The weekly Lancaster gazette. (Lancaster, Ohio) 1860-1863, 1862-09-18
= LANCASTER, OHIO THURSDAY, sEPTEMBEK IS. 1855 r

stopping 10 listen II they could hear any
sound of their lost friends. The river,
which was their only guide. flowed tieAr
and chill at their sides, encumheted
with vast masses Of (loalingicc. Gloomy
forests ofsyergreens ffoWned along their
18th. and mo sound but the tramp Of
Eugsne's battalion disturbed the silence
oi tie night. oa' 4. ,Qe2, ttf'r
I. At length Eugene ordered his artillery y
TO be discharged, ,as u shout to call the at
tention ofhis fiiends. Listening anxious
ly, they heard far off in the distance, in
apparen. RESPONSE, a feeble report OF
musketry. The Marshal had not a single
piece of arsillsry lsh. "a Both parties, tn-
deIstood the language Of their guns, and
they FASTENED 10 meet each other, They
were soon united. Officers and soldiers
alike threw themselves into each other S
arms. and many Of these war.w orn vetsr-
ans wspt for joy. -s>ss. taggAsm t
The reunited bands, iorgetful OF the
past perils and the still greater ones they
we're yet to encounter. returned rejoicing.
.ly to Orcha. AS Marshal Ney, with
soldierly simplicity and unosten,atioD,
gave recital of the dangers and Difficult.
.Iies he had surmountrd, ard the hard.
ships he had endured, Napoleon grasped
his hand. and imalortalized him with the
title Of the 'braycst of the hrave' Again
Napoleon said, in reference 10 this same
achievement. in words which will never
die-'Better is ali army OF deer command.
ed BY lion, than an army of lions com
handed by deer .,e
During this eIreat, an un natural moth
or, who was one Of The camp followers,
weary Of nursing her crying child. threw
il into the snow to perish. Ney chauced
to witness the inhuman deed, and lifting
up the child, soothed it tendery, and re,
stored it to its mother in tie sledge, com,
manding her TO take charge of it. But
soon again tie woman, whose heart was
rendered callous. BY misery, threw the
child into the snow. The Marshal again
rescutd the little onej took il under his
spscial protection, carrying it for some
time in his own arms. The indignant
soldiers hurled the mother from the
sledge,and left her 10 be picked up by the
Cossacks or to perish on the frozen ground.
The little orphan was watched over with
the greatest care by the sodirs as they
covered it with furs and blankets In one
Of the ,sledges. The child war carried in
the aims oi soldier, through all the hor,
rors of The passage of the Beresina, and
surviving the kArdehips Of the most dis.
astTous retreat recorded in the history Of
war, at length rea led Paris in safety.
In the passage OF the Beresina, which
soon ensutd, Ney again displayed his
heroism through scenes Of horror which
have really Lever beer parallel, d. and never
surpassed upon this globe. The geius oi
the French engineers speedily threw two
Iridg's across the stream. The French
army consisted of Lut twenty.seveF
thousand lighting men, ,and disorganized
mass Of forty thousand stragglers. While
the frepzicd mass were struggling over
these bridges. the Russians. from the ad'
jacent nights, were burling upon item q
storm Of shot and shell. Sixty thousand
Russians manned those batteries. Ney
taking with him bu. eight thousand
troops. plunged into the densest of the
foe, drove them before HIM and took six
Ihousand prisoners.
Through the long hours Of a winters
night this horid scene Of tumull and car
mage continued. Thousands we're crowd
ed from Il bridge into the icy stream
and sank with sbrieks which rose atov'
the thunders Of the battle. A fearfu
tempest arose, Of, wind and smotheIing
snow. The black mass oil men and wag
ons Enabled the Russiohs to, direct thei
guns with mole unerring aim. The howl
iugs Of the Storm the gloom Of the night
the fash and the roar of the artillery ,tht
explosion Of the shells ard whislling o
balls and bullets, the cries, and shrick
tof Ihe dying, presented a. spectale which
has given the Passage of the Beresiua
perhaps the mos. prominent position a
mong all the horrors which have, occur
red in this lost world. The numbers los
have never b'en fully ascertained
Thousands we're swept to an unknown
burial. But in the spring, as the ic
melted twelve thousand corpses wer
dragged from the liver. ...I 'r