[222] Napier says that the news was brought ‘by a German officer of dragoons, who showed some consternation.’ This statement much offended the news-bearer Landsheit, a sergeant of the 20th Light Dragoons, not an officer. He has left his protest in his interesting autobiography, p. 264.
[223] Col. Leslie’s Military Journal, p. 52.
[224] Col. Leach’s Sketches, pp. 50, 51.
[225] Thiébault (iv. 188, 189) expresses (and with reason) his wonder that Junot mixed his divisions so hopelessly, and thinks that it would have been more rational to send Delaborde and his second brigade after Brennier, instead of breaking up Loison’s division by taking the supporting brigade from it.
[226] The best narrative of the fight on Vimiero Hill is that in General Anstruther’s ‘Journal,’ printed in the memoir attached to Wyld’s Atlas: Leach and Rifleman Harris give many interesting details.
[227] All this comes from the narrative, which I have already utilized in more than one place, of Sergeant Landsheit of the 20th.
[228] Taylor, like the heroic Blake, and like Graham the victor of Barossa, was one of Oxford’s few fighting men. Every visitor to Christ Church sees his memorial stone, stating how he had reformed and disciplined the regiment, when it came home a skeleton from the West Indies in 1805, and had practically to be raised anew. Since then it had been in the unfortunate expedition to Buenos Ayres.
[229] There is a good account of this charge in the anonymous ‘T.S.’ of the 71st, p. 50.
[230] There are clear accounts of this fighting in Col. Leslie’s autobiography, p. 61, as well as in the narrative of ‘T.S.’ of the 71st.
[231] Evidence of Col. Torrens at the Court of Inquiry (Proceedings, p. 127).