We may add 750 men for the five batteries of artillery and the train, and so get a total strength of 13,700. Napoleon (_Corresp._, 14,213) called the force 15,000.
[a] The other three batts. of the 14th were with Verdier at Saragossa. This odd battalion was in the battle attached to D’Armagnac’s brigade. Merle was given Ducos’ and D’Armagnac’s brigades to make up a division.
[b] These battalions were much weakened by detachments.
[c] A very strong battalion: it was 1,200 strong on June 1, and must still have had 1,000 bayonets.
[d] Both regiments were incomplete, having dropped men at Vittoria and Burgos.
On the evening of July 13, Lasalle’s light cavalry got in touch with the outposts of the Spaniards near Medina de Rio Seco, and reported that Blake and Cuesta were present in force. On the next morning Bessières marched before daybreak from Palencia, and just as the day was growing hot, discovered the enemy drawn up on rising ground a little to the east of the small town which has given its name to the battle. Blake had 15,000 infantry and 150 cavalry with twenty guns[136]; Cuesta 6,000 infantry and 550 cavalry, but not a single cannon. They outnumbered Bessières by nearly two to one in foot soldiery, but had little more than half his number of horse, and only two-thirds as many guns.
[136] In the _Vaughan Papers_ I find a ‘Journal of the operations of General Blake,’ by some officer of his staff, unnamed. It gives the force of the Galician army at Rio Seco as follows:--
_Officers._ _Sergeants._ _Drummers,&c._ _Veteran rank and file._ _Recruits._ _Total._
Vanguard: Gen. Count Maceda 75 81 76 1,678 277 = 2,187 1st Division: Gen. Cagigal 186 194 166 4,795 1315 = 6,470 4th Division: Marquis Portago 188 185 144 3,208 2281 = 5,818 Head-quarters Guard: Volunteers of Navarre 29 30 43 681 -- = 754 --- --- --- ------ ----- ------ 478 490 429 10,362 3,873 = 15,229
This total only differs by 26 from that given by Arteche (ii. 654).
A more prudent general than Cuesta would have refused to fight at all with an army containing in its ranks no less than 9,000 recruits, and almost destitute of cavalry. But if fighting was to be done, a wise man would at any rate have chosen a good position, where his flanks would be covered from turning movements and inaccessible to the enemy’s very superior force of horsemen. The old Captain-General cared nothing for such caution: he had merely drawn up his army on a gentle hillside, somewhat cut up by low stone walls, but practicable for cavalry at nearly every point. His flanks had no protection of any kind from the lie of the ground: behind his back was the town of Medina de Rio Seco, and the dry bed of the Sequillo river, obstacles which would tend to make a retreat difficult to conduct in orderly fashion. But a retreat was the last thing in Cuesta’s thoughts.