Adventures with the Connaught Rangers, 1809-1814

by William Grattan

On the 16th of March, everything being in readiness, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana; fifteen thousand men broke up from their bivouac at Elvas, and advanced towards the river; the enemy disputed the ground, and here—even here, with only a handful of cavalry opposed to us—the French horsemen had actually the best of it, and kept us at bay during a march of three hours. At length we gained the river’s edge, passed the bridge, drove back the enemy’s outposts, and completed the investment. The following day, the 17th, Lord Wellington, accompanied by his engineers, carefully reconnoitred the place. The point of attack which his lordship decided upon, notwithstanding the advantages which were on the side of the enemy, was quite at variance with that of the preceding year, so it must be naturally presumed that the former was found to be faulty. Then the outworks were by no means so formidable as now on the side about to be assailed, while on the San Christoval side, the scene of the former attack, little progress had been made towards its amelioration.

The evening of the 17th of March had scarcely closed when three thousand men broke ground before the fort of La Picurina, at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards. The night was unusually dark, the wind was high, and the rain fell in torrents—all of which favoured the enterprise. The soldiers, accustomed to fatigues, and knowing by experience, if for nothing but their own safety, the necessity of getting on rapidly with their work, exerted themselves to their utmost, and when the grey dawn of morning made its appearance, the enemy beheld with surprise, through the mist that surrounded them, the first parallel of our works completed, without their having anticipated it, or having thrown one shot in the direction of our workmen; but as the fog cleared away, it was too palpable to be misunderstood that, despite of the sagacity of General Count Phillipon and his devoted garrison, a line of circumvallation had been cut close to one of the best of their outworks, without their having the remotest idea of the attempt. The different alarm-bells in the town rang a loud peal, and in less than half an hour a tremendous cannonade was opened upon us from the guns of the fort as well as the town itself. Some men were killed and several wounded, but excepting this, no loss was sustained; the works were uninjured, their progress unimpeded, and this, our first attempt, for the third time, was crowned with that unlooked-for success which was a good omen for the future.

The entire of the 18th the rain continued to fall, and the trenches were already nearly knee-deep with water, but by the great exertions of the engineers, and the persevering resolution of the soldiers, the works were pushed on with extraordinary vigour, the earth not being as yet sufficiently saturated to lose its consistency. On the night of the 18th it rained still more heavily; nevertheless some guns were dragged through the slough by the soldiers, into the batteries marked out to act against La Picurina, and the following morning the works were in that forward state as to cause the French Governor much alarm for the fate of this outwork. Towards mid-day on the 19th, a dense vapour, issuing from the Guadiana and Rivillas, caused by the heavy rains that had fallen, made Phillipon consider the moment a favourable one to make a rush into our works; he accordingly placed two thousand chosen troops at the different gates and sally-ports with fixed bayonets, ready to storm the batteries at a given signal. At this time our soldiers were working in the trenches, nearly up to their hips in water; the covering party were too distant to afford immediate relief if required to do so, because they were kept out of the wet ground as far as was consistent with the safety of our lines; and the soldiers that composed the working party were in a helpless and defenceless state, their arms and appointments being thrown aside.

I happened to be in the works on this day, and having a little more experience than the officer who commanded the party, I observed with distrust the bustle which was apparent, not only in the fort of Picurina, but also along the ramparts of the town. Without waiting the formality of telling the commanding officer what I thought, I, on the instant, ordered the men to throw by their spades and shovels, put on their appointments, and load their firelocks. This did not occupy more than three minutes, and in a few seconds afterwards the entire trenches to our right were filled with Frenchmen, the workmen massacred, and the works materially damaged; while at the same moment several hundred men attempted to throw themselves into the battery we occupied. But the workmen were armed and ready to receive them; they had just been placed—I must say it, for it is the truth—by me in a posture not only to save their own lives, but the battery also. The Frenchmen advanced with that impetuous burst so well known to those who have witnessed it, and so difficult to stand before by any. They had a double motive to urge them on on this occasion: honour had a forcible auxiliary in the shape of a dollar, which they were to receive for every pick-axe or shovel they carried out of our trenches; and, well as I know the French character, it is difficult for me to say which of the two, honour or avarice, most predominated upon the present occasion; I shall only say that it is my firm conviction—and I judge from the spirit of the attack—that both had their share in stimulating those heroic and veteran plunderers to seek for a footing within our trenches, for I never saw a set of fellows that sought with greater avidity than they did the spades and shovels that were thrown aside by our men. Lieutenant D‘Arcy of the 88th and Lieutenant White of the 45th pursued them almost to the glacis of the town; and had the movement been foreseen, there can be little hazard in saying that, with a sufficient supply of ladders at the moment, the fort of Picurina could have been carried by the workmen alone, so great was their enthusiasm, with a less loss of lives than it cost us (after six days' labour) on the 25th!

PLAN OF SIEGE OF BADAJOZ. March 16-April 6, 1812.

The sortie had been well repulsed at this point, but higher up, on the right, we were not so fortunate; the workmen were surprised, and, in addition to the injury inflicted upon the works, a great loss of men and officers was sustained before the covering party reached the spot. General Picton soon after arrived in the battery where I was stationed, and seemed to be much alarmed for its safety, not knowing in the confusion of the moment, which was great, that the enemy had attacked it, and had been driven back; but when he learned from me that the workmen alone had achieved this act, he was lavish in his praise of them, and spoke to myself in flattering terms—for him; but there was an austerity of demeanour which, even while he gave praise—a thing he seldom did to the Connaught Rangers at least!—kept a fast hold of him, and the caustic sententiousness with which he spoke rather chilled than animated. He was on foot, but his aide-de-camp, Captain Cuthbert of the Fusiliers, was mounted, and while in the act of giving directions to some of the troops (for by this time the whole of the besieging force, attracted by the cannonade, was in motion towards the works) he was struck in the hip by a round shot, which killed his horse on the spot, leaving him dreadfully mangled and bleeding to death. This officer was a serious loss to Picton, and was much regretted by the division; he possessed all the requisites for a staff-officer, without that silly arrogance—the sure sign of an empty mind, as well as head—which we sometimes meet with amongst the gentlemen who compose the état major of our army.

We lost in this affair about two hundred men, many of whom were cut down in the works, and several in the depots far in the rear, by a body of the enemy’s light cavalry that galloped out of the town at the moment the sortie commenced. Absurd as this may read, it is nevertheless true: the garrison of Badajoz, cooped up within its walls, without a foot of ground that they could call their own beyond the glacis, and, in a manner, begirt by an army of fifteen thousand men, were—by their admirable arrangement of their forces, or by the superlative neglect of our people, enabled to ride through our lines—unopposed by a single dragoon!—from right to left! Brilliant, however, as was this exploit, it was of no such service to the garrison; their loss exceeded four hundred men, and the capture of a few dozen spades and shovels but ill repaid them for so great a sacrifice of lives, at any time valuable, but in their present position doubly so.

The sortie being at length repulsed, and order once more restored, the works in the trenches were continued under a torrent of rain and fire of artillery. Lieutenant White of the 45th, who had been much distinguished in the batteries, was struck by a shell (without a fuse) on the head, which killed him on the spot; he was reading a book at the moment, and Lieutenant Cotton of the 88th, who was sitting beside him, was so covered with his blood, that it was thought at first he had been frightfully wounded.

Up to this time the fall of rain had been so violent as to threaten the total failure of the operation; it had never ceased since the 17th, and the trenches were a perfect river. The soldiers were working up to their knees in water, and the fatigue and hardships they endured were great indeed, but there was no complaint—not even a murmur to be heard! The next day, the 22nd, the pontoon bridge over the Guadiana was carried away by the floods which the late rains had caused in the river, and the stream became so rapid that the flying bridges could not be made use of, and, in short, all supplies from the other side were cut off. In the trenches matters were in as bad a state, for the earth no longer retained its consistency, and it was impossible to get it into any shape. On the 24th, however, the weather happily settled fine, and much progress was made towards forwarding the works; but this and the following day were perhaps two of the most dreadful recorded in the annals of sieges. The soldiers laboured with a degree of hardihood bordering on desperation, while the engineers braved every danger with as much composure as if they either set no value upon their lives, or thought their bodies impregnable to shot or shell. In proportion as our works advanced, the enemy redoubled his fire, and the attempt made by us to drag the heavy guns through the mud, or to form magazines for the gunpowder, was almost certain death; but not content with the destruction which his fire carried throughout our ranks, Phillipon brought to his aid a battery from San Christoval, which he placed close to the edge of the river; the fire of this battery completely enfiladed our works, and rendered it difficult and hazardous for the workmen to keep their ground.