At this critical moment general William Stewart arrived at the foot of the height with colonel Colborne’s brigade, which formed the head of the second division. The colonel, seeing the confusion above, desired to form in order of battle previous to mounting the ascent, but Stewart, whose boiling courage overlaid his judgement, led up without any delay in column of companies, and attempted to open out his line in succession as the battalions arrived at the summit. Being under a destructive fire the foremost charged to gain room, but a heavy rain prevented any object from being distinctly seen, and four regiments of hussars and lancers, which had passed the right flank in the obscurity, came galloping in upon the rear of the line at the instant of its developement, and slew or took two-thirds of the brigade. One battalion only (the thirty-first) being still in column, escaped the storm and maintained its ground, while the French horsemen, riding violently over every thing else, penetrated to all parts. In the tumult, a lancer fell upon Beresford, but the marshal, a man of great strength, putting his spear aside cast him from his saddle, and a shift of wind blowing aside the mist and smoke, the mischief was perceived from the plains by general Lumley, who sent four squadrons out upon the lancers and cut many of them off.
During this first unhappy effort of the second division, so great was the confusion, that the Spanish line continued to fire without cessation, although the British were before them; whereupon Beresford, finding his exhortations to advance fruitless, seized an ensign and bore him and his colours, by main force, to the front, yet the troops would not follow, and the man went back again on being released. In this crisis, the weather, which had ruined Colborne’s brigade, also prevented Soult from seeing the whole extent of the field of battle, and he still kept his heavy columns together. His cavalry, indeed, began to hem in that of the allies, but the fire of the horse-artillery enabled Lumley, covered as he was by the bed of the Aroya and supported by the fourth division, to check them on the plain, while Colborne still maintained the heights with the thirty-first regiment; the British artillery, under major Dickson, was likewise coming fast into action, and William Stewart, who had escaped the charge of the lancers, was again mounting the hill with general Houghton’s brigade, which he brought on with the same vehemence, but, instructed by his previous misfortune, in a juster order of battle. The weather now cleared, and a dreadful fire poured into the thickest of the French columns convinced Soult that the day was yet to be won.
Houghton’s regiments soon got footing on the summit, Dickson placed the artillery in line, the remaining brigade of the second division came up on the left, and two Spanish corps at last moved forward. The enemy’s infantry then recoiled, yet soon recovering, renewed the fight with greater violence than before; the cannon on both sides discharged showers of grape at half range, and the peals of musketry were incessant and often within pistol shot; but the close formation of the French embarrassed their battle, and the British line would not yield them one inch of ground nor a moment of time to open their ranks. Their fighting was, however, fierce and dangerous. Stewart was twice hurt, colonel Duckworth, of the forty-eighth, was slain, and the gallant Houghton, who had received many wounds without shrinking, fell and died in the act of cheering his men. Still the struggle continued with unabated fury. Colonel Inglis, twenty-two other officers, and more than four hundred men out of five hundred and seventy that had mounted the hill, fell in the fifty-seventh alone, and the other regiments were scarcely better off, not one-third were standing in any. Ammunition failed, and, as the English fire slackened, the enemy established a column in advance upon the right flank; the play of Dickson’s artillery checked them a moment, but again the Polish lancers charging, captured six guns. And in this desperate crisis, Beresford, who had already withdrawn the thirteenth dragoons from the banks of the river and brought Hamilton’s Portuguese into a situation to cover a retrograde movement, wavered! destruction stared him in the face, his personal resources were exhausted, and the unhappy thought of a retreat rose in his agitated mind. Yet no order to that effect was given, and it was urged by some about him that the day might still be redeemed with the fourth division. While he hesitated, colonel Hardinge boldly ordered general Cole to advance, and then riding to colonel Abercrombie, who commanded the remaining brigade of the second division, directed him also to push forward into the fight. The die being thus cast, Beresford acquiesced, and this terrible battle was continued.
The fourth division had only two brigades in the field; the one Portuguese under general Harvey, the other commanded by sir W. Myers and composed of the seventh and twenty-third British regiments, was called the fuzileer brigade. General Cole directed the Portuguese to move between Lumley’s dragoons and the hill, where they were immediately charged by some of the French horsemen, but beat them off with great loss: meanwhile he led the fuzileers in person up the height.
At this time six guns were in the enemy’s possession, the whole of Werlé’s reserves were coming forward to reinforce the front column of the French, and the remnant of Houghton’s brigade could no longer maintain its ground; the field was heaped with carcasses, the lancers were riding furiously about the captured artillery on the upper part of the hill, and on the lower slopes, a Spanish and an English regiment in mutual error were exchanging volleys: behind all, general Hamilton’s Portuguese, in withdrawing from the heights above the bridge, appeared to be in retreat. The conduct of a few brave men soon changed this state of affairs. Colonel Robert Arbuthnot, pushing between the double fire of the mistaken troops, arrested that mischief, while Cole, with the fuzileers, flanked by a battalion of the Lusitanian legion under colonel Hawkshawe, mounted the hill, dispersed the lancers, recovered the captured guns, and appeared on the right of Houghton’s brigade exactly as Abercrombie passed it on the left.
Vol. 3, Plate 12.
BATTLE of ALBUERA
16TH MAY, 1811.
London Published by T. & W. Boone Novr 1830.
Such a gallant line, issuing from the midst of the smoke and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, startled the enemy’s heavy masses, which were increasing and pressing onwards as to an assured victory: they wavered, hesitated, and then vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Myers was killed; Cole and the three colonels, Ellis, Blakeney, and Hawkshawe, fell wounded, and the fuzileer battalions, struck by the iron tempest, reeled, and staggered like sinking ships. Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans, extricating themselves from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and fiercely striving, fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm, weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front; their measured tread shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd, as foot by foot and with a horrid carnage it was driven by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French reserves, joining with the struggling multitude, endeavour to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass giving way like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and fifteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill!