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Pewt cougt 4 pikeril and 5 kivies and 3 pirch. i cougt 2 pikeril and 2 kivies and 4 pirch and 1 sucker. we cougt sum minnies and shiners for bate but we dident call them ennything. we div of the bank at the eddy, once Pewt sliped and come down all guts, it nocked the wind all out of him. July 1. brite and fair. today is the first day of July, and we had my fish fride for brekfast.
It would seem that the inequalities of the ground hid the strength of Pirch I. and Thielmann; for Napoleon still believed that he had ranged against him at Ligny only a single corps. At 2 p.m. Soult informed Ney that the enemy had united a corps between Sombref and Bry, and that in half an hour Grouchy would attack it.
It gave Blücher time to bring up the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann under cover of the high ground near Sombref, thereby raising his total force to about 87,000 men; and it enabled the two allied commanders to meet and hastily confer on the situation.
Every one knows the rest, the irruption of a third army; the battle broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; Pirch the first coming up with Bulow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating; Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all things.
Blücher's army, comprising 90,000 men, also covered a great stretch of country. The first corps, that of Ziethen, held the bridges of the Sambre at and near Charleroi; but the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann were at Namur and Ciney; while, owing to a lack of stringency in the orders sent by Gneisenau, chief of the staff, to Bülow, his corps of 32,000 men was still at Liège.
The Duke's forces would, at the outset of the campaign, have been in less danger, if the leaders at the Prussian outposts, Pirch II. and Dörnberg of the King's German Legion, had warned him of the enemy's massing near the Sambre early on the 15th.
Early on the 15th, Pirch I. and Thielmann began hastily to advance towards Sombref; and Ziethen, with 32,000 men, prepared to hold the line of the Sambre as long as possible. His chief of staff, General Reiche, states that one-third of the Prussians were new troops, drafted in from the Landwehr; but all the corps gloried in their veteran Field-Marshal, and were eager to fight.
At 11 a.m. only Ziethen's corps, now but 28,000 strong, was in position at Sombref, but the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann came up shortly after midday. Had Napoleon pushed on early on the 16th, he must easily have gained the Ligny-Sombref position. What, then, caused the delay in the French attack?
At midnight, he had sent to Wellington, through Müffling, a written promise that at dawn he would set the corps of Bülow in motion against Napoleon's right; that of Pirch I. was to follow; while the other two corps would also be ready to set out. Wellington received this despatch about 3 a.m. of the 18th, and thereupon definitely resolved to offer battle.
At midnight, he had sent to Wellington, through Müffling, a written promise that at dawn he would set the corps of Bülow in motion against Napoleon's right; that of Pirch I. was to follow; while the other two corps would also be ready to set out. Wellington received this despatch about 3 a.m. of the 18th, and thereupon definitely resolved to offer battle.
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