The difficulty I have to reconcile general M‘Bean’s statement with my own recollections and with the ground and position of the light division, may perhaps arise from the general’s meaning to use certain terms in a less precise sense than I take them. Thus he says he was posted in front of the convent-wall, and also on the right of the light division; but the light division was half a mile in front of the convent-wall, and hence I suppose he does not mean as his words might imply immediately under the wall. He speaks also of the light division as being to his left, but unless he speaks of the line of battle with reference to the sinuosities of the ground, the light division was with respect to the enemy and the convent in his front; and if he does speak with regard to those sinuosities, his front would have been nearly at right angles to the front of the fifty-second and forty-third, which I suppose to be really the case. Again he says that he charged and drove the French from _their position_ down to the bottom of the ravine; but the enemy’s position, properly so called, was on the opposite side of the great ravine, and as all his artillery and cavalry, all the eighth corps and the reserves of the sixth corps, were in order of battle there, ten regiments, much less one, dared not to have crossed the ravine which was of such depth that it was difficult to distinguish troops at the bottom. I conclude therefore, general M‘Bean here means by the word position some accidental ground on which the enemy had formed. Taking this to be so, I will now endeavour to reconcile general M‘Bean’s statement with my own recollection; because certainly I do still hold my description of the action at that part to be accurate as to all the main points.