English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula. / Extracted from his 'Peninsula War'.

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Former failures there were to avenge on one side, and on both leaders who furnished no excuse for weakness in the hour of trial; the possession of Badajos was become a point of personal honour with the soldiers of each nation; but the desire for glory on the British part was dashed with a hatred of the citizens from an old grudge, and recent toil and hardship, with much spilling of blood, had made many incredibly savage: for these things, which render the noble-minded averse to cruelty, harden the vulgar spirit. Numbers also, like Cæsar’s centurion, who could not forget the plunder of Avaricum, were heated with the recollection of Rodrigo and thirsted for spoil. Thus every passion found a cause of excitement, while the wondrous power of discipline bound the whole together as with a band of iron, and in the pride of arms none doubted their might to bear down every obstacle that man could oppose to their fury.

At ten o’clock, the castle, the San Roque, the breaches, the Pardaleras, the distant bastion of San Vincente, and the bridge-head on the other side of the Guadiana, were to be simultaneously assailed. It was hoped the strength of the enemy would quickly shrivel within that fiery girdle, but many are the disappointments of war. An unforeseen accident delayed the attack of the fifth division, and a lighted carcass, thrown from the castle, falling close to the third division, exposed its columns and forced it to anticipate the signal by half an hour. Thus everything was suddenly disturbed, yet the double columns of the fourth and light divisions moved silently and swiftly against the breaches, and the guard of the trenches, rushing forward with a shout, encompassed the San Roque with fire and broke in so violently that scarcely any resistance was made.

Soon however a sudden blaze of light and the rattling of musketry indicated the commencement of a more vehement combat at the castle. There Kempt, for Picton, hurt by a fall in the camp and expecting no change in the hour, was not present; there Kempt, I say, led the third division. Passing the Rivillas in single files by a narrow bridge under a terrible musketry, he re-formed his men, and run up the rugged hill with great fury, but only to fall at the foot of the castle severely wounded. Being carried back to the trenches, he met Picton at the bridge hastening to take the command, and meanwhile the troops, spreading along the front, had reared their heavy ladders, some against the lofty castle some against the adjoining front on the left, and with incredible courage ascended amidst showers of heavy stones, logs of wood, and bursting shells rolled off the parapet, while from the flanks musketry was plied with fearful rapidity, and in front the leading assailants were with pike and bayonet stabbed and the ladders pushed from the walls: and all this was attended with deafening shouts, the crash of breaking ladders, and the shrieks of crushed soldiers answering to the sullen stroke of the falling weights.

Still swarming round the remaining ladders those undaunted veterans strove who should first climb, until all were overturned, when the French shouted victory, and the British, baffled, yet untamed, fell back a few paces to take shelter under the rugged edge of the hill. There the broken ranks were re-formed, and the heroic Colonel Ridge, again springing forward, called with stentorian voice on his men to follow, and seizing a ladder raised it against the castle to the right of the former attack, where the wall was lower and where an embrasure offered some facility: a second ladder was placed alongside by the grenadier officer Canch, and the next instant he and Ridge were on the rampart, the shouting troops pressed after them, and the garrison, amazed and in a manner surprised, were driven fighting through the double gate into the town: the castle was won. Soon a reinforcement from the French reserve came to the gate, through which both sides fired and the enemy retired; but Ridge fell, and no man died that night with more glory—yet many died, and there was much glory.

All this time the tumult at the breaches was such as if the earth had been rent asunder and its central fires bursting upwards uncontrolled. The two divisions reached the glacis, just as the firing at the castle had commenced, and the flash of a single musket, discharged from the covered way as a signal, showed them the French were ready: yet no stir followed, and darkness covered the breaches. Some hay-packs were then thrown, some ladders placed, and the forlorn hopes and storming parties of the light division, five hundred in all, descended into the ditch without opposition: but then a bright flame, shooting upwards, displayed all the terrors of the scene. The ramparts crowded with dark figures and glittering arms were on one side, on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, coming on like streams of burning lava: it was the touch of the magician’s wand, a crash of thunder followed, and the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder-barrels.

For an instant the light division soldiers stood on the brink of the ditch, amazed at the terrific sight, but then, with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion they flew down the ladders, or, disdaining their aid, leaped, reckless of the depth, into the gulf below; and nearly at the same moment, amidst a blaze of musketry that dazzled the eyes, the fourth division came running in to descend with a like fury. There were only five ladders for both columns, which were close together, and the deep cut made in the bottom of the ditch, as far as the counterguard of the Trinidad was filled with water from the inundation: into this miry snare the head of the fourth division fell, and it is said above a hundred of the fusileers, the men of Albuera, were there smothered. Those who followed, checked not, but, as if the disaster had been expected, turned to the left and thus came upon the face of the unfinished ravelin, which, rough and broken, was mistaken for the breach and instantly covered with men; a wide and deep chasm was however still between them and the ramparts, from whence came a deadly fire wasting their ranks. Thus baffled, they also commenced a rapid discharge of musketry, and disorder ensued; for the men of the light division, whose conducting engineer had been disabled early, having their flank confined by an unfinished ditch, intended to cut off the Santa Maria, rushed towards the breaches of the curtain and the Trinidad, which were indeed before them, but which the fourth division had been destined to storm.

Great was the confusion, the ravelin was crowded with men of both divisions, and while some continued to fire, others jumped down and run towards the breach; many also passed between the ravelin and the counterguard of the Trinidad; the two divisions got mixed, and the reserves, which should have remained at the quarries, also came pouring in until the ditch was quite filled, the rear still crowding forward and all cheering vehemently. The enemy’s shouts also were loud and terrible, and the bursting of shells and of grenades, the roaring of guns from the flanks, answered by the iron howitzers from the parallel, the heavy roll and horrid explosion of the powder-barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets made a maddening din.

Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind: but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged, immovably fixed in ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks studded with iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks slipped, and the unhappy soldiers falling forward on the spikes rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets, and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of wooden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged.

Once and again the assailants rushed up the breaches, but the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, always stopped the charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, hundreds more were dropping, yet the heroic officers still called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies; the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down, yet men fell so fast from the shot it was hard to say who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades; for a finished trench and parapet were behind the breach, where the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter have continued.

At the beginning of this dreadful conflict, Andrew Barnard had with prodigious efforts separated his division from the other, and preserved some degree of military array; but now the tumult was such, no command could be heard distinctly except by those close at hand, while the mutilated carcases heaped on each other, and the wounded, struggling to avoid being trampled upon, broke the formations; order was impossible! Nevertheless officers of all stations, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out as if struck by a sudden madness and rush into the breach, which yawning and glittering with steel seemed like the mouth of some huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. In one of these attempts Colonel Macleod of the 43rd, whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, was killed. Wherever his voice was heard there his soldiers gathered, and with such strong resolution did he lead them up the ruins, that when one, falling behind him, plunged a bayonet into his back, he complained not, but continuing his course was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. There was however no want of gallant leaders or desperate followers, until two hours passed in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach impeded by deep holes and cuts made in the ditch, the troops did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack, which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy stepping out on the ramparts and aiming their shots by the light of the fireballs which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, Why they did not come into Badajos?