DANISH RETREAT FROM SCHLESIFIG. 621 



contrary, the shoes both of saddle and draught horses 

 were worn smooth by the last five or six days' incessant 

 march on muddy ground, and the progress of the army 



met with terrible hindrance at the outset It was 



not long before our march began to exhibit, on a small 

 scale, some of the horrors of the famous retreat of the 

 French from Moscow. The night was dark— the cold 

 terrible ; the thermometer, I dare say, did not mark more 

 than four or five degrees below the freezing-point — but 

 the chill in our veins told a very different tale, and the 

 slipperiness of the road was perfectly awful. The snow, 

 which was falling thick and fast at frequent intervals, lay 

 in the fields three or four inches deep, and fringed the 

 trees in the forests with the most picturesque fretwork ; 

 but it was trodden to the thinnest layer by all the feet, 

 hoofs, and wheels of a whole host, till it glistened like 

 ice in the occasional gleam of some pale star, as one or 

 two peeped out in the sky through the gaps opened in 

 the mass of clouds by the fitful blast. Dragoons, artillery- 

 men — all who travel on saddle — were dismounted ; even 

 led horses were put to the direst exertions to keep their 

 footing ; draught-horses had to be held up — and cannon, 

 caissons, and ammunition or luggage waggons to be 

 dragged by the sheer strength of men, whose tread was 

 no steadier. The falling of men and of beasts, the crack- 

 ing of wheels and axletrees, was prodigious. It took us 

 full nine hours to go over the first Danish mile and a half 

 (less than seven English miles) of ground. Morning 

 broke upon us long before we were half way between 

 Schleswig and Fensburg, and we reached the latter place 

 about four o'clock, p.m., on Saturday, having accom- 



