The enemy then fell back on the River Adour, the allied army soon following and engaging them in slight attacks in various parts of the line, till at last the French again took up a position on the heights near the town of Tarbes, on the said river; but they did not stay long there, being soon driven away by the Allies and retreating towards St. Gaudens. Thence they were again driven with great loss to themselves and a very trifling one to the Allies, this time to Toulouse on the Garonne, where they stood on the defensive on some more heights on the right bank of the river with every assailable part strongly fortified.
Some difficulty was met with in our march, owing to the chief of the bridges being destroyed and having to be replaced by pontoons, and those that were not destroyed being strongly fortified. One of these was guarded by some French cavalry, whom we annoyed very considerably by our fire as we approached them, having in case of their making an attack on us a fine artificial ditch to fall back into where it was next to impossible that they could get at us; our fire was made more daring by our knowing there was a body of hussars waiting out of their sight, ready to fall on them if they moved on us. We soon enticed out a body of about three hundred, who crossed the bridge under our retreating and destructive fire, and on their near approach we fell into our ditch, while at the same time our cavalry came up, and some close shaving ensued, a large quantity of spare heads, arms, legs, as well as many horses being soon strewn about the ground.
But this was not the worst part of our day's work, for after they had been tumbled back over the bridge, our division came up and we followed them right up towards their heights, keeping Toulouse some distance to our right. Before we reached the heights, however, we had to attack and carry a small village they were occupying. This was the commencement of the action of that bloody day which cost the armies on both sides numbers of their best men. It was fought on the Easter Sunday of 1814.
From the village we proceeded over some difficult ground to attack their right under a brisk fire from their artillery, so brisk, indeed, that one of General Cole's orderlies had his horse shot under him; and then we formed line and dashed up the hill, which was defended by some thousands of the French, nearly half of whom were cavalry. We soon returned their fire, which at that time was a perfect storm of grape and canister, and directly we got near we charged them, but in vain, as owing to the sudden appearance of some of their cavalry we had to halt and form square: and indeed we must have been routed altogether by their combined infantry and cavalry, had not our Rocket Brigade stepped forward and played fearful havoc among their cavalry, driving them back. I had never before seen this rocket charge and have never either since; by all appearance it was most successful in this case, for it soon turned them to the right-about, and made them retreat.