On the evening of the 6th of August a telegram was received at the Ministry giving news of the victory at Wörth. Half an hour later I took the good tidings still fresh and warm to a group of acquaintances who waited in a restaurant to hear how things were going. Everybody knows how willingly Germans celebrate the receipt of good news. My tidings were very good indeed, and many (perhaps most) of my friends celebrated them too long. The result was that next morning I was still in bed when the Foreign Office messenger Lorenz brought me a copy of a telegraphic despatch, according to which I was to start for headquarters immediately. Privy Councillor Hepke wrote: “Dear Doctor,--Get ready to leave for headquarters in the course of the day.” The telegram ran as follows: “Mainz, 6th of August, 7.36 P.M. Let Dr. Busch come here and bring with him a Correspondent for the _National Zeitung_ and one for the _Kreuzzeitung_. Bismarck.” Hepke allowed me to select these correspondents. I had therefore after all attained to the very height of good fortune. In a short time I had provided for all essentials, and by midday I had received my pass legitimation, and free ticket for all military trains. That evening a little after 8 o’clock I left Berlin together with the two correspondents whom the Minister wished to accompany me, namely, Herr von Ungarn-Sternberg, for the _Kreuzzeitung_, and Professor Constantine Roeszler for the _National Zeitung_. In the beginning we travelled first class, afterwards third, and finally in a freight car. There were numerous long halts, which in our impatience seemed still longer. It was only at 6 o’clock on the morning of the 9th of August that we reached Frankfurt. As we had to wait here for some hours we had time to inquire where the headquarters were now established. The local Commandant was unable to inform us, nor could the Telegraph Director say anything positive on the subject. He thought they might be still in Homburg, but more probably they had moved on to Saarbrücken. It was midday before we again started, in a goods train, by way of Darmstadt, past the Odenwald, whose peaks were covered with heavy white fog, by Mannheim and towards Neustadt. As we proceeded our pace became gradually slower, and the stoppages, which were occasioned by seemingly endless lines of carriages transporting troops, became more and more frequent. Wherever a pause occurred in the rush of this onward wave of modern national migration, crowds hurried to the train, cheering and flourishing their hats and handkerchiefs. Food and drink were brought to the soldiers by people of all sorts and conditions, including poor old women--needy but good-hearted creatures whose poverty only allowed them to offer coffee and dry black bread.