When the action ceased, a brigade of the light division relieved the regiments in the village; and a slight demonstration by the second corps near Fort Conception, having been repulsed by a battalion of the Lusitanian legion, both armies remained in observation. Fifteen hundred men and officers, of which three hundred were prisoners, constituted the loss of the allies; that of the enemy was estimated at the time to be near five thousand, but this exaggerated calculation was founded upon the erroneous supposition that four hundred dead were lying about Fuentes Onoro. All armies make rash estimates on such occasions. Having had charge to bury the carcasses at that point, I can affirm that, immediately about the village, not more than one hundred and thirty bodies were to be found, one-third of which were British.

During the battle, the French convoy for the supply of Almeida, being held at Gallegos, in readiness to move, lord Wellington sent Julian Sanchez from Frenada, to menace it, and to disturb the communication with Ciudad Rodrigo. This produced no effect, and a more decisive battle being expected on the 6th, the light division made breast-works amongst the crags of Fuentes Onoro, while lord Wellington entrenched that part of the position, which was immediately behind this village, so that the carrying of it would have scarcely benefitted the enemy. Fuentes Onoro, strictly speaking, was not tenable; there was a wooded tongue of land on the British right, that overlooked, at half-cannon shot, all the upper as well as the lower part of the village both in flank and rear, yet was too distant from the position to be occupied by the allies: had Ney been at the head of the sixth corps, he would have quickly crowned this ridge, and then Fuentes could only have been maintained by submitting to a butchery.

On the 6th the enemy sent his wounded to the rear, making no demonstration of attack, and as the 7th passed in a like inaction, the British entrenchments were perfected. The 8th Massena withdrew his main body to the woods leading upon Espeja and Gallegos, but still maintained posts at Alameda and Fuentes. On the 10th, without being in any manner molested, he retired across the Agueda; the sixth and eight corps, and the cavalry, at Ciudad Rodrigo, the second corps by the bridge of Barba del Puerco. Bessieres also carried off the imperial guards, for Massena had been recalled to France, and Marmont assumed the command of the army of Portugal.

Both sides claimed the victory; the French, because they won the passage at Poço Velho, cleared the wood, turned our right flank, obliged the cavalry to retire, and forced lord Wellington to relinquish three miles of ground, and to change his front. The English, because the village of Fuentes so often attacked, was successfully defended, and because the principal object (the covering the blockade of Almeida) was attained.

Certain it is, that Massena at first gained great advantages. Napoleon would have made them fatal! but it is also certain that, with an overwhelming cavalry, on ground particularly suitable to that arm, the prince of Esling having, as it were, indicated all the errors of the English general’s position, stopped short at the very moment when he should have sprung forward. By some this has been attributed to negligence, by others to disgust at being superseded by Marmont; but the true reason seems to be, that discord in his army had arisen to actual insubordination. The imperial guards would not charge at his order; Junot did not second him cordially; Loison neglected his instructions; Drouet sought to spare his own divisions in the fight; and Reynier remained perfectly inactive. Thus the machinery of battle being shaken, would not work.

General Pelet censures lord Wellington for not sending his cavalry against Reynier after the second position was taken up; asserting that any danger, on that side, would have forced the French to retreat; but the criticism is unsustainable, being based on the notion that the allies had fifty thousand men in the field, whereas, including Sanchez’ Partida, they had not thirty-five thousand. It may Appendix, No. I. Section 8.be with more justice objected to Massena that he did not launch some of his numerous horsemen, by the bridge of Seceiras, or Sabugal, against Guarda and Celerico, to destroy the magazines, cut the communication, and capture the mules and other means of transport belonging to the allied army. The vice of the English general’s position would then have been clearly exposed, for, although the second regiment of German hussars was on the march from Lisbon, it had not passed Coimbra at this period, and could not have protected the depôts. But it can never be too often repeated that war, however adorned by splendid strokes of skill, is commonly a series of errors and accidents. All the operations, on both sides, for six weeks, furnished illustration of this truth.

Ney’s opposition had prevented Massena’s march upon Coria, which would have secured Badajos and Campo Mayor, and, probably, added Elvas to them. Latour Maubourg’s tardiness had like to have cost Mortier a rear guard and a battering-train. By refusing the line of Merida, Beresford enabled the French to secure Badajos. At Sabugal, the petulance of a staff-officer marred an admirable combination, and produced a dangerous combat. Drouet’s negligence placed Almeida at the mercy of the allies, and a mistaken notion of Massena’s sufferings during the retreat, induced lord Wellington to undertake two great operations at the same time, which were above his strength. In the battle of Fuentes Onoro, more errors than skill were observable on both sides, and the train of accidents did not stop there. The prize contended for presented another example of the uncertainty of war.

EVACUATION OF ALMEIDA.

General Brennier, a prisoner at Vimiero, and afterwards exchanged, was governor of this fortress. During the battle of Fuentes Onoro, his garrison, consisting of fifteen hundred men, skirmished boldly with the blockading force, and loud explosions, supposed to be signals of communication with the relieving army, were frequent in the place. When all hopes of succour vanished, a soldier, named Tillet, contrived, with extraordinary courage and presence of mind, to penetrate, although in uniform, through the posts of blockade, carrying Brennier orders to evacuate the fortress. The French general had, however, by crossing the Agueda, left Almeida to its fate; the British general placed the light division in its old position on the Azava with cavalry posts on the Lower Agueda, and desired sir William Erskine to send the fourth regiment to Barba del Puerco, while general Alexander Campbell continued the blockade with the sixth division and with general Pack’s brigade.

Campbell’s dispositions were either negligently made, or negligently executed. Erskine never transmitted the orders to the fourth regiment, and, in the mean time, Brennier, undismayed by the retreat of the French army, was preparing, like Julian Estrada, at Hostalrich, to force his way through the blockading troops. An open country and a double line of posts greatly enhanced the difficulty, yet Brennier was resolute not only to cut his own passage but to render the fortress useless to the allies. To effect this, he ruined all the principal bastions, and kept up a constant fire of his artillery in a singular manner, for always he fired several guns at one moment with very heavy charges, placing one across the muzzle of another, so that, while some shots flew towards the besiegers and a loud explosion was heard, others destroyed pieces without attracting notice.

At midnight of the 10th, all being ready, he sprung his mines, sallied forth in a compact column, broke through the piquets, and passed between the quarters of the reserves, with a nicety that proved at once his talent of observation and his coolness. General Pack following, with a few men collected on the instant, plied him with a constant fire, yet nothing could shake or retard his column, which in silence, and without returning a shot, gained the rough country leading upon Barba del Puerco. Here it halted for a moment, just as daylight broke, and Pack, who was at hand, hearing that some English dragoons were in a village, a short distance to the right, sent an officer to bring them out upon the French flank, thus occasioning a slight skirmish and consequent delay. The troops of blockade had paid little attention at first to the explosion of the mines, thinking them a repetition of Brennier’s previous practice; but Pack’s fire having roused them, the thirty-sixth regiment was close at hand, and the fourth, also, having heard the firing at Valde Mula, was rapidly gaining the right flank of the enemy. Brennier, having driven off the cavalry, was again in march; yet the British regiments, throwing off their knapsacks, followed at such a pace, that they overtook the rear of his column in the act of descending the deep chasm of Barba del Puerco, killed and wounded many, captured about three hundred, and even passed the bridge in pursuit; there however the second corps, which was in order of battle, awaiting Brennier’s approach, repulsed them with a loss of thirty or forty men. Had sir William Erskine given the fourth regiment its orders, the French column would have been lost.

Lord Wellington, stung by this event, and irritated by several previous examples of undisciplined valour, issued a remonstrance to the army. It was justly strong, and the following remarks are as applicable to some writers as to soldiers:—“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.”