5. And men, taught wisdom from the past, In friendship joined their hands, Hung the sword in the hall, the spear on the wall, And sang, "Hurrah for Tubal Cain! Our stanch good friend is he; Though we may thank him for the plow, We'll not forget the sword." CHARLES MACKAY. CXII. BATTLE OF KISSINGEN.1 THE HE entire scene of battle was clearly and distinctly in view. Had we purchased tickets to witness the performance of the fearful tragedy, we could not have had its varied parts move more vividly before our sight. Sitting upon a heap of stones, we watched, with highstrung, calm excitement, the cruel storm of battle that had burst out of a clear sky, and was now mercilessly pelting poor Kissingen. 2. Awfully grand were the main features; the great iron globes curving through the air and splintering guncarriages, smashing guns, striking men and horses into masses of pounded flesh; the huge roar that rolled up from the batteries in long pulsations through the valley and away over the hills; the still silence that weighted the few awful pauses between the heavy death-dealing discharges, and the ceaseless running volleys that mowed 1 Kissingen is a watering-place in Bavaria, on the Saale River. It has three principal springs, with pump-houses, baths, and colonnades. Five hundred thousand bottles of the waters are annually exported. with iron scythes that human harvest, upon what was yesterday the pleasant, sunny banks of the Saale. 3. Then, there were the fearful minor fillings-up of the sublime scenes: the heart-sick screams; the dead sound of spent balls against house and church walls; the cheers of a successful squad of men ; the clatter of hoofs of orderlies and aids through the streets or along the roads; and varied sounds of combatants, assaulting and repelling, mingling in one general and inseparable stream of discordant noises and sounds. * 4. Wilder, louder, huger, grew the proportions of this Satanic carnival of death. New batteries were brought into action; new regiments on either side marched forward to take the place of those weary with fighting, or whose ranks were riddled or thinned. Bombs hissed through the air, like the escape of white steam, exploding, now amid the uneasy and frightened cavalry, now by a circle of superior officers, spy-glasses in hand, watching the sad business of butchery. 5. It was half-past twelve when the Prussians, kept five hours at bay, and murderously slaughtered by the stolid but unerring Bavarian riflemen, forced the bridge, and made their maddened charge into Kissingen. We, on the hill above, conscious only of a heightened uproar, and swelling horrors in the village, suddenly saw a vast swarm of Bavarians issue from the rear of the place, pursued by a tumultuous host. 6. From spectators, we became alarmed actors. Hurrying to our feet, we forced our way into the tangled thickets and bushes, toward the top of the hill, alive to all the gathering dangers of a flight, with two armies immediately behind us, liable to all the perils of each, and the fearful vicissitudes of a rout and pursuit. 7. Balls now whizzed over and around us, passing us on all sides, crushing through the thickets and occasional trees, cutting off twigs and branches which fell upon our heads and all around us. Whiz! a bullet one instant goes past my right ear, causing an involuntary' ducking of my head; then, others dart by on the left or over my head, into a tree just before me. Others plow up the ground beneath, or shatter the boughs and branches over my head. This iron hail-storm increases every mo ment.. 8. Pushing on, tearing a path through the thick undergrowth, with brief words of desperate encouragement to each other, we struggle upward, the storm of steel growing thicker, heavier, more deadly all around us, sweeping the wood on all sides, fearfully. At last, panting, out of breath, we pass over the summit, whose weary height seems to have grown before our toiling steps. The balls and bombs now pass over and around us. 9. Scarcely stopping to take breath, we hurry on down the rear of the hill, which, like the other side, is covered for one third of the way with a dense growth of bushes, succeeded by unfenced fields of rank wheat, yellowing for the sickle. Struggling on as fast as the bushy obstructions in our way permitted, our glances at the hills opposite disclosed to our view scouts and parties of skirmishers along its crest, every moment increasing in number. 10. We had scarcely reached the beginning of the wheat-fields, when we descried a very large Prussian body of troops coming over the top of the hill directly opposite us, sent around, no doubt, to intercept the retreat of the Bavarian army. We were between the two armies, exposed to both fires, at short range, liable to be inclosed between the two, and shot or mangled as a foe, by each. 11. A moment, and then a sheet of bullets, round, blunt, and deadly, burst behind us, surging over our heads, opening gaps in the Prussian lines, distinctly before us and within easy view. And now, crossing in the air and close above us, sped the death-dealing volleys; many balls whizzing close to us, some passing between the different members of our forlorn little party. Instinctively, all three of us started on a keen run down the hill toward the right, calling to each other to keep apart, to divide the risks. 12. Pushing through the tall grain, every instant involuntarily ducking our heads as bullets rushed crisply by, the dreadful hail cutting off the long drooping wheatheads around us, we hurried along, in our desperate flight, for a short distance, when, perceiving a shallow trough, or double furrow, made by the plow turning the ground each way, I called to my companions to throw themselves lengthwise into it. It was not over a foot in depth and half filled with mud and rain-water. Into it we stretch at full length. 13. How the waves of steel roll, each way, over us! The very air grows dun and gray, and the heavens, dark with natural clouds, seem thundering from their whole concave, and the earth to rock sickeningly under us. How long was each minute! what a century of suffering, agony, and mortal suspense were the sixty minutes we trailed out there! 14. Crawling along the shallow furrow with great difficulty, fearing, too, that our stealthy movement may attract the fire from one side or the other, we drag ourselves at a distance of, perhaps, two hundred yards, when the furrow runs out, and we are left, again, exposed to the hazards of cross-fisre now bursting from the whole length of the crests and sides of our own, and from the hills opposite. Taking once more to our feet, we run, singly and apart, through the tall, standing wheat, down into the cart-road at the bottom, then, with more rapid way, along its muddy track, until we are over a mile from our dangerous hiding-place, and at least three from poor Kissingen, the whole area, still, the scene of fighting. 15. But what is that mass of men with gleaming bayonets rushing up the hill and over the very spot, — the little shallow furrow, we have just left? It is the Prussians, who have left the place occupied by them on the crest and side of the hill, descended to the bottom of the valley, and are now marching over the very ground across which we have just passed. Now, they cross the furrow, from which, thanks to God, we have so providentially escaped, and advance against the Bavarians, their lines riddled by solid discharges of minié-balls. Now they meet, hand to hand, and foot to foot; bayonets cross, parry, thrust, wrestle. 16. The Bavarians have bravely met in stolid, solid bravery this fiery trial. For some minutes, they struggle; for some minutes, the rifle-gun and minié-ball rifle, with their sword-bayonets, cross and mix. Now they separate; the larger, heavier Bavarians throw them off and backward. The Prussians slowly retreat down the hill, over the furrow, closely followed by the massed forces of their enemy. Nearly at the bottom of the valley, they are re-inforced by a large body of freshly arrived Prussians. These march to the front of their discomfited countrymen. Again, sword-bayonets gleam and cross; a desperate wrestling-match of death. 17. They push, they fence; thrusts are given and returned; screams, shrill and keen, rise, here and there, along the deadly pushes. Back, back they go― this time the Bavarians - up the hill, over the furrow, sullen and slow, reluctantly retreating, followed closely by the Prussians. We hold our breaths as we watch these desperate grapples over the very spot whence we seem to have been so providentially led. And so the wholesale murdering goes on. — J. D. Sherwood (abridged). |