progress of our downfall without power to arrest it.


_IV.--Shipwrecked Hopes_


Having been sent to the rear with dispatches, I did not reach Talavera
till two days' hard fighting had left the contending armies without
decided advantage on either side.

I had scarcely joined my regiment before the 14th were ordered to
charge.

We came on at a trot. The smoke of the cannonade obscured everything
until we had advanced some distance, but suddenly the splendid panorama
of the battlefield broke upon us.

"Charge! Forward!" cried the hoarse voice of our colonel; and we were
upon them. The French infantry, already broken by the withering musketry
of our people, gave way before us, and, unable to form a square, retired
fighting, but in confusion and with tremendous loss, to their position.
One glorious cheer from left to right of our line proclaimed the
victory, while a deafening discharge of artillery from the French
replied to this defiance, and the battle was over.

For several months after the battle of Talavera my life presented
nothing which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have
deserted us when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that
splendid victory we began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed
hard by overwhelming masses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of