By some mistake, we were informed that two officers were to proceed from our regiment with the volunteers; accordingly Lieut. John O'Connell and myself offered our services, and marched off and formed with the rest of the volunteers of the division, in front of General Alten's quarters, which was about a league in rear of our encampment; but as more officers had proffered their services than the proper quota, I, amongst the rest, made a surplus, and Lieut. O'Connell, being my senior, remained. This officer had formed one of the storming party at Ciudad Rodrigo, and at Badajoz, where he was badly wounded, a ball having passed in at the top of his shoulder and came out at the elbow joint: he was ultimately killed on the sanguinary breach of St. Sebastian. Lieut.-Col. Hunt, of the 52nd, took the command of the volunteers of the division. Major W. Napier had also volunteered, but not being required on this occasion, both he and myself returned to camp.
On the following day, myself and three other officers obtained permission to proceed across the mountain to be spectators of the assault. The weather was extremely fine, and we enjoyed a tranquil ride over the mountains, many of which were entirely covered with oak trees, aromatic plants, fern, and evergreens. For more than two leagues there was scarcely a house to be seen. The day being far advanced before we left our camp, darkness overtook us, and, on making enquiries at a cottage, we were informed, by a peasant, that there was an encampment at a short distance, which we soon discovered to the right of the road, and found it to be the 85th light infantry, just arrived from England. We received a hearty welcome, besides aguardiénte y vino tinto, and then wrapping our cloaks around about us, we enjoyed a few hours repose in Major Ferguson's tent.
At daybreak we went on our way through an open, hilly, and sandy country, towards St. Sebastian, and in a few hours took post in the trenches cut through the sand banks, on the right bank of the river Urumea, and within six hundred yards of the town, which stands near the river, or rather on a small peninsula, between two arms of the sea. The place consisted of twenty streets, besides churches, convents, and monasteries; and is enclosed on three sides by ramparts, bastions, and half-moons. The castle is built on the top of a bare rock, and overlooking the sea; the entrance of the harbour, on the west side, is between two moles, and is capable of containing a few small vessels.
During our stay in the trenches, just below a mortar battery, the enemy hardly fired a shot from the fortress, in the walls of which were two breaches eighty yards asunder. The principal and wide-mouthed breach had crumbled into a vast mound of sand, rubbish, and broken masonry. A breach is indeed an awful mound of dilapidation to look on, or rather a heap of disagreeable rubbish, particles of which sparkle brightly in the sun beams, while the whole seems to the amateur easy of ascent, but the wary veteran knows it to be a deceitful slope, re-entrenched from behind, and most probably cut off from all communication with the interior of the town. Well may it be called "the deadly breach:" all fighting is bad enough, but when the valiant soldier sees insurmountable obstacles before him, and finds all his efforts unavailing, and death jostling him on every side, his foot, perhaps, planted on the body of an expiring comrade, whose bleeding mouth is filled with dust, and whose trampled uniform at last becomes identified with the rubbish, and the human form no longer distinguishable; and every instant the heap of the slain accumulating, without any possibility of carrying the place,—then, indeed, comes the "tug of war;" for, as a distinguished officer very justly observed, "A breach may be made the strongest part of a fortification, since every combustible, and power of defence, are brought to a known focus."
Having remained in the trenches a considerable time, we made for the small town of Renteria, where we put up, with two convalescent officers of our own corps, until the next day.
On the 31st the morning broke hazy. Meanwhile before starting for St. Sebastian, we were introduced to Lieutenant Folliet, a young officer of our regiment, who had just come from England for the first time; he expressed much regret at not being able to witness the assault, as he very properly considered it incorrect to leave his detachment, which was ordered to march that morning for Bera. This circumstance I mention, owing to the premature death of this officer.
At half-past ten o'clock, a. m., we took post within cannon range of the ramparts of St. Sebastian, immediately overlooking the river Urumea. The troops of the fifth division were already formed in the trenches cut across the isthmus, within a short distance of the body of the place, ready to move forward as soon as the tide should be sufficiently low to admit of a passage. It was so well known that the assault was to take place, that numerous inhabitants had flocked from the adjacent towns and villages, dressed in their holiday attire, and were already seated on the hill which commanded a panoramic view of the town. Many of the women were clothed in dresses of English calico, and in fact composed a motley group and mixture in dress and appearance, such as I had never before seen in Spain. Two pretty Spanish girls were seated on the slope of the hill, and offered us some of their sugar drops, whereupon we thought we might as well place ourselves beside them as elsewhere. A few minutes before the troops moved to the assault, all within the town seemed tranquil; no noise issued from its walls, nor was a single French soldier visible on the ramparts.
Soon after eleven o'clock, the "forlorn hope," headed by Lieut. Mac Guire of the 4th regiment, sprang out of the trenches, followed by the storming party, and a brigade of the fifth division;[1] but, owing to the difficulty of extricating themselves from the trenches, and to their extreme ardour, they ran towards the great breach, discharging their fire arms to the left, to keep down the musketry of the enemy, who galled them by a terrible flanking fire from a bastion which projected nearly parallel, and enfiladed their left flank while moving towards the breach.
Lieut. Mac Guire wore a cocked-hat, with a long white feather, to make himself conspicuous. He was a remarkably handsome young man, active of limb, well-made, and possessing a robust frame. He ran forward, amid projectiles and a shower of bullets, with such speed that only two soldiers could manage to keep within five or six yards behind him; and he actually jumped over the broken masonry, at the foot of the breach, before he fell. In a moment afterwards he was hid from our view by the column bounding over his body,[2] to climb the breach. They had no sooner gained the crest of the breach, than they found the enemy strongly entrenched at each flank of the terre-plein of the rampart and the interior slope, composed of a scarped wall, nearly thirty feet deep, so that the brave soldiers who mounted the breach fell a sacrifice to their valour, by an overwhelming cross-fire.