On that night the whole army retired, leaving the Light Division as a rear-guard. The Riflemen having made up their fires to deceive the enemy, and to lead them to believe that they were still in bivouack, followed about midnight. They marched through Casillas de Flores to Forcalhos, and were on the march during the whole of the 27th, with the exception of a short halt. General Craufurd having remained behind with a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre, was sharply pressed and pursued by the enemy’s chasseurs, and came galloping into the middle of the Riflemen with the enemy’s troopers at his heels. But the Riflemen, throwing themselves into rocky ground and cover, which fortunately was on each side of the road, soon brought the French cavalry to a check; but these dismounting and acting as infantry skirmishers, a smart skirmish took place between some companies of the Regiment and these dismounted men, which continued the greater part of the day. In the evening the Regiment joined the other Divisions at Aldea de Ponte.
Again forming the rear-guard, the Regiment marched at midnight, and about eight o’clock on the morning of the 28th reached a position on the height near Soita in a wood of enormous chestnut-trees, many of which were hollow from age and of such dimensions that men might have been and were sheltered in them. Lord Wellington was here in a very strong position; and Marmont having effected his principal object of re-victualling Ciudad Rodrigo, declined to give battle, and retired.
The Regiment on October 1 marched to Aldea Velha, and resumed its cantonments on the Agueda at Castellejo de Duas Casas, Martiago, Atalaya, Robleda, etc.
The Regiment now (with the Light Division) maintained the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo, and there is little to record of its movements until the commencement of the more active operations of the siege.
On November 2, however, information having been received that a considerable body of French troops were in motion to escort a new governor to Rodrigo (the former one, General Renaud, having been taken prisoner near the place by Don Julian Sanchez and his guerillas), the Regiment moved up nearer to the fortress on this morning; but it having been ascertained that the governor had succeeded in entering the place, and that the escort was bivouacked two leagues in its rear, the Regiment fell back to its former cantonments.