At the Quartel de Alemanes the enemy mounted the breach with the utmost resolution, and they succeeded in forcing their way into the first quadrangle of that great building; the French batteries continued to play upon the walls and the buildings adjoining the breach, and a huge fragment fell upon those who were foremost in the assault, just at the moment when part of the Ultonia regiment was about to charge them: a few of the Spaniards were buried with them in the ruins. The Geronans then rushed on, drove back the enemy, presented themselves in the breach, and fought hand to hand with the assailants. Frequently such was the press of the conflict, and such the passion which inspired them, that impatient of the time required for reloading their muskets, the defendants caught up stones from the breach, and brained their enemies with these readier weapons. Four times the assault was repeated in the course of two hours, and at every point the enemy were beaten off. Alvarez, during the whole assault, hastened from post to post, wherever there was most need of his presence, providing every thing, directing all and encouraging all; he had prepared cressets to light up the walls and breaches in case the enemy should persist in their attempt after darkness closed; but they withdrew long before night set in, hastily and in disorder, leaving 800 of their best men slain. Among them was that Colonel Floresti, whom this very Mariano Alvarez had admitted into Monjuic at Barcelona, when the French took their ♦SEE VOL. I. P. 201.♦ treacherous possession of that fortress.
Of the besieged forty-four fell in this glorious day, and 197 were wounded. Our brave countryman, Colonel Marshall, died of his wounds, as did D. Ricardo Maccarty, another officer of the same regiment, who was Irish either by birth or extraction. A glorious success had been gained, one that filled the conquerors with the highest and most ennobling pride; this joy it brought with it, but it brought no rest, no respite, scarcely even a prolongation of hope. There was neither wine to distribute to the soldiers after their exertions, nor even bread; a scanty mess of pulse or corn, with a little oil, or a morsel of bacon in its stead, was all that could be served out, ... and this not from the public magazines, but given by the inhabitants, who, in the general extremity, shared their stores with the soldiers, lamenting that they had nothing better to bestow. “What matters it?” said these brave Spaniards, “the joy of having saved Gerona to-day will give us strength to go on!” A party went out to bring in any of the wounded enemies who might have been left among the dead; one had been stript by a miquelet, but upon perceiving what was the object of their search, he discovered himself to be living. “Having been wounded,” he said, “he feigned death as the only chance of escaping death, for he had been led to believe that the miquelets and the peasants gave no quarter.” The man who had stripped him happened to be present when he spoke; he immediately re-clothed him, ran to bring him water, and took charge of him till he could be removed to the hospital. While the Spaniards were employed in this humane office, a fire was opened upon them from the enemy’s works, occasioned, no doubt, by some error of the French centinels: it drove them in, and the remainder of the wounded were consequently left to perish. One wretched German, by the breach of St. Lucia, lay groaning for twenty hours before death relieved him.