t of the FLECHE, and
of my two guns, in front of its post: but on account of the thick
fog everything was totally dark. I fired off my cannons [shall we say
straight southward?] to learn whether there was anything in front of
us. No answer: 'Nothing there--Pshaw, a mere crackery (GEKNACKER) of
Pandours and our Free-corps people, after all!' But the noise grew
louder, and came ever nearer; I turned my guns towards it [southward,
southeastward, or perhaps a gun each way?]--and here we had a salvo in
response, from some battalions who seemed to be two hundred yards or so
ahead. The Battalion Plothow hereupon gave fire; I too plied my cannons
what I could,--and had perhaps delivered fifteen double shots from them,
when at once I tumbled to the ground, and lost all consciousness" for
some minutes or moments.

Awakening with the blood running down his face, poor Tempelhof concluded
it had been a musket-shot in the head; but on getting to his hands and
knees, he found the place "full of Austrian grenadiers, who had crept in
through our tents to rear; and that it had been a knock with the butt of
the musket from one of those fellows, and not a bullet" that had struck
him down. Battalion Plothow, assailed on all sides, resisted on all
sides; and Tempelhof saw from the ground,--I suppose, by the embers
of watch-fires, and by rare flashes of musketry, for they did not fire
much, having no room, but smashed and stabbed and cut,--"an infantry
fight which in murderous intensity surpasses imagination. I was taken
prisoner at this turn; but soon after got delivered by our cavalry
again." [Tempelhof, ii. 324 n.]

This latter circumstance, of being delivered by the Cavalry, I find to
be of frequent occurrence in that first act of the business there: the
Prussian Battalion, surprised on front and rear, always makes murderous
fight for itself: is at last overwhelmed, obliged to retire, perhaps
opening its way by bayonet charge;--upon which our Cavalry (Ziethen's,
and others that gathered to him) cutting in upon the disordered
surprisers, cut them into flight, rescue the prisoners, and for a time
reinstate matters. The Prussian battalions do not run (nobody runs); but
when repulsed by the endless odds, rally again. The big Battery is not
to be had of them without fierce and dogged struggle; and is retaken
more than once or twice. Still fiercer, more dogged, was the struggle
in Hochkirch Village; especially in Hochkirch Church and
Churchya