Note 637 — Chapter I

I have only mentioned the movement of the 6th Division and R. Hill’s cavalry above: there is no doubt as to what they did, and on the 30th they are both at Lerin, according to the location given by Supplementary Dispatches, viii. p. 39. But there is a puzzle about Oswald’s 5th Division on the 26th-30th, which I was long unable to solve. Wellington in his dispatch to Bathurst of July 3 (Dispatches, x. p. 501) says that he moved not only Clinton from Vittoria but Oswald from Salvatierra towards Logroño, on the march to intercept Clausel. He ought to have known if any one did! But I was not able to find any trace of the 5th Division having actually gone to Logroño: to march back from Salvatierra to Vittoria, and thence to follow Clinton to Logroño and Lerin would have been a very long business. Now regimental diaries of the 3/1st and 1/9th prove that the division was at Salvatierra on the 25th, and marched back to Vittoria on the 26th. But the best of them (Hale of the 1/9th) says that from Vittoria the division was turned back towards Pampeluna, and reached a spot within two leagues of it on the third day. At this point it was turned off northward and marched by Tolosa to join Graham’s column and assist at the siege of St. Sebastian. All accounts agree that it reached the neighbourhood of that fortress on July 5th-6th. Allowing six days for the march Vittoria-St. Sebastian, we have only the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th June for the supposed march Salvatierra-Vittoria-Logroño, and return. The solution at last came to hand in General Shadwell’s Life of Colin Campbell of the 1/9th (Lord Clyde). Here it is mentioned, apparently on some record of Campbell’s, that his brigade only got to La Guardia, one march beyond Trevino, and was then turned back and sent north (Life of Campbell, i. p. 18). This is no doubt correct.