[248] 3rd Dragoons, 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards. They had been lying during the winter in the direction of Castello Branco. The Commander-in-Chief himself, travelling with his wonted speed, left his old head-quarters at Freneda on March 5th, was at Castello Branco on the 8th, at Portalegre on the 10th, and had reached Elvas, his new head-quarters, on the 12th. Before leaving the North he had made elaborate arrangements for the conduct of affairs in that quarter. They are contained in two memoranda, given the one to Castaños, who was still in command both of the Galician and the Estremaduran armies of Spain, and the other to Generals Baccelar and Silveira, of whom the former was in charge of the Portuguese department of the North, with head-quarters at Oporto, and the other of the Tras-os-Montes, with head-quarters at Villa Real[249]. [249] Dated Feb. 24 and 27, _Dispatches_, viii. pp. 629 and 638. It was a delicate matter to leave Marmont with nothing save the Spaniards and Portuguese in his front. Of the former the available troops were (1) the Army of Galicia, four weak field divisions, making about 15,000 men, of whom only 550 were cavalry, while the artillery counted only five batteries. There were 8,000 garrison and reserve troops in Corunna, Vigo, Ferrol, and other fortified posts to the rear, but these were unavailable for service[250]. Abadia still commanded the whole army, under the nominal supervision of Castaños. He had one division (3,000 men under Cabrera) at Puebla Senabria on the Portuguese frontier, two (9,000 men under Losada and the Conde de Belveder) at Villafranca, observing the French garrison of Astorga and Souham’s division on the Esla, which supported that advanced post, and one (2,500 men under Castañon) on the Asturian frontier watching Bonnet. (2) The second Spanish force available consisted of that section of the Army of Estremadura, which lay north of the Sierra de Gata, viz. Carlos de España’s division of 5,000 men, of whom 3,000 had been thrown into Ciudad Rodrigo, so that the surplus for the field was small, and of Julian Sanchez’s very efficient guerrillero cavalry, who were about 1,200 strong and were now counted as part of the regular army and formally styled ‘1st and 2nd Lancers of Castille.’ [250] These figures are those of January, taken from the ‘morning state’ in _Los Ejércitos españoles_, the invaluable book of 1822 published by the Spanish Staff.