Combat of La Serna. (July, 1812.)
During the few hours of darkness succeeding the battle of Salamanca, Clausel with a wonderful diligence passed the Tormes at Alba; but Wellington also crossed that river with his left wing at daylight, and moving up stream overtook the French on the Almar rivulet, near the village of La Serna, and launched his cavalry against them. Their squadrons fled from Anson’s troopers, abandoning three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were making up a hollow slope, hoping to gain the crest of some heights before the pursuing cavalry could fall on, and the two foremost did reach the higher ground and there formed squares; the last, when half-way up, seeing Bock’s heavy German dragoons galloping hard on, faced about and commenced a disorderly fire, and the squares above also plied their muskets on the Germans, who, after crossing the Almar, had to pass a turn of narrow road and clear rough ground before opening a charging front. They dropped fast under the fire. By twos, by threes, by tens, by twenties they fell, yet the mass, surmounting the difficulties of the ground, hurtled on the column and went clean through it: then the squares above retreated and several hundred prisoners were made by those able and daring horsemen.
This charge was successful even to wonder, and the victors standing in the midst of captives and admiring friends seemed invincible; yet those who witnessed the scene, nay the actors themselves remained with the conviction of the military truth,—that cavalry are not able to cope with veteran infantry, save by surprise. The hill of La Serna offered a frightful spectacle of the power of the musket. The track of the Germans was marked by their huge bodies. A few minutes only had the combat lasted, and above a hundred had fallen—fifty-one were killed outright. In several places man and horse had died simultaneously, and so suddenly, that falling together on their sides they appeared still alive, the horse’s legs stretched out as in movement, the rider’s feet in the stirrups, the bridle in hand, the sword raised to strike, and the large hat fastened under the chin, giving to the grim yet undistorted countenance a supernatural and terrible expression.
When the French found their rear-guard attacked they turned to its succour, but seeing the light division coming up recommenced the retreat, and were soon joined by Caffarelli’s horsemen and guns, under General Chauvel: too late they joined for the battle, yet covered the retreat with a resolution that deterred the allied cavalry from meddling with them. Clausel then carried his army off with such celerity that his head-quarters were that night forty miles from the field of battle.
King Joseph was at this time at Blasco Sancho, one short march from the beaten army: he came to aid Marmont with fourteen thousand men, and so early as the 24th could easily have effected a junction, but he then knew only of Marmont’s advance from the Duero, not of his defeat. Next day he received, from that marshal and Clausel, letters describing the battle and saying the army must go over the Duero to establish new communications with the Army of the North. A junction with them was still possible, but the king retreated in haste, leaving behind two officers and twenty-seven horsemen, who were next day attacked and captured by seven troopers of the 14th Dragoons led by Corporal Hanley,[25] a noble soldier, thus described by an officer under whom he had many times charged. “A finer fellow never rode into the field. His feats, besides the one at Blasco Sancho, were extraordinary. He was a very handsome man, rode magnificently, and had altogether such a noble bearing before the enemy as is not often seen.”
Clausel marched upon Valladolid, abandoning the garrisons of Toro, Tordesillas and Zamora, and, being still pressed by the British, went up the Arlazan river. Then the king passed over the Guadarama mountains to Madrid and Wellington entered Valladolid, where he found large stores, seventeen pieces of artillery, and eight hundred sick and wounded men. This terminated the Salamanca operations, which present the following remarkable results. On the 18th of July Marmont’s army, forty-two thousand sabres and bayonets with seventy-four guns, passed the Duero to attack the allies. On the 30th it repassed that river in retreat, having in those twelve days marched two hundred miles, fought three combats, and a general battle, in which one marshal of France, seven generals, and twelve thousand five hundred men and inferior officers were killed, wounded or taken, together with two eagles, several standards and twelve guns, exclusive of those found at Valladolid. In the same period the allies, who had forty-six thousand sabres and bayonets, with sixty guns, the excess of men being Spanish, marched one hundred and sixty miles, and had one marshal, Beresford, four generals and six thousand men and officers killed or wounded.