tter places. We followed
them up and combined ourselves again into one body. At Pombal the
French had tried, but in vain, to retain the old castle situated
there, and some slight skirmishing had taken place between them and
some of our light troops. At Redinha the third, fourth, and light
divisions attacked the enemy's left, and after a stout engagement we
compelled them to retire upon their main body, and being likewise
attacked on the right, their whole body was thrown into retreat on
Condexo. On our appearance there, they set fire to the place, and
again retreated; their object in burning such a little town being
probably to prevent our cavalry, cannon, and ammunition from following
them up too closely. We were, however, delayed but a very short time,
for we marched through the burning town, certainly not letting the
grass grow under our feet, as the ground was much too hot. It appeared
once to have been a beautiful town, but after this it was one sad mass
of ruin.

The French proceeded from this place to Casal Nova, but were so
quickly followed up that Picton's division overtook them and nearly
captured their leader. Next day we came up with the enemy, posted in a
strong position at Casal Nova, and on the 14th of March the light
division attacked them and obliged them to retreat to a neighbouring
height, whence after another attack they again found it best to retire
on Miranda de Corno. Part of our division was in this engagement, and
I never saw cannon play with better or more deadly effect on any body
of men than ours did on the enemy, situated as they were on the
heights of Casal Nova. Yet they left very few dead or wounded on the
field; I think they must have carried most of them away, as the ground
was strewn with muskets and swords.

The thing I noticed most particularly in this fight was the singular
death of a man in our regiment, who was named William Halfhead, but
considering the size of his head, which must have gone a very great
way towards filling half a bushel measure, it was wrongly so, and he
was the sport of the whole regiment, who named him Bushelhead. His
head was indeed so large that he had to have two caps to make him one.
This poor fellow was standing within five yards of me when a shot from
the enemy's cannon took this same head clean off. I heard one of the
men exclaim, "Hullo, there goes poor Bushelhead," and that was all the
sympathy he got.

One division, under General Cole, proceeded