Napoleonic Literature
The Light Dragoon
Volume 2, Chapter IV
The Field of Battle.

It was pitch dark when the acceptable order was issued, of which I have just spoken. It came too at a time when we found ourselves in the very heart of the camp which the French army had occupied on the morning of this eventful day, and very much struck were we by the ingenuity which these brave men had exhibited in their endeavours to render the lodging even of a single night commodious. With wonderful skill they had run up huts formed of the boughs of trees; the closely-interwoven leaves and branches of which were wellnigh weather proof; while within, raw meat of every description,--beef, pork, and mutton, lay scattered about in absolute profusion. So beaten about was it, however, in the hurry of the strife, and in many instances so vilely dressed,--the very hair being left on the morsels of the carcasses, and these but indifferently bled,--that faint as we were for lack of food, we could not bring ourselves to touch it. We flung it from us in disgust, and refused to dress it. But the cravings of hunger are not to be stifled; and not a few wandered away from the ranks which they had been ordered to preserve, in the search after food both for themselves and their horses. Among others, I and my comrade went forth upon a cruise; and judging that the means of conveyance might be unattainable if we went on foot, we quietly drew the girths so soon as a convenient opportunity offered, and rode away. I never shall forget, so long as memory remains by me, the adventures of that extraordinary night. In the first place, the ground withersoever we went, was literally strewed with the wreck of the mighty battle. Arms of every kind,--cuirasses, muskets, cannon, tumbrils, and drums, which seemed innumerable, cumbered the very face of the earth. Intermingled with these were the carcases of the slain, not lying about in groups of four or six, but so wedged together, that we found it, in many instances, impossible to avoid trampling them where they lay under our horses' hoofs. Then, again, the knapsacks, either cast loose or still adhering to their owners, were countless. I confess that we opened many of these latter, hoping to find in them money, or articles of value, but not one--which I at least examined--contained more than the coarse shirts and shoes that had belonged to the dead owners, with here and there a little package of tobacco, and a bag of salt. And what was worst of all, when we dismounted to institute this search, our spurs for ever caught in the garments of the slain, and more than once we tripped up, and fell over them.

It was indeed a ghastly spectacle, which the feeble light of a young moon rendered, if possible, more hideous than it would have been, if looked upon under the full glory of a meridian sun. For there is something frightful in the association of darkness with the dwelling of the dead; and here the dead lay so thick and so crowded together, that by-and-by it seemed to us as if we alone had survived to make mention of their destiny.

There are those, I doubt not, who will shudder when I acknowledge, that men circumstanced as we were at that moment, know little or nothing of the magnanimous feelings which in more peaceful hours take up their dwelling in the human heart. It is one of the worst results of a life of violence, that it renders such as follow it selfish and mercenary: at least, it would be ridiculous to conceal that when the bloody work of the day is over, the survivor's first wish is to secure, in the shape of plunder, some recompence for the risks which he has run and the exertions which he has made. Neither does it enter into the mind of the plunderer to consider whether it is the dead body of a friend or of a foe from which he is seeking his booty. I may be blamed, but I should deserve a double portion of censure were I to deny that my thoughts were fixed mainly on the brave man whom I saw fall, as has been described in the previous chapter; and that my object in seeking him out was to possess myself of his watch and gold seals--the latter of which I had seen glance in the twilight when he dropped. I had made what I conceived an accurate memorandum of the field in which he struck his last blow, and raised his last war-cry, and finding that the crowds near at hand offered nothing worth our acceptance, I suggested to my companion that we should seek him out. Accordingly, we mounted and rode off, and in due time arrived where heaps of manure were piled up, beside one of which I knew that he was lying. I had not deceived myself: close beside the bodies of eight common troopers we found him. But other marauders had been on the prowl before us, for he was stripped to the very skin. Poor fellow! I saw where the ball had entered--exactly in the middle of the chest; and I own that I then experienced something like relief from the thought that I had been saved the sin--for such I now conceive that it would have been--of robbing him.

Sobered, if not disheartened, by this disappointment, we at once turned our faces homewards. But though it had been easy to quit the camp, we now found that it would be a more difficult operation to regain it; for we lost our way, and were soon wandering we knew not whither, though still through a very crowd of slaughtered men. At last we halted in despair, and, picketing our horses, lay down upon the earth and fell asleep. But the instinct of soldiers is remarkable: at early dawn we woke again; and then, being really anxious that our jaded animals might obtain some refreshment, we looked eagerly round, in the hope that we might be able to discover some traces of a peaceful dwelling. We were not disappointed in this: at a considerable distance to the left, we discovered a house, which, having been set on fire the day previous, was still burning, and towards it, as fast as the nature of the ground would allow, we directed our steps. How frightful the whole scene! It was, indeed, a field of carnage over which we passed; and the smell of blood, as it rose upon the morning air, wellnigh sickened us.

The house of which I am speaking, stood upon what had been the right of the position of the French army, and marked the point where the Prussians first fell in, when late in the evening they arrived to support us. The road which ran near it was blocked up with the cannon which, in the hurry of the flight, the enemy had abandoned; and round them, and before and behind, were heaps of slain--some of which had fallen under the fire of the Prussians, others by the hands of our own men, who met them in their retreat and cut them down. With some difficulty we passed these wrecks of the battle, and entering the farmyard, found it crowded with wounded wretches--some of whom had evidently received their hurts where they now lay, while others seemed to have dragged themselves thither in the hope of shelter. We could not shut our ears to their frightful cries, yet we were powerless to aid them; and what was to the full as mortifying, nothing of which we were in search lay here. We could not find so much as a drop of water wherewith to moisten our own lips or those of our horses, so we soon abandoned it, and made for another habitation, which stood at no great distance off. Here we trusted that we should be more fortunate, for the tide of war seemed to have spared this dwelling, and though multitudes of persons went and came from about its doors, we still hoped that we might be in time to secure something. Accordingly, we pushed on, passing under the Observatory, as it has since been called, whence Napoleon is said to have viewed the battle and directed the movements of his columns; and great was our delight to find that not yet had the house or the premises round been thoroughly gutted. To be sure plenty of people were there--some of them, too, peasants of the country, who were helping themselves to sheep, pigs, and bullocks--a whole drove of which we found, to our extreme surprise, penned up in a sort of yard, adjoining to the farmstead. These live animals did not constitute the booty of which we were in search: we wanted corn and water, and food fit for immediate use; and corn and water, to our extreme satisfaction, we found, with both of which we plentifully regaled our now famishing chargers.

Leaving the horses to take full advantage of the piece of good fortune which had thus fallen to their share, we entered the house--but neither bread nor any other necessary of life was there. Busy hands had been before ours, for over the floors of the different rooms all manner of wearing apparel was scattered, and drawers broken and ransacked, gave token of the manner in which they had employed themselves. At last I came by chance upon a cupboard which gave no signs of having been rifled, and forcing it open, I saw that it contained some valuable china and cut glass. The sight of these articles recalled to my remembrance that, on the evening previous to the battle, an officer of my troop had been so lucky as to stumble somewhere upon a bottle of wine, and that in proceeding to drink, when no cup was at hand, he had been obliged to break off the neck, and in so doing lost half of his treasure. I determined to convey to him both a glass and a service of china, and, with this view, made a small selection, which I packed up in a basket. But I was not permitted to carry my good intentions into effect, for, on returning to the stable, we found two Belgian dragoons there, who invited us to partake of a ham which they had discovered; and my appetite being exceedingly sharp, I laid down the basket in order to appease it. Some marauder observed this, and instantly snatched it up; nor had I time to pursue him, for just as I had risen to do so, a general officer galloped into the farm-yard, and instantly there was a cry from all quarters, "Escape as you best can." The general was loud in his denunciation of the plunderers he told us that the provost was at hand, and we leaped into the saddle, resolved, if possible, to escape him. And well was it that we did so; for we had not passed from the gateway many roods, ere he and his guard made their appearance, after which nothing remained for us but to make the best of our way at our briskest speed to the camp.

The intelligence which we brought as to the cattle and sheep which we had seen at the farm-house was not thrown away. Party after party sallied out, and in half an hour there was mutton enough in our lines to furnish all with a substantial meal. In a trice the cooks went to work, and by-and-by might be seen officers and men devouring the half-dressed food like cannibals. Neither were any questions asked concerning the sources from which a supply so acceptable came: all were anxious to partake of it, and all, when the repast was ended, looked and felt as if each were worth at least half a dozen of what he had been two hours previously.

The first wants of nature being thus satisfied, parties were sent out, under non-commissioned officers, to search for and bring in such wounded men as might have fallen in the woods, or on broken ground, where they could not easily be discovered. Scores of human beings, who but for this humane proceeding must have perished, were thus snatched from the jaws of death--among whom were not a few mere boys, the whole of whom appeared to entertain of us, and especially of the surgeons, the most pitiable dread. It required, indeed, in several instances, two or three of us to hold the patient while the balls were extracted from his wounds and his hurts dressed; and then the gratitude of the unfortunate beings became as vehement as previously to the completion of the operation their fears had been ludicrous. Neither did we find it easy for some time afterwards to shake ourselves free from these convalescents. Though told they were at liberty to return to their homes, they would not leave us, and even contrived to crawl after us for a march or two, in order, as they said, to avoid the danger of falling into the hands of the Prussians.

It was noon ere the commissary arrived, bringing with him corn, biscuits, salt meat, and an allowance of spirits, the receipt of which proved eminently acceptable both to man and beast; after discussing which we received orders to fall in and march to the front. As we rose the hill an excellent opportunity was afforded of viewing, at a single glance, the whole theatre of these desperate operations. I have already spoken of the particular sights which, in the course of my wanderings over the field, met me; and I have now only to record that the effect of a grand coup œil was neither less astounding nor less awful than any which had been produced by the examination of individual objects near at hand. We saw, too, that if the slaughter among the French had been terrible, our gallant army had not come off unscathed. There, on the ground where they had fought, large heaps of English soldiers were scattered, covering, for the most part, the face of their own position, and retaining to a certain extent the very order of their formations; and here, on either side of the road which we were traversing, the pride of the gallant heavy brigade lay low: for the Life Guards, the Royals, and the Greys had been carried by their impetuosity far into the heart of the French lines, and though more than victorious in the charge, were wellnigh cut to pieces. But why continue these details a hundred abler pens than mine have told the story of their prowess and their suffering. I cannot add to the amount of information already possessed by the public--so let me change my subject.

(If you surfed directly to this page, please go to the Napoleonic Literature Home Page to see the wealth of information that's available on this website.)