Salamanca 1812- Wellington’s Year of Victories

by Peter Edwards

  Lord Wellington’s plan for the three adjacent breaches to be assaulted together never happened. Almost the entire effort was attracted to Trinidad, like iron filings to a magnet. The curtain wall was farther into the crossfire and protected by obstacles; yet the freshest breach, made that very morning, had nothing like the sophisticated defences Philippon and Lamare had concocted for the others. Napier quotes an anonymous officer:

  I consider that the centre breach at Badajoz was never seriously attacked. I was not at the centre breach on the night of the assault, therefore I cannot positively assert what took place there. But there were not bodies of dead and wounded at the centre or curtain breach in the morning to indicate such an attack having been made upon it, and being in the curtain it was far retired from the troops, and the approach to it was made extremely difficult by deep cuts, and I think it passed unobserved except for a straggling few. I consider that Chevaux de Frise were placed upon the summit of the centre breach during the assault. I was there at daybreak. The approach to it was extremely difficult, both from the difficulty of finding it, and from the deep holes that were before it, which to my recollection resembled the holes you see in a clay field, where they make bricks. Another great obstruction was the fire from the faces and flanks of the two bastions, which crossed before the curtain.

  As to the Santa Maria breach, there is little reference to it in the memoirs, bar the story that Lieutenant James Shaw, 43rd, saw the last engineer officer on his feet, Captain William Nicholas, trying unsuccessfully to mount the breach. Shaw collected some fifty men of various regiments in the ditch near him, to support the effort, but it petered out in the face of a concentrated fire of musketry and grape, two thirds of the way up the ascent. Nicholas’ wounds (from which he died eight days later) were described as ‘one through the lungs, and two ribs broke, left arm broke below the elbow, left knee touched on the cap, left calf and right thigh grazed with musket balls.’

  Captain James Currie, 52nd, according to their History, in desperation examined the counterscarp to the left, beyond the Maria breach, and found a narrow ramp which the garrison had not fully destroyed. Mounting it, he ran the short distance to Wellington’s tactical headquarters, on a hillock near the Quarries. ‘Can they not get in?’ was the Earl’s anxious and emphatic question. On Currie’s reply, ‘That those in confusion in the ditch could not, but that a fresh battalion might succeed by the descent he had discovered,’ a reserve battalion was ordered to follow Currie; ‘These men as they got in [the ditch] became mixed up with the confused parties rushing at or retiring from the breaches, and this last hope vanished.’ For it was now plain that the French defence was simply too strong. Innumerable attempts had piled up further layers of bodies, not all of whom, it must be said, would be corpses or be badly wounded – but some who judged the job was just not practicable. Men who felt the same but who would not sink to feign death were more numerous: ‘I had seen some fighting, but nothing like this. We remained passively here to be slaughtered, as we could do the besieged little injury from the ditch.’ (George Simmons). For despair was in the air. Read again Costello: ‘I had lost all the frenzy of courage ... and felt weak, my spirit prostrate ... I endeavoured to screen myself from the enemy’s shot ... For the first time for many years I uttered something like a prayer.’

  There is even reference, we must hope mistaken, to a retrograde movement. Harry Smith who had just helped the mortally wounded Colonel Macleod of the 43rd to get away up a ladder, and onto the glacis, in search of a doctor:

  I did so, and came back [down the ladder] again. Little Freer and I said ‘Let us throw down the ladders; the fellows shan’t go out.’ Some soldiers behind said ‘Damn your eyes, if you do we will bayonet you.’ And we were literally forced up [the ladder] by the crowd. So soon as we got on the glacis, up came the fresh brigade of Portuguese of the 4th Division – I never saw any soldiers behave with more pluck. Down into the ditch we went again, but the more we tried to get up [the breach], the more we were destroyed.

  There was said afterwards to be rumour in the ditch that the garrison was making a sally from the two flanks, hence the retrograde panic, if that is the right word; also that Harry Smith had not heard the order to retire. Who can tell?

  Lord Wellington, with the Prince of Orange and Lord March alongside, was joined by Surgeon James McGrigor, who later wrote:

  Soon after our arrival, an officer came up with an unfavourable report of the assault, announcing that Colonel Macleod and several officers were killed, with heaps of men, who choked the approach to the breach. At the place where we stood, we were within hearing of the voices of the assailants and of the assailed; and it was now painful to notice that the voices of our countrymen had become fainter, while the French cry of ‘Avancez, etrillons çes Anglais’ became stronger. Another officer came up with a still more unfavourable report, that no progress was being made; for almost all the officers were killed and no more left to lead on the men, a great number had fallen. At this moment I cast my eyes on the countenance of Lord Wellington, lit up by the glare of the torch held by Lord March; I shall never forget it til the last moment of my existence, and I could even now sketch it. The jaw had fallen, and the face was of unusual length, while the torchlight gave his countenance a lurid aspect; but still the expression of the face was firm.

  Two hours had now passed and it was nearing midnight. Wellington knew only that he had suffered most severely, without success and with no such prospects on current reports, neither in front, nor out left with the 5th, or on the right with the 3rd. The losses were truly dreadful. Of 3,000 men present with the Light Division, 915 officers and men had been killed or wounded – nearly one in every three; of the 4th Division’s 3,500 men, 925 men out of it – one in every four. The Portuguese lost another 400, so a total of 2,244 all ranks had fallen in the storm. The glacis, the wide ditch and the breach slopes were covered with bodies. And all for nothing?

  The buglers of the reserve were then sent to the crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the troops in the ditch, grown desperate, at first would not believe it genuine, and struck the buglers in the ditch who attempted the sound; but at length sullenly re-ascended the counterscarp as they could ... As the last stragglers crossed the glacis the town clock was heard again, heavily tolling twelve. (52nd’s History)

  Part V – Badajoz The Attack Midnight to Dawn

  Whilst the Light and 4th Divisions had been dying on Trinidad, the 3rd Division, likewise with great losses, had failed to get Kempt’s Brigade up the ladders, unfortunately placed under the San Antonio demi-bastion. The 1st/45th, 74th and Connaughts were down 300 men. Champlemond’s Portuguese brigade had followed them into the ditch and also had got nowhere. The defensive artillery crossfire was just too strong. Kempt was wounded and nearly a third of his officers were dead or wounded; baffled, a hotchpotch of five battalions huddled for shelter in the ditch and under the rocky slopes. Picton, now partly recovered and having spent twenty minutes on the glacis, got forward his last hope, Campbell’s brigade of the 2nd/5th, 77th, 2nd/83rd and the 94th, and directed that the ladders should be tried farther to the right. So there were now nine battalions crammed under the walls – say nearly 4,000 men – along a very narrow strip little more than 300 paces long, and lightly opposed by three companies (two of which were Hessian) and the French gun teams, not more than 300 men and probably rather less. That gave Picton a substantial thirteen to one advantage. In addition, and crucially, his final attempt to escalade being made a bit farther round the Castle’s corner to the north, it was therefore partly masked from the guns on San Pedro and the muskets on San Antonio.

  Grattan tells us two ladders were laid by the 5th’s commander, Henry Ridge, and by Lieutenant Canch, his Grenadier officer, while Lieutenant William MacKie, 88th, laid a third, and each officer led the way upwards followed by their carrying parties. By choice ladders went adjacent to gun embrasures, because of their lower entrance level, and not all of the embrasures contained can
non. Ridge and Canch fought their way in, and held the parapet whilst more men joined; another 88th officer, Lieutenant Parr Kingsmill, chose an embrasure where the French did have a gun team. Unfortunately his ladder was too short, and an interesting tableau is described:

  I found that no exertion I could make would enable me to gain the embrasure or to descend. In this unhappy state, expecting immediate death from the hands of the ferocious-looking Frenchmen in the embrasure, I heard a voice above call out, ‘Mr —, is that you?’ I answered ‘Yes’. And the same voice cried out, ‘Oh, murther! murther! what will we do to get you up at all, at all, with that scrawdeen of a ladtherr? But here goes! Hold my leg, Bill’; and throwing himself flat on his face in the embrasure, he extended his brawny arm down the wall, and seizing me by the collar, with Herculean force, landed me, as he said himself, ‘clever and clane’, on the ramparts.

  I found myself standing amongst several French soldiers, who crowded round the gun in the embrasure. One of them still held the match lighted in his hand, the blue flame of which gave the bronzed and sullen countenances of these warriors an expression not easily forgotten. A grenadier of the 103rd leaned on the gun, and bled profusely from the head; another, who had fallen on his knees when wounded, remained fixed in astonishment and terror. Others, whose muskets lay scattered on the ground, folded their arms in deep despair; and the appearance of the whole group, with their huge bushy mustaches, and mouths blackened with biting the cartridges, presented to the eye of a young soldier at least an appearance sufficiently formidable.

  ‘Don’t mind them fellows, Sir,’ said Tully O’Malley; ‘they were all settled jist afore you came up; and, by my soul, good boys they war for a start, and fought like raal devils, so they did, till Mr S and the grenadiers came powdering down on them with the war-whoop. Och, my darlint, they were made smiddreens of in a crack, barring that great big fellow you see there, with the great black whiskers, bleeding in the side, and resting his head on the gun-carriage. He was the bouldest of them all, and made bloody battle with Jim Reilly: but ‘tis short he stud afore Jim. He gave him a raal Waterford puck that tumbled him like a nine-pin in a minute; and, by my own sowl, a puck of the butt-end of Jim’s piece is no joke, I tell you, for he tried it on more heads nor one on the hill of Busaco.’

  Another whose ladder was too short by some three feet, was Lieutenant James Macpherson, 45th. Appointed to command his battalion’s best shots – 100 sharpshooters – he had reported a spot to Picton where the Castle was least well defended; shouting to his men below to push the ladder nearer the wall, hence raising the top to which he clung, he was shot at point-blank range by a defender on the rampart. The ball struck a Spanish silver waistcoat button, ricocheting off but breaking two ribs. Unable to climb further, Macpherson descended somehow down the rear of the ladder, to collapse unconscious in the ditch. More and more men from various regiments reached the ramparts, and Henry Ridge took them in hand with the cry ‘Come on my lads, let’s be the first to seize the Governor’. The French had largely withdrawn to the open space by the main gate into the town, quickly sensing their numbers were inadequate. They had not, however, run: the British progress, made somewhat prudently through the darkened ways, egged on by Ridge’s ‘Why do you hesitate? Forward!’ was met by a volley and which did for Ridge, shot in the chest. The French were forced out through the gates, closing both inner and outer as they went, but leaving a small wicket gate open in the latter. ‘A heavy fire was kept up on those who attempted to pass it.’ (According to an anonymous officer of the 5th) Lieutenant Colonel James Campbell, 94th, commanding the British 3 Brigade and (Kempt being wounded and Picton unable to ascend the ladders) temporarily in command of the division, ordered the regiments as they came together to form in column facing the gates. Presumably the intention was to march upon the breaches. However, all the gates being found bricked up or securely barred, the columns stayed put.

  A Spanish lieutenant colonel in the French service had earlier rushed in a panic to Governor Philippon with the false news that the San Maria bastion had been entered. Correctly disbelieving this, and checking it out by a quick dash to the bastion, Philippon subsequently also disbelieved a second report, brought by dragoon Lieutenant Lavigne, that the British were escalading the walls of the Castle. Time passed – precious time – before the Governor on second thoughts sent forward his reserve of four companies of the 88th, even though the Hessian colonel commanding the Castle had sent no report. ‘But fortune had abandoned us,’ wrote Colonel Lamare ‘The enemy, already master of the Castle, had shut the gate on the side next to demi-bastion number nine (San Antonio) ... These companies arrived too late: they were received by a heavy fire of musketry ... And the soldiers were disbursed after having made a vain attempt to retake the Castle.’ Two companies of the 9th Léger had also been called up, from the San Vincente bastion, but got sucked into the battle raging at the breaches. The failure of these two counter attacks – with no other reserves now left – markedly hit French moral. The Castle had been their last redoubt, and contained their reserves of food and ammunition, which now all being lost ‘Shook the courage of some of the officers, and disorder began’.

  The 3rd Division continued up the ladders, James Macpherson among them now conscious again and mobile, despite his broken ribs; his determined search for individual fame called for no less than the capturing of the French Colour, up on the flagstaff at the top of the Castle’s tower.

  I at length found my way to the tower where I perceived the sentry still at his post. With my sword drawn I seized him, and desired him in French to show me the way to the colours. He replied ‘Je ne sais pas’. I, upon this, gave him a slight cut across the face, saying at the same time ‘Vous avez prison,’ at which he dashed his arms to the ground and, striking his breast, said as he raised his head and pointed to his heart, ‘Frappez, je suis Français!’ His manner at the same time indicating that the colour was there, I could not wait to provide for the safety of this brave fellow; so I called out loudly for a noncommissioned officer to take charge of him so that he should not be hurt. One stepped forward, when, giving him instructions to protect the gallant soldier, I ascended the tower; but my precaution was vain, for I afterwards discovered that this noble fellow was amongst the dead.

  Macpherson struck the colour and hoisted his own red coat as a British substitute. (The colour was subsequently presented to Lord Wellington, on Picton’s instruction. Sadly for Macpherson’s ambitions, however, it was another three years before he achieved his captaincy, and that in a garrison battalion.) He would, however, be gratified, 200 years later, to know that, on 6 April each year, a red coat is hoisted up the flagpole on Nottingham Castle.

  Back at the breaches, the Light and 4th Divisions had withdrawn some 300 yards from the ditch, down towards the Quarries. One can only imagine the coming together of the survivors, as each company fell in (literally in many cases) on their right markers. The calling of the rolls, the first aid for those fit enough to be patched up, the muddle of instant promotions of the second and third elevens, where available, the passing of water bottles (and stronger – Oh for a drink!) the attempts in the dark to replace flints, and then the sinking to the earth in a stupor.

  Now at this stage in the proceedings, it is not known where his lordship – in his own mind – thought they stood. Why should we know, his mind always kept closed to others? The indications are that first light would see a separate, new plan, for the 3rd Division seemed to need time and tools (not readily to hand) to force open the iron-bound gates blocking egress from the Castle to the ramparts and the breaches. Though why exits could not be instantly blown with – presumably – the readily available French powder barrels, is not clear. Lack of engineers? Anyway, whether Picton’s ADC knew of this problem and its implications, and reported them when he got to his Lordship, we know not.

  It was of course academic, since the key to the Badajoz lock was even now being turned by Lieutenant Colonel Brooke, commanding the 4th
(King’s Own) nearly a mile away around the ramparts, at the San Vincente bastion. He had approached along the banks of the river, closing on the garrison’s guardhouse on the waterside track, the noise of the flowing Guadiana smothering all. Behind him crept the light companies of Walker’s 4th, 30th, 38th and 44th Regiments, supported by his own battalion companies – say 700 men, with the 30th and 44th back in reserve under Walker. The 5th’s divisional general, Leith, had already sent in a Portuguese battalion to create a major disturbance at the outwork Pardaleras, and a noisy mock attack across the river at the bridge-head.

  Brooke’s light companies quietly spread out on the glacis. Captain Edward Hopkins, 4th, tells what next happened: