the whole fired off together into the house and rooms, regardless of those inside; these salvos were repeated until the doors were shattered, and in this way too several inhabitants were killed. Men, women and children were shot in the streets for no other apparent reason than pastime; every species of outrage was publicly committed in the houses, churches and streets, and in a manner so brutal that a faithful recital would be too indecent and too shocking to humanity. Not the slightest shadow of order or discipline was maintained; the officers durst not interfere. The infuriated soldiery resembled rather a pack of hell-hounds vomited up from the infernal regions for the extirpation of mankind than what they were but twelve short hours previously—a well-organised, brave, disciplined and obedient British army, and burning only with impatience for what is called glory.
But whatever accounts may be given of the horrors which attended and immediately followed the storming of Badajoz, they must fall far short of the truth; and it is impossible for any who were not present to imagine them. I have already mentioned that neither the regiment to which I was just appointed nor that which I had just left was at the siege. I therefore could have had but little influence in controlling the frenzied military mob who were ferociously employed in indiscriminate carnage, universal plunder and devastation of every kind. Three times I narrowly escaped with life for endeavouring to protect some women by conveying them to St. John’s Church, where a guard was mounted. On one occasion, as Huddleston and I accompanied two ladies and the brother of one of them to the church mentioned, we were crossed by three drunken soldiers, one of whom, passing to our rear, struck the Spanish gentleman with the butt-end of his firelock on the back of his head, which nearly knocked him down. On my censuring the fellow’s daring insolence in striking a person in company with two English officers, another of the men was bringing his firelock to the present, when I holloaed out loudly, “Come on quick with that guard.” There was no guard near, but the ruse luckily succeeded, and so quickly did the soldiers run away that I felt convinced that their apparent intoxication was feigned. On another occasion a sergeant struck me with his pike for refusing to join in plundering a family; I certainly snapped my pistol in his face, but fortunately it missed fire or he would have been killed. However the danger which he so narrowly escaped brought him to his senses; he made an awkward apology and I considered it prudent to retire. By such means as these, by the risk and humanity of officers, many women were saved. We did not interfere with the plundering; it would have been useless.
HELL-HOUNDS OF SAVAGE WAR.
One circumstance, being of a very peculiar nature, I shall relate. During the morning of the 7th, while the excesses, of which I have given but a faint idea, were at their height, Huddleston came running to me and requested that I would accompany him to a house whence he had just fled. The owner was an old acquaintance of all the officers of the 28th Regiment, when a few months previously we were quartered at Albuquerque, where he lived at the time. Huddleston conducted me to the bedroom of this man’s wife. When we entered, a woman who lay upon a bed uttered a wild cry, which might be considered as caused either by hope or despair. Here were two British soldiers stretched on the floor, and so intoxicated that when Huddleston and I drew them out of the room by the heels they appeared insensible of the motion. The master of the house sat in a corner of the room in seeming apathy; upon recognising me he exclaimed, with a vacant stare, “And why this, Don Roberto?” Having somewhat recovered from his stupor, he told me that the woman on the bed was his wife, who was in momentary expectation of her accouchement. In my life I never saw horror and despair so strongly depicted as upon the countenances of this unfortunate couple. Several soldiers came in while we remained; and our only hope of saving the unfortunate lady’s life was by apparently joining in the plunder of the apartments, for any attempt at resistance would have been useless and would perhaps have brought on fatal consequences. I stood as a kind of warning sentry near the bedroom door, which was designedly left open; and whenever any of the men approached it, I pointed out the female, representing her as a person dying of a violent fever; and thus we succeeded in preserving her life. Huddleston and I then set to work most actively to break tables and chairs, which we strewed about the rooms and down the stairs. I remained for some hours, when I considered that all was safe; for although many marauding parties had entered, yet on perceiving the ruinous appearance of the house, and considering that it must have already been well visited, they went off immediately in search of better prey. We even scattered a shopful of stationery and books all over the apartments, and some of the articles we held in our hands as if plunder, for the purpose of deceiving the visitors. I recollect taking up some coloured prints of Paul and Virginia; these I afterwards presented as a trophy of war to an old friend, Mrs. Blakeney, of Abbert, Co. Galway, as the sole tangible remembrance of the storming of Badajoz. I frequently called at the house during the two following days and was happy to find that no further injuries were suffered. Huddleston’s servant and mine slept in the house. We ourselves retired to the camp as darkness approached, for to remain in Badajoz during the night would have been attended with certain danger, neither of our regiments being in the place. The sack continued for three days without intermission; each day I witnessed its horrid and abominable effects. But I shrink from further description.
SOLDIERS RETURN TO SANITY.