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it. Had it not been for the light division coming up, and taking the

defenders--who occupied the loopholed and fortified houses which

commanded this breach--in rear, the attack here could never have

succeeded.

The next few days were employed in repairing the breaches, and putting

the place again in a state of defence, as it was probable that Marmont

might come up and besiege it. The French marshal, however, when

hurrying to the relief of the town, heard the news of its fall, and

as the weather was very bad for campaigning, and provisions short,

he fall back again to his winter quarters, believing that Wellington

would, content with his success, make no fresh movement until the

spring. The English general, however, was far too able a strategist

not to profit by the supineness of his adversary, and, immediately

Ciudad Rodrigo was taken, he began to make preparations for the siege

of Badajos, a far stronger fortress than Ciudad, and defended by

strong detached forts. Three days after the fall of Rodrigo General

Hill came up with his division; to this the Norfolk Rangers now

belonged, and the Scudamores had therefore the delight of meeting all

their old friends again. They saw but little of them, however, for

they were constantly on the road to Lisbon with despatches, every

branch of the service being now strained to get the battering-train

destined for the attack on Badajos to the front, while orders were

sent to Silviera, Trant, Wilson, Lecca, and the other partisan

leaders, to hold all the fords and defiles along the frontier, so as

to prevent the French from making a counter-invasion of Portugal.

On the 11th of March the army arrived at Elvas, and on the 15th a

pontoon bridge was thrown across the Guadiana. The following day the

British troops crossed the river, and invested Badajos, with fifteen

thousand men, while Hill and Graham, with thirty thousand more moved

forward, so as to act as a covering army, in case the French should

advance to raise the siege. Badajos was defended by five thousand men,

under General Phillipson, a most able and energetic commander, who had

in every way strengthened the defences, and put them in a position to

offer an obstinate resistance.

Before attacking the fortress it was necessary to capture one of the

outlying forts, and that known as the Picurina was selected, because

the bastion of the Trinidad, which lay behind it, was the weakest

portion of the fortress. The trenches were commenced against this on

the night of the 17th, and, although the French made some vigorous

sorties, the works progressed so rapidly that all was ready for an

assault on the forts on the 25th, a delay of two days having been

occasioned by the French taking guns across the river, which swept

the trenches, and rendered work impossible, until a division was sent

round to drive in the French guns and invest the fortress on that

side. The Picurina was strong, and desperately defended, but it was

captured after a furious assault, which lasted one hour, and cost

nineteen officers and three hundred men. It was not, however, until

next evening that the fort could be occupied, for the guns of the town

poured such a hail of shot and shell into it, that a permanent footing

could not be obtained in it. Gradually, day by day, the trenches were

driven nearer to the doomed city, and the cannon of the batteries

worked day and night to establish a breach. Soult was known to be

approaching, but he wanted to gather up all his available forces, as

he believed the town capable of holding out for another month, at

least. Still he was approaching, and, although the three breaches

were scarcely yet practicable, and the fire of the town by no means

overpowered, Wellington determined upon an instant assault, and on the

night of the 6th of April the troops prepared for what turned out to

be the most terrible and bloody assault in the annals of the British

army. There were no less than six columns of attack, comprising in all

eighteen thousand men. Picton, on the right with the third division

was to cross the Rivillas and storm the castle. Wilson, with the

troops in the trenches, was to attack San Roque. In the center the

fourth and light division, under Colville and Barnard, were to assault

the breaches; and on the left Leith, with the fifth division, was to

make a false attack upon the fort of Pardaleras, and a real attack

upon the bastion of San Vincente by the river side. Across the river

the Portugese division, under Power, was to attack the works at the

head of the bridge. The night was dark and clouded, and all was as

still as death outside the town, when a lighted carcass, that is a

large iron canister filled with tar and combustibles, fell close to

the third division, and, exposing their ranks, forced them to commence

the attack before the hour appointed. Crossing the Rivillas by a

narrow bridge, under a tremendous fire, the third division assaulted

the castle, and, although their scaling-ladders were over and over

again hurled down, the stormers at last obtained a footing, and the

rest of the troops poured in and the castle was won. A similar and

more rapid success attended the assault on San Roque, which was

attacked so suddenly and violently, that it was taken with scarce

any resistance. In the mean time the assaults upon the breaches had

commenced, and it is best to give the account of this terrible scene

in the words of its eloquent and graphic historian, as the picture is

one of the most vivid that was ever drawn.

"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 storming parties 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 fusiliers, 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 counterguard 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, and

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 fast from the shot, it was hard to know who went down

voluntarily, 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 military array; but now

the tumult was such, no command would 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 rash 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 43rd, 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 43rd, 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 reaches, 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

leaped early into the ditch and joined in the assault, and the rest,

raked by a cross-fire of grape from the distant bastions, baffled in