In addition to his work on the Duke's papers Gurwood was engaged in a very public altercation with Sir William Napier. Gurwood disagreed with the accounts in Napier's "HIstory" of the rivalry between the 43rd and the 52nd in the capture of the howitzer at Sabugal and, more personally, of his own role in the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. When Volume IV of the "History" came out in 1834 he sent Napier privately a lengthy description of his and his party's actions during the siege. In 1838 he put the matter into the public domain with a footnote in Volume VIII of the "Dispatches" stating that Napier had been misinformed about the siege and that a correct statement had been forwarded to him for use in a future edition. Napier retaliated in Volume VI of the "History" published in 1840 saying that Gurwood's recollections were confused by the head wound he had received, and that the recollections of other officers were completely different. He printed a long extract from a memoir by a Major Mackie who claimed to have been the person to whom the Governor surrendered, and who alleged that Gurwood had taken the sword away from him.