Note 509 — SECTION XXI: CHAPTER V

I find in the note to Gachot’s excellent editions of Delagrave’s Campagne de Portugal that the losses of the French on this day were 157 men, those of the allies 139. The last statement, one sufficiently probable in itself, cannot be verified from any British source that I have found: Wellington, annexed to the document on page 511 of vol. vi of the Dispatches, gives the loss of Cole’s British brigades in detail—they amount to twenty-five men only. But he does not give details of Hervey’s Portuguese, though he mentions that the brigadier was wounded, and that the two regiments (Nos. 11 and 23 of the Line) distinguished themselves. They may well have lost the 124 men mentioned by Gachot, but I have no proof of it. Vere’s usually accurate ‘Marches of the 4th Division’ gives no figures for this day, nor does D’Urban’s Diary. Wellington remarks that ‘the attack of this day on General Cole’s pickets near Sobral was without much effect.’ It is certain, however, that the British lost a little ground in front of the heights. Martinien’s Liste des officiers tués et blessés, which I so often find of use, shows that Junot’s corps lost two officers killed and seven wounded. This, at the usual average, would imply 150-180 casualties.