[498] His intention to come appears in his letter to Beresford of May 13th, received May 17th. The statement that the 3rd Division and other troops had actually started for Estremadura is in his letter of May 14th, received May 18th. Wellington Dispatches, vii. 549 and 555.
[499] Of whom more than 200 escaped, and joined their regiments during the next four days, for their guards were too exhausted to keep good watch.
[500] If any one wants an example of such a battle, he may take the first great fight of Frederick the Great, who had been driven ten miles off the battlefield with the wreck of his cavalry when news came to him that his infantry, in his absence and without his leadership, had won the battle for him.
[501] Peninsular War, iii. p. 175.
[502] Such as the statement that Zayas had given way before Colborne arrived at the front, which the evidence of Beresford himself, D’Urban, Schepeler, Moyle Sherer, and many other witnesses proves to be quite wrong. Also the tale (p. 167) that the Spaniards fired into the British (see Strictures, pp. 247-8, and Schepeler). Also the statement that Lumley’s cavalry diversion to help Colborne was successful—when it merely resulted in the repulse of the two squadrons that made it, with the loss of their two commanding officers (Captains Spedding and Phillips) taken prisoners.
An astonishing bit of arithmetic is the note (iii. p. 181) that on the night of the battle only 1,800 unwounded British infantry were left standing—the real figures being: Abercrombie, 1,200; Alten, 1,100; remains of Myers’s brigade, 1,000; remains of Colborne’s brigade, 600; ditto of Hoghton’s, 600. Total, 4,500. Napier had apparently forgotten Abercrombie and Alten.
[503] Strictures, p. 243.
[506] To Lord Liverpool, May 23.