On the 29th July, Crawford’s Light Division, the 42nd, 52nd, and 95th, joined the army after a march of forty-two miles in twenty-six hours, during which each carried sixty pounds’ weight, in a time of extreme heat, and went on outpost duty at once![37] Verily they were men in those days, when khaki suits and sun-helmets were not. The victory of Talavera made Sir Arthur my Lord Viscount Wellington, with a pension of £2000 a year, and placed its name on the colours of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, 14th Hussars, 16th Lancers, Coldstream and Scots Guards, the 3rd, 7th, 24th, 29th, 31st, 40th, 45th, 48th, 53rd, 60th, 61st, 66th, 83rd, 87th, and 88th Regiments of the line. A gold medal was also granted to all officers above the rank of lieutenant-colonel, who had served at Corunna and Talavera. Meanwhile, Soult was again advancing, and now in great force, on Placencia, which place he reached without opposition, as Cuesta had failed to guard the Baños Pass as he had promised. Wellington, unaware of this, marched to it; while the advance of Joseph again rendered a retreat, in presence of such numbers, unavoidable. Cuesta fell back, abandoning both Spanish and British wounded to French generosity, which was not misplaced. Finally, the Spanish were defeated in a series of small affairs, while Wellington had crossed the Tagus at Arzobespo. Winter quarters were taken up in the valley of the Mondego, when the Spaniards were defending Ciudad Rodrigo on the one hand, and Beresford was covering Almeida on the other; but the cessation of hostilities, in other parts of Europe about this time, enabled Napoleon to pour considerable reinforcements into the Peninsula, and to attempt once again the invasion of Portugal. Then, by the summer of 1810, the French had three corps (Victor, Mortier, and Sebastiani) in Andalusia; Joseph, with 24,000 men, in Madrid; and three corps (Ney, Regnier, and Junot), to be united under the “spoiled child of victory,” Massena, who was selected to invade Portugal, and prove that on this occasion, at all events, fortune was going to “spoil the child.” There were three roads by which this invasion could be effected,--from Oporto, from Badajoz, and from Salamanca by Almeida and the Coa. This latter route was watched by Crawford with some of the Light Division.