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Updated: May 3, 2025
The next day, the 19th of Nov., from midnight till ten o'clock in the morning, they kept marching on, without meeting any other enemy than a hilly country; about that time Platof's columns again made their appearance, and Ney halted and faced them, under the protection of the skirts of a wood.
They stated, that on the 17th of November they had quitted Smolensk with twelve cannon, six thousand infantry, and three hundred cavalry, leaving there five thousand sick at the mercy of the enemy; and that had it not been for the noise of Platof's cannon, and the explosion of the mines, their marshal would never have been able to bring away from the ruins of that city seven thousand unarmed stragglers who had taken shelter in them.
It became necessary to retreat, in order to rally, and take a better position, but in falling back, they encountered Platof's cavalry. Half of our combatants had already perished, and the fifteen hundred soldiers who remained found themselves surrounded by three armies and by a river.
The first firing was heard at the Wilna gate; Ney ran thither, with a view to drive away Platof's artillery with his own; but he found his cannon had been already spiked, and that his artillerymen had fled!
It is a fact which reflects disgrace on the enemy, that during this disaster, and in sight of so rich a booty, a few hundred men, left at the distance of half a league from the Viceroy, on the other side of the Wop, were sufficient to curb, for twenty hours, not only the courage but also the cupidity of Platof's Cossacks.
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