A PRUSSIAN BIVOUAC.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 267, 17 November 1870, Page 2

A PRUSSIAN BIVOUAC.

Aftor the men had piled arms and placed their knapsacks and helmets on them, they simply marched to the rear of their arms and lay down on their cloaks. Of course, there were p.irties" detained on the usual camp duties, but with these exceptions each mau was in his bedroom in a moment. The officers, meanwhile, looked out for the driest ditch, a

rather diffirulfc task to find, and this, with a few sods thrown in and a waterproof blanket, comprised their billet for the night. There was a village close by, but on no pretence wha'erer are they allowed to differ in any way from the men. There were also masses of cavalry, and some troops of artillery, one of which, a. chosnut troop, had better horses than any I have seen. There is one tiling however, about (.heir artillery that I thiuk bad, and this is their gear, which is unwieldy in liie highest degree. !n the first place, the traces arc so hopelessly long that half the draught power of the horses is lost; the laclile is of very rough manufacture. Then, again, the gun-carriages are all fitted with poles, which on checking the wheelers, owing to the play the pin of the tumbril has, fly up nearly to tho horses' heads, and when on level ground are below their knees. They'have six horses to each gun, in the same manner that ours in England are horsed.

A horrid circumstance accurred at the battle of Woerfch. At the third charge of the Cuirassiers the enemy saw coming towards them at full speed a horse carrying a rider whose head had just been carried off by a cannon ball. This mutilated corp36 was that of M. de la Futzun de Lacarre, colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Cuirassiers. The sumo ball had cut the trumpeter of the regiment in two, trad carried off the hand of a captain who was by his side.