[126] All these dispositions come from a table of routes sent to D’Urban by Jackson, Hill’s chief of the staff (Quartermaster-general), on the 24th.
[127] Jackson, Q.M.G., to D’Urban, 27th night: ‘Sir Rowland has determined to concentrate behind the Jarama, on account of the state of the fords upon the Tagus, and their number,’ &c.
[128] They had been at Arganda behind the Tajuna on the previous day, when Hill was still thinking of defending the line of the Tagus. See Diary of Leach, p. 287.
[129] Jackson to D’Urban, October 27: ‘Keep your patrols on the Tagus as long as they can with prudence stay there, with orders to follow the march of your main body.’ On the next day the order is varied to that quoted above.
[130] Owing to disgraceful carelessness on the part of a brigadier of the British 2nd Division much of the boat-bridge of Fuente Dueñas (which had been brought over to the north bank) had not been burnt when the troops retired. Many boats were intact; some of the French swam over, and brought back several of them. (D’Urban MSS.)
[131] Wellington to Hill, Cabezon, October 27. Dispatches, ix. pp. 518-19.
[132] See for this Wachholz (of the Fusilier brigade), Schepeler, Purdon’s history of the 47th, &c. Wachholz’s Brunswick Company straggled so that of 60 men he found only 7 with him at night. Several were lost for good. Wellington put the colonel of the 82nd under arrest, because he had lost 80 men this day.
[133] D’Erlon’s old division now commanded by this brigadier.
[134] Always a reckless falsifier of his own losses (he said that he had only lost 2,800 men at Albuera!), Soult wrote in his dispatch that he had only about 25 wounded at the Puente Larga. The figure I give above is that of the staff-officer d’Espinchel, whose memoirs are useful for this campaign. By far the best English account is that of H. Bunbury of the 20th Portuguese (Reminiscences of a Veteran, i. pp. 158-63). I can only trace three of the five French officers in Martinien’s lists—Pillioud, Caulet, Fitz-James, but do not doubt d’Espinchel’s figures though his account of the combat is hard to fit in with any English version. He speaks with admiration of the steadiness of the defence.
[135] All this from Soult’s dispatch to the King of October 31, from Valdemoro, and Jourdan’s to Clarke from Madrid of November 3rd.