————“We ascended the breach of the fausse braye, and then the breach of the body of the place, without the aid of ladders.”
————“We were for a short time on the breach before we forced the entrance. A gun was stretched across the entrance, but did not impede our march. Near it some of the enemy were bayonetted, amongst the number some deserters, who were found in arms defending the breach.”
————“Major Napier was wounded at the moment when the men were checked by the heavy fire and determined resistance of the enemy about two-thirds up the ascent. It was then that the soldiers, forgetting they were not loaded, as the major had not permitted them, snapped all their firelocks.”
————“No individual could claim being the first that entered the breach; it was a simultaneous rush of about twenty or thirty. The forlorn hope was thrown in some degree behind, being engaged in fixing ladders against the face of the work, which they mistook for the point of attack.
“Upon carrying the breach, the parties moved as before directed by major Napier; that is, the fifty-second to the left, the forty-third to the right. The forty-third cleared the ramparts to the right, and drove the enemy from the places they attempted to defend, until it arrived near the great breach at a spot where the enemy’s defences were overlooked. At this time the great breach had not been carried, and was powerfully defended by the enemy. The houses being on it were loop-holed, and a deep trench lined with musketry bearing directly upon it; the flanks of the breach were cut off, and the descent into the town from the ramparts at the top of it appeared considerable, so as to render it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to force it without some other aid than a front attack.”
————“The moment the light division storming-party arrived at the spot described, they opened a heavy enfilading fire of musketry upon the trench, which was the main defence of the great breach, and drove the enemy from it with the aid of the storming-party of the third division that now entered. I was wounded at this time, and retired a short way back on the rampart, when I saw the first explosion on the rampart near the great breach. It was in my opinion next to impossible, as I have said before, to force the great breach by a front attack as long as the enemy held their defences, but the moment the light division turned their defences the breach was instantly carried.”
Abstract of the journal of general Harvey, Portuguese
service.
“I stood on rising ground and watched the progress of the attack. The great breach was attacked first. At the top of it the third division opened their fire heavily, and it was returned heavily, but there was a distressing pause. The small breach was carried first, and there was one considerable explosion and two or three smaller ones on the ramparts.”
SECTION 2.
BADAJOS.—ASSAULT OF PICURINA.
C.
“An engineer officer, who led the attack, told me, two days after, ‘that the place never would have been taken had it not been for the intelligence of these men (a detachment from the light division) in absolutely walking round the fort, and finding out the gate, which was literally beaten down by them, and they entered at the point of the bayonet. Lieutenant Nixon of the fifty-second was shot through the body by a Frenchman a yard or two inside the gate.’”