On the isthmus the trenches were wide and good, the sap was pushed to the demi-bastion of the horn-work, and the sea-wall, supporting the high road into the town, which had cramped the formation of the columns in the first assault, was broken through, giving access to the strand and shortening the way to the breaches.
In this state a false attack was ordered in the night to make the enemy spring his mines, a desperate service, executed by Lieutenant Macadam. The order was sudden, no volunteers were demanded, no rewards offered, no means of excitement resorted to; yet such is the inherent bravery of British soldiers, that seventeen men of the Royals, the nearest at hand, immediately leaped forth ready and willing to encounter what seemed certain death. With a rapid pace, all the breaching batteries playing hotly at the time, they reached the foot of the breach unperceived and rushed up in extended order shouting and firing, but the French musketry laid the whole party low with exception of their commander.
On the 30th, the sea flank of the place being opened from the half-bastion of St. John to the most distant of the old breaches, five hundred feet, the Chofre batteries were turned against the castle and defences of Monte Orgullo, while the advanced battery on the isthmus demolished, in conjunction with the fire from the Chofres, the face of St. John and the end of the high curtain above it. The whole of that quarter was now in ruins, for the San Bartolomeo batteries had broken the demi-bastion of the horn-work and cut away the palisades. Then Wellington, again coming to the siege, resolved to make a lodgement on the breach, and ordered an assault for the next day at eleven o’clock, when the ebb of tide would leave full space between the horn-work and the water.
The galleries on the isthmus had now been pushed close up to the sea wall, and three mines were formed, with the double object of opening an easy way for the troops to reach the strand, and rendering useless any subterranean defensive works of the enemy. At two o’clock in the morning they were sprung and opened three wide passages, which were immediately connected, and a traverse, six feet high, was run across the mouth of the main trench on the left, to screen the opening from the grape-shot of the castle. Everything was then ready for the assault, but ere that terrible event is told the French state of defence must be made known.
General Graham had been before the place fifty-two days, during thirty of which the attack was suspended. All that time the garrison had laboured incessantly, and though the heavy fire of the besiegers since the 26th appeared to have ruined the defences of the enormous breach in the sea flank, it was not so. A perpendicular fall behind of more than twenty feet barred progress, and beyond that, amongst the ruins of the burned houses, was a strong counter wall fifteen feet high, loopholed for musketry and extending in a parallel direction with the breaches, which were also cut off from the sound part of the rampart by traverses at the extremities. The only really practicable road into the town was by the narrow end of the high curtain above the half bastion of St. John.
In front of the loopholed wall, about the middle of the great breach, stood the tower of Los Hornos, still capable of some defence, and beneath it a mine was charged with twelve hundred weight of powder. The streets were all trenched and furnished with traverses to cover a retreat to Monte Orgullo; and before the main breach could be even reached a lodgement was to be effected in the horn-work; or, as in the former assault, the advance made under a flanking fire of musketry for two hundred yards, the first step being close to the sea wall at a salient angle, where two mines charged with eight hundred pounds of powder were prepared to overwhelm the advancing columns. To support this system of retrenchments and mines there was still one sixteen-pounder at St. Elmo, flanking the left of the breaches on the river face; a twelve and an eight-pounder in the casemates of the cavalier, to sweep the land face of St. John; many guns from the Monte Orgullo, also especially those at the Mirador, could play on the advancing columns, and there was a four-pounder hidden on the horn-work to open during the assault. Neither the resolution of the governor nor the courage of the garrison was abated, but the overwhelming fire had reduced the fighting men, and Rey, who had only two hundred and fifty in reserve, demanded of Soult whether his brave garrison should be exposed to another assault. “The army would endeavour to succour him,” was the reply, and he abided his fate.
This assault, before the defences were ruined, was obviously a repetition of the former fatal error; and the same generals who had before publicly disapproved of the operations now more freely dealt out censures, which, not ill-founded, were most ill-timed, because doubts descend from the commanders to the soldiers. Lord Wellington thought the fifth division had been thus discouraged, and incensed at the cause, demanded fifty volunteers from each of the fifteen regiments composing the first, fourth, and light divisions, “men who could show other troops how to mount a breach.” That was the phrase employed, and seven hundred and fifty gallant soldiers instantly marched to San Sebastian in answer to the appeal. Colonel Cooke and Major Robertson led the Guards and Germans of the first division; Major Rose commanded the men of the fourth division; Colonel Hunt, an officer who had already won his promotion at former assaults, led the fierce rugged veterans of the light division, yet there were good officers and brave soldiers in the fifth division.
At first a simple lodgement on the great breach was designed, and the volunteers and one brigade of the fifth division only were to be employed; but in a council held at night, the engineer Smith maintained that the orders were misunderstood, as no lodgement could be formed unless the high curtain was gained; General Oswald was of the same opinion; wherefore the remainder of the fifth division was brought to the trenches, and General Bradford, having offered the services of his Portuguese brigade, had a discretion to ford the Urumea from the Chofres and assail the farthest breach.
General Leith, commanding the fifth division, directed the attack from the isthmus, and being offended at the arrival of the volunteers would not suffer them to lead the assault; some he spread along the trenches to keep down the fire of the horn-work, the remainder he kept in reserve with Hay’s British and Sprye’s Portuguese brigades. Robinson’s brigade was to assault in two columns, one at the old breach between the towers, the other at St. John and the end of the high curtain. The small breach was left for Bradford, and some large boats filled with troops were to menace the back of Monte Orgullo from the ocean: Graham overlooked all the operations from the Chofres.