By this time Sir John Moore had discovered that Bonaparte, abandoning his project of entering the southern provinces, was on the march to intercept his retreat towards the sea-coast and Portugal, while another column was advancing against him from the direction of Burgos.
To frustrate a design that might prove so fatal to his slender army, Moore was compelled to relinquish all hope of fighting the Duke of Dalmatia; so, countermanding the order for the advance of his various divisions, he requested Romana to defend the bridge of Mansilla-de-los-Mulos, and while he fell back towards the Douro, ordered all the heavy baggage to be conveyed to Astorga.
On hearing of these movements, Bonaparte exclaimed energetically to Soult, who related it to Major Charles Napier of the 43rd—
"Moore is the only general now fit to contend with me; I shall advance against him in person."
Marching to his left, Moore crossed the Douro at Toro, to form a junction with Sir David Baird on the 21st December at Vallada. On the day before this, near the magnificent Abbey of Sahagun, nine hundred French cavalry pressing on, were met by four hundred of ours under Lord Paget, who repulsed them by one brilliant charge, sabreing thirty, and taking two hundred and sixty prisoners.
Bonaparte advanced with his main body, a hundred thousand strong, by four routes, towards Benevente, along roads buried deep in snow, through which, by force or bribery, he had thousands of Spanish labourers cutting pathways, for the winter had set in with unusual rigour; but the division of Sir John Hope, whose cavalry and artillery suffered much by the loss of their horses, which died fast of the glanders, entered the town before him on the 24th of the same month.
The sufferings of the army during this retreat towards the north-west angle of Spain were very great, and the regimental officers were compelled to carry their personal effects—at least such as were absolutely necessary—about with them in bags or knapsacks, for the baggage animals (carts there were none) died, or were lost by the way. All bandsmen, batsmen, servants, and grooms were very properly turned into the ranks, as Moore had resolved that there should be available as many muskets as possible. Seven officers had but one tent, and every mounted officer had to groom and rub down his own horse: arrangements whereat the grumbling, from the staff particularly, was deep if not loud. The rations were also diminished: but of all the corps none suffered less than the Highland regiments. After marching hundreds of miles through snow, rain, and storm, by roads unchanged since the Moors traversed them, the 79th and 92nd particularly had never a man on the sick-list, a fact attributable either to their native hardihood or the serviceable nature of their costume.
Snow was falling heavily as Hope's division entered the crumbling mud walls of the small and miserable town of Benevente in Leon, where the officers and men, irrespective of rank, crowded for shelter into the houses and the castle, while a line of cavalry picquets with a few pieces of artillery, held the bridge of Orviegro.
Weary and foot-sore, Quentin, after cleaning his musket, flung himself on a heap of straw in one of the rooms of that wonderful old castle which is the residence of the Dukes of Ossuna, and which Southey, in his letters from Spain, describes as one of the finest monuments of the age of Spanish chivalry, adding, "we have nothing in England which approaches to its grandeur. Berkeley, Raby, even Warwick and Windsor, are poor fabrics in comparison."
Projecting from a wall, a gigantic arm and hand in armour sustain a magnificent lamp to light the grand staircase of the castle.