The MS. Journal of a Field Officer sums up the actual military situation: ‘The movement upon Ross showed some head on the part of Baganel Harvey, the object being to force the principal passage of the Barrow, and, in conjunction with the insurgents of Kilkenny, bear down upon Waterford, which was then very disaffected, weakly garrisoned, and presented strong temptations in the way of plunder. But Harvey had no idea of attacking Ross when that event took place, and there were evidently no preparations made for it. Harvey expected, and with reason, that the appearance of his masses on the hills which domineered the town would have secured the active co-operation of the Kilkenny men from the other side of the Barrow. And this would have been the case had time allowed it, but Furlong was a popular leader among the rebels, and when he was shot by a sentinel at the outpost the mass of the rebels, maddened by the occurrence, rushed by a sudden impulse, in a mighty but disordered torrent, along one side of the road on the Three-bullet Gate, instead of making a combined movement on an open town, by which facility of approach and enormous preponderance in numbers could not but have succeeded.’ This argument is supported by the communication which Furlong carried. On searching the pockets of the dead man the following cartel was found:—
Sir—As a friend to humanity I request you will surrender the town of Ross to the Wexford forces, now assembled against that town. Your resistance will but provoke rapine and plunder, to the ruin of the most innocent. Flushed with victory, the Wexford forces, now innumerable and irresistible, will not be controlled if they meet with resistance. To prevent, therefore, the total ruin of all property in the town I urge you to a speedy surrender, which you will be forced to in a few hours, with loss and bloodshed, as you are surrounded on all sides. Your answer is required in four hours. Mr. Furlong carries this letter, and will bring the answer.—I am, Sir,
B. B. Harvey,
General commanding, etc., etc.
Camp at Corbethill, half-past three o’clock morning,
June 5, 1798.
The death of Furlong is said to have precipitated the attack, for immediately afterwards the rebels moved forward in dense masses, cheering and yelling, and directing their march on the Three-bullet Gate. The advance of this armed multitude—by some estimated as from 20,000 to 25,000 men—was described to me by an eye-witness as the most singular spectacle imaginable. The irregularity of their array—partly in close column and partly in line—had the effect of displaying their enormous strength to full advantage; while the presence of several priests, who were observed flitting through their ranks and haranguing their deluded followers with certain assurances of victory, inspired an enthusiastic fanaticism, which blinded them to danger and rendered them additionally formidable. They pushed forward four guns and a cloud of musketeers, some in extended order, and others heading the pikemen, whose crowded columns occupied the whole road, far as the eye could range.
As might have been expected, the pickets were roughly driven in, and, in a wild rush made by the rebels on the troops in front of the Three-bullet Gate, the latter were obliged to recede, and one of the guns was captured. In turn, however, the troops rallied and drove back the insurgents, and, perceiving their unsteadiness when mobbed together in the repulse, General Johnson ordered the 5th Dragoons to charge. For cavalry effect the ground was totally un suite, the numerous fences enabling the rebels to avoid the charge, while, protected themselves, they inflicted a heavy loss on men who very gallantly, but very ineffectively, had thus assailed them at disadvantage.
An entrance to the town was gained, and while some of the rebels fired the houses, others pushed forward towards the bridge. But the advance by Neville Street was swept by the steady fire of a gun placed in the market-place, which looked directly down the approach. Notwithstanding the murderous fire which fell on a dense mass of men, wedged together in a narrow street, and which shore the head of the column down as frequently as it came forward, others succeeded those who fell, and fresh numbers momentarily appeared. The troops, terrified at the armed crowds who swarmed through the Three-bullet Gate, and who, maddened by inebriety and fanaticism, seemed rather to court death than avoid it, the defenders at last despairing of offering a longer resistance against myriad hordes of infuriated fiends, retreated across the bridge.
BATTLE OF ROSS—‘COME ON, BOYS! HER MOUTH’S STOPPED!’