"Meanwhile every morning we received orders to load quickly; this gave rise among the old soldiers to the following talk: 'What shall we have to-day? to-day certainly something is afoot!' Then we young ones perspired at all pores if we marched by a bush or a wood, and had to be on the alert. Then every one silently pricked up his ears, expecting each moment a fiery hail and his death; and when we came again into the open, looked right and left, how he could most conveniently escape; for we had always the cuirassiers, dragoons, and other soldiers of the enemy on both sides. "At last on the 22nd September, the alarm was sounded, and we received orders to break up. In a moment all were in motion; in a few minutes a camp a mile in length--like the largest city--was broken up, and _Allons_, march! Now we proceeded into the valley, made a bridge at Pirna, and formed above the town, in front of the Saxon camp, in a line, as if for running the gauntlet; of which the end reached the Pirna gate, and through which the whole Saxon army in fours passed having first laid down their arms; and one may imagine what mocking, taunting words they must have heard during the whole long passage. Some went sorrowfully with bent heads; others defiant and reckless; and others again with a smile, for which the Prussian mocking-birds would gladly have paid them off. I know not, neither do many thousand others, what were the circumstances which occasioned the surrender of this great army. On the same day we marched a good bit further, and pitched our camp near Lilienstein. "We were often attacked by the Imperial Pandours, or a hail of shot came upon us from the carabineers from behind the bushes, so that many were killed on the spot and still more wounded. But when our artillery directed a few guns towards the copse, the enemy fled head foremost. These miserable trifles did not frighten me much. I should have become soon accustomed to them, and I often thought, when the thing takes place, it is not so bad after all.