History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 4

by William Francis Patrick Napier

ASSAULT OF PICURINA.

The night was fine, the arrangements clearly and skilfully made, and about nine o’clock the two flanking bodies moved forward. The distance was short, and the troops quickly closed on the fort, which black and silent before, now seemed one mass of fire; then the assailants running up to the palisades in the rear, with undaunted courage endeavoured to break through, and when the destructive musketry of the French, and the thickness of the pales, rendered their efforts nugatory, they turned against the faces of the work and strove to break in there; but the depth of the ditch and the slanting stakes at the top of the brick-work again baffled them.

At this time, the enemy shooting fast, and dangerously, the crisis appeared imminent, and Kempt sent the reserve headlong against the front; thus the fight was continued strongly, the carnage became terrible, and a battalion coming out from the town to the succour of the fort, was encountered and beaten by the party on the communication. The guns of Badajos, and of the castle now opened, the guard of the trenches replied with musketry, rockets were thrown up by the besieged, and the shrill sound of alarm bells, mixing with the shouts of the combatants, increased the tumult. Still the Picurina sent out streams of fire, by the light of which, dark figures were seen furiously struggling on the ramparts; for Powis first escaladed the place in front where the artillery had beaten down the pales, and the other assailants had thrown their ladders on the flanks in the manner of bridges, from the brink of the ditch to the slanting stakes, and all were fighting hand to hand with the enemy. Meanwhile[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2, Letter C. the axe-men of the light division, compassing the fort like prowling wolves, discovered the gate, and hewing it down, broke in by the rear. Nevertheless the struggle continued. Powis, Holloway, Gips, and Oates, of the eighty-eighth, fell wounded on or beyond the rampart; Nixon of the fifty-second was shot two yards within the gate; Shaw, Rudd, and nearly all the other officers had fallen outside; and it was not until half the garrison were killed, that Gaspar Thiery, the commandant, and eighty-six men, surrendered, while some, not many, rushing out of the gate, endeavoured to cross the inundation and were drowned.

The French governor hoped to have delayed the siege five or six days by the resistance of Picurina, and had the assault been a day later, this would have happened; for the loop-holed gallery in the counterscarp, and the mines, would then have been completed, and the body of the work was too well covered by the glacis to be quickly ruined by fire. His calculations were baffled by this heroic assault, which lasted an hour, and cost four officers and fifty men killed, fifteen officers and two hundred and fifty men wounded; and so vehement was the fight throughout, that the garrison either forgot, or had not time to roll over the shells and combustibles arranged on the ramparts. Phillipon did not conceal the danger accruing to Badajos from the loss of the Picurina, but he stimulated his soldiers’ courage, by calling to their recollection, how infinitely worse than death it was, to be the inmate of an English hulk! an appeal which must have been deeply felt, for the annals of civilized nations, furnish nothing more inhuman towards captives of war, than the prison-ships of England.

When the Picurina was taken, three battalions of reserve advanced to secure it, and though a great turmoil and firing from the town, continued until midnight, a lodgment in the works, and a communication with the first parallel, were established, and the second parallel was commenced. However at day-light the redoubt was so overwhelmed with fire, from the town, that no troops could remain in it, and the lodgment was entirely destroyed. In the evening the sappers effected another lodgment on the flanks, the second parallel was then opened in its whole length, and the next day the counter-batteries on the right of Picurina exchanged a vigorous fire with the town; but one of the besiegers’ guns was dismounted, and the Portuguese gunners, from inexperience, produced less effect on the defences than was expected.

In the night of the 27th a new communication from the first parallel to the Picurina was made, and three breaching batteries were traced out. The first to contain twelve twenty-four pounders, occupied the space between the Picurina and the inundation, and was to breach the right face of the Trinidad bastion. The second, to contain eight eighteen pounders, was on the site of the Picurina, and was to breach the left flank of the Santa Maria bastion. The third, constructed on the prolonged line of the front to be attacked, contained three Shrapnel howitzers, to scour the ditch and prevent the garrison working in it; for Phillipon had now discovered the true line of attack, and had set strong parties in the night, to raise the counter-guard of the Trinidad and the imperfect ravelin covering the menaced front.

At day-break these works being well furnished with gabions and sand-bags, were lined with musqueteers, who severely galled the workmen employed on the breaching batteries and the artillery practice also was brisk on both sides. Two of the besiegers’ guns were dismounted; the gabions placed in front of the batteries to protect the workmen were knocked over, and the musquetry then became so destructive that the men were withdrawn and threw up earth from the inside.

In the night of the 27th the second parallel was extended to the right, with the view of raising batteries, to ruin the San Roque, to destroy the dam which held up the inundation, and to breach the curtain behind; but the Talavera road proved so hard, and the moon shone so brightly, that the labourers were quite exposed and the work was relinquished.

On the 28th the screen of gabions before the batteries was restored and the workmen resumed their labours outside; the parallel was then improved, and the besieged withdrew their guns from San Roque; but their marksmen still shot from thence with great exactness, and the plunging fire from the castle dismounted two howitzers in one of the counter-batteries which was therefore dismantled. The enemy had also during the night observed the tracing string, which marked the direction of the sap in front of San Roque, and a daring fellow creeping out just before the workmen arrived, brought it in the line of the castle fire, whereby some loss was sustained ere the false direction was discovered.

In the night the dismantled howitzer battery was re-armed, with twenty-four pounders, to play on the San Roque, and a new breaching battery was traced out on the site of the Picurina, against the flank of the Santa Maria bastion. The second parallel was also carried by the sap across the Talavera road, and a trench was digged, for riflemen, in front of the batteries.