Preparations against Badajoz—Description of this fortress—Its investment—Line of circumvallation formed in the night—Sortie of the garrison repulsed—Destructive fire of the besieged—Dreadful explosion from a shell—Indifference—Deaths of Captain Mulcaster, Majors Thompson and North.

Rodrigo having fallen, it was soon rumoured that we were to move off to the south, to assault Badajoz. The soldiers were full of ardour; they anxiously counted the hours as they passed; and when at length, on the 8th of March, the order arrived for the advance of the army to the Alemtejo, their joy was indescribable. Badajoz had ever been looked upon by them as unfriendly to our troops, and they contemplated with delight the prospect of having it in their power to retaliate upon the inhabitants their treatment of our men. On the 9th, the army was in movement; the Light Division opened the march, followed by the 3rd and 4th; they crossed the Tagus by a bridge of boats, thrown over that river at Villa Velha, and pressed rapidly forward towards Elvas. One division of infantry and a brigade of cavalry remained on the Agueda. On the 14th, the Light and 3rd Divisions were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Elvas; they were joined by the 4th Division on the following day, while the remainder of the army, under Hill and Graham, were pushed forward to Llerena, Merida, and Almendralejo, to observe the motions of Soult, who by this time was informed of the preparations, though not to their full extent, that had been formed against Badajoz.

On the 16th of March, everything being in readiness, a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana; fifteen thousand men broke up from their bivouac at Elvas, and advanced towards the river; the enemy disputed the ground, and here—even here, with only a handful of cavalry opposed to us—the French horsemen had actually the best of it, and kept us at bay during a march of three hours. At length we gained the river’s edge, passed the bridge, drove back the enemy’s outposts, and completed the investment. The following day, the 17th, Lord Wellington, accompanied by his engineers, carefully reconnoitred the place. The point of attack which his lordship decided upon, notwithstanding the advantages which were on the side of the enemy, was quite at variance with that of the preceding year, so it must be naturally presumed that the former was found to be faulty. Then the outworks were by no means so formidable as now on the side about to be assailed, while on the San Christoval side, the scene of the former attack, little progress had been made towards its amelioration.

The evening of the 17th of March had scarcely closed when three thousand men broke ground before the fort of La Picurina, at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards. The night was unusually dark, the wind was high, and the rain fell in torrents—all of which favoured the enterprise. The soldiers, accustomed to fatigues, and knowing by experience, if for nothing but their own safety, the necessity of getting on rapidly with their work, exerted themselves to their utmost, and when the grey dawn of morning made its appearance, the enemy beheld with surprise, through the mist that surrounded them, the first parallel of our works completed, without their having anticipated it, or having thrown one shot in the direction of our workmen; but as the fog cleared away, it was too palpable to be misunderstood that, despite of the sagacity of General Count Phillipon and his devoted garrison, a line of circumvallation had been cut close to one of the best of their outworks, without their having the remotest idea of the attempt. The different alarm-bells in the town rang a loud peal, and in less than half an hour a tremendous cannonade was opened upon us from the guns of the fort as well as the town itself. Some men were killed and several wounded, but excepting this, no loss was sustained; the works were uninjured, their progress unimpeded, and this, our first attempt, for the third time, was crowned with that unlooked-for success which was a good omen for the future.

The entire of the 18th the rain continued to fall, and the trenches were already nearly knee-deep with water, but by the great exertions of the engineers, and the persevering resolution of the soldiers, the works were pushed on with extraordinary vigour, the earth not being as yet sufficiently saturated to lose its consistency. On the night of the 18th it rained still more heavily; nevertheless some guns were dragged through the slough by the soldiers, into the batteries marked out to act against La Picurina, and the following morning the works were in that forward state as to cause the French Governor much alarm for the fate of this outwork. Towards mid-day on the 19th, a dense vapour, issuing from the Guadiana and Rivillas, caused by the heavy rains that had fallen, made Phillipon consider the moment a favourable one to make a rush into our works; he accordingly placed two thousand chosen troops at the different gates and sally-ports with fixed bayonets, ready to storm the batteries at a given signal. At this time our soldiers were working in the trenches, nearly up to their hips in water; the covering party were too distant to afford immediate relief if required to do so, because they were kept out of the wet ground as far as was consistent with the safety of our lines; and the soldiers that composed the working party were in a helpless and defenceless state, their arms and appointments being thrown aside.

I happened to be in the works on this day, and having a little more experience than the officer who commanded the party, I observed with distrust the bustle which was apparent, not only in the fort of Picurina, but also along the ramparts of the town. Without waiting the formality of telling the commanding officer what I thought, I, on the instant, ordered the men to throw by their spades and shovels, put on their appointments, and load their firelocks. This did not occupy more than three minutes, and in a few seconds afterwards the entire trenches to our right were filled with Frenchmen, the workmen massacred, and the works materially damaged; while at the same moment several hundred men attempted to throw themselves into the battery we occupied. But the workmen were armed and ready to receive them; they had just been placed—I must say it, for it is the truth—by me in a posture not only to save their own lives, but the battery also. The Frenchmen advanced with that impetuous burst so well known to those who have witnessed it, and so difficult to stand before by any. They had a double motive to urge them on on this occasion: honour had a forcible auxiliary in the shape of a dollar, which they were to receive for every pick-axe or shovel they carried out of our trenches; and, well as I know the French character, it is difficult for me to say which of the two, honour or avarice, most predominated upon the present occasion; I shall only say that it is my firm conviction—and I judge from the spirit of the attack—that both had their share in stimulating those heroic and veteran plunderers to seek for a footing within our trenches, for I never saw a set of fellows that sought with greater avidity than they did the spades and shovels that were thrown aside by our men. Lieutenant D‘Arcy of the 88th and Lieutenant White of the 45th pursued them almost to the glacis of the town; and had the movement been foreseen, there can be little hazard in saying that, with a sufficient supply of ladders at the moment, the fort of Picurina could have been carried by the workmen alone, so great was their enthusiasm, with a less loss of lives than it cost us (after six days' labour) on the 25th!

The sortie had been well repulsed at this point, but higher up, on the right, we were not so fortunate; the workmen were surprised, and, in addition to the injury inflicted upon the works, a great loss of men and officers was sustained before the covering party reached the spot. General Picton soon after arrived in the battery where I was stationed, and seemed to be much alarmed for its safety, not knowing in the confusion of the moment, which was great, that the enemy had attacked it, and had been driven back; but when he learned from me that the workmen alone had achieved this act, he was lavish in his praise of them, and spoke to myself in flattering terms—for him; but there was an austerity of demeanour which, even while he gave praise—a thing he seldom did to the Connaught Rangers at least!—kept a fast hold of him, and the caustic sententiousness with which he spoke rather chilled than animated. He was on foot, but his aide-de-camp, Captain Cuthbert of the Fusiliers, was mounted, and while in the act of giving directions to some of the troops (for by this time the whole of the besieging force, attracted by the cannonade, was in motion towards the works) he was struck in the hip by a round shot, which killed his horse on the spot, leaving him dreadfully mangled and bleeding to death. This officer was a serious loss to Picton, and was much regretted by the division; he possessed all the requisites for a staff-officer, without that silly arrogance—the sure sign of an empty mind, as well as head—which we sometimes meet with amongst the gentlemen who compose the État major of our army.

We lost in this affair about two hundred men, many of whom were cut down in the works, and several in the depots far in the rear, by a body of the enemy’s light cavalry that galloped out of the town at the moment the sortie commenced. Absurd as this may read, it is nevertheless true: the garrison of Badajoz, cooped up within its walls, without a foot of ground that they could call their own beyond the glacis, and, in a manner, begirt by an army of fifteen thousand men, were—by their admirable arrangement of their forces, or by the superlative neglect of our people, enabled to ride through our lines—unopposed by a single dragoon!—from right to left! Brilliant, however, as was this exploit, it was of no such service to the garrison; their loss exceeded four hundred men, and the capture of a few dozen spades and shovels but ill repaid them for so great a sacrifice of lives, at any time valuable, but in their present position doubly so.

The sortie being at length repulsed, and order once more restored, the works in the trenches were continued under a torrent of rain and fire of artillery. Lieutenant White of the 45th, who had been much distinguished in the batteries, was struck by a shell (without a fuse) on the head, which killed him on the spot; he was reading a book at the moment, and Lieutenant Cotton of the 88th, who was sitting beside him, was so covered with his blood, that it was thought at first he had been frightfully wounded.

Up to this time the fall of rain had been so violent as to threaten the total failure of the operation; it had never ceased since the 17th, and the trenches were a perfect river. The soldiers were working up to their knees in water, and the fatigue and hardships they endured were great indeed, but there was no complaint—not even a murmur to be heard! The next day, the 22nd, the pontoon bridge over the Guadiana was carried away by the floods which the late rains had caused in the river, and the stream became so rapid that the flying bridges could not be made use of, and, in short, all supplies from the other side were cut off. In the trenches matters were in as bad a state, for the earth no longer retained its consistency, and it was impossible to get it into any shape. On the 24th, however, the weather happily settled fine, and much progress was made towards forwarding the works; but this and the following day were perhaps two of the most dreadful recorded in the annals of sieges. The soldiers laboured with a degree of hardihood bordering on desperation, while the engineers braved every danger with as much composure as if they either set no value upon their lives, or thought their bodies impregnable to shot or shell. In proportion as our works advanced, the enemy redoubled his fire, and the attempt made by us to drag the heavy guns through the mud, or to form magazines for the gunpowder, was almost certain death; but not content with the destruction which his fire carried throughout our ranks, Phillipon brought to his aid a battery from San Christoval, which he placed close to the edge of the river; the fire of this battery completely enfiladed our works, and rendered it difficult and hazardous for the workmen to keep their ground.

Half a battalion was ordered down to the water’s edge, and the effect of their fire against these guns was soon appreciated by the soldiers in the batteries; the cannonade of the enemy lost its effect, their fire became irregular, their shot passed over our heads, and finally they were compelled to limber up their park of artillery, and retrace their steps, at a gallop, up the Christoval height. Nevertheless, this battery did an incalculable hurt to us; many men were struck down by its fire, but, above all, our engineers suffered the most. This was a loss that could be but ill spared, for we were so scantily supplied with this description of force, that it was found necessary to substitute officers of the infantry to act as such during the siege. These officers were very zealous in the performance of the dangerous duties they had to fulfil: some had a tolerable knowledge of the theory, but none, if I except Major Thomson of the 74th, and one or two that had served at Rodrigo, knew anything of the practical part; they strove, however, by great intrepidity, to make up for their other defects; they exposed themselves to every danger, with a bravery bordering on foolhardihood, and consequently, under such a fire as we were exposed to, scarcely one escaped death. Lieutenant Fairclough of the 5th, and Rammage of the 74th, both acting engineers, were cut asunder by a round shot from the San Christoval battery; others, whose names I forget, shared the same fate, and several were wounded.

Towards three o’clock in the afternoon our works had been materially advanced, several small magazines were in progress, the batteries destined to act against La Picurina were armed, and the losses which we sustained amongst our engineers repaired by the arrival of others to replace their fallen companions. It was at this time, while I was seriously occupied with thirty men, in covering with boards and sand-bags a magazine which had been, with great labour, formed during the forenoon, that a shell of huge dimensions exploded at the entrance of it. There were, at the moment, above a dozen or so of the Staff Corps and Engineers, with some of the line, placing a quantity of gunpowder in the vault which had been prepared to receive it. The roof of the magazine was, in defiance of the dreadful fire which was incessant upon this point, crowned by a few soldiers of the party under my command; some kegs of gunpowder, which were at the entrance of the cave, unfortunately blew up, destroying all at that side of the magazine, and hurling the planks which were but in part secured upon its top, together with the men that were upon them, into the air: it caused us great loss of lives and labour, but fortunately the great store of powder which was inside escaped. The planks were shivered to pieces, and the brave fellows who occupied them either blown into atoms, or so dreadfully wounded as to cause their immediate death; some had their uniforms burned to a cinder, while others were coiled up in a heap, without the vestige of anything left to denote that they were human beings.

An 88th soldier, of the name of Cooney, barber to the company he belonged to, escaped the effects of the explosion unhurt, except a slight scratch in the face, caused by a splinter from a rock that had been rent in pieces by the blowing up of the magazine; he was an old and ugly man, but yet so vain of his personal appearance as to be nearly in despair at the idea, as he said, “of his good looks being spoiled.” While he was in the midst of his lamentation, a round shot struck his head and carried it off. In his coat pocket was found his soap and razor, which were instantly drawn lots for, but to whose “lot” they fell I know not.

The French cannoniers were loud in cheering when they discovered the effects of their fire upon Cooney’s sconce; our men cheered in turn, and continued to crown the top of the already half-dismantled magazine, but as fast as they mounted it, they were swept off its face by the overwhelming fire from the town; yet notwithstanding the great loss of lives that had already taken place, and the almost certain death which awaited all who attempted to remain on the magazine, it was never for five minutes unoccupied, and by four o’clock in the afternoon it might be said to be perfectly finished. Baffled in his endeavours to stop our progress, Phillipon was determined to make it cost us as dear as he could. Twelve additional guns were brought from the unemployed batteries and placed along the curtain en barbette. These, at half-range distance, without the means on our side to reply to them, were fired with a fearful precision; it was next to impossible to stand under it, but the soldiers, on this day, surpassed all their former efforts. The fire of threescore pieces of artillery was employed in vain against them; the works were repaired so soon as injured, and everything warranted the opinion that, should the night prove fine, our batteries would open the following day.

Captain Mulcaster, of the Engineers, by his heroic conduct, stimulated the soldiers wonderfully; no danger could unnerve him, or prevent his exposing himself to the hottest of the French fire, and for a time he escaped unhurt, but at length, while standing on a rising ground, in front of the battery No. 1, a twenty-four pound shot struck him in the neck, and carried away his head and part of his back and shoulders. The headless trunk was knocked several yards from the spot, but was speedily carried to the engineer camp by some of the brave men who, but a few short moments before, looked upon what was now an inanimate lump of clay, with that admiration naturally inspired by one of the finest as well as the most intrepid young men in the army; for he had endeared himself to the soldiers as much by his kind manner to them as by his total disregard of danger to himself. It is well known that infantry soldiers had a great dislike to being placed under the control of the engineer officers, who exacted, or at least they thought so, too much from them; but Captain Mulcaster had a manner, peculiar to himself, that gained him the goodwill of all.

Major Thompson of the 88th soon after fell. He was observing a party of the enemy who were rowing a bateau across the inundation of the Rivillas with a reinforcement of men intended to succour the troops that occupied the ravelin of San Roque. This operation, although embracing but a small portion of the garrison, was one of a very delicate nature, inasmuch as the distance between our works and the inundation was so short as to enable us to command with musketry its entire span; but the Governor, ever ready in strategy, provided against even this chance of his plans for defence being marred. He caused to be constructed a large bateau, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, a raft. The side of it which faced our lines was raised by light poles to the height of four feet, through which were intertwined wattles of osier; by this means, a support sufficiently strong, without being too cumbrous to impede the movement of the raft, was completed, and the inside was carefully padded with hay, or such light matter; it made a sufficient defence against musketry without any danger of the machine’s losing its centre of gravity. To stop as much as possible this operation, several hundred riflemen were placed in advance, and so soon as the machine was discovered in motion on the water, a heavy fire was opened; a corresponding demonstration was made by the enemy, sustained by several batteries, and those mutual efforts were always productive of a heavy loss of lives on both sides, but particularly on ours, because the enemy’s line of musketry commanded us at a distance of three hundred and fifty yards, and up to this time we had not one gun to answer their powerful salvos.

Major Thompson, who was in command of the riflemen, was in conversation with an aide-de-camp belonging to the staff of Marshal Beresford at the moment he fell; a musket ball struck him in the right temple, and passing through the brain, killed him on the spot. He had been but just gazetted to his majority, by purchase, and had served with the army from the campaign in Holland in 1794 to the moment of his death, without ever having been absent from his regiment in any of the battles in which it had been engaged, a few of which have been recorded by me. Captain Seton, an officer of precisely the same standing and services, succeeded him in the command of the 88th, and led his regiment up the ladders on the night of the storming of Badajoz, but he gained no promotion, except in his regular turn! and he was the only commanding officer of a battalion in the 3rd Division that did not get a brevet step.

Towards evening the fire against La Picurina was so effective that Lord Wellington resolved to storm it after dark.