Bump!
I share with you an account from Chef de Battalion Duuring of the 1er Chasseurs from Waterloo, the regiment was at Le Cailou and tasked with guarding the Emperor's baggage, this extract describes Prussian attempts to cut off the French during the battle, enjoy
"I was informed by a post to my right that two columns could be seen leaving a wood, so I went to reconnoitre. Immediately I arrived I was convinced that they were enemy; each was of about 800 men[this would suggest that there were two battalions in two columns]. But the rear was still in the wood and it was difficult to be sure lf their exact strength.
I took my dispositions to receive this attack, putting two gun in battery loaded with caseshot and covered by a detachment of an officer and fifty men posted in a manner that it would be difficult to see them, giving them the order not to open fore without my order. My adjutant-major came to inform me that many stragglers were arriving; I had two of my companies that I had kept back in the centre, bayonets crossed, on and either side of the main road with the order to let no one pass that was not wounded. I found amongst this number several officers, including a battalion commander who I forced to take command of an ad hoc battalion that I had assembled, with the threat of shooting him if he did not. I even found a marechal de camp[brigadier] whose name I do not know, who I forced to take command of another column.
The officer that I ha detached to cover the two guns, sent me word that the artillery officer that commanded them had decided to leave with his guns, saying that he was not under my command and that the enemy was approaching. I then begged some senior artillery officers to put other guns at my disposal but without effect.
Seeing myself on the point about to be attacked by a superior force unsupported by anybody else, I decided to form a battalion of about two hundred men that I had assembled, I put them in a position en potence a little behind and to my right to prevent me from being outflanked, I sent off the imperial treasure and equipages and then the guns without a singe man as escort, and then attempted to repulse an attack that would have been very harmful to the army if the road behind us would have been cut. I reassembled my battalion with its back to the farm, detached a hundred men as skirmishers into the wood and a hundred others as a reserve. At the same time, the general(the provost marshal of the army) had the ad hoc battalion of infantry, deploy t short range a the pas de charge, and also to deploy into the wood. This combination had a happy outcome: we suffered few causalities and the Prussians were repulsed. I had, at the same time, sent my adjutant-major to inform the emperor what had happened and that I had held the position."
