"General Rennenkampf, the Cossack chief, had with his staff traversed the entire one hundred miles of front and had handed in his report to his superior. The plan of Marshal Oyama was to outflank our army and cut off its retreat, and after surrounding it pound it, until it capitulated, but in Kuropatkin he had met a man so able in strategy that he could easily outgeneral him and bring his plans to naught. When the eleven-inch shells which had wrought such destruction at the port began to fall it soon became evident that the works on which had been expended the labor of months and the skill of the best engineers were going to dust. In spite of the fact, however, that we were outclassed in numbers and heavy artillery our men put up a terrible fight. After a fearful pounding with all kinds of guns, one day the enemy in overwhelming force came upon us with the bayonet, and after a hand-to-hand struggle, without parallel we believe, in which the ground was piled with the slain, we were forced out and our works taken. During the awful struggle which cost us our position, I was struck in the side by the steel of a Jap, which cut a groove between two of my ribs, but although I was not seriously hurt I recognized the fact that one inch more, or possibly half of that, and to-night instead of talking to you I would have been in a nameless grave on Manchuria's plains, with my warrior shroud for a winding sheet, until the earth would give up its dead. "It is a remarkable fact that although people said, with the advent of modern repeating arms and machine guns, that bayonet charges were no longer possible, as such rushes in force would spell annihilation, yet there never was a battle in all history where so many charges were made and in which cold steel crossed so often as at Mukden.