Anecdotes.

This is coolbert: 

Continuing the marching ability of troops. Quite often arduous and difficult circumstances. Herewith an edited and re-posted blog entry.

Concerning the march of the British Light Brigade toward Talavera [1809]. A march to battle, sixty-two [62] miles in twenty-six [26] hours being the pace. Here with anecdotal accounts and extracts from memoirs of those English soldiers, members of the Light Brigade and actual combatants who fought at Talavera. 

Sixty-two miles equals about one-hundred kilometers.

1. From: "THE RIFLE BRIGADE - - BY LIEUT.-COLONEL LEACH, C.B." 

 "The long march which was made by General Crawfurd's light brigade, with a view of reaching Talavera in time to take a part in that bloody battle, is almost universally known to military men; and it is recorded as one of the most extraordinary that the British or any other army has been known to perform. In twenty-six hours it passed over upwards of sixty miles of country, and in the very height of summer, where the heat was intense, and but little water could be procured to slake the intolerable thirst of the soldiers. In spite of these obstacles very few men were left behind" 

2. From: "The Napoleonic Wars" - - the memoirs of Edward "Ned" Costello. 95th Rifles, Light Brigade. 

"Hardly had Costello arrived than the Light Brigade began one of history's greatest forced marches when it left to join Wellington's main body at Talavera: 'Our men suffered dreadfully on the route, chiefly from excessive fatigue and the heat of the weather. The brain fever [heat stroke??] soon commenced, making fearful ravages in our ranks, and many dropped by the roadside and died.' 'Despite being light troops, the 95th still carried 70-80 pounds [lbs] of equipment, provisions, ammunition, a rifle and the blistering July heat took a terrible toll." 

3. "The Talavera Campaign" - - the anecdotal account of: Lieutenant Wood of the 82nd Regiment.

 ". . . it was now as suddenly as intensely hot, and we had very little except the olive-trees, which we were prohibited from cutting, to screen us from the scorching rays of a sun almost vertical. This being an open corn country, we were the whole day exposed to its beams, and the ground was so exceedingly warm, that it produced the greatest number of insects I ever saw. We were infested and annoyed, beyond measure,. . . our advance continued, and the weather retained its sultry heat. Many a weary step, over many a dreary league, we dragged through the dusty way . . . sometimes without a drop of water to wet the parched and swollen tongue of the way-dropped solder -- for there were many who sunk under the oppression of this excessive heat . . . we were enabled to continue our exertions till we arrived at Talavera de la Reyna." 

coolbert.