them for some distance. Twenty were killed, thirteen officers and 154 men
taken prisoners. On the 23d, Soult had concentrated his forces at the town
of Carrion, and that night the British troops were got in motion to attack
them, the two forces being about even in numbers; but scarcely had he
moved forward when reports, both from Romana and his own spies, reached
Sir John Moore to the effect that his march had achieved the object with
which it was undertaken. Orders had been sent by Napoleon for the whole of
the French armies to move at once against the British, while he himself,
with the troops at Madrid, 70,000 strong, had started by forced marches to
fall upon him.

The instant Moore received this information he arrested the forward
movement of his troops. His object had been attained. The French invasion
of the south was arrested, and time given to the Spaniards. There was
nothing now but to fall back with all speed. It was well indeed that he
did not carry out his intention of attacking Soult. The latter had that
day received orders from the emperor not to give battle, but to fall back,
and so tempt Moore to pursue, in which case his line of retreat would have
been intercepted and his army irretrievably lost.

The order to retreat was an unwelcome one indeed to the troops. For twelve
days they had marched through deep snow and suffered fatigues, privations,
and hardships. That evening they had expected to be repaid for their
exertions by a battle and a victory on the following morning, and the
order to retreat, coming at such a moment, was a bitter disappointment
indeed.

They were, of course, ignorant of the reasons for this sudden change, and
the officers shared the discontent of the troops, a feeling that largely
accounted for the disorders and losses that took place during the retreat.