one respect disagreeable, since the dead bodies of
many of the poor fellows killed there two days before were yet
unburied. In a little while the King's escort began to remove these
dead, however, bearing them away on stretchers improvised with their
rifles, and the spot thus cleared was much more acceptable. Then,
when such unexploded shells as were lying around loose had been
cautiously carried away, the King, his brother, Prince Frederick
Charles Alexander, the chief-of-staff, General von Moltke, the
Minister of War, General von Roon, and Count von Bismarck assembled
on the highest point, and I being asked to join the group, was there
presented to General von Moltke. He spoke our language fluently, and
Bismarck having left the party for a time to go to a neighboring
house to see his son, who had been wounded at Mars-la-Tour, and about
whom he was naturally very anxious, General von Moltke entertained me
by explaining the positions of the different corps, the nature and
object of their movements then taking place, and so on.

Before us, and covering Metz, lay the French army, posted on the
crest of a ridge extending north, and about its centre curving
slightly westward toward the German forces. The left of the French
position was but a short distance from the Moselle, and this part of
the line was separated from the Germans by a ravine, the slopes,
fairly well wooded, rising quite sharply; farther north, near the
centre, this depression disappeared, merged in the general swell of
the ground, and thence on toward the right the ground over which an
approach to the French line must be made was essentially a natural
open glacis, that could be thoroughly swept by the fire of the
defenders.

The line extended some seven or eight miles. To attack this
position, formidable everywhere, except perhaps on the right flank,
the Germans were bringing up the combined forces of the First and
Second armies, troops that within the past fortnight had already
successfully met the French in three pitched battles. On the right
was the First Army, under command of General Von Steinmetz, the
victors, August 6, of Spicheren, near Saar, and, eight days later, of
Colombey, to the east of Metz; while the centre and left were
composed of the several corps of the Second Army, commanded by Prince
Frederick Charles of Prussia, a part of whose troops had just been
engaged in the sanguinary battle of Mars-la-Tour, by which Bazaine
was cut of