All the encumbrances of the army were shipped in the night of the 15th and on the morning of the 16th, and every thing was prepared to withdraw the fighting men as soon as the darkness would permit them to move without being perceived. The precautions taken would, without doubt, have insured the success of this difficult operation, but a more glorious event was destined to give a melancholy but graceful termination to the campaign. About two o’clock in the afternoon a general movement along the French line gave notice of the approaching
BATTLE OF CORUÑA.
The British infantry, fourteen thousand five hundred strong, occupied the inferior range of hills already spoken of. The right was formed by Baird’s division, and, from the oblique direction of the ridge, approached the enemy, while the centre and left were of necessity withheld in such a manner that the French battery on the rocks raked the whole of the Vide Plan of the Battle. line. General Hope’s division, crossing the main road, prolonged the line of the right’s wing, and occupied strong ground abutting on the muddy bank of the Mero. A brigade from Baird’s division remained in column behind the extremities of his line, and a brigade of Hope’s was posted on different commanding points behind the left wing. The reserve was drawn up near Airis, a small village situated in the rear of the centre. This last point commanded the valley which separated the right of Baird’s division from the hills occupied by the French cavalry; the latter were kept in check by a regiment detached from the reserve, and a chain of skirmishers extending across the valley connected this regiment with the right of Baird’s line. General Fraser’s division remaining on the heights immediately before the gates of Coruña, was prepared to advance to any point, and also watched the coast road. These dispositions were as able as the unfavourable nature of the ground would admit of, but the advantage was all on the enemy’s side. His light cavalry, under Franceschi, reaching nearly to the village of St. Christopher, a mile in the rear of Baird’s division, obliged sir John Moore to weaken his front by keeping back Fraser’s division until Soult’s plan of attack should be completely developed. There was, however, one circumstance to compensate for these disadvantages. In the Spanish stores were found many thousand English muskets; the troops exchanged their old rusty and battered arms for these new ones; their ammunition also was fresh, and their fire was therefore very superior to their adversary’s in proportion to the numbers engaged.
General Laborde’s division being come up, the French force could not be less than twenty thousand men; and the duke of Dalmatia having made his arrangements, did not lose any time in idle evolutions, but distributing his lighter guns along the front of his position, opened a heavy fire from the battery on his left, and instantly descended with three solid masses to the assault. A cloud of skirmishers led the way, and the British piquets being driven back in disorder, the village of Elvina was carried by the first column, which afterwards dividing, one half pushed on against Baird’s front, the other turned his right by the valley. The second column made for the centre. The third engaged the left by the village of Palavia Abaxo. The weight of the French guns overmatched the English six-pounders, and their shot swept the position to the centre.
Sir John Moore observing, that, according to his expectations, the enemy did not show any body of infantry beyond that which, moving up the valley, outflanked Baird’s right, ordered general Paget to carry the reserve to where the detached regiment was posted, and, as he had before arranged with him, to turn the left of the French attack and menace the great battery. Then directing Fraser’s division to support Paget, he threw back the fourth regiment, which formed the right of Baird’s division, opened a heavy fire upon the flank of the troops penetrating up the valley, and with the fiftieth and forty-second regiments met those breaking through Elvina.
The ground about that village was intersected by stone walls and hollow roads; a severe, scrambling fight ensued, but in half an hour the French were borne back with great loss. The fiftieth regiment entered the village with them, and after a second struggle drove them for some distance beyond it. Meanwhile the general bringing up a battalion of the brigade of guards to fill the space in the line left vacant by those two regiments, the forty-second mistook his intention, and retired, and at that moment the enemy, being reinforced, renewed the fight beyond the village, the officer commanding the fiftieth[25] was wounded and taken prisoner, and Elvina became the scene of a second struggle; this being observed by Moore’s Narrative. the commander-in-chief, who directed in person the operations of Baird’s division, he addressed a few animating words to the forty-second, and caused it to return to the attack. General Paget, with the reserve, now descended into the valley, and the line of skirmishers being thus supported, vigorously checked the advance of the enemy’s troops in that quarter, while the fourth regiment galled their flank. At the same time the centre and left of the army also became engaged; sir David Baird was severely wounded, and a furious action ensued along the line, in the valley, and on the hills.
Sir John Moore, while earnestly watching the result of the fight about the village of Elvina, was struck on the left breast by a cannon shot; the shock threw him from his horse with violence; he rose again in a sitting posture; his countenance unchanged, and his stedfast eye still fixed upon the regiments engaged in his front; no sigh betrayed a sensation of pain; but in a few moments, when he was satisfied that the troops were gaining ground, his countenance brightened, and he suffered himself to be taken to the rear. Then was seen the dreadful nature of his hurt; the shoulder was shattered to pieces, the arm was hanging by a piece of skin, the ribs over the heart broken, and bared of flesh, and the muscles of the breast torn into long strips, which were interlaced by their recoil from the dragging of the shot. As the soldiers placed him in a blanket his sword got entangled, and the hilt entered the wound. Captain Hardinge, a staff officer, who was Mr. James Moore’s Narrative. near, attempted to take it off, but the dying man stopped him, saying, “It is as well as it is. I had Hardinge’s Letter. rather it should go out of the field with me.” And in that manner, so becoming to a soldier, Moore was borne from the fight.
During this time the army was rapidly gaining ground. The reserve, overthrowing every thing in the valley, and obliging La Houssaye’s dragoons (who had dismounted) to retire, turned the enemy’s left, and even approached the eminence upon which the great battery was posted. On the left, colonel Nicholls, at the head of some companies of the fourteenth, carried Palavio Abaxo (which general Foy defended but feebly), and in the centre, the obstinate dispute for Elvina terminated in favour of the British; so that when the night set in their line was considerably advanced beyond the original position of the morning, and the French were falling back in confusion.
If at this time general Fraser’s division had been brought into action along with the reserve, the enemy could hardly have escaped a signal overthrow; for the little ammunition Soult had been able to bring up was nearly exhausted, the river Mero, with a full tide, was behind him, and the difficult communication by the bridge of El Burgo was alone open for a retreat. On the other hand, to continue the action in the dark was to tempt fortune, for the French were still the most numerous, and their ground was strong. The disorder they were in offered such a favourable opportunity to get on board the ships, that sir John Hope, upon whom the command of the army had devolved, satisfied with having repulsed the attack, judged it more prudent to pursue the original plan of embarking during the night, and this operation was effected without delay; the arrangements being so complete that neither confusion nor difficulty occurred.