By the 1st of May everything should have been ready, but the late spring and the slow-moving pontoons delayed the start. On the 12th-13th-14th, however, every soldier, British and Portuguese, was ready to march. Every available unit was being brought up--there remained behind only the fever-ridden Guards’ brigade at Oporto; the weak 77th, which provided, along with one Veteran Battalion, a skeleton garrison for Lisbon; three Portuguese line regiments, two in Elvas, one in Abrantes, and the dismounted dragoons of the same nation, who had not taken the field for three years: only D’Urban’s and Campbell’s squadrons marched in 1813. The infantry consisted of 56 British and 53 Portuguese battalions--making about 67,000 bayonets. The British battalions were of very unequal size--a few as low as 450 men, a few others as strong as 900: the average was 700. The Portuguese battalions were rather weaker, some of the regiments never having recovered from the privations of the Burgos retreat, and did not exceed on an average 500 bayonets or 550 of all ranks. Of cavalry there were 22 regiments, of which four only were Portuguese--total 8,000 sabres. Of artillery there were 102 guns, in seventeen batteries, of which three were Portuguese and one belonged to the King’s German Legion[461]. Adding Engineers, Staff Corps, Wagon Train, &c., the whole represented 81,000 men of all ranks and all arms. SECTION XXXVI: CHAPTER II OPERATIONS OF HILL’S COLUMN: MAY 22-JUNE 3 The concentration of the southern wing of Wellington’s army for the great advance was in some ways a more difficult, in others an easier, problem than the concentration of the northern wing.