Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1871-01-27
The Battle of Leuthen.

The Battle Of Lenthen.
The field of Leuthen was o vast
undulating plain, or rolling prairie,
extending for miles in all directions.
One or two brooks flowed sluggishly
through it. Here and there were
expanses of marsh which neither
horse nor foot could traverser. A few
scraggy frs dotted the dreary landscape,
and there were also q few hamlets of
peasants huts scattered around. Fred
crick concealed his movements as much
as possible behind the undulations, and
succeeded in deceiving the Austrians
into the belief that he was to make an
attack upon their right wing. The Aus
trian officers, on wind-mills and in the
belfries,I were eagerly scrutinizlng his
manevres. Deceived into the conviction
that their right wing was menaced, they
impetuously pushed forward large rein
forcemonts of horses to the support of
the presumed point of attack. Thus the
left wing was weakened. -.Ho1i~ s.a%
Frederick, who had taken his position
upon windmill, saw, with much salts
faction, the successful operation of his
plan. Suddenly, with almost miraculous
swiftness of his movement, his perfectly
drilled troops, horse, foot, and artillery.
every man reckless of life, poured forth
with rush and roar as of a lava flood
upon the extreme left of the Austrians.
1t was one o'clock of the day. There
was neither brook, bush, fence nor marsh
toimpede the headlong impetuosity of
the assault. At the point of attack the
Prussians were of course, the most num-
erous. There were few moments of
terrible slaughter, and the left wing of
the Austrian army was annihilated. The
ground was covered with the wounded
and the dead, and the fugitives in dismay
were fleeing across the fields. ..
The Aurtrian centre was pushed rapi-
Oily forward to the aid of the discounted
left. 1t was too late. The soldiers az
rived upon the ground breathless and in
disorder. Before they had time to form
Frederick plowed their ranks with balls,
swept them with bullets, and fell upon
them mercilessly with SAILOR and bayo-
net. The carnage was awful. Division
after division melted away in the fire
deluge which consumed them. Prince
Charles made the most desperate efforts
to-. rally his dismayed troops in and
around the church-yard at Leuthen.
Here for an hour they fought despe-
rately But it was all in vain. The
left wing was destroyed. The center was
destroyed. The right wing was pushed
forward only to be cut to pieces by the
sabres, and to be mown down by the ter
rife fire of the triumphant Prussians.
Scarcely had the conflict upon the ex-
treme left commenced ere it was evident
that by the military sagacity of Freder
ick the doom of the Austrian army was
sealed. With thirty thousand men he
had attacked ninety thousand men on
the open field, and was utterly over
whelming them. An Austrian officer,
prince De Ligne, describing the battle,
writes: - ara T#lt #|Ez9
Cory had risen for the reserve, and
that it must come on as fast as possible.
We ran at our utmost speed. Our lieu
tenant-colonel fell killed, at the first.
Then we lost our major, and indeed all
the officers but three. We had crossed
two successive bitches which lay in an
orchard to the left of the first houses in
Leuthen, and were beginning to form in
front of the village. But there was no
standing it. Besides a general canno-
made, such. as can scarcely be immag-
ined, there was a rain of case-shot upon
this battalion, of which | had to take
command. A Prussion battalion at the
distance of eighty PAGES gave the live
Hest fire upon us. 1t stood as if on a par
ade- ground; and waited for us without
stirring. NY soldiers, who were tired
with running, and had no cannon, soon
became scattered. At last, when / had
but two hundred left, | drew back to the
height where the windmill is."-From
Frederick the Great" in Harper's
Magazine for January.
RAILWAY TELEGRAPH LINEs.-The Cleve-
land Herald, in illustration of the large
amount of work done over. the railway
telegraph lines states that train des-
hatcher and his assistants on the rail-
road from Cleveland to Toledo, during
the last two weeks, transmitted to con-
ductors of trains 1851 train orders, each
order averaging twenty-five, words, and
each word five letters, so that 173,775
words, composed of sos, 1915 letters were
sent over the wires and repeated back
during fourteen days. The average time
consumed in transmitting and repeating
each order was two minutes, so that nine
DAYS and six hours were occupied in the
continuous working of the lines. The
saving of time to trains by sending these
messages was four hours to freight trains
and forty minutes to passenger trains.
King William telegraphs to the
Queen from Versailles, under date OF
the 10th, that the number of prisoners
captured in the recent battles of LIE
Mans is increased to fully $4,000. Four
locomotives and forty wagons are among
tho snoils