The breaches being reported practicable on the 6th, the assault was ordered to take place on that evening. It is needless, after Napier’s magnificent description of this combat, to do more than specify what part the Regiment took in it. The Light Division, under the command of Barnard, formed at about eight o’clock in close column of companies, left in front, about 300 yards from the ditch. They were detailed to attack the breach in the Santa Maria bastion. Four companies (the left wing) of the 1st Battalion, under Major Cameron, were in front, with orders to extend to the left on reaching the covered way, in order (as at Ciudad Rodrigo) to keep down the fire from the ramparts. Next came six volunteers of that Battalion, under Lieutenant William Johnston, provided with ropes, to endeavour to pull the chevaux-de-frise, with which it was known the garrison had defended the breaches, out of their place. Then followed the forlorn hope;[113] and then the storming party, consisting of 100 men from each regiment of the Division. The officers of the Regiment with this party were Captains Crampton of the 1st Battalion; Hart of the 2nd; and Diggle of the 3rd; and Lieutenants Bedell, Manners, Coxen, and M’Gregor, of the 2nd Battalion. The rest of the Division followed. So noiselessly did Cameron’s four companies advance, and so accurately had he reconnoitred the ground, that he reached the place indicated for the head of his column, and extended along the covered way to his left, without being perceived by the garrison. Every man as he got into his place, silently lay down, placing the muzzle of his rifle through the palisades, and at the edge of the ditch. The men could see the heads of the troops lining the rampart; for the night was clear, though a sort of haze rising from the ground and the dark dress of the Riflemen enabled them to get into position unperceived. Yet a French sentry challenged twice; and his ‘qui vive’ being unanswered, he fired, and drums were heard, beating to arms. Yet Cameron reserved his fire for about ten minutes, till the forlorn hope coming up, he began while the heads of the troops lining the rampart could still be seen immovable. Then began from the place that murderous and unceasing fire of grape, shell, and musketry which has been compared by more than one of those who saw it, to the central fires of the earth, or even hell itself, vomiting forth their fury. Surtees, who as Quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion and a non-combatant (though he wished to be in the fray and was hardly restrained) witnessed it from the quarries, between the Picurina and the Pardeleras, says that it was so bright and so incessant that he could plainly see the faces of the defenders, though nearly a mile off. Yet Johnston with his volunteers, the forlorn hope and the stormers advanced, slid down the ladders or leaped into the ditch. The rest of the Division followed, tore up the palisades and ran up the glacis. There Captain Charles Gray was shot in the mouth, and many officers and men fell. Yet all pressed on; even the firing party in the covered way, carried away by frenzy, seeing their comrades fall, and their aim baffled by the smoke, leaped into the ditch, and passing, how they could, the drain cut in it and filled with water, in which not a few were drowned, they surged like the wave of a raging sea up the breach. But as the wave is repelled from the rock, so were they checked by the insuperable obstacles; the chevaux-de-frise of sword-blades fixed in beams; the murderous fire from behind the wall of sand-bags; the planks studded with nails and fixed at the upper end; the shells, powder-barrels, grenades and even cart-wheels, which were hurled down upon them. Again and again as one wave fell or melted away under that slaughtering shower, another took its place. O’Hare fell in the breach, shot through the breast with two or three musket balls. His sergeant, Fleming, who had stood by him in many a bloody field, fell at his side. Many officers of the Regiment and many valiant Riflemen lay dead or wounded, or pressed down by those who were so, in that heap which extended from the top of the breach to the counterscarp. At last, after two hours of this murderous work, Lord Wellington gave orders for the Light Division to draw off. Still the intrepid Barnard, who had more than once himself ascended the breach, was unwilling to give way; and it was not till after renewed attempts had been made, and till he saw all hopeless, that he gave the order for his Division to withdraw. Even then in that deafening turmoil the order was imperfectly heard; and many officers were keeping their men from retiring. At last, however, almost all that lived and could move came away, and the remnant of the Regiment was formed a little distance from the place between midnight and one o’clock. Here Surtees found them, having posted off as soon as he knew (for he was near Lord Wellington when Picton’s hurried note was brought to him) that the 3rd Division had stormed, and was in possession of, the Castle. He was scarcely believed; so incredible did it seem to the assailants of these impregnable breaches, that any troops could have entered the place. The men and the officers were lying down, in gloomy sullenness, after their terrible conflict. A staff officer brought word, ‘Lord Wellington desires the Light Division to return immediately and attack the breach.’ The men leaped up, resumed their formation, and advanced as cheerfully and as steadily as if it had been the first attack. Proceeding past, and often over, their fallen comrades, they again mounted the breach; but now the defenders having been called away, the resistance was slight, and they soon established themselves on the ramparts. Then Cameron formed his Regiment there; and told them that when all danger from the enemy was over, he would let them fall out; but that, until then, if a man left the ranks he would have him put to death on the spot. They remained under arms and perfectly steady till between nine and ten next morning; when, as the whole garrison were prisoners and being marched out, he dismissed them, and they joined in that madness of intemperance, rapine and lust, on which it is more agreeable to their historian to draw a veil.
Great were the losses of the Regiment. Twenty-three officers and 292 non-commissioned officers and Riflemen fell, killed and wounded in that fatal night.
In the 1st Battalion (eight companies), Major O’Hare and Lieutenant Stokes, 3 sergeants, and 24 rank and file were killed; Captains Crampton, Balvaird, Charles Gray, and M’Dermid, Lieutenants William Johnston, Gardiner, McPherson (who died of his wounds), Forster, and FitzMaurice, 15 sergeants, 3 buglers, and 136 rank and file were wounded. In the 2nd Battalion (two companies), Captain Diggle, 1 sergeant and 20 rank and file were killed; Lieutenants Bedell and Manners, 3 sergeants, and 31 rank and file were wounded. In the 3rd Battalion (five companies), Lieutenants Hovenden, Cary, Allix, and Croudace, and 9 rank and file were killed; and Lieutenants Macdonell (who died of his wounds), Worsley, Duncan Stewart, Farmer, and volunteer Lawson,[114] 2 sergeants, and 45 rank and file were wounded.
Well may Sir William Napier sum up his glowing description of the assault with this stirring appeal: ‘Who shall measure out the glory of ... O’Hare, of the ninety-fifth, who perished on the breach at the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for that desperate service? Who shall describe ... the martial fury of that desperate soldier of the ninety-fifth who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets?’[115]
O’Hare, a gallant soldier, beloved by his men, had a foreboding of his death. As the stormers assembled, he observed, in conversation to Captain Jones of the 52nd, that ‘he thought that night would be his last.’ To George Simmons, with whom he shook hands as the stormers were moving off, his last words were: ‘A Lieutenant-Colonel or cold meat in a few hours.’ He was found the next morning by Simmons on the breach, naked. Cary was found by Surtees next day under one of the ladders, shot through the head. He had, no doubt, been wounded in ascending it, and fallen from it. He also was stripped. He still breathed; and Surtees pressed some of the soldiers about the place to carry him to the camp. They were so drunk that they let him fall; but he was past all feeling, and died soon after he was laid in his tent. Croudace also was brought out alive, but died almost immediately. Of the wounded officers, McPherson died a few days after. He was a man of herculean stature, and great bravery. ‘He had been true to man and true to his God, and he looked his last hour in the face like a soldier and a Christian.’[116]
Macdonell died a few months after he received his wound.
Some personal anecdotes of the storm may be given. George Simmons, on going into the town, went into a house, the Spanish owner of which told him that the French Quartermaster-General had been billeted there. He showed him the room he had occupied; and there he found on the table a paper on which he had made a sketch of the two breaches, showing the line by which our columns would probably move to attack, and the spot where our ladders might best be planted to avoid the fire from the place and the inundation in the ditch. The owner of the house informed him that the French officers had left it in great alarm, on being informed of our attack. There were also a bottle of wine and some glasses on the table; and, as Theodore Hook somewhere observes, eating and drinking must go on, whatever the vicissitudes of life, George Simmons sate down, ordered some eggs and bacon to be fried, and drank the French officers’ bottle of wine.
Kincaid was acting Adjutant with Cameron’s four companies who lined the glacis. When they were established in the place, he went to post picquets in streets leading to the ramparts. While so engaged, a Rifleman brought him a French officer prisoner, who he said was the Governor. The officer at once said that he was not; but that he had passed himself off as such to ensure the soldier’s protection and better treatment. He added that he was Colonel of a regiment in the garrison; that his officers were all assembled in a house near at hand, to which he would conduct Kincaid, and who would give themselves up as prisoners to anyone who would ensure their safety. Taking a few men with him to guard against surprise, Kincaid accompanied him, and found fifteen or sixteen officers assembled, who professed great astonishment at our being in possession of the town. As in Simmons’ case refreshment was to be thought of; and Kincaid and his prisoners discussed some cold meat, and sundry bottles of wine which their chief placed upon the table. At last Kincaid marched them off; and before parting the French Colonel told him that he had two good horses in the stable, of which he advised him to take possession. This counsel was not lost on Kincaid, who thus became the owner of a black mare, which carried him till the end of the war. As he was making his way to the ramparts, many French soldiers, who were skulking in out-of-the-way corners to escape the fury of the British troops already in the town, joined him. And marching at the head of this party, he was very nearly fired on by a picquet of our men whom Barnard was placing across a street, and who, seeing so many French uniforms together, fancied it was a rallied party of the enemy. Happily the challenge of the picquet, which owing to the noise of his prisoners he had not heard, was repeated and answered; and he handed over his prisoners to be marched with others to Elvas.
Surtees was occupied in a more benevolent work. Directly the place was in our hands, he and Percival, who was in command of the 3rd Battalion, set about finding and removing the wounded of the Regiment. This was an arduous work; for the wounded were numerous, and their claims for assistance incessant. And Percival was lame, from his wound at Sobral, and not well able to move about; yet they were obliged to carry the wounded themselves; for of the soldiers they called on to help them many were drunk; and even those whose help they secured, soon went off to share in the rapine of the town. Many are the heartrending details Surtees relates; and many are the horrors he and all the Riflemen who were present record of the plunder of the town. No doubt the men were furious with the inhabitants, who had here assisted the French, while at Rodrigo they had resisted them; no doubt they were frenzied with the difficulty of the assault, and savage at the wholesale slaughter of their comrades. These envenoming motives, added to the usual and (so to say) admitted license in a town taken by storm, have made the sack of Badajos one of exceptional violence. Yet all that men could do to resist it was done. Barnard, commanding the Division, opposed not only his commands but even his great personal strength to the plunderers. He endeavoured to prevent the men from entering the town; but they rushed past him, and while striving to wrest a musket from a soldier of the 52nd, he fell and was very nearly thrown into the ditch. He then, with others, went into the streets, and strove to check the madness of his men; but in vain.