Memoirs of a Cavalier eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 365 pages of information about Memoirs of a Cavalier.

Memoirs of a Cavalier eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 365 pages of information about Memoirs of a Cavalier.
so hot that both sides had enough to do to make their men stand to their work.  The king, in the hottest of it, animated his men by his presence, and Tilly, to give him his due, did the same; for the execution was so great, and so many officers killed, General Altringer wounded, and two sergeant-majors killed, that at last Tilly himself was obliged to expose himself, and to come up to the very face of our line to encourage his men, and give his necessary orders.

And here about one o’clock, much about the time that the king’s brigade and works were finished, and just as they said he had ordered to fall on upon our ravelin with 3000 foot, was the brave old Tilly slain with a musket ball in the thigh.  He was carried off to Ingolstadt, and lived some days after, but died of that wound the same day as the king had his horse shot under him at the siege of that town.

We made no question of passing the river here, having brought everything so forward, and with such extraordinary success; but we should have found it a very hot piece of work if Tilly had lived one day more, and, if I may give my opinion of it, having seen Tilly’s battery and breastwork, in the face of which we must have passed the river, I must say that, whenever we had marched, if Tilly had fallen in with his horse and foot, placed in that trench, the whole army would have passed as much danger as in the face of a strong town in the storming a counterscarp.  The king himself, when he saw with what judgment Tilly had prepared his works, and what danger he must have run, would often say that day’s success was every way equal to the victory of Leipsic.

Tilly being hurt and carried off, as if the soul of the army had been lost, they began to draw off.  The Duke of Bavaria took horse and rid away as if he had fled out of battle for his life.

The other generals, with a little more caution, as well as courage, drew off by degrees, sending their cannon and baggage away first, and leaving some to continue firing on the bank of the river, to conceal their retreat.  The river preventing any intelligence, we knew nothing of the disaster befallen them; and the king, who looked for blows, having finished his bridge and ravelin, ordered to run a line with palisadoes to take in more ground on the bank of the river, to cover the first troops he should send over.  This being finished the same night, the king sends over a party of his guards to relieve the men who were in the ravelin, and commanded 600 musketeers to man the new line out of the Scots brigade.

Early in the morning a small party of Scots, commanded by one Captain Forbes, of my Lord Reay’s regiment, were sent out to learn something of the enemy, the king observing they had not fired all night; and while this party were abroad, the army stood in battalia; and my old friend Sir John Hepburn, whom of all men the king most depended upon for any desperate service, was ordered to pass the bridge with his brigade, and to draw up without the line, with command to advance as he found the horse, who were to second him, come over.

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Memoirs of a Cavalier from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.