Do not be alarmed, however, dearest parents. All three of your sons are alive and well, even relatively comfortable. No complaint even from poor Louis, who was caught by the Cossacks, robbed of his coat and purse, then turned over to the citizens, who, after unspeakable insults and brutal treatment, stripped him of everything but his shirt and drawers. My own story is too complex to be related to-day. I will only state in brief what you may have already divined--that on the day following the capture of Lüneburg we were surprised in and around the town by a vastly superior force, and worsted after a resistance which was all the more desperate that we knew what to expect from such an enemy in case of defeat. The ferocity of the German burgher, backed by his liberators in overwhelming strength, literally baffles description. I fell in a melée in front of the eastern gate under a blow from a spear-shaft, which broke the visor clasp of my shako right over my left ear. When I recovered my senses I was in the custody of a young "Death Hussar," of whose generous treatment of me more hereafter. SAME DAY, afternoon. The number of my companions in misfortune now collected here is nearly three hundred. Our departure Russia-ward, which had been fixed for noon to-day, seems to have been countermanded for the present. Our surprise is mainly attributed to some laxity on the part of our Saxon friends, whose German hearts have naturally mellowed since the French eagles have taken their homeward flight. This forenoon our brave general, mortally wounded in his effort to retrieve the disgrace, was buried with the honors of war at Boitzenburg, half a mile from here. We lost altogether five hundred dead and wounded, but inflicted a severe loss on the enemy, who was the attacking party. As near as I can learn, his force consisted of a large brigade of cavalry, four companies of Russian and three of Prussian infantry, artillery in proportion, besides the few hundred Cossacks and armed citizens we had scared out of Lüneburg on the day before.