nations exhausted every territory in which they encamped, and by their immense consumption raised the necessaries of life to an exorbitant price.  All the mills of Nuremberg were insufficient to grind the corn required for each day; and 15,000 pounds of bread, which were daily delivered by the town into the Swedish camp, excited, without allaying, the hunger of the soldiers.  The laudable exertions of the magistrates of Nuremberg could not prevent the greater part of the horses from dying for want of forage, while the increasing mortality in the camp consigned more than a hundred men daily to the grave.

To put an end to these distresses, Gustavus Adolphus, relying on his numerical superiority, left his lines on the 25th day, forming before the enemy in order of battle, while he cannonaded the duke’s camp from three batteries erected on the side of the Rednitz.  But the duke remained immovable in his intrenchments, and contented himself with answering this challenge by a distant fire of cannon and musketry.  His plan was to wear out the king by his inactivity, and by the force of famine to overcome his resolute determination; and neither the remonstrances of Maximilian and the impatience of his army, nor the ridicule of his opponent, could shake his purpose.  Gustavus, deceived in his hope of forcing a battle, and compelled by his increasing necessities, now attempted impossibilities, and resolved to storm a position which art and nature had combined to render impregnable.

Intrusting his own camp to the militia of Nuremberg, on the fifty-eighth day of his encampment (the festival of St. Bartholomew), he advanced in full order of battle, and passing the Rednitz at Furth, easily drove the enemy’s outposts before him.  The main army of the Imperialists was posted on the steep heights between the Biber and the Rednitz, called the Old Fortress and Altenberg; while the camp itself, commanded by these eminences, spread out immeasurably along the plain.  On these heights the whole of the artillery was placed.  Deep trenches surrounded inaccessible redoubts, while thick barricades, with pointed palisades, defended the approaches to the heights, from the summits of which Wallenstein calmly and securely discharged the lightnings of his artillery from amid the dark thunder-clouds of smoke.  A destructive fire of musketry was maintained behind the breastworks, and a hundred pieces of cannon threatened the desperate assailant with certain destruction.  Against this dangerous post Gustavus now directed his attack; five hundred musketeers, supported by a few infantry (for a greater number could not act in the narrow space), enjoyed the unenvied privilege of first throwing themselves into the open jaws of death.  The assault was furious, the resistance obstinate.  Exposed to the whole fire of the enemy’s artillery, and infuriated by the prospect of inevitable death, these determined warriors rushed forward to storm the heights which, in an instant, converted into a flaming volcano,