But the cavalry and artillery were in a wretched state indeed. The artillery of the 3rd, 6th, and 7th Divisions, the heavy cavalry, together with the 7th and 12th Light Dragoons, were nearly a wreck; and the artillery of the 3rd Division lost seventy horses between Salamanca and Rodrigo. It was next to impossible that the artillery and cavalry could have made, if vigorously pursued, three marches beyond the latter place. What force, then, was to arrest the enemy in his pursuit?—The infantry, and the infantry alone; yet this main-prop of the army was, by mismanagement, left without the means of nourishment! Had not the infantry, by their firmness in bearing up against all the evils they had to surmount—such as bad clothing, no tents to shelter them from the heavy rains that fell, and no means of dressing their food—presented the front they did, the army must have been lost before it could have reached Gallegos; and, if equal zeal had been exhibited by the general officers in providing for the wants of their troops, as was shown by the subordinate officers in the maintenance of discipline amongst them, the well-known letter of Lord Wellington would never have been written.[36] ----- Footnote 36: Almost every officer of the Peninsular army who has written on the Burgos retreat, from William Napier downward, joins in the protest against Wellington’s objurgatory general order against his regimental officers, published at the end of this retreat. Grattan’s murmurs are but a sample of the rest. -----