This column was the 5,000 infantry of Ballasteros, who, as it chanced, had begun to march southward at the same moment that Soult had started northward. The Spanish general had just received orders from Cadiz bidding him cut himself loose from the Estremaduran army, and move into the Condado de Niebla, where he was to unite with the local levies under Copons, drive out the weak French detachment there stationed, and threaten Seville from the west if it should be practicable. These orders had been given, of course, before Soult’s plan for invading Estremadura was suspected at Cadiz. But though unwise in themselves--it was not the time to deplete Estremadura of troops--they had the effect of bringing Soult’s great manœuvre to a standstill for some weeks. The Marshal determined that he must free his flank from this threatening force before continuing his march, and ordered Mortier to attack Ballasteros without delay. This was done, but the Spaniard, after a running fight of two hours, retired to Fregenal, fifteen miles further west, without suffering any serious harm (January 4th). He was still in a position to threaten the rear of the convoy, or to slip round the flank of the French column towards Seville. Soult therefore resolved to go on with his cavalry and join Latour-Maubourg, but to drop Gazan’s infantry in the passes, with the order to head off Ballasteros at all costs, and to cover the siege-train in its journey across the mountains. Gazan therefore took post at Fuentes de Leon, but soon heard that Ballasteros had moved south again from Fregenal towards the Chanza river, and was apparently trying to get round his flank. Leaving a detachment to help the convoy on its slow and toilsome route, Gazan resolved to pursue the Spanish column and destroy it at all costs. This determination led him into three weeks of desperate mountain-marching and semi-starvation, at the worst season of the year. For Ballasteros, who showed considerable skill in drawing his enemy on, moved ever south and west towards the lower Guadiana, and picked up Copons’s levies by the way. He at last turned to fight at Villanueva de los Castillejos on January 24th. Gazan, who had been joined meanwhile by the small French detachment in the Condado de Niebla, brought his enemy to action on the 25th. The Asturian battalions which formed Ballasteros’s division made a creditable resistance, and when evicted from their position retired across the Guadiana to Alcoutim in Portugal, without having suffered any overwhelming loss[48]. Gazan therefore resolved to pursue them no further--indeed he had been drawn down into one of the remotest corners of Spain to little profit, and realized that Soult must be brought to a standstill one hundred miles away, for want of the 6,000 infantry who had now been executing their toilsome excursion in the mountains for three weeks.