; but march on, this
main line of them, finely regardless of it or of Winterfeld's disaster
by it. The general Prussian Order this day is: "By push of bayonet;
no firing, none, at any rate, till you see the whites of their eyes!"
Swift, steady as on the parade-ground, swiftly making up their gaps
again, the Prussians advance, on these terms; and are now near those
"fine sleek pasture-grounds, unusually green for the season." Figure the
actual stepping upon these "fine pasture-grounds:"--mud-tanks, verdant
with mere "bearding oat-crop" sown there as carp-provender! Figure the
sinking of whole regiments to the knee; to the middle, some of them; the
steady march become a wild sprawl through viscous mud, mere case-shot
singing round you, tearing you away at its ease! Even on those terrible
terms, the Prussians, by dams, by footpaths, sometimes one man abreast,
sprawl steadily forward, trailing their cannon with them; only a few
regiments, in the footpath parts, cannot bring their cannon. Forward;
rank again, when the ground will carry; ever forward, the case-shot
getting ever more murderous! No human pen can describe the deadly chaos
which ensued in that quarter. Which lasted, in desperate fury, issue
dubious, for above three hours; and was the crisis, or essential agony,
of the Battle. Foot-chargings, (once the mud-transit was accomplished),
under storms of grape-shot from Homoly Hill; by and by, Horse-chargings,
Prussian against Austrian, southward of Homoly and Sterbohol,
still farther to the Prussian left; huge whirlpool of tumultuous
death-wrestle, every species of spasmodic effort, on the one side
and the other;--King himself present there, as I dimly discover;
Feldmarschall Browne eminent, in the last of his fields; and, as the old
NIEBELUNGEN has it, "a murder grim and great" going on.

Schwerin's Prussians, in that preliminary struggle through the mud-tanks
(which Winterfeld, I think, had happened to skirt, and avoid), were hard
bested. This, so far as I can learn, was the worst of the chaos, this
preliminary part. Intolerable to human nature, this, or nearly so; even
to human nature of the Platt-Teutsch type, improved by Prussian drill.
Winterfeld's repulse we saw; Schwerin's own Regiment in it. Various
repulses, I perceive, there were,--"fresh regiments from our Second
Line" storming in thereupon; till the poor repulsed people "took
breath," repented, "and themselves stormed in again," say the Books.
Fearful tugg