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CAMPS OF KILTHOMAS AND OULART HILLS
The first consequences of the Wexford rising was the assemblage of two large bodies of insurgents, the one occupying the hill of Oulart, ten miles southward of Gorey, in the direction of the town of Wexford; the second taking a position nine miles westward of the former place, on a ridge of the Slieve Buoye mountain, called Kilthomas hill. Camps were established on the heights, and an immense number of the peasantry, including every age and sex, flocked immediately to join the rebels.
Both camps were attacked, but with results painfully different. The garrison of the little town of Carnew, consisting of nearly three hundred yeomanry, mounted and dismounted, marched boldly against the insurgents collected on Kilthomas, roughly estimated at about three thousand men. Although, with favourable ground and enormous superiority of numbers, it might have been expected that an attempt to dislodge the rebels from their position would have failed, nothing could have been more successful than the attack, and the royalists obtained a bloodless victory. Here again, the unrelenting spirit of the times appeared, and a very gallant and daring exploit was sullied by impolitic severity. The attempt to disperse the second camp at Oulart was attended with consequences not only disastrous to the troops engaged, but its results caused afterwards an immensity of bloodshed. Through the imprudence of an incompetent commanding officer, a very gallant detachment perished, while the insurgents, encouraged by accidental success, acquired a false but dangerous confidence which involved a fearful amount of atrocity, with a reaction, in many cases to be excused, and in more to be lamented.
On the morning of the 27th of May, Mr. Turner of Newfort arrived at Wexford and announced that his own house had been attacked and robbed of a quantity of arms, previously surrendered, and that the insurrection had unequivocally broken out.
Intelligence presently came in of the murders and atrocities everywhere committed in the neighbourhood, and also of the formation of a rebel camp at Oulart. Thinking it advisable to crush the outbreak in its birth, the yeomanry cavalry proceeded to scour the country, while Captain Foote with a detachment of the North Cork militia, amounting to no men, rank and file, marched in the direction of the rebel camp; and in route to Oulart he was joined by a troop of yeomanry cavalry; however, most of the yeomen in face of the enemy proved traitors and deserted to the enemy. In rough numbers, the insurgent force might have been set down at four to five thousand combatants. Although the advance was made with every disregard of military caution, accident more than determination enabled the rebels to profit from the gross mismanagement of the force opposed to them. Contempt of an enemy, which creates incaution, has often proved fatal. The rebels fled at the first onset, and were pursued at full speed by the militia, who were so little apprehensive of resistance, that no rank or order was observed. While the rebels were making their escape with precipitation towards the northern side of the hill, they were apprised that a large body of cavalry had been seen that morning advancing against them in the opposite direction, apparently with a design to intercept their flight and co-operate with the militia by a double attack. As the Wexfordian insurgents as yet were totally unacquainted with warfare, the onset of cavalry was, to the imaginations of many among them, more terrible than that of infantry. They therefore ignorantly supposed the cavalry to be still in the neighbourhood; and while Father John Murphy exclaimed that they must either conquer or perish, they turned desperately against the militia, who had now arrived near the summit, almost breathless, and charging them with their pikes, killed the whole detachment in an instant, except the lieutenant-colonel, a sergeant, and three privates. ‘It appears,’ says Musgrave, ‘that the rebels were rendered bold and desperate by intoxication, and that from twelve to fifteen of them singled out, cut off, and attacked each of the soldiers, who did not resign their lives but at a dear rate to their assailants.’
The consequences of this unfortunate disaster speedily evinced themselves. Numbers of the peasantry who had hitherto remained neutral repaired to the camp and joined the rebel standard; and in the same ratio that the confidence of the insurgents increased, the spirit of the royalists was abated. Fearful of an attack by numbers of savage men under the intoxication of a first success, the little garrison of Gorey determined to retreat at once on Arklow; and the movement was conceived and executed with a celerity that caused the most afflicting distress to crowds of helpless loyalists, who, dreading the ferocity of the rebels, abandoned their homes and followed the retiring garrison as they best could; the situation of these unfortunates was truly deplorable, and their subsequent sufferings pitiable in the extreme.
DESTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH AT ENNISCORTHY
Flushed with success, Murphy, the fighting priest of Boulavogue, now turned his attention to the town of Enniscorthy, six miles distant from his encampment. Its possession would be important; and as the garrison amounted only to about three hundred men, of whom a hundred were North Cork Militia and the remainder local yeomanry, there was every reason to believe that an open town, accessible in many quarters and protected by a feeble garrison, would offer to the overwhelming masses which should assail it a short and unavailing defence. Accordingly, Father Murphy determined to attack the place, and he carried his resolution into effect early on the afternoon of the 28th of May.
From its dangerous vicinity to the rebel encampment the garrison of the town apprehended, naturally enough, that the first effort of the victorious insurgents would be directed against them, and they were obliged, in consequence, to be vigilant and prepared. The duty of patrolling and giving pickets was therefore most harassing; for three days and nights they had been continually under arms; but though worn out and exhausted, while reports and appearances were most discouraging, they determined nevertheless to offer a gallant defence, and nobly they realised their resolution.
Certain intelligence having been received on the morning of the 28th that the town would be attacked early that afternoon, the drums beat to arms and the garrison took the posts previously assigned to them. The North Cork Militia occupied the bridge, a cavalry corps holding the street connecting it with the town, while the Duffry gate hill, upon the Carlow road, was protected by the yeomanry and infantry. The market-house and castle had each a sergeant’s guard allotted for its defence.
The ground taken up by the yeomanry was three or four hundred yards in front of the Duffry gate, and on that point the rebels made their opening attack. On perceiving the yeomanry in line, the insurgent column halted and deployed, extending largely to the right and left, to outflank the small body in their front and cut it from the town. This done, they advanced, driving cattle in their front, and at the same time opening a heavy and well-directed fire. (As the county of Wexford abounds with water-fowl, the occupation of a fowler is so profitable that numbers of the lower class of people are not only experts in the use of fire-arms, but excellent marksmen.) The yeomanry replied to it with effect, but dreading, from the extension of the rebel wings, that they should be ultimately turned, they retired into the town, covered by a charge of cavalry, which dispersed a body that pressed them too closely, but inflicted on the gallant horsemen a very heavy loss.
The suburbs and the town itself were now on fire. A number of the assailants had got in through by-ways unperceived, the rebel inhabitants fired on the royalists from their windows (many lives of officers were thus picked off in ambuscade), while, repulsed from an attempt upon the bridge, the insurgents attempted to ford the river beyond the reach of the fire of the North Cork Militia. Pressed by numbers totally disproportionate, the yeomanry obstinately held their ground, and although suffering heavily themselves, they cheered as they observed that their own heavy and well-supported fusilade cut down the head of the rebel column and checked its advance.
‘The streets,’ relates Musgrave, ‘were entirely involved in smoke, so that the yeomen could not perceive the rebels till they were charged by their pikes. The flames from the houses at each side of the street were so great as to unite and form a fiery arch, by which their hair was singed and the bear-skin in their caps was burnt. The loyalists, bravely disputing every inch of ground, retreated to the market-house, an open space like a square, where they made a determined stand and killed great numbers of the enemy. By this effort the loyalists turned the scale and drove the rebels completely out of the town, the streets of which at each side of the river presented an awful scene of conflagration. While the troops were thus engaged in the south side of the town, another body of the rebels crossed the river, about three-quarters of a mile above the bridge, but were soon routed by Captain Snowe. On this occasion his men showed great dexterity as marksmen, seldom failing to bring down such individual rebels as they aimed at. Captain Snowe then ordered Captain Richards to charge, which he did most effectually, but with heavy loss in killed and wounded.
‘As a party of the rebels, which came from Vinegar Hill towards the glebe, still remained unassailed and their numbers seemed increasing, they were attacked by Captain Drury, with half a company of the North Cork Militia, and dispersed with considerable slaughter.’
Thus ended an action which lasted more than three hours, fought on a very hot day, in the midst of a burning town, the disaffected inhabitants of which set fire to their own houses to annoy the loyalists, and fired on them from their windows with deadly effect, picking out the loyalist leaders. In this action the yeomen and Protestant inhabitants performed prodigies of valour in support of the constitution and in defence of their property and their families.
‘It was generally believed that not less than five hundred of the rebels were killed or wounded. The banks of the river and the island in it were strewed with their dead bodies, and numbers of them fell in the streets. To keep up the courage of the insurgents every artifice was used; for even women, as if insensible of danger, were seen in the midst of the carnage administering whiskey to their rebel friends.’
In this most gallant defence the loss sustained by the garrison fell chiefly on the yeomanry and loyalists; nearly a third of the whole amount employed were placedhors de combat, the greater proportion being slain.
After the rebels were repulsed, the necessity of an instant retreat became apparent. The town was on fire, and no longer tenable by a garrison equally reduced in strength and numbers, the insurgents were hanging in an immense force about the town, a night attack seemed almost certain, and no hope could be held out that under existing circumstances it could be repulsed. A council of war was held, and, after mature deliberation, it was resolved to abandon the town and march on Wexford by the eastern side of the river, by St. John’s. ‘From the suddenness of the retreat, only a few of the Protestant inhabitants could accompany the troops, and they could carry with them no other comforts or necessaries but the apparel which they wore. Imagination cannot form a more tragic scene than the melancholy train of fugitives, of whom some were so helpless from their wounds, from sickness, the feebleness of old age or infancy, that they could not have effected their escape had not the yeomen cavalry mounted them on their horses. Some parents were reduced to the dreadful necessity of leaving their infants in cottages on the roadside, with but faint hope of ever seeing them again.
‘The town, the morning after the rebels got possession of it, presented a dreadful scene of carnage and conflagration; many bodies were lying dead in the streets, and others groaning in the agonies of death; some parts of the place were entirely consumed, and in others the flames continued to rage with inextinguishable fury. No less than 478 dwelling-houses and cabins were burned in the town and its suburbs, besides a great number of stores, malt-houses, and out-offices.’
The rebel entrance of the town was marked by the atrocities of a barbarous force, irritated by resistance, and now excited by the accidental success which circumstances had given them.
AN ACT OF VENGEANCE
In the spirit of sheer destructiveness the rebels turned their exertions to wrecking the Protestant church. Our artist has graphically pictured the wild and lurid spectacle attending the wilful destruction of the church at Enniscorthy; vestments, benches, the organ, the pulpit, Bibles, and church furniture were devoted to feed the flames and make a bonfire; meanwhile the triumphant insurgents are shown carrying off the church bell as a trophy, which we find set up subsequently, a prominent feature of the vast rebel camp in the vicinity.
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THE CAMP ON VINEGAR HILL
Immediately after obtaining possession of Enniscorthy the rebels proceeded to form an extensive encampment on Vinegar Hill, from which the town, after its seizure, was garrisoned by rebel reliefs, sent down from headquarters on the mountain. Immense numbers of the peasantry flocked to this camp, and in a few days it was believed that fully ten thousand men were there collected. As this was the point on which the insurgents concentrated in greater force and for a longer time than on any other during the brief period that elapsed from theémeuteto its final suppression, and as it was also, unhappily, the scene, were its atrocities recorded, that would picture civil war in revolting colours—which may be fancied but not detailed—it may be interesting here to describe its local position and the appearance it then presented.
In a military point of view Vinegar Hill is strong. High grounds, gradually rising, are crowned by a cone of bold ascent, while the country beneath, being cultivated fields, is divided into numerous enclosures, and intersected by stone walls, hedges, and trenches. On the apex of the hill stood the ruins of a windmill; round the upper height some rude field-works were thrown up, as well as on a lower ridge which the rebels occupied as part of their position. For defence by irregular troops, who trusted rather to numbers than to discipline, Vinegar Hill was particularly favourable, for the numerous enclosures afforded safe cover for skirmishers, who could with perfect impunity severely annoy any columns advancing to assail the hill, and oblige an enemy to feel his way with caution. Good roads wound round the base of the position, and a command of the Slaney added to its military value.
Its local appearance was singular and picturesque, and perfectly in keeping with a wild and guerilla sort of warfare. Although the weather was particularly hot and night but nominal, a part of the insurgents placed themselves under cover, and the position exhibited rather the varied colouring of an Indian camp than the dazzling whiteness of ‘the tented field.’ Wattles—as thin and flexible poles are termed in Irish parlance—were overhung with blankets, tablecloths, chintz furniture, and window curtains, plundered from the surrounding neighbourhood, while in the centre, from the top of the ruined windmill, a green flag ‘dared the battle and the breeze.’ A few guns and swivels were rudely placed in battery, and in whatever else the rebel executive might have been deficient, their commissariat, as the figures and records show, was carefully attended to. A local board of field officers assembled every day, and after their deliberations the larders and cellars of the neighbouring gentry were put into extensive requisition. Vinegar Hill was better provided with rude accommodations than any of the insurgent stations, for the heights on which the rebel masses herded were generally mere bivouacs, hurriedly taken up and as suddenly abandoned. These posts they termed camps, though they were destitute of tents, except a few for their chiefs, while the people remained in the open air in vast multitudes, men and women promiscuously, some lying covered with blankets at night, and some without other covering than the clothes which they wore during the day. This mode of warfare was favoured by an uninterrupted continuance of dry and warm weather, to such a length of time as is very unusual in Ireland in that season, or any season of the year. This was regarded by the rebels as a particular interposition of Providence in their favour, and some among them are said to have declared, in a prophetic tone, that not a drop of rain was to fall until they should be masters of all Ireland. On the other hand, the same was considered by the fugitive loyalists as a merciful favour of Heaven, since bad weather must have miserably augmented their distress and caused the death of many. In these encampments or stations, among such crowds of riotous, undisciplined men, under no regular authority, the greatest disorder may be supposed to have prevailed. Often when a rebel was in a sound sleep in the night he was robbed by some associate of his gun or some article considered valuable; and hence to sleep flat on the belly, with the hat and shoes tied under the breast for the prevention of stealth, was the general custom.
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THE CAMP ON VINEGAR HILL
‘The camp at Vinegar Hill presented a dreadful scene of confusion and uproar. A number of female rebels, more vehement than the male, were marching out to meet the army from Newtown Barry; this was a large body which Father Roche led from Vinegar Hill to the attack of that town, which took place the 1st of June. Great numbers of women were in the camp. Some men were employed in killing cattle and in boiling them in pieces in large copper brewing-pans; others were drinking, cursing, and swearing; many of them were playing on various musical instruments which they had acquired by plunder in the adjacent Protestant houses, the whole producing a most disagreeable and barbarous dissonance.’—Visit to the Camp, Rossiters Affidavit, printed in Musgrave’sAppendix, No. XX.
They were in nothing more irregular than in the cooking of provisions, many of them cutting pieces at random out of cattle scarcely dead without waiting to dismember them, and roasting those pieces on the points of their pikes, with the parts of the hide which belonged to them still attached. The heads of cattle were seldom eaten, but generally left to rot on the surface of the ground, as were often large portions of the carcases after a few pieces had been cut away. From this practice the decay of animal matter was rapid, and the stench of the encampment in a few days became intolerable.
THE FATAL PASS OF TUBBERNEERING
This incident, one of the most fatal episodes of the insurrection, was due, like several others recounted, to the incompetence of the leaders; a fine body of men were thus sacrificed, and the situation of the loyalists was aggravated in consequence. The abandonment of Wexford followed the succession of military mistakes. The peasantry, hounded on by truculent priests and ferocious partisans, committed every enormity which can be imagined, while the royalists and yeomanry emulated this abominable cruelty, and, under the name of loyalty, too frequently perpetrated wanton and savage reprisals. Confidence between men was ended, and while the rebels dissimulated to obtain their end, the royalist, shielded by the hand of power still predominant, robbed and slaughtered ‘in the king’s name.’ On both sides there were violence and treachery. It was an unholy contest, and while Popish massacres were revolting, it cannot be denied that Protestant atrocities were neither ‘few nor far between.’ Colonel Walpole was detached from Dublin to reinforce General Loftus, that on his junction he arrogated for himself an independent command, that it was culpably acceded to, that he was ambitious to fight an action without delay, and that to oblige a minion of a Lord-Lieutenant an attack on the rebel position, the hill of Ballymore, was planned, it being considered the safest method of gratifying ‘a carpet-knight’ whose services had as vet been confined to the duties of the drawing-room. The result may be imagined. Walpole led his fine division into a well-prepared ambuscade in the fatal pass of Tubberneering, the guns were taken, the commanders shot. ‘Suddenly from the enclosures a wild yell burst forth, accompanied by a stream of musketry. Colonel Walpole fell on the first fire; the confusion was tremendous, and to fight or retreat impossible. The height and number of the fences on every side made the ground most favourable for irregular and desultory warfare, as the long pikes of the rebels reached nearly across the narrow road, and those of the distracted soldiers who escaped the first close fire were perforated from behind the hedges’ by invisible opponents. The surprise of the troops was complete, dragoons and infantry were thrown in helpless disorder on each other, and a scene of butchery ensued. The column was now completely surrounded, discipline unavailing; an attempt made by a detachment of the 4th Dragoon Guards to turn the enemy’s right flank failed. After having sustained the attack for about three-quarters of an hour with considerable disadvantage on the part of the king’s troops, and having lost their commander and three pieces of artillery, which were immediately turned against them, a retreat began in all the confusion which might be expected from raw and inexperienced troops.
‘The rebels pressed them hard, a general dismay took place, which would probably have been fatal to the whole of the column had not Lieutenant-Colonel Cope of the Armagh Militia, who had been fortunately in the rear of the column with a detachment of his own regiment, rallied and formed them on the road to impede the progress of the enemy. He gallantly disputed every inch of it for three miles. To this small band of brave men, under the command of a cool and gallant officer, the safety of those who escaped on that disastrous day may be entirely attributed.
‘Walpole, a mere Castleattache, had been very improperly employed to collect what troops could be spared from Naas, Kilcullen, and Baltinglas to reinforce General Loftus.... Walpole assumed the duties of his superior, planned ridiculous attacks, and finally sacrificed one of the finest detachments in the field.’
THE LOYAL LITTLE DRUMMER-BOY
Musgrave has thus related the touching incident of which George Cruikshank has made an effective picture:—‘A drummer, named Hunter, of the Antrim regiment, only some twelve years old, fell into the hands of the rebels in the unfortunate affair in which Colonel Walpole lost his life. He carried his drum with him, and when conducted to the town of Gorey with some other prisoners, being ordered to beat it, actuated by a spirit of enthusiastic loyalty, he exclaimed, “That the King’s drum should never be beaten for rebels,” and at the same instant leaped on the head and broke through the parchment. The inhuman villains, callous to admiration of an heroic act even in an enemy, instantly perforated his body with pikes.’
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The consequences of the slaughter at Tubberneering were precisely such as might be expected. The royalists lost heart, and the insurgents acquired a dangerous audacity. Every Protestant abandoned home and property in despair, and more than a thousand individuals fled from their once happy dwellings, with wives and children, and, without food or shelter, endeavoured to seek safety elsewhere, and obtain eleemosynary support from those who still possessed a home. In the first place all, soldiers and civilians alike, fell back to Arklow, but, feeling themselves insecure even there, the retreat was continued to Wicklow.
As we have seen, the results of the insurgent success reacted most disastrously; the rebels at once became masters of Gorey, and to the army of Irish liberty in ‘98 the conquest of this town proved the reverse of advantageous to the captors.
INSURGENT OCCUPATION OF GOREY
For five days they halted in and about the town, drinking and pillaging, destroying property not portable, and, as at Enniscorthy, visiting their vengeance on the church. Had their fury been expended on the building alone it would have been a matter of little import, but unhappily the contest had now taken a religious colouring, so rancorous and sanguinary that blood alone could satisfy party hatred and thirst for vengeance, and the best interests of the cause itself were sacrificed to stupid and unproductive brutalities, from which gray hairs afforded no protection, nor boyhood could claim no immunity. To satisfy this insensate vengeance upon inoffensive victims, military expediency was disregarded, and important advantages lost sight of and utterly sacrificed.
The MS. Journal of a Field Officer, in every sense an invaluable guide to the true situation of those affairs which come within the observations of this keen professional critic, dwells conclusively on this point: ‘Providentially, the rebels had too many commanders; those of the Wexford force being mostly priests, their attention was more directed to the interests of their church by purging the land of heretics than to the concerns of the “Irish Republic,” which the northern leaders had in view. Consequently time was wasted in collecting and piking Protestants, which might have been employed with far greater advantage to the cause.’
THE BATTLE OF ROSS
The operations of the rebel armies which we have already detailed, namely, the attempt on Newtown Barry by the corps under Father Kearns, and that on Gorey by the insurgents under the two Murphys and Perry of Inch, with the intervening occurrence of Walpole’s defeat at Tubberneering, must be connected by a simultaneous transaction, probably, in military importance, the most interesting which marked the outbreak.
The strongest of the insurgent corps had assembled on the hill of Carrickbyrne, under the chief command of B. Baganel Harvey, with Father Roche acting en second. Their encampment was six miles from the town of Ross, of which it was their first and greatest object to obtain possession.
The dangerous proximity of the rebel host had caused alarm for the safety of the town, and, consequently, the garrison had been strengthened. On the 5th of June the County Dublin Militia, commanded by the popularly beloved Lord Mountjoy, with detachments from the Clare, Donegal, and Meath Militia, 5th Dragoons, Midlothian Fencibles, and English Artillery, occupied the place—a force amounting to 1400 men of all arms, of which 150 were yeomen. General Johnson, a veteran officer, commanded, and his heroic exertions won the day, and must shed a lasting lustre upon his reputation as a courageous and able leader.
On the evening of the 4th June the rebel camp at Carrick-byrne broke up, and the insurgents moved bodily to Corbethill, within a mile and a half of Ross. The rebel hordes ‘moved by parishes and baronies, each having a particular standard; in their way they stopped at a chapel, where mass was said at the head of each column by priests, who sprinkled an abundance of holy water on them.’—Musgrave. After driving in a distant outpost they bivouacked on Corbethill for the night. The royalists, fearing a surprise, remained under arms, the infantry and guns in position on the southern and eastern faces of the town, the yeoman infantry holding the bridge, and the cavalry formed on the quay. Night passed, however, without alarm; and it was four o’clock on the morning of the 5th before Baganel Harvey, who had been a few days before elected to the chief command, sent a formal summons to General Johnson, which unfortunately (as some say) was not delivered. Furlong, the rebel leader, who carried it, was shot, through the ignorance of the advanced sentry, who paid no respect to a white handkerchief he waved on approaching the outposts.
The MS. Journal of a Field Officersums up the actual military situation: ‘The movement upon Ross showed some head on the part of Baganel Harvey, the object being to force the principal passage of the Barrow, and, in conjunction with the insurgents of Kilkenny, bear down upon Waterford, which was then very disaffected, weakly garrisoned, and presented strong temptations in the way of plunder. But Harvey had no idea of attacking Ross when that event took place, and there were evidently no preparations made for it. Harvey expected, and with reason, that the appearance of his masses on the hills which domineered the town would have secured the active co-operation of the Kilkenny men from the other side of the Barrow. And this would have been the case had time allowed it, but Furlong was a popular leader among the rebels, and when he was shot by a sentinel at the outpost the mass of the rebels, maddened by the occurrence, rushed by a sudden impulse, in a mighty but disordered torrent, along one side of the road on the Three-bullet Gate, instead of making a combined movement on an open town, by which facility of approach and enormous preponderance in numbers could not but have succeeded.’ This argument is supported by the communication which Furlong carried. On searching the pockets of the dead man the following cartel was found:—
Sir—As a friend to humanity I request you will surrender the town of Ross to the Wexford forces, now assembled against that town. Your resistance will but provoke rapine and plunder, to the ruin of the most innocent. Flushed with victory, the Wexford forces, now innumerable and irresistible, will not be controlled if they meet with resistance. To prevent, therefore, the total ruin of all property in the town I urge you to a speedy surrender, which you will be forced to in a few hours, with loss and bloodshed, as you are surrounded on all sides. Your answer is required in four hours. Mr. Furlong carries this letter, and will bring the answer.—I am, Sir,
B. B. Harvey,
General commanding, etc., etc.
Camp at Corbethill, half-past three o’clock morning,
June 5, 1798.
The death of Furlong is said to have precipitated the attack, for immediately afterwards the rebels moved forward in dense masses, cheering and yelling, and directing their march on the Three-bullet Gate. The advance of this armed multitude—by some estimated as from 20,000 to 25,000 men—was described to me by an eye-witness as the most singular spectacle imaginable. The irregularity of their array—partly in close column and partly in line—had the effect of displaying their enormous strength to full advantage; while the presence of several priests, who were observed flitting through their ranks and haranguing their deluded followers with certain assurances of victory, inspired an enthusiastic fanaticism, which blinded them to danger and rendered them additionally formidable. They pushed forward four guns and a cloud of musketeers, some in extended order, and others heading the pikemen, whose crowded columns occupied the whole road, far as the eye could range.
As might have been expected, the pickets were roughly driven in, and, in a wild rush made by the rebels on the troops in front of the Three-bullet Gate, the latter were obliged to recede, and one of the guns was captured. In turn, however, the troops rallied and drove back the insurgents, and, perceiving their unsteadiness when mobbed together in the repulse, General Johnson ordered the 5th Dragoons to charge. For cavalry effect the ground was totallyun suite, the numerous fences enabling the rebels to avoid the charge, while, protected themselves, they inflicted a heavy loss on men who very gallantly, but very ineffectively, had thus assailed them at disadvantage.
An entrance to the town was gained, and while some of the rebels fired the houses, others pushed forward towards the bridge. But the advance by Neville Street was swept by the steady fire of a gun placed in the market-place, which looked directly down the approach. Notwithstanding the murderous fire which fell on a dense mass of men, wedged together in a narrow street, and which shore the head of the column down as frequently as it came forward, others succeeded those who fell, and fresh numbers momentarily appeared. The troops, terrified at the armed crowds who swarmed through the Three-bullet Gate, and who, maddened by inebriety and fanaticism, seemed rather to court death than avoid it, the defenders at last despairing of offering a longer resistance against myriad hordes of infuriated fiends, retreated across the bridge.
BATTLE OF ROSS—‘COME ON, BOYS! HER MOUTH’S STOPPED!’
George Cruikshank, with his native genius for selecting effective and sensational episodes for pictorial delineation, has seized an actual incident which more resembles the effort of a romancer’s imagination than an actuality of stern warfare. The illustration is founded upon one of the paragraphs given by Maxwell in confirmation of his statement that the hordes of rebels apparently courted destruction rather than safety.
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Says our historical authority:—‘One rebel, emboldened by fanaticism and drunkenness, advanced before his comrades, seized a gun, crammed his hat and wig into it, and cried out, “Come on, boys! her mouth is stopped!” At that instant the gunner laid the match to the gun and blew the unfortunate savage to atoms. Incredible as this instance of savage ignorance may appear, the fact has been verified by the affidavit of a person who saw it from a window.’
BATTLE OF ROSS—GENERAL JOHNSON RETRIEVES THE WANING FORTUNES OF THE DAY
It appeared, beyond the causes already related as having induced Harvey and his rebel myriads to feel confident of easily securing the strategically important town of Ross, that the insurgents had been induced to think that the militia regiments at Ross, from being almost entirely composed of Romanists, would have either joined them in the action, or offered a feeble opposition. The Clare regiment was considered friendly, and the Dublin County were believed not particularly loyal or trustworthy.The MS. Journal of a Field Officeris enlightening upon these points:—‘Be this as it may, their colonel, Lord Mountjoy, was heading them up the street leading to the Three-bullet Gate when he met his death by a traitorous shot, and the attachment which his men bore him superseded every other feeling but a desire for revenge. Although they had retired at first before the torrent, they rallied instantly, and showed no appearance of disaffection afterwards, but fought stoutly at Vinegar Hill. Lord M. was riding a little way ahead of the regiment when he was treacherously shot from a window by a baker’s boy. Such were the results of the fall of Furlong on the one side, and the death of Lord Mountjoy on the other.’
The forced abandonment of the bridge was a heavy repulse. Virtually the day was lost, for although a small party of the royalists, under Sergeant Hamilton, still held most gallantly a position in the vicinity of the Three-bullet Gate, had the insurgents followed up their success, a total and bloody defeat of the king’s troops must have been unavoidable. But, once within the town, drink and plunder engrossed the attention of the majority, while the admirable gallantry of that brave old man who commanded the retreating royalists retrieved the fortunes of the day.
Crossing to the Kilkenny side, General Johnson rallied the fugitives and urged them to follow him once more. ‘Will you desert your General?’ he exclaimed to the disheartened militia; but this appeal was coldly heard. ‘And your countryman, too?’ he added. The chord of national honour was touched, a cheer answered it, the old man wheeled his horse round, and, riding in front, brought back his rallied troops to the fight, and, rejoining the staunch few who still held the post beside the Three-bullet Gate, announced that a large reinforcement had just arrived from Waterford. When the fortune of a doubtful day is in the balance, a feather turns it frequently. Such was the case at Ross. The troops cheered, and plied their musketry with additional spirit and excellent effect, and, turning the rebel rear, put their massive column into a confusion which proved irretrievable, and at last, with desperate slaughter, drove them fairly from the town. The exhaustion of the garrison prevented anything being attempted beyond a brief pursuit in the direction of Corbet Hill, while the rebels made no effort to rally and renew the action, but went off dispersedly, some to their old camp at Carrickbyrne, and others to a new position which they had taken on a height called Slieve Keilter, some four miles’ distance from the town.
In this, the most sanguinary and hardly contested action of the insurrection, commencing at five in the morning and ending at three in the afternoon, the loss on both sides was immense, although in gross numbers wholly disproportionate. Musgrave states the rebels killed to have exceeded 2500, besides the many ‘carried off on cars.’ Before the walls, between Three-bullet and Bunnion Gates, and in the cross lanes and streets which led directly to the market-place, the slaughter was enormous.
In Chapel Lane the rebels lay three deep, and throughout the approaches to the main guard the streets were heaped with corpses.
The defence of this post, and the assistance afforded to the few brave men who held it, were characteristic of the desperate fighting which marks the uncompromising spirit that religious and political antipathies produce. A most gallant soldier, Sergeant Hamilton of the Donegal Regiment, with sixteen men and two ship-guns, indifferently mounted, were posted at the intersection of four streets in the immediate vicinity of the jail. When the troops retreated over the bridge, Hamilton was recommended to remove the spare ammunition he had in charge and quit a post where now he must remain isolated and unsupported. His reply was, ‘Never, but with life!’ and though frequently assailed by hundreds, he laned them literally with grape-shot, covering the approach to the guns with dead and dying men, and through every turn of a doubtful conflict resolutely maintaining his ground.
Although the leading streets were completely under his fire, the gallant sergeant was open to attack from a narrow lane immediately beside the main guard, where, sheltered from the cannon, the rebels could form in security; and, no doubt, from that point they would have carried the post by a sudden onset had not a fortunate circumstance afforded the Donegal soldiers protection from the threatened danger.
The house of a loyalist called Dowesley was in the Backhouse Lane, and occupied by the family and a lame pensioner. The part of the lane where the rebels were safe from the fire of Hamilton’s guns was, however, commanded by Dowesley’s windows; and whenever the insurgents attempted to form and attack the main guard, a close and constant fusilade from the little garrison of the house drove them from a place where they expected to find shelter while collecting for their intended attack. As fast as the muskets were discharged the old soldier quickly reloaded them, adding half a dozen buck-shot to the bullet, and so deadly was the fire from Dowesley’s dwelling that upwards of fifty bodies were found after the action heaped together in the lane.
Mr. Tottenham, the proprietor of Ross, employed six carts and a great many men for two entire days in collecting the bodies of the slain. Most of those found in the town were thrown into the river and carried off with the tide. The remainder were flung into a fosse outside the town wall and buried there. The conflict at Ross might have been shortened had the Roscommon regiment, which had been detached from Waterford early on the morning of the action, completed its march and brought its timely reinforcement to the exhausted garrison. It was also very fortunate the Roscommon regiment returned to Waterford that night, as the rebels, who were numerous and well organised there, meditated an insurrection, imagining Ross had been taken. The next day the Roscommon regiment moved a second time from Waterford and reached Ross with little opposition, although during the short interval which had occurred the country had risenen masse. On the adjacent hills parties of rebels were seen, and an arch of the Glynmore bridge had been partially broken, but the colonel planked it and passed his guns easily across. A body of rebels, who showed themselves upon a height, gave way after a round or two from the cannon, previously murdering fifteen of the refugee militiamen who had fled from Ross the day before, fell into these ruffians’ hands, and now paid the penalty of their cowardice.
With the battle of Ross subsequent atrocities, which have placed the Wexford insurrection fearfully pre-eminent in crime, were connected. One foul deed, the massacre at Scullabogue, infinitely surpassed all others, and, with the massacres perpetrated wholesale on Wexford Bridge and Vinegar Hill, has cast a stain on Irish character that another century will scarcely remove. One reads, almost with incredulity, of Autos-da-fe and Eves of St. Bartholomew, and blesses God, when he finds the narrative is true, that his lot was not cast in an age of cruelty and darkness. But the narration of scenes which discoloured the Irish rebellion makes one blush to think that the wolfish wretches who were the actors therein bore the common name of man. It is a revolting detail that historic impartiality forces on the writer, and it shall be briefly despatched.
MASSACRE AT SCULLABOGUE
When the rebels encamped on Carrickbyrne they established an outpost at the house of Scullabogue, which had been deserted by its proprietor, Captain King. A large barn was attached to the mansion; it was 34 feet long, 15 feet in breadth, and 12 feet high. This outhouse and the mansion itself had been made a prison wherein to deposit the unfortunate prisoners who by their loyalty or their difference in religious faith had incurred the displeasure of the rebels, and fell after the outbreak into their hands; and on the morning when the rebels marched on the attack of Ross, 230 ill-fated victims were then confined in a building, which proved at once their prison and their grave. A rebel guard was left to secure the captives, amounting to 300 men, under the command of three subordinate leaders, named Murphy of Loughnageer, Devereux, and Sweetman. The particulars of the butchery which took place on the fatal 5th of June will be best understood by abstracts from evidence upon oath, given on the trials of some of the monsters implicated in this hellish sacrifice. Any person who wishes for more extensive details of this most atrocious transaction will find them duly verified in the voluminous appendix attached to Musgrave’sMemoirs.
The depositions of sundry persons are briefly abridged. One who escaped the massacre, by the bribery of a rebel and the virtue of a priest’s protection, gives the following account of this horrible transaction. He states that, when the rebel army began to give way at Ross, an express was sent to Murphy to put the Protestant prisoners to death, as the king’s troops were gaining the day; but Murphy refused to comply without a direct order from the general. That he soon after received another message to the same purpose, with this addition, that ‘the prisoners, if released, would become very furious and vindictive.’ That, shortly after, a third express arrived, saying, ‘the priest gave orders that the prisoners should be put to death.’ That the rebels, on getting the sanction of the priest, became outrageous, and began to pull off their clothes, the better to perform the bloody deed. That, when they were leading the prisoners out from the dwelling-house to shoot them, he turned away from such a scene of horror, on which a rebel struck him with a pike upon the back, and said he would ‘let his guts out if he did not follow him!’ That he then attended the rebels to the barn, in which there was a great number of men, women, and children, and that the rebels were endeavouring to set fire to it, while the poor prisoners, shrieking and crying out for mercy, crowded to the back door of the building, which they forced open for the purpose of admitting air. That for some time they continued to put the door between them and the rebels, who were piking or shooting them. That, in attempting to do so, their hands or fingers were cut off. That the rebels continued to force into the barn bundles of straw to increase the fire. At last, that the prisoners having been overcome by the flame and smoke, their moans and cries gradually died away in the silence of death—and all became still.