While detachments of the second line of the left centre of the Irish were marching to defend the pass at Urrachree, and thus leaving their late positions comparatively weak, four English regiments, commanded by Colonels Erie, Herbert, Creighton, and Brewer, effected the passage of the marsh, and were received by a volley from the men ensconced behind the lowest fence. Openings (as before mentioned) being ready, these marksman, as soon as they were dislodged, retired behind the next shelter, and repeated the process till they had drawn the British soldiers nearly half a mile up the hill.
Now their orders had been to wait till a much greater force had crossed at a wider portion of the morass lower down (that is, near Aughrim, the stream in the centre of the morass flowing in that direction), and effected a junction with them. So when they saw their cunning enemies, joined by the main central force, and these again backed by cavalry, all preparing to sweep down on them, they remembered too late the wise orders they had received. However, if the charging party were Irish wolf-hounds, the charged were English bull-dogs, and determined to make courage repair evil done by rashness. The gallant Colonel Erie cried out: "There is no way to come off but to be brave!" But neither the courage of the men nor the ability of the leaders could resist the downward charge of horse and foot, and the flanking bullets that rained on them. Colonels Erie and Herbert and some captains were taken prisoners and rescued, and recaptured, and we are sorry to record that Colonel Herbert was killed while prisoner, from apprehension of his rescue. The English did not or could not make use of the fences in their downward flight, as their pursuers had done when enticing them upward, but were driven, as it were, by press of men till the survivors once more gained the bog.
Meantime five regiments, for whose safe lodgment these rash men ought to have waited, had crossed the wider part of the morass lower down, under the command of the veteran Major-General Mackay and Prince George of Hesse. This fiery young warrior was ordered by his senior to keep his division stationary in a cornfield until he himself should have made a sufficient detour to the right among difficult ground and to attack the enemy in flank while Prince George was assailing them in front.
The same error as that just previously committed by the staid English colonels was repeated by the impetuous young German prince. Being fired at and probably jeered or mocked by the ditch holders he advanced to chastise them, and both parties came to such close quarters that the ends of their muskets nearly touched. Back went the Irish musketeers, after them pushed the assailants, new shelter taken, fresh shots fired, fresh dislodgments, no attention paid by Englander or foreigner till they found themselves surrounded and assailed front, flank, and rear, by the Irish. There was a skirmishing retreat made till the corn-field was reached by the survivors, some even whose care for self overpowered love of fame or fighting, never stayed till they had put the morass between themselves and the pestilent hedgemen.
General Mackay, having mastered the difficulties before him, was in hopes of having the Irish foe between himself and the holders of the cornfield, but was thunderstruck on his return at the demoralized condition of his rash friends. He sent to request aid from General Talmash, and the three parties renewed a desperate onslaught on the musketeers who occupied the fences. They were received with the same determined resolution and deadly fire as on the two former occasions, and were obliged by the close and uninterrupted musket volleys and flank charges of horse to fall back on the cornfield, the marsh, and even to the dry ground on the eastern side on a line with the English batteries.
Three times did the tide of battle flow and ebb across the bog on that memorable afternoon, each party inspired with the dogged determination and hate that a struggle for life and for a darling cause inspired. Even the Williamite chaplain was obliged in a manner to do justice to the bravery of the Irish enemy. Describing the beginning of the attack, he says:—
"The Irish in the meantime laid so close in their ditches that several were doubtful whether they had any men at that place or not, but they were convinced of it at last, for no sooner were the French and the rest got within twenty yards or less of the ditches, but the Irish fired most furiously upon them, which our men as bravely sustained, and pressed forward, though they could scarce see one another for smoak. And now the thing seemed so doubtful for some time that the by-standers would rather have given it on the Irish side, for they had driven our foot in the centre so far that they were got almost in a line with some of our great guns planted near the bog, which we had not the benefit of at that juncture, because of the mixture of our men and theirs."
During the continuance of this deadly strife in the centre, De Ginckel was directing the efforts of the foreign auxiliaries against the defenders of Urrachree. The general himself, regardless of his own safety, exposed his life on more than one occasion. He was re-enforced more than once from the left, but all that the greatest skill and energy on the part of himself and his generals, and bravery on the part of their men could effect, were insufficient to remove the Irish cavalry from their ground of vantage. Next to this mingled war of cavalry and infantry, and nearer the centre, the French infantry regiments of La Mellonière, Du Camben, and Belcassel struggled, like the fiery stout fellows they were, to drive the Irish infantry opposed to them from their ditches. They (the French) fortified their positions when any advantage was gained by chevaux de frise, but these were again and again taken and destroyed by their opponents. Scarcely did any portion of the mingled peoples suffer so much in the deadly struggle at Aughrim as these gallant Frenchmen. Had De Ginckel's cavalry, and these French infantry, succeeded in dislodging their opponents, they would then be in a position to take the Irish centre in flank, and bring the struggle to a speedy close, but this was not the mode in which it was the will of Providence to decide the day.
Where was St. Ruth employed during these momentous struggles? Just where he should have been, in front of his camp near the crest of the hill, watching the fluctuations of the battle, issuing orders, and sending aid wherever they were needed. Our chaplain says that he was so pleasurably excited by the charges of his central infantry to the very line of the British batteries that he flung his gold-laced hat into the air, extolling the bravery of the Irish infantry, and exclaiming that "he would now drive back the English to the gates of Dublin."