The ascent against Whittingham was so ruggedly steep, and the upper part so intrenched, that the battle resolved itself there at once into a stationary skirmish of light troops; but on the other side of the spur the French mounted the height, slowly indeed and with many skirmishers, yet so resolutely, that it was evident good fighting only would send them down again. Their light troops, spreading over the face of the Sierra and in some places attaining the summit, were met and held in play by the Anglo-Sicilian troops with changing fortune; but where the main column came on the 27th Regiment there was a terrible crash of battle, and preceded by a singular encounter. For an abrupt declination of ground enabled the French to halt and re-form for the decisive assault, out of fire, yet close to that regiment which was by order lying down in expectation of the charge. Suddenly a grenadier officer, rising alone to the upper ground, challenged Waldron the captain of the 27th Grenadiers to single combat; he, an agile Irishman of boiling courage, instantly leaped forward to the duel, and the hostile lines though ready to charge awaited the result. Rapidly the champions’ swords clashed and glittered in the sun, but Waldron cleft his adversary’s head in twain, and the 27th springing up with a deafening shout charged and sent the French, maugre their numbers and courage, down the mountain side, covering it with their dead and wounded. It was a glorious exploit, erroneously attributed in the despatch to Colonel Adam, though entirely conducted by the colonel of the regiment, Reeves.
Suchet seeing his principal column thus broken, and having the worst of the fight in other parts, made two secondary attacks with his reserve to cover a rally, yet failed in both and his army was thus separated in three parts without connection; for the column beaten by Reeves was in great confusion at the foot of the Sierra, the exploring column was on the left, and the cavalry beyond the baranco, the only passage across it being commanded by the allies. A vigorous sally from Castalla, and a general advance, would then have compelled the French-infantry to fall back upon Biar in confusion before the cavalry could come to their assistance, and the victory would have been completed; but Murray, who had remained during the whole action behind Castalla, first gave Suchet time to rally and retire in order towards the pass of Biar, and then gradually passing out Clinton’s and Roche’s divisions by the right of the town, with a tedious pedantic movement, changed his own front, keeping his left at the foot of the heights, and extending his right, covered by the cavalry, towards another sierra called Onil: General Mackenzie however, moving out by the left of Castalla with four battalions and eight guns, followed the enemy without orders.
Suchet had by this time plunged into the pass with his infantry, cavalry and tumbrils, in one mass, leaving the rear-guard of three battalions and eight guns to cover the passage; these being pressed by Mackenzie and sharply cannonaded, turned and offered battle, answering gun for gun; but they were heavily crushed by the English shot, the clatter of musketry commenced, and one well-directed vigorous charge would have overturned and driven them in mass upon the other troops, then wedged in the narrow defile. Mackenzie was willing, but his advance had been directed by the quartermaster-general Donkin, not by Murray, and he was now compelled by the latter, despite of all remonstrances and the indignant cries of the troops, to retreat! Suchet, thus relieved from ruin by his adversary, immediately occupied a position across the defile, having his flanks on the ridges above; and though Murray finally sent some light companies to attack his left he retained his position until night.
This battle, in which the allies had about seventeen thousand men of all arms, the French about fifteen thousand, was, Suchet says, brought on against his wish by the impetuosity of his light troops, and that he lost only eight hundred men. His statement is confirmed by Vacani the Italian historian. Murray affirmed that it was a pitched battle, and that the French lost above three thousand men. In favour of Suchet’s version it may be remarked, that neither the place, nor the time, nor the mode of attack was answerable to his talents and experience in war, if he had really intended a pitched battle; and though the fight was strong at the principal point, it was scarcely possible to have so many as three thousand killed and wounded. Eight hundred seems too few, because the loss of the victorious troops, with all advantages of ground, was more than six hundred. This however is certain; if Suchet lost three thousand men, which would have been at least a fourth of his infantry, he must have been so disabled, that what with the narrow defile of Biar in the rear, and the distance of his cavalry in the plain, to have escaped at all was extremely discreditable to Murray’s generalship.
English Siege of Tarragona. (June, 1813.)
It has been shown that Lord Wellington put every armed body of the Peninsula in movement against the French when he commenced the march to Vittoria; and under his combinations the Duke del Parque should have joined Elio from Andalusia, before the battle of Castalla, which would have raised the allied forces there to fifty thousand men, including the irregulars. Del Parque with the usual Spanish procrastination delayed his arrival until the end of May; and then Murray had to execute his part of the following plan, sketched by Wellington to hamper Suchet and prevent him from moving to the king’s assistance. The Spaniards, numerous but unwieldy, were to oppose that marshal in front on the Xucar, while Murray with the Anglo-Sicilians was to embark and sail for the siege of Tarragona in his rear: if he detached men to raise the siege the Spaniards were to advance, and Murray was to return and aid them to keep the country thus gained: if Suchet came back to recover his ground this operation was to be repeated.
On the 31st of May Murray, in pursuance of this arrangement, sailed with fifteen thousand men under arms, his British and Germans being about eight thousand, his cavalry seven hundred. His battering-train was complete and powerful, the materials for gabions and fascines were previously collected at Iviça, and the naval part, under Admiral Hallowel, was strong in ships of the line, frigates, bomb-vessels, gun-boats and transports. There was however no cordiality between General Clinton, the second in command, and Murray; nor between the latter and his quartermaster-general Donkin; nor between Donkin and the admiral: subordinate officers also, adopting false notions, some from vanity, some from hearsay, added to the uneasy state of the leaders, and there was much tale-bearing. Neither admiral nor general was very sanguine as to success, and in no quarter was there a clear comprehension of Lord Wellington’s ably devised plan.
When the fleet passed Valencia with a fair wind Suchet knew the expedition aimed at Catalonia, and prepared to aid that principality, but he could not march before the 7th of June. Murray’s armament however, having very favourable weather, anchored on the evening of the 2nd in the Bay of Tarragona, whence five ships of war were sent with two battalions of infantry and some guns, under Colonel Prevost to attack San Felippe de Balaguer, a fort garrisoned by a hundred men and only sixty feet square. But it was on a steep isolated rock in the gorge of a pass, blocking the only carriage-way from Tortoza to Tarragona, and though the mountains on either hand commanded it, they were nearly inaccessible themselves, and great labour was required to form the batteries.
Prevost, landing the 3rd, was joined by a Spanish brigade, and in concert with the navy placed two six-pounders on the heights south of the pass, from whence at seven hundred yards’ distance they threw shrapnel-shells. Next day two twelve-pounders and a howitzer, brought to the same point by the sailors, opened also, and at night the seamen with extraordinary exertions dragged up five twenty-four pounders and their stores. The troops then constructed their batteries with great labour, for the earth was carried up from below, and everything else, even water, brought from the ships, the landing-place being more than a mile and a half off; wherefore, time being valuable, favourable terms were offered to the garrison. They were refused and the fire continued, yet with slight success, one battery was relinquished, and a violent storm retarded the construction of the others.
Colonel Prevost had early warned Murray that his means were insufficient, and a second Spanish brigade was now sent to him; but, so severe was the labour, that the breaching batteries were still incomplete on the 6th, and out of three guns mounted one was disabled. Suchet, who was making forced marches to Tortoza, ordered the governor of that place to succour San Felippe, and he would certainly have raised the siege, if Captain Peyton of the Thames frigate had not brought up two eight-inch mortars, with which, on the 7th, he exploded a small magazine, whereupon the garrison surrendered. The besiegers then occupied the place, and meanwhile Murray had commenced the siege of Tarragona.