History of the Peninsular War, Volume 6 (of 6)

by Robert Southey

Such a beginning, though successful, was not likely to give the troops confidence. And it was now found, ... which could not be understood by a ground-plan of the works, nor indeed be exactly ascertained till they were in possession of St. Miguel’s hill, ... that although this hill commanded from its narrow side that on which the enemy’s works were erected, it was itself commanded by the terrace of the castle. The breadth of St. Miguel’s is parallel to the length of the castle-hill, and consequently St. Miguel’s is outflanked by the castle-hill; and as the surrounding ground is so low as to be completely overlooked, and commanded by that hill, it was impossible to erect batteries on any spot except the narrow ridge, which was not only out-flanked by the opposite height, ♦Failure in assaulting the first line.♦ but commanded by it. Trenches however were now opened to secure a communication with the horn work, and afford cover for the men; batteries were erected; and in order to save the troops from unnecessary fatigue, Lord Wellington resolved to assault the outer line, on the night of the 22nd, without waiting to form a breach in it. A party of Portugueze were to advance from some houses in the suburb close to the wall, cut down the palisades, and take the line in flank and rear, while a British party were to advance under a ridge of ground, and escalade the wall in front. The houses afforded cover to the one party, the ridge to the other, until the moment of attack. But no serious attack was made; the Portugueze were checked by a fire from a guard-house on the line, and could not be induced to enter the ditch: the British planted their ladders, and the officers mounted, but very few men followed them. Major Lawrie of the 79th, who commanded this party, was killed. Captain Frazer Mackenzie was struck down by a blow on the head; he recovered himself, mounted a second time, and was shot through the knee. The enemy, whose attention was not diverted by any other attack, mounted the parapet, and fired down upon the assailants, who stood crowded in the ditch unable now to advance, and still unwilling to retire. Lord Wellington was watching the attack from the hill of St. Miguel, under a fire of musketry, grape-shot, and shells; and when he saw that the Portugueze did nothing, and that the party in front made no progress, he ordered the attempt to be relinquished, after the loss of about three hundred and thirty men. The wounded were brought in in the morning during an hour’s truce.

♦A second assault fails.♦

The original plan was now resumed of working up to the wall, and mining under it. The enemy placed two or three guns behind a projecting palisade, which was so close as perfectly to secure them, and from whence they did great execution. As there were neither sappers, miners, nor pioneers, the engineer officers were obliged not only to direct every operation, but to stand by and instruct the working parties; and while thus employed, Captain Williams was killed. It seemed miraculous that any of these valuable officers escaped. The enemy could not now but have discovered that the besiegers were miserably provided with artillery, and that they had no ammunition to spare; nevertheless they began to prepare their second line for an obstinate defence. On the evening of the 29th the miners hit upon the foundation of the wall, mined it, and charged the mine with twelve barrels of powder. At midnight it was sprung, and threw down the wall. Three hundred men were in readiness for storming: a serjeant and four men, the advance of a party of twenty who were to lead the way, mounted without opposition, for the enemy were panic-stricken: they remained some minutes on the top of the breach before the French, perceiving that they were not supported, took courage and drove them down. The officer in command of the first advance did not discover the breach, ... he returned into the parallel, reporting that the mine had failed, and the storming party, in consequence of this error, was withdrawn. After this, Lord Wellington determined to have no more night attacks.

♦A third by daylight proves successful. Oct. 4.♦

A supply of gunpowder having been obtained from Sir Home Popham’s squadron, a second mine was completed: the first breach was rendered practicable, and the explosion which made the second was the signal for assaulting both. Immediately before the explosion, and while in the act of communicating that all was ready, Lieutenant-Colonel Jones of the engineers was severely wounded, an officer whose Journals of the Sieges, and whose general Account of the War have been the most useful as well as the most trust-worthy of the printed authorities from which the present history has been composed. About an hundred feet of the wall were thrown down by the explosion: the storming party, instead of being composed of detachments from different regiments, consisted of the 24th regiment, supported by the working and covering parties in the trenches, a reserve of 500 men having also been formed in the parallel. This assault was made in the face of day. The officer who led the left party was at the foot of the old breach before the smoke had cleared away, and he was the first man on the top of it; and the dust had scarcely subsided before the troops had gained the summit of both breaches, and driven the enemy into their covered way, and behind their new palisades. During the night the besiegers established themselves in both breaches, and along the wall to the left of them, and began an approach towards the second line of works. But the rains now began to set in heavily; and on the following afternoon 300 of the garrison made a sortie from their covered way, gained possession of the first breach, and retained it long enough to ruin the lodgment and carry off the tools. They did not get possession of the second breach, nor of the parallel along the parapet: but the advantage which they had gained was sufficient to encourage them, and to lessen the confidence of the besiegers, who could not but perceive that they were struggling against all advantages of situation, and with means the most inadequate. The enemy could not depress their guns so as to bear upon the new works, but they kept up a constant fire of musketry upon them, and from time to time rolled large shells down the steep glacis, and these either carried away the gabion where the men were breaking ground in the night, or lodging against it and bursting, blew it to pieces. The rain was now so heavy that much time was daily expended in draining and keeping the communications up the steep banks and breaches practicable. The garrison meantime were never idle: they had now disabled two of the three 18-pounders; and making another sortie at two in the morning of the 8th, from the covered way with 400 men, they surprised the advanced covering party, drove the remainder from the parallel of the outer line, and once more levelled the work and ♦Major Cocks killed.♦ carried off the tools. Major Cocks was killed in a charge to regain it: he was shot through the body when ascending the breach, by a French infantry man close to him: the ball entered on the right side between the fourth and the fifth rib, passed through the great artery immediately above the heart, and so out at the left side, breaking the left arm. Major Cocks was a young officer of the highest promise. He was the eldest son of Lord Somers, and by the demise of his maternal grandfather, in possession of a large landed estate; but preferring the military profession to the peaceful enjoyment of good fortune, and to the pursuits whereto his station in society invited him, he devoted himself to the study of that profession with an ardour, of which an ordinary observer would not, from his mild manners and habitual composure, have supposed him capable. Entering early into the service, and leaving his regiment in England, he joined the army at Lisbon in the spring of 1809, for the purpose of acquiring the Portugueze and Spanish languages. He was in the south of Spain when the French attempted to surprise Cadiz, and he it was who gave Alburquerque the first information of their movements, by which timely advice that magnanimous Spaniard was enabled to prevent their design and throw himself into the place. He read much, and let no opportunity pass unimproved of perfecting by practice the knowledge which he acquired from books: and thus he had distinguished himself on so many occasions, that the promotion which his rank and fortune might have commanded was not more rapid than his conspicuous merit had deserved. When the dispatches relating the capture of the horn work on S. Michael’s reached home, his commission as Lieutenant-Colonel was immediately sent out; but before these dispatches arrived in Spain, his career was closed. On the day preceding his death he was field-officer of the trenches: the day was very wet, and he went round to every sentry to see that the orders were clearly understood, ... a duty generally left to the serjeant who posts them, and not often attended to by a subaltern having only a picket of twenty men; but Major Cocks never spared himself, and never left anything which depended upon him undone. The death of such a man (for such men are rare) was justly regarded in the army as a national loss. He was buried in the camp ground of his regiment near Bellema, Lord Wellington, Sir Stapleton Cotton, Generals Anson and Pack, with the whole of their staffs, attending his funeral, and the officers of the 79th (his own regiment) and of the 16th light dragoons.

After this second successful sortie, no further attempt was made to push the works between the outer and second line: a third breach was effected with the view of making a flank attack at the moment of assaulting the second line in front; but when it was made, it could not be stormed for want of musket ammunition. The enemy attempted to repair it during the night, but were several times driven in. A small supply of powder having now been received from Santander, the howitzers were put in battery; but the 24-pound shot were nearly expended, and for the 18-pounders the 16-pound shot fired by the enemy were collected and made to serve: when the embrazures were opened, the guns could not be run in on account of the weather, and one of the batteries was silenced in half an hour by the enemy’s fire. By the 18th, a sufficient opening had been made in an exposed part of the second line; and the church of St. Roman, which was near the second line, had been mined. The ♦The second line assaulted with ill success.♦ assault was made by daylight; the works were immediately carried with very little loss, and some of the German legion escaladed the third line; but they were few, and were presently driven back, for the course of the siege had taken confidence from the besiegers and given it to the besieged; and when the guards gained the parapet, the garrison rallied on the terre plein of the work, and assembled in force, then advanced, and drove the assailants back completely from the line. The mine under the church did little injury to it; but it so alarmed the enemy, that they exploded their own mines, which destroyed the greater part: the troops lodged themselves in the ruins, and a communication was carried to this point during the night. A convoy of heavy artillery and ammunition was now on its way from Santander, and the castle might then have been reduced in a few days, without further loss; but it was now too late, and after that failure all circumstances induced Lord Wellington to think only of retreat.

♦Movements of the French in the north.♦

On the day of that failure, the enemy were joined at Breviesca by the army of observation from Alava, and the remainder of the army of the north. This force considerably outnumbered that which Lord Wellington could bring against them, and in cavalry they were greatly superior. They made a show of coming on in front; and in consequence, the covering army moved up near Quintana-palla, and was joined by most of the besieging corps. On the 20th they advanced in force, drove in the pickets, and obtained possession of Quintana-palla; but Sir Edward Paget drove them back, and recovered the place, and they then desisted from their offensive movements. Intelligence which Lord Wellington had reason to expect arrived on the following day, that the united forces of the enemy in the south were in motion. Ballasteros, who had hitherto, if with little success and no great ♦Ballasteros refuses to act under the British commander.♦ skill, displayed the most indefatigable activity, had in a mood of sullen resentment at the appointment of Lord Wellington to the chief command, ceased to molest the enemy. He had hung upon the flanks of Soult’s army, and harassed it as far as Granada, with more effect than in any of his former enterprises, because the enemy were dispirited and on their retreat; but upon receiving instructions to obey Lord Wellington’s orders, he took no farther measures for annoying the French, refused to act in concert with Sir Rowland Hill, according to the plan which the British Commander had laid down, and remained obstinately inactive at the most critical time. At length he published a letter to the minister at war, saying, that from the time when the French treacherously seized the four fortresses, he had spared no efforts for raising the nation, and that no person had contributed more to the event of the second of May than himself, without which events, Spain would not have been in its present state. From that time he had never laid aside his arms, and had resisted all solicitations which the foreigners had made him to the prejudice of his country, ... inexorable in being a Spaniard and nothing but a Spaniard, and that his countrymen should be so, like him: this having been his principle, without any regard to his own fortune, he had always found the nation ready to support it in every sense. “And now he was surprised,” he said, “to see that the English General, Lord Wellington, was by a resolution of the Cortes appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish armies; those armies, thousands upon thousands of whose companions in arms were in the grave, having fallen in defending the reputation of their country, were observing what would be his conduct on this occasion; and he should not consider himself worthy of being an Aragonese, if he did not represent to the government, that he could not condescend to a determination which disparaged the Spanish name.” He spoke of the English as a nation to whom the Spaniards were bound by true friendship and fair dealing, but of whose fair promises and bad faith no one could give more information than the then president of the Regency, the Duque del Infantado. “Was Spain,” he asked, “like the petty kingdom of Portugal, that the command of its armies should be intrusted to a foreigner? Had its revolution begun like that of Portugal? Had it not still resources of its own? Had it not generals, officers, and soldiers, who still supported the honour which they had inherited from their forefathers; and who in the present war had made both English and French know that they were nothing inferior to them in discipline or in courage, and that they had chiefs of their own who knew how to lead them to victory? Finally, he required that the opinion of the soldiers and of the people should be taken upon this matter; if they condescended to the appointment, he should renounce his employments, and retire to his own house, thus manifesting, that he had only the honour and the welfare of his country in view, not any ambitious or interested end.”

♦He is exiled to Ceuta.♦

Ballasteros was a rude, intrepid, enterprising, and persevering soldier of fortune, handsome in person, strong in body, and of a hale constitution; very useful as a partizan at the head of 4000 or 5000 men, but incapable of conducting any extensive operations with a regular army. Before the appointment of Lord Wellington took place he was in no good humour with the Government, and the Government on its part as little pleased with him. With some better parts of the national character, he partook in no slight degree of its boastfulness, and entertaining a most exaggerated notion of his own merits, made no scruple of saying that Ballasteros had done more for Spain than all her other chiefs put together, and that in spite of the Government, Ballasteros, unassisted and discouraged, would continue to do more than the favourites of the Regency, whose pockets were filled with doubloons by the English. But though he had a large party among the lower orders in Cadiz, and some of his regiments were much attached to him, he overrated his own importance as greatly as his own deserts; he was unpopular in the provinces and disliked by his officers: and when the Government put him under arrest for thus defying its authority, marched him under an escort to Malaga, and sent him from thence to Ceuta as an exile, not a hand, and scarcely a voice was raised in his defence. Some seditious writings indeed were published in his favour at Cadiz, but they produced no effect. The loss of an active partizan was regretted, and the error of an honest, though obstinate and wrong-headed man; but the army and the nation concurred in condemning him, and in approving the promptitude and decision with which the Government had acted.