At ten o’clock in the morning General Johnston had the satisfaction of knowing that all his plans had worked out to a nicety. He had forced Grant into a corner, carried position after position, captured many guns, and taken prisoners by hundreds. Grant’s army was now confined in a space of not more than 400 acres. At eleven o’clock there came a lull in the fight. The time had arrived for General Johnston to begin the second movement of his plan of battle. This was to turn Grant’s left, sweep him from Pittsburg Landing, and crush the left against Sherman on the right. To do this the Confederates must advance across open ground in the very teeth of batteries and entrenched infantry. In the thick of this, the most difficult work of the day, the South suffered a sudden and irreparable loss. General Johnston while directing the movement was struck by a rifle-bullet. He fell, and almost immediately died. The news ran from lip to lip, and checked the charge. And, to add to the confusion, General Beauregard, on whom the command devolved, could not at once be found to be told that his chief was dead. The fight still continued, but during the time it took to find Beauregard, and the further time that elapsed before he could get the strings of battle into his hands, the Southerners fought themselves into some confusion, and Grant was able to re-form and tighten up his lines. Moreover, the Southerners had driven the Federals so close to the river that they themselves, in following up their successes, found themselves within range of the guns aboard the boats on the Tennessee River, and shells from the gunboats began to play havoc in the Confederate lines. But this could not be helped. It was the price of success. The afternoon was advancing, and Beauregard hastened to the task of the turning of the left before darkness should make further fighting impossible. Across the ground that divided Federal from Confederate ran a deep scar, and on the shoulder of the opposite bank of this Grant had thrown up some hasty breastworks. When the Southerners dashed into this gully, shot and shell from the gunboats on the river shrieked up the length of it, and an appalling rifle-fire came down the slope and into the mass of men that struggled forward to take the breastwork. The Federals were at their last resource. If the breastwork should be taken, and their left turned, it meant the end of all things to them. The Confederates, too, were in desperation, for night was falling upon the land, and victory still unwon. Into the valley they poured, and up the bank they struggled and scrambled, but scarcely one of them reached the top. Shot and shell and bayonet-thrust soon filled the valley with Southern dead and wounded; and while the fight still continued, darkness fell, and put an end to the day’s struggle. Beauregard, reporting the state of things after the first day’s fight, said:

“At six o’clock p.m. we were in possession of all his encampments between Owl (a tributary of Snake Creek) and Lick Creeks but one, nearly all his field artillery, about thirty flags, colours, and standards, over three thousand prisoners, including a division commander (General Prentiss) and several brigade commanders, thousands of small-arms, an immense supply of subsistence, forage, and munitions of war, and a large amount of means of transportation—all the substantial fruits of a complete victory—such, indeed, as rarely have followed the most successful battles.”

But this was to be the end of the fruits of victory for the South.

When the bugles rang out on the evening air the order to cease fighting, the soldiers of the North, as well as those of the South, sank to the ground in hopeless exhaustion. They had fought like fiends from early morning, travelled miles of country, scrambled through thickets, across quagmires and stagnant waters, hauling guns and waggons and stores, assisting the wounded, savagely attacking and repulsing attack; and now that a truce for the night had been declared, the soldiers found themselves so worn and weak that many paid no attention to the cravings of hunger and the urgings towards material comforts, but lay down on the ground and bivouacked where they had stood when the order to cease fighting reached them.

All the dark, stormy night it rained a chilling rain. A cold wind moaned through the trees, and so exhausted were the unwounded that the wounded lay in the main unattended. Grant himself lay with no other covering than the clothes he wore, his head to the stump of a tree, and passed the night as best he could. To add to the horrors of the night, the two gunboats, riding safely upon the bosom of the Tennessee, kept up a deafening bombardment of the Confederate quarters throughout the whole of the night, the shells shrieking and crashing among the trees, hurling great limbs, and even whole tree-tops, to the ground, and finally setting fire to the leaves that were on the ground and the underbrush, until the badly wounded were burned where they lay.

It was indeed a night of horror, of suffering, and of despair.

But worst of all for the South, in the middle of the night Buell arrived, and had the field of battle explained to him; and when the morning dawned, his army—22,000 men—fresh and eager to fight, marched upon the scene, together with General Wallace’s 5,000 reserve. When Beauregard arose to continue the battle, he found himself hopelessly outnumbered, and, fighting bravely still, was rapidly driven from all the advantages he had gained, and in the end routed. His men marched a miserable march to Corinth, again through sleet and mire, but, fortunately for them, the North had been too sorely cut up to follow for any great distance. In this woeful retreat 300 men died of cold and privation.

In this Battle of Shiloh about 100,000 troops all together were engaged, and of these 23,269 were killed, wounded, or missing. It was simply a hard, stubborn fight from start to finish; and the death of Johnston, and Buell’s fortunate arrival in the nick of time, in all likelihood saved the Northern army from a most disastrous defeat. The Confederates fought with the fury that distinguished them all through the war. On the other hand, the Federals fought with the dogged determination which ultimately won them the rights for which they had taken up arms. Draper, in his history of the American Civil War, gives the following as the Federal and Confederate losses:—

In Grant’s army there were six divisions. Their losses, in killed and wounded, were:—

Of Buell’s army, four divisions had marched to Grant’s aid; of these, three were engaged:—

The Confederate losses were 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, 959 missing. Total, 10,699.

General Beauregard, after Shiloh, retired from the command of the Confederate forces on the plea of ill-health, and General Bragg was made permanent commander.

The 31st of January, 1874, will long be a day noted in the memories of the people who were, prior to that time, a scourge to their neighbours and a standing menace to the native tribes under the British protectorate at Cape Coast. It is probable that the exact date itself has long ere this been forgotten, even if—which is very doubtful—the Ashantis possess a calendar, or have any means of calculating the dates of events, unless these happen to occur on the longest or shortest day, or, perhaps, on the occasion of a new or full moon. The memory of the battle, however, owing to a singular custom that prevails among them and the other peoples of the coast, will never be lost as long as the Ashantis remain a tribe. As the Greeks and Romans used to swear by their divinities, the Ashantis swear by their misfortunes; and the most solemn oath that can be taken by a king or chief of these peoples is a national defeat or disaster. Assuredly, then, Amoaful will for many generations be one of the most binding oaths among the Ashantis.

Ashanti had long shared with Dahomey the reputation of being the most warlike and bloodthirsty of the peoples of West Africa; they were constantly at war with their neighbours, the object of the incursions committed being not so much the extension of territory as the carrying away of large numbers of prisoners, to be sacrificed on the occasions of their solemn festivals. They had long borne ill-will to the British at Cape Coast, because of the protection granted by us to the Fanti tribes; and from the commencement of the present century hostilities have broken out at frequent intervals, and more than once the Ashantis have carried fire and sword up to the very walls of Cape Coast, and on one occasion defeated and destroyed a British force under Sir Charles Macarthy.

This state of occasional warfare might have continued indefinitely, had not the British exchanged some possessions with the Portuguese, acquiring by this transaction the town of Elmina, some five miles north of Cape Coast Castle, and the protectorate of the district lying behind it. The tribe of this district had been allies of the Ashantis, and Elmina itself had been their port of trade. The Portuguese had been in the habit of paying a small annual sum to the Ashanti; this sum was considered by them to be a present, but was regarded by the Ashantis as a tribute. Ashanti, therefore, objected to the transfer, and marched an army across the Prah to the assistance of their allies in the districts dependent on Elmina. Early in June, having brushed aside the resistance of the Fantis, the invading army reached Elmina, being joined by all the tribes in its neighbourhood. A small party of Marines and Marine Artillery were landed from the ships on the coast, and inflicted a severe blow on the invaders as they were on the point of entering the town.

The position was so serious that the British Government sent out Sir Garnet Wolseley, with some twenty British officers, to organise, if possible, a native force to cope with the enemy; or, if this could not be done, to prepare the way for the landing of a British force of sufficient strength to strike a heavy blow at the Ashantis in their own country. Just as the party left England, a disaster befell us. Commodore Commerell started to ascend the Prah with boats from the squadron on the coast. They had gone but a short distance when they were fired upon by the Ashantis, in ambush behind the bushes lining the bank of the river. Commodore Commerell was severely wounded, as were other officers and many seamen, and the expedition was forced to return.

The attempt to get up a large native force failed; but an expedition was undertaken from Elmina, composed of bluejackets and marines, and a portion of the 2nd West Indian Regiment, and this, after a sharp brush with the enemy, burnt several villages and cleared the neighbourhood of the Ashantis, who had been suffering very much during the wet season from disease and the want of food. An attack on Abra Crampa, whose king had joined us heartily, was repulsed; there was sharp fighting at Dunqua and other skirmishes; and the Ashantis, disheartened by want of success, and more than decimated by fever, fell back across the Prah. The invasion had, thus far, been repelled solely by the naval forces, aided by the 2nd West Indian Regiment and two native regiments commanded by Sir Evelyn Wood and Major Baker Russell, each of whom had some eight English officers under him.

A road was made to the Prah, huts erected at suitable distances for the use of the white troops, and when these landed, early in January, all was ready for their advance. The force consisted of a battalion of the Rifle Brigade and the 42nd; the 23rd Regiment remained on board the transport that had brought them, it being considered that it was better for them to stay in reserve, as the difficulties of carriage were so great that the fewer the number of men taken up the better. There was also a naval brigade, composed of bluejackets and marines, some companies of the 1st and 2nd West Indian Regiments, Wood and Russell’s native regiments, and a battery of little mountain guns commanded by Captain Rait, and manned by natives trained by him, and a small party of Royal Engineers. After a few skirmishes of no great importance, the force made their way nearly to Amoaful, where it was known that the Ashanti army was assembled in force to oppose their further advance.

The white regiments halted at Ingafoo, while the two native regiments, with the Engineers and Rait’s artillery, marched forward to Quarman, a little more than half a mile from the enemy’s outposts. Lord Gifford, who commanded the scouts, lay all day in the bushes within sound of the voices of the Ashanti, while Major Home, R.E., with the sappers, cut paths almost up to the edge of the bush. At half-past seven on the morning of the 31st of January, a naval brigade, with two companies of the 23rd who had just come up, the 42nd, and Rifle Brigade, arrived at Quarman and marched on without a halt, followed by the force already in the village, where a garrison was left with the baggage. The two native regiments were now reduced to but seven companies altogether, owing to the necessity for leaving garrisons at the various posts along the road. The plan of operations had already been determined upon. The 42nd Regiment were to form the main attacking force. They were first to drive the enemy’s scouts from the little village of Agamassie, just outside the bushes where Gifford’s scouts were lying, and were then to move straight on, extending to the right and left of the path, and, if possible, to advance in a skirmishing line through to the bush. Two guns of Rait’s battery were to be in their centre, and to move upon the path itself. Half the naval brigade and Wood’s regiment were first to cut a path out to the right, and then to turn parallel with the main path, so that the head of the column should touch the right of the skirmishing line of the 42nd, while the other half of the naval brigade, with Russell’s regiment, was to proceed in similar fashion on the left.

The two companies of the 23rd were to come on behind the headquarter staff; the Rifle Brigade were to remain in reserve. The intention was that the whole should form a sort of hollow square, the column on the right and left protecting the 42nd from the flanking movements upon which the Ashantis were always accustomed to rely for victory. With each of the flanking columns were detachments of Rait’s battery with rocket tubes.

The 42nd, as they burst out from the bush, encountered but little opposition; the eight or ten houses composing the village being occupied by but a small party of the enemy, who fled at once into the bush beyond. This was so thick, and the open ground round the village so small, that it was necessary to clear away a space for the bearers of the litters, surgical appliances, and spare ammunition, and it was nearly half an hour before the rest of the force issued from the narrow path into the open.

The pause had been a trying one, for a tremendous roar of fire told that the Black Watch were hotly engaged, and, indeed, had gained but a distance of a couple of hundred yards while the native labourers were clearing the bush round the village. As soon as they reached the open space, the flanking columns turned off to the right and left, and it was not long before the increasing roar of musketry showed that they, too, were engaged.

The scene bore little resemblance to that presented by any modern battle-field. The Ashanti bush consists of a thick wood of trees some forty or fifty feet high, covered and interlaced with vines and creepers, while the heat and moisture enable a dense undergrowth to flourish beneath their shade. Above all tower the giants of the forest, principally cotton trees, which often attain a height of from 250 to 300 feet.

Progress through this mass of jungle and thorn is impossible even for the natives, except where paths are cut with hatchet or sword. These paths are generally wide enough only for a single file, and two persons meeting in opposite directions have a difficulty in passing each other, the more so as long use wears down the soft, moist earth until the tracks are converted into ditches two or three feet deep. The ground across which the 42nd were trying to force their way was more open than usual, owing probably to the undergrowth having been cleared away to furnish firing to the little village. It was somewhat undulating, and the depressions were soft and swampy. Each little rise was held obstinately by the enemy, who, lying down beyond the crest, behind trees, or in clumps of bush, kept up an incessant fire against the Black Watch; and even the aid of Rait’s two little guns and two rocket troughs failed to overcome their resistance. The two flanking columns encountered even more strenuous opposition: before they could advance into the bush a way had to be cut for them by the natives under the orders of the Engineer officers. Although the troops endeavoured to cover this operation by an incessant fire into the bush on either side, the service was a desperate one. Several of the men fell dead from the fire of their hidden foes, others staggered back badly wounded, and Captain Buckle, of the Royal Engineers, one of the most zealous and energetic officers of the expedition, fell mortally wounded by two slugs in the neighbourhood of the heart.

Little wonder was it that, although the natives behaved with singular courage, at times they quailed under the fire to which they were exposed; consequently the advance of the two columns soon came to a standstill, and the men lying down kept up a constant fire on the unseen enemy, directing their aim solely at the puffs of smoke spurting from the bushes. So difficult was it to keep the direction in this dense bush that both columns had swerved from the line on which it was intended that they should advance. The roar of fire was so general and continuous that none of the three columns were in any degree certain as to the direction in which the others lay, and from each of them messenger after messenger was sent back to Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had taken up his position with his staff at the village, complaining that the men were exposed to the fire from the other columns.

The noise was, indeed, out of all proportion to the number of combatants. The Ashantis use enormous charges of powder—which, indeed, would be absolutely destructive to the old Tower muskets with which they were armed were these loaded with tightly-fitting bullets. This, however, was not the case, as on the powder three or four slugs of roughly chopped-up lead were dropped loosely down: the noise made by the explosion of the muskets so charged was almost as loud as that of small field-pieces; and, indeed, although but two or three hundred yards from the village the reports of Rait’s mountain guns were absolutely indistinguishable in the din. The trees broke up the sound in a singular manner, and the result was a strange and confused reverberation, mingled with the hissing sound rising from the storm of bullets and slugs mingled with that of the rockets. Well was it for our soldiers that the enemy used such heavy charges, for these caused the muskets to throw high, and the slugs for the most part whistled harmlessly over the heads of the troops and almost covered them with the showers of leaves cut from the trees overhead.

For an hour this state of things continued, the two companies of the 23rd were then ordered to advance along the main path and to aid the 42nd in clearing the bush, where the Ashantis still fought stubbornly not two hundred yards from the village. Two companies of the Rifle Brigade were sent up the left-hand road to keep that path intact up to the rear of the Naval Brigade, while on the right, the rear of Colonel Wood’s column was ordered to advance further to the right, so that the column might form a diagonal line, and firing to their right only, not only cover the flank of the 42nd, but do away with the risk of stray shots striking them. Wounded men were now coming fast into the village—42nd, Rifles, Naval Brigade, and natives.

On the left the firing gradually ceased, and Colonel McLeod, who commanded there, sent in to the general to say that he was no longer hotly attacked, but that he had altogether lost touch of the left of the 42nd. He was therefore ordered to cut a road north-east until he came in contact with them. He experienced a resolute opposition, but the rockets gradually drove the Ashantis back. In the meantime, the 42nd were fighting hard. In front of them was a swamp, and on the rise opposite the ground was covered with the little arbours that constitute an Ashanti camp. Not an enemy was to be seen, but from the opposite side the puffs of smoke came thick and fast, and a perfect rain of slugs swept over the ground on which the 42nd were lying. The path was so narrow that Rait could bring but one gun into position. This he pushed boldly forward, and, aided by Lieutenant Saunders, poured round after round of grape into the enemy until their fire slackened and the 42nd were again able to advance.

Step by step they won their way, each advance being covered by the little gun, which did terrible execution among the crowded, though unseen, ranks of the enemy. The camp was won; but beyond it the bush was thick and absolutely impenetrable for a white soldier, and it was necessary to advance solely by the narrow path. This was swept by a storm of slugs from the bush on either side, although the Snider bullets searched the bush and the guns poured in showers of grape. At last the Ashanti fire diminished, and the troops dashed forward up the lane, and the bush thickened on either side until too dense even for the Ashantis to occupy it. With a cheer the Black Watch issued from the upper end of the pass, and spread out into the wide open space dividing the village of Amoaful into two sections. For a short time the Ashantis kept up a fire from the houses and from the other end of the cleared space, but the 42nd soon drove them from the houses; and a shell from a gun fell among a group at the farther end of the clearing and killed eight of them, and the rest retreated at once. Major McPherson and eight other officers were wounded, and the total of 104 casualties in a force of 450 men showed how severe had been the struggle.

It was now twelve o’clock, and although they had lost their camp and village and had suffered terribly, the Ashantis were not yet finally beaten. The principal part of the force that had been engaged upon our left had swept round to the right, and were pressing hard upon our right column, and cutting in between them and the 42nd. Fortunately, however, the left column had cut its path rather too much to the east and now came into the main path, and so formed a connecting link between the 42nd at Amoaful and the head of the right column. Although the latter had been strengthened by the addition of a company of the Rifles, it suffered severely: Colonel Wood and six naval officers were wounded, together with some forty men. The fire of the enemy at last slackened, and it seemed as if all was over, when suddenly a tremendous fire broke out from the rear of the column, showing that the Ashantis were making a last and desperate effort to turn our right flank, and to retake the village from which they had been driven in the morning.

For a few minutes the scene in the village was exciting. So near were the enemy that the slugs came pattering down among the remainder of the Rifles still held in reserve there, and they and the guard of the reserve ammunition prepared to resist an attack, three companies of the Rifles at once moving out to prolong the rear of the right column, and so to cover that side of the village. For a while the roar of musketry was as heavy and continuous as it had been during the morning, and continued so for three-quarters of an hour. While it was going on another strong body of the enemy attacked Quarman, but the small force of forty men of the 2nd West Indian Regiment and half a company of Wood’s regiment, under the command of Captain Burnett, although taken by surprise—for with a great battle raging but half a mile away, they had no idea of being attacked—defended themselves with great gallantry, and even sallied out and brought in a convoy that had arrived near the village, and finally, being reinforced by a company of Rifles, took the offensive and drove off their assailants.

Finding themselves met on whatever side they attacked, the Ashanti fire began to relax. As soon as it did so, Sir Garnet gave the word for the line to advance, sweeping round from the rear so as to drive the enemy northward before them. The movement was admirably executed. A company of men who had been raised at Bonny, and who had fought steadily and silently all the time they had been on the defensive, now raised their shrill war-cry, and slinging their rifles and drawing their swords, dashed eagerly forward, while by their sides, skirmishing as steadily and quietly as if on parade, the men of the Rifle Brigade searched every bush with their bullets; and in five minutes from the commencement of their advance the Ashantis were in full retreat.

The number of casualties on the part of the white and native troops amounted to about 250—a very heavy proportion, considering the comparatively small number of the force engaged. Fortunately the wounds, for the most part, were comparatively slight: the flying slugs inflicted ugly-looking gashes, but seldom penetrated far. Captain Buckle, of the Engineers, was the only officer killed, but the number of wounded was large, and included two other Engineer officers out of the total of five engaged.

No one had shown more determined bravery than the natives, who worked as sappers under their orders. The work was trying enough for the men, who for five hours remained prone, returning the fire of their invisible foes. The natives, however, for the same time, were working continuously, cutting paths through the thick bush and exposed defenseless to the enemy’s fire. Nearly half their number were among the wounded. The total number of deaths did not exceed twenty. On the side of the Ashantis no accurate record was obtained of the number who fell. It is their custom always to carry off the killed and wounded, unless hotly pressed; and therefore, until the last rush of the Black Watch into Amoaful, they had ample time to follow their usual custom. Nevertheless, the number of dead found was very large, and the lowest calculation placed their loss at 2,000. Among these was Ammon O̰uatia, the general-in-chief of the Ashantis, and Aboo, one of the six great tributary kings of Ashanti. The Ashantis fought with extraordinary pluck and resolution; they, indeed, enormously outnumbered the little British force, and their position was admirably adapted for their peculiar method of fighting. But, on the other hand, they were wretchedly armed, and their old and worn-out muskets were poor weapons indeed compared with the breechloaders of the whites, who had, in addition, the assistance of their guns and rocket tubes.

Great credit was due to both sides: to the Ashantis for their obstinate and long-continued defence, and for the vigour with which, when their centre was penetrated, they strove to redeem the day by their flank attack upon us; to the British for their long endurance of a terrific fire from unseen foes, by the manner in which they fought under conditions so absolutely novel to them, and for the unwavering resolution with which they won their way through the bush and finally defeated a foe of ten times their own numerical force. The victory of Amoaful virtually decided the result of the campaign, for although the Ashantis fought again on the other side of the river Dah, the terrible punishment inflicted upon them at Amoaful had greatly reduced their spirit; nevertheless, they fought stoutly.

On this occasion the Bonny men led the advance up the path beyond the river, and before they had gone half a mile were hotly engaged. Lieutenant Saunders, with one of Rait’s guns, endeavoured to clear the bushes, but little progress was made for two hours, and Lieutenant Eyre, the adjutant of Wood’s regiment, fell mortally wounded when standing near the gun. The Rifles now relieved the Bonny men, and led the advance, and made their way slowly forward until within fifty yards of a large clearing, surrounding a village; then with a cheer they rushed forward, drove the enemy from the clearing, and occupied the village. But behind them the combat raged for another two hours. The troops lined the sides of the path, and repulsed all the efforts of the Ashantis to break through them, holding the position while the native carriers took the stores, spare ammunition, and medical comforts along the path and up to the village. As soon as the last of these had passed along, the troops followed, until the whole force were gathered in and round the village.

The loss of the Ashantis can have been but little inferior to that which they suffered at Amoaful, for they several times approached in such masses that the whole bush swayed and moved as they pushed forward. On the other hand, our casualties were very slight, for as the road was, like all the paths in the country, hollowed out by the traffic fully two feet below the general level, the troops lying there were protected as by a breastwork of that height. When the whole force were assembled in the village, the enemy still kept up serious and desperate attacks upon the rear, but were always repulsed by the Rifles, who lined the edge of the clearing. Mingled with the continued din of musketry was the lugubrious roar of the great war-horns throughout the woods, and the wild war-cry of the Ashantis.

The halt was a short one; Coomassie was still six miles distant, and soon after the force were gathered round the village the Highlanders, with Rait’s guns, moved forward along the path. For the first twenty minutes the fire of the enemy was very heavy, but when the Black Watch gained the crest of the rise beyond the village, the resistance became more feeble, and they dashed forward at the double, sweeping all opposition aside. The resistance of the Ashantis at once ceased; they had done all that was possible for them to do to oppose our advance, and had failed. Their main body was still in the rear of the village, engaged in unavailing attacks upon the force there. Probably their best and bravest troops were with this force, and at the rapid advance of the 42nd a panic seized the defenders of the path; those in the bush could not hope to move forward as rapidly as did the troops in the open, while those in the villages along the path, warned by flying fugitives of the rapid approach of the foe, joined in their flight. The road was strewn with articles of clothing, the stools of state of the chiefs, weapons, and food.

From this time no single shot was fired. The warriors in the bush, seeing that they could not hope to get ahead of the advancing force and make another effort to defend the capital, either went off at once to their villages, or made a wide circuit and came down behind Coomassie upon the road between that town and a spot, five miles away, where the kings of Ashanti were buried, and where, doubtless, another battle would have been fought had the troops advanced to the sacred spot. The 42nd halted at the last village before arriving at Coomassie, until they were there joined by the rest of the force; then, after crossing a deep and fetid marsh surrounding the town, they entered the capital of the enemy. It was not, as might have been expected, deserted: a good many of the inhabitants remained, some of the men being still armed, and watched with curiosity rather than with alarm, the entry of the white warriors who had broken the strength of their nation. Orders were given to disarm them at once; but as soon as they perceived that this was the case, they gradually withdrew, and in half an hour the whole of the natives of Coomassie had disappeared in the bush.

Several fires broke out in various parts of the town. Some of these may have been the work of the Ashantis themselves, but most of them were caused unquestionably by the native camp-followers, who, in spite of the stringent orders against looting, stole away in the darkness to gather plunder. Some of them were flogged, and one was hung, and then, after posting pickets thickly outside the town, the troops went off to sleep.

The next morning the captured town could be fairly seen. The streets were very wide; trees grew in them; and from the irregularity with which the houses were scattered about, it resembled a great straggling village rather than a town. The houses were of the kind with which the troops had already become familiar, and resembled the architecture of a Chinese temple rather than that of any other known building. Outside was an alcove with red steps, high raised floor, and white pillars supporting the roof. This formed the front of the house, and as there was no entrance from it into the interior, it was, in fact, a sort of summer-house and balcony, where the master must have sat to look at the passing world and chat with his acquaintances. Inside, the houses were all of the same character, comprising a number of little courts with alcoves on one or more sides. Everything in Coomassie bore signs of the superstitious belief of the inhabitants in fetish. Over every door was suspended a variety of charms—old stone weapons, nuts, gourds, amulets, beads, bits of china, bones, and odds-and-ends of all kinds. The principal apartments of the larger houses were lumbered up with drums, great umbrellas, and other paraphernalia of processions; but there were no real valuables of any kind.

The great objects of interest to the troops in the town were the palace and the great fetish-tree from which Coomassie took its name. In a large clump of bushes adjoining the latter were found the remains of some thousands of victims sacrificed in the bloody festivals. The majority were, of course, but skeletons; but there were hundreds that could have lain there but a few weeks, many which must have been sacrificed within a few days. The stench from this charnel-place was horrible, and pervaded the whole town. The palace occupied a very large extent of ground. It consisted of a central stone building of European architecture, which was used as a storehouse and was crowded with articles of furniture, silver plate, gold masks, clocks, glass, china, guns, cloth, and caskets, resembling in its confusion and the variety of its contents a succession of auction-rooms. The rest of the palace was of native work—similar, but on a much larger scale, to the houses of the great chiefs.

A horrible smell of blood pervaded the whole place—for many of the executions were held in the palace itself. During the day the rain fell in torrents; and as it became known that the king had gone right away into the interior of the country, as provisions were running very short, the troops were already feeling much the effects of the climate, and as the rains would swell every stream and fill every swamp, it was decided to make a start for the coast the next morning, after burning down the place that had been the scene of such countless horrors and atrocities. This was done as the column marched out of the town. The Engineers fired the houses and blew up the king’s palace; and a vast cloud of smoke rising high into the air must have told the Ashantis, scattered far and wide through the forests, that vengeance had at last fallen on the city that had for so many years been regarded by them as sacred, and had been the object of superstitious terror and hate to the tribes for hundreds of miles round.

Schleswig-Holstein, the cradle of the Anglo-Saxon race, was the beautiful and interesting province which formed the bone of bloody contention between the Prussians and the Danes in the year 1864, just a year after the Prince of Wales had wedded the Danish “sea-king’s daughter from over the sea,” and made all Englishmen take the very deepest interest in the hopeless struggle of her undaunted countrymen against an overwhelming foe.

The cause of quarrel was one of the most complicated questions which ever vexed the minds of statesmen, and seemed so incapable of solution that an irreverent Frenchman once declared it would remain after the heavens and the earth had passed away. But on the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark, in November, 1863, Herr von Bismarck, who had the year before become Prussian Premier, determined that the difficulty should now be settled by “blood and iron.” Briefly put, the new King of Denmark, Christian IX., father of the Princess of Wales, wanted to rule over the Elbe Duchies, as Schleswig-Holstein was called, in a way, as was thought at Berlin, unfavourable to the rights and aspirations of their German population; while, on the other hand, the Germanic Diet, or Council of German Sovereigns at Frankfort, was resolved that this should not be so. And rather than that this should be so, it decreed “execution” on the King of Denmark, who had a seat in the Diet as for the Duchies, and selected two of its members, Hanover and Saxony, to enforce its decision.

But not content with this, Austria and Prussia, the leading members of the Diet, also resolved to take the field, as executive bailiffs, so to speak, of the judgment of the German Court; and this they did at the beginning of 1864 with a united force of about 45,000 men. That was not so very large a force, considering the size of modern armies, but it was much larger than that opposed to it by the valiant Danes, about 36,000 in number, who were commanded by General de Meza. The Austrians were commanded by Field-Marshal von Gablenz, and the Prussians by their own Prince Frederick Charles, surnamed the “Red Prince,” from the scarlet uniform of his favourite regiment, the Zieten Hussars.

The Commander of the combined Austro-Prussian army was the Prussian Field-Marshal von Wrangel—“old Papa Wrangel,” as he was fondly called—who looked, and spoke, and acted like a survival from the time of the Thirty Years’ or the Seven Years’ War. He was a grim old beau sabreur, who, in his later days, used to grind his teeth (what of them were left) and scatter groschen among the street arabs of Berlin, under the impression that he was sowing a crop of bullets that would yet spring up and prove the death of all democrats and other nefarious characters dangerous to military monarchy and the rule of the sword in the civil state.

“In Gottes Namen drauf!”—“Forward in God’s name”—“Papa” Wrangel had wired to the various contingents of his forces on the 1st February, when at last the Danes had replied to his demands with an emphatic “No!” and then the combined Austro-Prussian army swept over the Eider amid a blinding storm of snow.

The Prussians took the right, the Austrians the left of the advance into the Duchies; and after one or two preliminary actions of no great moment, the invaders reached the Danewerk, a very strong line of earthworks which had taken the place of the bulwark thrown up by the Danes in ancient times against the incursions of the Germans. Here the Prussians prepared for a stubborn resistance, but what was their surprise and their delight, on the morning of the 6th February, to find that the Danes had evacuated overnight this first bulwark line of theirs, leaving 154 guns and large quantities of stores and ammunition a prey to their enemies! Caution, not cowardice, had been the motive of this retreat of theirs, for they saw that, if they had remained, they would have run the risk of being outflanked and outnumbered; so they determined, from reasons of military policy, to retire further northward and take up their dogged stand behind their second line of entrenchments at Düppel, there to await the assault of their overwhelming foes.

Sending on the Austrians on the left into Jutland to dispose of the Danes in that quarter, “Papa” Wrangel selected the “Red Prince” and his Prussians to crack the nuts which had been thrown in their way in the shape of the redoubts of Düppel. Prince Frederick Charles was one of the best and bravest soldiers that had been produced by the fighting family of the Hohenzollerns since the time of Frederick the Great. A man about the middle height, strongly built, broad-shouldered, florid-faced, sandy-bearded, bull-necked, rough in manner and speech, and homely in all his ways—he was just the sort of leader to command the affections and stimulate the courage of the Prussian soldier. There was much of the bulldog in the “Red Prince,” so he was the very man to entrust with such a task as that of hanging on to the Danes at Düppel.

Yet this task was one of exceeding difficulty, for the redoubts of Düppel formed such a formidable line of defence as had rarely, if ever, before opposed the advance of an invading army in the open field. All the natural advantages of ground, with its happy configuration of land and water, were on the side of the Danes, whose main object it was to prevent their foes from setting foot on the Schleswig island of Alsen, forming a stepping-stone, so to speak, to Denmark itself, much in the same way as the island of Anglesey does to Ireland. To continue the comparison, the Menai Strait corresponds to the Alsen-Sund which separates the mainland of Schleswig from the island of Alsen. Of this island the chief town is Sonderburg, which was connected by the mainland, into which it looks over, by two pontoon bridges, at the end of which the Danes threw up a tête-du-pont, or bridge-head entrenchment, to defend the approach and passage; while about a couple of miles further inland they had constructed a chain of no fewer than ten heavy forts, or redoubts, all connected by lesser earthworks and entrenchments.

This line of redoubts, about three miles long, ran right across the neck of a peninsula of the mainland, called the Sundewitt, one end resting on the Alsen-Sund and the other on a gulf, or bay, of the Baltic, called the Wenningbund. The redoubts were placed along the brow of a ridge which overlooked and commanded all the undulating country for miles in front, while in the rear again the ground dipped away gently down towards the Alsen-Sund and its bridge-head, affording fine shelter and camping-ground to the Danes. A lovelier or more romantic-looking region, with its winding bays and silver-glancing straits, its picturesque blending of wood and water, could scarcely be imagined.

Such a position as that which the Danes had taken up would have been of no value whatever against foes like the English, seeing that the latter might have gone with their warships and shelled the Danes clean out of their line of redoubts without ever so much as landing a single man, for, as already explained, the line of forts rested on the sea at both ends. But at this time, fortunately for the Danes, the Prussians had little or nothing of a navy, so that they must needs essay on land what they could not attempt by sea; while the Danes, on the other hand, though weaker on land, were decidedly superior to their foes on water. In particular, they had one warship, or monitor, the Rolf Krake, which gained immortal fame by the bold and devil-may-care manner in which it worried, and harassed, and damaged, and kept the Prussians perpetually awake. It lurked like a corsair in the corners of the bays, and creeks, and winding sea-arms of that amphibious region, and darted out upon occasion to shell and molest the Prussians in their trenches before the Düppel lines.

For the Prussians had soon come to see that it would be quite impossible for them to capture the Düppel redoubts save by regular process of sap and siege. The redoubts proved to be far more formidable than they ever fancied; and it would have involved an enormous sacrifice of life on the part of the Prussians to rush for them at once. The pretty certain result of such impetuosity would have been that not a soul almost of the stormers would have lived to tell the tale. For three whole years the Danes had been at work on these redoubts, and what it takes three years to construct cannot by any possibility be captured in as many days. Much had to be done by the Prussians, then, before sitting down before the redoubts. If a simile may be borrowed from the game of football, the “forwards” of the Danes had first to be disposed of. For not only did they occupy the redoubts, but likewise all the strong points in the country for two or three miles in front of them, just as modern ironclads hang out nets to guard their hulls from the impact of torpedoes. In a similar manner the Danes had thrown out a network of men to fend off all hostile approach to their forts and prevent the Prussians from settling down near enough to them for the purposes of sap and siege.

While, therefore, the Prussians were busy bringing to the front their heavy guns and other siege-material, others of them were set to the work of sweeping clean, as with a broom of bayonets, the open positions in front of the redoubts held by their defenders. But this sweeping process was by no means either an easy or a bloodless task. For while the Danes numbered 22,000 troops, the “Red Prince” in front of them disposed at this time (though later he was reinforced) of no more than 16,000 men, and there was always the danger that the Danes, assuming the offensive, would sally out of their lines and seek to overwhelm their numerically weaker foes. Consequently the Prussians had recourse to the spade in order to supplement the defensive power of their rifles, and thus they first of all took up an entrenched position running in a long semi-circle from Broacker on their right to Satrup on the left, at a distance of about three miles or more from the real object of their ambition—the line of Danish redoubts.

Two positions in front of these redoubts—the villages of Düppel and Rackebüll—were fiercely contested by the Danes; but on the 17th of March, after fighting in a manner which gave their foes a very high opinion of their courage, they retired behind their earthworks with the loss of 676 men, while the Prussians, on their part, had to pay for their victory by only 138 lives. This disparity in loss was doubtless due to the fact that, while the Danes were only armed with the old smooth-bore muzzle-loading musket, the Prussians had adopted the new Zündnadelgewehr, or needle-gun, the parent of all modern breech-loading and repeating rifles, which gave them a tremendous advantage over their opponents. In one of the preliminary encounters above referred to, a party of Danes, against whom a superior force of Prussian light-infantry (Jäger) was advancing, threw down their arms in token of submission; but as the Prussians came forward, they snatched them up again, fired a volley, and rushed on with the bayonet. The Prussians let them come to within twenty-yards’ distance, and then, raising their deadly needle-guns, shot them down to a man. The treacherous conduct of the Danes above referred to caused great bitterness among the Prussians; but, even after death, the latter showed their foes the respect which brave men owe to one another, and in West Düppel they raised a cross with this inscription:—“Here lie twenty-five brave Danes, who died the hero’s death, 17th February, 1864.”

The result of these preliminary tussles was that the Danes attempted no more outfalls, and from the 17th to the 28th of March one might almost have concluded that an armistice had been agreed to but for an occasional sputtering and spitting of rifle-fire between the foreposts, who thus employed their time when not exchanging other courtesies in the form of pipe-lights, tobacco-pouches, and spirit-flasks. But now the time was come when it behoved the Prussians to get as close to the redoubts as possible, for the purpose of opening their siegetrenches, and General von Raven’s Brigade was selected to sweep the ground in front of the Danish position of all its outposts. It was an early Easter this year, and just when the preachers were proclaiming to their congregations that the season of peace and goodwill to all men had now again come round, the Danes and Prussians were lighting like fiends under cover of the darkness.

The 18th Prussian Fusiliers had crept forward as far nearly as the wire-fencing and palisades in front of the redoubts, when the dawn suddenly revealed them to the Danes; and just at this moment, too, what should appear upon the scene but the ubiquitous Rolf Krake, which, at a distance of about five hundred yards, opened upon the advancing Prussians such a shower of shell and grape-shot as forced them to retire, causing these baffled fusiliers to curse the very name of the ship-builder who had ever laid the keel of such a bold and bothersome vessel.