Battle of St. Pierre.—The morning broke with a[ See Plan 8.] heavy mist under cover of which Soult formed his order of battle. D’Erlon, having D’Armagnac’s Abbé’s and Daricau’s divisions of infantry, Sparre’s cavalry and twenty-two guns, marched in front; he was followed by Foy and Maransin, but the remainder of the French army was in reserve, for the roads would not allow of any other order. The mist hung heavily and the French masses, at one moment quite shrouded in vapour, at another dimly seen or looming sudden and large and dark at different points, appeared like thunder-clouds gathering before the storm. At half-past eight Soult pushed back the British picquets in the centre, the sun burst out at that moment, the sparkling fire of the light troops spread wide in the valley, and crept up the hills on either flank, while the bellowing of forty pieces of artillery shook the banks of the Nive and the Adour. Darricau marching on the French right was directed against general Pringle. D’Armagnac, moving on their left and taking Old Moguerre as the point of direction, was ordered to force Byng’s right. Abbé assailed the centre at St. Pierre, where general Stewart commanded, for sir Rowland Hill had taken his station on a commanding mount in the rear, from whence he could see the whole battle and direct the movements.
Abbé, a man noted for vigour, pushed his attack with great violence and gained ground so rapidly with his light troops, on the left of Ashworth’s Portuguese, that Stewart sent the seventy-first regiment and two guns from St. Pierre to the latter’s aid; the French skirmishers likewise won the small wood on Ashworth’s right, and half of the fiftieth regiment was also detached from St. Pierre to that quarter. The wood was thus retaken, and the flanks of Stewart’s position secured, but his centre was very much weakened, and the fire of the French artillery was concentrated against it. Abbé then pushed on a column of attack there with such a power that in despite of the play of musquetry on his flanks and a crashing cannonade in his front, he gained the top of the position, and drove back the remainder of Ashworth’s Portuguese and the other half of the fiftieth regiment which had remained in reserve.
General Barnes who had still the ninety-second regiment in hand behind St. Pierre, immediately brought it on with a strong counter-attack. The French skirmishers fell back on each side leaving two regiments composing the column to meet the charge of the ninety-second; it was rough and pushed home, the French mass wavered and gave way. Abbé immediately replaced it and Soult redoubling the heavy play of his guns from the height he occupied, sent forward a battery of horse artillery which galloping down into the valley opened its fire close to the allies with most destructive activity. The cannonade and musquetry rolled like a prolonged peal of thunder, and the second French column, regardless of Ross’s guns, though they tore the ranks in a horrible manner, advanced so steadily up the high road that the ninety-second yielding to the tempest slowly regained its old position behind St. Pierre. The Portuguese guns, their British commanding officer having fallen wounded, then limbered up to retire and the French skirmishers reached the impenetrable hedge in front of Ashworth’s right. General Barnes now seeing that hard fighting only could save the position, made the Portuguese guns resume their fire, and the wing of the fiftieth and the Caçadores gallantly held the small wood on the right; but Barnes was soon wounded, the greatest part of his and general Stewart’s staff were hurt, and the matter seemed desperate. For the light troops overpowered by numbers were all driven in except those in the wood, the artillerymen were falling at the guns, Ashworth’s line of Portuguese crumbled away rapidly before the musquetry and cannonade, the ground was strewed with the dead in front, and the wounded crawling to the rear were many.
If the French light troops could then have penetrated through the thick hedge in front of the Portuguese, defeat would have been inevitable on this point, for the main column of attack still steadily advanced up the main road, and a second column launched on its right was already victorious, because the colonel of the seventy-first had shamefully withdrawn that gallant regiment out of action and abandoned the Portuguese. Pringle was indeed fighting strongly against Daricau’s superior numbers on the hill of Villefranque, but on the extreme right the colonel of the third regiment had also abandoned his strong post to D’Armagnac, whose leading brigade was thus rapidly turning Byng’s other regiments on that side. And now Foy’s and Maransin’s divisions, hitherto retarded by the deep roads, were coming into line ready to support Abbé, and this at the moment when the troops opposed to him were deprived of their reserve. For when general Hill beheld the retreat of the third and seventy-first regiments he descended in haste from his mount, met, and turned the latter back to renew the fight, and then in person leading one brigade of Le Cor’s reserve division to the same quarter sent the other against D’Armagnac on the hill of Old Moguerre. Thus at the decisive moment of the battle the French reserve was augmented and that of the allies thrown as a last resource into action. However the right wing of the fiftieth and Ashworth’s Caçadores, both spread as skirmishers, never lost the small wood in front, upholding the fight there and towards the high road with such unflinching courage that the ninety-second regiment had time to reform behind the hamlet of St. Pierre. Then its gallant colonel Cameron once more led it down the road with colours flying and music playing resolved to give the shock to whatever stood in the way. At this sight the British skirmishers on the flanks, suddenly changing from retreat to attack, rushed forward and drove those of the enemy back on each side; yet the battle seemed hopeless for Ashworth was badly wounded, his line was shattered to atoms, and Barnes who had not quitted the field for his former hurt was now shot through the body.
The ninety-second was but a small body comparedPublished Memoir on the battle by captain Pringle, engineers. with the heavy mass in its front, and the French soldiers seemed willing enough to close with the bayonet; but an officer riding at their head suddenly turned his horse waved his sword and appeared to order a retreat, then they faced about and immediately retired across the valley to their original position, in good order however and scarcely pursued by the allies, so exhausted were the victors. This retrograde movement, for there was no panic or disorder, was produced partly by the gallant advance of the ninety-second and the returning rush of the skirmishers, partly by the state of affairs immediately on the right of the French column. For the seventy-first indignant at their colonel’s conduct had returned to the fight with such alacrity, and were so well aided by Le Cor’s Portuguese, generals Hill and Stewart each in person leading an attack, that the hitherto victorious French were overthrown there also in the very moment when the ninety-second came with such a brave shew down the main road: Le Cor was however wounded.
This double action in the centre being seen from the hill of Villefranque, Daricau’s division, already roughly handled by Pringle, fell back in confusion; and meantime on the right, Buchan’s Portuguese, detached by Hill to recover the Moguerre or Partouhiria ridge, crossed the valley, and ascending under a heavy flank fire from Soult’s guns rallied the third regiment; in happy time, for D’Armagnac’s first brigade having already passed the flank of Byng’s regiments at the mill-pond was actually in rear of the allies’ lines. It was now twelve o’clock, and while the fire of the light troops in the front and the cannonade in the centre continued the contending generals restored their respective orders of battle. Soult’s right wing had been quite repulsed by Pringle, his left was giving way before Buchan, and the difficult ground forbad his sending immediate succour to either; moreover in the exigency of the moment he had called D’Armagnac’s reserve brigade to sustain Abbé’s retiring columns. However that brigade and Foy’s and Maransin’s divisions were in hand to renew the fight in the centre, and the allies could not, unsuccoured, have sustained a fresh assault; for their ranks were wasted with fire, nearly all the staff had been killed or wounded, and three generals had quitted the field badly hurt.
In this crisis general Hill seeing that Buchan was now well and successfully engaged on the Partouhiria ridge, and that Byng’s regiments were quite masters of their ground in the valley of the mill-pond, drew the fifty-seventh regiment from the latter place to reinforce his centre. At the same time the bridge above Villefranque having been restored, the sixth division, which had been marching since daybreak, appeared in order of battle on the mount from whence Hill had descended to rally the seventy-first. It was soon followed by the fourth division, and that again by the brigades of the third division; two other brigades of the seventh division were likewise in march. With the first of these troops came lord Wellington who had hurried from Barrouilhet when the first sound of the cannon reached him, yet he arrived only to witness the close of the battle, the crisis was past, Hill’s day of glory was complete. Soult had, according to the French method, made indeed another attack, or rather demonstration, against the centre, to cover his new dispositions, an effort easily repulsed, but at the same moment Buchan drove D’Armagnac headlong off the Partouhiria ridge. The sixth division then appeared on the commanding mount in the rear of St. Pierre, and though the French masses still maintained a menacing position on the high road, and on a hillock rising between the road and the mill-pond, they were quickly dispossessed. For the English general being now supported by the sixth division, sent Byng with two battalions against the hillock, and some troops from the centre against those on the high road. At this last point the generals and staff had been so cut down that colonel Currie, the aid-de-camp who brought the order, could find no superior officer to deliver it to and led the troops himself to the attack, but both charges were successful; and two guns of the light battery sent down in the early part of the fight by Soult, and which had played without ceasing up to this moment, were taken.
The battle now abated to a skirmish of light troops, under cover of which the French endeavoured to carry off their wounded and rally their stragglers, but at two o’clock lord Wellington commanded a general advance of the whole line. Then the French retreated fighting, and the allies following close on the side of the Nive plied them with musquetry until dark. Yet they maintained their line towards the Adour, for Sparre’s cavalry passing out that way rejoined Pierre Soult on the side of Hasparen. This last-named general and Paris had during the day menaced Morillo and Vivian’s cavalry at Urcuray, however not more than thirty men of a side were hurt, and when Soult’s ill success became known the French retired to Bonloc.
In this bloody action Soult had designed to employ seven divisions of infantry with one brigade of cavalry on the front, and one brigade of infantry with a division of cavalry on the rear; but the state of the roads and the narrow front he was forced to move upon did not permit more than five divisions to act at St. Pierre, and only half of those were seriously engaged. His loss was certainly three thousand, making a total on the five days’ fighting of six thousand men with two generals, Villatte and Maucomble, wounded. The estimate made by the British at the time far exceeded this number, and one French writer makes their loss ten thousand including probably the Nassau and Frankfort regiments. The same writer however estimates the loss of the allies at sixteen thousand! Whereas HillLapene. had only three generals and about fifteen hundred men killed and wounded on the 13th and Morillo lost but twenty-six men at Urcuray. The real loss of the allies in the whole five days’ fighting was only five thousand and nineteen, including however five generals, Hope, Robinson, Barnes, Lecor, and Ashworth. Of this number five hundred were prisoners.
The duke of Dalmatia, baffled by the unexpected result of the battle of St. Pierre, left D’Erlon’s three divisions in front of the camp of Mousseroles, sent two others over the Nive to Marac, and passing the Adour himself during the night with Foy’s division, spread it along the right bank of that river as far as the confluence of the Gave de Pau.