Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1829-05-18

Colonel M'Leod was killed while trying to
force the left corner of the large breach. lie
received his mortal wound within three yards
of the enemy, just at the bottom of some nine
feet planks, studded with nails, and hanging
down the breach from under the cheUduT-de-
fyise. A few moments before he fell he had
been wounded in the back by bayonet OF
one of our soldiers, who slipped. Steele told
me this, and he was with the colonel at the
time.
At half past eleven the fire slackened, and
the French detached men from the breaches
to repulse the other attacks, and to endeavor
to retake the castle. heard the enemy call
ing out on the ramparts in German, s. All is
well in Badajoz ~ it sounded very like En-
glsh.
But this repulse may be called victory
The British soldiers did as much as men coula
do. The woodwork of the cheuaur-de.frtse
was ponderous, bristling with short, stout
sword blades fastened in it, and chained toge-
Their. 1t was an obstacle not to be removed,
and the French soldiers stood close to it, Kill
ling deliberately all who approached it. The
large breach was at one time crowded with our
brave troops; mean the fourth division, the
heroes of many hard fought victories and
crimson fields The light diyiSson had recent
ly been crowned with victory; but TO remove
such obstacles by living bodies pushing against
it up a steep breach, and sinking to the knees
every step in rubbish, while firm and tear
less enemy stood behind it., is too ridiculous!
| must recover patience.
Two hundred and fifty officers and nearly
six thousand soldiers felIsaround these ram
parts. Let justice prevail! let not the loul
tongue of calumny tear those laurels from the
brows of men who so nobly earned them. -
Look on those blood-stained uniforms; gaze
on those noble forms stretched on the earth,
aad think on their agonies
The left breach had not been attempted at
all until quarter before twelve o'clock, when
Shaw, collecting about seventy men of differ
ent regiments, and with great difficulty, as
you may suppose, after such milingfor two
hours, made desperate effort TO gain the top;
but when half way up, as if by enchantment,
he stood alone. Two rounds of grape and
the musketry prevented any more trouble, for
almost the whole of the party lay stretched in
various attitudes
Captain Nicholson, of the engineers, was OF
the number; he now showed great courage;
and, when asked by Shaw if he would try
the left breach, answered he would do any
thing to succeed A grape shot went through
his lungs and he died thee days after.
This attack was very daring. 1t was for
lorn hope under accumulated dangers; almost
all the troops had retired, and few moments
before, great alarm was excited by cry from
the heaps of wounded, that the French were
descending into the ditch. To exaggerate this
sanguinary strife, is not possible to me or to
any other person.
The small groups of soldiers seeking shell
ter from the cart-wheels, pieces of timber,
fire balls, and other missiles hurled do vn upon
them; the wounded crawling past the iire-balls,
many of them scorched aad perfectly black,
and covered with mud from having fallen into
the Mnette, where three hundred were suiio-
Gated and drowned; and u this time the
French On the top of the parapet, jeering and
cracking their jokes, and deliberately picking
of whom they chose, while, am grieved to
say, the troops lining the 2 acis did not fire
sufficiently, although, | must confess, they
were terribly exposed, and could scarcely live
from the cross-hre of grape-shot.