The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

A heavy fire from the French guns was showered on the advancing columns, while the British batteries, under Captain Douglass, replied by a furious cannonade. Wallace’s brigade—the 45th, 74th, and 88th—formed the first line, and moved forward in open column. The face of the height was covered with tirailleurs, who kept up an incessant fusilade, while grape and canister ploughed the ground, occasioning a heavy loss, and more particularly to the centre. They suffered, but they could not be checked; not waiting to deploy, the companies brought forward their right shoulders in a run, forming line from open column without halting, while the wings of the brigade, having moved up the hill with less impediments than the centre, were more advanced, and the line thus assumed rather the figure of a crescent. All the mounted officers, regardless of a withering fusilade, were riding in front of the battalions, and the men following with their muskets at the rest.

At last they reached the brow. Foy’s division, beating the pas de charge, advanced, and threw in a murderous volley. Half the British front rank went down. Staggered by that deadly fire, the brigade recoiled a step or two, but, instantly recovering, the rear rank filled the places of the fallen. On it went with imposing steadiness, regardless of the irregular fusilade, for the French continued to pour in their fire with more rapidity than effect.

Foy’s division, alarmed by this movement, became unsteady. The daring advance of an enemy, whom the concentrated fire of five thousand muskets could not arrest, was indeed astounding. All that brave men could do was done by the French officers. They strove to confirm the courage of their troops, and persuade them to withstand an assault that threatened their wavering ranks. The colonel of the 22nd légère, seizing a musket from a grenadier, rushed forward, and mortally wounded Major Murphy of the 88th. Speedily his death was avenged; a Ranger shot the Frenchman through the head, who tossing his arms wildly up, fell forward and expired. The brigade betrayed impatience; the 88th, excited to madness by the fall of a favourite officer, who passed dead along the front, as his charger galloped off with his rider’s foot sticking in the stirrup, could scarcely be kept back.

Pakenham marked the feeling, and ordered Wallace “to let them loose.” The word was given, down came the bayonets to the charge, the pace quickened, a wild cheer, mingled with the Irish slogan, rent the skies, and unable to stand the shock, the French gave ground. The Rangers, and the supporting regiments, broke the dense mass of infantry, bayoneting all whom they could overtake, until, run to a regular standstill, they halted to recover breath and stayed the slaughter.

Nor were the operations of the fifth division less marked and brilliant. For an hour they had been exposed to a heavy cannonade, sheltering occasionally on the ground from the shot and shells, which fell in showers upon the height they occupied, and ricochetted through their ranks. At last the order to advance was given. They moved in two lines, the first entirely British, the second composed of the Portuguese infantry of General Spry. Bradford’s brigade, having united itself for the attack, formed on the right of the fifth.

In mounting the height where the French division was posted, the assailing columns were annoyed by a sharp discharge of artillery, and the fire of a swarm of sharpshooters, who in extended order occupied the face of the hill. The British light infantry pushed on to clear the line of march, and, if practicable, make a dash at the enemy’s artillery. The tirailleurs were speedily driven back, the cannon removed from the crest of the height to the rear, and unimpeded, the division moved up the hill with a perfect regularity in its formation, and the imposing steadiness of men who marched to victory. In the front of the centre of that beautiful line rode General Leith, directing its movements, and regulating its advance.

The enemy were preparing for the struggle. He retired his columns from the ridge, and formed continuous squares, fifty paces from the crest of the heights, which the assailants must crown previous to attacking. The artillery from the French rear cannonaded the advancing columns, but nothing could check the progressive movement of the British. The men marched with the same orderly steadiness as at first; no advance in line at a review was ever more correctly executed; the dressing was admirable; and spaces were no sooner formed by casualties than closed up with the most perfect regularity, and without the slightest deviation from the order of march.

When General Leith reached the summit of the hill, the enemy were observed formed in supporting squares, with their front rank kneeling. Their formation was complete, their fire reserved, and till the drum rolled, not a musket was discharged. Nearly at the same moment, the French squares and the British delivered their volleys. A dense smoke hid all for a time from view. A loud and sustained cheer pealed from the British ranks; no shout of defiance answered it; while, rushing forward, the British broke the squares, and pressing on with dauntless impetuosity, every attempt at opposition ceased, and what just now had appeared a disciplined body, almost too formidable to be assailed, became a disorganised mass, flying at headlong speed from the fury of its conquerors. To increase the confusion, a portion of Foy’s division crossed the déroute, and mingled with it, while the rush of advancing cavalry was heard, and that sound, so ominous to broken infantry, confirmed the panic.

Presently the heavy brigade—the 3rd and 4th dragoons, and 5th dragoon guards—galloped across the interval of ground, between the heights where the third division had made its flank attack, and the fifth its more direct one. Sweeping through a mob of half-armed fugitives, the brigade rode boldly at the three battalions of the French 66th, which had formed in six supporting lines to check the advance of the conquerors, and afford time for the broken divisions to have their organisation restored.

Heedless of its searching fire, the British dragoons penetrated and broke the columns; numbers of the French were sabred; while the remainder were driven back upon the third division and made prisoners. Still pressing on, another regiment, in close order, presented itself; this, too, was charged, broken, and cut down. Nothing arrested the victorious career until the ground became gradually obstructed with trees, embarrassing the movements of the cavalry, while it afforded a broken infantry ample time to rally, and engage horsemen at evident advantage.