The hussar lieutenant had started before dawn, and after riding many miles to the front, evading the enemy's scouting parties, had watched a hostile cavalry division break up from its bivouac. He had been able to identify the division and to ascertain that it was unusually strong both in cavalry and horse artillery. On his return he had been seen by an enemy's patrol, and had escaped capture only by running the gauntlet. The information thus obtained is of great importance, not only to the cavalry division, whose commander has promptly acted upon it, but to the army corps and to the army of which it is a part. The general commanding the army corps therefore sends an officer with the report and a further note from himself to the army headquarters in rear, on the east of the forest. This officer having to follow the high-road, meets and rides past the main body of the army corps on the march. The leading brigade of infantry, with a number of guns and ammunition waggons, covers the road for a mile and three-quarters; then for another mile and a half is the corps' artillery, then the whole second division of infantry (with its cavalry regiment and its artillery) trailing its length for four and a half miles. Then after having the road to himself for a quarter of an hour, as he emerges from the forest on its eastern side, the rider passes the heavy baggage, a line of military carts and waggons conveying those requisites which the troops need every night for comfort, and which cannot be carried in the knapsacks. These waggons stretch for a mile and a half along the road. Soon after passing them the rider takes a cross-road leading to the north, just as he is meeting the foremost portion of the army corps trains, which in their turn would cover the road for eleven or twelve miles with their long succession of vehicles: ammunition waggons for guns and small arms; provision stores for four days for 30,000 men; hay and oats for the horses of cavalry, artillery, and waggons; the corps pontoon train; the hospital carts, and a multitude of country carts pressed into the service to enable extra stores of provisions to be taken on, and to relieve the military waggons. Thus from the general to the rear of the baggage proper would be nearly twelve miles, from the rear of the baggage to the rear of the trains, if all were on the march at the same time, another twelve miles, while the general himself was found nearly five miles behind the front of the advanced guard of the corps.