Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  The Light Division’s Forlorn Hope was composed of 350 men from the 43rd, 52nd and 95th Rifles, all volunteers and two buglers from each regiment. Even the officers’ servants insisted on their place in the ranks, such that ‘I was obliged to leave my baggage in charge of a man who had been wounded some days before’ (Kincaid, 95th); and the forty-one-year-old Lieutenant MacCarthy, 50th, on duty as an assistant engineer attached to Picton’s 3rd Division, even used the word ‘hilarity’ to describe how the men packed their knapsacks and fixed their best flints ‘All forming in column with the utmost alacrity, to march to the assault’.

  And march they did. The 3rd Division assembled three miles distant, according to MacCarthy, who had volunteered for the unenviable task of guiding the irascible Picton forward. Upon reaching the west-east road to Talavera, the general dismounted to lead on foot, beside MacCarthy. Before reaching the First Parallel, however, musketry broke out up ahead which ‘becoming brisk, increased the general’s anxiety ... lest any occurrence should retard the operation of his Division’. That is, get him into the Peer’s bad books for lateness. For all attacks were meant to be simultaneous at 10pm, and brisk musketry, occurring while he was not yet even in the First Parallel, either meant something unplanned, or he was very late indeed. His pocket-watch no doubt reassured him, that it was about 9.30pm, for having then progressed up to the end of the Parallel, he was met by ‘The enemy’s volcanic fire [which] burst forth in every direction long and far over the Division, and in every kind of combustible’ such that it seemed ‘all the stars, planets and meteors and firmament, within numerable moons emitting smaller ones in their course [were] descending upon the heads of the besiegers’ (MacCarthy). General Picton whereupon exclaimed ‘Some of them are too soon; what o‘clock is it?’ and comparing his watch with others, saw ‘The time was a quarter before 10 o’clock’.

  So he at least had approached nicely before time, and was according to plan, ready to go; but Major James Wilson it was who had jumped the gun, for some reason having disregarded his Lordship’s injunction to attack the Lunette ‘as soon as’ i.e. not before, the 3rd Division was spotted. For the firing can only have been Wilson’s, and Lamare confirms this ‘At 9.30 at night a numerous Artillery were throwing a shower of projectiles in every direction. About the same time a brisk fire of musketry began at the Lunette San Roque: the besiegers attacked it.’

  Wilson carried out Wellington’s plan to the letter. He took 200 men round the right rear ready to escalade the barrier and gate leading to the bridge, whereupon his other 200 men crossed the few yards from the saphead to the salient angle, and opened their fire. Lieutenant Robert Knowles, 7th, was with Wilson’s party:

  When the 3rd Division advanced to commence their attack upon the castle, we advanced to the ravelin, and after considerable difficulty succeeded in placing one ladder against the wall, about twenty-four feet high. A corporal of mine was the first to mount it, and he was killed at the top. I was the third or fourth, and when in the act of leaping off the wall into the fort I was knocked down by a discharge from the enemy, the handle of my sabre broke into a hundred pieces, my hand disabled, and at the same time I received a very severe bruise on my side, and a slight wound, a piece of lead (having penetrated through my haversack which was nearly filled with bread, meat and a small stone brandy bottle for use in the trenches during the night) lodged upon one side of my ribs, but without doing any serious injuries. I recovered myself as soon as possible, and by the time seven or eight of my brave fellows had got into the fort, I charged along the ramparts, killing or destroying all who opposed us. I armed myself with the first Frenchman’s firelock I met with, and carried it as well as I was able under my arm. The greater part of my party having joined me, we charged into the Fort, where they all cried out ‘Prisoners’.

  It would seem that the fire in front kept the defenders so busy that Wilson was able to get round behind and climb the walls almost without opposition. For this action, a fortnight later Major Wilson was to receive brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel. His part in the plan had achieved the prime object: it removed the possibility of flanking fire to the left of the 3rd Division battalions as they crossed the Rivillas; and it allowed work to commence on unblocking the dam that restrained the water itself. Lieutenant Wright RE on Brigade Major Jones’ orders was ‘immediately on carrying the Lunette’ to fix three cases containing (possibly) 670lbs of powder against the dam – an enormous charge – more firmly than on the earlier two attempts by Stanway and Blackwood, 52nd, four nights previously. The new attempt must have failed, however, since Ensign Grattan tells us he, with Major Thomson, acting engineer, and a small party of sappers, was still placing casks of powder under the dam ‘in front of San Roque ... long after the Castle had been carried’. We must assume Grattan was fourth time lucky?

  James MacCarthy’s Recollections of the Storming are interesting if somewhat confusing, written twenty-four years later, for he it was who guided Picton personally to the First Parallel. There, with much relief, he was able to hand the old fire-eater over to the engineer Major Burgoyne. (Picton at one stage, near the Talavera road, as the brisk musketry served to excite his anxieties as to whether his guide was lost ‘Said that I was blind and going wrong and, drawing his sword, swore he would cut me down.’)

  And since MacCarthy had the further job of assisting the placing of the ladders, and the control of the men queuing to climb, his narrative is most helpful, up to the point when he is wounded (a compound fracture of the thigh). He confirms the statement by Sergeant Joe Donaldson, 94th, that the passage across the Rivillas was very constricted: ‘We reached a sort of moat about fifty yards wide, formed by the inundation of the river; here we had to pass rank entire, the passage being only capable of admitting one at a time ... when we reached the other side we formed again.’

  MacCarthy’s own description of the final approach was:

  I was walking between General Picton and General Kempt, when General Picton stumbled and dropped, wounded in the foot. He was instantly assisted to the left of the column, and the command devolving on General Kempt, he continued to lead it with the greatest of gallantry. On arrival at the mill-dam (extremely narrow), over which the troops were to pass, streams of fire blazed on the division: the party with ladders, axes etc. which had preceded, were overwhelmed, mingled in a dense crowd, and stopped the way ... rushing through the crowd (numbers were sliding into the water and drowning), I found the ladders left on the palisades in the fosse, and this barrier unbroken; in the exigence, I cried out ‘Down with the paling!’ and aided by the officers and men in rocking the fence, made the opening at which the Division entered; and which being opposite the before-mentioned mound, then, ‘Up with the ladders!’ – ‘What! Up here?’ said a brave officer of the 45th. ‘Yes!’ was the reply – and all seizing the ladders, pushed and pulled each other with them up the acclivity of the mound, as the shortest way to the summit.’

  Another account of the 3rd Division’s rush to get to grips with the Castle is that of Volunteer George Hennell, 94th, published in London later in the year. His account is unusually detailed as to measurements which, since it was written within weeks, we may hope can be trusted:

  On the fireballs striking near us, we moved out of the road to the green sward, but the cannonballs hissed by us along the grass, and the musket balls flew like hale above our heads; we immediately began therefore to run forward, til we were within about a hundred yards of the bridge across the ditch, and then the balls came on so thick, that as near as I can judge, twenty must have passed in the space of a minute, within a yard of my head.

  While we were running on the grass, one or two men dropped every minute and were left behind; but now they fell faster; when we came to the bridge, which was about two yards wide and twelve yards long, the balls came so thick that I had no expectation of getting across alive. We then began to ascend the hill and were as crowded as people in a fair. We had to creep upon our hands and knees, the ascent be
ing so steep and rocky and, while creeping, my brother officer received a ball in the brain and fell dead.

  Having got up this rock, we came to some palisades within about twenty yards of the wall; these we broke down: but behind them was a ditch three feet deep, and just behind that a flat space about six yards broad and then a hill thrown up, eight foot high. These all passed, we approached a second ditch, and then the wall itself which was twenty-six foot high, against which we planted six or seven ladders.

  The hill is much like that of Greenwich; about as steep and as high. Just as I passed the palisaded ditch, there came a discharge of grapeshot from a twenty-four pounder directly into that flat space, and about twelve fine fellows sunk upon the ground, uttering groans that shook the oldest soldier to the soul. Ten of them never rose again and the nearest of them was within a foot of me, the furthest not four yards distant. It swept away all within its range. The next three or four steps I took was upon this heap of dead! You read of the horrors of war, yet little understand what they mean. When I got over this hill or escarpment into the ditch, under the wall, the dead and wounded lay so thick, that I was continuing treading upon them. A momentary pause took place about the time we reached the ladders, occasioned I apprehend by the grapeshot, and by the numbers killed from off the ladders.

  For the question put to MacCarthy of ‘What, up here?’ had been a very good one. His opening of the palisade fencing beyond the mill-dam led directly to the curtain wall between the San Pedro and San Antonio bastions, precisely where Lord Wellington had expressly warned Picton not to go. The attack was rather to be upon ‘That part of the castle which is on the right, looking from the trenches, and in the rear of the great battery constructed by the enemy to fire on the bastion of La Trinidad.’ MacCarthy had put the 3rd Division directly under that great battery, and was in fact attacking the curtain wall, not the Castle. It makes one wonder what Major Burgoyne was doing, to allow it: he was the senior, professional engineer whose amateur assistant MacCarthy was, and who was with MacCarthy at the time:

  I was visited by General Kempt and Major Burgoyne, although this place and the whole of the wall, being opposed by the guns of the citadel, was so swept by their discharges of round shot, broken shells, bundles of cartridges and other missiles, and also from the top of the wall, ignited shells etc., that it was almost impossible to twinkle the eye on any man before he was knocked down.

  As Lamare commented, this being the wall they regarded as their weakest link: ‘Three hundred Hessians and the gunners on the rampart vigorously resisted this attack.’

  Donaldson of the 94th said:

  When we reach the other side (of ‘a sort of moat fifty feet wide’) we formed again (from single files) and advanced up the glacis, forcing our way through the palisades, and got down into the ditch. The ladders by which we had to escalade the castle were not yet brought up, and the men were huddled on one another in such a manner we could not move; we were now ordered to fix bayonets. When we first entered the trench, we considered ourselves comparatively safe, thinking we were out of range of their shot, but we were soon convinced of our mistake, for they opened several guns from angles which commanded the trench, and poured in grapeshot upon us from each side, every shot of which took effect, and every volley of which was succeeded by the dying groans of those who fell. Our situation at this time was truly appalling.

  The 88th also found there was little safety in getting under the walls, as Lieutenant Parr Kingsmill tells:

  By quickening our pace we succeeded in getting so close under the wall that the guns could not bear upon us; but the brilliant fireballs, which mocked all our efforts to extinguish them, burned so vividly as not only to enable them to direct their musketry, but also to hurl with fatal precision every kind of missile upon us.

  Similarly the 45th (William Brown):

  The point at which we descended into the ditch was between two bastions, from both of which we experienced a dreadful fire of musketry, while from the body of the wall the enemy continued to pour, by means of boards placed on the parapet, whole showers of grenades, which they had arranged in rows and, being alighted with a match, the whole was upset, exploding amongst us in the ditch with horrid destruction. Coils of rope, in a friable state, strongly impregnated with tar, pitch and oil, were likewise employed by the enemy as a means of annoyance, which completely answered the purpose intended by scorching and scalding numbers in a dreadful manner.

  One of Brown’s officers, and an unnamed Brigade Major, got five ladders up.

  Four of my ladders with troops on them and an officer on the top of each were broken successively, near the upper ends, and slid into the angle of the abutment – dreadful their fall ... On the remaining ladder was no officer, but a private soldier at the top, in attempting to go over the wall, was shot in the head as he appeared above the parapet, and tumbled backwards to the ground. (MacCarthy)

  Donaldson:

  When the ladders were placed, each eager to mount, crowded them in such a way that many of them broke, and the poor fellows who had nearly reached the top were precipitated thirty or forty feet, and impaled on the bayonets of their comrades below; other ladders were pushed aside by the enemy on the walls, and fell with a crash on those in the ditch; while more who got to the top without accident were shot on reaching the parapet, and tumbling headlong, brought down those beneath them.

  And no wonder Picton’s lead brigade (Kempt’s) of the 45th, 88th and 74th were stuck. As William Grattan, 88th, tells us:

  A host of veterans crowned the wall, all armed in a manner as imposing as novel; each man had beside him eight loaded firelocks; while at intervals, and proportionably distributed, were pikes of an enormous length, with crooks attached to them, for the purpose of grappling with the ladders. The top of the wall was covered with rocks of ponderous size, only requiring a slight push to hurl them above the heads of our soldiers, and there was a sufficiency of hand grenades and small shells at the disposal of the men that defended this point, to have destroyed the entire of the besieging army; while on the flanks of each curtain, batteries were charged to the muzzle with grape and case shot, and either swept away entire sections or disorganised the ladders as they were about to be placed; and an incessant storm of musketry, at the distance of fifteen yards, completed the resources the enemy brought into play.

  Lamare has told us that Grattan’s ‘host of veterans’ was the 300 Hessians and gunners under Colonel Webber; but of course immediately to their left were the Castle’s garrison of ‘at least eighty (Hessians) as well as twenty five Frenchmen, and a small detachment of artillery’, all under Colonel Knoller. Picton’s seven battalions therefore were being held by the equivalent of a small battalion, that is, odds in his favour of say seven to one. But the French and Germans were more than holding their own. An hour had passed, without success. Kempt was carried off wounded, the 88th was down to half strength and the other battalions little better, as Grattan summarised with succinct understatement ‘Picton became uneasy.’ He had after all earlier told his commanders ‘Some persons are of the opinion that the attack on the Castle would not succeed, but I will forfeit my life if it does not!’ And perhaps come eleven o’clock the boast was returning uncomfortably to his mind. For he must have known he had thrown his division (or somehow allowed it to throw itself) absolutely where – for all obvious reasons – his commander had so wisely banned. While Picton was himself not present, being wounded, it remains a puzzle that Kempt and Major Burgoyne did not immediately take robust action to correct MacCarthy’s direction of the ladder parties, there being by all accounts no shortage of illumination. Colonel Lamare’s comment was simply ‘The enemy ... crossed the Rivillas and in vain attempted to escalade the front (marked 8 and 9)’ – on his map the San Pedro and San Antonio bastions. Talk about walking into a three-sided cauldron of fire. Picton’s Division this night suffered over 500 casualties, including fifty-three officers, the great majority of whom were knocked over in this first hour, in
this haphazard misdirection.

  A possible cause for Picton’s navigational difficulties may lie in a letter written by General Kempt in 1833 and quoted by Napier. Kempt’s brigade was always meant to escalade the Castle but, in Wellington’s first arrangement, Picton’s two other brigades ‘were to have attacked the bastion adjoining the Castle’ i.e. San Antonio. However:

  On the day before the assault took place, this arrangement was changed by lord Wellington, a French deserter from the Castle (a sergeant of sappers) gave information that no communication could be established between the castle and the adjoining bastion, there being (he said) only one communication between the castle and the town, and upon learning this, the whole of the 3rd Division were ordered by lord Wellington to attack the castle.

  Might it be this change of plan was not fully passed down?

  The same hour had also passed for Lieutenant General Sir James Leith’s 5th Division, tasked to get into the San Vincente bastion, next to the Guardiana, whilst also making a false attack on Fort Pardaleras. The latter was energetically enacted by one of his Portuguese battalions, but the bastion itself remained safe and sound, quite unmolested. For his ladder parties had got lost, coming back from the engineer park. The two British brigades, perhaps near 3,000 men, sat and shivered; they were faced by less than 200 Frenchmen in three weak companies of the 9th Léger, plus gunners, who presumably were also shivering, depending on how long the respective brandy and rum issues had lasted.

  By eleven o’clock, therefore, it may be said that while Major Wilson had successfully stolen the Lunette, neither Picton on the right nor Leith on the left were at all happy men. As the clock ticked, both felt a growing frustration with their own situations, magnified by the never-ending sounds of mayhem and stubborn resistance coming from the breaches. Guilt, too, that neither was helping the main effort.