The Siege of Derry 1689

by Richard Doherty

  Surrender demand from Conrad de Rosen, Marshal-General of all King James‘s Forces

  Declares, by these presents, to the commanders, officers, soldiers, and inhabitants of the City of Londonderry, that, in case they do not, betwixt this and Monday next, at six o’clock in the afternoon, being the first of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, agree to surrender the said place of Londonderry, unto the king, upon such conditions as may be granted to them, according to the instructions and power Lieutenant-General Hamilton formerly received from the king, that he will, forthwith, issue out his orders, from the barony of Innishowen and the sea coasts round about, as far as Charlemont, for the gathering together of their faction, whether protected or not, and cause them immediately to be brought to the walls of Londonderry, where it shall be lawful for those in the town (in case they have any pity for them,) to open the gates and receive them into the town, otherwise they will be forced to see their friends and nearest relations all starve for want of food; he being resolved not to leave one of them at home, nor any thing to maintain them. – And, that all hopes of succour may be taken away, by the landing of any troops in these parts from England, he further declares that in case they refuse to submit, he will, forthwith, cause all the said country to be immediately destroyed, that if any succours should be hereafter sent them from England, they may perish with them for want of food; besides which, he has a very considerable army, as well for the opposing of them in all places that shall be judged necessary, as for the protection of all the rest of his Majesty’s dutiful subjects, whose goods and chattels he promises to secure, destroying all the rest that cannot be conveniently brought into such places as he shall judge necessary to be preserved, and burning the houses and mills, not only of those that are in actual rebellion, but also of their friends and adherents, that no hopes of escaping may be left to any man; beginning this very day to send his necessary orders to all governors, and other commanders of his Majesty’s forces, at Coleraine, Antrim, Carrickfergus, Belfast, Dungannon, Charlemont, Belturbet, and Sligo; to Colonel Sarsfield, commanding a flying army at Ballyshanny [Ballyshannon]; Colonel Sutherland, commanding another towards Enniskillen; and the Duke of Berwick, another on Finn water; to cause all the men, women and children who are in any way related to those in Londonderry, or any where else, in open rebellion, to be forthwith brought to this place, without hopes of withdrawing further into the kingdom; that in case before the said Monday, the first of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, be expired, they do not send us hostages and other deputies, with a full and sufficient power to treat with us for the surrender of the said City of Londonderry, on reasonable conditions, they shall not, after that time, be admitted to any treaty whatsoever; and the army which shall continue the Siege, and will, with the assistance of God, soon reduce them, shall have orders to give no quarter, or spare either age or sex, in case they are taken by force; but, if they return to the obedience due to their natural Prince, he promises them, that the conditions granted to them in his Majesty’s name, shall be inviolably observed by all his Majesty’s subjects; and that he himself will have a care to protect them on all occasions, even to take their part, if any injury, contrary to agreement, should be done them, making himself responsible for the performance of the conditions on which they shall agree to surrender the said place of Londonderry to the king.

  Given under my hand this 30th day of June, 1689

  Le Marechal de Rosen

  Appendix Six

  Preparations for a siege

  In his work La défense des places, Vauban listed fifteen different sizes of towns and provided calculations for the requisite garrison, weapons, munitions and other stores needed to defend those against a siege. He included a six-bastion fortress which is close enough to Londonderry (six bastions and three half-bastions) to give an idea of what the master of siege warfare would have considered necessary to defend the city in 1689 in the face of a forty-eight-day siege (half the length of the siege of Derry). Noting that the fortress ought to have a peacetime garrison of 1,200 infantrymen with 100 cavalry and a skeleton staff, he recommended that, in wartime, this should increase to 3,600 infantry with 360 cavalry, a staff of 200 and 120 gunners, eighty bombardiers and forty miners. It will be seen that the infantry strength was about half of that at Derry in April 1689 although the cavalry strength was about equal to the size of Murray’s Regiment.

  Vauban would have considered the artillery strength in the city to be too small as his recommendation was for sixty cannon, with a stock of 24,000 cannon balls, thirty mortars with 15,600 bombs and grenades, sixty wall-muskets and 3,000 spare muskets. For the artillery, mortars and muskets a store of 340,000 pounds of powder, 300,000 lengths of match cord and 419,240 pounds of lead was necessary. The rations for this garrison (and civilian mouths are not considered in Vauban’s figures) included 366 tons of grain and rice; 71.2 tons of beef, twenty-four tons of mutton (for sick or wounded officers); twenty-four tons of veal (for wounded rank and file); nineteen tons of cheese; about 900 pounds of plums for the sick; 5,051 boxes of onions; 945 gallons of wine; 28,875 gallons of beer and 3,780 gallons of whiskey, the latter to be issued at the rate of two small tots per day. He also recommended a tobacco ration and a regular regime of fast days that would help the garrison prepare for possible hardships in the course of the siege. In addition he recommended that the commanders ensured that water cisterns were kept clean and full, that weaponry was tested and inspected on a regular basis and that close attention be paid to the overall state of the defences. Consider all this in the light of the preparations made at Londonderry in the months before the siege and it will be seen that Robert Lundy did his best for the city with what was available.

  Vauban also provided a timetable for the besieging of such a six-bastion fortress. (Interestingly, although the master of siege warfare, he never believed that fortresses should be considered impregnable.) This timetable suggested that a well-appointed fortress, defended by a determined garrison, would fall after forty-eight days. Having allowed nine days for the investing of the fortress, the collection of material and the circumvallation, Vauban reckoned that the attackers should have a fair breach created within a further twenty days and a practicable breach by the thirty-first day. The capture of the breach would then take another two days, followed by an additional two days for the surrender of the town. Even allowing for errors and delays caused by the courage of the defenders and possible sorties, it should be possible to take the fortress by the forty-eighth day.

  In another book, l‘Attaque des places, Vauban stressed the necessity to prepare well in advance for a siege so that all the manpower, artillery and engineer equipment should be available at the appointed time. This the Jacobites were unable to do and this proved their eventual undoing even though it was possible that the city could have been taken by a shock attack, even by a small force, in the immediate aftermath of the battle of the fords.

  Appendix Seven

  The Gunners’ Role

  One of the most important elements in siege warfare was the artillery to the extent that a siege may be described as an extended artillery duel. As we have already noted, the guns of the besieging force were usually sited by an engineer, it being accepted that engineers, men of the profession that designed defences, were also best qualified to oversee the destruction of defences. Once appropriate gunsites, or batteries, had been identified, the construction task was undertaken by pioneers; these were labourers, often locally-recruited, who dug out the emplacements, laid firm platforms on which to position the guns and built defences for the guns and their detachments. (The men who man an artillery piece are referred to collectively as a detachment rather than a crew, which is a naval term.) Ditches and gabion walls were the usual forms of defence for the gun platforms; gabion walls were built from large wicker baskets filled with earth. These could be fronted by fascines, or bundles of rods, to provide protection from musket fire for
the gunners and their assistants.

  The normal practice was that each battery would be commanded by a master gunner, whose role was to direct and co-ordinate the fire of the guns on that site and ensure that nothing went wrong. This master gunner had to be experienced in the science of artillery – it is significant that the defenders had only a single master gunner – but he would have had a small number of men with artillery experience under his command. These were the mattrosses who actually served the guns. Theirs was a dangerous occupation as gunners often perished due to accidents with powder during the loading process, or from poisoning, while enemy musketry or direct cavalry or infantry attacks were also perils of the gunner’s life. To try to reduce the latter risk it was a common practice for gun detachments to add their own refinement to their battery’s defences by planting sharpened stakes in the ground to deter cavalry attacks – this was the gunners’ version of the hedge of pikes.

  Veteran gunners were rare since the risks of their profession did not allow too many gunners to achieve the status of veteran. This was one of the problems that the Jacobite army faced during the siege. Most of their gunners were French since there had been no experienced Catholic Irishmen to recruit into the Jacobite artillery. However, the three dozen French gunners who came to the city could not have provided all the manpower needed and so some local personnel would have been included. This would have created a communication problem since the Irishmen would not have been able to speak French and while the latter might have included English-speaking officers it is unlikely that there were any Frenchmen with a working knowledge of Gaelic. Since the pioneers were invariably also locally-recruited civilians, the level of discipline would have been much lower than with professional soldiers. Similar problems existed with the gunners inside the city although there was no language barrier in their ranks. There is no evidence to suggest that the master gunner, Alexander Watson, had many professionals in his gun detachments but it is probable that a few of those Protestants with artillery experience had made their way north.

  What was the nature of the gunners’ work both within and without the city? An individual gun detachment would have followed the same procedures in either army and the outline below, therefore, applies to both sides. The only real difference between the opposing artillery elements was that the Jacobite guns were mounted on field carriages whereas those inside the city were on garrison carriages. Replicas of the latter may be seen on the cannon on Londonderry city walls today. Sadly, a recent restoration project has seen a number of the city’s cannon mounted incorrectly on field carriages while those mounted on garrison carriages lack rear trucks, or wheels; weapons so fitted would have been very difficult to manoeuvre and would have ‘dug in’ rather than recoiled after firing.

  When an artillery piece was emplaced on its battery and brought into action for the first time, the barrel1 was pointed in the general direction of the target. If no elevation or depression of the barrel was necessary and the barrel was parallel to the ground, the piece was said to be firing ‘point blank’. This would often have been the case with guns firing at relatively short range which is how that term has come to mean close-range shooting. However, there were tasks to be performed before the gun was aimed at the target. The weapon had to be loaded, a procedure that began with a mattross using a powder shovel, or ladle, on the end of a long shaft to place a measured charge of black powder in the barrel. The shaft had to be long enough for the mattross to place the charge at the extreme end of the barrel; when he had the shaft in place he turned it over so that the powder was placed at the ‘breach’ end. It was a matter of pride that the correct amount of powder was always lifted in the ladle. Likewise, professional pride considered it a ‘foul fault for a gunner to commit’ to leave even a small amount of grain on the ladle when the weapon had been loaded. Some armies were already using pre-measured linen or canvas bags, or charges, of powder, but this was not so in Britain, although the French had introduced the system. Thus the gunners inside the walls would have used the old system while those outside the walls might have been employing either that or pre-measured charges; however, the former is more likely. There were recommended charges for every type of gun although it was not for almost another four decades, in the 1720s, that these became scientific calculations rather than based on the experience of gunners. While too much powder in the charge created the danger of bursting the barrel or ‘bushing’ – widening – the touch-hole, too little reduced both the range and the effect of the round.

  Powder was usually stored in barrels that held a quintal, or a hundredweight (112 pounds or 50.8 kilos), and was brought to the gun by a civilian labourer or a gunner’s assistant. In this era all powder was of the form known as blackpowder. Such was its composition that it led quickly to fouling of either gun or musket barrels and created great clouds of dense black smoke over the battlefield – the fog of war that obscured the field. This also meant that the barrel had to be cleaned out regularly. (English and French powder differed in composition: the former included 75 parts saltpetre, 10 parts sulphur and 15 parts charcoal while the latter included the same proportion of saltpetre but with equal proportions of sulphur and charcoal.)

  A wad of rags was then placed in the barrel and rammed tight on top of the charge by the civilian before the round was rolled into the weapon. This latter task was often performed by a boy who might have been the son of a soldier, perhaps of a gunner, and who, if he were not deafened prematurely, mutilated or killed, might even have grown up to be a professional gunner himself. If the gun was firing point blank the round would have been pushed down to rest against the charge; if there was any elevation on the barrel gravity would have performed that task. More wadding, in the form of rags or even a piece of earth, was then placed in the barrel and rammed home by a civilian rammer.

  At this stage the gun was aimed by the master gunner. First, it was ‘laid’ for line, or direction of fire, by sighting along the centre-line of the barrel and then the angle of elevation was set by hammering a quoin2, or wedge, backwards or forwards under the rear end of the barrel. This was before the era of the elevating screw, which would make the process of elevation much simpler and faster. Quoins may be seen on the surviving cannon on the city walls. In fact, most gunners recognized only two methods of aiming: point-blank and elevating the barrel to 45 degrees which was believed widely, but wrongly, to allow maximum range.

  Now came the final stage: that of firing the weapon. The master gunner placed priming powder – a finer mix than that in the charge – in the hole on top of the barrel by using a quill and the detachment then stood back while the senior mattross ignited the primer. This was not done by standing alongside the gun. Instead the mattross stood a safe distance from the piece and with a slow match, a length of matchcord, held on a long pole known as a porte-feu (literally fire-carrier) to reduce the possibility of casualties from accidental explosions, ignited the priming powder. The round was discharged to the accompaniment of a great explosion, which pushed the gun back on its carriage. Then the process of readying the gun to fire the next round could begin.

  Preparation for each further shot differed in one critical respect. Before the loading drill could begin the barrel had to be sponged out with a long-handled wet sponge which was wormed into it along its entire length. This was intended to ensure that any smouldering remains from the last charge of powder were extinguished – it also cleaned the barrel – and while one gun detachment member was wielding the sponge or scourer another would be holding his thumb, protected by a leather thumbstall, over the touch hole as an additional safety precaution. Failing to take this two-part safety measure might have had fatal consequences for the rammer later. Had the barrel not been sponged thoroughly there was the possibility that, as the rammer shoved home the wadding, ball and charge, smouldering embers from the previous charge might ignite the fresh charge to blow the charge, rammer and ramrod out of the gun position. Thus it is little surprise that rammers were invariab
ly civilians and that many deserted.

  Once reloaded, the gun had to be pushed back to the firing position where the aiming process resumed. There was no mechanism to compensate for recoil and so continued accurate firing depended entirely on the skill and experience of the gunner. The sole advantage that arose from the recoil was that it placed the gun in position for reloading.

  Contemporary artillery could fire a variety of munitions, including the familiar solid round shot or cannon ball. In addition, there were hollow balls, or ‘shells’, filled with powder and fitted with a fuse, as well as case shot, a forerunner of shrapnel. The latter was simply a charge of assorted pieces of metal, musket balls or even stones and was devastating when used against formed bodies of infantry or cavalry. Explosive shells were not entirely reliable since the burning time of the fuse, a length of matchcord, was difficult to determine with any real accuracy. It had even become the practice to apply a light to a length of match and recite the Apostles’ Creed as it burned. This was then used to estimate the length of fuse needed for each shell that was fused by an offcut of that length of match. The Text Book ofAmmunition noted that ‘In the 17th century the repetition of the Apostles’ Creed was one of the Proof-master’s favourite measurements of time, and . . . it could scarcely be said to have constituted a standard of accuracy’.

  We have already noted (Chapter One) the artillery requirements of a besieging force. Although the Jacobite army of 1689 lacked the full complement of artillery required to bring the city of Londonderry under control of King James, it nonetheless made effective use of the ordnance at its disposal. The guns of the attacking force had two basic tasks to perform: crumbling the walls of the city – bombardment – and neutralizing the defenders’ artillery – counter-battery fire. Bombardment was the role of the heavier guns, preferably 24-pounders or larger, which would also be used against the enemy’s artillery positions in counter-battery fire. Lighter guns could also be used in this latter role as well as against infantry or cavalry. Counter-battery fire involved duelling with the defending artillery in order to draw the attention of those guns from the bombarding pieces and, also, firing at the tops of the walls to force the infantry to keep under cover.