Note 697 — SECTION XVI: CHAPTER VIII

Napier seems to have the dates wrong here: he says that the 5th Corps seized Plasencia on July 31 [vol. ii. p. 184], But Soult’s official report to the Minister of War, dated Aug. 13, says that his vanguard forced the Puerto de Baños on the twenty-ninth, but only captured Plasencia on Aug. 1. If Plasencia had fallen on the thirty-first, Wellesley and Cuesta would have known the fact on the second: but as it was captured on the first only, they were still in ignorance when their conference took place.