[566] This interesting narrative of Captain Cooke of the 43rd must have been in Napier’s hands before it was printed by Maxwell, as several phrases from it are repeated in Napier, vol. v, p. 121. Sir William himself was in England that day.
[567] He was, along with Stewart and Oswald, one of the three divisional generals who committed the gross breach of orders during the Burgos retreat mentioned [above, p. 152].
[568] Cf. Burgoyne, Life and Letters, i. 263 (June 23, 1813), with Picton’s letters in Wellington Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. 225, about ‘the 3rd Division being kept in the background, for Sir T. P. is by no means a favourite with Lord W.’ Cairnes (in Dickson, ed. Leslie) puts the change down as ‘most mortifying to Picton’.
[569] See Dalhousie to Wellington, in Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 6, which leaves much unsaid.
[570] Narrative of one of Picton’s staff in Robinson’s Life of Picton, ii. 195-6.
[571] The third battery originally at Ariñez was Villatte’s divisional battery, which had gone off with him to the Puebla heights. Neither P. Soult nor Treillard had guns with them.
[572] Such turning might have been done either by the two belated brigades of the 7th Division or by troops detached by Graham, who had several brigades to spare, which he never used, but might have sent to pass the Zadorra at the bridge of Yurre or the fords west of it, both well behind the new French line.
[573] Who was this officer? Not Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Cother of the 71st nor Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Harrison of the 50th. Hope of the 92nd, in his rather detailed narrative of this fight, calls him ‘Colonel R——.’ I cannot identify him. Conceivably, it may have been Colonel Rooke, the senior officer of Hill’s staff who may have been sent up the heights, and may have taken over command on Cadogan’s being mortally wounded.
[574] So says the anonymous but invaluable ‘T. S.’ of the 71st. Leith Hay, a prisoner with the French in this campaign, remarks that they were all in their summer wear of long linen overcoats, with the cross-belts put on above.
[575] They were released at Pampeluna on the surrender of that fortress three months later, in a state of semi-starvation, having been carried on with Villatte’s division during the French retreat. They described to Gavin of the 71st, who happened to be present at the surrender, their unhappy fortunes. See his diary, p. 25.