It was the first time that Gustavus had been repulsed, and he could hardly yet realize the fact; but as messenger after messenger came in from the different divisions he discovered how terrible had been his loss.  Most of his generals and superior officers had been killed or wounded, 2000 men lay dead on the field, and there were nigh three times that number of wounded.

The Imperialists on their side lost 1000 killed and 1500 wounded; but the accounts of the losses on both sides differ greatly, some placing the Imperial loss higher than that of the Swedes, a palpably absurd estimate, as the Imperialists, fighting behind shelter, could not have suffered anything like so heavily as their assailants, who were exposed to their fire in the open.

Hepburn bore the order from the king for Munro’s troops and those of Duke Bernhard to retire from the position they had won, as they were entirely cut off from the rest of the army, and would at daylight have had the whole of the Imperialists upon them.  The service was one of great danger, and Hepburn had to cut his way sword in hand through the Croats who intervened between him and his comrades of the Green Brigade.  He accomplished his task in safety, and before daylight Munro’s men and the regiments of Duke Bernhard rejoined the army in the plain.  But though repulsed Gustavus was not defeated.  He took up a new position just out of cannon shot of the Altenburg, and then offered battle to Wallenstein, the latter, however, well satisfied with his success, remained firm in his policy of starving out the enemy, and resisted every device of the king to turn him from his stronghold.

For fourteen days Gustavus remained in position.  Then he could hold out no longer.  The supplies were entirely exhausted.  The summer had been unusually hot.  The shrunken waters of the Pegnitz were putrid and stinking, the carcasses of dead horses poisoned the air, and fever and pestilence raged in the camp.  Leaving, then, Kniphausen with eight thousand men to aid the citizens of Nuremberg to defend the city should Wallenstein besiege it, Gustavus marched on the 8th of September by way of Neustadt to Windsheim, and there halted to watch the further movements of the enemy.

Five days later Wallenstein quitted his camp and marched to Forsheim.  So far the advantage of the campaign lay with him.  His patience and iron resolution had given the first check to the victorious career of the Lion of the North.

Munro’s regiment, as it was still called —­ for he was now its full colonel, although Lieutenant Colonel Sinclair commanded it in the field —­ had suffered terribly, but less, perhaps, than some of those who had in vain attempted to force their way up the slopes of the Alte Veste; and many an eye grew moist as at daybreak the regiment marched into its place in the ranks of the brigade and saw how terrible had been the slaughter among them.  Munro’s soldiers had had but little of that hand to hand fighting