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Updated: May 9, 2025
Craufurd, however, a rash and obstinate, although a skilful general, was determined upon having a brush with the enemy before he fell back. He anticipated, no doubt, that only an advanced guard of the enemy would come up at first, and his intention was to inflict a severe check upon them with the magnificent little division under his command, and then fall back triumphantly across the Coa.
Gradually the French slackened their fire, their great guns were one by one withdrawn from the heights, and a dropping, irregular musketry at intervals sustained the fight, which, ere sunset, ceased altogether; and thus ended "The Battle of the Coa!" Scarcely had the night fallen when our retreat commenced.
Wellington himself said, "This was one of the most glorious actions British troops were ever engaged in." The next day the French crossed the Coa and Turones, and took up their position under the guns of Ciudad Rodrigo, which they had left six months before with the full assurance that they were going to conquer Portugal, and drive the British into the sea.
They stood at the edge of a plateau, and behind them the ground fell away in a steep hillside to the Coa, a mile distant, and across the Coa there was but a single bridge. The enemy was approaching fast. Ney's great brigade of cavalry swept the British horse before them, and the infantry were following at a run.
Orders were given for the removal of the wounded to the Coa, where the army was to take up its winter quarters, and Zamorra and I had to part. We parted with mutual expressions of good-will, and in the hope, destined never to be realized, that we might soon meet again. I had seen Don Alberto for the last time.
It was, then, under happier auspices than in former years that he broke up from his cantonments then stationed on the Coa, a little to the north-west of Ciudad Rodrigo, and set forward with 70,000 British and Portuguese troops, besides 20,000 Spaniards, to drive the French out of Spain.
My most constant impression was that the troops were retiring beyond the Coa, and that, forgotten in the haste and confusion of a night march, I had been left behind to fall a prisoner to the enemy.
Five hundred of these were placed along the Coa, guarding the roads and, with the remainder, he forded the river and placed himself in the woods, in the plain between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. Here he captured several convoys of waggons, proceeding with provisions for the garrison of the former place.
So strong, indeed, was the position that the English generals were doubtful whether Massena would venture to attack. Upon the 25th Craufurd moved his division forward, and would have repeated his mistake of the Coa had not Wellington himself gone forward and recalled the troops, bringing them off with difficulty in the face of the advancing masses of the French.
We overtook the enemy this afternoon, in position, behind the Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the river. I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within half-musket shot of theirs: it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went, about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to find one missing.
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