In addition to this, Major General Lorence had several Jews sought out and brought to him; he interrogated them with great apparent minuteness relative to that ford, and the roads leading from it to Minsk.  Then, affecting to be mightily pleased with their answers, and to be satisfied that there was no better passage to be found, he retained some of these rascals as guides, and had the others conveyed beyond our out-posts.  But to make still more sure of the latter not keeping their word with him, he made them swear that they would return to meet us, in the direction of lower Berezina, in order to inform us of the enemy’s movements.

While these attempts were making to draw Tchitchakof’s attention entirely to the left, the means of effecting a passage were secretly preparing at Studzianka.  It was only on the 25th, at five in the evening, that Eble arrived there, followed only by two field forges, two waggons of coal, six covered waggons of utensils and nails, and some companies of pontonniers.  At Smolensk he had made each workman provide himself with a tool and some cramp-irons.

But the tressels, which had been made the day before, out of the beams of the Polish cabins, were found to be too weak.  The work was all to do over again.  It was found to be quite impossible to finish the bridge during the night; it could only be fixed during the following day, the 26th, in full daylight, and under the enemy’s fire; but there was no room for hesitation.

On the first approach of that decisive night, Oudinot ceded to Napoleon the occupation of Borizof, and went to take position with the rest of his corps at Studzianka.  They marched in the most profound obscurity, without making the least noise, and mutually recommending to each other the deepest silence.

By eight o’clock at night Oudinot and Dombrowski had taken possession of the heights commanding the passage, while General Eble descended from them.  That general placed himself on the borders of the river, with his pontonniers and a waggon-load of the irons of abandoned wheels, which at all hazards he had made into cramp-irons.  He had sacrificed every thing to preserve that feeble resource, and it saved the army.

At the close of the night of the 25th he made them sink the first tressel in the muddy bed of the river.  But to crown our misfortunes, the rising of the waters had made the traces of the ford entirely disappear.  It required the most incredible efforts on the part of our unfortunate sappers, who were plunged in the water up to their mouths, and had to contend with the floating pieces of ice which were carried along by the stream.  Many of them perished from the cold, or were drowned by the ice flakes, which a violent wind drove against them.

They had every thing to conquer but the enemy.  The rigour of the atmosphere was just at the degree necessary to render the passage of the river more difficult, without suspending its course, or sufficiently consolidating the moving ground upon which we were about to venture.  On this occasion the winter showed itself more Russian than even the Russians themselves.  The latter were wanting to their season, which never failed them.