Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

by Peter Fitzsimons

  Beside Wise, two other Redcoats fall grievously wounded as the rebels’ vicious volley hits them, while another two also suffer bloody wounds. Charles Hackett, who is right in the thick of the action despite not bearing a weapon, races to Wise’s aid but is roughly pushed aside by Sergeant Daniel Hegarty of the 40th, who drags Wise to some cover, where he tries in vain to stem the good Captain’s copious bleeding.

  If the soldiers hesitate momentarily at this point after taking such punishment, that hesitation is soon dispelled as Captain Thomas again shows daring in the midst of doubt. With his yell of ‘Come on 40th!’,40 the men sally forth with at least this part of the battle in the balance, for the diggers are at their best in hand-to-hand fighting and using their pistols at close quarters. The pikemen are also holding their own, their weapons far outreaching the soldiers’ bayonets.

  Overall, however, the number of firearms levelled against the diggers is devastating. As described by Lynch, ‘Our left being unprotected, the troopers seized the advantage, wheeled round, and took us in the rear. We were then placed between two fires, and further resistance was useless.’41

  That is certainly the view of many a digger who, in the face of flying bullets and flashing bayonets, finds that his bravado of the last week has completely deserted him. Dropping their weapons, they surge over the south-eastern barricades themselves in the rough direction of Warrenheip Gully. With the enemy coming at them from all angles, it is time to get out and save their lives at least.

  From a distance, Raffaello Carboni sees the vision of ‘long-legged Vern’42 - he who seemed to talk with such knowledge about military tactics and stratagems - floundering ‘across the stockade eastward’.43 It seems the German has decided that the best tactic on this occasion is to head for the hills just as fast as those legs can carry him, also in the direction of Warrenheip.

  When Californian Charles Ferguson calls out after the Hanoverian for him to stop and fight, Vern yells back over his shoulder that he is running ‘to stop the others’.44 Ferguson is not convinced.

  Captain John Lynch would write of Vern’s action at this point: ‘How he escaped from the enclosure is indeed a mystery; but not so his action outside. Those who saw him run averred that his performance was such as to suggest a past-mastership in the art of desertion.’45

  So much for the man who wanted to be the Commander-in-Chief. Carboni and Ferguson are not the only ones appalled, as one Patrick Curtain orders a rebel rifleman to shoot him, but on the instant it is too late - Vern has disappeared and the battle is soon raging all around. Those who don’t flee at least have plenty of fight left in them. (To be fair to Vern, at least he had been present and done his best. The same could not be said of Tom Kennedy. Despite his magnificent oratory, the lugs of the Redcoats will go entirely unlicked by him, and again it is John Lynch who would later assert, ‘When the time came to put his principles into action he was absent from his post; and the story ran that he prudently withdrew from the scene of danger to seek safety in the seclusion of a pipe-clay cross-drive in a blind shaft.’)46

  One man who has been present from the beginning and stands his ground magnificently is Captain Charles Ross. Four days earlier, he, like all of the rebels, had sworn ‘by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and to fight to defend our rights and liberties’. He is now living that sacred oath and, if necessary, dying by it, as he stands by the flagpole upon which the Southern Cross is flying proud, sword in one hand and pistol in the other. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the Canadian is an American rebel with the California Rangers who has also taken the oath seriously and is seen to be ‘[fighting] like a tiger’.47 His name is currently lost to history.

  Alas, their defence cannot last long. Captain Thomas, realising that the battle has swung his way, needs only one more major effort to finish off the rebels, and he immediately calls up the rest of his reserve troops to surge forward. A new wave of Redcoats is soon crashing over the Stockade walls.

  In the face of the fresh swarm, Peter Lalor is standing and delivering from atop a large miner’s mound, totally exposed beside an open mine-shaft, pistol in hand and fighting with everything he has in him. The crack of his gunfire meets with the rather heavier boom of the soldiers’ muskets.

  With each shot fired by Lalor, the flash at the muzzle of his pistol briefly illuminates the grim determination of his face. Who strikes the first blow for Ireland? Who draws first blood for Ireland? Who wins a wreath that will be green forever? Of course this is not Ireland, but the sentiment - throwing off iniquitous British rule with violence, when all else has failed - is much the same.

  Lalor roars to Patrick Curtain and his company, ‘Pikemen, advance! Now, for God’s sake do your duty.’48

  By God, and so they do. No matter that the battle is all but gone, that the Redcoats are surging, backed by dozens of police. Lalor has given the order and the pikemen are willing. All this time they have been frustrated by their inability to get at the attackers from afar, but that is put to rights now that the Redcoats are among them so thickly. They set to with a will, swinging out viciously at these first arrivals. In an instant, Private Joseph Wall of the 40th takes a pike right through the stomach and instantly falls to the ground, his hands clawing to prevent his intestines from spilling onto the black dirt - in vain. His mortal coil is loosening by the minute.

  Yet despite the courage of the pikemen - in fact, because of it - they present relatively easy targets for the now enraged Redcoats. A volley of shots rings out and half a dozen fall. And now with the Redcoats right upon them, it gets bloodier still, as the pikemen are cut to pieces by their bayonets. In these exchanges the soldiers are without mercy. They have been trained, again and again, when using the bayonet not to ‘give them the false touch, but push it home to the muzzle’,49 and so they now do - again and again.

  On the fallen diggers the first of the bayonet thrusts brings a quick fountain of blood, while the last of them usually brings nothing as the heart no longer beats. However, it is the brave resistance of these pikemen, standing their ground in the face of such carnage, that allows crucial time for the diggers behind them to either mount their own attacks or - for so many - to continue to flee.

  Peter Lalor is not among the deserters. In the middle of the maelstrom, the rebel leader also stands his ground, even as one from the group of Redcoats he has been firing into takes better aim with his musket … and shoots.

  On the instant, Lalor suddenly drops his gun from his right hand and grasps his left shoulder where he has been hit by a round called a ‘buck and ball’ - a large bullet (ball) packed into the barrel along with two smaller bullets. It is a round beloved by the military when firing smooth bore muskets and carbines, as it increases the lethality of the weapon at short range. The troopers rush forward. Lalor is hurt, bleeding profusely from his shattered arm.

  Clearly, the battle is lost. His first thought, however, is not for himself, but for the others who have been fighting alongside him, who may still be able to save themselves. Running towards a group of fellow rebels, nursing his injured arm, Lalor shouts, ‘Get away, boys, as quickly as you can; the Stockade is taken.’50

  ‘You come with us,’ one of the rebels exhorts, while another, an American by the name of Jim Hull, removes his neckerchief and fastens it tightly around Lalor’s arm to stem the gushing flow.

  ‘No, I can’t go,’ Lalor replies, now unsteady on his feet and white as the ghost he may soon become. ‘Get away and save yourselves.’51

  These last words seem to exhaust what little oomph he has left as the firing continues to ring out, punctuated by the odd scream and agonised death rattle as the bullets and bayonets continue to hit their marks. Lalor slumps back and lands heavily, sitting just upright on a pile of slabs.

  Again, Hull has quick command of the situation: ‘Drop in there, and we’ll cover you up.’52

  Beside the pile of wood is a ‘shallow slab hutch’53 large enough to secrete a man, and the diggers quickly place
the faint but groaning Lalor inside and replace the slabs.

  The battle goes on.

  Near the flagpole, first the tigerish American is brought low by a bullet to his right thigh, and then Captain Ross - with Charles Ferguson standing right beside him - says to him in one breath, ‘Charlie, it is no use, the men have all left us’, before exclaiming, ‘My God, I am shot.’54 He has been felled by a vicious musket ball to his groin. Ferguson attempts an escape, during which a soldier’s fired ball passes through his hat but, ultimately, finding himself alone among the military, he is forced to make a formal surrender to Captain Carter of the foot police, with ‘only one thought for self congratulation, and that was that the soldiers did not take me’.55 To further save himself, he is also careful to dump his Colt revolver and bowie knife down the leg of his pants and onto the ground, so he won’t be captured with arms in hand.

  Only moments later the first of the soldiers are at the foot of the flagpole and policeman John King now delights in shinnying up the pole, his arms and legs pumping like those of a crazed monkey. He is only a short way up, however, when the slender pole, which had already been hit by heavy fire, splinters and breaks, bringing the flag to the ground.56 A mighty cheer goes up from the soldiers, who grab it, toss it from man to man, and, as if the standard is a living, breathing thing, throw it to the ground where they first kick and then continually stab it with their bayonets. When their passion has played out, King joyously claims the flag again and secures it beneath his tunic - there is still more killing to be done as yet more diggers turn and run for their lives.

  Quickly now, lads, away, for the Redcoats are all around!

  Another shot and brave Edward Thonen goes down with several bullets at once ‘exactly in the mouth’57 - his boots on, gun in his hand, still firing - but he is dead before he hits the ground.

  Although the Redcoats are now well on top, still the pikemen fight on, even after losing many of their number and the first of the mounted troopers having passed through. One Irishman, Thomas O’Neill, has a musket ball in his chest, both legs broken and can no longer stand, but it takes more than that to stop a man from Kilkenny when his blood is fairly up. Though in agony and sitting in a fresh pool of blood, he still manages to furiously swing his pike around above his head, a whirling dervish who manages to wound several flat-footed troopers until they wreak their terrible revenge with many musket balls.

  And nor are any braver than the German blacksmith Hafele, who has worked so hard to forge all those pikes. Right in the thick of it, he is flailing his own pike at every soldier who comes within range - and even those who don’t58 - before he, too, is struck down, his corpse run through with frenzied and repeated bayonet thrusts.

  Just ten yards away from the freshly fallen Hafele, the black American John Joseph fights on, no more intimidated by such bloody violence than John Manning, who is right beside him with rifle in hand, standing his ground.

  When trooper William Revell of the Mounted 40th goes after one pike-bearing digger, Thomas Dignum - born and bred in Sydney - who to this point had also ‘fought like a tiger [and] repented not of having put on stretchers a couple of Redcoats’,59 the Australian suddenly turns on Revell and thrusts his pike at him. Though it misses, the pike strikes home into a Redcoat mate beside him, whereupon the enraged Revell instantly strikes the Australian on the head with his sword. Dignum goes down with a heavy wound to his skull.

  Some 20 minutes after the first shots, however, as more diggers fall and others flee, the worst of the fighting is over. And yet, even after it is clear that the resistance of the diggers has ceased, that the government forces have won the day, still the killing does not stop. A terrible kind of madness appears to have overtaken some of the uniformed men and they continue their murdering and maiming, hunting down every digger they can see, whether or not he has even been involved in any of the hostilities. The worst of the murderers, for that is what they have become, are the police, who now wreak cruel revenge for the humiliations they have suffered in recent times.

  By now, many of those diggers not killed in the initial assault or its aftermath have taken refuge back in their tents, but this presents no problem for the conquering forces. As it happens, Martin and Anne Diamond have not been remotely involved in the uprising beyond having had their place sequestered for some crucial meetings of the Council for the Defence. Their whole presence within the Stockade is no more than a geographical quirk, as the boundaries of the Stockade left their store half-in and half-out of it. None of this registers on the soldiers and troopers. As the couple run out of their tent to try and get to the relative safety of the bush, Martin stumbles and falls flat on his face. He attempts to rise when the first soldier reaches him and triumphantly impales him in the back with his bayonet, and that soldier is soon joined by police, who slash at him with their swords. Diamond is dead within a minute, all of it in front of his screaming wife.

  There must be a lot of others in those tents? Well then, says Sub-Inspector Carter, ‘Set the tents on fire!’60

  The order is instantly obeyed as Carter’s foot police take the cool ends of some burning logs and sticks from one of the fires in the middle of the Stockade and run from tent to tent, setting them alight. (Oh so very strange, these British, how they love to put the torch to anything that will burn.)

  One of the first tents to go down is Diamond’s store, which blazes in an instant after a ‘Vandemonian-looking trooper’ - though this frankly describes most of them - sets fire to the northern end and lets the rising wind from that very direction take care of the rest. In short order, dozens of tents are ablaze, along with the wounded, who are burnt alive. As Carboni would recall, ‘The howling and yelling was horrible.’61

  That will bring them out once more.

  And so it does, as the fires soon illuminate screaming, coughing figures rushing out into the open air. Who knows if they have been involved in the rebellion or not? It doesn’t matter anymore. The butchering goes on.

  Up on the courthouse verandah back at the Camp, Samuel Huyghue and other officials see the flames and smoke billowing from the Stockade with some relief. The soldiers have clearly made it inside and are now destroying whatever it is they have found.

  As other diggers and their families rush from their tents, the troopers inevitably knock the men down and let the screaming women and children go where they will. If the men resist and try to fight back, their end comes quickly. If they submit, they are immediately arrested and dragged away. When one group of diggers falls back to some tents near the blacksmith’s workshop, those tents are quickly torched, smoking the rebels out, and another furious outbreak of violence takes place - hand to hand, pike to bayonet, dirty rebel to loyal servant of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. This group of diggers fights well, but the weight of numbers against them is so strong that it is not long before they are quelled.

  ‘When we were in that helpless state, an unconditional surrender ought to have been proposed to us,’ digger John Lynch would later recall. ‘It would have been accepted, and the future spared many bitter memories. But the spirit of revenge was uppermost, and revelled in a fierce saturnalia of carnage. More than half the loss of life took place after resistance had ceased. A few, who surrendered on challenge - and very few got the chance - were placed under guard; but as the wantonness of destruction on the one side grew with hopelessness of resistance on the other, the guards had enough to do to save their charges from being shot or hacked to pieces’.62

  Still not content that they have wrought enough destruction, many of the Redcoats now decide to spread the inferno to other tents well outside the Stockade walls. After all, they took fire from some treasonous diggers in those canvas caves. They must be put to the torch also.

  In all the madness, atrocities abound. One 23-year-old digger, Henry Powell, has had nothing to do with anything - he had come over the day before from Creswick to visit a friend. Curious about the shots and screams, he has just ventured from his friend’s t
ent and is in the open when soldiers on horseback come roaring over the rise. At the first sight of them, Powell realises the danger he is in and starts to run, something that automatically makes the police - the scent of victory in their nostrils - pursue him hard and bring him down. All is chaos and quick-fire, but at least Powell recognises one of the horsemen, a young fellow called Arthur Akehurst - a Clerk of the Peace, usually seen in the Ballarat courthouse inside the Camp - notable for his fair complexion and reddish hair.

  Not only is this no time for pleasantries, but Akehurst, who has been sworn in as a special constable just that morning, is violently aggressive from the first.

  ‘Stand up in the Queen’s name, you bastard,’ he says.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the frightened Powell replies, now with as many as 30 troopers surrounding him. ‘Very well, gentlemen, don’t be alarmed, there are plenty of you.’63

  There is no fight in him at all - just fear and the earnest hope that he will not be hurt. Alas, with nary another word, Akehurst takes his three-and-a-half-foot sword and strikes him a fearful blow on the head.

  Powell first falls down, then gets up, bleeding, only to have one of the troopers now fire into him and shout, ‘There, you bugger, that shows you!’64

  Even as the young man screams for help, the other troopers take their horses back and forth over him, their hooves inflicting cruel damage. When he again tries to rise, they first fire pistols and then slash viciously at him with their swords, and again he falls. Thomas Pierson would write of such acts in his diary, ‘It was a most cowardly disgraceful Butchery, worthy only off sutch scamps as those who instigated it.’65