Part 4

When the EIGHTY-EIGHTH was ordered by Colonel Mackinnon to resume its place in brigade, the enemy’s fire had ceased, but as soon as they were seen in motion, it recommenced with double fury; the wall was knocked down in several places, and one round shot passed between Colonel Pakenham and Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, who were on horseback close to each other. It carried away the top of the wall, one of the stones striking Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace on the head and knocking his hat off, but doing him no further injury, though, for the moment, his men believed he had been killed. The regiment then quitted the place by companies in file as the safest way to avoid the effects of the cannonade: the companies returned, left in front. Colonel Pakenham, with his hat shot through the leaf, and his hand wrapped up in a pocket handkerchief, called out to Ensign Grattan as he passed at the head of the foremost company, to know where he was going, and why he left the village. Being told that it was in consequence of orders from Colonel Mackinnon, Colonel Pakenham replied, “I did not observe your _number_. Do as you are directed; your regiment has done enough for this day; but you may tell whatever troops you meet, that each man may as well bring a keg of ammunition under his arm, for those rascals shall never get possession of the town as long as I have life.” By four o’clock in the afternoon the regiment had joined its brigade.

The conduct of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH at Fuentes d’Onor (as at Busaco) obtained the particular notice of Lord Wellington, who, in his despatch containing the account of that battle, says, “On one of these occasions, the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, with the Seventy-First and Seventy-Ninth, under the command of Colonel Mackinnon, charged the enemy, and drove them through the village. Colonel Mackinnon has reported particularly the conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace and Lieutenant and Adjutant Stewart of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH regiment.”

The loss of the regiment was not so great as might have been expected from the brilliancy and seriousness of the affair in which it had been engaged. This comparatively small loss is to be attributed to the great steadiness and regularity of the men in their different attacks, and to the rapidity with which, on all occasions, they closed with their adversaries. Only one officer, Captain Irwin, was killed, and four wounded, _viz._ Lieutenants Stewart, Macalpin, and Halket, and Ensign Owgan. Of non-commissioned officers and privates, seven were killed and fifty-three wounded.

For a few days after the battle of Fuentes d’Onor, the EIGHTY-EIGHTH occupied the village of Navez de Aver, and was then ordered to the south to join the forces engaged in the siege of Badajoz. No opportunity occurred during this siege for the regiment to distinguish itself as a body, but many detached instances of intrepidity were displayed by the men as circumstances gave them an opportunity. Amongst others, on the day before the first assault on St. Christoval (the 5th of June), Private Edmund Man, of the grenadier company, was employed in repairing a damaged embrasure in one of the batteries against the castle. He was sitting outside the embrasure, pegging in a fascine, when Colonel Fletcher, the commanding engineer, who, though fearless of any danger as far as regarded himself, was particularly tenacious of allowing the soldiers to expose themselves unnecessarily, called to him, “Come in, my fine fellow, and you will do your work as well, or nearly so at all events.” “It’s hardly worth while, Colonel,” replied Man, “I am just finished, and they cannot hit me, for they have been trying it hard this quarter of an hour.” The words were scarcely out of the brave fellow’s mouth, when a round shot cut him in two, the French cannoniers cheering loudly at the same time at the accuracy of their practice.

When the siege of Badajoz was raised in the month of June, the EIGHTY-EIGHTH proceeded to quarters in Campo Mayor, where the second battalion, which had joined the army on the advance from the lines of Torres Vedras, was drafted into the first, making it a fine effective corps, numbering upwards of one thousand bayonets. The staff of the second battalion then returned to England to recruit.

In the autumn of this year the regiment was selected to support the outposts of the army against the attacks of the French garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo, and was cantoned in the villages of El Bodon, La Encina, and Pastores. The French had been in the habit of plundering the country around, and successful in several of their excursions previous to the arrival of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH. A few nights after the regiment occupied Pastores, its outposts were attempted by a party from the garrison, which was immediately repulsed with loss, and its commander killed on the spot by Corporal John Walsh of the light infantry company. It was the first and also the last attempt the enemy made on the EIGHTY-EIGHTH during its stay in the neighbourhood.

The blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo was completed on the 5th of September, and preparations for the siege commenced, when the junction of Marshal Marmont and Count Dorsenne obliged Lord Wellington to abandon the design for a time. On the 25th of the same month, the third division was attacked at El Bodon by General Montbrun, and fell back upon Fuente Guinaldo, in good order and with little loss, although the distance was eight miles, and the retreat was made in the face of a powerful artillery and cavalry force. The EIGHTY-EIGHTH suffered but slightly in this affair, and occupied for its winter-quarters, or rather quarters of repose, the village of Aldea da Ponte.

[Sidenote: 1812]

In the depth of the ensuing winter the army was suddenly called from its cantonments to the siege of _Ciudad Rodrigo_, the investment of which fortress was effected on the 8th of January, 1812. The service of the trenches was carried on by the first, third, fourth, and light divisions alternately, each taking the duty for four-and-twenty hours. The weather was severe, and the troops without covering, but the men were in high health and spirits, and the siege was prosecuted with so much vigour, that on the 19th of the same month, two practicable breaches having been made in the body of the place, Lord Wellington determined to carry it by storm.

The third and light divisions had the honour to be selected for this service; the latter was directed to attack the left or smaller breach, while the assault of the grand breach was confided to the former. The fourth division was in reserve. It was half-past six in the evening when the orders for storming the town arrived; Colonel Wallace was absent from the army on account of ill-health, and the command of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH devolved upon Major Thompson. A few minutes before the brigade was formed for the attack, Major-General Mackinnon sent for Major Thompson, and told him, he wished the forlorn hope to be led by a subaltern officer of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH; adding, that in the event of such officer surviving, he should be recommended for, and as a matter of course would obtain, a company. Major Thompson felt the distinguished compliment to the EIGHTY-EIGHTH which this intimation of the General’s wish conveyed, and calling his officers together, informed them of it. Lieutenant William Mackie, then _senior-lieutenant_, instantly stepped forward, and dropping his sword, said, “Major, I am ready for that service.” “Go then,” replied the Major, taking him by the hand, “Go, and God bless you!” The soldiers, who were close at hand, heard what passed, and some difficulty arose in selecting, out of the numbers who pressed forward claiming on some pretence or other the preference in danger, the twenty to which the Forlorn Hope was limited. The selection, however, was quickly made from the company which Lieutenant Mackie commanded.

The regiment was formed in sections, right in front, and everything in readiness to obey the signal gun for the advance, when Lieutenant-General Picton and Major-General Mackinnon appeared accompanied by their staff. Long harangues are seldom made to British soldiers, and in the present instance Lieutenant-General Picton’s words were few, but at the same time too animating, and too characteristic of himself, not to be recorded verbatim. They were, “RANGERS OF CONNAUGHT! It is not my intention to expend any powder this evening: we will do this business with the cold iron.”

The troops then entered the trenches with Major-General Mackinnon at their head; on leaving the approaches they advanced rapidly over the rugged ground leading to the breach, many of the men carrying bags filled with grass to throw into the ditch and break the descent. Arrived at the foot of the breach they speedily mounted, but met with a very gallant resistance, and many men and officers fell: amongst the latter was the commander of the Brigade, Major-General Mackinnon, who was killed with many others by an explosion of gunpowder in the moment of victory. On each side the breach was a twenty-four pounder, every discharge from which swept it with a raking fire. Major Thompson of the Seventy-Fourth (acting engineer), observing the destruction occasioned by these guns, ordered the few men who were next at hand to storm the one on the left; the nearest men happened to be three of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, Brazel, who saved Captain Dunne’s life at Busaco, Kelly and Swan. Beneath them and the gun was a deep retrenchment, which would have rendered it impossible for them to reach it in time to anticipate its next fatal discharge, if they were encumbered with their firelocks. Without a moment’s hesitation they threw aside the heavier weapon, and armed only with their bayonets, leaped the interposing barrier, rushed up to the muzzle of the piece, and after a short but terrific combat (in which Swan lost his arm by the stroke of a sabre) put all the French cannoniers to death and silenced the gun. The troops on the breach were now safe from the havock which had a few minutes before been so fatal to their comrades, and in half an hour the town was carried.

Lieutenant Mackie, guided by the fugitives of the garrison, was the first to arrive with his party at the gates of the citadel, where the enemy inquired for a General Officer to receive their surrender. The Lieutenant being a Grenadier officer, pointed to his epaulettes as a guarantee of their safety in surrendering to him, and the gate was immediately opened. The officer commanding the advance of the light division coming up at the moment, the governor and his staff were conducted to Lord Wellington, who had by this time reached the ramparts.

Lieutenant Faris was engaged during the assault in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict. Two French grenadiers, observing him far in advance of his men, attacked him. One fired and immediately ran away, his bullet passing through the Lieutenant’s coat; the other then fired, wounded him slightly in the thigh, and immediately closed upon him with the bayonet, making a thrust at the body, which Lieutenant Faris parried with his sabre, but received a severe wound in the leg; a personal struggle then took place, from which Lieutenant F. at length succeeded in disengaging himself, and killed his adversary by a sabre cut on the head. By this time he was completely exhausted, and was obliged to be carried into the next house. His wounds, however, though severe, were neither of them dangerous, and he soon recovered.

The loss of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH before _Ciudad Rodrigo_ was one officer, Lieutenant Beresford, and twenty rank and file killed; four Lieutenants, Flack, Armstrong, Johnston, and W. Kingsmill, two serjeants, and fifty-four rank and file wounded. Lord Wellington in his despatches notices the third division and this regiment in the following words,—

“The conduct of all parts of the Third Division in these operations, which they performed with so much gallantry and exactness on the evening of the 19th in the dark, affords the strongest proofs of the abilities of Lieutenant-General Picton and Major-General Mackinnon, &c.” And again: “It is but justice to the third division, to report that the men who performed the sap belonged to the Forty-Fifth, Seventy-Fourth, and EIGHTY-EIGHTH Regiments.”

After the reduction of Ciudad Rodrigo, the regiment occupied the village of Albergeria until the middle of February, when it marched towards the South to join the forces in Alentejo, and act against the fortress of _Badajoz_. In this siege the duty of the trenches was performed by the third, fourth, and sixth divisions, about sixteen thousand strong, while the French garrison amounted to six thousand. The place was invested on the 16th of March, and the trenches opened the same night. On the night of the 19th the garrison made a sortie with two thousand men against the right of the trenches with great gallantry, and at first with considerable success, but were finally driven back to the town with loss. In that part of the British line which faced the advanced fort called La Picurina, were two batteries in a forward state, occupied by a party of the Forty-Fifth and EIGHTY-EIGHTH, under the command of Captain Hogan of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH. The trenches were in such a state from the rain which had fallen almost incessantly from the commencement of the siege, that the working parties were up to their knees in water, and it was deemed right to keep the covering troops as much as possible out of the wet ground. About half an hour before the usual time of relieving the guard of the trenches, Ensigns Darcy and Grattan of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, although the smoke of the French batteries combined with a heavy fog rendered it impossible to distinguish objects at any distance, thought they observed symptoms of the enemy’s meditating a sortie from the Picurina Fort. Without waiting for orders, they instantly directed the working party to throw down their tools and resume their arms; in the next moment, and before many of the men were in readiness to act, the French made a rush at the battery No. 2, but were received at the point of the bayonet, by the few assembled men of the Forty-Fifth and EIGHTY-EIGHTH, and thus the readiness and presence of mind of two young officers, and the firmness of a handful of brave men, preserved the half finished works from destruction. Some of the soldiers pursued the repulsed enemy as far as the glacis of the town, and two privates of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, Kelly of the fourth company (who has been already mentioned for his conduct at Talavera, Busaco, and Ciudad Rodrigo) and M‘Gowan of the grenadiers particularly distinguished themselves.

On the 24th the regiment lost one Lieutenant (North) killed, and had another Lieutenant (Stewart) wounded, by the fire of the place. On the evening of the 25th it was determined to storm the Picurina redoubt; five hundred men of the third division were ordered upon that duty, and amongst them a detachment of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, commanded by Captain Oates and Lieutenant George Johnston. The latter officer was a volunteer; it was not his tour of duty in the trenches, and he still carried his arm in a sling from the effects of his wound at Ciudad Rodrigo; but the moment he heard that Captain Oates, who was the Captain of his company, was to be of the storming party, he determined to join him. The first attack was made at the gorge of the redoubt, but the defences were too strong and the resistance too obstinate even for troops accustomed to victory; repulsed there, however, and with severe loss, they did not abandon the attack in despair; gliding round the flanks and faces of the work, they sought for, and at length obtained, an entry by scaling the ramparts. In one of these attempts the ladders proving too short, Captain Oates observing that the ditch though very deep was narrow, called out, “Come, boys, though the ladders are too short to mount _up_ the ditch, let us try our hand with them across it.” In a few minutes three ladders were pitched from the glacis into the mouth of an embrasure, and across them, in spite of a severe fire of musketry and grape. Captain Oates led the way into the redoubt; here he soon fell, disabled by a severe wound, and Lieutenant Johnston was killed within a few paces of him; in fact, of fifteen officers who were with the party not one escaped unhurt.

During the further progress of the siege, the regiment lost a field-officer, Major Thompson, who was killed in the trenches on the night of the 28th, and on the same night Brevet-Major Murphy was wounded. In the final assault on the 6th of April, the escalade of the castle was the duty allotted to the third division. Lieutenant Whitelaw of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH volunteered to lead the advance of twenty men, but less fortunate than his brother officer, Lieutenant Mackie at Ciudad Rodrigo, fell at the moment of victory; Captain Lindsay of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH was also killed while in the act of raising a ladder for his company to escalade the castle wall; three other Lieutenants were killed (Mansfield, Cotton, and Macalpine); and one Captain (Peshall) and four Lieutenants (Faris, Armstrong, Davern, and Grattan) wounded. Mr. Thomas Martin, eldest son of Richard Martin, Esq., many years M.P. for Galway, who had joined the regiment as a volunteer soon after the opening of the trenches and accompanied the grenadiers in the assault, was also wounded in the shoulder. The total loss of the regiment before Badajoz, during the sieges in June, 1811, and in March and April, 1812, amounted to eight officers, five serjeants, and forty-two rank and file killed; and eight officers, ten serjeants, and one hundred and sixty-six rank and file wounded.

After the fall of _Badajoz_, the regiment returned to the frontiers of Beira, where it remained till the army again took the field in June. At the battle of _Salamanca_, (22nd July) the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, together with the Forty-Fifth and Seventy-Fourth, formed the right brigade of the third division, which was posted on the right of the army, opposite to the Seventh French division, under General Bonnet. Lieutenant-General Picton being at this time absent from the field on account of ill-health, the division was commanded by Major-General the Honourable Edward Pakenham, the brigade by Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Wallace of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, and the EIGHTY-EIGHTH itself by Major Seton, who had succeeded to that rank upon the death of Major Thompson in the trenches at Badajoz. It was five in the afternoon, when Lord Wellington rode up and desired Major-General the Hon. E. Pakenham to move the third division forward, and carry the heights and guns in his front. The division was at this time formed in open column, right in front, facing a hill behind which the French were posted, and on which were erected two batteries. The colours were just uncased, and the bayonets fixed, when Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace addressed a few animating words to the men, explaining their situation, and cautioning them to be aware of the enemy’s cavalry, which was watching them closely, and hanging on their flank: to the officers he said, “Gentlemen, the regiment is on this day, as it generally is on such occasions, tolerably strong, and (pointing to the batteries which crowned the hill in front) we are likely to have a good deal of noise about our ears. I would recommend you to place yourselves in the centre and front of your companies, which will prevent any mistake.”

The brigade now moved forward in one column, the Forty-Fifth leading, followed immediately by the EIGHTY-EIGHTH; the enemy opened a heavy fire from fourteen guns, which was replied to by a brigade of nine-pounders firing over the heads of the advancing column. When the smoke cleared away, Bonnet’s division was perceived advancing rapidly round the face of the hill, as if determined to anticipate attack; Major-General Pakenham now rode up to Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace and ordered him to wheel the brigade into line without halting, a manœuvre which evidently disconcerted the enemy, who nevertheless continued to advance with drums beating and keeping up a heavy fire of musketry. In spite of the enemy’s fusillade, Major-General Pakenham, Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, and Majors Seton and Murphy, remained at the head of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, which formed the centre of the brigade, and continued to advance steadily in line with firelocks on the rest. As the British advanced, the fire of the enemy slackened, and they seemed inclined to give way, when several of their officers advanced in front to animate the men, and one officer of the Twenty-Second, (the leading regiment of the French column,) seizing a firelock, ran out in front of his men and shot Major Murphy of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH through the heart. At the same moment a ball struck the pole of the King’s colour, cutting it nearly in two, and taking the epaulette off the shoulder of Lieutenant D’Arcy who carried it. The men now, for the first time, became impatient, and called out for revenge; Major-General Pakenham cheered, and desired Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace to _let them loose_; the men rushed into the midst of the fire, and a close and desperate, but short, conflict took place. The deep and ponderous column, so formidable in attack, was now completely overthrown, and at the mercy of its assailants; many of the French were killed and wounded, and the broken column pursued for about a quarter of a mile through an extensive but thinly-planted wood of cork-trees. At this moment a shout in the rear caused the pursuers to expect to have a charge of French cavalry to repel, but they were agreeably disappointed by having Major-General Le Marchant’s brigade of heavy cavalry to greet, instead of a fresh enemy to resist. The French could not withstand this new attack, and the whole column, originally seven thousand strong, was cut to pieces or captured, together with two eagles and eleven pieces of cannon.

Owing to the previous casualties at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, only four Captains were present with the regiment at Salamanca, and of these, one (Captain Mackie) acted as Aide-de-Camp to Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, and when the heavy brigade charged, joined them in the attack. Two others (Murphy, brevet-major, and Hogan) were killed, and the fourth (Captain Adair) so severely wounded, as to survive the effects only a few months. Captain Tryon of the EIGHTY-EIGHTH, D.A.A.G., was likewise severely wounded. The EIGHTY-EIGHTH had also four Lieutenants (Meade, Nickle, Grattan, and Kingsmill) wounded; one serjeant and eighteen rank and file killed, and one serjeant and one hundred and nine rank and file wounded; the total of casualties amounting to seven officers and one hundred and twenty-nine non-commissioned officers and privates.

After the battle of Salamanca the EIGHTY-EIGHTH formed part of the corps which occupied Madrid during Lord Wellington’s march to Burgos, and on the evacuation of that capital in October following, returned to quarters in Portugal, where it received a strong detachment of the Second battalion, which again raised its effective strength to near one thousand rank and file. For the first time, also, since its arrival in the Peninsula, it was furnished with tents in common with the other regiments.

[Sidenote: 1813]