[430] Leith’s nephew and aide-de-camp, Leith Hay, had explored all the villages in this direction on the previous afternoon, with a squadron of Portuguese horse, see his Narrative, i. 381.
[431] Picton and Leith each rather slur over the part taken by the other in their parallel narratives of the crisis. Picton says that he took command of Leith’s troops: ‘at this moment Major-General Leith’s aide-de-camp came up to report the arrival of that general and his division, on which I rode from the post of San Antonio to the road of communication, and directed the leading regiment of the brigade to proceed without loss of time to the left, as I had no occasion for assistance. General Leith’s brigade, in consequence, moved on and arrived in time to join the five companies of the 45th and the 8th Portuguese in repulsing the enemy’s last attempt.’ Leith, on the other hand, speaks of having taken command of some of Picton’s troops, as if the latter had not been present, and says nought of their conversation. ‘Major-General Leith thereupon directed a movement of succession, ordering Colonel Douglas with the right battalion of the 8th Portuguese to support the point attacked. He also directed the 9th Portuguese under Colonel Sutton (belonging to Major-General Picton’s division) to move up to the support of General Picton’s division,’ and again, ‘He (General Leith) ordered the 8th and 9th Portuguese to support the point attacked, and where the enemy were fast gaining ground.’ Each general speaks as if he had been in command, and I fear that each is using undue reticence as to the other’s doings. See [note] at the end of this chapter.
[432] Napier calls it a ‘precipice,’ but this is not the right word. I found that I could walk freely about on it, but no formed body of men could have passed up the slope.
[433] Foy’s diary, pp. 103-4, tallies exactly with Leith’s narrative in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, vi. 678, and Cameron’s letter in Napier, Appendix to vol. vi.
[434] Viz. British: Mackinnon’s 1/88th, 1/45th, 74th, Barnes’s 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/38th. Portuguese: Champlemond’s 9th Line (2 batts.) and 21st Line (1 batt.), with the 8th from Leith’s division (2 batts.). Spry’s brigade and the Lusitanian Legion from Leith were never under fire, and did not lose a man. Picton’s left brigade (Lightburne) was never engaged, save that the light companies of the 5th and 83rd, far down the slope, lost eight and four men respectively. The Thomar militia bolted before coming under fire.
[435] A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light Division (iii. 27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so hardy were the leading French that every man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers (of the 52nd) fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark!’ This passage looks as if the whole French division had been conceived by Napier as moving in a single column with a front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the 52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before me, has written Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of course the enemy was advancing with each battalion in column of companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier seems to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother George (Autobiography, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head of the French column, and immediately calling to my men to form column of sections, in order to give more force to our rush, we dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or two, when a Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell. At the same instant they fired upon my front section, consisting of about nine men in the front rank, all of whom fell, four dead, the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that the French column was only twelve broad.
[436] Sprünglin, Ney’s aide-de-camp, gives an account of his being detached with these voltigeurs, on p. 450 of his diary. He lost 142 men. It must have been in contending with these companies that the 1st Division (excluding the German brigade, occupied elsewhere) got the 89 casualties returned by Wellington, as also the 5/60 their 24 casualties. The only one of the British battalions in this quarter which had an appreciable number of men hurt was the 1/79th. Its regimental history says that its light company was almost cut off at the commencement of the day. The captain was taken prisoner—being the only British officer captured that day—with six men, and there were over 40 other casualties. Stopford’s brigade lost two men—Lord Blantyre’s seven.
[437] This too in a dispatch to Berthier dated Coimbra, Oct. 4, three days after the returns had been placed before him.
[438] For these returns, see Appendix, [no. xiii]. They are certainly incomplete, omitting (1) losses of the cavalry of the 2nd Corps (where Martinien’s invaluable tables show that three officers were wounded), (2) losses of the 8th Corps, which caught a few shells as it stood on the heights by Moura and had (as again shown by Martinien’s tables) six officers hit, which must imply some hundred men. (3) Some casualties in the infantry omitted in the returns, for while the report accounts for 253 killed and wounded officers, Martinien names 275. Deducting the cavalry and 8th Corps losses mentioned above, there are still fifteen officers (and therefore presumably 250 men) too few given in the reports sent in to Masséna; e.g. for the 2nd Léger the report has eighteen officers hit, Martinien gives the names of twenty-two.
[439] Viz. all Reynier’s Corps, save the 47th, twenty-two battalions; Marchand eleven battalions, Loison twelve battalions—total 26,000 men. See Tables in [Appendix].