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Updated: May 29, 2025
Platoff turned with him, and brought him once more to action, "killing many," said the Hetman's despatch, "but making few prisoners." The army of Italy, if it could still be called an army, mingled with the few troops who still preserved some show of order under Ney, before they came in sight of Smolensko, and communicated to them their own terror and confusion.
The latter once more passed to the eastern bank of the river, and, having wholly cut off one division of 7000, under Partonneux, not far from Borizoff, proceeded towards Studzianska. Platoff and his indefatigable Cossacks joined Witgenstein on this march, and they arrived long before the rear-guard of Napoleon could pass the river.
"Your rank and regiment?" "Captain of the Dragoons of Grodno." "What is this note which you were carrying?" "It is a line which I had written to my sweetheart." "Whose name," said I, examining the address, "is the Hetman Platoff. Come, come, sir, this is an important military document, which you are carrying from one general to another. Tell me this instant what it is."
To prove the value of the service rendered by the Cossacks, it is only necessary to observe, that many of the officers who distinguished themselves most in all the campaigns, Platoff, Orloff Denizoff, Wasilchikoff, Czernicheff, Tettenborn, &c. commanded Cossacks almost exclusively, and attributed much of their success to the quality of their troops.
It is said that the King of Naples by simply raising this powerful sword had put to flight a horde of these barbarians. I do not know how much truth there is in this statement, but it is at least possible. The Cossacks, in common with all races still in their infancy, believe in magicians. A very amusing anecdote was told of the great chief of the Cossacks, the celebrated Platoff.
To him came the dismal news that Wittgenstein had resumed the offensive against Saint-Cyr, and that the line of attack on the French left was as open from the north as was that on the other side from the south. Davout's rear-guard was steadily disintegrating under hardships and before the harassing attacks of the Russian riders under Platoff. Partizan warfare was assuming alarming dimensions.
On the day before the French entered Moscow, Count Platoff, and some other officers, from one of whom we had this anecdote, breakfasted with Count Rostapchin at his villa in the vicinity of the town, which it had been the delight of his life to cultivate and adorn.
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