a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep: the rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and eighteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill! Badajos. All this time the tumult at the breaches was such as if the very earth had been rent asunder and its central fires bursting upwards uncontrolled. The two divisions had reached the glacis just as the firing at the castle commenced, and the flash of a single musket discharged from the covered way as a signal showed them that the French were ready; yet no stir was heard and darkness covered the breaches. Some hay-packs were thrown, some ladders placed, and the forlorn hopes and stormingparties of the light division, five hundred in all, descended into the ditch without opposition; but then a bright flame shooting upwards displayed all the terrors of the scene. The ramparts, crowded with dark figures and glittering arms, were on one side; on the other the red columns of the British, deep and broad, were coming on like streams of burning lava; it was the touch of the magician's wand, for a crash of thunder followed, and with incredible violence the storming-parties were dashed to pieces by the explosion of hundreds of shells and powder-barrels. For an instant the light division stood on the brink of the ditch amazed at the terrific sight, but then, with a shout that matched even the sound of the explosion, the men flew down the ladders, or, disdaining their aid, leaped reckless of the depth into the gulf below; and at the same moment, amidst a blaze of musketry that dazzled the eyes, the fourth division came running in and descended with a like fury. There were only five ladders for the two columns, which were close together, and a deep cut made in the bottom of the ditch as far as the counter-guard of the Trinidad was filled with water from the inundation; into that watery snare the head of the fourth division fell, and it is said above a hundred of the fusileers, the men of Albuera, were there smothered. Those who followed checked not, but, as if such a disaster had been expected, turned to the left and thus came upon the face of the unfinished ravelin, which, being rough and broken, was mistaken for the breach and instantly covered with men; yet a wide and deep chasm was still between them and the ramparts, from whence came a deadly fire wasting their ranks. Thus baffled, they also commenced a rapid discharge of musketry, and disorder ensued; for the men of the light division, whose conducting engineer had been disabled early, and whose flank was confined by an unfinished ditch intended to cut off the bastion of Santa Maria, rushed towards the breaches of the curtain and the Trinidad, which were indeed before them, but which the fourth division had been destined to storm. Great was the confusion, for the ravelin was quite crowded with men of both divisions, and while some continued to fire, others jumped down and ran towards the breach; many also passed between the ravelin and the counter-guard of the Trinidad; the two divisions got mixed; the reserves, which should have remained at the quarries, also came pouring in until the ditch was quite filled, the rear still crowding forward and all cheering vehemently. The enemy's shouts also were loud and terrible, and the bursting of shells and of grenades, the roaring of guns from the flanks, answered by the iron howitzers from the battery of the parallel, the heavy roll and horrid explosion of the powder-barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets made a maddening din. Now a multitude bounded up the great breach as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins; and for ten feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks studded with sharp iron points, on which feet being set, the planks moved, and the unhappy soldiers, falling forward on the spikes, rolled down upon the ranks behind. Then the Frenchmen, shouting at the success of their stratagem and leaping forward, plied their shot with terrible rapidity, for every man had several muskets, and each musket, in addition to its ordinary charge, contained a small cylinder of wood stuck full of wooden slugs, which scattered like hail when they were discharged. Once and again the assailants rushed up the breaches, but always the sword-blades, immovable and impassable, stopped their charge, and the hissing shells and thundering powder-barrels exploded unceasingly. Hundreds of men had fallen; hundreds more were dropping; still the heroic officers called aloud for new trials, and, sometimes followed by many, sometimes by a few, ascended the ruins; and so furious were the men themselves that in one of these charges the rear strove to push the foremost on to the sword-blades, willing even to make a bridge of their writhing bodies, but the others frustrated the attempt by dropping down; and men fell so far from the shot that it was hard to know who went down voluntarily and who were stricken, and many stooped unhurt that never rose again. Vain also would it have been to break through the sword-blades, for the trench and parapet behind the breach were finished, and the assailants, crowded into even a narrower space than the ditch was, would still have been separated from their enemies and the slaughter would have continued. At the beginning of this dreadful conflict Andrew Barnard had with prodigious efforts separated his division from the other and preserved some degree of mili tary array; but now the tumult was such that no command could be heard distinctly except by those close at hand, and the mutilated carcasses heaped on each other, and the wounded struggling to avoid being trampled upon, broke the formations: order was impossible! Officers of all ranks, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out as if struck by sudden madness and rush into the breach, which, yawning and glittering with steel, seemed like the mouth of a huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. In one of these attempts Colonel Macleod of the Forty-third, a young man whose feeble body would have been quite unfit for war if it had not been sustained by an unconquerable spirit, was killed; wherever his voice was heard his soldiers had gathered, and with such a strong resolution did he lead them up the fatal ruins that when one behind him in falling plunged a bayonet into his back he complained not, but, continuing his course, was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. Yet there was no want of gallant leaders or desperate followers until two hours passed in these vain efforts had convinced the troops the breach of the Trinidad was impregnable; and as the opening in the curtain, although less strong, was retired and the approach to it impeded by deep holes and cuts made in the ditch, the soldiers did not much notice it after the partial failure of one attack which had been made early. Gathering in dark groups and leaning on their muskets, they looked up with sullen desperation at the Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts and aiming their shots by the light of the fire-balls which they threw over, asked as their victims fell, why they did not come into Badajos.' In this dreadful situation, while the dead were lying in heaps and others continually falling, the wounded crawling about to get some shelter from the merciless shower above, and withal a sickening stench from the burnt flesh of the slain, Captain Nicholas of the engineers was observed by Lieutenant Shaw of the Forty-third making incredible efforts to force his way with a few men into the Santa Maria bastion. Shaw immediately collected fifty soldiers of all regiments and joined him; and although there was a deep cut along the foot of that breach also, it was instantly passed, and these two young officers led their gallant band with a rush up the ruins; but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent a concentrated fire of musketry and grape dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth. Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone! With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, and saying it was too late to carry the breaches, rejoined the masses at the other attack. After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive but unflinching beneath the enemy's shot, which streamed without intermission; for of the riflemen on the glacis, many, leaping early into the ditch, had joined in the assault, and the rest, raked by a cross fire of grape from the distant bastions, baffled in their aim by the smoke and flames from the explosions, and, too few in number, entirely failed to quell the French musketry. About midnight, when two thousand brave men had fallen, Wellington, who was on a height close to the quarries, ordered the remainder to retire and re-form for a second assault; he had heard the castle was taken, but, thinking the enemy would still resist in the town, was resolved to assail the breaches again. This retreat from the ditch was not effected without further carnage and confusion; the French fire never slackened; a cry arose that the enemy was making a sally from the distant flanks, and there was a rush towards the ladders. Then the groans and lamentations of the wounded who could not move and expected to be slain increased, and many officers who had not heard of the order endeavoured to stop the soldiers from going back; some would even have removed the ladders, but were unable to break the crowd. All this time Picton was lying close in the castle, and either from fear of risking the loss of a point which ensured the capture of the place, or that the egress was too difficult, made no attempt to drive away the enemy from the breaches. On the other side, however, the fifth division had commenced the false attack on the Pardaleras, and on the right of the Guadiana the Portuguese were sharply engaged at the bridge: thus the town was girdled with fire, for Walker's brigade, having passed on during the feint on the Pardaleras, was escalading the distant bastion of San Vincente. His troops had advanced along the banks of the river and reached the French guard-house at the barrier-gate undiscovered, the ripple of the waters smothering the sound of their footsteps; but just then the explosion at the breaches took place; the moon shone out; the French sentinels, discovering the columns, fired; and the British soldiers, springing forward under a sharp musketry, began to hew down the wooden barrier at the covered way. The Portuguese, panic-stricken, threw down the scaling-ladders; the others snatched them up again, and forcing the barrier, jumped into the ditch; but the guiding engineer officer was killed, there was a cunette which embarrassed the column, and the ladders proved too short, for the walls were generally above thirty feet high. The fire of the enemy was deadly, a small mine was sprung beneath the soldiers' feet, beams of wood and live shells were rolled over on their heads, showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch, and man after man dropped dead from the ladders. Fortunately some of the defenders had been called away to aid in recovering the castle; the ramparts were not entirely manned; and the assailants, discovering a corner of the bastion where the scarp was only twenty feet high, placed three ladders there under an embrasure which had no gun and was only stopped with a gabion. Some men got up with difficulty, for the ladders were still too short, and the first man who gained the top was pushed up by his comrades, and drew others after him until many had won the summit; and though the French shot heavily against them from both flanks and from a house in front, their numbers augmented rapidly, and half the Fourth Regiment entered the town itself to dislodge the French from the houses, while the others pushed along the rampart towards the breach, and by dint of hard fighting successively won three bastions. In the last of these combats Walker, leaping forward sword in hand at the moment when one of the enemy's cannoneers was discharging a gun, was covered with so many wounds it was wonderful that he could survive; and some of the soldiers immediately after, perceiving a lighted match on the ground, cried out, "A mine!' At that word, such is the power of imagination, those troops who had not been stopped by the strong barrier, the deep ditch, the high walls, and the deadly fire of the enemy, staggered back appalled by a chimera of their own raising; and in this disorder a French reserve under General Veillande drove on them with a firm and rapid charge, pitching some men over the walls, killing others outright, and cleansing the ramparts even to the San Vincente. There, however, Leith had placed Colonel Nugent with a battalion of the Thirty-eighth as a reserve, and when the French came up, shouting and slaying all before them, this battalion, two hundred strong, arose and with one close volley destroyed them; then the panic ceased, the soldiers rallied, and in compact order once more charged along the walls towards the breaches. But the French, although turned on both flanks and abandoned by fortune, did not yet yield. Meanwhile the portion of the Fourth Regiment which had entered the town was strangely situated. For the streets were empty and brilliantly illuminated and no person was seen, yet a low buzz and whispers were heard around, lattices were now and then gently opened, and from time to time shots were fired from underneath the doors of the houses by the Spaniards, while the troops, with bugles sounding, advanced towards the great square of the town. In their progress they captured several mules going with ammunition to the breaches; yet the square itself was as empty and silent as the streets, and the houses as bright with lamps a terrible enchantment seemed to be in operation; they saw only an illumination and heard only low whispering around them, while the tumult at the breaches was like the crashing of thunder. Plainly, however, the fight was there raging; and hence, quitting the square, they attempted to take the garrison in reverse by attacking the ramparts from the town side, but they were received with a rolling musketry, driven back with loss, and resumed their movement through the streets. At last the breaches were abandoned by the French; other parties entered; desultory combats took place. Veillande and Phillipon, who was wounded, seeing all ruined, passed the bridge with a few hundred soldiers and entered San Christoval, which was surrendered next morning upon summons to Lord Fitzroy Somerset ; for that officer had with great readiness pushed through the town to the drawbridge ere the French had time to organise further resistance. But even in the moment of ruin the night before, this noble governor had sent some horsemen out from the fort to carry the news to Soult, and they reached him in time to prevent a greater misfortune. All, Now commenced that wild and desperate wickedness which tarnished the lustre of the soldiers' heroism. indeed, were not alike; hundreds risked and many lost their lives in striving to stop the violence, but madness generally prevailed, and as the worst men were leaders here, all the dreadful passions of human nature were displayed. Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajos! On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled; the wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed of! Five thousand men and officers fell in this siege, and of these, including seven hundred Portuguese, three thousand five hundred had been stricken in the assault, sixty officers and more than seven hundred men being slain on the spot. The five generals, Kempt, Harvey, Bowes, Colville, and Picton, were wounded, the first four severely; six hundred men and officers fell in the escalade of San Vincente, as many at the castle, and more than two thousand at the breaches, each division there losing twelve hundred ! And how deadly the breach strife was may be gathered from this: the Forty-third and Fiftysecond Regiments of the light division lost more men than the seven regiments of the third division engaged at the castle! Let it be considered that this frightful carnage took place in a space of less than a hundred yards square; that the slain died not all suddenly nor by one manner of death-that some perished by steel, some by shot, some by water-that some were crushed and mangled by heavy weights, some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery explosions; that for hours this destruction was endured without shrinking and the town was won at last. Let these things be considered, and it must be admitted a British army bears with it an awful power. And false would it be to say the French were feeble men; the garrison stood and fought manfully and with good discipline, behaving worthily: shame there was none on any side. Yet who shall do justice to the bravery of the British soldiers? the noble emulation of the officers? Who shall measure out the glory of Ridge, of Macleod, of Nicholas, of O'Hare of the Ninety-fifth, who perished on the breach at the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for that desperate service? Who shall describe the springing valour of that Portuguese grenadier who was killed the foremost man at the Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets? Who can sufficiently honour the intrepidity of Walker, of Shaw, of Canch, or the hardiness of Ferguson of the Forty-third, who, having in former assaults received two deep wounds, was here, his former hurts still open, leading the stormers of his regiment, the third time a volunteer, the third time wounded? Nor would I be understood to select these as pre-eminent; many and signal were the other examples of unbounded devotion, some known, some that will never be known; for in such a tumult much passes unobserved, and often the observers fell themselves ere they could bear testimony to what they saw; but no age, no nation, ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who stormed Badajos. When the extent of the night's havoc was made known to Lord Wellington the firmness of his nature gave way for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a passionate burst of grief for the loss of his gallant soldiers. The following outburst on Byron-intercalated in Napier's defence of his brother-shows the historian of the Peninsular war in another light : On Byron. But while the Lord High Commissioner, Adam, could only see in the military resident of Cephalonia a person to be crushed by the leaden weight of power without equity, there was another observer in that island who appreciated and manfully proclaimed the great qualities of the future conqueror of Scinde. This man, himself a butt for the rancour of envious dullness, was one whose youthful genius pervaded the world while he lived, and covered it with a pall when he died. For to him mountain and plain, torrent and lake, the seas, the skies, the earth, light and darkness, and even the depths of the human heart, gave up their poetic secrets; and he told them again, with such harmonious melody, that listening nations marvelled at the sound; and when it ceased they sorrowed. Sir John Kincaid (1787-1862) was one among several of Wellington's soldiers who wrote picturesque memoirs of their services under him in the Napoleonic wars. Born near Falkirk, he held a lieutenant's commission in the North York Militia, but in 1809 enlisted in the old 95th—the present Rifle Brigade-as a volunteer. In the ranks at first, but afterwards as a lieutenant, he served through the Peninsular war from Torres Vedras to Toulouse, and fought also at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. After the peace he rose to be a captain in 1826 and Yeoman of the Guard in 1844, and was knighted in 1852. In 1830 appeared his Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, describing in familiar and unsystematic fashion, The silencing of these guns was succeeded by a very extraordinary scene on the same spot. A strong regiment of Hanoverians advanced in line to charge the enemy out of La Haye Sainte; but they were themselves charged by a brigade of cuirassiers, and, excepting one officer on a little black horse, who went off to the rear like a shot out of a shovel, I do believe that every man of them was put to death in about five seconds. A brigade of British light dragoons advanced to their relief, and a few on each side began exchanging thrusts; but it seemed likely to be a drawn battle between them, without much harm being done, when our men brought it to a crisis sooner than either side anticipated, for they previously had their rifles eagerly pointed at the cuirassiers, with a view of saving the perishing Hanoverians; but the fear of killing their friends withheld them, until the others were utterly overwhelmed, when they instantly opened a terrific fire on the whole concern, sending both sides to flight; so that, on the small space of ground within a hundred yards of us, where five thousand men had been fighting the instant before, there was not now a living soul to be seen. It made me mad to see the cuirassiers in their retreat stooping and stabbing at our wounded men as they lay on the ground. How I wished that I had been blessed with Omnipotent power for a moment, that I might have blighted them! The same field continued to be a wild one the whole of the afternoon. It was a sort of duelling-post between the two armies, every half-hour showing a meeting of some kind upon it; but they never exceeded a short scramble, for men's lives were held very cheap there. For the two or three succeeding hours there was no, variety with us, but one continued blaze of musketry. The smoke hung so thick about that, although not more than eighty yards asunder, we could only distinguish each other by the flashes of the pieces. I shall never forget the scene which the field of battle presented about seven in the evening. I felt weary and worn out, less from fatigue than anxiety. Our division, which had stood upwards of five thousand men at the commencement of the battle, had gradually dwindled down into a solitary lot of skirmishers. The 27th Regiment were lying literally dead, in square, a few yards behind us. My horse had received another shot through the leg, and one through the flap of the saddle, which lodged in his body, sending him a step beyond the pension-list. The smoke still hung so thick about us that we could see nothing. I walked a little way to each flank, to endeavour to get a glimpse of what was going on; but nothing met my eye except the mangled remains of men and horses, and I was obliged to return to my post as wise as I went. I had never yet heard of a battle in which everybody was killed; but this seemed likely to be an exception, as all were going by turns. We got excessively im patient under the tame similitude of the latter part of the process, and burned with desire to have a last thrust at our respective vis-a-vis; for, however desperate our affairs were, we had still the satisfaction of seeing that theirs were worse. Sir John Lambert continued to stand as our support at the head of three good old regiments, one dead (the 27th) and two living ones, and we took the liberty of soliciting him to aid our views; but the Duke's orders on that head were so very particular that the gallant general had no choice. Presently a cheer, which we knew to be British, commenced far to the right, and made every one prick up his ears-it was Lord Wellington's long-wished-for orders to advance; it gradually approached, growing louder as it grew near-we took it up by instinct, and charged through the hedge down upon the old knoll, sending our adversaries flying at the point of the bayonet. Lord Wellington galloped up to us at the instant, and our men began to cheer him; but he called out, 'No cheering, my lads, but forward, and complete your victory!' This movement had carried us clear of the smoke; and, to people who had been for so many hours enveloped in darkness, in the midst of destruction, and naturally anxious about the result of the day, the scene which now met the eye conveyed a feeling of more exquisite gratification than can be conceived. It was a fine summer's evening, just before sunset. The French were flying in one confused mass. British lines were seen in close pursuit, and in admirable order, as far as the eye could reach to the right, while the plain to the left was filled with Prussians. The enemy made one last attempt at a stand on the rising ground to our right of La Belle Alliance; but a charge from General Adams's brigade again threw them into a state of confusion, which was now inextricable, and their ruin was complete. Artillery, baggage, and everything be longing to them fell into our hands. After pursuing them until dark, we halted about two miles beyond the field of battle, leaving the Prussians to follow up the victory. Selections from the Memoirs of Kincaid, Harris, and others were edited by the Rev. W. H. Fitchett under the title of Wellington's Men (1900). James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855), traveller and lecturer, was born, a farmer's son, at Flushing near Falmouth, and went to sea before he was ten. After years of wandering, he in 1818 started a journal at Calcutta, whose strictures on the Indian Government led to its suppression (1823). In London he established the Oriental Herald (1824) and the Athenæum (1828), which he edited for a year or two, selling his interest in it ultimately to John Sterling. From 1832 to 1837 he was member for Sheffield, and then travelled for four years in North America. He was projector of the British and Foreign Institute (18431846), and president of the London Temperance Between 1822 and 1855 he pubLeague (1851). lished nearly a score of volumes of travel (in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, America, as well as in Western Europe) and many political treatises, besides two volumes of an Autobiography, of which the third and fourth never appeared. James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) was long accounted the most successful of modern tragic dramatists. Born at Cork, he was the son of a respected teacher and author of a dictionary, a first cousin of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; and the boy, after being trained mainly in his father's school, was successively an ensign in the militia, a medical student, an actor, a schoolmaster, an actor again, and from about 1844 an occasional Baptist preacher, fierce in denunciation of Catholicism. His first play, Caius Gracchus, was performed at Belfast in 1815; the next, Virginius 1820), which had a good run at Covent Garden, was based on the familiar story of Virginia and Appius. Knowles afterwards brought out William Tell (1825), in which Macready achieved triumph, The Hunchback (1832), The Love Chase 1837), and other pieces. Several of his pieces are still standard acting plays. For more than a dozen years he enjoyed a civil list pension of £200. To a considerable knowledge of stage-effect he united a lively, inventive imagination, and a poetical colouring which, if at times too florid, set off familiar images and illustrations. His style was formed on that of Massinger and the other elder dramatists, carried often to extravagance; he frequently violated Roman history and classical propriety, ran into conceits and affected metaphors, and had little sense of humour; his blank verse is mostly wooden and irregular, never in very perfect rhythm, and the style is not seldom stilted. These faults were counterbalanced by a ppy art of constructing situations and plots, romantic, not too improbable, though usually somewhat conventional; by skilful delineation of character, especially in domestic life; and by the infusion of not a little warm feeling and some real poetry. He had a happy knack of utilising commonplaces or paradoxes for his purposes-thus: 'It follows not because the hair is rough, the dog's a savage one;' 'What merit to De dropped on fortune's hill? The honour is to mount it;' 'When fails our dearest friend, there may be refuge with our direst foe.' Vir. The fashion, Appius! Appius Claudius, tell me His hand, his arm-yea, nearer-closer far, Claud. Most noble Appius- And are you the man That claims my daughter for his slave?-Look at me, Do I not look at you? Vir. She is mine, then : Your eye does, truly, But gives the port of impudence to falsehood Protection of the Decemvir! App. Vir. I demand You shall have it. Doubtless! App. Keep back the people, Lictors!-What's Your plea? You say the girl's your slave. Produce Your proofs. Claud. My proof is here, which, if they can, To speak. [Retires. Num. Will she swear she is her child? Vir. To be sure she will-a most wise question that! Is she not his slave? Will his tongue lie for himOr his hand steal-or the finger of his hand Beckon, or point, or shut, or open for him? To ask him if she 'll swear! Will she walk or run, Sing, dance, or wag her head; do anything That is most easy done? She 'll as soon swear! What mockery it is to have one's life In jeopardy by such a barefaced trick! Is it to be endured? I do protest Against her oath ! |