The crisis of the battle had now arrived and the victory was for the general who had the strongest reserves in hand. Wellington, who was seen that day at every point of the field exactly when his presence was most required, immediately brought up from the second line, the sixth division, and its charge was rough, strong, and successful. Nevertheless the struggle was no slight one. The men of general Hulse’s brigade, which was on the left, went down by hundreds, and the sixty-first and eleventh regiments won their way desperately and through such a fire, as British soldiers only, can sustain. Some of Boyer’s dragoons also breaking in between the fifth and sixth divisions slew many men, and caused some disorder in the fifty-third; but that brave regiment lost no ground, nor did Clauzel’s impetuous counter-attack avail at any point, after the first burst, against the steady courage of the allies. The southern ridge was regained, the French general Menne was severely, and general Ferey, mortally wounded, Clauzel himself was hurt, and the reserve of Boyer’s dragoons coming on at a canter were met and broken by the fire of Hulse’s noble brigade. Then the changing current of the fight once more set for the British. The third division continued to outflank the enemy’s left, Maucune abandoned the French Arapiles, Foy retired from the ridge of Calvariza, and the allied host righting itself as a gallant ship after a sudden gust, again bore onwards in blood and gloom, for though the air, purified by the storm of the night before, was peculiarly clear, one vast cloud of smoke and dust rolled along the basin, and within it was the battle with all its sights and sounds of terror. When the English general had thus restored the fight in the centre, he directed the commander of the first division to push between Foy and the rest of the French army, which would have rendered it impossible for the latter to rally or escape; but this order was not executed, and Foy’s and Maucune’s divisions were skilfully used by Clauzel to protect the retreat. The first, posted on undulating ground and flanked by some squadrons of dragoons, covered the roads to the fords of Huerta and Encina; the second, reinforced with fifteen guns, was placed on a steep ridge in front of the forest, covering the road to Alba de Tormes; and behind this ridge, the rest of the army, then falling back in disorder before the third, fifth, and sixth divisions, took refuge. Wellington immediately sent the light division, formed in two lines and flanked by some squadrons of dragoons, against Foy; and he supported them by the first division in columns, flanked on the right by two brigades of the fourth division which he had drawn off from the centre when the sixth division restored the fight. The seventh division and the Spaniards followed in reserve, the country was covered with troops, and a new army seemed to have risen out of the earth.