Ignoring Wellington's advice, O'Donnell formed his 11,000-strong army into three attack columns designed to envelop one of General of Division Jean Isidore Harispe's brigades. Abandoning the town of Castalla, Colonel Jacques-Antoine-Adrien Delort drew up his soldiers on a nearby ridge. As O'Donnell's three center brigades probed the position, the French 24th Dragoon regiment unexpectedly arrived on the battlefield and delivered a series of crushing blows. The French cavalry and infantry killed or wounded 1,000 Spanish soldiers and rounded up 2,135 prisoners. The Spanish right and left columns made such wide circuits of the battlefield that the fighting was over before they could influence the result. When Maitland landed he found the Army of Murcia in no shape to conduct operations for several months. The day after Castalla, Wellington won a decisive victory over the French at Salamanca and threatened to break Napoleon's grip on Spain.