The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1877-08-17
THE Bitter BITTEN.

Ottoman Empire is Stung to tho quick
-GraDhic Description of Tuesdays
Battle and tEAe Shattered Con.
dAtiOn of the Vanquished.
4 correspondent sends from Poredin,
near Plevna, a graphic account of Tues
days battle, which conveys a vivid idea
of the extent of the Russian disaster.
The correspondent is with Prince
Schkoskoyski's command, and says that
now all hope of success anywhere was
dead, nor did the chance offer to make
the best of the defeat Prince Schkes-
koyski had not a man left to cover his
retreat. The Turks struck without stint,
they had the upper hand for once, and
were determined to show that they knew
how to make the most of it. They ad-
yanced in swarms through the dusk upon
their ORIGINAL first position, and captured
the Russian cannon before the batteries
could be withdrawn. Turkish shells once
more began to whistle over the ridge
above Radishova and fall into the village
behind, now crammed with wounded.
The streams of wounded vending their
painful way over the ridge were incessant;
the badly wounded mostly lay where
they fell. Later on in the darkness a
baleful sort of krankeutrager" swarmed
over the battlefield, in the shape of
Bashi- Bazouks, who spared not. Linger-
ing there on the ridge until the moon
rose, the staff could hear from below on
the still night air cries of pain
and entreaties for mercy, and yells
of bloodthirsty, fanatical triumph. 1t
was indeed an hour to wiring the sternset
heart. We stayed there to learn if it
might be what troops were coming out
of the Valley of Death below were there
indeed any at all to come. The Turks
had our range before dark, and we could
watch the flash of the fame over Us and
then listen to the scream of the shell as
it tore by us. The sound of rife-bullets
was incessant, and the escort and retreat
ing wounded were often struck. De
tachments at length began to come
struggling up, but it will give an idea of
the disorganization to say that when a
company was told off to so and recover
some of the wounded in Radishova, it
had to be made up of men OF several
regiments. About nine O'Clock the
staff left the ridge, leaving it Uttered
with groaning men, and moving gently,
lest we should tread on the PROSTATE
wounded, we lost our way as we had lost
our army. We could find no rest for the
the Bashi -Bazouks swarming in among
the scattered and retiring Russians At
length, at one o'clsck in the morning,
having been in the saddle since O'Clock
on the previous morning, we turned
into stubble-feld, and, making beds of
reaped grain, correspondent and Cossack
alike rested under the stars; but we were
not even then allowed to rest before four
alarms came that the Bashi- Bazouks
were upon US, and we had to rouse and
tramp away. The only protection of the
chief of what in the morning was a fine
army was now a handful of wearied Cos
sacks. General Krudener sent word in
the morning that he had lost severely,
and could make no headway, and had
resolved to fall back ON the line of the river
Osma. There had been talk, his troops
being fresh, of reviewing the attack
to day, with his cooperation, but it is a
plain statement of fact that we have no
troops to attack with. The most moder-
ate estimate is that we have lost two
regiments--a fve thousand men-out
of our three brigades-a CHASTITY number,
beating Eylau or Friedland. This takes
no account of General Krudener's losses.
We, too, shall retire on the Osman river,
about Bulgarenl, and, to the best of our
weak strength, cover the bridge at Sis
teva. One cannot, in this moment of
hurried confusion, realize all the possible
results of this stroke 50 rsshly cOurted.
Not a Russian soldier stands between
Tirnova and the victorious Turks in Lo-
tia and PleYna, and only a weak division
of the eleventh corps stands between Tir-
nova and Shumla. The army look on
Schkokoyskis force as wrecked and no
longer for the campaign to be counted on
as fighting material. 1t is not ten days
since the thirtieth division crossed the
Danube in the pride of its superb condi-
tion. Now, what of it is left is demoral-
lied and shattered. So on this side of
the Balkans there remains but the ninth
corps, already roughly handled, once at
Nikopolis and once at Plevna, one divis-
ion of the eleventh corps, and the Rust
chuk army. Now, if the Rustchuk army
is marched TO the west against Plevna,
then the Turkish army of Rustchuk is
let loose on the Russian communications
to Tirnova. One cannot avoid the con-
clusion that the advance over the Bal
kans is seriously compromised. The Rus
sian strait is so bad that scattered detach-
ments have been called up from out of
and a Roumanian division,
by General MaUna, which |
crossed day or two ago at Nikopolis, |
has been called up to the line of the Os-
ma river An aid-de-camP of Grand |
Duke Nicholas was present at |
the battle. and at once started for
Tirnova with the evil tidings. |
We are just quitting this bivouac and |
falling back on Bulgareni with all speed, J
leaving the Bulgarian villages to the /
tender mercies of the Turks. AS / close |
| learn that on our left General Scobeloff |
was very severely handled, having lost |
three hundred men out of his single in
fantry battalion.
The correspondent of the Daily News
with Prince Schockosky's force, tele-
graphing from SimnitZa, under date of |
August 1st, gives an account of the re-
treat. He thinks the whole force lost
between six and seven thousand men in
killed and wounded. A brigade of the
division suffered most
heavily Besides the terrible loss of men,
it sacrificed the imperial banner of one of /
its regiments. The whole of the thirtieth
division has been smitten sorely All the
three brigades of Schockosky's command
are for the time in state of disOrganiza-
ton. A dispatch from Alexandria says
it is reported and generally believed that
six thousand more Egyptian troops are
going to Constantinople. The road was
numbered with broken and retreating
troops, wholly destitute of order; officers
without soldiers and soldiers without
officers, without cohesion and mostly
without arms. At narrow bridge near
Bulgareni there was Wild confusion and
complete. TunhbEils, am bulance wagons,
provision wagons, officers, calesches,
horses and carts, were filed with the
all were jammed in indiscrim- /