I saw General M'Kinnon lying dead on his back, just under the rampart, on the inside, that is, the town side. He was stripped of every thing except his shirt and blue pantaloons; even his boots were taken off. He was a tall thin man. There were no others dead near him, and he was not on the French side of the traverse either, nor was there any possibility of getting at the General without a ladder, or traversing a considerable distance along the ramparts to descend into the town, and then passing through several narrow lanes, ruined houses, and over broken stone walls being a distance of at least a quarter of a mile, and what no human being could have accomplished during the night. It is said that he was blown up. I should say not. There was no appearance indicating that such had been his fate. Neither the state of his skin nor the posture in which he was lying, led me to think it. When a man is blown up, his hands and face, I should think, could not escape. I never saw any whose face was not scorched. M'Kinnon's was pale, and free from the marks of fire. How strange, that with the exception of the General, I did not see a soldier of the third division who had been stripped! Neither was there any officer among the dead, or else they had been carried away. I should not wonder, (if it is not uncharitable,) that the General had been killed with all the others between the traverses, and that some tender-hearted, follower of the army had taken his clothes off, and then just given him a hand over the wall, and so placed him in the position described.
The two divisions attacked without knapsacks. The greater portion of the light division lay at the foot of the small breach in the ditch; hence it was that they fought on the slope, and rolled down in succession as they were killed; but, on gaining the ramparts (there being no interior defences) they followed the French right and left, who retreated, panic-struck, into the interior of the city, keeping up, however, a running fire from the different streets, or the massive stone buildings.
The third division, at the first onset, were fired on from the parapets of the ramparts, and assailed by missiles and live shells, which were rolled from the summit of the wall: but the enemy did not stand on the crest of the great breach to oppose their ascent; for, if they had, it would have been impossible to escape behind their traverses. The enemy had left a space for one man to pass at a time, on the left of the right traverse, but expecting the attack, they had previously blocked it up with barrels filled with earth, having placed others behind to stand on for the purpose of firing over them. Before the morning, all these barrels, except one, were thrown down the scarped wall. The fact is, that the third division mounted to the terre-plein with facility; but when on the rampart, they were fired on in front and both flanks, as before described, and in this small space, they suffered a tremendous loss of nearly five hundred heroic officers and soldiers. During the fighting, their dead and wounded were piled one on the top of the other, crying out in agony as they were trampled upon, and impeding the progress of others, who exerted themselves in vain amongst such havoc to carry the traverses.
The moment the wooden magazine blew up, all firing nearly ceased, for the enemy literally jumped over the right entrenchment on to the terre-plein of the great breach, to save themselves from the bayonets of the light division. A young Italian officer there seized Captain Hopkins, of the 43rd, round the neck, and implored his life.
At about eleven o'clock in the morning (of the 20th) the great explosion took place a few yards to the right of the small breach, blowing up the terre-plein of the rampart, four yards in breadth and ten in length. This fatal explosion (which was accidental, owing to some sparks of fire igniting some barrels of gunpowder in a casement,) happened while the French garrison were marching out of the city by the small breach, which had become so hard, owing to such numbers of soldiers walking up and down it, as to make the ascent nearly impracticable. The French, as well as the British soldiers, were carried up into the air, or jammed amongst the rubbish, some with heads, arms, or legs sticking out of the earth. I saw one of the unfortunate soldiers in a blanket, with his face, head, and body, as black as a coal, and cased in a black substance like a shell; his features were no longer distinguishable, and all the hair was singed from off his head, but still the unfortunate man was alive. How long he lived in this horrible situation I cannot say.
A tall athletic soldier of the 52d lay amongst the dead at the foot of the breach, on his back; his arms and legs being at their full extent. The top of his head, from the forehead to the back part of his skull, was split in twain, and the cavity of the head entirely emptied of the brains, as if a hand-grenade had exploded within, and expanded the skull, till it had forced it into a separation with the parts ragged like a saw, leaving a gaping aperture nine inches in length, and four in breadth. For a considerable time I looked on this horrible fracture, to define, if possible, by what missile or instrument so wonderful a wound could have been inflicted; but without being able to come to any conclusion as to the probable cause.
From this place I walked to the convent of Saint Francisco to see a wounded friend. The interior was crowded with wounded soldiers lying on the hard pavement. A soldier of the third division was sitting against a pillar, his head bent forward, and his chin resting on his breast, his eyes open, and an agreeable smile on his countenance. For half a minute I stopped with surprise to observe him sitting in so contented a posture, surrounded by the groans of his companions. At length, I addressed him, but, no answer being returned, I called a doctor, under the impression that the man was delirious. On the contrary, we found he was quite dead.