[414] See Fantin des Odoards. Le Noble (incorrect as always) says that the 47th brought up the rear.
[415] There are two excellent accounts of this charge in the diaries of Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons and Fantin des Odoards of the 31st Léger. The former (pp. 9-11) holds that the charge was indefensible, and blames Charles Stewart for ordering it, and Major Blake for carrying it out. A different impression is received from the French diarist, who speaks of it as a complete rout of his regiment and very disastrous. ‘Assaillis en détail nous avons été facilement mis en désordre, attendu notre morcellement et la confusion que des charges audacieuses de cavalerie mettaient dans nos rangs. Les trois bataillons ont lâché pied et se sont enfuis à vau de route. Si le pays n’avait pas offert des murs, des fossés et des haies, ils auraient été entièrement sabrés.... Peu à peu les débris du régiment se sont ralliés a la division, qui était en position à une lieue de Porto. Notre perte a été considérable, mais notre aigle, qui a couru de grands dangers dans cette bagarre, a fort heureusement été sauvée.... Les dragons étaient acharnés a nous poursuivre, et mal a pris ceux qui au lieu de gagner les collines out suivi le vallon et la grande route’ (p. 231). It seems probable (a thing extremely rare in military history) that Tomkinson and Des Odoards, the two best narrators of the fight, actually met each other. The former mentions that he chased an isolated French infantry man, fired his pistol at his head, but missed, and that he was at once shot in the shoulder by another Frenchman and disabled. Then turning back, he was again fired at by several men and brought down. Des Odoards says that he was chased by a single English dragoon, who got up to him, fired at him point blank and missed, whereupon a corporal of his company, who had turned back to help him, shot the dragoon, who dropped his smoking pistol at Des Odoards’ feet, and rolled off his horse. The narratives seem to tally perfectly.
[416] The officers killed were Captain Detmering of the 1st K. G. L., and a Portuguese ensign of the I/16th. Those wounded were Captain Ovens and Lieutenant Woodgate of the 1st Battalion of Detachments, Lieutenants Lodders and Lahngren of the K. G. L., Cornet Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons, and a Portuguese lieutenant of the 1/16th. It would seem that some of the fourteen ‘missing’ were infantry killed in the woods, whose bodies were never found, but several belonged to the maltreated dragoon squadrons, and were taken from having pursued too fast and far.
[417] 1st and 2nd Line battalions of the K.G.L., also a detached company of rifles of the K.G.L.
[418] Lane’s and Lawson’s British guns, and one K.G.L., battery.
[419] Soult’s doings on this day are best told by his aide-de-camp St. Chamans, who was with him all the morning. No attention need be paid to the narrative of his panegyrist Le Noble, who tells a foolish story to the effect that a commandant Salel came at six o’clock (more than four hours before the Buffs began to pass), and assured some of Soult’s staff that the English were already crossing the river. ‘On hearing this,’ says Le Noble, ‘the Marshal sent for Quesnel, the governor of Oporto, and asked if there was any truth in the rumour. The latter denied it and Soult was reassured. If only Salel had been believed, all the English who had then passed might have been killed or captured,’ and a disaster avoided. As a matter of fact Quesnel was right, and not a British soldier had yet crossed [Campagne de Galice, p. 247].
[420] This interesting fact I owe to the diary of Captain Lane, still in manuscript, of which a copy has been sent me by Col. Whinyates, R. A., a specialist on the history of the British artillery in the Peninsula.
[421] Viz. 1/3rd, fifty men, 2/48th, seventeen men, 2/66th, ten men, killed and wounded. The French 17th alone lost 177 [Foy’s Dispatch].
[422] All this is well described by Leslie of the 29th (p. 113), Stothert of the Scots Fusilier Guards (p. 41), and Cooper of the 2/7th, who crossed later.
[423] Leslie, ibid.