The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
This lasted until two o'clock; half our officers were killed or
wounded; the Colonel, Lorain, was among the first, and the
Commandant, Gémeau, the latter; all along the river side were
heaps of dead, or wounded men crawling away from the struggle.
Some, furious, would rise to their knees to fire a last shot or
deliver a final bayonet-thrust. The river was almost choked with
dead, but no one thought of the bodies as they swept by in the
current. The lines contending in the fight reached from
Schoenfeld to Grossdorf.
At length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their attacks, and
started farther up the river to turn our position, and masses of
Russians came to occupy the places they had left.
The Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley,
with shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us
with the greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts'
cries, like the Prussians. Their calvary attempted to carry the
old bridge above Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all
sides, as far as sight could reach, we saw only the enemy massing
their forces, and when we had repulsed one of their columns,
another of fresh men took its place. The fight had ever to be
fought over again.
Between two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the
Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were
about to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much
better than fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately
changed front, throwing his right wing to the rear. Our division
still remained supported on Schoenfeld, but all the others
retired from the Partha, to stretch along the plain, and the
entire army formed but one line around Leipsic.
The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third
attack toward three o'clock; our officers were making new
dispositions to receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one
end of our lines to the other, and in a few moments all knew that
the sixteen thousand Saxons and the Wurtemberg calvary, in our
very centre, had passed over to the enemy, and that on their way
they had the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with
them, on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte's division.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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