chapter iii

of section xxx above.

Wellington’s policy at this moment depended on the exact distribution of the hostile armies in front of him. He lay with the bulk of his army wintering in cantonments along the frontier of Portugal and Leon, but with the Light Division pushed close up to Ciudad Rodrigo, and ready to invest it, the moment that the news should arrive that the French had so moved their forces as to make it possible for him to close in upon that fortress, without the danger of a very large army appearing to relieve it within a few days. On December 28th he summed up his scheme in a report to Lord Liverpool, in which he stated that, after the El Bodon-Aldea da Ponte fighting in September, he had ‘determined to persevere in the same system till the enemy should make some alteration in the disposition of his forces[163].’ In the meanwhile he judged that he was keeping Marmont and Dorsenne ‘contained,’ and preventing them from undertaking operations elsewhere, unless they were prepared to risk the chance of losing Rodrigo. ‘It would not answer to remove the army to the frontiers of Estremadura (where a chance of effecting some important object might have offered), as in that case General Abadia [and the Spanish Army of Galicia] would have been left to himself, and would have fallen an easy sacrifice to the Army of the North[164].’ Therefore Wellington refused to take the opportunity of descending upon Badajoz and driving Drouet out of Estremadura, though these operations were perfectly possible. He confined himself to ordering Hill to carry out the two raids in this direction, of which the first led to the destruction of Girard at Arroyo dos Molinos in October, and the second to the occupation of Merida and the expulsion of the French from central Estremadura at midwinter [December 27, 1811-January 13, 1812].

[163] _Dispatches_, viii. p. 516.

[164] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Dec. 28.

In October Wellington had hoped for some time that Rodrigo would be gravely incommoded for lack of provisions, for it was almost cut off from the army to which it belonged by the guerrillero bands of Julian Sanchez, who dominated all the country between the Agueda and Salamanca, while the Light Division lay on the heights close above it, ready to pounce on any convoy that might try to pass in. This expectation, however, had been disappointed, as a large amount of food had been thrown into the place on November 2nd by General Thiébault, the governor of Salamanca. This revictualling had only been accomplished by a mixture of good management and good luck. The governor saw that any convoy must have a large escort, because of the guerrilleros, who would have cut off a small one. But a large escort could not move very fast, or escape notice. Wherefore, taking no mean risk, Thiébault collected 3,400 men for a guard, stopped all exit of Spaniards from Salamanca two days before the convoy started, gave out a false destination for his movement, and sent out requisitions for rations for 12,000 men in the villages between the starting-place and Rodrigo. Wellington had been on the look-out for some such attempt, and had intended that the Light Division, from its lair at Martiago in the mountain-valleys above the city, should descend upon any force of moderate size that might approach. But receiving, rather late, the false news that at least three whole divisions were to serve as escort, he forbade Craufurd to risk anything till he should have received reinforcements. The same day the Agueda became unfordable owing to sudden rains, and no troops could be sent across to join Craufurd. Wherefore Thiébault got by, ere the smallness of his force was realized, and retreated with such haste, after throwing in the food, that the Light Division could not come up with him[165]. Such luck could not be expected another time!

[165] For details of this operation see Thiébault’s _Mémoires_, iv. pp. 538-43, corroborated by Wellington’s _Dispatches_, viii. pp. 373-5 and 385-6.

Wellington had begun to hurry up the nearest divisions to support Craufurd, and had supposed for two days that he would have serious fighting, since he imagined that 15,000 or 18,000 men at least had been brought up to guard the convoy. It was a grave disappointment to him to find that he had been misled, for it was clear that Rodrigo would not be straitened for food for many a day. He had now to fall back on his original scheme of reducing the place by a regular siege, when the propitious instant should come round.

Meanwhile, waiting for the moment when Marmont and Dorsenne should disperse their troops into a less concentrated position, he took preliminary measures to face that eventuality when it should occur. The main thing was to get the battering-train, with which Ciudad Rodrigo would have to be attacked, close up to its objective. As we have already seen[166], it had been collected far to the rear, at the obscure village of Villa da Ponte near Trancoso. Between that spot and Rodrigo there were eighty miles of bad mountain roads: if Wellington had waited till he heard that Marmont had moved, before he began to bring up his heavy guns, he would have lost many days. Accordingly he commenced to push them forward as early as November 12th: their temporary shelter was to be in the fortress of Almeida, which was already so far restored that it could be regarded as safe against anything short of a regular siege. It was certain that Marmont would not come forward at midwinter for any such operation, and against raids or demonstrations the place was already secure. On December 4th Wellington reported[167] to Lord Liverpool that it would be completely ‘re-established as a military post’ within a few weeks; and on the 19th he announced that it was now ‘a place of security,’ and could be trusted to resist any attack whatever. But, long before even the first of these dates, it was beginning to receive the siege-material which Alexander Dickson was ordered to bring up from the rear. As early as November 22nd the first division of heavy guns entered its gates: it was given out--to deceive French spies--that the pieces were only intended to arm the walls, and at the same time Dickson was actively employed in mounting on them a number of guns of heavy calibre, wrecked in the explosion when Brennier evacuated Almeida in May 1811. Twenty-five of them were in position before Christmas Day. The indefatigable artillery commandant had also hunted out of the ruins no less than 8,000 round shot: it was originally intended that they should go into the magazines of the garrison; but, when the time for action came, Wellington sent the greater part of this stock of second-hand shot to the front, because they were immediately available, and ordered the Almeida stores to be replenished, as occasion served, by the later convoys that arrived from Villa da Ponte.

[166] See vol. iv. p. 549.

[167] _Dispatches_, viii, Report of Dec. 28 to Lord Liverpool on the late campaign.

Nor was it in bringing forward guns and ammunition alone that Wellington was busy during December: he caused a great quantity of gabions and fascines to be constructed by the men of the four divisions nearest the front, giving two vintems (2½_d._) for every fascine and four for every gabion. He had a very strong trestle-bridge cast across the Agueda at Marialva, seven miles north of Rodrigo and out of the reach of its garrison, and he began to collect carts from every direction. Not only were they requisitioned in Beira, but Carlos de España, who was lying in a somewhat venturesome position within the frontiers of Leon, ordered the Spanish peasantry, even as far as Tamames, to send every available ox-wain west-ward--and many came, though their owners were risking dire chastisement at the hands of the governor of the province of Salamanca.

Marmont, as we have seen, began to move troops eastward for Montbrun’s Valencian expedition about December 15th. The first news of this displacement reached Wellington on the 24th, when he heard that Brennier’s division had evacuated Plasencia and fallen back behind the Tietar, taking with it all its baggage, sick, and stores. This might be no more than a change of cantonments for a single division, or it might be a part of a general strategical move. Wellington wrote to Hill that evening, ‘some say they are going to Valencia, some that they are to cross the Tagus. I will let you know if I should learn anything positive. I have not yet heard whether the movement has been general, or is confined to this particular division[168].’ The right deduction was not drawn with certainty, because at the same time false intelligence was brought that Foy had started from Toledo and gone into La Mancha, but had returned again. This was a confused account of his movement; but the rumour of his coming back discounted the certain news about Brennier’s eastward move[169].

[168] Wellington to Hill, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 482, compare Wellington to Liverpool, viii. pp. 485-6, of the next morning.

[169] See _Dispatches_, viii. p. 520. See the Dickson MSS., edited by Major Leslie, for letter from Almeida in December.

On the 29th came the very important additional information that on the 26th Clausel’s Division, hitherto lying on the Upper Tormes, above Salamanca, had marched upon Avila, and that the division already at Avila was moving on some unknown eastward destination. At the same time Wellington received the perfectly correct information that all the cavalry of the Imperial Guard in Old Castile had already started for Bayonne, and that the two infantry divisions of the Young Guard, which formed the most effective part of Dorsenne’s Army of the North, were under orders to march northward from Valladolid, and had already begun to move.[170] This was certain--less so a report sent in by Castaños to the effect that he had learnt that the whole Army of Portugal was about to concentrate at Toledo. On this Wellington writes to Graham that ‘he imagines it is only a report from Alcaldes’--a class of correspondents on whose accuracy and perspicacity he was not accustomed to rely over-much[171].

[170] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, Jan. 1, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 524.

[171] See Wellington to Graham, Dec. 26, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 521.

But enough information had come to hand to make it clear that a general eastward movement of the French was taking place, and that the troops immediately available for the succour of Ciudad Rodrigo were both decreased in numbers and removed farther from the sphere of Wellington’s future operations. He thought that the opportunity given justified him in striking at once, and had drawn at last the correct deduction: ‘I conclude that all these movements have for their object to support Suchet’s operations in Valencia, or even to co-operate with him[172].’ If Marmont were extending his troops so far east as the Valencian border, and if Dorsenne were withdrawing divisions northward from Valladolid, it was clear that they could not concentrate in any short space of time for the deliverance of Rodrigo. It was possible that the siege might linger on long enough to enable the Armies of Portugal and the North to unite; Wellington calculated that it might take as much as twenty-four or even thirty days--an estimate which happily turned out to be exaggerated: in the end he stormed it only twelve days after investment. But even if Rodrigo should resist its besiegers sufficiently long to permit of a general concentration of the enemy, that concentration would disarrange all their schemes, and weaken their hold on many outlying parts of the Peninsula. ‘If I do not succeed,’ wrote Wellington, ‘I shall at least bring back some of the troops of the Army of the North, and the Army of Portugal, and shall so far relieve the Guerrillas [Mina, Longa, Porlier] and the Spanish Army in Valencia[173].’ The last-named force was, as a matter of fact, beyond saving, when Wellington wrote his letter to Lord Liverpool. But he could not know it, and if Blake had behaved with common prudence and foresight in the end of December, his game ought not to have been played out to a disastrous end early in January, just when the British were moving out to the leaguer of Rodrigo.

[172] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 524.

[173] Another extract from the explanatory dispatch to Lord Liverpool, written on Jan. 1st, 1812.

All the divisions cantoned upon or behind the Beira frontier received, on January 2nd-3rd, the orders which bade them prepare to push up to the line of the Agueda. Only the 6th Division, which lay farthest off, as far back as Mangualde and Penaverde near the Upper Mondego, was not brought up to the front within the next few days. The 1st Division had a long march from Guarda, Celorico, and Penamacor, the 4th and 5th Divisions very short ones from Aldea del Obispo and Alameda, Villa de Ciervo, and other villages near Almeida. The 3rd Division from Aldea da Ponte and Navas Frias had a journey greater than those of the two last-named units, but much less than that of the 1st Division. Finally the Light Division was, it may be said, already in position: its outlying pickets at Pastores and Zamorra were already within six miles of Rodrigo, and its head-quarters at Martiago only a short distance farther back.

By January 5th the divisions were all at the front, though their march had been carried out in very inclement weather--heavy snow fell on the night of the 1st-2nd of the month, and continued to fall on the third; while on the 4th the wind shifted, the snow turned to sleet, and the roads grew soft and slushy. The carts with stores and ammunition, pushing forward from Almeida, only reached Gallegos--ten miles away--in two days. The troops were well forward--the 1st Division at Espeja and Gallegos, the 3rd at Martiago and Zamorra, the 4th at San Felices, beyond the Agueda, the Light Division at Pastores, La Encina and El Bodon. But Wellington nevertheless had to put off the investment for three days, because the train was not to the front. On the 6th he crossed the Agueda with his staff and made a close reconnaissance of the place, unmolested by the garrison. But it was only on the 8th that the divisions, who were suffering severely from exposure to the wintry weather, received orders to close in and complete the investment.

Of the topography of Ciudad Rodrigo we have already spoken at some length, when dealing with its siege by Ney in 1810. The French occupation had made no essential change to its character. The only additions to its works made during the last eighteen months were the erection of a small fort on the summit of the Greater Teson, and the reinforcing by masonry of the three large convents in the suburb of San Francisco, which the Spaniards had already used as places of strength. The first-named work was a redoubt (named Redout Renaud, from the governor whom Julian Sanchez had kidnapped in October): it mounted three guns, had a ditch and palisades, and was built for a garrison of seventy men. Its gorge contained a sally-port opening towards the town, and was closed with palisades only. Four guns on the stone roof of the fortified convent of San Francisco, and many more in the northern front of the _enceinte_, bore upon it, and were intended to make access to it dangerous and costly.

The breaches made during Ney’s siege, in the walls facing the Tesons, had been well built up: but the new masonry, clearly distinguishable by its fresh colour from the older stone, had not set over well, and proved less hard when battered.

The garrison, supplied by the Army of the North, was not so numerous as it should have been, particularly when it was intended to hold not only the _enceinte_ of the small circular town but the straggling suburb outside. It consisted of a battalion each of the 34th Léger and the 113th Line, from the division of Thiébault (that long commanded in 1810-11 by Serras), making about 1,600 men, with two companies of Artillery and a small detachment of sappers--the whole at the commencement of the siege did not amount to quite 2,000 of all ranks, even including the sick in the hospital. The governor was General Barrié, an officer who had been thrust into the post much contrary to his will, because he was the only general of brigade available at Salamanca when his predecessor Renaud was taken by Julian Sanchez[174]. The strength of the garrison had been deliberately kept low by Dorsenne, because of the immense difficulty of supplying it with provisions. The first convoy for its support had only been introduced by bringing up 60,000 men, at the time of the fighting about El Bodon in September: the second only by Thiébault’s risky expedient on November 2nd.

[174] For details of this see Thiébault’s _Mémoires_, iv. p. 537, where Barrié’s frank dismay at his appointment, and the arguments used to overcome it, are described at length.

The one thing that was abundant in the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo on January 8th, 1812, was artillery. Inside the place was lying the whole siege-train of the Army of Portugal, which Masséna had stored there when he started on his march into Portugal in September 1811. No less than 153 heavy guns, with the corresponding stores and ammunition, were parked there. A small fortress was never so stocked with munitions of war, and the besieged made a lavish and unsparing use of them during the defence: but though the shot and shell were available in unlimited quantities, the gunners were not--a fortunate thing for the besiegers.

The details of the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo are interesting. This was the only one of Wellington’s sieges in which everything went without a serious hitch from first to last--so much so that he took the place in twelve days, when he had not dared to make his calculation for less than twenty-four[175]. Even the thing which seemed at first his greatest hindrance--the extreme inclemency of the weather--turned out in the end profitable. The sleet had stopped on the 6th, and a time of light frosts set in, without any rain or snow. This kept the ground hard, but was not bitter enough to freeze it for even half an inch below the surface; the earth was not difficult to excavate, and it piled together well. A persistent north-east wind kept the trenches fairly dry, though it chilled the men who were not engaged in actual spade work to the very bones. The worst memory recorded in the diaries of many of the officers present in the siege is the constant necessity for fording the Agueda in this cold time, when its banks were fringed each morning with thin ice. For the camps of all the divisions, except the 3rd, which lay at Serradilla del Arroyo, some miles south-east of the city, were on the left bank of the river, and the only bridge was so far off to the north that it was little used, the short cut across the ford to the south of the town saving hours of time: ‘and as we were obliged to cross the river with water up to our middles, every man carried a pair of iced breeches into the trenches with him[176].’ There being very few villages in the immediate neighbourhood of Rodrigo, many of the brigades had to bivouac on the open ground--life being only made tolerable by the keeping up of immense fires, round which the men spent their time when off duty, and slept at night. But for the troops in the trenches there could be no such comfort: they shivered in their great coats and blankets, and envied those of their comrades who did the digging, which at any rate kept the blood circulating. It is said that several Portuguese sentries were found dead at their posts from cold and exhaustion each morning.

[175] Wellington to Liverpool, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 536, Jan. 7th, 1812, ‘I can scarcely venture to calculate the time that this operation will take, but I should think not less than twenty-four or twenty-five days.’

[176] Kincaid, _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_, p. 104.

Wellington’s general plan was to follow the same line which Ney had adopted in 1810, i. e. to seize the Greater Teson hill, establish a first parallel there, and then sap down to the lower Little Teson, on which the front parallel and the breaching batteries were to be established, at a distance of no more than 200 yards from the northern _enceinte_ of the city. But he had to commence with an operation which Ney was spared--there was now on the crest of the Greater Teson the new Redout Renaud, which had to be got rid of before the preliminary preparation could be made.

This little work was dealt with in the most drastic and summary way. On the same evening on which the army crossed the Agueda and invested the fortress, the Light Division was ordered to take the redoubt by escalade, without any preliminary battering. In the dark it was calculated that the converging fires from the convent of San Francisco and the northern walls would be of little importance, since the French could hardly shell the work at random during an assault, for fear of hitting their own men; and the attacking column would be covered by the night till the very moment when it reached its goal.

Colonel Colborne led the storming-party, which consisted of 450 men, two companies from each British battalion, and one each from the 1st and 3rd Caçadores[177]. His arrangements have received well-deserved praise from every narrator of the enterprise. The column was conducted to within fifty yards of the redoubt without being discovered; then the two rifle companies and two of the 52nd doubled out to the crest of the glacis, encircled the work on all sides, and, throwing themselves on the ground, began a deliberate and accurate fire upon the heads of the garrison, as they ran to the rampart, roused at last by the near approach of the stormers. So close and deadly was the fire of this ring of trained marksmen, that after a few minutes the French shrank from the embrasures, and crouched behind their parapets, contenting themselves with throwing a quantity of grenades and live shells at haphazard into the ditch. Their three cannon were only fired once! Such casual and ineffective opposition could not stop the veterans of the Light Division. For three companies of the 43rd and 52nd, forming the escalading detachment, came rushing up to the work, got into the ditch by descending the ladders which were provided for them, and then reared them a second time against the fraises of the rampart, up which they scrambled without much difficulty, finding the scarp not too steep and without a _revêtement_. The garrison flinched at once--most of them ran into their guard-house or crouched under the guns, and surrendered tamely. At the same time entrance was forced at another point, the gorge, where a company, guided by Gurwood of the 52nd, got in at the gate, which was either unlocked by some of the French trying to escape, or accidentally blown open by a live shell dropped against it[178]. Of the garrison two captains and forty-eight rank and file were unwounded prisoners, three were killed, and about a dozen more wounded. No more than four, it is said, succeeded in getting back into the town[179]. This sudden exploit only cost the stormers six men killed, and three officers[180] and sixteen men wounded. Colborne remarks in his report that all the losses were during the advance or in the ditch, not a man was hurt in the actual escalade, for the enemy took cover and gave way, instead of trying to meet the stormers with the bayonet.

[177] I take Colborne’s own account (see letter in his life by Moore Smith, p. 166). There were two companies each from the 1/43rd, 1/52nd, 2/52nd, and 95th, and one from each Caçador battalion. Jones wrongly says (p. 116) three companies of the 52nd only, Napier (as usual) omits all mention of the Portuguese. Cf. Harry Smith’s _Autobiography_, i. p. 55.

[178] In Moorsom’s _History of the 52nd_ it is stated that a sergeant of the French artillery, while in the act of throwing a live shell, was shot dead: the shell fell back within the parapet, and was kicked away by one of the garrison, on which it rolled down into the gorge, was stopped by the gate, and then exploded and blew it open (p. 152).

[179] So Belmas, iv. p. 266. Barrié’s report says that there were 60 infantry and 13 gunners inside altogether. It is an accurate and very modest narrative, in which there is nothing to correct.

[180] Mein and Woodgate of the 52nd, and Hawkesley of the 95th. The last named died of his wounds.

The moment that the redoubt was stormed, the French gunners in the city and the convent of San Francisco opened a furious fire upon it, hoping to make it untenable. But this did little harm, for Colborne withdrew the stormers at once--and the important spot that night was no longer the work but the ground behind it, which was left unsearched. For here, by Wellington’s orders, a first parallel 600 yards long was opened, and approaches to it along the top of the Teson were planned out. So little was the digging hindered, that by dawn the trenches were everywhere three feet deep and four broad, sites for three batteries had been marked out, and a communication had been run from the parallel up to the redoubt, whose rear wall was broken down into the ditch, so as to make it easily accessible.

It had been calculated that if the assault had failed, the redoubt could only have been reduced by regular battering for five days--that amount of time, therefore, was saved by the escalade. The operation contrasts singularly with the fruitless assaults on Fort San Cristobal at Badajoz during the summer months of the preceding year, to which it bore a considerable similarity. The difference of results may be attributed mainly to the superiority of the arrangements made by Colborne, more especially to the great care that he took to keep down the fire of the besieged by a very large body of marksmen pushed close up to the walls, and to the way in which he had instructed each officer in charge of a unit as to the exact task that was imposed on him. At San Cristobal there had been much courage displayed, but little management or intelligence in the command.

On the morning of January 9th, the first parallel, along the front of the Great Teson, was not so far advanced as to afford good cover, and the working parties were kept back till dark, and employed in perfecting the approaches from the rear: only fifty men were slipped forward into the dismantled Redout Renaud, to improve the lodgement there. The garrison fired fiercely all day on the parallel, but as there was little to shoot at, very small damage was done. At noon the 1st Division relieved the Light Division at the front: for the rest of the siege the arrangement was that each division took twenty-four hours at the front in turn, and then returned to its camp. The order of work was:

Light Division 8th-9th January, 12th-13th, 16th-17th, and for the storm on the 19th.

1st Division 9th-10th, 13th-14th, 17th-18th.

4th Division 10th-11th, 14th-15th, 18th-19th.

3rd Division 11th-12th, 15th-16th, and for the storm on the 19th.

The 1st Division had very responsible work on the second night of the siege, for when darkness had set in the first parallel had to be made tenable, and the three batteries in front of it developed. Owing to the very powerful artillery of the besieged, it was settled that the batteries were to be made of exceptional strength and thickness--with a parapet of no less than 18 feet breadth at the top. To procure the necessary earth it was determined that an exterior ditch should be dug in front of them, and that their floor (_terre-plain_) should be sunk 3 feet below the level of the hillside within. A row of large gabions was placed in front of the exterior ditch to give cover to the men digging it.

Great progress was made with the work under cover of the night, but when morning came the besieged, whose fire had been at haphazard during the night, could see the works and commenced to shoot more accurately. A curious _contretemps_ was discovered at dawn. By some miscalculation the locality of the left-hand battery had been laid out a little too far to the east, so that half its front was blocked by the ruins of the Redout Renaud. This, of course, was the effect of working in pitch darkness, when the outline of that work was invisible even from a score or so of yards away. Possibly the error may have originated from the fact that, early in the night, the directing engineer officer, Captain Ross, was killed by a flanking shot from the convent of San Francisco. Thus the men constructing the battery had been deprived of all superior direction. In the morning Colonel Fletcher directed that the east end of the battery should have no guns; the five which should have been placed there were to be transferred to the right-hand battery, which thus became designed for sixteen guns instead of eleven[181].

[181] This mistake is acknowledged in Jones’s _Sieges_, i. p. 120, and much commented on by Burgoyne [_Life and Correspondence_, i. p. 161], who complains that an immense amount of work was wasted, two nights’ digging put in, the _terre-plain_ levelled, and even some platforms laid, before the error was detected.

On the 10th-11th January, when the 4th Division had charge of the trenches the first parallel was nearly completed, the batteries continued to be built up, magazine emplacements were constructed in them, and a trench of communication between them was laid out. When daylight revealed to the French the exact situation of the three batteries, which were now showing quite clearly, a very fierce fire was opened on them, the rest of the works being neglected. The losses, which had hitherto been insignificant, began to grow heavy, and so many men were hit in the exterior trenches, which were being dug in front of each battery, that Wellington and Colonel Fletcher gave orders that they should be discontinued. Heavy damage was done to the batteries themselves--the French adopted a system of firing simultaneous flights of shells with long fuses at given points, ‘of which several falling together upon the parapets blew away in an instant the work of whole hours.’

On the 11th-12th, with the 3rd Division in charge, the work was continued; the platforms were placed in the batteries, and the splinter-proof timbers laid over the magazine emplacements. But half the exertion of the men had to be expended in repairs: as each section of the batteries was completed, part of it was ruined by the besiegers’ shells. ‘The nights were long and bitter cold, and the men could not decently be kept working for twelve hours on end[182],’ especially when it was considered that they had to march four or five miles from their camps to the trenches before commencing their task of digging, so that they did not arrive fresh on the ground. Reliefs were therefore arranged to exchange duty at one hour after midnight, so that no man was at work for more than half of the cold hours of darkness.

[182] Burgoyne, i. p. 162.

On the 12th-13th, with the Light Division doing its second turn at the front, the batteries were nearly completed, despite of much heart-breaking toil at repairs. Wellington, before starting the task of battering, put the problem to Colonel Fletcher as to whether it would be possible to breach the walls with the batteries in the first parallel, or whether these would only be useful for subduing the fire of the besieged, and the actual breaching would have to be accomplished by another set of batteries, to be placed in a second parallel which was, as yet, contemplated but not begun. Fletcher, after some cogitation, replied that he thought it could be done, though Ney, in the siege of 1810, had failed in such a project, and had breached the walls with batteries in situations much farther forward. Wellington’s inquiry was dictated by his doubt as to whether Marmont and Dorsenne might not be in a position to appear with a heavy relieving force, before a second parallel could be thrown up. There were, as yet, no signs of such a danger; the enemy having apparently been taken completely unawares by the opening of the siege. But if the second parallel advanced no faster in proportion than the first, and had to be built on much more dangerous ground, it was clear that there was a risk of its taking an inordinate time to complete. On Fletcher’s conclusion being made, Wellington decided that he would try to breach the walls with his original batteries, but would push forward a second parallel also: if Marmont and Dorsenne showed signs of rapid concentration, he would try to storm the place before the trenches were pressed forward to the neighbourhood of the walls. If they did not, he would proceed in more regular style, build a second and perhaps a third parallel, with batteries close to the _enceinte_, and end by blowing in the counterscarp, and assaulting from close quarters.

This resolution having been formed, Wellington ordered the second parallel to be commenced on the night of the 13th-14th, with the 1st Division in charge. Despite of a heavy fire from the French, who discovered (by throwing fire-balls) that men were at work in front of the first parallel, an approach by flying sap was pushed out, from the extreme right end of the original trenches, down the slope which separates the Great from the Lesser Teson, and a short length of excavation was made on the western end of the latter height, enough to allow of a small guard finding cover. This move brought the besiegers very close to the fortified convent of Santa Cruz, outside the north-western walls of the city, and lest it should give trouble during the succeeding operations Wellington ordered it to be stormed. The troops employed were 300 volunteers from the Line brigade of the German Legion and one company of the 5/60th. They broke down the palisades of the convent with axes, under a heavy fire, and as they entered the small garrison fled with some loss. That of the stormers was 6 killed and 1 officer and 33 men wounded[183]. Only by clearing the French out of this post could the zig-zags leading down from the first to the second parallel be completed without paying a heavy price in lives, for the musketry of the convent would have enfiladed them in several places. The same night the siege-guns, which had reached the camp on the 11th, were moved into the three batteries.

[183] See Schwertfeger’s _History of the German Legion_, i. p. 353. Jones (_Sieges_, i. p. 125) is quite wrong in saying that the convent was carried ‘with no loss.’

Next day (January 14-15) was a very lively one. General Barrié was convinced that the establishment of a second parallel on the Lesser Teson, only 200 yards from his walls, must not be allowed at any cost, and executed a sortie with 500 men, all that he could spare from the garrison. He (very cleverly) chose for his time the hour (11 a.m.) when the 4th Division was relieving the workmen of the First, for, as Jones remarks, ‘a bad custom prevailed that as soon as the division to be relieved saw the relieving division advancing, the guards and workmen were withdrawn from the trenches, and the works were left untenanted for some time during the relief, which the French could observe from the steeple of the cathedral, where there was always an officer on the look-out.’

The sortie recaptured the convent of Santa Cruz, swept along the second parallel, where it upset the gabions and shovelled in some of the earth, and then made a dash at the first parallel, where it might have done much mischief in the batteries if General Graham and the engineer officer on duty had not collected a few belated workmen of the 24th and 42nd, who made a stand behind the parapet, and opened a fire which checked the advance till the relieving division came running up from the rear. The French then turned and retired with little loss into the place.

The advanced parallel and Santa Cruz were not reoccupied while daylight lasted, but at about 4.30 in the afternoon the three batteries opened with the 27 guns, which had been placed in them. Two 18-pounders in the left battery were directed against the convent of San Francisco, the rest against the northern part of the city, on the same point where Ney’s breach had been made in 1810. Of the gunners, 430 in number, nearly 300 were Portuguese[184]. The fire opened so late in the day that by the time that it was growing steady and accurate dusk fell, and it was impossible to judge what its future effect would be.

[184] See _Dickson Papers_, Jan. 1812.

Meanwhile, when the big guns were silent, the work of preparing for the nearer approach was resumed after dark. The most important move on the night of the 14th-15th was the storming of the convent of San Francisco by three companies of the 40th regiment. The garrison made little resistance, and retired, abandoning three guns and two wounded men. Immediately afterwards the posts in the neighbouring suburb were all withdrawn by Barrié, who considered that he could not afford to lose men from his small force in the defence of outlying works, when his full strength was needed for the holding of the town itself. Santa Cruz, on the other side, though recovered in the morning, was abandoned on this same night for identical reasons. The French general was probably wise, but it was a great profit to the besiegers to be relieved from the flanking fire of both these convents, which would have enfiladed the two ends of the second parallel. That work itself was reoccupied under the cover of the night: the gabions upset during the sortie of the morning were replaced, and much digging was done behind them. The zig-zags of the approach from the upper trenches on the Great Teson were deepened and improved. All this was accomplished under a heavy fire from the guns on the northern walls, which were so close to the second parallel that their shells, even in the dark, did considerable damage.

When day dawned on the 15th, the breaching batteries on the Great Teson opened again with excellent effect. Their fire was concentrated on the rebuilt wall of the _enceinte_, where the French breach of 1810 had been mended. It was necessary to batter both the town wall proper and the _fausse-braye_ below it, so as to make, as it were, an upper and a lower breach, corresponding to each other, in the two stages of the _enceinte_. It will be remembered that, as was explained in our narrative of the French siege[185], the mediaeval ramparts of the old wall showed well above the eighteenth-century _fausse-braye_ which ran around and below them, while the latter was equally visible above the glacis, which, owing to the downward slope from the Little Teson, gave much less protection than was desirable to the work behind it. The French breach had been carefully built up; but, lime being scarce in the neighbourhood, the mortar used in its repairs had been of inferior quality, little better than clay in many places. The stones, therefore, had never set into a solid mass, even eighteen months after they had been laid, and began to fly freely under the continuous battering.

[185] See vol. iii. p. 239. The illustration of Rodrigo on the morning after the storm, inserted to face page 186 of this volume, shows the facts excellently.

The breaching being so successful from the first, Wellington resolved to hurry on his operations, though there were still no signs that Marmont or Dorsenne was about to attempt any relief of the garrison. Yet it was certain that they must be on the move, and every day saved would render the prospect of their interference less imminent. Accordingly it was settled that the second parallel should be completed, and that, if possible, more batteries should be placed in it, but that it was to be looked upon rather as the base from which an assault should be delivered than as the ground from which the main part of the breaching work was to be done. That was to be accomplished from the original parallel on the Great Teson, and one more battery was marked out on this hill, close to the Redout Renaud, but a little lower down the slope, and slightly in advance of the three original batteries. From this new structure, whose erection would have been impossible so long as San Francisco was still held by the French, Wellington proposed to batter a second weak point in the _enceinte_, a mediaeval tower three hundred yards to the right of the original breach. All the attention of the French being concentrated on the work in the second parallel, this new battery (No. 4) was easily completed and armed in three days, and was ready to open on its objective on January 18th.

Meanwhile the completion of the second parallel proved a difficult and rather costly business. By Wellington’s special orders all the energies of the British batteries were devoted to breaching, and no attempt was made to subdue the fire of those parts of the _enceinte_ which bore upon the trenches, but were far from the points selected for assault. Hence the French, undisturbed by any return, were able to shoot fast and furiously at the advanced works, and searched the second parallel from end to end. It was completed on the 18th, and two guns were brought down into a battery built on the highest point of the Little Teson, only 180 yards from the walls. An attempt to sap forward from the western end of the second parallel, so as to get a lodgement a little nearer to the place, was completely foiled by the incessant fire of grape kept up on the sap-head. After many workmen had been killed, the endeavour to push forward at this point was abandoned, such an advance forming no essential part of Wellington’s scheme. The enemy’s fire on the second parallel was made somewhat less effective on the 16th-18th by digging rifle-pits in front of the parallel, from which picked marksmen kept up a carefully aimed fusillade on the embrasures of the guns to left and right of the breach. Many artillerymen were shot through the head while serving their pieces, and the discharges became less incessant and much less accurate. But the fire of the besieged was never subdued, and the riflemen in the pits suffered very heavy casualties.

The 18th may be described as the crucial day of the siege. The new battery (No. 4) on the Greater Teson opened that morning against the tower which had been chosen as its objective. By noon it was in a very ruinous condition, and at dusk all its upper part fell forward ‘like an avalanche,’ as the governor says in his report, and covered all the platform of the _fausse-braye_ below. Barrié remarks that this point was admirably chosen by Wellington’s engineers, ‘it was unique in the _enceinte_ for the facilities which it offered for breaching and the difficulties for defence. This is the spot where the walls are lowest, the parapet thinnest, and the platforms both of the ramparts and the _fausse-braye_ narrowest. Moreover here had been situated the gun which best flanked the original great breach[186].’

[186] See Barrié’s report in appendix to Belmas, iv. p. 299.

The garrison found it impossible either to repair the breaches or to clear away the débris which had fallen from them. All that could be done was to commence retrenchments and inner defences behind them. This was done with some effect at the great breach, where cuts were made in the ramparts on each side of the demolished section, parapets thrown up behind the cuts, and two 24-pounders dragged into position to fire laterally into the lip of the easy slope of débris which trended up to the ruined wall. At the second or smaller breach much less was accomplished--the warning was short, for it had never been guessed that this tower was to be battered, and the space upon which work could be done was very limited. It was hoped that the narrowness of the gap might be its protection--it was but a seam in the wall compared with the gaping void at the first and greater breach.

[Illustration: CIUDAD RODRIGO]

On the morning of the 19th the fire was recommenced, with some little assistance from the two guns which had now begun to work from the advanced battery in the second parallel. The breaches continued to crumble: that at the tower looked as easy in slope (though not nearly so broad) as that at the original point of attack, and an incessant fire all day kept the enemy from making any repairs. No more could be done for the breaches, wherefore Wellington ordered that some of the siege-guns should turn their attention to silencing the French fire from the remoter points of the northern wall. Several of their guns were dismounted: but even by dusk there were many still making reply.

There was now nothing to prevent the assault from being delivered, since it had been settled that no attempt was to be made to sap up nearer the walls, or to blow in the counterscarp. Wellington wrote his elaborate directions for the storm sitting under cover in a trench of one of the advanced approaches, to which he had descended in order to get the closest possible view of the fortress[187].

[187] Jones’s _Sieges_, i. p. 137.

The orders were as follows. The chosen time was seven o’clock, an hour sufficiently dark to allow the troops to get forward without being seen as they filled the trenches, yet soon enough after nightfall to prevent the French from doing any appreciable repairs to the breaches under cover of the dark.

The main assaults were to be delivered by the 3rd Division on the great breach, and by the Light Division on the lesser breach. There were also to be two false attacks delivered by small bodies of Portuguese troops, with the purpose of distracting the attention of the besieged to points remote from the main assault: either of them might be turned into serious attempts at escalade if the circumstances favoured.

The two brigades of the 3rd Division were given two separate ways of approaching the main breach. Campbell’s brigade [2/5th, 77th, 2/83rd, 94th], after detaching the 2/83rd to line the second parallel, and to keep up a continual fire on the walls, was to assemble behind the ruined convent of Santa Cruz. Debouching from thence, the 2/5th, turning to the right, were to make for the place where the counterscarp (covering the whole north front) joined with the body of the place, under the castle and not far from the river. They were to hew down the gate by which the ditch was entered, jump down into it, and from thence scale the _fausse-braye_ by ladders, of which a dozen, 25 feet long, were issued to them. It was probable that there would be few French found here, as the point was 500 yards west of the main breach. After establishing themselves upon the _fausse-braye_, they were to scour it eastward, clearing off any parties of the enemy that might be found upon it, and to push for the breach, where they would meet the main assaulting column. The 94th were to make a similar dash at the ditch, half-way between the point allotted to the 5th and the breach, but not to mount the _fausse-braye_: they were to move to their left along the bottom of the ditch, clearing away any palisades or other obstacles that might be found in it, and finally to join the main column. The 77th was to form the brigade-reserve, and support where necessary.

Mackinnon’s brigade was to undertake the frontal storm of the great breach. Its three battalions (1/45th, 74th, 1/88th) were to be preceded by a detachment of 180 sappers carrying hay-bags, which were to be thrown into the ditch to make the leap down more easy. The head of the column was to be formed by 300 volunteers from all the battalions, then came the main body in their usual brigade order, the 1/45th leading. Power’s Portuguese (9th and 21st Line) formed the divisional reserve, and were to be brought down to the second parallel when Mackinnon’s column had ascended the breach.

A support on the left flank of the breach was to be provided by three companies of the 95th, detached from the Light Division, who, starting from beside the convent of San Francisco, were to carry out the same functions that were assigned to the 94th on the other side, viz. to descend into the ditch half-way between the two breaches, and proceed along its bottom, removing any obstacles found, till they joined Mackinnon’s brigade at the foot of the wall.

Craufurd, with the rest of the Light Division, which was to move from the left of San Francisco, was to make the attack on the lesser breach. The storming-column was to be formed of Vandeleur’s brigade (1/52nd and 2/52nd, four companies of the 1/95th, and the 3rd Caçadores). Barnard’s brigade was to form the reserve, and to close in towards the place when the leading brigade should reach the ditch. The division was to detach marksmen (four companies of the 95th) who were to keep up a fire upon the enemy on the walls, just as the 2/83rd did for the 3rd Division. A provision of hay-bags carried by caçadores was made, in the same fashion as at the great breach.

The two subsidiary false attacks were to be made--one by Pack’s Portuguese (1st and 16th regiments) on the outworks of the gate of Santiago on the south-east side of the town, the other by O’Toole’s Portuguese battalion (2nd Caçadores), headed by the light company of the 2/83rd, on the outwork below the castle, close to the bank of the Agueda. This column would have to rush the bridge, which the French had left unbroken, because it was completely commanded by the castle and other works immediately above it. Both the Portuguese columns carried ladders, and were authorized to attempt an escalade, if they met little or no resistance at points so remote from the breaches, as was quite possible.

Both the Light and 3rd Divisions were fresh troops that night, as the 4th Division had been in charge of the trenches on the 19th. The stormers marched straight up from their distant camps to the starting-points assigned to them in the afternoon. The news that the Light Division had moved to the front out of its turn was the clearest indication to the whole army that the assault was fixed for that night.

A few minutes before seven o’clock the storm began, by the sudden rush of the 2/5th, under Major Ridge, from behind the convent of Santa Cruz, across the open ground towards the ditch on their left of the castle. The governor had expected no attack from this side, the troops on the walls were few, and it was only under a very scattering fire that the battalion hewed down the gate in the palisades, got down into the ditch, and then planted their ladders against the _fausse-braye_. They were established upon it within five minutes of their start, and then, turning to their left, drove along its platform, chasing before them a few small parties of the enemy. In this way they soon arrived at the heap of ruins representing the spot where _fausse-braye_ and inner wall had been wellnigh battered into one common mass of débris. Here they found the 94th, who had entered the ditch at the same time as themselves, but a little to their left, and had met with equally feeble resistance, already beginning to mount the lower slopes of the breach. Thus by a curious chance these two subsidiary columns arrived at the crucial point a little before the forlorn hope of the main storming-column. Mackinnon’s brigade, starting from the parallels, had to climb over the parapets of the trenches, and to cross rougher ground than the 5th and 94th: they were also hindered by the tremendous fire opened upon them: all the attention of the French had been concentrated on them from the first, as their route and their destination were obvious. Hence, unlike Campbell’s battalions, they suffered heavily before they crossed the glacis, and they were delayed a little by waiting for the hay-bags which were to help their descent. When the storming-party, under Major Manners of the 74th, reached the breach, it was already covered by men of the 5th and 94th. The whole, mixed together, scrambled up the higher part of the débris under a deadly fire, and reached the lip of the breach, where they found before them a sixteen-foot drop into the level of the city, on to ground covered with entanglements, beams, _chevaux de frise_, and other obstacles accumulated there by the prescience of the governor. On each flank, for the whole breadth of the wall, was a cutting, surmounted by a parapet, on which was mounted a 24-pounder firing grape downwards on to them.

The head of the column had scarcely gained the lip of the breach when it was raked by the simultaneous discharge of these two guns, which absolutely exterminated the knot of men at its head. At the same time an explosion took place lower down, from some powder-bags which the enemy had left among the débris and fired by means of a train. The impetus of the column was checked, and it was some little time before more men fought their way up to the summit: a second discharge from the two flanking guns made havoc of these, and shut in by the cuts, upon a space of about 100 feet wide, with the impracticable descent into the town in front, the assailants came to a stand again. The only way out of the difficulty was to cross the cuts, and storm the parapets behind them. This was done at both ends: on the one side a small party of the 88th, throwing down their muskets, so as to have hands to climb with, scrambled over the gap and slew with their bayonets the gunners at the left-hand gun, before they could fire a third round: they were followed by many men of the 5th, and a footing was gained on the ramparts behind the obstacle[188]. On the right flank Major Wylde, the brigade-major of Mackinnon’s brigade, found a few planks which the French had been using to bridge the cut before the storm, and which they had thrown down but neglected to remove. These were relaid in haste, and a mass of men of the 45th rushed across them under a dreadful fire, and forced the right-hand retrenchment. The garrison, giving way at both ends, fired a mine prepared under a postern of the upper wall as they retired[189]. This produced an explosion much more deadly than the one at the commencement of the storm; it slew among others General Mackinnon, the senior brigadier of the 3rd Division, whose body was found thrown some distance away and much blackened with powder.

[188] For a lively account of this exploit see Grattan’s _With the Connaught Rangers_, p. 154.

[189] Many narratives speak of General Mackinnon as being killed by the first explosion, and others (including Wellington’s dispatch) call the second explosion that of an expense magazine fired by accident. Barrié’s report, however, settles the fact that it was a regular mine: and for Mackinnon’s death _after_ the storming of the cuts I follow the narrative by an eye-witness appended at the end of the general’s diary.

Meanwhile, even before the fighting at the great breach was over, the fate of Ciudad Rodrigo had been settled at another point. The storm of the lesser breach by the Light Division had been successful, after a shorter fight and with much less loss of blood. Vandeleur’s brigade here conducted the assault, headed by 300 volunteers from the three British regiments of the division under Major George Napier of the 52nd: Lieutenant Gurwood of the same regiment had the forlorn hope of 25 men. The column did not come under fire for some time after leaving cover, but the assault had been expected, and a keen watch was being kept. Nevertheless the ditch was reached without any great loss, and the stormers leaped in, unaided for the most part by the hay-bags which 150 of Elder’s caçadores were to have cast down for them, for the greater part of the Portuguese were late in arriving[190]. They then began to plant their ladders, but the forlorn hope went wrong in an odd way, for moving too far to the left along the _fausse-braye_ they scrambled up and over a traverse[191] which had been built across it, so finding themselves still on the same level. The head of the main storming party was better directed, and poured up the breach, which was very narrow but clean and clear: the only obstacle at its head was a disabled gun placed horizontally across the gap. Another piece, still in working order, had a diagonal view of the whole slope. The first discharge of this gun, crammed with grape, shattered the head of the column: Major Napier was dashed down with a mangled arm, Colonel Colborne, who was leading the 52nd, got a ball in the shoulder, and several other officers fell. At about the same moment General Craufurd, who was standing on the glacis above the ditch, directing the movements of the supports, received a bullet which passed through his arm, broke two ribs, and finally lodged in his spine. By his mortal hurt and the almost simultaneous wounding of his senior brigadier, Vandeleur, the command of the Light Division passed to Andrew Barnard of the 95th, who was leading the rear brigade.

[190] Several narrators accuse them of shirking, but Geo. Napier writes (_Life_, p. 215), ‘Neither Elder nor his excellent regiment were likely to neglect any duty, and I am sure the blame rested elsewhere, for George Elder was always ready for any service.’ Compare George Simmons’s autobiography--possibly he put things out by ordering the Portuguese company to carry the ladders, which he clearly was not authorized to do. [_A British Rifleman_, p. 221.]

[191] Some narrators say a low ravelin, but the best authority is in favour of its having been a traverse.

But the division had been started on its way up the breach, and the gun on its flank got no second opportunity to fire. After its first discharge the survivors at the head of the column, now led by Uniacke and W. Johnston both of the 95th, dashed furiously up the remaining few feet of débris and reached the summit. The voltigeurs facing them broke before the onset, and since there were here no traverses or cuts to prevent the extension of the troops to right or left as they reached their goal, many hundreds were soon in possession of the ramparts on each side of the breach. The men of the 52nd wheeled to the left and swept the ramparts as far as the Salamanca gate, which they found walled up: the 43rd and Rifles turned to the right, and came upon the French retreating from the great breach, where the 3rd Division were just bursting through. Some of them arrived just in time to suffer from the final explosion which killed Mackinnon and so many of his brigade[192].

[192] The point has often been raised as to whether it was not the success of the Light Division at the lesser breach which enabled the 3rd Division to break through at the greater. Some Light Division diarists (e.g. Harry Smith) actually state that it was their attack on the rear of the defenders which made them flinch from a position which they had hitherto maintained. I think that the case is decided in favour of the 3rd Division by Belmas’s statement that the French fired the mine at the great breach only when the 3rd Division had got through, combined with the fact that the leading men of the Light Division reached the back of the great breach just in time to suffer from the explosion, which killed Captain Uniacke of the 95th and a few others. Apparently, therefore, the breach was forced before the head of the Light Division stormers had come up, but only just before.

With their line forced in two places simultaneously, the garrison could do no more: there was a little fighting in the streets, but not much. The majority of the garrison retired to the Plaza Mayor in front of the castle, and there laid down their arms in mass. At the same time the two Portuguese subsidiary attacks had succeeded. O’Toole’s caçadores, headed by the light company of the 2/83rd, had not only captured by escalade the outwork against which they were directed, but found and hewed down its sally-port by which they got entrance into the town. Pack’s brigade, on the other side of the place, stormed the redan in front of the Santiago gate, and lodged themselves therein, capturing its small garrison. The governor and his staff had taken refuge in the castle, a mediaeval building with a lofty square tower commanding the Agueda bridge. They had hardly any men with them, and wisely surrendered at the first summons[193].

[193] There is considerable controversy as to what officer received Barrié’s surrender. For the Gurwood-Mackie dispute see note in Appendix.

Seven thousand excited and victorious soldiers, with all traces of regimental organization lost, were now scattered through the streets of Ciudad Rodrigo. This was the first time on which the Peninsular Army had taken a place by assault, and the consequent confusion does not seem to have been foreseen by any one. But while the officers and the steady men were busy in collecting the French prisoners, throwing open the gates, and seeing to the transport of the wounded into houses, the baser spirits--and in every battalion, as Sir John Colborne remarks[194], there were in those days from fifty to a hundred incorrigibles--turned to plunder. The first rush was to the central brandy-store of the garrison, where hundreds got drunk in a few minutes, and several killed themselves by gorging raw spirits wholesale. But while the mere drunkards proceeded to swill, and then turned out into the streets firing objectlessly in the air, the calculating rascals set themselves to the plunder of private houses, which was a more profitable task than rummaging the French magazines. There was an immense amount of unlicensed pillage and wanton destruction of property--inexcusable in a place where only a small minority of the people were _Afrancesados_, and the majority had been getting ready to welcome their deliverers. The officers did their best to restore order, ‘the voice of Sir Thomas Picton was heard with the strength of twenty trumpets proclaiming damnation to all and sundry, while Colonels Barnard and Cameron with other

## active officers, seized the broken barrels of muskets, which were

lying about in great abundance, and belaboured misdemeanants most unmercifully[195].’ But active officers could not be everywhere--three houses, including the spirit store in the great square, were set on fire by drunken plunderers, and it was feared that a conflagration might arise, which fortunately did not happen, for the solid stone structures were not easily kindled. The disorder, however, did not reach the shameful pitch which was afterwards seen at Badajoz and St. Sebastian. A competent observer, present at all three sacks, remarks that ‘no town taken by assault suffered less than Rodrigo. It is true that soldiers of all regiments got drunk, pillaged, and made great noise and confusion in streets and houses, despite of every exertion of their officers to prevent it. But bad and revolting as such scenes are, I never heard that either the French garrison, after its surrender, or the inhabitants suffered personal indignities or cruelty from the troops[196].’ There were apparently no lives lost, except those of a few men shot accidentally by their drunken comrades, and of certain drunkards who perished in the spirit store. The greater part of the men were under control long before dawn, and were collected by their officers on the ramparts: they marched out next morning, when the 5th Division, newly arrived at the front from its distant cantonments in Beira, came into the town. By an unfortunate accident an explosion of an unsuspected magazine took place, just as the French prisoners were being marched out, and some of them and of their escort were killed[197]. The storming regiments made a strange spectacle as they left the town. ‘As we marched over the bridge dressed in all varieties imaginable, some with jack-boots on, others with white French trousers, others in frock-coats with epaulettes, some even with monkeys on their shoulders, we met the 5th Division on their way to repair the breaches. They immediately formed upon the left of the road, presented arms, and cheered us. I was afterwards told that Lord Wellington, who saw us pass, inquired of his staff, “Who the devil are _those_ fellows[198]?”’

[194] See his _Life and Letters_, p. 396.

[195] Kincaid, _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_, p. 117.

[196] Leach’s _Sketches in the Life of an Old Soldier_, p. 250. For an amusing story about a plundering Connaught Ranger who came down a chimney, see Grattan, p. 162. He tried to propitiate the officer who found him by presenting him with a case of surgical instruments. Kincaid speaks of worse than plunder--armed violence and some cases of rape.

[197] So Napier and most other authorities. John Jones, however, says that the explosion was not accidental, but deliberate--some English deserters had hidden themselves in a small magazine under the rampart. ‘These desperate men, on seeing an officer approach, deeming discovery and capture inevitable, and assured that an ignominious death would follow, blew themselves up in the magazine. The explosion first found vent through the door, and shot the refugees up into the street, some alive, but so mutilated, blackened, and distorted, as to be painful to behold.’

[198] Costello (a Light Division narrator), pp. 151-2.

The garrison, out of a little under 2,000 men present when the siege began, showed 60 officers and 1,300 rank and file of unwounded prisoners. Eight officers had been killed, 21 wounded, and about 500 rank and file, mostly on the day of the assault. The artillery and engineers suffered most--of 8 artillery officers in the place 5 were killed or wounded, of three engineer officers two fell.

The British and Portuguese loss during the whole siege was 9 officers killed and 70 wounded, and of other ranks 186 were killed and 846 wounded, with 10 missing--apparently deserters. Of these, 59 officers and 503 rank and file fell in the actual storm. The tables appended at the end of this volume demonstrate that the 3rd Division suffered far more heavily than the Light--the battalions with the greatest losses were the 2/5th and 94th, which were early on the great breach and got the benefit of the explosion. Of the 9 officers killed or mortally hurt two were generals, Craufurd and Mackinnon. The death of the former, who lingered in great agony for four days, though shot through to the spine, was no small event in the war: his talents were sadly missed in its latter years: an outpost officer of his capacity would have been invaluable to Wellington during the fighting in the Pyrenees in 1813, when the Light Division, though regimentally as good as ever, much lacked the skilful leading of its old chief. He was a man with many friends and many enemies: of his merits and defects I spoke at length in another place[199]. Here I feel compelled to quote nothing more than the words of his friend, Lord Londonderry--the Charles Stewart of the Peninsular War. ‘He was an officer of whom the highest expectation had been formed, and who on every occasion found an opportunity to prove that, had his life been spared, the proudest hopes of his country would not have been disappointed, and he was a man to know whom in his profession without admiring him was impossible. To me his death occasioned that void which the removal of a sincere friend alone produces. While the memory of the brave and the skilful shall continue to be cherished by British soldiers, he will not be forgotten, and the hand which scrawls this humble tribute to his worth must be cold as his own, before the mind which dictates it shall cease to think of him with affection and regret[200].’

[199] See vol. iii. pp. 233-7.

[200] Londonderry’s _Peninsular War_, ii. p. 268.

[Illustration: CIUDAD RODRIGO ON THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM FROM THE ADVANCED BATTERY ON THE LESSER TESON

(A contemporary sketch.)]

SECTION XXXII: