Retreat from Burgos. (Oct. 1812.)
It was commenced in the night of the 21st by the following daring enterprise. The army quitted its position after dark, the artillery, the wheels being muffled with straw, passed the bridge of Burgos under the castle guns with such silence and celerity, that Dubreton, watchful and suspicious as he was, knew nothing of the march until the Partidas, failing in nerve, commenced galloping, when he poured a destructive fire down but soon lost the range. By this delicate operation Souham was compelled to follow, instead of using the castle to intercept the line of retreat; for if Wellington had avoided the fortress, the French by passing through it could have forestalled him at Cellada del Camino.
The 23rd the infantry crossed the Pisuerga, but while the main body made this long march, Souham having passed through Burgos in the night of the 22nd, vigorously attacked the rear-guard under Sir Stapleton Cotton, which was composed of cavalry and horse-artillery, two battalions of Germans and the Partidas of Marquinez and Sanchez.
At seven o’clock the picquets were first driven from the bridge of Baniel, and then from the Hormaza stream, after which the whole rear-guard drew up in a large plain behind Cellada del Camino. It had on the left a range of hills occupied by Marquinez, on the right the Arlanzan, and across the middle of the plain a marshy rivulet cut the main road, being only passable by a little bridge near a house called the Venta de Pozo. In front, about half-way between this stream and Cellada, there was a broad ditch with a second bridge and a hamlet. Cotton retired over the marshy stream, but left Anson’s horsemen and Halket’s infantry as a rear-guard beyond the ditch, and then Anson, placing the 11th Dragoons and the guns in advance at Cellada del Camino on a gentle eminence, likewise prepared to pass the stream.