Thus for three months the armies confronted each other.  Provisions were becoming terribly scarce, the magazines of the city were emptying fast, and although working night and day, the mills of the place did not suffice to grind flour for the needs of so many mouths.  The population of the city itself was greatly swollen by the crowds of Protestant fugitives who had fled there for refuge on the approach of the Imperialists, and the magazines of the city dwindled fast under the demands made upon them by this addition, and that of the Swedish army, to the normal population.  Fever broke out in the city and camp.  The waters of the Pegnitz were tainted by the carcasses of dead horses and other animals.  The supplies of forage had long since been exhausted, and the baggage and troop animals died in vast numbers.

Still there was no sign of a change.  Wallenstein would not attack, Gustavus could not.  The Swedish king waited to take advantage of some false move on the part of the Imperial commander; but Wallenstein was as great a general as himself, and afforded him no opening, turning a deaf ear to the entreaties and importunities of Maximilian that he would end the tedious siege by an attack upon the small and enfeebled army around Nuremberg.

All this time Gustavus was in constant communication with his generals outside, his messengers making their way by speed or stratagem through the beleaguering Croats, and kept up the spirits of his men by daily reviews and by the cheerful countenance which he always wore.

The Swedish columns were gradually closing in towards Nuremberg.  One was led by the chancellor Oxenstiern, to whom had been committed the care of the Middle Rhine and the Lower Palatinate, where he had been confronted by the Spanish troops under Don Philip de Sylva.

On the 11th July, leaving Horn with a small force to oppose the Spaniards, the chancellor set out to join his master.  On the way he effected a junction with the forces of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.  This general had been opposed in Westphalia by Pappenheim, but he seized the opportunity when the latter had marched to relieve Maestricht, which was besieged by Frederic of Nassau, to march away and join Oxenstiern.

The Scotch officers Ballandine and Alexander Hamilton were with their regiment in the Duchy of Magdeburg.  When the news of the king’s danger reached them without waiting for instructions they marched to Halle and joining a portion of the division of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, to which they were attached, pushed on to Zeitz, and were there joined by the duke himself, who had hurried on from the Lake of Constance, attended only by his guards, but, picking up five Saxon regiments in Franconia.  Together they passed on to Wurtzburg, where they joined Oxenstiern and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.  General Banner, with the fourth corps, was at Augsburg, opposed to Cratz, who was at the head of the remains of Tilly’s old army.