drawn up in line, only two deep, the third rank having been taken for skirmishers. Luckily the enemy had no cavalry at hand, or it would have been all up with us, for we should never have been able to form a square. It was all that the officers and serrafiles could do to keep the men in their places. The French infantry surrounded us on three sides, but they kept behind the hedges, and amongst the high corn, and showed no disposition to come to close quarters, when the bayonet and but-end would have told their tale. On the other hand, from the adjacent heights the artillery mowed us down with their canister. The fight lasted about an hour; half a one more, and to a certainty we should all have been annihilated or prisoners, for we were wholly unsupported. Sporschil and other writers have said that Blucher sent General Kleist a reinforcement of three thousand infantry. To that I reply that our battalion was at most six hundred strong, and I did not see another infantry soldier in the field. The other troops had retired far across the plain. Suddenly the earth shook beneath our feet, and two magnificent divisions of Russian cuirassiers charged to the rescue. The French infantry sought the shelter of their adjacent battery, and we retreated wearily and slowly towards our lines. The sun, which had shone brightly the whole day, had already set when we reached a small village, and again extended our skirmishers behind the walls and hedges. Once more the earth trembled; and, with unusual rapidity for an orderly retreat, back came the brilliant cuirassiers, with bloody heads, and in most awful confusion. The French infantry and artillery had given them a rough reception. A few hostile squadrons followed, and, as soon as the Russians were out of the way, I opened fire with my skirmishers; but I was ordered to cease, for the distance was too great, and it was mere waste of ammunition." Von Rahden's hurt was but a flesh wound, and did not prevent his sharing in the next day's fight, and in the retreat which concluded it. He was then obliged to go into hospital, and only on the last day of June rejoined his regiment in cantonments between Strehlen and Breslaw. At the latter town he visited his mother. She had mourned his death, of which she had received a false account from a soldier of his regiment, who had seen him struck down by a bullet at Lutzen, and had himself been wounded and carried from the field before Von Rahden regained consciousness and rejoined his corps.