4°. False attack. An escalade, to be attempted by Pack’s Portuguese at the opposite side of the town.
The right attack was conducted by Colonel O’Toole. Five hundred volunteers under Major Manners, with a forlorn hope under Lieut. Mackie, composed the storming party of the third division. Three hundred volunteers led by Major George Napier,[23] with a forlorn hope under Lieutenant Gurwood, composed the storming party of the light division.
The deserters, of which there were many, had told the governor the light division was come out of its turn, and it must be to storm, yet he took no heed, and all the troops reached their posts without seeming to attract attention; but before the signal was given, and while Wellington, who in person had pointed out the lesser breach to Major Napier, was still on the ground, the attack at the right commenced, and was instantly taken up along the whole line. The space between the trenches and the ditch was then suddenly covered with soldiers and ravaged by a tempest of grape from the ramparts; for though the storming parties in the centre jumped out of the parallel when the first shout arose, so rapid were the troops on their right, that before they could reach the ditch, Ridge, Dunkin, and Campbell, with the 5th, 77th, and 94th Regiments, had already scoured the fausse-braye, and pushed up the great breach amidst bursting shells, the whistling of grape and musketry, and the shrill cries of the French, who were driven fighting behind the inner retrenchments. There they rallied, and, aided by musketry from the houses, made hard battle for their post; none would go back on either side; yet the British could not get forward, and the bodies of men and officers, falling in heaps, choked up the passage, which from minute to minute was raked with grape, from two guns flanking the breach, at the distance of a few yards; yet striving and trampling alike upon dead and wounded these brave men maintained the combat.
Meanwhile the stormers of the light division, who had three hundred yards of ground to clear, would not wait for the hay-bags, and with extraordinary swiftness running to the crest of the glacis jumped down the scarp, a depth of eleven feet, and rushed up the fausse-braye under a smashing discharge of grape and musketry. The ditch was dark and intricate, and the forlorn hope inclined to the left while the stormers went straight to the breach, which was so narrow at top that a gun placed across nearly barred the opening; then the forlorn hope rejoined, and the whole rushed up, yet the head, forcibly contracted as the ascent narrowed, staggered under the fire. With the instinct of self-preservation the men snapped their muskets though they had not been allowed to load, and Napier, his arm shattered by a grape-shot, went down, but in falling called aloud to use the bayonet, while the unwounded officers instantly and simultaneously sprung to the front: the impulse of victory was thus given and with a furious shout the breach was carried. The supporting regiments, coming up abreast, then gained the rampart, the 52nd wheeled to the left, the 43rd to the right, and the place was won. During this contest, which lasted about ten minutes, the fighting at the great breach was unabated: but when the stormers and the 43rd poured along the rampart towards that quarter, the French wavered, three of their expense magazines exploded, and the third division with a mighty effort broke through the retrenchments: the garrison still fought awhile in the streets indeed, but finally fled to the castle, where the governor surrendered.
Now plunging into the town from all quarters, and throwing off all discipline, the troops committed frightful excesses; houses were soon in flames, the soldiers menaced their officers and shot each other, intoxication increased the tumult to absolute madness, and a fire being wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, the town would have been blown to atoms but for the energetic coolness of some officers and a few soldiers who still preserved their senses. To excuse these excesses it was said, “the soldiers were not to be controlled.” Colonel McLeod of the 43rd, a young man of a noble and energetic spirit, proved the contrary. He placed guards at the breach and constrained his men to keep their ranks for a long time, but as no organized efforts were made by higher authorities, and the example was not followed, the regiment dissolved by degrees in the general disorder.
Three hundred French fell, fifteen hundred were made prisoners, and immense stores of ammunition with a hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, including the battering-train of Marmont’s army, were captured. The loss of the allies was twelve hundred soldiers and ninety officers, of which six hundred and fifty men and sixty officers had been slain or hurt at the breaches. General Craufurd and General Mackinnon, the former a person of great ability, were killed, and with them died many gallant men; amongst others a captain of the 45th, of whom it has been felicitously said, that “three generals and seventy other officers had fallen, yet the soldiers fresh from the strife only talked of Hardyman.” General Vandeleur, commanding the light division after Craufurd fell, was badly wounded; so was Colonel Colborne, with a crowd of inferior rank; and unhappily the slaughter did not end with the storm; for as the prisoners and their escort were marching out by the breach, an accidental explosion killed numbers of both.
This siege lasted only twelve days, half the time originally calculated, yet from the inexperience of engineers and soldiers, and the extraordinarily heavy fire of the place, the works were rather slowly executed. The cold also impeded the labourers, yet with less severe frost the trenches would have been overflowed, because in open weather the water rises everywhere to within six inches of the surface. The greatest impediment was the badness of the cutting tools furnished from the storekeeper-general’s office in England; the profits of the contractor seemed to be the only thing respected: the engineers eagerly sought for French cutlery, because the English was useless!
Marmont heard of the siege the 15th and made great efforts to collect his forces at Salamanca. The 26th he heard of its fall and retired to Valladolid, thus harassing his men by winter marches. Had he remained between Salamanca and Rodrigo with strong advanced guards he would have recovered the place; for on the 28th the Agueda flooded two feet over the stone bridge, and carried away the allies’ trestle-bridge. The army was then on the left bank, the breaches not closed, and no resistance could be offered. The greatest captains are the very slaves of fortune.
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When Ciudad Rodrigo fell, Wellington’s eyes were turned towards Badajos. He desired to invest it again early in March, because the flooding of the rivers in Beira, from the periodical rains, would then render a French incursion into Portugal difficult, enable him to carry nearly all his forces to the siege, and impede the junction of Soult and Marmont in Estremadura. Many obstacles arose, some military, some political, some from the perverseness of coadjutors and the errors of subordinates; yet on the 5th of March the troops were well on their way towards the Tagus, and then the English general, who had remained on the Coa to the last moment that he might not awaken the enemy’s suspicions, gave up Rodrigo to Castaños and departed for Elvas.