Hougomont was the key of the duke’s position, a post naturally of considerable strength, and care had been taken to increase it. It was garrisoned by the light companies of the Coldstream and 1st and 3rd Guards; while a detachment from General Byng’s brigade was formed on an eminence behind, to support the troops defending the house and the wood on its left. Three hundred Nassau riflemen were stationed in the wood and garden; but the first attack of the enemy dispersed them. To carry Hougomont, the efforts of the second corps were principally directed throughout the day. This fine corps, thirty thousand strong, comprised three divisions, and each of these, in quick succession, attacked the well-defended farmhouse. The advance of the assailants was covered by a tremendous cross-fire of nearly one hundred pieces, while the British guns in battery on the heights above, returned the cannonade, and made fearful havoc in the dense columns of the enemy as they advanced or retired from the attack. Although the French frequently occupied the wood, it afforded them indifferent shelter from the musketry of the troops defending the house and garden; for the trees were but slight, and planted far asunder. Foy’s division passed entirely through and gained the heights in the rear; but it was driven back with immense loss by part of the Coldstream and 3rd Guards. At last, despairing of success, the French artillery opened with shells upon the house; the old tower of Hougomont was quickly in a blaze; the fire reached the chapel, and many of the wounded, both assailants and defenders, perished miserably there. But still, though the flames raged above, shells burst around, and shot ploughed through the shattered walls and windows, the Guards nobly held the place, and Hougomont remained untaken. The attack against the position of Hougomont lasted, on the whole, from twenty-five minutes before twelve until a little past seven at night. Within half an hour one thousand five hundred men were killed in the small orchard at Hougomont, not exceeding four acres. The loss of the enemy was enormous. The division of General Foy alone lost about three thousand; and the total loss of the enemy in the attack of this position is estimated at ten thousand in killed and wounded. Above six thousand men of both armies perished in the farm of Hougomont; six hundred British were killed in the wood; twenty-five in the garden; one thousand one hundred in the orchard and meadow; four hundred men near the farmer’s garden; two thousand of both parties behind the great orchard. The bodies of three hundred British were buried opposite the gate of the chateau; and those of six hundred French were buried at the same place.