History informs us that the horrors of that night exceeded even the tremendous scenes of the day. The French were in complete confusion. Carriages and horsemen marched over the fainting and exhausted infantry. The officers tried in vain to rally their men, that they might retreat in order. The first flash of a Prussian gun would scatter them, in the wildest confusion. Thousands fell in the confusion of the retreat, and thousands more were crushed to death, or drowned in crossing the rivers. Napoleon himself but just escaped with his liberty. His carriage was stopped, his postilion and coachman killed, and the door of his coach torn open just in season to witness his escape from the other side. While Blucher led on the Prussians in this murderous pursuit, the Duke of Wellington again led his army upon the field of battle. The wild tumult and confusion which had pervaded it through the day was now stilled, but the groans of the wounded and the shrieks of the dying were heard on every side. The English re-trod the battle-field, and searched out their wounded comrades, and hastily dressed their wounds. They then constructed litters, and on these carriages were the sick and wounded borne to the hospitals of Brussels and Antwerp. I have somewhere read a description, written by an eye-witness of the scenes of the night and following day, which I will beg leave of my readers to transcribe here. He says: “The mangled and lifeless bodies were, even then, stripped of every covering--everything of the smallest value was already carried off. The road between Waterloo and Brussels, which passes for nine miles through the forest of Soigny, was choked up with scattered baggage, broken wagons and dead horses. The heavy rains and the great passage upon it rendered it almost impassable, so that it was with extreme difficulty that the carriages containing the wounded could be brought along. The way was lined with unfortunate men, who had crept from the field; and many were unable to go further, and laid down and died. Holes dug by the wayside served as their graves, and the road for weeks afterwards was strewed with the tattered remains of their clothes and accoutrements. In every village and hamlet,--in every part of the country for thirty miles round,--the wounded were found wandering, the Belgian and Dutch stragglers exerting themselves to the utmost to reach their own homes. So great was the number of those needing care, that, notwithstanding the most active exertions, the last were not removed to Brussels until the Thursday following.