Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

by Peter Fitzsimons

  With all men now in position and the Stockade effectively surrounded, the word is quietly passed from rank to rank, soldier to soldier: ‘Advance.’

  And now the main body of soldiers under Captain Thomas, with Pasley leading the forward elements, marches up and over the small rise they have been sheltering behind, while the mounted soldiers and police on the fringes go around it. As one they strain their eyes to the east, looking for some sign of the rebels, something to help them get their bearings. It is nigh on impossible, though some think as they begin their ascent of the small gully in front of them that they can see the barest silhouette of the enemy flag against the lightening sky way up to their east, fluttering just above the tree line. But if the soldiers can see the Stockade, that must mean that those in the Stockade can …

  Suddenly the blare of a bugle coming from the Stockade shatters the pre-dawn silence, As the soldiers continue to gaze upwards at the rebel stronghold, a shiver moves through them, almost as one. Some fancy they can see dim figures scurrying hither and thither, but the light is still so poor and the Stockade so distant at 300 yards that it might equally be the phantoms of their imagination.

  As to the rebels, one of the men with the Independent California Rangers’ Revolver Brigade, John Lynch, would record ‘a terrible effervescence of hurry-skurry’ around him as his fellow rebels rush from their bunks and tents and take up their posts, their guns and pikes in hand. But it is an effervescence that throws little light, for he would also report that he ‘could hardly discern the military force at first’.14

  Soon enough, though, there they are. Up in the Stockade, the diggers really can now just make out the long line of Redcoats some 150 yards down the slope, moving into the open and advancing.

  The first of the sentries runs back, shouting a warning to the others: ‘To Arms! To Arms!’15 This is not just another false alarm such as those they have already had twice on this night and many times over previous nights. This is real. With the bugle, and now the shouting, it is enough to wake even the most profoundly asleep, including Peter Lalor. He is instantly up and moving, realising that the Redcoats have clearly come and, while more of a moral leader than a military one, at the very least he must quickly be seen to be present, doing whatever he can to get the defences of the Stockade organised.

  And yet, where are his men? Emerging from his tent, his form throwing thin shadows from the flickering light of the fire in the middle of the Stockade, it is immediately apparent in this last gasp of night before Sunday morning that the ranks are alarmingly thin. The one clear order that does ring out, however, is at least a significant one, for it brings immediate results: ‘California Rangers, to the front!’16

  The Americans, many of them veterans of the Mexican War, leap to action and they are soon joined by other diggers.

  At this point, the forces at Lalor’s rough command are just 70 men holding shotguns and rifles, 30 or so with pistols and 20 men with pikes, many of which have been fashioned by the German blacksmith John Hafele, who is now worthily holding one himself.17

  Even as the soldiers advance on the face of the Stockade, where the diggers least expect it because the going is so difficult, Captain Thomas tells the young bugle boy by his side to blow a key call, one recognised by all the men under his command. The lad does so, standing bravely and emptying his lungs into his brass instrument.

  Just outside the Stockade, Tom Green, a veteran ex-rifleman who had fought under Lord Gough in India, instantly recognises the bugle. ‘That call,’ he roars to his mate, now also awake beside him, ‘means extend into skirmishing order, the military are here!’18

  And indeed it does. ‘Extend to skirmishing order’ means that instead of advancing in tightly packed formal ranks, a thin line of foot soldiers of the 12th and 40th Regiments commanded by Captain Wise go forward in a methodical manner. Working in groups of four - ‘a chain’, in military parlance - the men now ready themselves so that, once the battle proper begins, they can alternately step forward and kneel to fire before stepping back and reloading. This will ensure that there is a constant stream of gunfire coming from each group, rather than spasmodic volleys, and present a moving and broken line to those trying to draw a bead upon them. Yes, it is difficult to move up the slope over broken ground, but it is because of that very slope that Captain Thomas has chosen to attack from there. He knows that an idiosyncrasy of the smooth bore weapons the diggers will be using is that when they are fired downwards the bullets tend to follow a trajectory higher than intended - hopefully over the soldiers’ heads. (It was for this reason that, at the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington ordered his men to aim for the groins of the Frenchmen, on the reckoning that the bullets would likely hit them in the chest.) The men start moving, slowly, methodically, towards the north-western face of the Stockade.

  Their officers stay just behind them, and a tighter formation of soldiers continues to advance 50 paces behind them all, ready to react to whatever happens with that front line - to plug gaps or follow up hard on any breakthroughs. To the right of the skirmishers are the foot police.

  At the Stockade, by the time the bulk of the diggers have taken up their positions at the barricades, the situation is becoming just a little clearer. By now the Redcoats and some of the foot police who are accompanying them are close enough - coming up the slight gully that starts just next to Stockyard Hill and goes right to the wall of the Stockade - that the diggers can clearly distinguish features.

  It is time.

  The diggers’ own Robert Burnette, a tiny but game-as-all-get-out fighting force of the California Rangers,19 steps forward, smoothly raises his rifle to his shoulder, takes aim in the rough direction of the advancing Redcoats and pulls the trigger.

  Down in the advancing line, a lead ball sears from the shadows and hits Private Michael Roney of the 40th Regiment directly in the head.

  RIP. Michael Roney. Born in Belfast 1833, died on the Eureka, in Australia, 3 December 1854.20

  The true significance of the shot, however, would be accurately described by digger John Lynch when he would later write that the ‘shot from our encampment was taken for a declaration of war.’21 Captain Thomas, who is on horseback on the right of the infantry line, takes just a split second to determine that the shot has not come from beside or behind him, but from the Stockade.

  This established, he is free to give the command for the bugle to sound the ‘Commence Firing’ order.22 The soldiers do not need to be told twice and, almost as one, swing their muskets to their shoulders, kneel and, with a terrible belch of white smoke and a tremendous roar, unleash an enormous volley of shots. True, at this distance the musket fire is wildly inaccurate, but at least some of the three-quarter-inch-calibre soft lead balls hit their mark and raise splinters from the bulwarks of the Stockade. No fewer than nine of the diggers fall.

  The diggers are not long in making reply and the next flurry of shots hurtles down into the gully, one of them bearing an irretrievable fate.

  An instant later, not far from where Roney fell, another soldier, Felix Boyle, is hit in the head through his nose and goes down with a cry of anguish. He is quickly dragged back by two comrades before they rejoin the skirmishing line. But this veteran of the Sikh Wars in India is hurt badly alright, with the bullet clearly lodged in his head. And then another scream as Private William Juniper is taken down by a musket ball to the thigh, resulting in a compound fracture of the femur.

  Whatever else, the Redcoats and police know they are now in a real battle. (Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that Magistrate Hackett has no time to read the Riot Act - though he had made a preliminary sortie forward with Captain Thomas to see if it might be possible.)

  ‘I had no opportunity of calling upon the people to disperse as the first certainty we had of their exact position was by a volley of musketry being poured in upon us,’ Hackett would later report.23

  Back in the Camp, a small knot of men has gathered at a high spot, gazing earn
estly towards the gloomy Eureka - still fully immersed in the black background of Mount Warrenheip. They try in vain to work out just what the flashes in the semi-darkness, the booms of gunfire rolling up to them a few seconds later, can possibly mean. Just what is happening down there? All they know for certain from the constant rattling gunfire is that the battle proper has begun.

  The soldiers keep coming, Captain Pasley on horseback still right in their midst, urging them forward. Highly trained, they are generally capable of getting off three volleys in a minute, though the best of them can fire five shots in that time, their hands a blur of movement as they load-cap-cock-kneel-and-fire. Load-cap-cock-kneel-and-fire. Load-cap-cock-kneel-and-fire.

  All over the diggings the sound of shots, screams and yelling has awoken many. In his own tent, some 150 yards from the Stockade, Raffaello Carboni comes to with a start as the bullets begin to fly past. Then he hears the ‘discharge of musketry - then a round from a bugle - the command “forward!”’, followed by another discharge of musketry.24 His first reaction is to take shelter by putting the chimney at the end of his tent between himself and the direction of the shooting, but soon enough his passion gets the better of him. At least by his later account - though others would dispute it - he races towards the men and the flag he has sworn to defend.

  In their store, Mrs Bridget Shanahan is also awoken by the firing and immediately jostles her husband, yelling, ‘Take out your gun.’25 Shanahan does just that and heads out.

  Though they are still firing furiously, the soldiers’ advance remains militarily precise. As the skirmishers slowly advance up the hill, the growing light reveals to them the rough contours of the Stockade only - here an upright slab, there the top of the wheel of an upturned dray, beside it a broken Californian cradle - and from its base comes the heavy flashing and powerful roar of shotguns, rifles and pistols. But beyond that there is little detail. However, while the first flush of the still faraway dawn behind the trees at the back of the Stockade to the east keeps the rebels in strong shadows, it places the soldiers in fairly strong light and makes them good targets. And there is firing aplenty, particularly from the 20 or so remaining brave Americans of the Independent California Rangers’ Revolver Brigade, secreted in their shepherds’ holes. They have not flinched at the attack and are proving that the words of Charles Ferguson - ‘If you make a stand, you will not find us wanting’26 - were not uttered in vain.

  For now these Americans, together with the men of Ross and Thonen particularly, train down fire so ‘sharp and sustained’27 that Pasley’s advance is momentarily checked and appears to ‘swerve from its ground’.28

  The British soldiers, trained from their first days in the army for precisely this situation, give at least as good as they receive, notwithstanding that some of the rebels’ fire - including shots that come from the tents outside the Stockade - are hitting their marks and there is the frequent groan or scream from falling soldiers as they advance.

  ‘The fire had terrible effect, but we returned it with like effect, as deadly as theirs,’ Ferguson of the Rangers would later write.29

  Both sides are taking punishment and yet, at this point, it is those in the Stockade who momentarily have the advantage as at least they have partial shelter. The Redcoats and the police on the flanks are exposed, coming up a slope in very good light. And the closer the skirmishers get to the Stockade - now just 50 yards away ten minutes after the battle has begun - the easier they are to hit.

  What makes matters even worse for the Redcoats is that they are also taking fire from their flanks, as diggers in tents outside the Stockade draw a bead on them. In fact, to the joy of the diggers, it now becomes apparent that the soldiers’ relentless advance is not as relentless as they had feared. Their line is seen to falter and, finally, is ‘arrested for a moment’.30

  It is the troops of the 40th Regiment who have taken the most punishment, and Captain Henry Wise realises that their situation has become perilous. It is obvious that the longer they take to reach the top of the slope, the more men they will lose. The urgency now is to breach the barricades of the Stockade as soon as possible and fight the rebels at close quarters. Yet his men have wavered and even begun to back up as the barrage of bullets start to take its toll, prompting him to cry: ‘Fortieth! Are you going to retreat?’31

  The gnarled and experienced Sergeant Edward Harris32 is certainly with Wise and has in fact preceded him in his call of ‘Forward!’33 And the youngest of them all, the boy bugler by Wise’s side, ‘took up boldly his stand to the left of the gully’,34 awaiting further commands. And now even the overall leader of the attack, Captain Thomas, has dismounted and joined Wise’s men - a jolt for the soldiers, as a commanding officer would only so expose himself if the battle hangs in the balance, and even then it is rare. Under those circumstances, how could the veterans of the 40th not form up and rally once more? And rally they do, with Wise taking the lead. Crying out ‘Charge!’,35 he foregoes firing and with his sword forward - for gentlemen officers do not carry dirty muskets - starts to run straight up the slope, the men under his command following hard.

  Behind the Americans in the Stockade, other diggers have now gathered themselves to come forward and fire down the hill, adding to the barrage, before …

  Before suddenly some of them cry out and fall with splotches of red on their backs. In an instant the survivors are aware that shots are now coming from behind them! It proves to be Sub-Inspector Samuel Furnell’s mounted police troopers attacking the thinly defended southern end of the Stockade’s western wall, at the spot where Commissioner Amos has led them to, and doing it at a time when they are most needed by the troops who are hopefully about to breach the diggers’ defences. Suddenly some of the fire trained down the gully has to divert to deal with this new threat, allowing Wise and his men a proper chance to attack without being cut to pieces. It is also the moment when many of soldiers who have been held back in reserve now rush forward to replace the fallen. In fact, it is a half dozen of those eager reserves who end up leading the charge towards the Stockade walls, running ‘pell-mell’36 into hell.

  The air is now filled with the acrid smoke from the muskets, the endless thunder of so many guns firing at once, the whine of outgoing lead balls and the hiss of incoming bullets, the screams of dying and fearfully wounded men, shouts of aggression and fear, and the unearthly shriek of terrified horses.

  And there is the wall! Up and over, the half-dozen reserves are the first to breach the defences and enter the Stockade while the diggers under the command of Captain Ross and Captain Thonen are mostly distracted with Furnell’s mounted police attacking their flank.

  Alas, once the reserves do get inside the Stockade, they are confronted by diggers only too eager to get at them. What to do now? The obvious …

  For there is the wall! Up and over, the half-dozen reserves are also the first to now smartly get back over it. By this time, however, the main body of the soldiers has arrived, under the leadership of Captain Wise. These men, too, scramble over the barricade en masse. While some diggers begin to flee for their lives, it is here that the Californians truly come into their own, rushing forward with their Colt revolvers in hand, sometimes firing from the hip, sometimes firing with their arm and hand stretched horizontally before them. True, this daring prevents ‘the riflemen and other comrades from supporting them’,37 but they do it anyway.

  Whatever else, they know they must get close to the soldiers to be any chance of hitting them with these guns, even if it means they take a terrible toll in turn as the soldiers fire their muskets at near point-blank range.

  Carnage and confusion now join the battle, sometimes side by side, sometimes clashing fiercely - no-one quite knows. Each blast of the muskets and revolvers from both sides creates so much smoke that a fog of spent ordnance has now enveloped the Stockade.

  In the thick of it all, Captain Wise is just shaping to climb up and over the Stockade wall, choosing which spoke of a dray wheel to
put his right foot on and …

  And it is a strange thing to be shot. Not nearly as agonising as one might imagine in the first instance, particularly when, like this bullet, it does not take Wise in one of his vital organs. Rather, a bullet fired from an unknown rebel hits Wise high in the right thigh and is more like a very hard kick that brings him down than anything else. Still, it is not enough to stop him outright and, after quaveringly quipping that forevermore ‘my dancing is spoiled’,38 he is soon enough up and staggering forward once more. Now that his men are on the rebel wall, with an entirely different kind of battle beckoning, it is obvious what needs to be done. Captain Wise is quick to give the order: ‘Fix bayonets!’39

  The Redcoats continue to move with superbly trained precision and, with a whip from their hip, take the 22-inch pieces of cruel steel from their scabbards and fit them to the muzzles of their muskets. And then they renew their scramble up and over the Stockade wall.

  It is at close quarters that the soldiers are at their most devastating. Having been exposed in the open as they made their way to the Stockade, they are now ready to even accounts. After marching here expecting an easy victory, the infamy of their own men being shot by the rebels - 12 men of the 12th and four of the 40th have fallen in the opening exchanges - fuels the soldiers’ rage. They are intent on revenge from the first.

  Suddenly, Private John Sullivan of the 12th Regiment sees a flitting figure ahead - a digger running from tent to tent, trying to keep under cover. Even though the fellow does not appear to be carrying a weapon, Sullivan brings his musket to his shoulder and fires … only to hear a throaty cry of agony from beside him.

  It is Captain Wise! One of the diggers has just shot him!

  Wise had just brought himself to a head-on confrontation with the California Rifle Brigade’s Robert Burnette, who remained right in the thick of it, but the digger had managed to fire first at his opposite number with his Colt revolver. Or was it, in fact, the black American rebel John Joseph with a double-barrelled shotgun? Amidst the chaos, Sullivan is far from sure. Whoever it is, his aim is good, for now a second bullet hits Captain Wise, this one passing through both his legs around the knees. The English officer goes down, crippled.