[486] These are the official returns. The regimental histories give only 45 and 56 respectively.
Martinien’s lists show six casualties in officers in the two French regiments, and two more were taken prisoners, General Carrié and a lieutenant of the 25th Dragoons.
[487] Brotherton says that the first two squadrons which charged the French dragoons made no impression, and that it was the impact of the third, led by himself, which broke them.
[488] This was the 25th Léger.
[489] The exact figures, save for officers, are as usual missing. But Martinien’s invaluable lists show that of 41 French officers killed, wounded, or taken that day, 35 belonged to the four infantry regiments (17th and 25th Léger, 22nd and 65th Line) and the two cavalry regiments (15th and 25th Dragoons) which fought at Castrillo.
[490] For dismay expressed by Wellington at this news see dispatches to Henry Wellesley dated Rueda, July 15, and to Lord Bathurst (Dispatches, ix. pp. 285 and 287).
[491] See Wellington to Hill, Dispatches, ix. p. 290.
[492] Not July 17th, as Napier says. D’Urban’s diary proves that he recrossed the Douro on the 18th.
[493] He left one squadron near Zamora, to serve as covering cavalry for Silveira’s militia, who remained waiting for Santocildes’s advance, which they were to observe and support. His force was therefore reduced to 700 men.
[494] He adds in his Mémoires, iv. pp. 251-2, that if he had not succeeded in getting ahead of Wellington’s van, he had a counter-project of trying to get round his rear, but the British marched so exactly parallel with him that he got no chance of this.