English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula.: Extracted from his 'Peninsula War'.Napier, William Francis Patrick
History
English Battles and Sieges in the Peninsula.: Extracted from his 'Peninsula War'.
Napier, William Francis Patrick
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
While these terrible combats of infantry were being fought, La Peña
looked idly on, giving no aid, not even menacing Villatte who was close
to him and comparatively weak. The Spanish Walloon guards, the regiment
of Ciudad Real, and some Guerilla cavalry, turning without orders, came
up indeed just as the action ceased, and it was expected that Colonel
Whittingham, an Englishman commanding a strong body of Spanish horse,
would have done as much; yet no stroke of a Spanish sabre was that day
given, though the French cavalry did not exceed two hundred and fifty
men, and the eight hundred under Whittingham would have rendered the
defeat ruinous. So certain was this, that Frederick Ponsonby, drawing
off his hundred and eighty German hussars, reached the field of battle,
charged the French squadrons in their retreat, overthrew them, took
two guns, and even attempted though vainly to sabre Rousseau’s chosen
grenadiers. Such was the fight of Barosa. Short, for it lasted only
one hour and a half; violent and bloody, for fifty officers, sixty
sergeants, eleven hundred British soldiers, and more than two thousand
French were killed and wounded; and six guns, an eagle, two generals,
both mortally wounded, with four hundred other prisoners fell into the
hands of the victors.
Graham remained several hours on the height, still hoping La Peña
would awake to the prospect of success and glory which the extreme
valour of the British had opened. Four thousand fresh men and a
powerful artillery had come over the Santi Petri; he had therefore
twelve thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry, while before him
were only the remains of the French line of battle, retreating in the
greatest disorder upon Chiclana; but military spirit was extinct with
the Spaniard, Graham could no longer endure his command and leaving the
dastard on the Bermeja filed the British troops into the Isla.
MASSENA’S RETREAT. (March, 1811.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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