“The Emperor, having not a moment to lose to reach the Beresina, saw himself compelled to abandon the 3d corps, and precipitated his march to Orcha. During the three days’ fighting (at and near Krasnoi,) no information was sent to Marshal Ney of the danger about to menace him.... On the morning of the 18th November, we set out from Koritnya, and marched upon Krasnoi: on approaching that town, a few squadrons of Cossacks harassed the 2d division, which headed the column. We attached no importance to this; we were accustomed to the Cossacks, and a few musket-shots sufficed to drive them away. But soon the advanced guard fell in with General Ricard’s division, belonging to the 1st corps, which had remained behind, and had just been routed. The marshal rallied the remains of this division, and under cover of a fog, which favoured our march by concealing the smallness of our numbers, he approached the enemy until their cannon compelled him to pause. The Russian army, drawn up in order of battle, barred our further passage; then only did we learn that we were cut off from the rest of the army, and that our sole chance of salvation was in our despair.” We know not whence M. de Fezensac derives his statements of numbers, but they frequently require correction. At Borodino, for instance, he gives, as an exact detail of the French loss, 6547 killed, and 21,453 wounded—making a total of about 28,000. Alison and other historians rate it nearly twenty thousand higher; and certainly nothing in the events of the battle argues it as much less than that of the Russians, which M. de Fezensac estimates at about 50,000—figures confirmed by other authorities. In like manner, he states the entire strength of the 3d corps, when it first entered the fire of the Russian batteries at Krasnoi, as barely 6000 combatants, with six guns, and a mere picket of cavalry. This is extraordinarily discrepant with other accounts, which make Ney’s loss, in the immediately ensuing engagement, to be nearly as great as the whole number of bayonets allotted to him by M. de Fezensac. Doubtless it was most difficult to ascertain numbers correctly during that confused retreat, where there can have been little question of muster-rolls and morning-states, and many seeming contradictions may be explained, by some writers estimating only the effective fighting men, and others including the unarmed and stragglers who dragged themselves along with the columns. But we attach no importance to differences of this kind as regards the _Journal_, which we here notice, not as a work of historical value—a character to which it makes no pretensions—but as the interesting memoir of a brave gentleman and soldier, who has written down, modestly and unaffectedly, his own and his regiment’s share in a most extraordinary campaign.