At midnight on the 10th he sprung his mines and in a compact column broke through the picquets, passing between the quarters of the reserves with a nicety proving his talent and his coolness. Pack, following with a few men collected on the instant, plied him with a constant fire, yet could not shake or retard his column, which in silence gained the rough country leading upon Barba de Puerco, where it halted just as daylight broke. Pack still pursued, and knowing some English dragoons were a short distance off sent an officer to bring them out upon the French flank, thus occasioning a slight skirmish and consequent delay. The other troops had paid little attention to the explosion of the mines, thinking them a repetition of Brennier’s previous practice, but Pack’s fire had roused them, the 36th Regiment was now close at hand, and the 4th also, having heard the firing, was rapidly gaining the right flank of the enemy. Brennier drove off the cavalry and was again in march, yet the infantry, throwing off their knapsacks, overtook him as he descended the deep chasm of Barba de Puerco and killed or wounded many, taking three hundred, but the 36th Regiment rashly passing the bridge was repulsed with a loss of forty men. Had Erskine given the 4th Regiment its orders, the French column would have been lost, and Lord Wellington, stung by this event, and irritated by previous examples of undisciplined valour, issued this strong rebuke. “_The officers of the army may depend upon it that the enemy to whom they are opposed is not less prudent than powerful. Notwithstanding what has been printed in gazettes and newspapers, we have never seen small bodies unsupported successfully opposed to large; nor has the experience of any officer realized the stories which all have read of whole armies being driven by a handful of light infantry and dragoons._” BOOK V. Combat of Campo Mayor--First English Siege of Badajos--Battle of Albuera--Renewed Siege of Badajos--First Assault of Christoval--Second Assault on Christoval. COMBAT OF CAMPO MAYOR. (May, 1811.) It has been shown how Beresford was sent to oppose Soult beyond the Tagus, but the latter, disturbed by the battle of Barosa, which put all Andalusia in commotion, had returned to Seville, leaving Mortier to continue the operations. Campo Mayor surrendered the 21st of March, and four days after, Latour Maubourg, having to bring away the battering train and a convoy of provisions, issued from the gates with nine hundred cavalry, three battalions of infantry, some horse-artillery and sixteen heavy guns, all in column of march, just as Beresford emerged from an adjacent forest with twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry and eighteen field-pieces. An astonishing apparition this was to the French, for so adroitly had Wellington, while seemingly absorbed in the pursuit of Massena, organized this army, that its existence was only made known by its presence.