Naturally there is nothing of this in Dalhousie’s dispatch—a most disappointing paper. It is mostly in a self-exculpatory tone, to justify his lateness and the absence of his two rear brigades. He says that they came up at the same time as Vandeleur, which is certainly untrue, as neither of them had a single casualty all day. And they could not have failed to catch a shell or two if they had been anywhere near the fighting-line during the subsequent capture of Crispijana and Zuazo. Mr. Fortescue’s note that Captain Cairnes’s letter in the Dickson Papers, p. 916, proves that Barnes’s brigade had arrived by this time, is a misdeduction from Cairnes’s carelessness in talking of Grant’s brigade as ‘our first brigade,’ meaning thereby our leading brigade, not the brigade officially numbered 1. When Cairnes says that the ‘first brigade’ and the guns were ‘in their place,’ while the rest arrived very late in the action, we need only contrast the casualty lists—1st Brigade nil, 2nd Brigade 330 casualties, 3rd Brigade nil, to see what he means.
[584] It will be noticed that I put La Hermandad as the village where the heavy fighting took place, and which Vandeleur’s brigade stormed. All historians up to now have followed Napier in making Margarita the important place. A glance at the map will show that the latter village is too far forward to have been held for any time, after Leval had evacuated his original position on the great knoll facing Tres Puentes and Villodas.
I have to point out that neither Wellington nor Lord Dalhousie in the two contemporary dispatches (Dispatches, x. p. 451, and Supplementary Dispatches, viii. pp. 4-6) mention either place by name—only speaking of ‘a village.’ D’Erlon’s staff-officer in the report of the Army of the Centre says that Margarita was held for some time but was rendered untenable by Leval’s retreat—so that Darmagnac had to go back to the heights behind. Gazan’s report says that the British were masters of Margarita before he took up his position on the heights above Ariñez, and that the heights behind Margarita were the fighting position of D’Erlon. Of the diarists or chroniclers who issued their books before the fifth volume of Napier came out, and who were present on this part of the field, Green (68th), Wheeler (51st), Captain Wood (82nd), mention no village names, nor do Lord Gough’s and Captain Cairnes’s contemporary letters, nor Geo. Simmons’ contemporary diary. Nor does Sir Harry Smith’s amusing account of his dealings with Lord Dalhousie before ‘the village’ which Vandeleur took (Autobiography, i. pp. 97-8) quoted in the preceding note.
After Napier’s book stated that the Light Division battalions took Margarita, and Gough with the 2/87th La Hermandad (a reversal of the real time and facts as I think), most later writers accepted these statements as gospel. But the report of Kruse, commanding the Nassau regiment, absolutely proves that Napier is wrong. Moreover, the rough map, annexed to D’Erlon’s original report of the battle in the French Archives, gives Hermandad as the position of Darmagnac, with his march thither from Gomecha and to Zuazo indicated by arrows. Kruse’s report may be found at length in the Nassau volume of Saussez’s Les Allemands sous les Aigles, pp. 340-1.
[585] This British claim is corroborated by the narrative of the French surgeon Fée, present at Abechuco that day.
[586] Though he had lost several when La Martinière was driven out of Gamarra Mayor (see above, [p. 425]) and Abechuco.
[587] The other regiments of Hay’s brigade were evidently kept in reserve, for the casualties of the 1/38th were eight only, and those of the 1/9th 25. The 8th Caçadores of Spry’s brigade lost 40 men, the Portuguese Line battalions only 41 between the four of them.
[588] Sergeant James Hale of the 1/9th, who has left us the only good detailed account of the fighting at Gamarra with which I am acquainted (pp. 105-6).
[589] Numbers impossible to determine, as they are never borne in the muster rolls of the Army of the Centre. But as they were 2,019 strong on July 16, when Soult reorganized the whole Army of Spain, they were probably 2,500 strong before the battle.
[590] So Tirlet, making allowances for the lost pieces.