Pugatshef waged a war of extermination against the nobles who were the supporters of Catharine, in cold blood beheading their wives and children, and conferring their titles and estates upon his followers.  The empress found it necessary to rouse all her energies to meet this peril.  She issued a manifesto, which was circulated through all the towns of the empire, and raised a large army, which was dispatched to crush the rebellion.  Battle after battle ensued, until, at last, in a decisive conflict, the hosts of Pugatshef were utterly cut up.

Still, this indefatigable warrior soon raised another army from the untamed barbarians of the Don, and, rapidly descending the Volga, attacked, by surprise, some Russian regiments encamped upon its banks, and routed them with fearful slaughter.  The astronomer, Lovitch, a member of the imperial academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, was, at that time, under the protection of these regiments, surveying the route for a canal between the Don and the Volga.  Pugatshef ordered his dragoons to thrust their pikes into the unfortunate man, and raise him upon them into the air, “in order,” said he, “that he may be nearer the stars.”  They did this, and then cut him to pieces with their sabers.

The troops of Catharine pursued the rebels, encountered them in some intricate passes of the mountains, whence escape was impossible, and overwhelmed them with destruction.  Their vigorous leader, leaping from crag to crag, escaped, swam the Volga, crossed, in solitude, vast deserts, and made new attempts to rally partisans around him.  But his last hour was sounded.  Deserted by all, he was wandering from place to place, pursued like a wild beast, when some of his own confederates, basely betraying him, seized him, after a violent struggle, put him in irons, and delivered him to one of the officers of the Russian army.  The wretched man, preserving impenetrable silence, was conveyed to Moscow in an iron cage.  Refusing to eat, food was forced down his stomach.  The empress immediately appointed a commission for the trial of the rebel.  She instructed the court to be satisfied with whatever voluntary confession of his crime he might make, forbidding them to apply the torture, or to require him to name his accomplices.  The culprit was sentenced to have his hands and feet cut off, and then to be quartered.  By order of the empress, however, he was first beheaded.  Eight of his accomplices were also executed, eighteen underwent the knout, and were then exiled to Siberia.  Thus terminated a rebellion which cost the lives of more than a hundred thousand men.

Over those wide regions, whose exact boundaries are even now scarcely known, numerous nations are scattered, quite distinct in language, religion and customs, and so separated by almost impassable deserts, that they know but little of each other.  These wilds, peopled by war-loving races, afford the most attractive field for military adventures.  The energy and sagacity with which Catharine crushed this formidable rebellion added greatly to her renown.  Tranquillity being restored, the empress, in order to crown a general pardon, forbade any further allusion whatever to be made to the rebellion, consigning all its painful events to utter oblivion.  She even forbade the publication of the details of the trial, saying,