149 June 18th, 1815. At daylight on the morning of the 17th, the army having come up, the Duke of Wellington showed his whole force, and in a manner challenged the enemy to fight; but as they did not seem inclined to accept the challenge, and as he had learned in the course of the morning that Marshal Blücher had continued his retrograde movement upon Gembloux, where the 4th corps of his army, under General Bulow, had joined him, and that he had decided on concentrating his whole force in the environs of Wavre, still more in the rear; the Duke determined also to retire upon the position in front of the village of Waterloo. The movements intended by the two commanders were mutually communicated to each other; and the Duke, in stating his arrangements to the Field-marshal, added that it was his intention to defend the position which he had chosen, and requested, if the enemy should attack next day, that he (Field-marshal Blücher) would support him with two divisions of his army. Blücher replied, that he was ready to support the British army with his whole force; stating at the same time, that it was his opinion, should Buonaparte not attack, that they ought to attack him next day with their united armies. About eleven o'clock on the forenoon of the 17th, orders were given for the infantry to move to the rear, while the cavalry and some light troops took up a position in front. The enemy remained quietly on the ground he had occupied the preceding night, in front of the British line. Buonaparte, who had left about 20,000 infantry, and General Pajol's division of cavalry, under the orders of Marshal Grouchy, to watch the motions of the Prussian army, proceeded with the remainder of his force to the position which the troops under Marshal Ney occupied; but before his arrangements were completed, and his orders given for his army to advance, our infantry had nearly finished their march, and were about to take up their ground in the new position. His troops advanced in strong columns of attack; but when they reached the heights above the village of Frasnes, Buonaparte found, to his great surprise, that the British army had retreated, and that the troops against which his columns were advancing were nothing more than a strong rear-guard, which fell back as He ordered his cavalry immediately to his troops advanced. advance in pursuit, and his columns of infantry continued their march in the direction of Brussels. Buonaparte, who was with his advance, kept his cavalry up with our rear-guard during the whole of the day. The French army, when it found no enemy to oppose its progress during the day, is said to have believed, with its usual levity, that the greater part of the British force was destroyed, and that the remainder were flying to the ships at Antwerp and Ostend. The position which the British army now took up had been chosen with great judgment, from its proximity to the extensive forest of Soignies. The village of Waterloo lies upon the great road from Brussels to Charleroi, embosomed in the forest; and a few scattered houses extend to another small village called Mount St. John; about a quarter of a mile in front of this latter village there is a rising ground, which crosses the great road already mentioned, and extends from a farm-house, called Ter-laHaye, on the left, to the village of Merbe-le-Braine on the right, crossing also the road from Brussels to Nivelles, which diverges from the road to Charleroi at the village of Mount St. John. It was on this rising ground that the Allied army, commanded by Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington, or, more properly, the 1st corps of that army, took up its position on the evening of the 17th of June. The 2d corps, under the command of Lord Hill (with the exception of the 4th Division and the troops of the Netherlands, under Prince Frederick of Orange, who were left to guard an important position at Halle), was placed in reserve on the right of the position, and in front of the village of Merbe-le-Braine, with its right resting on Braine-la-Leud. The infantry bivouacked a little under the ridge of the rising ground, and the cavalry in the hollow ground in rear of the infantry. Excepting a few round shot, which the enemy occasionally fired while our troops were deploying into their position, nothing of any moment occurred during that afternoon or the whole of the night. It had rained almost incessantly during the greater part of the 17th, and the weather was very tempestuous during the night. The ground afforded no cover for the troops; so that generals, officers, and men, were equally exposed to the rain, which fell in torrents. Buonaparte slept at the farm-house of Caillou, near Planchenoit; and his army halted in the neighbourhood of Ge nappe. The Duke of Wellington slept at a small public-house in the village of Waterloo. This night, which was dreadful to the soldier, must have been still more so to the wretched inhabitants of the country which the armies occupied; obliged to abandon their humble dwellings in despair, they had fled to the deep recesses of the forest for security, and in the hope of saving their lives. The rich crops of grain, which were fast hastening to maturity, were trodden under foot, or eaten up by the cavalry, and the helpless, farmer saw the labour of a whole year destroyed in a single day; houses of all kinds were destroyed or burnt to ashes; and the inhabitants, herding in the forest, must have felt uncertain even of their own fate, should chance have conducted any of the plundering banditti to their lonely retreat. The French officers who have written the account of the battle of Waterloo assure us that Buonaparte, as well as his army, believed that the Duke of Wellington had continued his retreat during the night, and it is said he expressed himself as quite delighted when he found, on the morning of the 18th, that our troops still occupied the ground they had taken up the night before. Afraid, as it would seem, that we might still steal away, the most pressing orders were sent to hasten up his columns from the rear, that he might commence the attack which was to annihilate us. As soon as daylight appeared on the morning of the 18th, the British army could perceive, from its position, immense masses of the enemy moving in every direction, and by two o'clock the whole of his force appeared to be collected on the heights and in the ravines which ran parallel with the British position. The French army, when concentrated in front of our position, consisted of four corps of infantry, including the Guard, and three corps of cavalry; and if the report of a staff-officer of that army is to be credited, it presented an effective grand total of one hundred and twenty thousand men. A little to the left of the road from Brussels to Nivelles, and in the hollow ground in front of the British line, there is a gentleman's country-house with its appendages, called Hougomont. [For a more detailed account of the splendid achievement which the British infantry performed in the defence of this never-to-be-forgotten spot, vide article following this, p. 159.] A walled garden, with a considerable orchard, and several acres of wood, surround the house, and extend for a considerable way into the plain. The Duke of Wellington had occupied this house, as also the garden and wood, with a part of Major-general Cooke's division of the Guards, and a regiment of the troops of Nassau. It was a post of the utmost importance; for while it was held, the enemy could not approach our right. Buonaparte also saw the importance of that position, and the necessity which there was for his getting possession of it; he sent orders to Marshal Ney, who commanded the left wing of his army, to direct such a force upon Hougomont as should at once take possession of it. It was now eleven o'clock, and everything seemed to indicate that the awful contest was about to commence. The weather had cleared up, and the sun shone a little as the battle begun; and the armies being within 800 yards of each other, the Duke of Wellington, with his usual quickness, had soon perceived the nature of the attacks that would be made upon his line; and when the troops stood to their arms in the morning, he gave orders that they should be formed into squares of half-battalions, and in that state to await the enemy's attack. Marshal Ney, as soon as Buonaparte's order was communicated to him, directed the division of infantry commanded by Jerome Buonaparte to advance upon Hougomont; and about half-past eleven o'clock the first columns of this division made their appearance upon the ravine, or rather hollow ground, which leads down from the public-house of La Belle Alliance to the château. The two brigades of artillery belonging to General Cooke's division had taken up a position on the ridge of the hill, in front of the line of infantry, and the moment the enemy made his appearance, our nine-pounders opened upon his columns. The artillery-officers had got the range so accurately, that almost every shot and shell fell in the very centre of his masses; so great was the effect produced by these few guns, that all Jerome's bravery could not make his fellows advance, and in a moment they were again hid by the rising ground, from under cover of which they had but just emerged. This, which was the commencement of the action, was considered a very favourable omen by our brave fellows who witnessed it; and for a short time they were much amused with the manoeuvres of Jerome's division, and the cautious manner in which it seemed to emerge from its hiding-place. This state of things, however, did not continue long, as other great movements were observed to be preparing throughout the enemy's line. A powerful artillery was brought to bear upon our guns that had so annoyed his first advance, and General Jerome's troops gained the outskirts of the wood, where they became engaged with our light troops. By mid-day the cannonade was general. The great road from Brussels to Charleroi ran through the centre of the British position. Upon the right of this road, and upon the declivity of what is properly called the height or Mount of Saint John, there is a large farm-house with offices, called La Hayte Sainte, which are surrounded by a high wall. The garden attached to this house, which has only a brush-wood fence, runs for about fifty yards into the plain. This formed another covering point of importance, which the Duke had taken care to occupy with a considerable force of the light troops of the King's German Legion. The great object of Buonaparte in this important battle was evidently to force our centre, and at the same time turn our right flank; so that by surrounding and taking prisoners, as it were, one half of our line, he might completely paralyse and destroy the effect of the other half. Unfortunately, our centre was the weakest part of our position, and upon that part he directed his first grand attack to be made about noon. An immense mass of infantry, followed by a column of upwards of twelve thousand cavalry, advanced upon the points occupied by the 3d and 5th Divisions, and the left of the Guards, covered by a fire from upwards of one hundred pieces of artillery. These columns, which seemed to advance with a certainty of suc |