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

Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets; and each musket in addition to its ordinary charge contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of leaden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged.

Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword-blades, immoveable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.

At the beginning of this dreadful conflict, colonel Andrew Barnard had with prodigious efforts separated his division from the other, and preserved some degree of military array; but now the tumult was such, that no command could be heard distinctly, except by those close at hand, and the mutilated carcasses heaped on each other, and the wounded, struggling to avoid being trampled upon, broke the formations; order was impossible! Yet officers of all stations, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out, as if struck by a sudden madness, and rush into the breach, which yawning and glittering with steel, seemed like the mouth of some huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. In one of these attempts, colonel Macleod of the forty-third, a young man, whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war, if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, was killed. Wherever his voice was heard, there his soldiers gathered, and with such a strong resolution did he lead them up the fatal ruins, that when one behind him, in falling, plunged a bayonet into his back, he complained not, and continuing his course was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. But there was no want of gallant leaders, or desperate followers.

Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired, and the approach to it impeded by deep holes, and cuts made in the ditch, the troops did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked, as their victims fell, “Why they did not come into Badajos?”

In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless fire above, and withal a sickening stench from the burnt flesh of the slain, captain Nicholas, of the engineers, was observed by Mr. Shaw, of the forty-third, making incredibleNow lieut.-col. Shaw Kennedy. efforts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw having collected about fifty soldiers of all regiments joined him, and although there was a deep cut along the foot of this breach also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers at the head of their gallant band, rushed up the slope of the ruins; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent, a concentrated fire of musketry and grape, dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth! Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone! After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive, but unflinching, beneath the enemy’s shot, which streamed without intermission; for, of the riflemen on the glacis, many leaping early into the ditch had joined in the assault, and the rest, raked by a cross-fire of grape from the distant bastions, baffled in their aim by the smoke and flames from the explosions, and too few in number, had entirely failed to quell the French musketry.

About midnight, when two thousand brave men had fallen, Wellington, who was on a height close to the quarries, sent orders for the remainder to retire and re-form for a second assault; for he had just then heard that the castle was taken, and thinking the enemy would still hold out in the town, was resolved to assail the breaches again. This retreat from the ditch was, however, not effected without further carnage and confusion, for the French fire never slackened, and a cry arose that the enemy were making a sally from the distant flanks, which caused a rush towards the ladders; then the groans and lamentations of the wounded who could not move, and expected to be slain, increased, many officers who had not heard of the order, endeavoured to stop the soldiers from going back, and some would even have removed the ladders but were unable to break the crowd.

All this time the third division was lying close in the castle, and either from a fear of risking the loss of a point which ensured the capture of the place, or that the egress was too difficult, made no attempt to drive away the enemy from the breaches. On the other side however the fifth division had commenced the false attack on the Pardaleras, and on the right of the Guadiana, the Portuguese were sharply engaged at the bridge; thus the town was girdled with fire, for general Walker’s brigade having passed on during the feint on the Pardaleras, was escalading the distant bastion of San Vincente. His troops had advanced along the banks of the river, and reached the French guard-house, at the barrier-gate, undiscovered, for the ripple of the waters smothered the sound of their footsteps; but just then the explosion at the breaches took place, the moon shone out, and the French sentinels, discovering the columns, fired. The British troops immediately springing forward under a sharp musketry began to hew down the wooden barrier at the covered way, while the Portuguese, being panic-stricken, threw down the scaling-ladders. Nevertheless the others snatched them up again, and forcing the barrier, jumped into the ditch; but the guiding engineer officer was killed, and there was a cunette, which embarrassed the column, and when the foremost men succeeded in rearing the ladders, the latter were found too short, for the walls were generally above thirty feet high. Meanwhile the fire of the French was deadly, a small mine was sprung beneath the soldiers’ feet, beams of wood and live shells were rolled over on their heads, showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch, and man after man dropped dead from the ladders.

Fortunately some of the defenders having been called away to aid in recovering the castle, the ramparts were not entirely manned, and the assailants, having discovered a corner of the bastion where the scarp was only twenty feet high, placed three ladders there under an embrasure which had no gun and was only stopped with a gabion. Some men got up,[Appendix, No. VII.] Section 2. but with difficulty, for the ladders were still too short, and the first man who gained the top was pushed up by his comrades and then drew others after him, until many had gained the summit; and though the French shot heavily against them, from both flanks and from a house in front, they thickened and could not be driven back; half the fourth regiment entered the town itself to dislodge the enemy from the houses, while the others pushed along the rampart towards the breach, and by dint of hard fighting successively won three bastions.

In the last of these combats general Walker leaping forward, sword in hand, at the moment when one of the enemy’s cannoneers was discharging a gun, fell covered with so many wounds that it was wonderful how he could survive, and some of the soldiers immediately after, perceiving a lighted match on the ground, cried out a mine! At that word, such is the power of imagination, those troops whom neither the strong barrier, nor the deep ditch, nor the high walls, nor the deadly fire of the enemy could stop, staggered back appalled by a chimera of their own raising, and in this disorder a French reserve, under general Viellande, drove on them with a firm and rapid charge, and pitching some men over the walls, and killing others outright, again cleansed the ramparts even to the San Vincente. There however Leith had placed colonel Nugent with a battalion of the thirty-eighth as a reserve, and when the French came up, shouting and slaying all before them, this battalion, about two hundred strong, arose, and with one close volley destroyed them.

Then the panic ceased, the soldiers rallied, and in compact order once more charged along the walls towards the breaches, but the French, although turned on both flanks and abandoned by fortune, did not yet yield; and meanwhile the detachment of the fourth regiment which had entered the town when the San Vincente was first carried, was strangely situated, for the streets were empty and brilliantly illuminated, and no person was seen; yet a low buzz and whisper were heard around, lattices were now and then gently opened, and from time to time shots were fired from underneath the doors of the houses by the Spaniards. However, the troops with bugles sounding, advanced towards the great square of the town, and in their progress captured several mules going with ammunition to the breaches; but the square itself was as empty and silent as the streets, and the houses as bright with lamps; a terrible enchantment seemed to be in operation, for they saw nothing but light, and heard only the low whispers close around them, while the tumult at the breaches was like the crashing thunder.