[409] Leach (of the 95th), Life of an Old Soldier, p. 214.
[410] By some error Napier says the 8th Corps, but the only division of that corps present (Solignac) was in reserve far off.
[411] Napier, iii. 152.
[412] See Brotherton’s Memoir, in Hamilton’s History of the 14th Light Dragoons, pp. 84-5: ‘At Fuentes d’Oñoro we had a very fine fellow, Captain Knipe, killed through his gallant obstinacy, if I may so call it. We had, the night before, been discussing the best mode for cavalry to attack batteries in the open field. He maintained, contrary to us all, that they ought to be charged in front, instead of by gaining their flank and avoiding their fire. The experiment next day was fatal to him. He had the opportunity of charging a French battery, which he did by attacking immediately in front. Their discharge of round shot he got through with little loss, but they most rapidly reloaded with grape, and his party got a close and murderous discharge, which almost entirely destroyed it—he himself receiving a grape shot through the body.’ As Montbrun had not got up his guns during the first cavalry charges, this must have been during Craufurd’s fight.
[413] Napier makes two serious errors—he represents Ramsay as having a whole battery, instead of two guns only: and he underrates the assistance given by the cavalry, which is detailed in Brotherton’s memoir, as well as in the regimental history of the Royals (p. 118).
[414] The account of this in Wellington’s dispatch is hopelessly obscure, because instead of writing ‘the pickets of the 1st Division under Lieut.-Col. Hill,’ he wrote by a slip of the pen ‘the regiments of the 1st Division under Lieut.-Col. Hill.’ Hill of course (being a regimental major though a titular Lieut.-Colonel, after the Guards system) did not command whole regiments, as Wellington’s words imply, but simply the skirmishing line of pickets. The facts are made quite clear by Stepney of the Coldstreams and Stothert’s diary (who calls them ‘the pickets of the Guards’), Grattan (who calls them ‘the advance,’ or ‘the light troops of the 1st Division’), and Hall’s unpublished diary, which gives the whole story in a nutshell: ‘The enemy made a dart at the pickets of the 1st Division, with the expectation of sweeping off the line before our cavalry could support them. They succeeded in part, by coming up unexpectedly, but when they were perceived the men, by collecting into knots (or ‘hiving’ as they called it) repulsed them with the bayonet. A troop of the 14th Light Dragoons and some of the Royals were ordered out to the skirmish and suffered some loss.’
It is this incident which General Fournier, who led the charge, transforms in his dispatch (in the Archives de la Guerre) into the breaking two squares of the Light Division and taking General Craufurd prisoner—a wild story. Fririon makes the charge capture ‘300 Hussars of the English Royal Guard!’ Both say that three battalions of the Guards laid down their arms.
[415] Deducting the regiments in Fuentes de Oñoro (71st and 79th) the 1st Division lost about 400 men in the whole day, of whom probably 100 in this petty disaster.
[416] One was repelled by the 42nd, which met it in line.
[417] Of this episode, only hinted at by Fririon, and not mentioned at all by Masséna in his official dispatch, we have a vivid description in Marbot, which might be doubted if it were not borne out by hints in Napier and Thiébault and by the direct statement of Marshal Jourdan in his memoirs. If Lepic had charged, it is hard to see what effect he could have produced, for all Peninsular experience went to prove that infantry in battle order on a good position could not be broken by cavalry, however daring. The 1st and 3rd Divisions were well established on their ground, with a steep slope below them, and could not have been moved. Lepic’s refusal to charge, however, always takes a prominent part in the description of Fuentes de Oñoro by French writers, not eye-witnesses, who are anxious to prove that Wellington ought to have lost the battle.