Preparations for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo—A review of the light Division by Lord Wellington—The fort and convent of Saint Francisco taken—Storming the breach—Capture of the place—Regulations for the prevention of plunder—Disorders committed in the city—Remarks and anecdotes connected with the siege—Burial of General Craufurd—Removal of quarters to El Bodon—Vestiges of the previous engagement near that place—Ciudad Rodrigo consigned to a Spanish garrison—March towards Badajoz—Castello de Vida—Fortress of Elvas—An accidental acquaintance.

At the expiration of some months' travail by the engineer department, in procuring stores from various places, active operations were commenced to collect them near at hand,—such as the battering train, cannon balls, ammunition, gabions, fascines, scaling-ladders, sand bags, shovels, spades, pickaxes, &c.—for the purpose of laying siege to Ciudad Rodrigo, (in the province of Leon,) which stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river Agueda, surrounded by an open country, and was garrisoned by two thousand French soldiers. The walls of the fortress are rather more than a mile and a quarter in circumference, enclosing monasteries, convents, and churches,—which gives the city at a distance the appearance of an immense gothic castle.

A few days previously to the siege, Lord Wellington reviewed the light division on the plains of Guinaldo. He was dressed in full uniform, and merely rode down the line, looking at the troops in a cheerful manner. Just as his Lordship was leaving the ground, which was covered with snow, General Craufurd appeared, and soon after the troops returned to their quarters. The second brigade came from Martiago, and returned that night—an immense march. A few days subsequently to this review, the whole division was concentrated, the first brigade moving to La Encina, the second to El Bodon. During this march a tremendous storm of sleet and snow took place; the snow froze and adhered to the horses hoofs, forming balls which raised them several inches from the ground. Fortunately, the march was short, as fatigue-parties of soldiers were obliged to return to prop up the weak and staggering baggage-animals, that had suffered previously from bad provender.

On the 8th of January, 1812, the light division crossed the Agueda, sans culotte, (a cooler!) at a ford about four miles above Ciudad Rodrigo. The day was fine, and, indeed, during the operations of the siege, the atmosphere was mild for the season of the year, although sometimes frosty of a morning.

The division bivouacked for some hours two miles from the town. When the darkness had set in, three hundred soldiers drawn from the 43d, 52d, and the rifle corps, moved under the command of Colonel Colborne¹⁴, to assault the fort of Francisco. The enemy fired about two rounds; our good troops did not allow more time, and the fort was taken. It was situated on a rising ground, six hundred yards from the town, was of a square form, with two small howitzers, "en barbette," and had a garrison of two officers and forty soldiers, who were made prisoners. Six or eight others either were killed or escaped into the town, where the drums began to beat to arms, and a furious fire of shot and shell opened on us, while digging a parallel close to the captured fort; the earth being thrown up on the town side. The land is arable, and bestrewn with loose stones, which were flying on all sides from the impulse given by the cannon balls, and the bursting of shells, which were exploding on every side, killing and maiming many soldiers.

The great convent of Saint Francisco, in the suburb, was carried a few days before the storming of the town, and also the ruined convent of Santa Cruz. On the morning of the 14th, about five hundred French soldiers made a sortie from the city, and before they retired were very nearly succeeding in entering the batteries, where the battering cannon had been placed the night before. The twenty-four pounders were of iron, mounted like field guns, on handsome carriages, painted lead colour.

An hour before dark on this day, the batteries opened within six hundred yards of the ramparts for the purpose of battering in breach. The first, third, fourth, and light divisions, employed in the siege moved by turns from their cantonments, each taking a twenty-four hours' spell.¹⁵

On the 19th of January, the light division was ordered to the assault out of its turn. During the greater part of the day we remained cooking behind the convent of the Norbortins, a most splendid ruin, with very extensive cloisters, situated close on the right bank of the Agueda, three miles S. E. of the town. Soon after three o'clock we moved towards the ground occupied by the foot guards, who were halted one mile and a half from the suburbs of Ciudad Rodrigo. These troops came forward to wish us success, and our band struck up the fall of Paris. The third division occupied the trenches, and the garrison must have observed the march of the light division from the ramparts,—extra troops! The governor should have pondered on it! If he had kept a sharp look-out, he must have been expecting the assault.

There were two breaches effected in the walls of this town. By the small breach the large one was taken in reverse.

At half-past six o'clock the light division was formed behind the convent of Saint Francisco, near the suburb, and almost exactly opposite to the small breach, and about four hundred yards from it. The third division, under General Sir Thomas Picton, was also formed behind the ruins of Santa Cruz, and in the trenches opposite the large breach. All was silent, four or five shells excepted, which were thrown by the enemy into our left battery, and fell not a great distance from our column. Now, if the governor thought that the assault was preparing, he ought not to have fired at all from the ramparts, as it prevented the approach of the troops from being discovered by the ear.

I heard the town-clock strike seven, and at the same time saw a match lighted in one of the embrasures—(very awful!) at that moment the "forlorn hope," headed by Lieut. Gurwood, of the 52d, and the storming party (composed of three hundred soldiers, with a proportion of officers) moved on, carrying a number of bags, filled with dried grass, to lessen the depth of the fausse braie and the ditch. In a few minutes they were on the brink of the ditch, and the fire of the town opened briskly on them. There was a sort of check, but no longer than might be expected, as they had to scramble in and out of the fausse braie, and then to jump into the dry ditch; but having gone too far to the left, the advance got on the wrong side of the tower, which was not breached, and the soldiers, for a few seconds, were knocking with the butt-ends of their fire locks against the wall, crying out "Where's the breach?" for although the enemy were firing rapidly from the top of the wall, still the troops, on first descending to the bottom of the ditch, were in total darkness. This state of suspense lasted, however, a very short time, for two soldiers, stumbling on the loose rubbish, called out "Here's the breach," and Lieut. Gurwood¹⁶ led up it; but the French swore they should not enter, and fought most desperately on the crest of the breach, throwing down large stones and missiles, and keeping up a most deadly fire. Here many brave officers and soldiers fell. General Craufurd received a mortal wound, and fell into his aide-de-camp's arms, on the glacis, while cheering on the main body of the division. Major General Vandeleur and Colonel Colborne were wounded. How the troops contrived to force the breach I know not: I can only say that it was well done. The breach was exceedingly steep: about five yards wide at the top, having a cannon, of heavy calibre, placed sideways, to block up the passage; however, there was a clear yard from the muzzle of the gun to the wall, a sufficient space for one or two soldiers to enter at a time, besides those who could pass underneath the muzzle of the gun, or over the wheels of the carriage.

The moment the division entered, a number of soldiers rushed to the right, along the ramparts, to the large breach (one hundred and fifty yards), and then engaging those of the French who were still firing on the third division, absolutely drove them over the breast-work, on to the large breach. At this time a wooden spare magazine, placed on the rampart, exploded, and blew up some French grenadiers, and many of the light division. Lieutenant Pattenson, of the 43d, and Lieut. Uniacke, of the rifle corps, were of the number. This occurred just behind the traverse, which, on the enemy's right, confined and guarded the great breach.

On ascending the small breach, directly after it was carried, I found myself with the crowd. Lieut.-Colonel M'Leod managed to collect, with the assistance of some other officers, on the rampart about two hundred soldiers of our regiment, and was exhorting them to keep together. At this time there was not any firing on us, with the exception of a few stray shots from the opposite buildings; but there was sharp musketry still at the great breach.

I ran towards the large breach, and met an officer slowly walking between two soldiers of the rifle corps. I asked who it was, when he faintly replied, "Uniacke¹⁷," and walked on. One of his eyes was blown out, and the flesh was torn off his arms and legs. He had taken chocolate, with our mess, an hour and a half before!

The regiment was now formed, and Colonel M'Leod immediately detached officers with guards, to take possession of all the stores they could find, and to preserve order. These parties ultimately dissolved themselves. If they had not done so, they would have been engaged in the streets with our own troops.

Colonel M'Leod caused Lieutenant Madden, of the 43d, to descend the small breach with twenty-five men, ordering him to continue at the foot of it during the night, and to prevent soldiers leaving the town with plunder. At eleven o'clock I went to see him; he had no sinecure, and had very judiciously made a large fire, which, of course, showed the delinquents to perfection, who were attempting to quit the town with plunder, in the garb of friars, nuns, or enveloped in silk counterpanes, or loaded with silver forks, spoons, and church plate, all of which was of course taken from them, and was piled up, to hand over to the proper authorities on the following day. He told me that no masquerade could, in point of costume and grotesque figures, rival the characters he stripped that night.

The fire was large, and surrounded by the dead bodies of those who fell in the first onset at the foot of the breach. The troops must have rushed up and taken the latter without hesitation: had the governor of the town only placed a few obstacles on the crest of the breach, he must have stopped the entrance of the light division altogether. He had time, as the firing from our batteries ceased two hours before the assault, and then from the rampart there was a gentle slope into the town, leading into a narrow lane, which was blocked up with a cart only, leaving a sufficient space for one person to pass at a time. The Governor was most culpable! There was no musquetry from any part of the ramparts until the head of the light division column was close to the small breach.—Amongst others lay Captain Dobbs, of the 52d, on his back, at the foot of the breach, and stripped of his uniform. An officer at first thought he was a Frenchman, who had tumbled headlong during the strife from the top of the breach; but, while he was holding a piece of lighted wood, to contemplate, with admiration, his extremely placid and handsome countenance, even in death, a captain of the 52d knew it to be the body of poor Dobbs. On lifting him up, the blood flowed copiously from his back, a musket ball having entered at the breast, and passed through his body.—A soldier of the third division came up to me and said, "Captain Hardyman, of the 45th, is killed!" for although three generals and seventy other officers had fallen, yet the soldiers fresh from the strife talked of him; and if a soldier's praise can add to a man's fame, certainly no one had a greater share than Hardyman; he was the real type of a soldier, and kind to every one.

When the troops had sipped the wine and the Cogniac brandy in the stores, the extreme disorders commenced. To restore order was impossible; a whole division could not have done it. Three or four large houses were on fire, two of them were in the market-place, and the town was illuminated by the flames. The soldiers were drunk, and many of them for amusement were firing from the windows into the streets. I was talking to the regimental barber, private Evans, in the square, when a ball passed through his head. This was at one o'clock in the morning. He fell at my feet dead, and his brains lay on the pavement. I then sought shelter, and found Colonel M'Leod with a few officers in a large house, where we remained until daylight. I did not enter any other house in Ciudad Rodrigo; and if I had not seen, I never could have supposed that British soldiers would become so wild and furious. It was quite alarming to meet groups of them in the streets, flushed as they were with drink, and desperate in mischief.

On the morning of the 20th the scene was dreary; the fires just going out; and about the streets were lying the corpses of many men who had met their death hours after the town had been taken. At eleven o'clock, I went to look at the great breach. The ascent was not so steep as that of the small one, but there was a traverse thrown up at each side of it on the rampart; hence there was no way into the town, as the wall was quite perpendicular behind the breach. When the third division had gained the top of the rampart, they were in a manner enclosed and hemmed in, and had no where to go, while the enemy continued to fire upon them from some old ruined houses, only twenty yards distant.

I counted more than sixty-three soldiers of the third division lying dead on the terre-plein of the rampart exactly between the traverses I have already described. I did not see one dead soldier of that division on the French side of those traverses; but I saw some of the light division.

I saw General M'Kinnon lying dead on his back, just under the rampart, on the inside, that is, the town side. He was stripped of every thing except his shirt and blue pantaloons; even his boots were taken off. He was a tall thin man. There were no others dead near him, and he was not on the French side of the traverse either, nor was there any possibility of getting at the General without a ladder, or traversing a considerable distance along the ramparts to descend into the town, and then passing through several narrow lanes, ruined houses, and over broken stone walls being a distance of at least a quarter of a mile, and what no human being could have accomplished during the night. It is said that he was blown up. I should say not. There was no appearance indicating that such had been his fate. Neither the state of his skin nor the posture in which he was lying, led me to think it. When a man is blown up, his hands and face, I should think, could not escape. I never saw any whose face was not scorched. M'Kinnon's was pale, and free from the marks of fire. How strange, that with the exception of the General, I did not see a soldier of the third division who had been stripped! Neither was there any officer among the dead, or else they had been carried away. I should not wonder, (if it is not uncharitable,) that the General had been killed with all the others between the traverses, and that some tender-hearted, follower of the army had taken his clothes off, and then just given him a hand over the wall, and so placed him in the position described.

The two divisions attacked without knapsacks. The greater portion of the light division lay at the foot of the small breach in the ditch; hence it was that they fought on the slope, and rolled down in succession as they were killed; but, on gaining the ramparts (there being no interior defences) they followed the French right and left, who retreated, panic-struck, into the interior of the city, keeping up, however, a running fire from the different streets, or the massive stone buildings.

The third division, at the first onset, were fired on from the parapets of the ramparts, and assailed by missiles and live shells, which were rolled from the summit of the wall: but the enemy did not stand on the crest of the great breach to oppose their ascent; for, if they had, it would have been impossible to escape behind their traverses. The enemy had left a space for one man to pass at a time, on the left of the right traverse, but expecting the attack, they had previously blocked it up with barrels filled with earth, having placed others behind to stand on for the purpose of firing over them. Before the morning, all these barrels, except one, were thrown down the scarped wall. The fact is, that the third division mounted to the terre-plein with facility; but when on the rampart, they were fired on in front and both flanks, as before described, and in this small space, they suffered a tremendous loss of nearly five hundred heroic officers and soldiers. During the fighting, their dead and wounded were piled one on the top of the other, crying out in agony as they were trampled upon, and impeding the progress of others, who exerted themselves in vain amongst such havoc to carry the traverses.

The moment the wooden magazine blew up, all firing nearly ceased, for the enemy literally jumped over the right entrenchment on to the terre-plein of the great breach, to save themselves from the bayonets of the light division. A young Italian officer there seized Captain Hopkins, of the 43rd, round the neck, and implored his life.

At about eleven o'clock in the morning (of the 20th) the great explosion took place a few yards to the right of the small breach, blowing up the terre-plein of the rampart, four yards in breadth and ten in length. This fatal explosion (which was accidental, owing to some sparks of fire igniting some barrels of gunpowder in a casement,) happened while the French garrison were marching out of the city by the small breach, which had become so hard, owing to such numbers of soldiers walking up and down it, as to make the ascent nearly impracticable. The French, as well as the British soldiers, were carried up into the air, or jammed amongst the rubbish, some with heads, arms, or legs sticking out of the earth. I saw one of the unfortunate soldiers in a blanket, with his face, head, and body, as black as a coal, and cased in a black substance like a shell; his features were no longer distinguishable, and all the hair was singed from off his head, but still the unfortunate man was alive. How long he lived in this horrible situation I cannot say.

A tall athletic soldier of the 52d lay amongst the dead at the foot of the breach, on his back; his arms and legs being at their full extent. The top of his head, from the forehead to the back part of his skull, was split in twain, and the cavity of the head entirely emptied of the brains, as if a hand-grenade had exploded within, and expanded the skull, till it had forced it into a separation with the parts ragged like a saw, leaving a gaping aperture nine inches in length, and four in breadth. For a considerable time I looked on this horrible fracture, to define, if possible, by what missile or instrument so wonderful a wound could have been inflicted; but without being able to come to any conclusion as to the probable cause.

From this place I walked to the convent of Saint Francisco to see a wounded friend. The interior was crowded with wounded soldiers lying on the hard pavement. A soldier of the third division was sitting against a pillar, his head bent forward, and his chin resting on his breast, his eyes open, and an agreeable smile on his countenance. For half a minute I stopped with surprise to observe him sitting in so contented a posture, surrounded by the groans of his companions. At length, I addressed him, but, no answer being returned, I called a doctor, under the impression that the man was delirious. On the contrary, we found he was quite dead.

In the afternoon we returned to our quarters by regiments across the stone bridge, having been relieved by the fifth division, which came from the rear, and took charge of the city.

A few days after the assault, most of the officers of the light division attended General Craufurd's funeral. He was buried under the wall near the small breach.

In a few days we moved from La Encina to El Bodon, where our principal amusement consisted in playing at rackets, with wooden bats, against the side of the church, or riding about the country.

One day we visited the heights about half a league from this place, where, on the previous September, a brigade of the third division had been engaged. Many skeletons of the French horses lay in deep ravines, or on the shelvings of rocks, to the very summit of the ridge, on the crest of which some of the Portuguese gunners were cut down; and where for a short time the cannon remained in the hands of the enemy. It must have been at this moment that the second battalion of the fifth regiment retook them by charging in line, before the enemy's cavalry had time to form. I rode up the ragged ground myself with the utmost difficulty; the ground near the summit was so steep that the Portuguese, while throwing balls into the valley, could not see the advance of the French cavalry until quite upon them. Not that I wish to detract from the deserts of the Portuguese; but, as it has been stated that they stood to their guns to the last, I only wish to demonstrate how it happened. The very print of the wheels of the cannon were still indented in the ground, and showed, to an inch, where they had stood.

The whole of the dead French soldiers lying in the valley were stripped, and in a perfect state of preservation, blanched like parchment by the alternate rain and sunshine; and their skins had become so hard, that the bodies on being touched sounded like a drum. The vultures had picked the bones of the horses perfectly clean, but had left the soldiers untouched; and, although four months had elapsed since they had fallen, their features were as perfect as on the day they were killed. Some of these soldiers were gracefully proportioned, and extended in every possible attitude.

The rubbish of the breaches at Ciudad Rodrigo having been cleared away, the parapets built up with gabions and fascines, all the trenches filled up, and a garrison of Spanish soldiers left for its defence—at the latter end of February we marched towards Badajoz, for the purpose of laying siege to that fortress, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, the road more than half way lying through the rocky provinces of Portugal, where the villages are generally built on the tops of the highest mountains, with the remains of Moorish castles, or towers, studding the wildest rocks and the most tremendous precipices.

We remained a week at Castello de Vida, then resumed our march, and, on the 16th of March, entered Elvas, the principal fortress on the frontier of the AlentÉjo, three leagues distant from Badajoz. It is situated on a hill, flanked on the right by a fort or citadel, half a mile without its walls, and on the left by the fort La Lippe, which stands on a scarped hill, a mile from the town.

While quartering off the soldiers, I observed a very pretty young lady looking out of a casement, which occasioned her house to be selected for our quarter. In the evening, myself and messmate were invited to take chocolate and sweetmeats with the family; and, before retiring, the good old Senhora remarked our youthful appearance, and begged that, should either of us be wounded, we would come to her house. My companion was subsequently shot through the body, and, being conveyed back to Elvas, the mother and daughter kindly watched over him until he was perfectly recovered.