Thirty hours this tempest lasted, and sixty-four men out of one hundred and forty had fallen, when Graham, finding a diversion he had projected impracticable, sent boats to carry off the survivors. With these boats went Major Lefebre, an engineer of great promise, but to fall there, the last man whose blood wetted the ruins thus abandoned: and here be recorded an action of which it is difficult to say whether it were most feminine or heroic. A sergeant’s wife, named Retson, was in a casemate with wounded men, when a young drummer was ordered to fetch water from the well of the fort; seeing the child hesitate, she snatched the vessel from him, braved the terrible cannonade, and when a shot cut the bucket-cord from her hand, recovered it and fulfilled her mission.
Battle of Barosa. (March, 1811.)
After Matagorda was abandoned, the Spaniards in Cadiz became so apathetic that General Graham bitterly said of them “They wished the English would drive away the French, that they might eat strawberries at Chiclana.” However, in December, Soult was ordered to co-operate with Massena, and when his departure was known in January, 1811, Victor’s force being then weak, Graham undertook, in concert with La Peña, captain-general at the Isla, to raise the blockade by a maritime expedition. Contrary winds baffled this project, and in February Victor was reinforced; nevertheless ten thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry were again embarked, being to land at Tarifa, march upon Chiclana, and take the French lines in reverse. Meanwhile General Zayas, who remained with the Spanish forces left in the Isla, was to cast a bridge near the sea-mouth of the Santi Petri, a ship-canal joining the harbour to the sea and cutting off the Isla from the continent; Ballesteros was to menace Seville; the Partidas were to keep Sebastiani in check, and insurrections were expected in all quarters.
The British troops, passing their port in a gale the 22nd, landed at Algesiras and marched to Tarifa, being there joined by the garrison. Somewhat more than four thousand men, including two companies of the 20th Portuguese, and one hundred and eighty German hussars, were thus assembled under Graham, good and hardy troops, and himself a daring old man of a ready temper for battle. La Peña arrived the 27th with the Spanish contingent, and Graham, to preserve unanimity, ceded the command, although contrary to his instructions. Next day the whole moved forward twelve miles, passing some ridges, which, descending from the Ronda to the sea, separate the plains of San Roque from those of Medina and Chiclana. The troops were then reorganized. General Lardizabal had the vanguard, the Prince of Anglona the centre; the reserve, of two Spanish regiments and the British troops, was confided to Graham, and the cavalry of both nations was given to Colonel Whittingham, an English officer in the Spanish service.
At this time a French covering division, under General Cassagne, was at Medina, with outposts at Vejer de la Frontera and Casa Vieja. La Peña stormed the last the 2nd of March, and then General Beguines, coming from San Roque, augmented his force to twelve thousand infantry, eight hundred horsemen, and twenty-four guns. The 3rd, hearing Medina was intrenched, he turned towards the coast and drove the French from Vejer de la Frontera. In the night of the 4th he continued his movement, and on the morning of the 5th, after a skirmish, in which his advanced guard of cavalry was routed by a French squadron, he reached the Cerro de Puerco, called by the English the heights of Barosa, four miles from the sea-mouth of the Santi Petri.
This Barosa ridge, creeping in from the coast for a mile and a half, overlooked a broken plain, which was bounded on the left by the coast cliffs, on the right by the forest of Chiclana, in front by a pine-wood, beyond which rose a long narrow height called the Bermeja, to be reached by moving through the pine-wood, or by the beach under the cliffs. Graham, foreseeing Victor would come out of his lines to fight, had previously obtained La Peña’s promise to make short marches, and not approach the enemy except in a mass. In violation of this promise the march from Casa Vieja had been one of fifteen hours on bad roads, and the night march to Barosa was still more fatiguing. The troops therefore straggled, and before all had arrived, La Peña, as if in contempt of his colleague, neither disclosing his own plans nor communicating by signal or otherwise with Zayas, sent Lardizabal straight to the mouth of the Santi Petri. Zayas had there cast his bridge on the 2nd, but he was surprised in the night and driven into the Isla; Lardizabal had therefore to win his way with a sharp fight, in which three hundred Spaniards fell, yet he forced the French posts and effected a junction.
La Peña directed Graham to follow the vanguard, but the latter desired to hold Barosa, arguing justly that Victor could not attack Lardizabal and Zayas, as no general would lend his flank to an enemy by assailing the Bermeja while Barosa was occupied: Lascy, chief of the Spanish staff, controverted this, and La Peña peremptorily commanded Graham to march. With great temper he obeyed this discourteous order, leaving only the flank companies of the 9th and 82nd regiments under Major Brown to guard his baggage. He moved however in the persuasion that La Peña would remain at Barosa with Anglona’s division and the cavalry, because a Spanish column was still behind near Medina: yet scarcely had he entered the pine-wood when La Peña carried off the corps of battle and the cavalry by the sea-road to Santi Petri, leaving Barosa crowded with baggage and protected only by a rear-guard of four guns and five battalions.
During these events Victor kept close in the forest of Chiclana, the patrols could find no enemy, and Graham’s march of only two miles seemed safe—but the French marshal was keenly watching the movement. He had recalled Cassagne from Medina when La Peña first reached Barosa and hourly expected his arrival; yet he felt so sure of success, as to direct most of his cavalry, then at Medina and Arcos, upon Vejer and other points to cut off the fugitives after the battle. He had in hand fourteen pieces of artillery and nine thousand excellent soldiers, commanded by Laval, Ruffin, and Villatte. From this force he drafted three grenadier battalions as reserves, two of which and three squadrons of cavalry he attached to Ruffin, the other to Laval. Villatte with two thousand five hundred men, originally on the Bermeja, now covered the works of the camp against Zayas and Lardizabal; but Cassagne was still distant when Victor, seeing Graham in the pine-wood, Zayas and Lardizabal on the Bermeja, a third body and the baggage on the Barosa height, a fourth in movement by the coast, a fifth still on the march from Vejer, poured at once into the plain and began the battle. Laval confronted the British force, while Victor, leading Ruffin’s men in person, ascended the rear of the Barosa height, and having thus intercepted the Spanish column on the Medina road, drove the rear-guard off the hill towards the sea, dispersed the baggage and followers, and took three Spanish guns.
Major Brown, who had kept his troops in good order, being unable to stem the torrent, slowly retired into the plain and sent for orders to Graham, who was then near Bermeja. Fight! was the laconic answer, and facing about himself he regained the open plain, expecting to find La Peña and the cavalry on the Barosa hill. But when the view opened, he beheld Ruffin’s brigade, flanked by the two grenadier battalions, near the summit on the one side, the Spanish rear-guard and the baggage flying towards the sea on the other, the French cavalry following the fugitives in good order, Laval close upon his own left flank, and La Peña nowhere!
In this desperate situation, feeling that a retreat upon Bermeja would bring the enemy pell-mell with the allies on to that narrow ridge and be disastrous, he resolved to make a counter-attack, although the key of the battle-field was already in the enemy’s possession. Ten guns under Major Duncan instantly opened a terrific fire against Laval’s column, and Colonel Andrew Barnard[16] running vehemently out with his riflemen and some Portuguese companies, commenced the fight; the rest of the troops, without attention to regiments or brigades, so sudden was the affair, formed two masses, with one of which General Dilkes marched against Ruffin while Colonel Wheatley led the other against Laval. Duncan’s guns ravaged the French ranks, Laval’s artillery replied vigorously, Ruffin’s batteries took Wheatley’s column in flank, and the infantry on both sides closed eagerly and with a pealing musketry; but soon a fierce, rapid and prolonged charge of the 87th Regiment overthrew the first line of the French, and though the latter fought roughly, they were dashed so violently upon the second line that both were broken by the shock and went off, their retreat being covered by the reserve battalion of grenadiers.