At the beginning of this dreadful conflict, colonel 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, that no command could 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! Yet officers of all stations, followed more or less numerously by the men, were seen to start out, as if struck by a sudden madness, and rush into the breach, which yawning and glittering with steel, seemed like the mouth of some huge dragon belching forth smoke and flame. In one of these attempts, colonel Macleod of the forty-third, 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, there his soldiers 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, and continuing his course was shot dead within a yard of the sword-blades. But there was no want of gallant leaders, or desperate followers. Two hours spent in these vain efforts convinced the soldiers that 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 troops 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?_” [Sidenote: Now lieut.-col. Shaw Kennedy.]