Ciudad Rodrigo stands in the middle of a plain some sixteen miles in circumference, surrounded by hills, which rise gradually, ridge behind ridge above each other on every side, far as the eye can reach. From those heights, at a distance of ten or twelve miles, the movement of the British army might be perceived; but the enemy seem at this time to have exercised no vigilance, and voluntary information was never given them by the Spaniards. The city is on a rising ground, on the right bank of the Agueda, which in that part of its course forms many little islets. The citadel standing on a high mount has been likened, for its situation, to Windsor Castle. The works were old, and in many respects faulty; and the suburbs, which are about three hundred yards from the town on the west, had no other defence, at the time of the former siege, than a bad earthen intrenchment hastily thrown up; but the French had made strong posts of three convents, one in the centre of the suburbs, and one on either flank; and they had converted another convent just beyond the glacis on the north-west angle of the place into an infantry post. Being thus supported, the works of the suburbs, bad as they were, were thought fully capable of resisting a ♦Colonel Jones’s Journal of the siege, pp. 82–3.♦ coup de main. The ground is every where flat and rocky except on the north, where there are two pieces of rising ground, one at the distance of six hundred yards from the works, being about thirteen feet higher than the ramparts, the other at less than a third of that distance, nearly on a level with them: the soil here is very stony, and in the winter season water rises at the depth of half a foot below the surface. The enemy had provided against an attack on this side, by erecting a redoubt upon the higher ground, which was supported by two guns, and a howitzer in battery on the fortified convent of S. Francisco at four hundred yards distance; and a large proportion of the artillery of the place was in battery to fire upon the approach from the hill.
On this side, however, it was deemed advisable to make the attack, because of the difficulty of cutting trenches in a rocky soil, and the fear of delay in winning the suburbs, ... the garrison being sure of relief if they could gain even but a little time. On this side, too, it was known, by Massena’s attack, that the walls might be breached at a distance from the glacis; whereas, on the east and south it was doubtful, because of a fall in the ground, whether this could be done without erecting batteries on the glacis: but here a small ravine at the foot of the glacis and its consequent steepness, would conceal the workmen during their operations for blowing in the counterscarp, a circumstance which had great ♦Colonel Jones’s Journal, 84.♦ weight in forming the plan of an attack, where not a single officer had ever seen such an operation performed.
Time was of such importance, and such preparations had been made before the army moved from its quarters, that ground was broken on the very night of the investment. At nine that night, a detachment under Lieutenant ♦A redoubt carried.♦ Colbourne of the 52nd attacked the redoubt on the upper teson or hill. Lieutenant Thomson (of the Royal engineers) preceded the detachment with a party of men carrying ladders, fascines, axes, &c.: he found the palisades to be within three feet of the counterscarp, and nearly of the same height: fascines were immediately laid from the one to the other, by which, as by a bridge, part of the storming party walked over. When they came to the escarpe, which was not revêted, the men scrambled up, some of them sticking their bayonets into the sods, and so entered the work; while another party went round to the gorge, where there was no ditch, and forced the gate. Only four of the garrison escaped into the town, and only three were killed; two officers and forty-three men were made prisoners; the loss of the assailants was six men killed, three officers and sixteen men wounded. A lodgment was then made on the hill near the redoubt, and with little loss, because the enemy directed their fire chiefly into the work; and a communication was opened to it.
The siege was carried on with extraordinary vigour; and Lord Wellington calculating upon intelligence which he received, that Marmont would advance to relieve the place even before the rapid plan of operations on which he had determined could be carried through, resolved to form a breach, if possible, from the first batteries, and storm the place with the counterscarp entire, if he could not wait until it should be blown up. The weather increased the difficulties of the undertaking: while the frost continued, men could not work through the night; and when it broke, they who were employed in the sap worked day and night up to their knees in water, under the declivity of a hill down which the rain had poured. Of 250 mules attached to the light division, fifty died in conveying ammunition to the breaches, ... destroyed by being overworked, and by want of needful rest and sufficient food. The garrison were encouraged, not only by the confident expectation of relief, (for they knew Marmont was strong enough to effect it, and could not suppose that, for want of foresight, he had disabled himself for attempting it in time,) but also by the failure of the allies at Badajoz, and the inferiority of our engineering department. They omitted no means of defence, and neglected no opportunity which presented itself. On the night, between the 13th and 14th, the convent of ♦Convent of Santa Cruz taken.♦ Santa Cruz, in which they kept a strong guard, was attacked and taken. From the steeple of the cathedral which commanded the plain, and where there was always an officer on the look-out, they noticed a careless custom, that when the division to be relieved saw the relieving division advancing, the guards and workmen were withdrawn from the trenches to meet it; sore weariness and pinching cold were present and pressing evils, which made them overlook the danger of leaving the works unguarded at such intervals. Profiting by this, some 500 men made a sortie at the right point of time, upset most of the gabions which during the preceding night had been placed in advance of the ♦January 14.♦ first parallel, penetrated some of them into the right of that parallel, and would have pushed into the batteries and spiked the guns, had it not been for the steady conduct of a few workmen, whom an officer of engineers collected into a body; on the approach of part of the first division, they retired into the town.
♦Captain Ross killed.♦
Captain Ross of the engineers, one of the directors, was killed by a chain shot from St. Francisco’s: he was brother to that excellent officer who afterward fell at Baltimore, and was himself a man of great professional promise, uniting with military talents, a suavity of manners, and a gentleness of disposition, especially to be prized in a profession where humanity is so greatly needed. His friend and comrade, Lieutenant Skelton, was killed at the same time, and buried with him, in the same grave, in a little retired valley, not far from the spot where they fell. Colonel (then Captain) Jones, (to whose history of the war, and more especially, to whose Journal of the Sieges this work is greatly indebted,) placed a small pedestal with an inscription to mark the grave, and with prudent as well as christian feeling, surmounted it with a cross. That humble monument has, because of its christian symbol, been respected; ... Spaniards have been seen kneeling there, and none pass it without uncovering their heads.
A howitzer placed in the garden of St. Francisco’s convent so as to enfilade one of the batteries, had caused many casualties and impeded the progress of the work. The convent also looked into the rear of the second parallel. Two guns which were opened upon this edifice on the 14th, at the same time that twenty-five were opened against the walls of the place, did not drive the enemy from their advantageous post; a party, therefore, of the 40th regiment was ordered to force into it at dusk, and as soon as they had escaladed ♦St. Francisco’s taken and the suburbs.♦ the outer wall, the French, leaving their artillery, retired into the town, not from the convent only, but from the suburbs, which were immediately occupied by the 40th.
The batteries had injured the wall so much on the second day, as to give hopes of speedily bringing it down. A fog compelled them to cease firing on the 16th; the engineers took advantage of the cover which the fog afforded them, and placed fifty gabions in prolongation of the second parallel. That parallel was pushed to its proper extent on the left in the course of the night, and the lower teson crowned by it. The sappers also broke out the head of the sap: but they could do nothing on the hill, and but little in the sap, because of their inexperience, and because the enemy’s artillery knocked over their gabions, nearly as fast as they could be ♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 102.♦ replaced. Yet, the assistance which the engineers derived from the men of the third division, who had been instructed in sapping during the summer, was invaluable, and enabled them to push the approaches three hundred yards nearer than at the attack of Badajoz, under a much heavier fire. An unusual length of time was nevertheless required for throwing up the batteries, owing to the small front of the work, against which the enemy directed an incessant fire of shell; they fired during the siege 11,000 shells and nearly 10,000 shot upon the approaches: their practice was remarkably accurate, and not one shot was fired at them in return. “It was not unfrequent to have three or four large shells in the course of an hour explode in the middle of the parapet of a battery, each having the effect of a small mine, and scattering the ♦Col. Jones’s Journal of Sieges, 103.♦ earth in every direction. In consequence of this dire destruction, the parapets were of necessity made of a great thickness.” But on the other hand, a confidence was felt both by the officers and men, which they had not partaken at either of the former sieges; the officers had sufficient means at their disposal, and the men seemed, to perceive that the operations were differently conducted. The artillery was excellent, as well as ample in quantity, and its effect was materially improved by a circumstance in which accident corrected an actual defect of science. There happened to be a considerable quantity of shot in the fortress at Almeida, and of all calibres; when there was such want of transport for bringing shot from the rear, it became of great importance to take as many of these as could be made serviceable: shot of a larger size than what are commonly employed were thus accidentally brought into use, and some 2000 or 3000 of what are termed very high shot were brought forward during the latter days of the ♦Sir H. Dickson, in Sir Howard Douglas’s Treatise on Naval Gunnery, p. 84.♦ siege. The consequence was, that because the windage was thus diminished, the firing became so singularly correct, that every shot seemed to tell on the same part of the wall as the preceding one; whereas, when shot of the ordinary size were fired at the same distance, some struck high and others low, although the pointing was carefully the same.
On the 17th, a breach had been made, and the guard in the second parallel kept up a continued fire through the night, to prevent the garrison from clearing it. At daylight following, a battery of seven twenty-four pounders opened upon an old tower; and next day when this tower had nearly been brought down, and the ♦Jan. 19.♦ main breach appeared practicable, Lord Wellington, after a close reconnoissance, resolved upon giving the assault at seven o’clock that evening. The enemy were perfectly prepared; they had constructed intrenchments on the ramparts near the breach, by means of cuts through the terre-plein, perpendicular to the parapet, with a breast-work in rear of them, to enfilade and rake the whole: so that if the assailants gained the summit of the breach, their alternative must be either to force the intrenchments, or get down a wall sixteen feet in depth, at the bottom of which impediments of every kind had been arrayed.
♦The place taken by assault.♦