division. The second line of the division was about a hundred yards in the rear of the first, and between these at one time lord Wellington was stationed while watching the progress of the attack. In front rode general Leith,'
directing its movements and regulating the approach of the troops, who had formed into squares; and when with his staff he reached the summit of the eminence, where the artillery which had so annoyed them had been placed,
about a mile from his former station, he found the enemy drawn up in contiguous squares, the front rank kneeling, and ready to pour their murderous shot into the British line. A heavy fire commenced as soon as they broke over the heights, and discharging their musketry when about thirty yards from the enemy, the fifth raised a shout of triumph, advanced to the charge, and at the point of the bayonet, pierced the enemy's squares, which were soon put into
disorder and broken, the cavalry having cut in pieces a body of their infantry. The victorious fifth pressed forward, supported on the right flank by the heavy cavalry of Le Merchant, while general Pakenham, brother-in-law to lord Wellington, at the head of the third division and the Portuguese cavalry of D'Urban, turned the enemy's left in four columns, and attacking them in flank overthrew everything that opposed them. For a time the fourth division were unable to drive back Bonnet's column, which outflanked it ; but on the approach of the fifth and sixth divisions, which came to their assistance, the other parts of the French army being already in disorder, they were driven back in confusion on the centre of the French army, and the third and fifth pressing forward, had the honour of deciding the battle of Salamanca, although the other parts of the British army fought bravely, and upheld the glory of the British name. General Leith, who had stationed himself in front of the colours of the thirty-eighth regiment, still maintained his position between the two hostile fires, and drove the enemy before him; but during this tremendous charge, while in the act of breaking the French squares, he received a severe wound which eventually caused him to quit the field. The right wing of the enemy's army was the last to give way, but being charged by the sixth, third, and fifth
divisions in front, and pressed on the right by the fourth, light, and Portuguese divisions, it at length fled through the woods towards the Tormes, and was pursued by a brigade of the fourth, and some squadrons of cavalry, until night put
a gtop to the chase. The loss of the fifth division alone, was eight hundred, killed and wounded. The loss of the other divisions of the British army was equally severe, amounting in all to eight hundred and forty killed, and four thousand seven hundred and twenty-three wounded; but that of the enemy under Marmont, who was himself wounded by an howitzer shell, was twenty-two thousand killed, and seven thousand prisoners, out of an army amounting to between forty-six and fifty thousand men.
General Leith and his aid-de-camp, captain Leith Hay, who was also severely wounded, were carried to the village of Las Torres, and from thence to the house of the marquis Escalla in Salamanca, where the victory was celebrated by song and sequidillas, and every demonstration of joy. The distinguished merit of lieutenant-general Leith during the peninsular war was rewarded by conferring upon him the insignia of the Bath, as a special mark of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent's favour, "for his distinguished conduct in the action fought near Corunna and in the battle of Busaco; for his noble daring at the assault and capture of Badajos by storm; and for his heroic conduct in the ever memorable action fought on the plains of Salamanca, where, in personally leading the fifth division to a most gallant and successful charge upon a part of the enemy's line, which it completely overthrew at the point of the bayonet, he and the whole of his personal staff were severely wounded." Several other marks of royal favour,
