While it was yet dark, a straggling musketry was heard in the deep hollows separating the armies; and when the light broke, the three divisions of the sixth corps were observed entering the woods below and throwing forward a profusion of skirmishers; soon afterwards Marchand’s division emerging from the hollow, took the main road, as if to turn the right of the light division, Loison’s made straight up the face of the mountain in front, and the third remained in reserve.
General Simon’s brigade, which led Loison’s attack, ascended with a wonderful alacrity, and though the light troops plied it unceasingly with musketry, and the artillery bullets swept through it from the first to the last section, its order was never disturbed, nor its speed in the least abated. Ross’s guns were worked with incredible quickness, yet their range was palpably contracted every round, and the enemy’s shot came singing up in a sharper key, until the skirmishers, breathless and begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent, when the artillery suddenly drew back, and the victorious cries of the French were heard within a few yards of the summit. Crawfurd, who standing alone on one of the rocks, had been intently watching the progress of the attack, then turned, and in a quick shrill tone desired the two regiments in reserve to charge. The next moment a horrid shout startled the French column, and eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so truly brave and hardy were the leaders of the enemy, that each man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark! They could do no more! The head of their column was violently overturned and driven upon the rear, both flanks were lapped over by the English wings, and three terrible discharges at five yards’ distance completed the route. In a few minutes a long trail of carcasses and broken arms indicated the line of retreat. The main body of the British stood fast; but several companies followed the pursuit down the mountain, until Ney moving forward his reserve, and opening his guns from the opposite height killed some men, and thus warned the rest to recover their own ground. The German brigade then spread over the hill, and the light division resumed its original position.
Loison shewed no disposition to renew the attack, but Marchand’s people, who had followed the main road, broke into several masses, gained a pine wood half-way up the mountain, and sent a cloud of their skirmishers against the highest part, at the very moment that Simon was defeated. Such however was the difficulty of ascending, that Pack alone held the enemy in check, and half a mile higher up, Spencer shewed a line of the royal guards which forbade any hope of success; and from the salient point of land occupied by the light division, Crawfurd’s artillery took the main body of the French in the wood, in flank. Ney, who was there in person, after sustaining this murderous fire for an hour, relinquished the attack. The desultory fighting of the light troops then ceased, and before two o’clock Crawfurd having assented to a momentary truce, parties of both armies were mixed amicably together searching for the wounded men.
Towards evening, however, a French company having, with signal audacity, seized a village within half-musket shot of the light division, refused to retire; which so incensed Crawfurd that, turning twelve guns on the village, he overwhelmed it with bullets for half an hour. After paying the French captain this distinguished honour, the English general recovering his temper, sent a company of the forty-third down, which cleared the village in a few minutes. Meanwhile an affecting incident, contrasting strongly with the savage character of the preceding events, added to the interest of the day. A poor orphan Portuguese girl, about seventeen years of age, and very handsome, was seen coming down the mountain and driving an ass, loaded with all her property, through the midst of the French army. She had abandoned her dwelling in obedience to the proclamation, and now passed over the field of battle with a childish simplicity, totally unconscious of her perilous situation, and scarcely understanding which were the hostile and which the friendly troops, for no man on either side was so brutal as to molest her.
In this battle of Busaco, the French after astonishing efforts of valour, were repulsed, in the manner to be expected from the strength of the ground, and the goodness of the soldiers opposed to them; and their loss, although prodigiously exaggerated at the time, was great. General Graind’orge and about eight hundred men were slain, generals Foy and Merle wounded, Simon made prisoner, and the sum total may be estimated at four thousand five hundred men, while that of the allies did not exceed thirteen hundred. For on the one side musketry and artillery were brought into full activity, but the French sought to gain the day by resolution and audacity rather than by fire.
Vol. 3, Plate 7.
OPERATIONS on the MONDEGO,
1810.
Published by T. & W. Boone 1830.