The second, twelve hundred yards in extent, reached from the Carmelites to a bridge over the Huerba.
The third, likewise of twelve hundred yards, stretched from this bridge to an oil manufactory built beyond the walls.
The fourth, being on an opening of four hundred yards, reached from the oil manufactory to the Ebro.
The first front, fortified by an ancient wall and flanked by the guns on the Carmelite, was strengthened Rogniat’s Seige of Zaragoza.
Cavalhero’s Siege of Zaragoza. by some new batteries and ramparts, and by the Castle of Aljaferia, commonly called the Castle of the Inquisition, which stood a little in advance. This was a fort of a square form having a bastion and tower at each corner, and a good stone ditch, and it was connected with the body of the place by certain walls loop-holed for musketry.
The second front was defended by a double wall, the exterior one being of recent erection, faced with sun-dried bricks, and covered by a ditch with perpendicular sides fifteen feet deep and twenty feet asunder. The flanks of this front were derived from the convent of the Carmelites, from a large circular battery standing in the centre of the line, from a fortified convent of the Capuchins, called the Trinity, and from some earthen works protecting the head of the bridge over the Huerba.
The third front was covered by the river Huerba, the deep bed of which was close to the foot of the ramparts. Behind this stream a double entrenchment was carried from the bridge-head to the large projecting convent of Santa Engracia, a distance of two hundred yards. Santa Engracia itself was very strongly fortified and armed; and, from thence to the oil manufactory, the line of defence was prolonged by an ancient Moorish wall, on which several terraced batteries were raised, to sweep all the space between the rampart and the Huerba. These batteries, and the guns in the convent of Santa Engracia, likewise overlooked some works raised to protect a second bridge that crossed the river, about cannot-shot below the first.
Upon the right bank of the Huerba, and a little below the second bridge, stood the convent of San Joseph, the walls of which had been strengthened and protected by a deep ditch with a covered way and pallisade. It was well placed to impede the enemy’s approaches, and to facilitate sorties on the right bank of the river; and it was, as I have said, open, in the rear, to the fire of the works at the second bridge, and both were again overlooked by the terraced batteries, and by the guns of Santa Engracia.
The fourth front was protected by the Huerba, by the continuation of the old city wall, by new batteries and entrenchments, and by several armed convents and large houses.
Beyond the walls the Monte Torrero, which commanded all the plain of Zaragoza, was crowned by a large, ill-constructed fort, raised at the distance of eighteen hundred yards from the convent of San Joseph. This work was covered by the royal canal, the sluices of which were defended by some field-works, open to the fire of the fort itself.