[329] Except three wounded in the 3rd Dragoon Guards in skirmishes with the hussars of the French rearguard.
[330] One killed, six wounded, one prisoner. For names see Martinien’s lists and supplement thereto.
[331] Belmas says 175, but this is too low.
[332] Wellington to Beresford, from Celorico, March 28 (Dispatches, vii. 412). By an odd error Wellington wrote the 1st Portuguese, but it was the 7th which joined in the hunt.
[333] Napier censures Beresford for not crossing at Merida, thirty miles east of Badajoz. But (1) Wellington’s orders directed him to use Jerumenha; (2) to march to Merida would have been to pass across the front of an enemy who had a bridge-head at Badajoz, from which he could push out detachments to cut the line of communication, Campo Mayor to Merida; (3) Elvas was the only possible base, and the only place where magazines could be safely formed, or munitions, siege artillery, &c., procured; (4) the road Campo Mayor-Merida was very bad; (5) Merida was within reach of the French Army of the Centre, which had detachments at Truxillo and Almaraz.
[334] These notes as to Beresford’s difficulties are taken partly from the Journal of his chief of the staff, D’Urban, partly from the latter’s detailed report on the Estremaduran campaign, published in 1832, but written in 1811, partly from the Strictures on Napier’s History, vol. iii, written under Beresford’s eye. The latter might be considered suspicious if they were not completely borne out by the two former, as well as by Wellington’s Dispatches, vii. 414, 426, 432.
[335] This must have been Wellington’s Celorico dispatch of March 30, saying that ‘between chevalets (trestles), boats, Spanish and English pontoons, and a ford, I should hope that the Guadiana may be passed in safety’ (Dispatches, vii. 414.)
[336] D’Urban’s Narrative, p. 10.
[337] Beresford maintained that troops on the right bank could be protected by the fire of the guns of Jerumenha, which is in a lofty position, commanding the Spanish shore. But they would have been of little use if the French had attacked at night. (Strictures on Napier, p. 177.)
[338] Correspondance, xxi. 146: ‘Vous voyez que ce que j’avais prévu est arrivé, qu’on a eu la simplicité de laisser du monde dans Olivenza, et de faire prendre là 300 hommes,’ &c. This was alluding to an earlier order to Soult not to make small detachments, and to blow up Olivenza.