The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-09-03

fastened to meet each other. They were
soon united. Officers and soldiers alike
threw themselves into each, others arms
and many of these war-worn veterans wept
for Joy.
The reunited bands, forgetful of past
perils, and the still greater ones they were
yet to encounter, returned rejoicingly to
Orcha. AS Marshal Ney, with soldierly
simplicity and unostentation, gave reci-
tai of the dangers and difficulties they had
surmounted and the hardships he had en-
dured, Napoleon grasped his hand, and
immortaliZed him with the title of the
"bravest of the brave" Again Napoleon
said in reference to this same achievement,
in words which will never die, "Better is
an army of deer commanded by lion,
than an army of lions commanded by a
deer"
During this retreat an unnatural mother,
who was one of the camp followers, weary
of nursing her crying child, threw it out
into the snow to perish. Ney CHANGED to
witness the inhuman deed, and lifting up
the child, soothed it tenderly, and restored
it to its mother in the sledge, commanding
the mother to take charge of it. But soon
again the woman, whose heart was render
ed callous by misery, threw the child
into the snow. The Marshal again rescued
the little one, and took 1t under his special
protection, carrying it for some time in bis
own arms. The indignant soldiers hurled
the mother from the sledge, and left her to
be picked up by the Cossacks or to perish
on the frozen ground. The little orphan
was watched over with the greatest of care
by the soldiers, as they covered it up with
furs and blankets in one of the sledges.-
The child was carried in the arms of sol
dier through all the horrors of the passage
Of the Beresina, and surviving the hard
ship of the most disastrous retreat recorded
in the history of war, at length reached
Paris in safety.
In the passage of Beresina, which soon
ensued, Ney again displayed his heroism
through scenes of horror which have rarely
been paralleled, and never surpassed on
this globe. The genius ofthe French en-.
gineers speedily threw two bridges across
the stream. The French army consisted of
but $4,000 fighting men, and a disorgan-
lied mass of 10000 stragglers. While the
phrenzied mass were struggling over these
bridges, the Russians, from the adjacent
heights were hurting upon them storm of
shot and shell. Sixty thousand Russians
manned those batteries. Ney, taking with
him but 5000 troops, plunged into the
densest masses of the foe, drove them be-
fore him and took 5000 prisoners.
Through the long hours of winters
night this horrid scene of tumult and car
mage continued. Thousands were crowded
from the bridges into the icy stream, and
sank with shrieks which rose above the
thunders of the battle A fearful tempest
arose of wind and smothering snow. The
black mass of Men and wagons enabled the
Russians to direct their guns with more
unerring aim. The bowling of the storm,
the gloom of night, the flash and roar of
artillery, the explosion of shells and whist
ling of balls and bullets, the cries of onset,
and the shrieks of the dying, presented a
spectacle which has given the passage of
the Beresina perhaps the most prominent
position among all the horrors which have
occurred in this lost world. The numbers
lost have never been fully ascertained.-
Thousands were swept to an unknown bur-
ial. But, in the Spring, as the ice melted,
twelve thousand corpses were dragged
from the river.