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He showed me an almanac, which had a great circulation in the district. It had an entry sandwiched in this way: Aug. 15. Reform Bill passed 1867. Aug. 16. Birth of Julius Caesar. Aug. 17. Extraordinary cure by Dr. Cullingworth of a case of dropsy in Bradfield, 1881. Aug. 18. Battle of Gravelotte, 1870. It reads as if it were one of the landmarks of the latter half of the century.

This was the invasion of France. Before it Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet of the Garde Impériale.

The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the forces.

This place was on some high ground overlooking the villages of Rezonville and Gravelotte, about the centre of the battlefield of Mars-la-Tour, and from it most of the country to the east toward Metz could also be seen.

I got 'em at Gravelotte der day we licked der stuffun oudt der Frainch, ach, you bedt. Me, I pelong to der Wurtemberg redgimend, dot dey use to suppord der batterie von der Brince von Hohenlohe. Alle der day we lay down bei der stomach in der feildt behindt der batterie, und der schells von der Frainch cennon hef eggsblode ach, donnerwetter! I tink efery schell eggsblode bei der beckside my neck.

The only time I saw any of it engaged was in the unfortunate charge at Gravelotte. That proved its mettle good and discipline fair, but answered no other purpose. Such of it as was not attached to the infantry was organized in divisions, and operated in accordance with the old idea of covering the front and flanks of the army, a duty which it thoroughly performed.

His host sat him down at the table d'hôte opposite the young German, and almost from the first it was to be seen that the two looked at each other in a curious way. By and by the Frenchman arose and drawing his host aside made a whispered communication to him and withdrew. It turned out afterwards that the two men had been engaged on different sides in the great cavalry charge at Gravelotte.

Going directly through the village of Gravelotte, following the causeway over which the German cavalry had passed to make its courageous but futile charge, we soon reached the ground where the fighting had been the most severe. Here the field was literally covered with evidences of the terrible strife, the dead and wounded strewn thick on every side.

This place was on some high ground overlooking the villages of Rezonville and Gravelotte, about the centre of the battlefield of Mars-la-Tour, and from it most of the country to the east toward Metz could also be seen.

On the 17th August, the day of comparative quietude intervening between the day of Mars-la-Tour and the day of Gravelotte I was wandering about among the hamlets and farmsteads to the southward of Mars-la-Tour, waiting the arrival in their appointed bivouacs about Puxieux of my early friends of the Saxon Army Corps.