it, when their commander, the Duke of Cumberland, who was well seconded by his officers, succeeded in rallying them.  They renewed the combat, and their enemy became so alarmed in their turn that even the French King, and his son the Dauphin, were in danger of being swept away in the rout.  Again there came a turn in the battle, and, mostly because of the daring and dash of the famous Irish Brigade, the Allies were beaten and forced to retreat.  It is stated that the whole body of heroic British Grenadiers who were engaged at Fontenoy gave a strong proof of the effect of the panic upon their minds—­and bodies; thus establishing the fact that they had stomachs for something besides the fight.  “Not to put too fine a point upon it,” they, with a unity of place and time that speaks well for their discipline, did that which was done by the valiant General Sterling Price at the Battle of Boonville, and which has caused them to leave a deep impression on the historic page, though nothing can be said in support of the attractiveness of the illustration which those gallant men contributed to that page.

There was a partial exhibition of panic terror made by the English troops at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill.  They were twice made to run on that Seventeenth of June of which something has been said during the last six-and-eighty years; and they were brought up to the point of making a third attack only by the greatest exertions of their commanders, and after having been considerably reinforced.  This third attack would have been as promptly repulsed as its predecessors had been, but that the American troops had used up all their powder, and few of them had bayonets.  The firmness, and skill as marksmen, of a body of militia had caused a larger body of British veterans twice to retreat in great disorder, and under circumstances much resembling those that characterize what is known as a panic.  Had a third repulse of the assailants occurred, nothing could have prevented their flight to their boats.  But it was written that the Americans should retreat; and it is safe to say that they showed much more steadiness in the retreat than the enemy did alacrity in the pursuit.

Panic terror was no uncommon thing during the Reign of Terror in France, in the armies of the French Republic.  The early efforts of the French Republicans in the field sometimes failed because of panics occurring in their armies; and they were not unknown to any of the armies that took part in the long series of wars that began in 1792 and lasted, with brief intervals of peace, down to the summer of 1815.  At Marengo, both armies suffered from panics.  As early as ten o’clock in the forenoon, a portion of Victor’s corps retired in disorder, crying out, “All is lost!” There were, in fact, three Battles of Marengo, the Austrians winning the first and second, and losing the third, which was losing all,—­war not exactly resembling whist.  When Desaix said, at three o’clock in the afternoon, that the