The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-07-24
and many of these wore-worn veterans

and many of these wore-worn veterans
wept for joy.
The reunited bands, forgetful of past per-
lis and the still greater ones they were yet
to encounter, returned rejoicingly to Orcha.
AS Marshal Ney, with soldierly simplicity
and unostentation, gave a recital of the
dangers and difficulties he had surmounted
and the hardships he had endured, Napol-
con grasped his hand, and immortalized him
with the title of the 'brarest Of the drare. y"
Again Napoleon said, in reference to this
same achievement, in words which will
never die, "Better is an army Of deer COM
manded By a 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 Glanced 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 it under his special
protection, carrying it for some time in his
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 a
soldier, through all the horrors of the pas
sage of the Beresina, and surviving the
hardships of the most disastrous retreat re-
corded in the history of war, at length
reached Paris in safety.
In the passage Of the Beresina, which
soon ensued, Ney again displayed his hero
ism through scenes of horror which have
rarely been paralelled, and never surpassed
on this globe. The genius of the French
engineers speedily threw two bridges across
the stream. The French army consisted
of but 81, 900 fighting men, and disorgan-
lied mass of 40, 900 stragglers. While the
phrensied 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 eight thousand troops, plunged in
to the densest masses of the foe, drove them
before 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 howlings of the
storm, the gloom of night, the flash and
roar of artillery, the explosion of shells and
whistling of balls and bullets, the cries of
onset and the shrieks of the dying, present
ed 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
burial. But, in the Spring, as the ice
melted twelve thousand corpses were drag
ged from the river.