The Shasta courier., 1863-08-08
Mutual Flight OF Victorious Armies.

There are whisperings from the irrespon-
sible and the ill-informed, that the struggle
at Wilderness and Charlottesville termna
ted in the mutual error of the opposing com
manders of Withdrawing simultaneously from
a field which each thought himself too weak
to hold. Were this true, it would be but a
new proof that battles are often decided by
accident and campaigns determined by caus-
es trivial in their nature and wholly beyond
military control. The most notable modern
example of mutual flight from each others
presence of two great armies in the very
flush of victory, was after the battle of Malo
Jaroslavitz, fought by Napoleon, ON his re-
treat from Moscow, against Doctoroff, at the
head of the Russian advance whose mission
was to bar the Emporor's way through the
rich provinces of lula and Kaloga, and to
force him back on the wasted line of the
Smolensk road, where he would have to reap
in mid Winter the ripened harvests of famine
and desolation which he had sown broadcast
in the preceding Summer. The Russian
did his work with splendid fury and tenac-
ity. A rapid night march brought him to
the yillage its steep streets were already
filled with Delzon infantry.
Doctorof instantly dashed at them. and
threw them out on the points of his bayonets
In moment the struggle for the salvation of
the French army was commenced by Prince
Eugene. The Muscovite set his Jaws in un-
conquerable resolution to hold Napoleon in
check till KoutosoH could come up and over.
whelm him. The town, placed between a
forest on one side and impracticable ravines
on the other could not be turned. The cam
nonading of the French soon fred the houses
The infantry in dense masses combated hand
to hand in tie burning streets and lanes.
The town was taken and retaken seven times.
In the very house, cracking and smoking.
and collapsed with the conaagration. terrible
warriors, ignorant Of each other language,
piled the universal language of the bayonet ;
and cried = To Kalouga and Francc!" and
TO Smolensk and Destruction
1t was only at dark, after an entire day of
the awfulest hand to hand lighting ever done
between the French and Russians that the
cannon of Eugene could be got through the
streets and placed in the battery on the op-
posite of the town. Gerard's and Campan's
divisions of Davoust's corps established them
selves with difficulty on either side The sun
went down. Its descending blaze flashed
from the bayonets of one hundred thousand
of KoutosoF's infantry, now arrived on the
wooded eninence in the rear of Malo Jaro-
SidNitA, Will seven tluHuTeu pieces OF cannon.
The further advance of the French upon the
Kalouga road, without a general battle, was
impossible.
The nextday! An inspection by Napo-
leon of the field of battle-the site of the
town its plat distinguished only by the par
allelogramic lines Of dead and desperately
wounded. and squares of burned skeletons
commingled with charrea aud smoking tim
ber-everywhere overwhelming proof of the
most unconquerable purpose of resistance
the swoop of the Hetman Platoif. at the head
of ten thousand Cossaeks. upon a party of
forty pieces and the hair breadth escape of
Napoleon and his entire staff from capture
4 council Of war-the bod Murat's demand
for cavalry to cut tie kalouga road open
right through koutosoti''s eenter-the wiser
payou st's entreaty to take the hitherto un-
Travelled and unwasted route bv Medyor-
the strong opposition to this BY the King of
Naples-the fatal decision of Napoleon to
return to France by the blasted path upon
which lac had come.
At daybreak on the 25th of October, the
French retreat commenced. At davbreak on
the Goth of October the Russians abandoned
their position, which Napoleon had deemed
impregnable, and fell back toward kaouca ,
Both armies, smitten with mutual awe fled
from each otherl