Gunboat nº23. Sunk on the river Ebro at Amposta in august 1813

Amposta today

 

In august 1813, the French armies in the Spanish peninsular were in full retreat. Wellington’s victory over King Jose Napoleon at the battle of Vitoria had left no doubt that an end was in sight to the 5 years of unrelenting war and occupation that had ravaged the territory and its people. 

However, on the Eastern coast of Spain, where the allies were weak, the French withdrawal was turning out to be a somewhat slower and more hazardous affair. 

Louis Gabriel Suchet

The French Marshall, Loius Gabriel Suchet, had abandoned his Valencian fiefdom, reluctantly, and was now making his way northward via Catalonia with his fighting divisions still intact. Following him closely were two allied armies; a Spanish corps commanded by the Duque del Parque and a small Anglo-Sicilian army commanded by Lord William Bentinck. These were supported by a powerful Royal navy fleet commanded by Admiral Benjamin Hallowell. 

As he withdrew, the French commander left behind garrisons at various fortified towns along the route in a bid to slow down the progress of the forces, who were shadowing him. These strongholds, such as Sagunto and Tortosa, were simply bypassed by the allies, who left them under observation by small blocking forces.

In order to facilitate the Spanish advance into Catalonia, crossing points had to be established on the river Ebro. Once across, these troops would join Bentinck’s force already disembarked on the Tarragona plain.

One such crossing was at the small town of Amposta, where pontoons and rafts, basically planked over boats, were set up to be pulled across by a system of hawsers.

Pontoons from a later conflict

Despite the importance of this operation, it fell to a low ranking Royal Navy Lieutenant to supervise the ferrying across of vast numbers of troops, cavalry, artillery and the baggage train of the Spanish Corps. 

And so it was that Lieutenant John Bowie, a veteran of the sieges of Flushing, Cadiz, Tarifa and Tarragona came to navigate his small 16 metre long gunboat nº23 up river to that point, where he was to be assisted by ninety Spanish sailors with eighteen boats earmarked for ferrying troops.

Some busy days followed, and after the bulk of the Spanish army had crossed the river, Bowie and his crew, together with the Spanish sailors, were able to rest while still remaining  on station in readiness for a Spanish division which had been delayed. 

Amposta in 1912

The last of the Duque del Parque’s cattle had been ferried across on the 4^th and general Sarsfield’s division wasn’t expected until the following day, so, things were relatively calm.

The naval Lieutenant had been assured by Spanish officers that any apprehension about the enemy garrison coming down from Tortosa, nine miles upstream, was unwarranted as they did not pose a threat. After all, there was a 5000 strong Spanish covering force, under the command of general VillaCampa, placed in and around the town for their protection. 

Nevertheless, that very night this entire force broke camp and moved out without anyone so much as taking the time to inform those at the crossing, and so, the town, the boats and the pontoons were left unprotected.  

At half past five in the morning of the 5^th, Bowie and his men, already awake and busy on the boat, were alerted by some commotion coming from the town that signalled something was definitely afoot:

“I was told that troops were coming towards the town by every path. I supposed they were those of general Sarsfield’s and got ready accordingly. I was afterwards told they were running, and chiefly from the Tortosa road…” 

Still unsure of what was going on, and with the approaching troops as of yet unidentified, events began to take shape at an alarmingly dramatic pace:

“…the people of the town were flying in all directions most of whom told me the troops were French, but some of those people said to me that they were certainly Spanish…”

Discretion being the better part of valour, Lieutenant Bowie thought it prudent to get his gunboat further away from that side of the river, being then only ten yards from the bank. What happened next came as a complete surprise, as the men were busy on the deck of the boat:

“I was…fired upon from the houses and walls…” 

The situation had rapidly got out of control. Anything up to 3000 French soldiers were pouring into the town unopposed, and to compound matters the width of the river would not allow the gunboat to retire to a safe distance out of pistol shot from the bank. Where Gunboat 23 was stationed, the river was only 150 yards wide with a bank of sand between her and the opposite left bank, which rendered it impossible to put her in a position out of close fire…:

Bowie: “…the enemy kept firing volleys on the decks.  I tried to get my gun to bear on them, but in the attempt had one man killed and three wounded, being every man at the tackle fall. It was impossible for me to keep the men at the gun under such a heavy fire as was opened at the vessel…”

Bowie could not simply drop down the river either as he would have to pass enemy troops on the banks at between twelve or fifteen yards distance, so narrow was the passage...

Amposta on the river Ebro today

The situation was becoming more desperate by the minute, puffs of smoke on the shore were immediately followed by the dull thud of the impact of lead balls on the sides of the boat:

“After having two more men killed and one wounded, I saw I could have no hopes of saving the boat or people if they remained on deck; I therefore allowed them to jump overboard and get on shore, which some of them did…”

Not all the men could reach the safety of the opposite bank this way, some had been wounded and were thus unable to brave the currents of the river, these men scrambled to get on the Bowspirit shrouds and bobstays, where they could hang from the side of the boat, using the hull as cover from the musketry that was sweeping the deck. 

At this stage, Bowie showed remarkable cool headedness as he set about prioritising the safety of these poor men:

“I told them to remain where they were and that I would hurl up the small boat from the stern for them, the enemy still keeping up a very heavy fire, I however succeeded in getting the boat forward without any further injury to any one than a slight wound in my knee…”

Seeing that there was no way out, the naval Lieutenant’s next thought was to make sure that the boat would not fall into enemy hands. With presence of mind and focussed on the task in hand, he momentarily left the wounded men and descended to his cabin, where, with the aid of the boat’s Carpenter, he smashed a hole in the hull in order to scuttle the vessel. Then, hurrying back on deck, Bowie cut a hawser that crossed the river to haul the Pontoons over with, and sheered the vessel on a sand bank.

“I then put the wounded men into the small boat, and sent them onshore…”

Swimming to join his men on the opposite bank, Bowie, whose jacket by now was perforated with several holes courtesy of the French musketry, saw that their escape was still far from certain. Unarmed and shaken, the Lieutenant and his men, some bleeding from musket ball wounds, saw that the French were coming after them:

“The enemy’s troops were now coming over to me in several boats and one pontoon, bringing with them a few horses; but the Hawser being cut they could not get over very fast, which gave us more time.”

With so much happening and so quickly, Bowie’s actions once on shore are further testament to his courage and intelligence:

“The French troops landed on the left bank and pursued us, but I had procured a cart for the wounded men and was enabled to get out of reach of the infantry. I conclude that the pontoons with the cavalry stuck in the middle of the river, as we were not pursued by horse.”

Had the French horseman made it to the left bank, the party of Englishmen would, without a doubt, have been taken prisoner. But, what mattered now was to see that the wounded men received prompt medical attention, and for this purpose the group set off north along the dusty coastal road. Around 9 o’clock, they heard an explosion, The enemy finding they could not get the gunboat away blew her up…

Now the group would have to trundle along in the heat all day for nearly 30 miles, every imperfection in the road’s uneven surface sending a jolt through the bodies of the men lying in the carts. 

“I made every effort to get the wounded men as quick as possible to a surgeon; & by pressing carts and mules, I arrived with the whole of my remaining crew the same evening at Hospitalet, where I put them on board of a transport and removed the wounded men to the Invincible, in Salou bay by midnight.

Lieutenant Bowie was taken on board the flagship Malta (80), where two days later, at anchor in Tarragona Bay, he sat down to pen his five page report for the commander of the fleet, Rear Admiral Benjamin Hallowell. The loss of any vessel had to be accounted for, and in the event, it was quite likely that Bowie would have to explain himself in front of a Courts Martial. 

Be that may, as he sat and wrote, his thoughts were on the plight of others. He was haunted by scenes he had witnessed on the river before he and his crew had made their escape north, and although these scenes bore no relation to  the actual loss of the boat, the Lieutenant couldn’t help recording them for posterity in the last paragraph of his letter:

“I cannot omit mentioning the treatment of the French troops to the poor defenceless inhabitants of Amposta, some were on the river in boats trying to get away; others finding themselves too closely pursued, remained on the bank of the river without making any further effort to escape. The troops fired without distinction upon men, women and children; whose screams were dreadful.”

I have the honour to be…

John Bowie

British napoleonic era Gunboat

Postscript: I have contacted the archaeologists of the CASC about this boat and have been informed by them that they will possibly investigate with divers this summer.

John Bowie was subject to a Courts Martial for the loss of his gunboat, but was, however, acquitted of any wrongdoing and was, in fact, congratulated by the judge for his valour. It must be added that the version reported in the press, after the event, differs slightly from the original report written by Bowie, which has served as the basis for this article. It is kept at the National Archive in Kew, London.

Other sources:

Reminiscences of a Naval officer during the late war. By Captain A. Crawford. London 1851. Volume II, pg 273.

Colburn’s United Service Magazine and naval and military journal, London 1844 Part III, Volumen 46, page 74.