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The tract over which the guard moved, and over which they fled, was still, when we passed it, covered with their spoil, and marked with horses' feet, cannon wheels, and the deeper furrows of balls and bombs. Ponsonby fell here.
A thousand French dead, alone, lay on this spot; and even yet it exhibited holsters, (one we observed which had been filled with blood) standard holders, pieces of bridles, straps, girths, &c. all denoting a tremendous conflict of cavalry; and the caps of the grenadiers of the French guard, lay yet in considerable numbers, with rags of their uniforms. Some more affecting remains were also there, pieces of tartan, and of black ostrich feathers: the plaids and plumes of Scotland.
Arduous and painful, indeed, must have been that struggle, in which upwards of 200,000 men on both sides, were engaged in the work of death for nine or ten hours.— We may readily conceive what a horrible thing it would be, to behold two columns of infantry charging one another in the greatest fury, with the bayonet, and occasionally pouring well-directed vollies of musketry into each others ranks; but such were the deadly visits of the cannon and cavalry on that dreadful day, that the author whom we have so largely quoted, was repeatedly assured by officers with whom he conversed, that these interludes of infantry battle were a kind of refreshment, after their toil with other arms. It need not then be wondered, that Marshal Ney, in his letter to the Duke of Otranto calls it a terrible battle, and the most frightful carnage ever he had witnessed; and that it was said of the Duke of Wellington, that often he had prayed in agony during the dreadful conflict, for the Prussians on the night.
But horrific as the spectacle of a field of battle
