busy all
day; a widish plain space hereabouts, Striegau Bridge now near: he had
lain snme time in his cloak, waiting till the chief generals, with
the heads of their columns, could rendezvous here. He then sprang
on horseback; spoke briefly the essential things (one of them the
above);--"Had meant to be more minute, in regard to positions and the
like; but all is so in darkness, embroiled by the flare of the Austrian
watch-fires, we can make nothing farther of localities at present:
Striegau for right wing, left wing opposite to Hohenfriedberg,--so, and
Striegau Water well to rear of us. Be diligent, exact, all faculties
awake: your own sense, and the Order of Battle which you know, must do
the rest. Forward; steady: can I doubt but you will acquit yourselves
like Prussian men?" And so they march, across the Bridge at Striegau,
south outskirt of the Town,--plank Bridge, I am afraid;--and pour
themselves, to right and to left, continually the livelong night.

To describe the Battle which ensued, Battle named of Striegau or
Hohenfriedberg, excels the power of human talent,--if human talent had
leisure for such employment. It is the huge shock and clash of 70,000
against 70,000, placed in the way we said. An enormous furious SIMALTAS
(or "both-at-once," as the Latins phrase it), spreading over ten square
miles. Rather say, a wide congeries of electric simultaneities; all
ELECTRIC, playing madly into one another; most loud, most mad: the
aspect of which is smoky, thunderous, abstruse; the true SEQUENCES of
which, who shall unravel? There are five accounts of it, all modestly
written, each true-looking from its own place: and a thrice-diligent
Prussian Officer, stationed on the spot in late years, has striven well
to harmonize them all. [Five Accounts: 1. The Prussian Official Account,
in _Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 1098-1102. 2. The Saxon, ib. 1103-1108.
3. The Austrian, ib. 1109-1115. 4. Stille's (ii. 125-133, of English
Translation). 5. Friedrich's own, _OEuvres,_ iii. 108-118. Lutzow, above
cited, is the harmonizer. Besides which, two of value, in _Feldzuge,_ i.
310-323, 328-336; not to mention Cogniazzo, _Confessions of an Austrian
Veeran_ (Breslau, 1788-1791: strictly Anonymous at that time, and
candid, or almost more, to Prussian merit;--still worth reading, here
and throughout), ii. 123-135; &c. &c.] Well worth the study of
military men;--who might make tours towards this and the other great
battle-field, and read such