Now the carriages of the battering guns used in Beresford’s siege were so much damaged, that the artillery officers asked eleven days to repair them; and the scanty means of transport for stores was much diminished by carrying the wounded from Albuera to the different hospitals. Thus more than fifteen days of open trenches, and nine days of fire could not be expected. With good guns, plentiful stores, and a corps of regular sappers and miners, this time would probably have sufficed; but none of these things were in the camp, and it was a keen jest of Picton to say, that “lord Wellington sued Badajos in forma pauperis.”
The guns, some of them cast in Philip the Second’s reign, were of soft brass, and false in their bore; the shot were of different sizes, and the largest too small; the Portuguese gunners were inexperienced, there were but few British artillery-men, few engineers, no sappers or miners, and no time to teach the troops of the line how to make fascines and gabions. Regular and sure approaches against the body of the place, by the Pardaleras and the Picurina outworks, could not be attempted; but it was judged that Beresford’s lines of attack on the castle and Fort Christoval, might be successfully renewed, avoiding the errors of that general; that is to say, by pushing the double attacks simultaneously, and with more powerful means. San Christoval might thus be taken, and batteries from thence could sweep the interior of the castle, which was meanwhile to be breached. Something also was hoped from the inhabitants, and something from the effect of Soult’s retreat after Albuera.
This determination once taken, every thing was put in motion with the greatest energy. Major Dickson, an artillery officer whose talents were very conspicuous during the whole war, had, with unexpected rapidity, prepared a battering train of thirty twenty-four-pounders, four sixteen-pounders, and twelve eight and ten-inch howitzers made to serve as mortars by taking off the wheels and placing them on trucks. Six iron Portuguese ship-guns were forwarded from Salvatierra, making altogether fifty-two pieces, a considerable convoy of engineer’s stores had already arrived from Alcacer do Sal, and a company of British artillery marched from Lisbon to be mixed with the Portuguese, making a total of six hundred gunners. The regular engineer-officers present, were only twenty-one in number; but eleven volunteers from the line were joined as assistant-engineers, and a draft of three hundred intelligent men from the line, including twenty-five artificers of the staff corps, strengthened the force immediately under their command.
Hamilton’s Portuguese division was already before the town, and on the 24th of May, at the close of evening, general Houston’s division, increased to five thousand men, by the addition of the seventeenth Portuguese regiment, and the Tavira and Lagos militia, invested San Christoval. The flying bridge was then laid down on the Guadiana, and on the 27th Picton’s division, arriving from Campo Mayor, crossed the river, by the ford above the town, and joined Hamilton, their united force being about ten thousand men. General Hill commanded the covering army which, including the Spaniards, was spread from Merida to Albuera. The cavalry was pushed forward in observation of Soult, and a few days after, intelligence having arrived that Drouet’s division was on the point of effecting a junction with that marshal, two regiments of cavalry and two brigades of infantry, which had been quartered at Coria, as posts of communication with Spencer, were called up to reinforce the covering army.
While the allies were engaged at Albuera, Phillipon, the governor of Badajos, had levelled their trenches, repaired his own damages, and obtained a small supply of wine and vegetables from the people of Estremadura, who were still awed by the presence of Soult’s army; and within the place all was quiet, for the citizens did not now exceed five thousand souls. He had also mounted more guns, and when the place was invested, parties of the townsmen mixed with soldiers, were observed working to improve the defences; wherefore, as any retrenchments made in the castle, behind the intended points of attack, would have frustrated the besiegers’ object by prolonging the siege, lord Wellington had a large telescope placed in the tower of La Lyppe, near Elvas, by which the interior of the castle could be plainly looked into, and all preparations discovered.
In the night of the 29th, ground was broken for a false attack against the Pardaleras, and the following night sixteen hundred workmen, with a covering party of twelve hundred, sank a parallel against the castle, on an extent of eleven hundred yards, without being discovered by the enemy, who did not fire until after daylight. The same night twelve hundred workmen, covered by eight hundred men under arms, opened a parallel four hundred and fifty yards from San Christoval, and seven hundred yards from the bridge-head. On this line one breaching, and two counter-batteries, were raised against the fort and against the bridge-head, to prevent a sally from that point; and a fourth battery was also commenced to search the defences of the castle, but the workmen were discovered, and a heavy fire struck down many of them.
On the 31st the attack against the castle, the soil being very soft, was pushed forward without much interruption, and rapidly; but the Christoval attack, being carried on in a rocky soil, and the earth brought up from the rear, proceeded slowly, and with considerable loss. This day the British artillery company came up on mules from Estremos, and the engineer hastened the works. The direction of the parallel against the castle was such, that the right gradually approached the point of attack by which the heaviest fire of the place was avoided; yet, so great was the desire to save time, that before the suitable point of distance was attained, a battery of fourteen twenty-four-pounders with six large howitzers was marked out.
On the Christoval side, the batteries were not1811. June. finished before the night of the 1st of June, for the soil was so rocky, that the miner was employed to level the ground for the platforms; and the garrison having mortars of sixteen and eighteen inches’ diameter mounted on the castle, sent every shell amongst the workmen. These huge missiles would have ruined the batteries on that side altogether, if the latter had not been on the edge of a ridge, from whence most of the shells rolled off before bursting, yet so difficult is it toFrench Register of the Siege, MSS. judge rightly in war, that Phillipon stopped this fire, thinking it was thrown away! The progress of the works was also delayed by the bringing of earth from a distance, and woolpacks purchased at Elvas, were found to be an excellent substitute.
In the night of the 2d, the batteries on both sides were completed, and armed with forty-three pieces of different sizes, of which twenty were pointed against the castle; the next day the fire of the besiegers opened, but the windage caused by the smallness of the shot, rendered it very ineffectual at first, and five pieces became unserviceable. However, before evening the practice was steadier, the fire of the fort was nearly silenced, and the covering of masonry fell from the castle-wall, discovering a perpendicular bank of clay.
In the night of the 3d the parallel against the castle was prolonged, and a fresh battery for seven guns traced out at six hundred and fifty yards from the breach. On the 4th the garrison’s fire was increased by several additional guns, and six more pieces of the besiegers were disabled, principally by their own fire. Meanwhile the batteries told but slightly against the bank of clay.