Before initiating the departure, Moore struck one final blow against the French to demonstrate Britain’s resolve to its Portuguese and Spanish allies. On December 21, 1808, a regiment of Henry Paget’s dragoons defeated two French regiments at the Battle of Sahagún, inflicting 320 casualties while losing only 25 British troops. Soon after this encounter, Moore’s army began its long retreat to Corunna.

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The British withdrawal, undertaken in bitterly cold weather over some of Spain’s most forbidding terrain (including the Cantabrian Mountains) turned into a nightmare. Exhausting marches, horrible conditions, and sharp skirmishes with pursuing French forces left thousands of Moore’s troops dead or abandoned along the route. Finally on January 11, 1809, about 16,000 of Moore’s men stumbled into Corunna, where they were joined by another 4,000 British soldiers who had marched from Portugal to await the arrival of evacuation vessels. Yet one more ordeal was in store for the British.

Moore’s troops began boarding the ships on January 15; however, the process took several days. On January 16, Soult’s II Corps attacked. The resulting Battle of Corunna was a hard-fought encounter featuring desperate, close-quarter combat. The French attackers lost perhaps twice as many men as did the British defenders (about 2,000 French casualties vs. 900 British casualties); but alas one of the British dead was General Sir John Moore. Moore’s men buried their commander on the field that night and then under the cover of darkness slipped away in boats to meet the Royal Navy ships. A small Spanish garrison covered the British as they completed their evacuation on January 18.

In what was perhaps the greatest compliment to Moore and his achievements in Spain – particularly the preservation of the British army as a force in being – the Duke of Wellington remarked, “You know, I don’t think we’d have won without him.”

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