Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  So let us now cross the Calamon over the small stone bridge, or the temporary one next to it of wood, go up the side of the Inundation, pass the Quarries on the left, and join the Light and 4th Divisions, 3,000 and 3,500 men strong; of whom it is feared every fourth man was about to be hit by something: cannon ball or canister or grape, musket ball or improvised shot, blown up or burned by shell, powder kegs, tar barrels or grenades, struck down by rocks, cartwheels or timbers, impaled on sword, pike or bayonet blades, or drowned, or smothered under bodies. Or various combinations, for every fourth soldier.

  All was quiet near the Quarries. The night was dark and damp, with a cold vapour hanging in the air about the town, the remains it was said of the dense smoke of the day’s firing. The Light Division’s column was headed by four Rifle companies commanded by Colonel Campbell, and with Johnny Kincaid as his temporary adjutant. They were to line the glacis and fire over the heads of the stormers, at the defenders on the ramparts and on Santa Maria:

  The enemy seemed aware of our intentions. The fire of artillery and musketry, which for three weeks before had been incessant, both from the town and trenches, had now entirely ceased as if by mutual consent, and a death-like silence of nearly an hour preceded the awful scene of carnage.

  The signal to advance was made about nine o‘clock and our four companies led the way. Colonel Cameron and myself had reconnoitred the ground so accurately by daylight that we succeeded in bringing the head of our column to the very spot agreed on, as opposite to the left breach, and then formed line to the left without a word being spoken, each man lying down as he got into line, with the muzzle on his rifle over the edge of the ditch between the palisades, already to open. It was tolerably clear above, and we distinctly saw their heads lining the ramparts; but there was a sort of haze on the ground which, with the colour of our dress, prevented them from seeing us, although only a few yards asunder. One of their sentries, however, challenged us twice, ‘Qui Vive’ and receiving no reply he fired off his musket, which was followed by the drums beating to arms; but we still remained perfectly quiet, and all was silent again for the space of five or ten minutes, when the head of the Forlorn Hope at length came up.

  Preceding the Forlorn Hope were six volunteers of the 95th led by Lieutenant William Johnston ‘Carrying ropes prepared with nooses, to throw over the sword blades (of the chevaux de frise) as the most likely method of displacing them and dragged them down the breach’.

  The Light Division’s Hope was led by Lieutenant Horatio Harvest, the 43rd’s senior subaltern and who had already been promised his company. He had nevertheless volunteered, because in the Light Division it was the custom for the senior subaltern to insist on the right to lead such endeavours, and not to do so, as Surtees put it ‘Might be construed to the detriment of his honour’. Harvest seemed to know he was to die, for he had said that afternoon to his brother officer John Cooke, ‘My mind is made up, I am sure to be killed.’ Behind Harvest and his men were 300 volunteer stormers led by Major O’Hare, 95th, being each 100 men from the Rifles under Captain Crampton, 100 from the 43rd again (as at Rodrigo) led by Captain James Fergusson, and 100 from the 52nd under Captain Jones. Behind the stormers came the Division’s main party, in column of sections.

  The sentry’s solitary musket shot was also heard by Lieutenant John Cooke, in the 43rd’s column:

  The Division drew up in the most profound silence behind the large quarry, three hundred yards from the three breaches made in the bastions of La Trinidad and Santa Maria. A small stream separated us from the 4th Division. Suddenly, a voice from that direction giving orders about ladders broke the stillness of the moment. It was so loud that it might be heard by the enemy on the rampart. Everyone was indignant. Colonel Macleod sent an officer to say that he would report the circumstance to the General-in-Chief. I looked up the side of the quarry fully expecting to see the enemy come forth and derange the plan of attack. It was nine thirty this happened. The ill-timed noise ceased and nothing could be heard by the loud croaking of the frogs.

  At 10pm a carcass was thrown from the town. This was a most beautiful firework which illuminated the ground for a hundred yards. Two or three fireballs followed and fell in different directions. Showing a bright light they remained burning. The stillness that followed was a prelude to one of the strangest scenes that the imagination of man can conceive.

  Soon after 10pm, a little whispering announced that the Forlorn Hope were stealing forward, followed by the storming parties. In two minutes the division followed, with the exception of the two regiments of Portuguese, who were left in reserve in the quarries, many of whom afterwards came forward to the breaches. One musket shot, no more, was fired near the breaches, who was on the look out.

  We gained ground leisurely, but silently. There were no obstacles. The 52nd, 43rd and part of the Rifles closed gradually up to column at quarter distance. Left in front. All was hush. The town lay buried in gloom. The ladders were placed on the edge of the ditch.

  The French were standing-to, but without light had nothing to aim at, and mere suspicion of British presence did not justify using up further precious fireballs – but not for long. The town clock told the hour of ten, and the sentries along the walls successively gave their usual cries of ‘Sentinelle, guard a vous’ translated by the besieging infantrymen as ‘All is well in Badahoo’. Lamare wrote:

  The very dark night, only feebly lit by a quarter moon, favoured their approach ... The columns of attack arrived on the glacis without being seen; the heads of these columns instantly leapt into the ditches and arrived at the foot of the ruins. The clinking of arms was heard; a sudden cry was raised: ‘There they are! There they are!’

  Captain Harry Smith, 95th: ‘The breach and the works were full of the enemy, looking quietly at us, but not fifty yards off and most prepared, although not firing a shot.’ The 52nd’s ladder party, led by Ensign George Gawler, let down six ladders against the counterscarp. He and ‘about 12 or 15 men descended into the ditch when, with a blinding blaze of light and a regular chorus of explosions of all kinds, the enemy’s fire opened.’ (Leeke’s Regimental History)

  Bugler William Green, 95th: ‘As the hay bags were thrown and the men descended, the enemy threw up blue lights,’ because they needed now to see – and wait for – the attackers to congregate in numbers in the ditch. As John Cooper, 7th, wrote ‘As our men kept going down the ladders, the whole ditch was soon filled with a dense mass.’

  That is what French Lieutenant Maillet of the Miners was waiting for. He was charged with blowing them up.

  We had arranged at the foot of the counter scarp immediately in front of the breaches sixty fourteen inch shells ... This officer seized the proper opportunity ... powder hoses (were) set fire to as the assailants were crossing the ditch to reach the breaches. The explosion took place with a most tremendous noise; the fire which darted from the shells and barrels, with a noise like that of thunder, illuminated the horizon and presented the most awful spectacle. (and) Six hundred or seven hundred of our men, each furnished with three muskets, fired at the English at their very muzzles ... The dead and the wounded were heaped in the ditches and on the glacis. (Lamare)

  ‘The whole rampart was in a blaze; mortars, cannons and muskets roared and rattled incessantly.’ (John Cooper, 7th)

  ‘The earth seemed to rock under us.’ (John Cooke, 43rd)

  And who can resist quoting Napier here?

  The Forlorn Hopes and storming parties of the Light Division, about five hundred in all, had descended into the ditch without opposition when a bright flame shooting upwards displayed all the terrors of the scene. The ramparts crowded with dark figures and the glittering of arms, were seen on the one side, and on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava; it was the touch of a magician’s wand, for a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powde
r barrels.

  Ned Costello, 95th, was a ladder man in the Light Division’s Forlorn Hope. It took six of them to carry it, encumbered as they were also with a hay bag, and a rifle, (but only two hands) per man. Just before the glacis his party bumped into the stormers from the 4th Division, closing in on their right. As they reached the glacis three of his party were shot dead, while the ‘remainder of the stormers rushed up ... many were shot and fell upon me, so that I was drenched in blood.’

  The ditch, some said, was twenty-four foot deep with two unfinished ravelins. Napier’s sketch shows these with the Inundation artificially extended by cunettes – ditches dug within the main ditch. The cunette before the Maria breach was seven feet deep. John Dobbs was in one of the 52nd’s rear companies:

  The ladder I descended was at the edge of the Inundation, and I got into about a foot of water to begin at first. I turned to my right, and finding the water got deeper, I retraced my steps and came to the unfinished ravelin (which I fancied to be one of the breaches).

  Dobbs was not the only man to turn right. John Cooper, 7th, noted that some of his fellow fusiliers, and some of the 23rd and 48th ‘Went further to the right and jumped into that part of the ditch that was filled with water, and were drowned.’

  Costello, having extracted himself from the bodies, descended a ladder and ‘Rushed forward to the right, but to my surprise found myself immersed to my neck in water ... Diving through the water – I was a good swimmer – I gained the other side but in doing so I lost my sword.’

  Bugler Green:

  Our men were in the ditch, while the enemy had shells loaded on the top of the wall about two yards apart. As they were fired they rolled into the ditch, and when they burst, ten or twelve men were blown up in every direction. Some of them arrived at the breach, but a great many, both killed and wounded, lay around me. The balls came very thick about us and we were not able to move. At length the whole of the Light Division came past me ... and made for the breach.

  George Simmons:

  Our storming party was soon hotly engaged. Our columns moved on under a most dreadful fire of grape that mowed down our men like grass. We tore down the palisading and got upon the glacis. The havoc now became dreadful. My Captain (Gray) was shot in the mouth. Eight or ten officers and men innumerable fell to rise no more. Ladders were resting against the counterscarp from within the ditch. Down these we hurried, and as fast as we got down, rushed forward to the breaches, where a most frightful scene of carnage was going on.

  The Inundation being deeper to the right, in front of Trinidad, the 4th Division naturally sought to pass it to the left, thus mingling with the Light – but also taking them towards the unfinished ravelin. So with all the engineer guides having been hit, this wide ravelin misled many into thinking they had reached the main breach. Men of both divisions put up ladders and climbed the broken slope, to take what they thought at the top of the mound must be the prize; only to emerge into the massed musketry of the defenders ‘Every man mounting being swept down, and the whole ditch crowded with men, dead and alive’. The men of the 52nd, having pushed up the unfinished ravelin,

  In the hope of tracing a practicable passage to the central breach [found] the summit, in the very focus of fire, rendered still more untraversable by a field piece in the flank of Santa Maria, which powered incessant charges of grape across the ravelin, and onto the covered way to the Trinidad, on which now appeared the head of the 4th Division endeavouring to plant its ladders.

  The assault now having reached a frustrating mixture of lack of leadership, disorientation and regiments no longer acting as formed bodies, the kiss of death began to confront Lord Wellington’s endeavours. The confused scene is well described in Moorson’s History of the 52nd:

  The two massive (divisional) columns were first checked almost hopelessly on the crest of the glacis, under the fire within sixty yards of the veteran soldiers well covered, with several firelocks each, adding to their bullets wooden cylinders set with slugs, then officers and men, British, German, Portuguese of various regiments, became practically undisciplined mobs at the foot of the ladder. There were desperate rushes, in which the confused mass divided into three parties, according to each man’s fancy for a particular breach. Then came the lighted fireballs and tar barrels, the explosion of heavy shells, powder barrels and fougasses, and the crashes of logs of wood rolled incessantly from above. Then, halfway up the breach, were barrows turned the wrong side upwards and planks studded with pointed nails ... Chevaux etc.... and from these projected the muzzles of muskets of grenadiers, with their recollections fresh of two previous defences.

  Only two of the Light Division’s officers in the storming party were still on their feet. All their men were brightly illuminated, silhouetted against the carts, gabions and boats etc. placed as obstacles in the ditch, all ablaze from the explosion of the mines; and the men tended to drift towards the Trinidad breach, rather than the Light Division’s real objective to the left; and no-one of the 4th made straight ahead to the curtain – at least, few corpses were there next morning.

  There was no shortage of efforts to mount the Trinidad breach, nonetheless: ‘The whole of the Division made for the breach. A tremendous fire was going on. I heard the Bugle Major sound the advance and double quick ... I rolled on my back (he was wounded on the glacis) and repeated the sound.’ (Bugler Green)

  Ned Costello (having swum the flooded ditch):

  I now attempted to get to the breach, which the blaze of musketry from the walls clearly showed me. Without rifle, sword or any other weapon, I succeeded in clambering up a part of the breach where there was a Chevaux de Frise, consisting of a piece of heavy timber studded with sword blades, turning on an axis. Just before I reached it, I received a stroke on the breast. Whether it was from a grenade, or a stone, or the butt end of a musket, I cannot say, but down I rolled senseless, drenched with water and human gore.

  Harry Smith:

  We flew down the ladders and rushed at the breach, but we were broken and carried no weight with us, although every soldier was a hero. The breach was covered by a breast work from behind and ably defended on the top by Chevaux de Frise of sword blades, sharp as razors, chained to the ground; while the ascent to the top of the breach was covered with planks with sharp nails in them. However, devil or one did I feel at this moment. One of the officers of the Forlorn Hope, Lieutenant Taggard, of the 43rd, was hanging on my arm – a mode we adopted to help each other up; for the ascent was most difficult and steep. A rifleman stood among the sword blades at the top of one of the Chevaux de Frise. We made a glorious rush to follow, but, alas! in vain. He was knocked over ... I had been some seconds at the revetment of the bastion near the breach, and my red coat pockets were literally filled with chips of stones splintered by musket balls. Those knocked down were driven back by this hale of mortality, to the ladders.

  Costello – and who can blame him – by this time had wisely decided that discretion was appropriate:

  I could not have laid long in this plight, and when my senses started to return, I saw our gallant fellows still rushing forward, each seeming to meet a fate more deadly than my own. The fire continued in one horrible and incessant peel, as if the mouth of the infernal regions had opened to vomit forth destruction upon all around us. Even more appalling were the fearful shouts of the combatants, and cries of the wounded that mingled in the uproar ... Strange to say, I now began to feel my arms and legs were entire. At such moments a man is not always aware of his wounds. I had lost all the frenzy of courage that had first possessed me, and felt weak, my spirit prostrate. Among the dead and wounded bodies around me, I endeavoured to screen myself from the enemy’s shot. While I lay in this position the fire continued to blaze over me in all its horrors, accompanied by screams, groans, and shouts, the crashing of stones and the falling of timbers. For the first time for many years, I uttered something like a prayer.

  John Cooke:

  Death and the most dreadful sounds
encompassed us. It was a volcano! Up we went; some killed and some impaled on the bayonets of their own comrades, or hurled headlong among the outrageous crowd. These Chevaux de Frise looked like innumerable bayonets. When within a yard of the top my sensations were extraordinary; I felt half strangled, and fell from a blow that deprived me of sensation. I only recollect feeling a soldier pulling me out of the water, where so many men were drowned. I lost my cap, but still held my sword; on recovering, I looked towards the breach. It was shining and empty! Fireballs were in plenty, and the French troops standing upon the walls, taunting and inviting our men to come up and try it again. What a crisis! What a military misery! Some of the finest troops in the world prostrate – humbled to the dust.

  These descriptions of the scene should leave most modern readers feeling bludgeoned. At the risk, therefore, of extending the shellshock, we really cannot move on without Major William Napier, 43rd. He missed these joys at Badajoz, being back in England still with a ball in his back (perhaps just as well for all those memoir-writers later inspired by his great History):

  Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword blades, sharp pointed, keen edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams, which were chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front, the ascent was covered with loose planks studded with sharp iron points, on which the feet of the foremost being set the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem, and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets ... Again the assailants rushed up the breaches, and again the sword blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge; and the hissing shells and thundering powder barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen, and hundreds more were dropping, but still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascending the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves, that in one of these charges, the rear strove to push the foremost onto the sword blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies; but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so fast from the shot, that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily, who was stricken, and many stooped unhurt that would never rise again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies, and the slaughter would have continued.