^14; Ten Years of my Life. 



The doctors coniDlained thq.t the wounded were dvinsr under 

 iheir hands for want of stimufents and food and other neces- 

 sary things. Under these circumstances I remembered an 

 offer made to me when 1 was last in Cologne, trying to buy a 

 horse from Baron Edward Op])enheim, the most wealthy 

 banker of that city. • He was a member of the central com- 

 mittee of the association, formed for the assistance of the sol- 

 diers in the field. Hearing that I was going with the Surgeon- 

 General of the Sth Army Corps, he invited me to apply at 

 once to him if I was in want of anything for the wounded. I 

 therefore telegraphed to him for 25c hair mattresses, and in 

 an incredibly short time, sent by an extra train, they arrived, 

 with many other useful things, for which, as I heard afterwards, 

 the Baron paid out of his own pocket. 



August 8 was a busy day, for from the morning until ten 

 o'clock at night I was dressing wounds,' and comforting and 

 nursing the dying. I am not very sentimental, but the sights 

 I saw and the scenes 1 witnessed, v/ould have pressed tears 

 out of a stone. Habit, however, soon blunted the edge of this 

 feeling sufficiently not to interfere with my duty; had this not 

 been the case I could not have endured it three days. 



On the 9th, I dressed the wounds of twenty men, whom I 

 found quite alone, without a doctor or a nurse, in the citizens' 

 casino. In the morning my brother-in-law, Prince Alfred, 

 arrived, and I brought him to the Hotel zur Post, where we 

 were quartered, until me moved a short time after to a very 

 comfortable private house at the Schlossplatz. 



After dinner I rode over with Dr. Busch to the village of 

 Spichern to visit the wounded Frenchmen, of whom we found 

 one hundred and eighty, destitute of everything. We returned 

 to Saarbruck, riding over the battlefield of the sixth, and 

 looked with astonishment at the bastionlike projecting steep, 

 and high hill which our brave soldiers had scaled after a five 

 times renewed attack, led by the renowed fortieth regiment, of 

 whom two companies held at bay for several hours twenty 

 thousand French on August 4. 



Most of the dead had been buried already, and burying was 

 still going on. The dead were much disfigured, with the 

 exception of a poor boy, whose face had a happy, smiling 

 expression as if he was sleeping and had a most happy dream ; 

 his eyes were closed and his parted lips showed two rows of 

 pearly teeth. 



