Note 31 — Chapter IX · OTHER EAGLES IN ENGLAND FROM BATTLEFIELDS OF SPAIN

Others of the Eagles had narrow escapes during the Peninsular War. In the fighting south of the Douro, near Grijon, on the day before Wellington’s passage of the river at Oporto, the 31st Light Infantry all but lost their Eagle on being charged by the British 14th and 20th Light Dragoons. The 31st broke in confusion before the British onset, and only rallied some miles from the battlefield. “Our losses,” described one of the officers, “were very heavy, but our Eagle, which had been in extreme peril in the encounter, was happily saved.” Again, in the pursuit up the mountain side after the defeat of Girard’s Division at Arroyo dos Molinos, the Eagles of the 34th and 40th of the Line escaped capture—although both regiments were all but annihilated—to Marshal Soult’s expressed relief. In reporting the reverse to Napoleon, Soult added this by way of solatium: “L’honneur des armes est sauvé; les Aigles ne sont pas tombés au pouvoir de l’ennemi.” After Talavera, the Eagle of the 25th of the Line was picked up on the battlefield by a party of the King’s German Legion—it was sent to Hanover and is now in Berlin; also, during the battle, the British 29th took two Eagle-poles in a charge, but with the Eagles unscrewed from the tops and removed by the Eagle-bearers at the last moment and carried out of the fight under their coats.