this, the Marshal Bernadotte--for it was he--turned his
horse suddenly round, and rode back, followed by his staff. And now the
drums beat to quarters along the line, and the hoarse trumpets of the
cavalry might be heard summoning the squadrons throughout the field;
while between the squares, and in the intervals of the battalions,
single horsemen galloped past with orders. Soult's division, which
extended for nearly a league to our right, was the first to move, and it
seemed like one vast shadow creeping along the earth, as column beside
column marched steadily onward. Our brigade had not as yet received
orders, but the men were in readiness beside the horses, and only
waiting for the word to mount.

The suspense of the moment was fearful. All that I had ever dreamed
or pictured to myself of a soldier's enthusiasm was faint and weak,
compared to the rush of sensations I now experienced. There must be a
magic power of ecstasy in the approach of danger,--some secret sense of
bounding delight, mingled with the chances of a battle,--that renders
one intoxicated with excitement. Each booming gun I heard sent a wild
throb through me, and I panted for the word "Forward!"

Column after column moved past us, and disappeared in the dip of ground
beneath; and as we saw the close battalions filling the wide plain in
front, we sighed to think that it was destined to be the day of glory
peculiarly to the infantry. Wherever the nature of the field permitted
shelter or the woods afforded cover, our troops were sent immediately
to occupy. The great manoeuvre of the day was to be the piercing of the
enemy's centre whenever he should weaken that point by the endeavor to
turn our right flank.

A faint streak of gray light was marking the horizon when the single
guns which we had heard at intervals ceased; and then, after a short
pause, a long, loud roll of artillery issued from the distant right,
followed by the crackling din of small-arms, which increased at every
moment, and now swelled into an uninterrupted noise, through which the
large guns pealed from time to time. A red glare, obscured now and then
by means of black smoke, lit up the sky in that quarter, where already
the battle was raging fiercely.

The narrow causeway between the two small lakes in our front conducted
to an open space of ground, about a cannon-shot from the Russian line;
and this we were now ordered to occupy, to be prepared to act as support
to the infantry