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Updated: May 6, 2025
Vandamme, noted even then as one of the hardest hitters in the army, was leading his division of Soult's corps up the northern slopes of the plateau; by a sidelong slant his men cut off a detachment of Russians in the village, and, aided by the brigade of Thiébault, swarmed up the hill at a speed which surprised and unsteadied its defenders.
Soult's division, which extended for nearly a league to our right, was the first to move, and it seemed like one vast shadow creeping along the earth, as column beside column marched steadily onward. Our brigade had not as yet received orders, but the men were in readiness beside the horses, and only waiting for the word to mount. The suspense of the moment was fearful.
His sympathies are French through and through." Sir Terence stared at him in frank amazement, in utter unbelief. "Oh, impossible!" he ejaculated at last. "I saw Samoval for the first time," said Colonel Grant by way of answer, "in Oporto at the time of Soult's occupation. He did not call himself Samoval just then, any more than I called myself Colquhoun Grant.
"My orders are to bring you to La Caillon," said the quartermaster; "and if you only can spur your jaded horse into a trot, we shall soon reach it." About a hundred yards from the little farm-house, stood a small cottage of a peasant. Here some officers of Marshal Soult's staff had taken up their quarters; and thither my guide now bent his steps.
Jago; but after advancing to the suburbs of Vigo, and seeing its strong position, he waited for the result of Soult's movement against Romana. Several days having elapsed, he learned that, after driving Romana back to Orense without fighting, and staying several days at Montforte, the marshal had taken the road to Zamora, without replying to the letters of his companion-in-arms.
When he spoke of the state in which he found Romana's army, and the reason for his determination to keep his column intact, they listened more attentively, and exchanged looks of surprise when he described his rapid march to the mouth of the Minho, and the repulse of Soult's attempt to cross from Tuy. He then described how he had joined Silveira, and the mutiny of that general's troops.
When Ney's corps replaced Soult's at Corunna, I had camped the companies of the artillery-train between Betanzos and Corunna, in the midst of four brigades distant from the camp from two to three leagues, and no Spanish forces had been seen within fifty miles; Soult still occupied Santiago de Compostela, the division Maurice-Mathieu was at Ferrol and Lugo, Marchand's at Corunna and Betanzos: nevertheless, one fine night the companies of the train men and horses disappeared, and we were never able to discover what became of them: a solitary wounded corporal escaped to report that the peasants, led by their monks and priests, had thus made away with them.
On its banks they were joined by the defenders of Königsberg, who after a stout stand cut their way through Soult's lines and made for Tilsit. There, behind the broad stream of the Niemen, the fugitives found rest.
Here we touch again the line of that masterly retreat of Soult's before the superior forces of Wellington, to which Napier has done such ample and deserved justice. Boes, and the High Church of Baights, the scene of the terrible battle of Orthez. The Roman camp, then 'open and grassy, with a few trees, says Napier, is now covered with vineyards.
The formidable artillery of the Russians covered their two lines; presently the shells fired the town of Eylau and the village of Rothenen, which protected a division of Marshal Soult's. The two armies remained immovable in a rain of cannon-balls.
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