Battle of the Côa
1810 CE.
Shown on the map at 40.726°, -6.906°.
The Combat of the Côa (July 24, 1810; also referred to as Coa or Cõa) was a military engagement that occurred during the Peninsular War period of the Napoleonic Wars. It took place in the valley of the Côa River and it was the first significant battle for the new army of 65,000 men controlled by Marshal André Masséna, as the French prepared for their third invasion of Portugal. As the British-Portuguese forces were outnumbered here, on July 22, General Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington sent Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd a letter, saying that he (Wellington) was "not desirous of engaging in an affair beyond the Coa." On July 24, Craufurd's Light Division, with 4,200 infantry, 1,100 cavalry, and six guns, was surprised by the sight of 20,000 troops under Marshal Michel Ney, of which only about a quarter were thrown into combat by him, namely parts of the Loison division, which also had up to six guns. Rather than retreat and cross the river as ordered by Wellington, Craufurd chose to engage the French, narrowly avoiding disaster. The French objective was to force the Light Division back across the Côa in order to besiege Almeida.
Text from the Wikipedia article Combat of the Côa, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.