[186] Espinchel, ii. p. 73.
[187] Joseph to Clarke, in a long dispatch of December 20. Ducasse’s Correspondance du Roi Joseph, ix. pp. 119-20.
[189] For the curious adventures of Captain v. Stolzenberg commanding this little party, and of the horde which he shepherded, see Schwertfeger’s History of the K.G.L., ii. pp. 262-3.
[190] Mémoires of Béchaud, quoted above, p. 101.
[191] Foy, Vie militaire, pp. 189-90.
[192] Soult to King Joseph, Matilla, 16th November 1812.
[193] There is a good account of the skirmish in the Mémoires of Espinchel, ii. p. 73, who frankly allows that the French light cavalry were both outmanœuvred and repulsed with loss. The returns of the three French regiments show 22 killed, no wounded, and 25 missing—an odd proportion. Apparently the wounded must all have been captured. The 1st Hussars K.G.L. had 7 wounded and 7 missing, the rest of Alten’s brigade under 20 casualties. This brigade was now three regiments strong instead of two, having had the 2nd Hussars K.G.L. from Hill’s Army attached to it at Salamanca.
[194] Napier says that the column went through Tamames, but no 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Division diary mentions that considerable town as passed—they all speak of solitudes and oak-woods alone. Wellington’s orders on the night of November 16 (Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 157) give ‘La Neja’ as Hill’s destination, and this oddly spelt place is undoubtedly Anaya de Huebra.
[195] Memoirs of Donaldson of the 94th, pp. 181-2.