During the whole of that day, the situation of the ninth corps was so much more critical, as a weak and narrow bridge was its only means of retreat; in addition to which its avenues were obstructed by the baggage and the stragglers. By degrees, as the action got warmer, the terror of these poor wretches increased their disorder. First of all they were alarmed by the rumours of a serious engagement, then by seeing the wounded returning from it, and last of all by the batteries of the Russian left wing, some bullets from which began to fall among their confused mass.

They had all been already crowding one upon the other, and the immense multitude heaped upon the bank pell-mell with the horses and carriages, there formed a most alarming incumbrance. It was about the middle of the day that the first Russian bullets fell in the midst of this chaos; they were the signal of universal despair.

Then it was, as in all cases of extremity, that dispositions exhibited themselves without disguise, and actions were witnessed, most base, and others most sublime. According to their different characters, some furious and determined, with sword in hand, cleared for themselves a horrible passage. Others, still more cruel, opened a way for their carriages by driving them without mercy over the crowd of unfortunate persons who stood in the way, whom they crushed to death. Their detestable avarice made them sacrifice their companions in misfortune to the preservation of their baggage. Others, seized with a disgusting terror, wept, supplicated, and sunk under the influence of that passion, which completed the exhaustion of their strength. Some were observed, (and these were principally the sick and wounded,) who, renouncing life, went aside and sat down resigned, looking with a fixed eye on the snow which was shortly to be their tomb.

Numbers of those who started first among this crowd of desperadoes missed the bridge, and attempted to scale it by the sides, but the greater part were pushed into the river. There were seen women in the midst of the ice, with their children in their arms, raising them as they felt themselves sinking, and even when completely immerged, their stiffened arms still held them above them.

In the midst of this horrible disorder, the artillery bridge burst and broke down. The column, entangled in this narrow passage, in vain attempted to retrograde. The crowds of men who came behind, unaware of the calamity, and not hearing the cries of those before them, pushed them on, and threw them into the gulf, into which they were precipitated in their turn.

Every one then attempted to pass by the other bridge. A number of large ammunition waggons, heavy carriages, and cannon crowded to it from all parts. Directed by their drivers, and carried along rapidly over a rough and unequal declivity, in the midst of heaps of men, they ground to powder the poor wretches who were unlucky enough to get between them; after which, the greater part, driving violently against each other and getting overturned, killed in their fall those who surrounded them. Whole rows of these desperate creatures being pushed against these obstacles, got entangled among them, were thrown down and crushed to pieces by masses of other unfortunates who succeeded each other uninterruptedly.

Crowds of them were rolling in this way, one over the other, nothing was heard but cries of rage and suffering. In this frightful medley, those who were trod under and stifled, struggled under the feet of their companions, whom they laid hold of with their nails and teeth, and by whom they were repelled without mercy, as if they had been enemies.

Among them were wives and mothers, calling in vain, and in tones of distraction, for their husbands and their children, from whom they had been separated but a moment before, never more to be united: they stretched out their arms and entreated to be allowed to pass in order to rejoin them; but being carried backwards and forwards by the crowd, and overcome by the pressure, they sunk under without being even remarked. Amidst the tremendous noise of a furious hurricane, the firing of cannon, the whistling of the storm and of the bullets, the explosion of shells, vociferations, groans, and the most frightful oaths, this infuriated and disorderly crowd heard not the complaints of the victims whom it was swallowing up.

The more fortunate gained the bridge by scrambling over heaps of wounded, of women and children thrown down and half suffocated, and whom they again trod down in their attempts to reach it. When at last they got to the narrow defile, they fancied they were safe, but the fall of a horse, or the breaking or displacing of a plank again stopped all.

There was also, at the outlet of the bridge, on the other side, a morass, into which many horses and carriages had sunk, a circumstance which again embarrassed and retarded the clearance. Then it was, that in that column of desperadoes, crowded together on that single plank of safety, there arose an internal struggle, in which the weakest and worst situated were thrown into the river by the strongest. The latter, without turning their heads, and carried away by the instinct of self-preservation, pushed on toward the goal with fury, regardless of the imprecations of rage and despair, uttered by their companions or their officers, whom they had thus sacrificed.

But on the other hand, how many noble instances of devotion! and why are time and space denied me to relate them? There were seen soldiers, and even officers, harnessing themselves to sledges, to snatch from that fatal bank their sick or wounded comrades. Farther off, and out of reach of the crowd, were seen soldiers motionless, watching over their dying officers, who had entrusted themselves to their care; the latter in vain conjured them to think of nothing but their own preservation, they refused, and, sooner than abandon their leaders, were contented to wait the approach of slavery or death.

Above the first passage, while the young Lauriston threw himself into the river, in order to execute the orders of his sovereign more promptly, a little boat, carrying a mother and her two children, was overset and sunk under the ice; an artilleryman, who was struggling like the others on the bridge to open a passage for himself, saw the accident; all at once, forgetting himself, he threw himself into the river, and by great exertion, succeeded in saving one of the three victims. It was the youngest of the two children; the poor little thing kept calling for its mother with cries of despair, and the brave artilleryman was heard telling it, "not to cry; that he had not preserved it from the water merely to desert it on the bank; that it should want for nothing; that he would be its father, and its family."

The night of the 28th added to all these calamities. Its darkness was insufficient to conceal its victims from the artillery of the Russians. Amidst the snow, which covered every thing, the course of the river, the thorough black mass of men, horses, carriages, and the noise proceeding from them, were sufficient to enable the enemy's artillerymen, to direct their fire.

About nine o'clock at night there was a still farther increase of desolation, when Victor began his retreat, and his divisions came and opened themselves a horrible breach through these unhappy wretches, whom they had till then been protecting. A rear-guard, however, having been left at Studzianka, the multitude, benumbed with cold, or too anxious to preserve their baggage, refused to avail themselves of the last night for passing to the opposite side. In vain were the carriages set fire to, in order to tear them from them. It was only the appearance of daylight, which brought them all at once, but too late, to the entrance of the bridge, which they again besieged. It was half-past eight in the morning, when EblÉ, seeing the Russians approaching, at last set fire to it.

The disaster had reached its utmost bounds. A multitude of carriages, three cannon, several thousand men and women, and some children, were abandoned on the hostile bank. They were seen wandering in desolate troops on the borders of the river. Some threw themselves into it in order to swim across; others ventured themselves on the pieces of ice which were floating along: some there were also who threw themselves headlong into the flames of the burning bridge, which sunk under them; burnt and frozen at one and the same time, they perished under two opposite punishments. Shortly after, the bodies of all sorts were perceived collecting together and the ice against the tressels of the bridge. The rest awaited the Russians. Wittgenstein did not show himself upon the heights until an hour after EblÉ's departure, and, without having gained a victory, reaped all the fruits of one.