infantry, with prompt determination, profited by
the enemy's confusion. To fill up the gaps which death had made in the
front line, they formed both lines into one, and with it made the
final and decisive charge. A third time they crossed the trenches, and
a third time they captured the battery.

The sun was setting when the two lines closed. The strife grew hotter
as it drew to an end; the last efforts of strength were mutually
exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost to repair in those
precious moments the fortune of the day. It was in vain; despair
endows every one with superhuman strength; no one can conquer, no one
will give way. The art of war seemed to exhaust its powers on one
side, only to unfold some new and untried masterpiece of skill on the
other. Night and darkness at last put an end to the fight, before the
fury of the combatants was exhausted; and the contest only ceased when
no one could any longer find an antagonist. Both armies separated, as
if by tacit agreement; the trumpets sounded, and each party, claiming
the victory, quitted the field....

The Duke of Friedland[19] had retreated thither, and was followed on
the morrow by the scattered remains of his army, without artillery,
without colors, and almost without arms. The Duke of Weimar, it
appears, after the toils of this bloody day, allowed the Swedish army
some repose, between Lutzen and Weissenfels, near enough to the field
of battle to oppose any attempt the enemy might make to recover it. Of
the two armies more than nine thousand men lay dead; a still greater
number were wounded, and among the Imperialists scarcely a man escaped
from the field uninjured. The entire plain from Lutzen to the Canal
was strewed with the wounded, the dying, and the dead. History says
nothing of prisoners; a further proof of the animosity of the
combatants, who neither gave nor took quarter....

[Footnote 19: Wallenstein.]

Duke Bernard, by keeping possession of the field, and soon after by
the capture of Leipsic, maintained indisputably his claim to the title
of victor. But it was a dear conquest, a dearer triumph! It was not
till the fury of the contest was over that the full weight of the loss
sustained was felt, and the shout of triumph died away into a silent
gloom of despair. He who had led them to the charge returned not with
them: there he lay upon the field which he had won, mingled with the
dead bodies of the common crowd. After a long and almos