“It is true that affairs behind this line of artillery bore a very different aspect. At first the corps had, for the most part, taken the direction of the bridges northward of Königgrätz, but were prevented from using them by the advance of the Prussian extreme left wing. This caused the different bodies of troops to become promiscuously and confusedly mingled together. The flying cavalry, shells bursting on all sides, still further increased the confusion, which reached its climax when the commandant of Königgrätz closed the gates of the fortress. “Hundreds of wagons, either overturned or thrust off from the highroad, riderless horses and confused crowds of men trying to escape across the inundated environs of the fortress and the river, many of them up to their necks in water--this spectacle of wildest flight and utter rout, immediately before the gates of Königgrätz, was naturally hidden from the view of the pursuing enemy.” A prompt pursuit would, however, have been impracticable, even if the Prussians had fully appreciated the extent of the Austrian demoralization. The concentric attacks, so magnificently decisive on the field, had produced an almost chaotic confusion on the part of the victors themselves. Owing to the direction of their attacks, the Second Army and the Army of the Elbe were “telescoped” together; and the advance of the First Army had jammed it into the right flank of the former and the left flank of the latter. At noon the front of the combined Prussian armies had been more than sixteen miles long. The front of this great host was now but little more than two miles; and men of different regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and even armies, were now indiscriminately mingled together. Aside from this confusion, the exhaustion of the Prussian soldiers precluded pursuit. Most of them had left their bivouacs long before dawn, and it had been a day of hard marching and hard fighting for all. Many had been entirely without food, all were suffering from extreme fatigue, and several officers had fallen dead on the field from sheer exhaustion. As a result of the exhaustion of the Prussians and the excellent conduct of the Austrian cavalry and artillery, Von Benedek slipped across the Elbe, and gained such a start on his adversaries that for three days the Prussians lost all touch with him, and were in complete ignorance of the direction of his retreat. Thus ended the great battle of Königgrätz. The Prussian losses were 9,153, killed, wounded and missing. The Austrians lost 44,200, killed, wounded and missing, including in the last classification 19,800 prisoners. They also lost 161 guns, five stands of colors, several thousand muskets, several hundred wagons and a ponton train. The sum total of the killed, wounded and missing (exclusive of prisoners) in this battle was 27,656.