STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. 158The allies now plunged into the streets from all quarters; after which, throwing off the restraints of discipline, frightful excesses were committed. The town was fired in three or four places; the soldiers menaced their officers, and shot each other; many were killed in the market-place; intoxication soon increased the disorder; and at last, the fury rising to an absolute madness, a fire was wilfully lighted in the middle of the great magazine, when the town, and all in it, would have been blown to atoms, but for the energetic courage of some officers and a few soldiers, who still preserved their senses. Three hundred French had fallen, fifteen hundred were made prisoners; and beside the immense store of ammunition, above one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery were captured in the place. The whole loss of the allies was about twelve hundred soldiers, and ninety officers; and of these above six hundred and fifty men, and sixty officers, had been slain or hurt in the breaches. General Crauford and General Mackinnon were killed. With these died many gallant men, and amongst others, a captain in the regiment to which I belonged. Of him it was felicitously said, that ‘three generals and seventy other officers had fallen; but the soldiers fresh from the strife only talked of Hardyman.’ Unhappily, the slaughter did not end with the battle; for the next day, as the prisoners and their escort were marching out by the breach, an accidental explosion took place, and numbers of both were blown into the air. The personal sufferings of the soldiers were severe, as the service had been unusually dangerous. While in the front ditch near the glacis, a live shell exploded within a few paces of the spot on which I stood. We threw ourselves flat on the ground, but though nearly suffocated by the dust it threw around, no material injury was inflicted either on myself or comrades.