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Before attacking the fortress it was necessary to capture one of the outlying forts, and that known as the Picurina was selected, because the bastion of the Trinidad, which lay behind it, was the weakest portion of the fortress.
The Picurina was strong, and desperately defended, but it was captured after a furious assault, which lasted one hour, and cost nineteen officers and three hundred men. It was not, however, until next evening that the fort could be occupied, for the guns of the town poured such a hail of shot and shell into it, that a permanent footing could not be obtained in it.
On the night of the 25th, an assault was made on the strong fort on the Picurina; which was captured after desperate fighting, and the loss of 19 officers and 300 men, killed and wounded. On the following day the trenches were opened for the attack upon the town itself.
From time to time, news came from that town. The siege had begun on the 17th of March, the attack being made on a fortified hill called the Picurina; but at first the progress was slow.
The babe did not survive her; and, to complete the sad story, her husband fell a few weeks later before Badajoz, while assaulting the Picurina Gate with fifty axemen of the Light Division. Beneath these blows of fate my father did indeed bow his head, yet bravely.
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