Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/57

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BATTLE OF MACIEIOWICE.
29

General Chruszczew's wife, with her two daughters and niece. These ladies came from the place where the fight had been the most bloody; and nothing could better prove how much they were accustomed to war, than seeing them jumping lightly over the naked bodies of grenadiers, which obstructed their passage at every step.

Between four and five o'clock in the evening, we saw a detachment of soldiers approaching head-quarters, and carrying upon a hand-barrow, hastily constructed, a man half dead. This was General Kosciuszko. His head and body covered with blood, contrasted in a dreadful manner with the livid paleness of his face. He had on his head a large wound from a sword, and three on his back, above the loins, from the thrusts of a pike. He could scarcely breathe. This was very painful to me; the silence, or rather sullen stupor, was, at last, interrupted by the sobs and cries of a grief as violent as sincere. I embraced the General, who had not yet recovered his senses, and from this moment