[495] Marmont describes the formation (Mémoires, iv. p. 252) as ‘gauche en tête, par peloton, à distance entière: les deux lignes pouvaient être formées en un instant par à droite en bataille.’
[496] There is an excellent description of the parallel march in Leith Hay, ii. pp. 38-40, as well as in Napier.
[497] This swerve and its consequence are best stated in Vere’s Marches of the 4th Division, p. 30.
[498] Marmont says that if he had possessed a superior cavalry he could have made great captures, but he dared attempt nothing for want of sufficient numbers: he alleges that he took 300 stragglers—certainly an exaggeration as the British returns show very few ‘missing.’ Mémoires, iv. p. 233.
[499] The heavy cavalry in the British army were still wearing the old cocked hat, the new-pattern helmet with crest was not served out till 1813. The light dragoons were still wearing the black-japanned leather headdress with the low fur crest: in 1813 they got shakos, much too like those of French chasseurs.
[500] Napier says that this move was made on the night of the 20th, under cover of the smoke of the already-lighted camp-fires of the army. This is contradicted by Vere’s journal of march of the 4th Division, by Leith Hay’s Journal [’at daylight we marched to the Heights of San Cristoval’], by Tomkinson’s diary, and D’Urban, Geo. Simonds, and many others who speak of the move as being early on the 21st.
[501] This was the division of Sarrut.
[502] That the British cavalry were still at dawn so far forward as Calvarisa de Abaxo is shown by Tomkinson’s diary (p. 185), the best possible authority for light cavalry matters. The 4th Division camped in the wood just west of Nuestra Señora de la Peña (Vere, p. 31), the 5th on high ground in rear of Calvarisa de Ariba (Leith Hay, p. 45), the 7th a little farther south, also in woody ground (diary of Wheeler of the 51st).
[503] Leith Hay, ii. p. 46.
[504] Diary of Green of the 68th, p. 98.