[508] For his dispositions for resisting the suspected attack see Dispatches, vi. pp. 507-9 of Oct. 13. The line running from right to left was (1) Pack’s Portuguese in the great redoubt facing Sobral, (2) 1st Division between the redoubt and Zibreira, (3) Picton touching Spencer’s left, (4) Cole touching Picton’s left, (5) Campbell (new 6th Division) on Cole’s left, reaching to the Portello redoubts. Each of these divisions had one brigade in reserve. A separate general reserve was formed by Leith behind the right, and Coleman’s and Alex. Campbell’s Portuguese behind the left.
[509] I find in the note to Gachot’s excellent editions of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal that the losses of the French on this day were 157 men, those of the allies 139. The last statement, one sufficiently probable in itself, cannot be verified from any British source that I have found: Wellington, annexed to the document on page 511 of vol. vi of the Dispatches, gives the loss of Cole’s British brigades in detail—they amount to twenty-five men only. But he does not give details of Hervey’s Portuguese, though he mentions that the brigadier was wounded, and that the two regiments (Nos. 11 and 23 of the Line) distinguished themselves. They may well have lost the 124 men mentioned by Gachot, but I have no proof of it. Vere’s usually accurate ‘Marches of the 4th Division’ gives no figures for this day, nor does D’Urban’s Diary. Wellington remarks that ‘the attack of this day on General Cole’s pickets near Sobral was without much effect.’ It is certain, however, that the British lost a little ground in front of the heights. Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués et blessés, which I so often find of use, shows that Junot’s corps lost two officers killed and seven wounded. This, at the usual average, would imply 150-180 casualties.
[510] For his position and character, see [p. 209] of this volume.
[511] This figure is, of course, a ludicrous exaggeration. Masséna had still more than 50,000 men. Even on Jan. 1, 1811, after suffering two months more of untold privation, the Army of Portugal was still 44,000 strong, plus sick and men detached.
[512] Pelet’s Appendice sur la Guerre d’Espagne, p. 323 of vol. xxi of Victoires et Conquêtes.
[513] Delagrave, p. 100.
[514] Of the sixty-seven British casualties, thirty-eight were in the 71st, the rest in the neighbouring brigades of the 1st Division. Noël—who had charge of the battery at Sobral, estimates the French loss at 120—very probably the correct one, as Martinien’s lists show one officer killed and six wounded, all in Ménard’s brigade. This should mean 120-150 casualties. Delagrave gives the higher figure of 200 killed and wounded, probably an overstatement.
[515] Masséna was clearly seen from the British Lines. Leith Hay, a staff-officer of the 5th Division, noted ‘a crowd of officers on horseback, dragoons with led horses, and all the cortége of a general-in-chief’ (Narrative, p. 249), and saw the Marshal dismount by the windmill above Sobral. He was watching from Pack’s redoubt, on the hill just opposite, through his telescope, about 2,000 yards from the French front. It is Jones who, on p. 40 of his Lines of Torres Vedras, gives the anecdote about the Marshal’s salute.
[516] See Foy’s Vie Militaire, Appendix, p. 343.
[517] Wellington to Craufurd, Dispatches, vi. p. 517.