On the 16th of March, 1812, when the poplar trees that fringed the Guadiana were bending under a tempest of wind and rain, a British force some 15,000 strong, with a battering train of fifty-two guns, reached Badajoz—a strongly-fortified Spanish town near the frontier of Portugal—the bugles of the “95th” playing “St. Patrick’s Day” as they faced the furious equinoctial gale.

About a year before, the scoundrel Imas had delivered up the place to Marshal Soult, whose clubfoot did not prevent his being one of the most active men and fearless riders in the French service; and although we had made two attempts to retake it, we had failed on each occasion after heavy losses, our battering train being shamefully insufficient, and the enemy very much on the alert; the third time we were successful, and it is of this I am about to tell.

Badajoz was the pax augusta of the Romans, and a granite bridge with twenty-eight arches, dating from Roman times, still spanned the sluggish river on the north-west; but, save that the town had been frequently taken and retaken by Moors, Goths, and Spaniards, and was the birthplace of Morales, the painter, there was nothing very remarkable about its quaint, crooked streets and massive cathedral beyond the natural strength of its position, rising some 300 feet above the marshy plain, with eight bastions and their connecting curtains to protect it from attack.

It remained for Philippon and his gallant garrison, and our veteran troops under the Earl of Wellington—as he was then styled—to render Badajoz immortal, and bring a flush of pride and a thrill of horror to future generations who may read the tale.

The General of Brigade Philippon, colonel of the 8th of the French Line, and member of the Legion of Honour, commanded in Badajoz with a force of 4,742 men—composed partly of the 9th Light Infantry, the 88th Regiment, the Hesse-Darmstadt, some dragoons and chasseurs, artillery, engineers, and invalids, and seventy-seven Spaniards who ought to have been fighting on the other side.

Although somewhat short of powder and shell, Badajoz presented a formidable task to a besieging army, being protected on one side by the river, 500 yards wide in places, and having several outworks, or forts, notably one called the Picurina, on a hill to the south-east, whose defenders could be reinforced along a covered-way leading to the San Roque lunette close to the town walls.

Philippon had, moreover, taken every means possible to strengthen his post: mines were laid, the arch of a bridge built up to form a large inundation, ravelins constructed and ramparts repaired, ditches cut and filled with water, and that he should have no useless mouths to fight for, the inhabitants were ordered to lay up three months’ provisions or march out there and then.

Such was Badajoz when Picton’s 3rd, or “Fighting,” Division; Lowry Cole’s 4th—or, as they were nicknamed at the close of the war, “Enthusiastic”—Division; and the Light, known as “The” Division, invested it in the rain.

The rest of the army watched Soult’s movements closely, and prepared to oppose the relief of the town if that should be attempted, and the 5th Division was on its way from Beira to assist the siege.

As soon as darkness had fallen on the night of the 17th, 2,000 men moved silently forward to guard our trenching parties, and, with mattock and shovel, we began to break ground, 160 yards from the Picurina, the sentinels on the ramparts hearing nothing, as the howling of the wind drowned the sound of digging, and the sputtering rain fell incessantly into the works. So well had the volunteers from the 3rd Division laboured, for we had no regular sappers, that the light of the misty March morning revealed 4,000 feet of communication, and a parallel 600 yards long, on perceiving which the garrison opened a tremendous fire of cannon and musketry. The deafening roar of the heavy guns and the crack of rifles and smooth-bores continued with little cessation for many days, increasing as we finished battery after battery and brought them to bear upon the doomed town.

The condition of our siege artillery would hardly be credited were it not borne out by the unanimous published statements of credible witnesses.

Of the fifty-two pieces, some dated from the days of Philip II. and the Spanish Armada; others were cast in the reigns of Philip III. and also John IV. of Portugal, who reigned in 1640; we had 24-pounders of George II.’s day, and Russian naval guns; the bulk of the extraordinary medley being obsolete brass engines which required seven to ten minutes to cool between each discharge, lest the overheating should cause the muzzles to drop.

The ammunition was little better, and an engineer officer tells us that his 18-pound shot was of three distinct sizes, which had to be sorted out and painted different colours, while it was often possible to put a finger between the ball and the top of the gun, when the former was placed ready for ramming. Yet, with this miserable matériel we were expected to fight the most intelligent army in Europe!

Wellington learned from his spies that the garrison were to make a sally on the 19th, and at 1 o’clock the Talavera Gate suddenly opened, a little body of horsemen jingling out, followed by 1,300 infantry, who concealed themselves in the covered trench connecting San Roque with the Picurina.

The cavalry pretended to skirmish, and, dividing into two parties, one pursued the other towards our lines, where they were challenged, and allowed to pass, on replying in Portuguese.

There was some excuse for the conduct of our pickets, as the French dragoons, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring new uniforms from France, were allowed to use the brown cloth so general all over the Peninsula, and were thus easily mistaken for our Portuguese allies, some of whom also dressed in brown. But we were soon undeceived, for the troopers dashed at the engineers’ park, cut down some men, and galloped off with several hundreds of the entrenching tools, for which Philippon had offered a large reward.

Simultaneously the infantry sprang out of the covered-way with a part of the Picurina garrison, and, rushing forward, began to destroy our works.

We drove them back almost to the walls of Badajoz, killing thirty and wounding 287. But we lost heavily, for it was a sharp encounter; and, unhappily, our chief engineer, Colonel Fletcher, was badly hit, a bullet striking a silver dollar in his fob and forcing it an inch into the groin, confining him to his tent until the latter end of the siege, the Earl going each morning to consult about the day’s operations.

Our movements were by no means faultless, Wellington having great difficulties to contend with in many directions; in fact, during the whole of the Peninsular War he may be said to have fought the French with one hand, and Spanish pride, obstinacy, and selfishness with the other—fortunate indeed in possessing a genius which was ever at its best the more trying the emergency. We stationed a cavalry regiment to prevent any further surprises, and continued our digging, the pitiless rain slanting unceasingly on the trench guards in their grey overcoats and oilskin shakoe-covers, while the working-parties shovelled and measured, and piled up long ridges of earth, standing ankle-deep in the water which filled the saps and trenches.

Many a man of the 3rd Division spun round and fell on the wet ground, for the enemy kept up a steady fire, and one shell dropped, fizzing, into a parallel and exploded, killing fifteen of the workers in a moment.

The Guadiana, too, rose in full flood and tore away the pontoon bridge which connected us with our stores at Elvas: it was replaced, however, and the garrison of Badajoz saw us creeping nearer and nearer to their walls, until, at last, our men finding the fire from the Picurina terribly galling, it was decided to storm that fort on the 24th.

The rain had ceased, and the dark mass of the fort, held by some of the Hesse-Darmstadt Regiment, loomed up, stern and silent, as five hundred of Picton’s Division mustered before it about nine o’clock on a fine night.

A hundred men were kept in reserve, while the remainder, divided into two bodies, were to advance against the right and left flanks, also securing the communication with San Roque to prevent any succour coming from the town.

Scarcely had the word to march been given, when soaring rockets went up from the ramparts, port-fires illuminated the darkness in places, and the stillness became a babel of sounds, as shells came hissing towards us, drums rolled, and the bells of Badajoz rang wildly amid the deep booming of the heavy cannon. Red flashes streamed through the openings in the palisading, the Hesse-Darmstadt opened a murderous fire, but we swarmed irresistibly up the rocks and groped for the gate, the pioneers of the Light Division leading with their axes.

Down in the communication our fellows repulsed a battalion coming to the rescue, but it seemed for a time as if we had been baffled; the sides of the hill were dotted with our dead. Oates, of the Connaught Rangers, three engineer officers, with Majors Rudd and Shaw, who commanded the attack, and many a private soldier had fallen there. But as Powis, of the 83rd, brought up the reserve and forced the palings in front, the pioneers discovered the gateway on the town side, and, battering it down, rushed in with a shout.

Nixon, of the 52nd, was shot two yards within the entrance, and we fought with gun-butt and bayonet against a most heroic resistance; but at last they were overpowered, and half the garrison slain. One officer and thirty men floundered through the inundation and gained Badajoz in safety, but brave Gaspard Thierry, with the eighty-six survivors, were compelled to surrender, and the death-dealing Picurina was ours.

The firing from the town ceased at midnight, but with the dawn of day they turned their guns on to the captured fort, driving us out and crumbling it to pieces.

Philippon had hoped to have held the work for four or five days, while he completed certain partially-finished defences, and its capture and destruction were a severe blow to him. But he urged his garrison to fresh efforts by reminding them of the English prison-hulks, which, as Napier justly says, were a disgrace to our country.

Three breaching-batteries were now constructed, one against the Trinidad bastion, another to shatter the Santa Maria, and the third—which consisted of howitzers—was to throw shrapnel into the ditch, and so prevent the garrison from working there. We had been eleven days before the town, and in spite of all the obstacles had made considerable progress, although latterly a bright moon had interfered with our nocturnal operations.

Overcoats were laid aside, and our men appeared in the well-worn scarlet coatee with white-tape lace, and the black knee-gaiter, which was the dress of a British-infantry private at that time. Pigtails had been done away with four years previously, and the well-known grey trousers were not issued to the troops until the following September. The Rifle Corps wore dark green, and used a wooden mallet to drive the ball down the grooved barrel; fusiliers and the grenadier companies of the line had bearskin caps, and light infantry were distinguished by green tufts in their felt shakoes, while our Portuguese friends were mostly clad in blue or brown, with green for the caçadores, or riflemen, each man carrying—including knapsack, accoutrements, kit, and weapons, etc.—a weight of seventy-five pounds twelve ounces, or ten pounds more than their opponents. The soldiers were enraged at the inhabitants of Badajoz for admitting the French, a sentiment which boded ill to them if we took the town. But, in the meantime, many instances of pluck on both sides were exhibited. One morning, early, before the working-party arrived, a brave fellow crept out of Badajoz and moved a tracing-string nearer to the walls, so that when we began digging in fancied security, their guns suddenly opened and bowled the men over like nine-pins. Another time, two of our officers and some men stole forward in the night, gagged a sentry, and laid barrels of powder against the dam which confined the inundation, and got back in safety; but the explosion did not have the desired effect.

At last, the stones began to fall from the Trinidad bastion, amid clouds of dust, as ball after ball went home with terrific force; the Santa Maria also crumbled under the cannonade, but, being casemated, it resisted better than the other, which, by the 2nd of April, yawned in a manner that must have dismayed the garrison, for they commenced to form what is known as a retrenchment, or second line of defence, within the walls, by levelling houses behind the growing breach. In places where the fortifications had not been completed the energetic Frenchman hung brown cloth which resembled earth, and his men were able to pass freely along; they also made a raft with parapets and crossed the inundation to our side. But all their efforts were useless: the breaches became larger as masses of stone and rubbish fell like mimic avalanches into the fosse below; and, on the 6th, a tremendous gap showed in the ancient masonry of the curtain between the two bastions which had not been renewed when the bastions themselves were rebuilt about 1757.

Then came a moment’s pause. Soult, Drouet, and Daricau were advancing: a battle was imminent, and would need all our forces. In twenty-one days we had expended 2,523 barrels of gunpowder, each barrel containing ninety pounds, and we had fired 35,346 rounds of ammunition. Badajoz must be taken at all risk; and orders were now given for the most terrible of all species of warfare—the night-attack by storm!

Wellington’s commands were precise and to the point, but they were terribly eloquent to those who read them. I have extracted a few paragraphs from the original memorandum, and give them word for word:—

“1. The fort of Badajoz is to be attacked at 10 o’clock this night (6th of April). 2. The attack must be made on three points—the castle, the face of the bastion of La Trinidad, and the flank of the bastion of Santa Maria. 3. The attack of the castle to be by escalade; that of the two bastions, by the storm of the breaches.... 20. The 4th Division must try and get open the gate of La Trinidad; the Light Division must do the same by the gate called the Puerta del Pillar. 21. The soldiers must leave their knapsacks in camp.... 24. Twelve carpenters with axes, and ten miners with crowbars, must be with the Light, and ditto with the 4th Division.”

The time had been altered from 7.30 to 10 o’clock, and during that interval the French placed the celebrated chevaux-de-frise of sharpened sword-blades in the gap we had made in the connecting curtain; piles of shot and shell were laid along the ramparts, with beams of wood, old carriage-wheels, and every conceivable missile that their ingenuity could devise; each soldier had three loaded muskets beside him, and, as the unusual stillness in our trenches warned them that something was in preparation, an officer tried to reconnoitre us with a little escort of cavalry, but we drove him back, and all was quiet once more.

It was the calm before the storm, and men grew silent and thoughtful as the time drew near.

Letters were written home by hands that would never use pen again; absent friends were talked of in hushed voices, wills hastily made as in the presence of death; the married soldiers lingered in their quarters till the last moment, and then gave it out that they were “going on guard”!

The April day drew into evening; a grey mist rose from the river and stole among the trenches and the marshy ground, where frogs piped dismally and field-crickets kept up their perpetual chirp; then night came, still and cloudy, not a star visible, but here and there lights flitted along the ramparts, and the challenge of the sentries could be distinctly heard.

There was no bustle to show that eighteen thousand men were forming for a desperate attack; company after company they mustered and got under arms silently, words of command being given in a whisper.

Picton had been hurt by a fall, and his famous 3rd Division was led by Kempt in consequence.

Its destination was the castle, whose walls were from eighteen to twenty-four feet high; and the regiments which formed it were the 5th, 45th, 74th, 77th, 83rd, 88th, and 94th British, and the 9th and 21st Portuguese.

The 5th Division, under Lieutenant-General Leith—composed also of English and Portuguese—had to make a feint upon the Pardaleras outwork to the left, and then march round and storm the San Vincente bastion in rear of the town, while General Power made a false attack on the bridge-head beyond the Guadiana.

The Light Division and the 4th, under Generals Colville and Barnard, were to tackle the trenches, and were composed of the following corps—the Light having the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th British, the 1st and 3rd Portuguese Caçadores; and the 4th Division, the 7th, 23rd, 27th, 40th, 48th, and 97th British, with the 11th and 23rd Portuguese, and the 1st Battalion of the Lusitanian Legion.

The trench-guards and the “forlorn hope” fell in, and about 9 o’clock four companies of the 95th Rifles crept forward and lay down, under the crest of the glacis, within a few yards of the French sentinels, whose heads could be seen, passing to and fro, against the sky.

Not a word was spoken as they crouched, unnoticed, in the mist that veiled their dark uniforms. They waited the arrival of the “forlorn hope” to begin the attack. At length a sentry peered over the parapet: something had caught his quick ear, for he cried “Qui vive?” and there was a moment of keen suspense.

Not satisfied, he again challenged, and, receiving no reply, fired his musket into the darkness; and instantly the drums of Badajoz beat to arms.

Still, for ten minutes more the riflemen lay motionless, until the “forlorn hope” came up, and then, each man sighting carefully at the heads above the rampart, they poured in a volley, and the attack began.

It was unfortunate—as it happened—for Wellington wished all our assaults to take place simultaneously, but it could not be undone; moreover the garrison threw a huge mass of combustibles, called “a carcass,” from the walls, and by its powerful blaze they saw the 3rd Division drawn up under arms; so, “Stormers to the front!” was our cry, and we rushed on with an uproar of cheers and shouting.

The ladder-parties and those carrying the grass-bags ran forward, scrambling across the trenches and broken ground, and, filing over the Rivillas by a narrow bridge, reached the foot of the castle wall under a heavy fire.

Brave Kempt, who afterwards fought at Waterloo, fell, badly wounded, and as they carried him back he met Picton hurrying to take command with his sword drawn.

The 3rd Division had only twelve ladders, and eighty to a hundred men were all that could mount at a time; but they reared them against the masonry, and fought with each other who should be first to ascend.

Stones, earth, live shells, beams, heavy shot, and a rain of musket balls poured down; those who reached the top were stabbed and flung on to the others behind them—here a cheer as a man grasped the coping—there a howl of rage as the ladder was hurled broken from the wall and all its occupants flung in a heap below.

“Forward the 5th Fusiliers—Come on, Connaught Rangers.” A corporal of the 45th fell wounded on hands and knees, a ladder was placed on his back in the confusion, his comrades mounting above him, and he was found next day crushed to death, the blood forced from his ears and nose.

Several of the ladders were broken, and those that remained were flung off repeatedly by the garrison on the ramparts, until the French cried “Victory,” and the 3rd Division retired for a moment, to re-form under the crest of the hill.

Meanwhile, the 4th and Light Divisions, after a double allowance of grog had been served out, marched quickly on to the breaches, and the trench-guard rushed at San Roque with such fury that they bayoneted its defenders and carried the lunette without a rebuff.

As the stormers of the Light Division moved off, Major Peter O’Hare—who had risen from the ranks to a commission in the 95th (a most unusual thing in those days), and who was, moreover, one of the ugliest men and one of the bravest in the army—shook hands with George Simmonds, of the Rifles, saying—“A lieutenant-colonel or cold meat in a few hours!” They found him next morning stone dead and stark naked, with nearly a dozen bullets in his gallant frame. Officers were divided into two categories by the Peninsular soldiers—the “Come on” and the “Go on.” O’Hare was one of the former.

As the firing commenced at the castle, the heads of the double columns reached the glacis to find all quiet and the place wrapped in profound gloom.

The ditch yawned beneath them, and the stormers threw their grass-bags, which measured some six feet by three feet, into it, lowered the five ladders which did duty for both divisions, and the “forlorn hope” of the Light Division descended into the chasm, doomed to a man!

A musket-shot told them that the silence was a treacherous one; but none were prepared for the awful scene that followed. The ditch was crowded with the stormers, and men waited their turn to follow down the ladders, when all at once a tongue of flame lit up the darkness, a terrific explosion seemed to rend the earth itself, and five hundred brave fellows were blown into eternity under the eyes of their comrades on the glacis above them.

One second’s space the Light Division stood aghast, the next, they were leaping, sliding, climbing, never heeding the depth, into the gory grave that lay between them and the breaches, with a roar that went echoing along the walls of Badajoz—a roar of fury never to be appeased until bayonet should meet bayonet on the towering ramparts, fringed with the foe, beyond.

Down poured the 4th Division and mingled with them: the ditch was full of shouting redcoats, all struggling, regardless of rank, to get at the French, who, yelling defiance in their turn, showered grape, round shot, canister, hand grenades, stones, shells, and buckshot upon them; rolling huge cannon-balls from the parapet, sending baulks of timber thudding into the tumult, and coach-wheels that acquired a fearful velocity as they bounded down the rocks into the living mass of British valour pent up in the deathtrap below.

Bursts of dazzling light were succeeded by moments of intense darkness; for an instant the huge bastions showed, bristling with armed men, to be lost again in a Stygian gloom, re-illumined the next minute by the flashing guns—by wavering port fires, and trailing rockets. A hundred Albuera men of the Fusiliers were drowned in an unexpected water-ditch; the air was heavy with gunpowder smoke and the sickening stench of the stagnant pools; individuals and regiments alike surged and scrambled to find a passage; until at last, getting on to an unfinished ravelin, mistaken in the confusion for a breach, both divisions were jumbled together, and great disorder ensued.

Wellington, watching from a hill, and seeing the pause, exclaimed repeatedly: “What can be the matter?” sending aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp to report progress, as the glare revealed the faces on the ramparts and the peculiar hollow booming reached him, caused by the garrison firing down into the cavernous depths of the ditch.

At length there was a rush for the great breach. Officers and men, having extricated themselves from the carnage below, rushed on, to find an impenetrable barrier of sword-blades fixed in wooden beams and set firmly across the opening, while the débris in front was strewn with planks covered with spikes: if a soldier trod on one of them it slid down, either throwing him on the spikes or sending him back on to the bayonets of his comrades; and, to crown all, the garrison rolled barrels of powder into the middle of us, which exploded with shocking effect, filling the nostrils with the smell of burning flesh and singed hair, and strewing the breach with scarlet figures in every conceivable attitude of agony and death!

Our gallant fellows charged madly in masses, in groups, and even singly, one private of the Rifles forcing himself among the sword-blades, where the enemy shattered his bare head with their musket-butts.

It was not until the cruel slaughter had lasted two hours that the diminished divisions withdrew to the bottom of the slope and stood furious and exhausted, but powerless to effect their aim, and still under a fire that was thinning their broken ranks, while the enemy cried mockingly down to them, “Why don’t you come into Badajoz?” Captain Nicholas, of the Engineers, gathered a few men and made frantic efforts to force the Santa Maria breach, and he was joined by Lieutenant Shaw, of the 43rd, who collected fifty men from various regiments and struggled over the broken masonry with them, but, two-thirds of the way up a hail of balls and hissing grape-shot mowed them nearly all down, and the divisions remained stolidly confronting inevitable death, unable to advance, unwilling to retire, for the bugles sounded twice unheeded, while, strange irony it seemed, a bright moon shining peacefully overhead, the Santa Maria, or “Holy Mary,” looking down upon them on the one hand, La Trinidad, “The Trinity,” on the other, and all around an Inferno such as Dante never dreamed of! About midnight Wellington ordered them back to re-form for another attack, and in the meantime Picton’s Division, whom we left also re-forming, had rushed forward again, led by Colonel Ridge, who placed a ladder against the castle wall, where an embrasure offered a chance of foothold. A grenadier officer named Canch reared a second one alongside it, and the two mounted together, followed by their men, securing the ramparts after a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, and driving the enemy out of the castle into the town.

The garrison sent a reinforcement, and there was a sharp passage of arms at the gate, our redcoats firing from one side almost muzzle to muzzle with the blue-clad, square-shakoed French on the other; but we kept the castle, though, unhappily, the gallant Ridge was slain.

Our reserves found the two ladders still standing, the top rungs of one being broken; and when the 28th Regiment practised storming a dry bridge with these, a couple of months afterwards, they were even then covered with blood and brains!

It was about half-past eleven when the 3rd Division succeeded in their escalade, and, retarded by unforeseen obstacles, it was not until the same hour or thereabouts that the 5th Division, under Lieutenant-General Leith, came under the breastwork before San Vincente at the west end of the town. As the 1st, 4th, 9th, 30th, 38th, and 44th Regiments, with a Portuguese brigade, halted, undiscovered, a few yards from a guard-house where the French could be heard talking, the roar of a distant explosion sounded, and the men whispered among themselves, “It is at the breaches!”

All was intensely silent around them; the murmur of the river rose on their left, the fortifications showed clearly before them as the moon came out; they knew that their comrades far off on the other side of the citadel were engaged, and an eager thrill went through the ranks. A sentinel discovered the mass of men and the glint of the moonbeams on the bayonets at the moment when our engineer guide exclaimed “Now’s the time!” and as he fired we ran forward against the gateway.

Seized by a sudden panic the Portuguese ladder-party bolted, but we snatched up the heavy ladders and our axemen chopped fearlessly at the gate and wooden palings that fringed the covered-way, while from the walls which towered thirty-one feet overhead, the same tempest of beams, and shot, and bags of powder showered down on the heads of the 5th Division.

We cleared the paling and jumped into the ditch, crossing the cunette with difficulty and finding the ladders too short for our purpose; the engineer was killed, and a small mine exploded under our feet, but, as luck would have it, the ramparts at San Vincente had been thinned of some of their defenders, who had gone off at the double to attack Picton’s men in the castle, and we placed three ladders under an embrasure where there was a gabion instead of a gun, and where the scarp was only twenty feet high.

Hand over hand, the troops clambered up under a concentrated fire that dropped them off by dozens, and the topmost stormers had to be pushed up by those behind before they could reach the embrasure, as the ladders were all too short; but at last the bold fellows got a foothold, and pulled the others up alongside them, until the redcoated mass grew larger and larger, and half the King’s Own charged the houses while the rest of the division went roaring along the ramparts, Brown Bess in hand, hurling the stubborn garrison out of three bastions in succession. There was a great shouting, mingled with the scream of the grape-shot and the whistling hum of shells; yells, howls, prayers and curses were drowned or half-heard amid the boom of cannon and the incessant bang-bang of the deadly muskets fired at close-quarters.

The awestruck watchers on the hill above our camp stood in an agony of suspense, spectators of the terrific struggle; the entire citadel seemed full of flame and noise, as mine after mine exploded, and fire-ball after fire-ball was flung over the walls to light the besieged in their heroic resistance: never had Napoleon’s soldiers fought with more determined gallantry, officer and man vying with each other in their efforts to keep us out, and as we drove them from one defence they retired into another and stood once more at bay.

Philippon, and Vielland, the second in command, though both wounded, flew from rampart to rampart, sword in hand, encouraging their brave fellows by word and deed, while the solemn chime of the cathedral rang out unnoticed hour after hour of that night of horrors.

A strange incident occurred at San Vincente when General Walker fell riddled with balls on the parapet: either by accident or design, he made a masonic sign as he staggered backwards, and a brother-mason in the French ranks dashed aside the threatening bayonets of his countrymen and saved him: afterwards, it is said, the general found his preserver a prisoner-of-war in Scotland, and procured his exchange in remembrance of his chivalry on the ramparts of Badajoz.

The 5th Division had obtained firm hold, knowing nothing of what was happening at the castle or the breaches, and as a portion of them were pursuing the enemy along the walls they rounded an angle and came upon a solitary gun with one artilleryman, who flung a portfire down as they approached.

Instantly there arose a cry of “A mine! a mine!” and our fellows retired helter-skelter, followed by a fresh body under Vielland, who drove them back to the parapet again and pitched several over into the ditch, but a reserve of the 38th, under Colonel Nugent, about two hundred strong, poured a volley into them, and we rallied and charged along the wall towards the breaches.

The King’s Own had entered the town at the first onslaught of Leith’s Division, and a strange contrast they found it to the uproar of the bastions, as, with bayonets fixed and bugles blowing, they filed through the streets, silent and deserted as the tomb; every door shut, lamps alight in many of the windows, but not a soul abroad, except some soldiers leading ammunition mules, who were promptly taken prisoners.

Sometimes a window opened and was immediately closed again; voices were heard, but the speakers were invisible; a few shots came from beneath the doors, but they were unheeded, and the adventurous 4th continued its march into the great square, where the same silence reigned, although the houses round it were brilliantly lighted.

The renewed fury at the breaches turned their steps in that direction, and they hurried off to take the garrison in rear: the attempt was well meant, but they were met by a fire that repulsed them, and they continued their wandering down streets and lanes, but the French began to be disheartened, as well they might.

The castle in our possession they could possibly have besieged from the town side, as there was only one gate by which the 3rd Division could have issued; the Trinidad and Santa Maria were also well-nigh impregnable in spite of their shattered condition, had the garrison been able to concentrate there, but the forcing of San Vincente had let us in behind them, and the struggle was only a matter of time; so, brave Philippon and Vielland, with their remnants, forced the bridge and shut themselves up in San Christoval across the Guadiana, sending a few horsemen on the spur to carry news to Soult, and, the bleeding 4th and Light Divisions scrambling up again and rushing the breaches, Badajoz was ours!

As the heavy firing died away towards morning, a mighty shout arose inside the walls, caught up and echoed far and near by our victorious soldiery, “Hurrah! hurrah! the town’s our own, hurrah!” and the carnage-maddened men, breaking from all control, began a wild orgy, which lasted for two days and two nights, indelibly sullying the glory of our triumph.

Churches and mansions were entered and pillaged; costly sacramental plate and silver money from the military chest strewed the rugged pavement of the town; wine flowed down the gutters as freely as blood had done on the ramparts, and men staggered along with their shakoes full of liquor. One bestrode a cask with a loaded musket and compelled officer and private alike to drink as they passed him; here a group fired aimlessly down a street, caring little whom they hit, others blazed away at the convent bells, while some masqueraded in court-dresses, in French uniforms, and monks’ cowls, howling, singing, dancing, like men possessed.

Many of the wretched inhabitants placed lighted candles and flasks of aquadienta on their tables and sought to hide themselves, hoping the marauders would drink and go away; they drank, but every cranny of the house was ransacked before they took their leave, and things were done of which we cannot speak, for the sake of humanity and the honour of the army.

“The town is ours, hurrah!”

Women and children ran shrieking to the officers for protection, which, alas, it was not always in their power to afford. Many an indignant subaltern risked his life among his own men in frantic attempts to recall them to order; an officer of the Brunswickers was shot while struggling for the possession of a canary bird; one party was seen tormenting a wounded baboon that had belonged to the colonel of the 4th French Regiment. And breaking open the jail, they liberated the prisoners, some of the 5th and 88th holding candles aloft as the scum of a Spanish prison poured out to add to the disorder. Wellington himself was surrounded by a mob of drunkards, who fired their muskets to his infinite peril, shouting as they brandished bottles of wine and brandy—“Will you drink, old boy? The town’s our own, hurrah!”

At length a gallows with three nooses reared its ominous form in the square, and a man named Johnny Castles, of the 95th, was placed beneath it; but no one was hanged, and by degrees the troops were drawn out of the town, credited with having murdered eighty-five of the inhabitants—in actual fact, the number being thirty-two. In fearful contrast to the licence within the walls was the scene outside. Philippon had surrendered to the future Lord Raglan, and retired from the service, in 1816, a General of Division, Baron of the Empire, and wearer of the Legion of Honour and the Order of St. Louis. The ditch, the slope, from the edge of the glacis to the top of the bastions, resembled a huge slaughter-house, nearly 2,500 of our men having fallen between the Santa Maria and La Trinidad alone, within a space of a hundred square yards; the 43rd and 52nd, respectively the gayest and the most sedate regiments in Spain, losing 670 men between them, and the place presenting an unusually shocking appearance from the explosions which had taken place there.

In one place the wife of a grenadier of the 83rd moaned over the corpse of her husband; in another a little drummer-boy of the 88th lay with his leg broken beside his dead father; the most heartrending sights were witnessed as the women and children sought frantically for their dear ones amid thousands of bodies, and the mangled fragments of what had once been living men.

Amid the horror of it all, two Spanish ladies came out of the town and implored two officers of the Rifles to assist them: one of them, Donna Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon, afterwards married her protector, who became Sir Harry Smith, of Aliwal fame, and was long a prominent figure in English society—a curious instance of the “romance of war.”

We took the colours of the garrison and the Hesse-Darmstadt, but there were no eagles in the town. The first man to die at the Santa Maria was a Portuguese grenadier, and there was a story current in the army that José de Castro, bugle-boy of the 7th Caçadores, had sounded the French “recall” at a critical moment, for which he received a hundred guineas from the Earl of Wellington: certain it is that when a very old man, gaining a bare living by teaching the cornet in the town of Golega, he was still petitioning the Portuguese Government for a pension.

Five generals wounded, five thousand officers and men fallen during the siege—that is the story of Badajoz. And when Wellington stood in the breach and looked around him, stern Spartan though he was, he burst into tears.

At the invitation of the newly-created Republic of Chili, Admiral Thomas Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald, sailed from England in the month of August, 1818, in the Rose, merchantman, to organise and take supreme command of the Chilian navy. With him he took, besides his wife and two children, English naval officers upon whom he could rely in the arduous fighting he was soon to engage in against the superior armaments of Spain. He landed on November 28th at Valparaiso, whither General O’Higgins, Supreme Director of the Chilian Government, had come to receive him. His reception was so warm both at Valparaiso and at Santiago, the capital, and the continuation of proposed festivities in his honour threatened to be so prolonged, that he had to remind his Excellency O’Higgins that he had come to Chili to fight, and not to feast.

Preparations were accordingly pushed forward to get such ships of war as the Chilians possessed into some kind of fighting order. These ships were the O’Higgins, formerly the Maria Isabel, a Spanish frigate of 50 guns, which the Chilians had captured and re-named after their adored chief; the San Martin, formerly the Cumberland, Indiaman, with 56 guns; the Lautaro, also a purchased Indiaman, with 44 guns; the Galvarino, recently the British sloop-of-war Hecate, with 18 guns; the Chacabuco, with 20 guns; and the Araucano, with 16 guns. This modest squadron of seven vessels was to contend with and conquer the Spanish fleet, made up of four frigates—the Esmeralda, 44 guns, the Venganza, 42 guns, the Sebastiana, 28 guns; four brigs—the Maipo, 18 guns, the Pezuela, 22 guns, the Potrillo, 18 guns, and another, whose name is not known; one schooner, name not known; six armed merchantmen—the Resolution, 36 guns, the Cleopatra, 28 guns, La Focha, 20 guns, the Guarmey, 18 guns, the Fernando, 26 guns, and the San Antonio, 18 guns; and twenty-seven gunboats.

Such were the opposing forces, whose operations for the next two years now were to command the attention of the civilised world. Under any other but Cochrane’s leadership the result could never have been doubtful. Cochrane, however, had already shown under the British flag that odds made no difference to him—a reputation that he was still further to maintain.

It is necessary here to say that though Chili had vanquished the Spanish forces in the interior and had overthrown the Spanish Government, her long line of coast was still exposed to attacks from the Spanish fleet. Besides, the enemy still held the impregnable forts that commanded the port of Valdivia. These advantages, added to the fact that her power in Peru was still intact, made Spain even yet a formidable foe to the newly-acquired liberties of the Chilians. Thus, before Chili could rest assured that Spanish dominion would not again be re-asserted over her, she must break the power of the Spanish navy, clear the Spanish garrisons out of Valdivia, and see her neighbour, Peru, liberated. It was to contribute to the accomplishment of these ends that Admiral Cochrane had now conferred upon him by commission the titles of “Vice-admiral of Chili” and “Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces of the Republic.”

On December 22nd, nearly a month after his arrival at Valparaiso, Cochrane hoisted his flag on the O’Higgins, named, as already mentioned, in honour of the Supreme Director, who was the son of an Irish gentleman of great distinction, who had risen so high in the Spanish service as to occupy the position of Viceroy of Peru—the highest post at that time in South America. The son, however, on the outbreak of revolution, joined the patriots, and, as a reward for his signal services in the field, was chosen head of the young Republic.

Resuming our narrative, we find Cochrane sailing from Valparaiso on January 16th, 1819, with only four ships—the other three being not yet ready. On that day Lady Cochrane with the children had come on board to bid him adieu. She had gone ashore, and the last gun to summon all hands on board had been fired, when suddenly a loud hurrah near the house in which she was residing made her go to the window to see what the matter might be. She was petrified at the sight that met her gaze. Her little boy of five years, who had slipped away from her unperceived, was perched on the shoulders of Cochrane’s flag-lieutenant who was hurrying with him down to the beach. The excited populace were shouting and hurrahing, while the little fellow, who had begged of the by no means unwilling lieutenant to be taken aboard, was waving his cap over their heads and crying “Viva la patria.” Before Lady Cochrane could interfere, the two were being rapidly rowed off in a small boat to the flagship which was already under weigh. It was thus impossible, to the delight of the sailors as well as the youngster, for him to be sent back; and though he had only the clothes that were on him, which were altogether insufficient, the sailors said that didn’t matter—they would make him others!