Note 183 — SECTION XXXIV: CHAPTER V

Colonel James Willoughby Gordon seems not to have been a success as quarter-master-general. Very soon after his arrival we get notes in the earlier part of the Salamanca campaign that intelligent officers ‘thought he would not stop long with the Army.’ Cf. Tomkinson, p. 224: ‘Nothing could equal the bad arrangements of the Quartermaster-General—the cavalry all retired by one road, allowing that of the enemy to follow our infantry’ [of the central column on November 18]—which was not covered, all the horse having gone on the western or left road. Wellington had a worse accusation against him than mere incapacity (of this more will be found in chap. iii of sect. xxxv)—that of sending letters home which revealed military secrets which got into the English papers. In September he made up his mind that Gordon must not see his dispatches, and must be ‘kept at as great distance as possible’ (Supplementary Dispatches, vii. pp. 427-8). He was sent home before the next campaign.