The Battle of The Boyne, 1690 (part 11 of 14)

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The Boyne, 1690

A great deal had indeed been happening at Oldbridge and on the stretch of the river between Oldbridge and Drybridge, or from a mile to two and a half miles west of Drogheda. This was the place in which, had William been a better or a more enterprising general, the Jacobites might have been squeezed to death in the sack formed by the bend of the Boyne. In it the fighting was soon to be intense.
The morning was at first dull and when the right wing of the Williamites went off it was misty; but the day brightened with the mounting sun and the words of the song that the victors were to sing-'July the first, in a morning c1ear'-were justified. William, whose guns soon opened fire from the high ground above the ford at Oldbridge and who must have noted with anxiety that his opponents began 'very early' to strike their tents and to move off their baggage from Donore, delayed the attack which he was about to make with his centre and left for two reasons. He was anxious to give Douglas as much time as possible for his manreuvre, for it was still believed that right and left wings, encircling the Jacobites, could meet on the south bank, and he wanted the ebbing tide to have reduced the level of water at the fords before he attempted a crossing. He assembled his columns in the ravine which bears his name and, one supposes, behind the edge of the high ground, eetween his guns and the camp.
Opposite him the Jacobites were assembling too. They had at the beginning only two infantry regiments, Antrim's and Clanrickard's, close to tt~ river, but five more battalions, including a battalion of the Guards, were soon ordered down from the camp at Donore to support them. They looked like fighting, although they had done little to make a strongpoint of the village or to erect defences on the river bank. Lord Dungan's dragoons were over to the right, watching the lower ford opposite Drybridge. The Duke of Berwick's troop of the Life Guards and three regiments of horse of the right wing, Tyrconnell's, Parker's and Sutherland's, all under the command of Major-General Dominick Sheldon, were further back, on the rising ground. These troops, amounting, horse, foot and dragoons, to some 6,000 men, made up the whole Jacobite force that was to be in action within the bend of the river. When William developed his strength they would be outnumbered three to one.
The crossing began at Oldbridge about ten o'clock, 'at ebb tide when the water is not so deep'. It developed as time went on into a forward movement on a broad front involving crossings at two other fords further downstream, the one close by and the other at Drybridge.
Count Solms, who had proposed crossing there, was in command at Oldbridge. With him was the commanding general, the elder Schomberg. Solms's troops were all infantry. He had three battalions of Dutch Guards in front and these were followed by the Huguenot regiments of Caillemotte and Cambon and by some English regiments. They marched into the ford eight or ten abreast and their bodies dammed for the moment the flow of the river, so that the water, which when the Jacobites crossed a few days before had not been high enough to stop the drummers beating, now rose to the men's waists. The Dutch grenadiers must have been the first across. They were at once engaged, but their comrades followed quickly and, forming on the bank, tried to push forward. The Huguenots too crossed and deployed.

The history of the Battle of the Boyne, 1690 continues here

Taken from Irish Battles by G.A. Hayes-McCoy, published by Appletree Press. Further reading: A Little History of Ireland by Martin Wallace with illustrations by Ian McCullough. Click here for more information on the book.

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