Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/75

 would follow him to so perilous a service. In the second charge three men only accompanied him, one of whom was killed and another received a bayonet wound in the face, while Captain Tupper was himself slightly wounded in the left side by a bullet, — another perforated his cap, — and a Spanish sergeant made a blow at him with a fixed bayonet, which he struck down with his sabre, and it went through his leg. The bushes, however, favored their escape, and, after being nearly surrounded, they rejoined the battalion, which had retreated a short distance. Colonel Beau- chef, as a " dernier ressort," now boldly resolved on attacking the enemy in close column. Animated by their gallant commander, the men formed, although had retreated, and carried the position at the point of the bayonet, pursuing the royalists for about half a mile. But the field was dearly purchased, the detach- ment engaged of scarcely five hundred men having three hundred and twenty killed and wounded, inclu- ding thirteen out of eighteen officers, and seventy-one of one hundred and thirty-six grenadiers composing the vanguard. The division having thus suffered so severely, and the nature of the country being so favorable to its defenders, Colonel Beauchef returned next day to the ships ; and the lateness of the season, added to the intelligence of the arrival in the Pacific, from Spain, of the Asia, of 64 guns, and Achilles brig, of 20 guns, compelled the squadron to sail for Chile.* The latter vessel is the same which Colonel Tupper attempted, in 1830, to carry by boarding. He was rewarded with a brevet majority for his con- duct in this disastrous affair, and he wrote nearly


 * Vide Appendix C, No. 2.

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