Ney, meanwhile, having in execution of his master’s parting injunctions blown up whatever remained of the walls and towers of Smolensko, at length set his rear-guard in motion, and advanced to Krasnoi, without being harassed by any except Platoff, whose Cossacks entered Smolensko ere he could wholly abandon it.  The field strewn with many thousand corpses, informed him sufficiently that a new disaster had befallen the fated army.  Yet he continued to advance on the footsteps of those who had thus shattered Davoust and Mortier, and met with no considerable interruption until he reached the ravine in which the rivulet Losmina has its channel.  A thick mist lay on the ground, and Ney was almost on the brink of the ravine, before he perceived that it was manned throughout by Russians, while the opposite banks displayed a long line of batteries deliberately arranged, and all the hills behind were covered with troops.

A Russian officer appeared and summoned Ney to capitulate.  “A mareschal of France never surrenders,” was his intrepid answer; and immediately the batteries, distant only 250 yards, opened a tremendous storm of grape shot.  Ney, nevertheless, had the hardihood to plunge into the ravine, clear a passage over the stream, and charge the Russians at their guns.  His small band were repelled with fearful slaughter; but he renewed his efforts from time to time during the day, and at night, though with numbers much diminished, still occupied his original position in the face of a whole army interposed between him and Napoleon.

The Emperor had by this time given up all hope of ever again seeing anything of his rear-column.  But during the ensuing night, Ney effected his escape; nor does the history of war present many such examples of apparently insuperable difficulties overcome by the union of skill and valour.  The marshal broke up his bivouac at midnight, and marched back from the Losmina, until he came on another stream, which he concluded must flow also into the Dnieper.  He followed this guide, and at length reached the great river at the place where it was frozen over, though so thinly, that the ice bent and crackled beneath the feet of the men, who crossed it in single files.  The waggons laden with the wounded, and what great guns were still with Ney, were too heavy for this frail bridge.  They attempted the passage at different points, and one after another went down, amidst the shrieks of the dying and the groans of the onlookers.  The Cossacks had by this time gathered hard behind, and swept up many stragglers, besides the sick.  But Ney had achieved his great object:  and on the 20th, he, with his small and devoted band, joined the Emperor once more at Orcsa.  Napoleon received him in his arms, hailed him as “the bravest of the brave,” and declared that he would have given all his treasures to be assured of his safety.