The enemy imputed the loss of the Picurina to the misconduct of its garrison; the captain of artillery had been wounded in the course of the day, and relieved by one who was thought not to have shown equal courage: no use had been made of the loaded shells and combustibles; but if the fort had been well defended, the governor thought the allies would have failed, as they did in their assault during the former siege. A singular stratagem was now practised by the commanding officer of the engineers, Colonel Lamarre, which, if accident had not frustrated it, would have cost the allies dear. Captain Ellicombe, going at dusk to adjust the lines of direction of the sap for the night, found those returns which were already begun, in a good line, clear of enfilade, but that which was marked by the white line and not yet commenced, fell in the direct enfilade of three guns: this he mentioned as a lucky discovery, and it was supposed to have been the effect of accident, the line it was thought having, at the time of laying it down, caught unobserved in the dark against some stone or bush. But it was afterwards ascertained that a soldier had been sent out from the place just as evening closed, to remove it, and bring it directly under fire.
It was against the lunette of S. Roque that these works were intended; could the enemy be driven thence, a dam which retained the waters of an inundation might be broken down, and the works might then be pushed much nearer to the place. More skill and more courage could not have been displayed than were manifested by the garrison, animated as they were by former success, and by the expectation of being speedily relieved. On the other hand, Lord Wellington was not without cause to apprehend that a second battle of Albuhera might be to be fought. On the 30th of March it was understood that Soult was advancing, and the 5th division was therefore withdrawn from before St. Christoval and marched to the front, some Portugueze cavalry being stationed to watch the town on that side. Two breaching batteries opened next day on the Trinidad bastion, but these produced no considerable effect, and the sappers had made little progress against ♦April 4.♦ S. Roque’s, when Marshal Soult advanced to Llerena. It was then intended to leave ten thousand men for guarding the trenches, and to give him battle with the remainder of the army: the covering army was about to fall back on Talavera la Real. But at noon on the 5th, Lord Wellington reconnoitred the trenches and thought they might immediately be assaulted: in the afternoon he determined to defer the assault till the following day, and meantime endeavour to break the curtain between the Trinidad counterguard and an unfinished ravelin. Fourteen guns opened upon ♦April 6.♦ this curtain at daylight; in two hours the walls were brought down, and by four so practicable a breach, as it appeared, was formed, that the assault was ordered for ten o’clock that night. The attack was to be at three points: that of the castle by escalade; those of the Trinidad and S. Maria bastions by storming the breaches. The castle was to be assailed by the 3rd division under Major-General Picton; La Trinidad by the 4th under Major-General Colville, and Santa Maria by the left under Lieutenant-Colonel Barnard. At the same time, S. Roque’s was to be assaulted by a party from the trenches, and the 5th division to alarm the enemy by threatening the Pardaleras and the works towards the Guadiana.
Meantime the French were indefatigable in preparing for defence. They imputed it as a gross fault to the British engineers that they had not destroyed the counterscarps, an operation which there was no time for performing, even if it had been possible to perform it without men more accustomed to such labours than any in the allied army: but because this had been impossible, the enemy were enabled to form at the foot of their counterscarps, and behind the breaches the most formidable obstructions which destructive ingenuity could devise. Night and day they were employed in clearing away the rubbish, destroying the ramps of the covered way, and making retrenchments behind the trenches. The fallen parapets were replaced with fascines, sandbags, and wool-packs; casks filled with tarred straw, powder, and loaded grenades, were arranged along the trenches, and large shells with them. Immediately in front of the breaches at the foot of the counterscarp, sixty fourteen-inch shells were placed in a circular form, about four yards apart, and covered with some four inches of earth, and a communication formed to them with powder hoses placed between tiles in the manner of mine-tubes. Chevaux-de-frise were formed of sabre blades; ... all the artillery stores were turned to account; even a large boat was lowered into the ditch and filled with soldiers to flank one of the breaches, where it was of great use.
An extraordinary circumstance, which might be called accidental, contributed greatly to the terrible effect of these formidable preparations. The Spaniards at some former time intending to have strengthened Badajoz, had commenced their improvements, as usual with them, upon a great scale, and, as usual also, left them unfinished. Thus they had so greatly widened the ditch as to include within it the covered way and part of the glacis of the original trace; designing to build a ravelin to this front, this old glacis and covered way in the space which was to be occupied by that work were not removed, and they remained in the ditch like an ill-shapen rock. The interior of this being the old counterscarp, the front of it, where it had been cut down to admit of building the new one, was very steep and difficult of ascent. The light and 4th divisions, at the hour appointed, entered the covered way without difficulty; bags of hay were then thrown down, and ladders placed down the counterscarp: they descended readily, and the ditch was presently filled with men. The 4th division, which was on the right, mistook these old works in the ditch for the breach, cheered each other up, and mounted with alacrity; but when they had reached the summit they found themselves there exposed to the fire of the whole front, with a difficult descent before them, the space between them and the foot of the breaches appearing like a deep ditch; there were in reality very deep excavations in many parts of it, sufficiently extensive to prevent an indiscriminate rush forwards: and water had been introduced along the counterscarp, by means of which all approach to the breach either in the face or curtain was precluded, except by passing over the seeming rock, between which and the foot of the breach the space was so restricted that a body of men could advance in only a very small front. The night was very dark, and this it was felt would render any confusion irremediable; but confusion presently arose, for the engineer who led the light division was killed before he got to the ditch, and being the only person who knew the way to the breach which they were to have assaulted, they were directed too much to the right, and got upon the same summit where the 4th stood hesitating and perplexed, and thus the confusion was increased, and both crowded towards the great breach, instead of taking each its own. They had only five or six ladders to descend by, which could take only four at once, and this close under the main force of the garrison, selected and placed there as at the post of danger, and most of them having three spare muskets, with people to load them in the rear as fast as they could be discharged. The assailants were so thickly crowded on the glacis and in the ditch, that it was not necessary to aim at them; but fire-balls were cast among them, which effected the double mischief of increasing their confusion, and rendering all their movements as distinctly visible as if it had been noon-day; the oldest soldiers declared that they had never before been exposed to so rapid and murderous a fire. Major-General Colville fell among the first, severely wounded in the thigh, ... the last sound which he heard before he fainted was the voice of Captain Nicholas of the engineers, exhorting his men in the ditch. That young and excellent officer, whose charge it was to lead the 4th division to the breach, after twice essaying to reach the top, fell wounded by a musket which grazed his knee-pan, a bayonet thrust in the great muscle of his right leg, his left arm broken, and his wrist wounded by musket-shot; ... yet, in that state, seeing his old friends and comrades, Colonel Macleod and Captain James, fall, and hearing the men ask who should lead them to the third onset, he rallied, and ordered two of his men to bear him up in their arms. Two brave fellows attempted this most perilous service; they had just reached the top when one of them was killed, and at the same moment, Nicholas received a musket-ball, which passed through the chest, breaking two of his ribs upon the way, upon which he fell from the top to the bottom of the breach mortally hurt, and receiving further injury from bruises in his fall.
Never were brave men exposed to slaughter under more frightful circumstances. The breach would not admit of more than fifteen abreast: the assailants repeatedly reached the summit, though the slope was covered with planks full of spikes. There they found the entrance closed with chevaux-de-frise which it was neither possible to break down nor to cut away, nor to get over. Many gashed their hands in attempting to pull them down at the muzzle of the enemy’s muskets, from which a new species of shot, which the soldiers called musket-grape, was poured in upon them in one continuous discharge; ... it consisted of slugs fastened together, and resembled grape-shot in miniature. Under this incessant fire, shells, hand-grenades, bags of powder, and every destructive form of missile or combustible that ingenuity could invent, were hurled into the ditch. Gunpowder, it is said, had never, since the hour of its discovery, been employed with more terrific and terrible effect. The explosions frequently created a light more vivid than broad day, which for a moment was succeeded by utter darkness, ... and then again the whole ground seemed to be vomiting fire under their feet and every where around them, while they had no possible means either of defending themselves or of retaliating. The officers led their men so close to the enemy’s guns, that they felt the wadding as well as the ball; when one fell another took his place; but as it had been impossible to recover from the first confusion, the men could not be moved like a machine in collective strength; individual efforts were all that could be made, and these, though made with devoted courage, were necessarily vain, the best and bravest putting themselves forward, and sacrificing themselves; till at length the troops, knowing it hopeless to make any farther effort, and yet too high spirited to retreat, stood patiently in the ditch to be slaughtered. It was not till more than two hours after the commencement of this carnage, that Lord Wellington, being made acquainted with their situation, ordered these two divisions to be withdrawn and to be formed a little before daylight for a fresh assault. He might well indeed conclude, that after the blood which had already been shed there, success was to be purchased at any cost; and certainly there would have been much more chance of success in the second attempt than in the first, when it might be made in good order, and when the enemy’s trains had been fired, and their combustible preparations expended.
This might probably have been his determination, if no advantage had been obtained in any other part; but immediately before he gave this order, he received intelligence, that the 3rd division was in possession of the castle. Major-General Kempt, who led this attack, was wounded in crossing the river Rivellas below the inundation, a fire having been opened upon them from the whole of the eastern works, as soon as they reached that stream. It was General Philippon’s intention, if the breaches should be forced, to retire into the castle, which had the strength of a citadel: with this and the tête-du-pont, and Fort Christoval, he might yet have held out some days, and give time thereby for those movements which he supposed would again be made for his relief. With this view he had strengthened and stored it; all its gates had been built up, and the ramparts were covered with large Spanish shells, stones, beams, and whatever could be thrown upon the heads of the assailants. By means of these preparations, a most obstinate resistance was opposed to the escalade, and for a considerable time all who attempted to rear the ladders were destroyed. At length an entrance was forced up one ladder at an embrasure; the defence immediately slackened, and other ladders were quickly reared, with that alacrity which the feeling of success inspires. An officer of the German Legion, Girsewald by name, who was remarkable for his bodily strength, was one of the first who mounted. A French soldier fired at and missed him, then made a thrust with the bayonet; Girsewald, with his left hand, parried the bayonet and seized it, and held it so firmly, that the exertions which the Frenchman made for recovering his weapon, assisted him in mounting, till he got high enough to aim a blow in his turn, with which he severed his antagonist’s head from his shoulders. A false report having been made to Philippon that one of the bastions had been entered by the assailants, the falsehood of that intelligence made him doubt and hesitate when he heard they were escalading the castle. Two companies which he intended to order thither, by some mistake either in giving or understanding the order, went to the breaches instead, where they were not wanted; and four others, which took the right direction, arrived too late: the castle had been taken; they were received by a heavy fire of musketry, and dispersed with loss. One of the last shots which were fired struck Girsewald on the knee; he would not let the limb be amputated, and therefore the wound proved fatal.
The 5th division were not less successful, though the party with the scaling ladders lost their way, and Lieutenant-General Leith could not, in consequence, move till it was after eleven o’clock. The bastion of S. Vicente which he attacked was fully prepared for defence, and the troops were discovered when on the glacis; yet they forced in by escalade. Major-General Walker then advanced along the ramparts to fall on the rear of the enemy who were defending the breaches; the troops, when driving the French before them, were opposed by a single field-piece placed on the terre-plein of the curtain; the gunner lighted a port fire as they approached: at the sudden blaze of light, one who was among the foremost in pursuit cried out “A mine!” That fearful word ran through the line of pursuers; the very men who had so bravely won the bastion, as if their nature had been suddenly changed, took panic, and in spite of their general’s efforts, who was severely wounded while endeavouring to rally them, were driven back by the bayonet to the place whereat they had entered: but by this time the reserve had formed there, the pursuers in their turn were checked, and the British marched immediately to the breaches, from which the defenders then dispersed, seeing that all was lost. This attack might have been spared if any signals had been agreed upon by which Picton’s success should have been made known; for want of such concertment, General Leith’s attack was made after the escalade had succeeded; he met with the same opposition as if the fate of the place had not been decided in another quarter, ♦Col. Jones’s Sieges, 303.♦ and thus Badajoz may be said to have been twice carried that night. Philippon with his staff retired into Fort Christoval, and surrendered in the morning.
The place was plundered during the remainder of the night and on the following day, nor could order be restored till the day afterwards. The doors were forced by firing through the locks, and most of the inhabitants had placed a table immediately in the entrance of their houses, with a candle and a bottle of brandy, supposing that this would content the soldiers: the consequence was that, excited as they already were, they became half mad with the fiery spirit. But whatever excesses they committed, their excitement took the form of good fellowship toward their defeated enemies; and they were seen walking about with the French soldiers, arm in arm, inviting them to drink, and taking every care of them. As soon as fresh troops could be brought up from the corps of observation, they were marched in, and order was then restored. 59 officers and 744 men were killed on the night of the assault; 258 officers wounded and 2600 men; the total number of killed and wounded during the siege was 5000. The garrison consisted of nearly 5000, of whom about 3500 were made prisoners.
♦Soult advances to relieve the place, ... and retreats.♦
On this occasion the French Marshals had been less alert than during the former siege, and they had not acted so well in concert. Marshal Soult left Seville on the 1st, with all the force he could collect. On the 4th he reached Llerena; and having arrived at Villa-Franca, two marches only from Badajoz, on the 8th, he there learned that the city had been taken on the night of the 6th. The inhabitants reported, that his chagrin at this intelligence was manifested in fits of intemperate anger, and that he broke nearly all the plates and dishes within his reach. Before daylight he commenced his retreat; the allied cavalry immediately followed his march, and on the 11th, attacked his rear guard (consisting of General Drouet’s cavalry, 2500 in number) at Usagre, and drove them to Llerena, killing many, and bringing away about 150 prisoners, and nearly as many horses. It was believed throughout this part of the country, that Ballasteros had entered Seville; and the people giving, with their characteristic credulity, implicit belief to the idle rumour, made rejoicings everywhere for the supposed success, and seemed wholly to disregard the recapture of Badajoz.