slim ration of eggs and
coffee was amply reinforced.

Breakfast over, the Chancellor invited me to accompany him in a ride
to the battle-field, and I gladly accepted, as I very much desired to
pass over the ground in front of Gravelotte, particularly so to see
whether the Krupp guns had really done the execution that was claimed
for them by the German artillery officers. Going directly through
the village of Gravelotte, following the causeway over which the
German cavalry had passed to make its courageous but futile charge,
we soon reached the ground where the fighting had been the most
severe. Here the field was literally covered with evidences of the
terrible strife, the dead and wounded strewn thick on every side.

In the sunken road the carnage had been awful; men and horses having
been slaughtered there by hundreds, helpless before the murderous
fire delivered from behind a high stone wall impracticable to mounted
troops. The sight was sickening to an extreme, and we were not slow
to direct our course elsewhere, going up the glacis toward the French
line, the open ground over which we crossed being covered with
thousands of helmets, that had been thrown off by the Germans during
the fight and were still dotting the field, though details of
soldiers from the organizations which had been engaged here were
about to begin to gather up their abandoned headgear.

When we got inside the French works, I was astonished to observe how
little harm had been done the defenses by the German artillery, for
although I had not that serene faith in the effectiveness of their
guns held by German artillerists generally, yet I thought their
terrific cannonade must have left marked results. All I could
perceive, however, was a disabled gun, a broken mitrailleuse, and two
badly damaged caissons.

Everything else, except a little ammunition in the trenches, had been
carried away, and it was plain to see, from the good shape in which
the French left wing had retired to Metz, that its retreat had been
predetermined by the disasters to the right wing.

By this hour the German cavalry having been thrown out to the front
well over toward Metz, we, following it to get a look at the city,
rode to a neighboring summit, supposing it would be a safe point of
observation; but we shortly realized the contrary, for scarcely had
we reached the crest when some of the French pickets, lying concealed
about six hundred yards off, opened fire, mak