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

by Robert Southey

During these eventful days the guns had been withdrawn from the batteries before St. Sebastian’s, and, with all the stores, embarked at Passages, and the transports had been sent to sea; but a blockade was kept up, and the guard continued to hold the trenches. The vigilant enemy made a sortie on the morning of the 27th, and carried off between 200 and 300 Portugueze and English from the trenches prisoners into the town. Want of foresight on the part of the besiegers allowed them this opportunity, for some of the guns of the left embrasures had, in apprehension of such an attempt, been arranged so as to take the enemy in flank; and those guns were withdrawn with the others. On the 3rd the French surprised a patrol in the parallel and made them prisoners: but Soult’s defeat was known ♦August 6.♦ now; the stores were re-landed at Passages, and Sir Thomas Graham waited only for the arrival of more artillery and ammunition from England to recommence the siege. The infantry meantime rested on its arms; and the cavalry, who longed to eat the green maize (which was prohibited), kept their horses in good exercise in looking for straw. The 17th was Buonaparte’s birth-day; three salutes were fired from the Castle of St. Sebastian’s on the eve preceding, as many at four in the morning, and again at noon; and at night the words “Vive Napoleon le Grand” were displayed in letters of light upon the castle: ... it was the last of his birth-days that was commemorated by any public celebration. The expected artillery arrived at Passages on the 18th. That little town had never in the days of its prosperity, when it was the port of the Caraccas Company, presented a scene so busy, nor while it lasted so gainful to the inhabitants and peasantry of the surrounding country. The market for the army was held here, which they supplied with necessaries, the produce of the land; and which at this time wanted nothing wherewith England could supply it, so frequent now and so easy was the intercourse. Here the reinforcements were landed, which, now that the British government had caught the spirit of its victorious general, were no longer limited by parsimonious impolicy. When the horses were to be landed they were lowered from the transports into the sea, and guided by a rope as they swam to shore; but this sudden transition from the extreme heat of the hold to the cold water proved fatal to several of them.

The garrison of St. Sebastian’s employed the time which the blockade afforded them so well, in strengthening their defences and adding new ones, that when the allies had to recommence the siege, the place was stronger than before. The plan now determined on was to lay open the two round towers on each end of the first breach, and connect it with the second breach, which was to the right, add to it another on the left, and demolish a demi-bastion to the left of the whole, by which the approach was flanked. A mortar battery was also erected for the purpose of annoying the castle across the bay. Sailors were employed in this, and never did men more thoroughly enjoy their occupation. They had double allowance of grog, as their work required; and at their own cost they had a fiddler; they who had worked their spell in the battery went to relieve their comrades in the dance, and at every shot which fell upon the castle they gave three cheers. Little effect was produced by this battery, because of its distance. Between it and the town is the island of St. Clara, high and rocky, about half a mile in circumference, which the French occupied; it was deemed expedient to dislodge them and take possession of it, because the season was approaching when ships might be obliged to leave the coast, and this spot facilitated the enemy’s communication with their own country. The only landing-place was under a flight of steps, commanded by a small intrenchment on the west point of the island, and exposed to the whole range of works on the west side of the rock and of the walls; the garrison, consisting of an officer and twenty-four men, were thus enabled to make such a resistance, that nineteen of the assailants were killed and wounded. The island however was taken, and the garrison made prisoners.

The actual siege recommenced on the 24th; and at the following midnight the enemy made a sortie, entered the advanced part of the trenches and carried confusion into the parallel; but when they attempted to sweep along its right, a part of the guard checked them, and they retired into the town, taking with them about twelve prisoners. The batteries opened on the morning of the 26th. On the night of the 27th another sortie was tried; but experience had made the besiegers more vigilant, and it was repulsed before the slightest mischief could be done. Nothing that skill and ingenuity could devise was omitted by the garrison; they repaired by night as far as possible the injury which had been done in the day; cleared away the rubbish; and at the points at which the batteries were directed, let down large solid beams to break the force of the shot. But in this branch of the art of war, the means of attack are hitherto more efficient than those of defence; and in the course of the 29th the enemy’s fire was nearly subdued. They lost many men by our spherical case shot; and they attempted to imitate what they had found so destructive, by filling common shells with small balls, and bursting them over the heads of the besiegers; but these were without effect. On the night of the 29th there was a false attack made with the hope of inducing the enemy to spring the mines, which it was not doubted that they had prepared; they fired most of their guns, but the end was not answered, for no mine was exploded.

♦Preparations for assaulting the town.♦

Men were now invited to volunteer for the assault, such men, it was said, “as knew how to show other troops the way to mount a breach.” When this was communicated to the 4th division, which was to furnish 400 men, the whole division moved forward. The column of attack was formed of the 2nd brigade of the 5th division, commanded by Major-General Robinson, with an immediate support of 150 volunteers from the light division, 400 from the first, and 200 from the 4th; and with the remainder of the 5th division in reserve, the whole under the direction of Sir James Leith. Sir James had been severely wounded in the battle of Salamanca, and his constitution still felt the effects of the Walcheren fever; but leaving England as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to discharge his duties, he arrived at S. Sebastian’s on the 29th, and resumed the command of his division in the trenches, Major-General Oswald, who had held it during his absence, resigning it and acting as a volunteer. As the breaches now appeared to be practicable, the assault was ordered for eleven o’clock on the forenoon of the 31st, being the time of low water; and to prepare debouches for the troops, three shafts were sunk at the advanced sap on the right, for the purpose of breaking through the sea wall, which was of masonry, four feet thick and ten feet above the high water mark; they were sunk eight feet below the surface, and each loaded with 540 pounds of powder.

♦Soult moves for its relief.♦

Marshal Soult, meantime, as soon as he knew that the siege had been recommenced, leaving one division in front of the British light division, and another in front of the 7th, moved the rest of his army to the camp at Urogne, with the obvious intention of making an attempt to relieve the place. Under that expectation all the troops of horse artillery were ordered to march, and the artillery not employed in the siege was sent to the front. The eve of the assault was therefore a time of more than usual anxiety; for if either the assault should fail, or Soult should succeed, the situation of the allies would be rendered critical. In the course of the day the wood and rubbish of the right breach took fire, and a mine near it exploded; and in the afternoon five small mines within the town were blown up by ♦Assault of S. Sebastian’s.♦ the falling of a shell. The evening closed in with a storm of thunder and lightning and heavy rain. Two hours after midnight the three mines were sprung, and completely effected the purpose of blowing down the sea wall; the etonnoirs were immediately connected; a good passage out for the troops was thus formed, and the farther object was attained of securing all the works in their rear from any galleries which the enemy might have run out in that direction. In the morning there was such a fog, and the smoke in consequence hung so, that nothing could be seen; but about nine o’clock a gentle sea-breeze began to clear the mist, and the sun soon shone forth. Sir Thomas Graham, having completed the arrangements with Sir James Leith, left him to command the assault, and crossed the Urumea to the batteries of the right attack, from whence all might be distinctly seen, and orders for the fire of the batteries immediately given, according to circumstances. Sir James held it as an article of his military belief that British troops could not fail in any thing which they undertook. He now took the opinion of the chief engineer, Sir Richard Fletcher, as to the spot from whence he could best overlook and direct the desperate service of the day; the place they fixed on was upon the beach, about thirty yards in advance of the debouche from the trenches; and there, without any cover or protection whatever, they both took their stand; for it was a maxim with him that however brave the troops, and however devoted the officers, the example of those in command was, beyond every thing, essential.

About eleven o’clock the advanced parties moved out of the trenches, and the enemy almost immediately exploded two mines, for the purpose of blowing down the wall to the left of the beach, along which the troops were advancing to the breach; the passage between the wall and the water was narrow, and they expected, by the fragments of masonry which would be thrown down, to obstruct the line of march. This intent failed; but about twenty men were crushed by the ruins of the wall. The garrison, as on the former assault, were perfectly prepared; and from the Mirador battery, and the battery del Principe, on the castle hill, they opened a fire of grape and shells upon the columns. The forlorn hope, consisting of an officer and thirty men, fell to a man; the front of the columns which followed were cut off, as by one shot; and the breach, when the assailants reached it, was presently covered with their bodies; many of those who were ascending it were thrown down by the bodies of those above them, the living, the wounded, and the dead, rolling together down the ruins. From the Mirador and Prince batteries, from the keep of the castle, from the high curtain to the left of the breach, and from some ruined houses in front, about forty yards distant, which were loop-holed and lined with infantry, a concentrated fire was kept up; a line of intrenchment had been carried along the nearest parallel walls; this was strongly occupied, and it entirely swept the summit of the breach; and, in addition to all this, the horn-work flanked and commanded the ascent. The tower of Amesquita, on the left of the breach, was the only available point of defence which had not been manned; overlooked it could not have been by such engineers as those who conducted the defence: undoubtedly they considered the means which they had provided to be more than sufficient, and that no courage, however desperate, could in the face of them carry a breach which, upon all rules of art, was actually impracticable. That every art of defence which science and experience could devise would be practised was expected; it was known, also, that the garrison were as little deficient in confidence as in numbers, and that they had stores in abundance; but if there had been even a suspicion that the ground at the point of attack was what it was now found to be, it is certain that the assault, under such circumstances, would never have been ordered.

Nothing, in fact, could have been more fallacious than the external appearance of the breach. Up to the end of the curtain it was as accessible, quite to the terre-plein, as it seemed to be; but there the enemy’s situation was commanding, and the ascent itself was exposed to the horn-work: but this was the only point where it was passable, and there only by single files. Except on this point, there was a perpendicular fall from fifteen to twenty-five feet in depth, along the back of the whole breach, extensive as it was. Houses had been built against the interior of the wall; these were now in ruins; and there was no way of descending, except here and there by an end wall which remained standing; but the very few who could by this means get into the streets were exposed to an incessant fire from the opposite houses. During the suspension of the siege, every possible preparation had been made by the enemy, with the advantage of knowing the point which would be attacked; so that they had a great number of men covered by intrenchments and traverses in the horn-work, on the ramparts of the curtain, and in the town itself opposite the breach. The most determined courage was displayed by the troops, who were brought forward in succession from the trenches to this place of slaughter. Military duty was never discharged with more entire devotion than it was at this time both by officers and men. No man outlived the attempt to gain the ridge. The slope of the breach afforded shelter from musketry; but the nature of the stone rubbish rendered it impossible for the working parties to form a lodgement there, notwithstanding their utmost exertions, and the troops were exposed to the shells and grape from the batteries of the castle; and on the way to the breach so severe and continuous a fire was kept up that Sir James Leith was obliged to send directions for removing the dead and the dying from the debouches, which were so choked up as to prevent the passage of the troops.

♦Sir James Leith wounded.♦