"Hochkirch Church has beeu rebuilt in late years: a spapious airy Church, with galleries, and requisites, especially with free air, light and cleanliness. Capable perhaps of 1,500 sitters: half of them Wends. 'Above 700 skeletons, in one heap, were dug out, in cutting the new foundations. The strong outer Door of the old Church, red oak, I should think, is still retained in that capacity; still shows perhaps half a dozen rough big quasi-KEYHOLES, torn through it in different parts, and daylight shining in, where the old bullets passed. The Keith Monument, perhaps four feet high, is on the flagged floor, left side of the pulpit, close by the wall,--'the bench where Keith's body lay has had to be cased in new plank [zinc would be better] against the knives of tourists.'"Old Lord Marischal--George, "MARECHAL D'ECOSSE" as he always signs himself--was by this time seventy-two; King's Governor of Neufchatel, for a good while past and to come (1754-1763).
In "James," the junior, but much the stronger and more solid, he has lost, as it were, a FATHER and younger brother at once;father, uuder beautiful conditions; and the tears of the old man are natural and affecting. Ten years older than his Brother;and survived him still twenty years. An excellent cheery old soul, he too; honest as the sunlight, with a fine small vein of gayety, and "pleasant wit," in him: what a treasure to Friedrich at Potsdam, in the coming years; and how much loved by him (almost as one BOY loves another), all readers would be surprised to discover.
Some hints of him will perhaps be allowed us farther on.
SEQUEL OF HOCHKIRCH; THE CAMPAIGN ENDS IN A WAYSURPRISING TO AN ATTENTIVE PUBLIC(22d October-20th November, 1758).
There followed upon Hochkirch five weeks of rapid events; such as nobody had been calculating on. To the reader, so weary of marchings, manoeuvrings, surprisals, campings and details of war, not many words, we hope, may render these results conceivable.
Friedrich stayed ten days, refitting himself, in that Camp of Klein-Bautzen, on one of the branches of the Spree. Daun, who had retired to his old strong place, on the 14th, scarcely occupying Hochkirch Field at all, came out in about a week; and took a strong post near Friedrich; not attempting anything upon him, but watching him, now better within sight. Friedrich's fixed intention is, to march to Neisse all the same; what probably Daun, under the shadow of his laurels and his new Papal Hat, may not have considered possible, with the road to Neisse blocked by 80,000 men.
Friedrich has refitted himself with the requisite new cannon and furnitures, from Dresden; especially with Prince Henri and 6,000foot and horse,--led by Prince Henri in person; so Prince Henri would have it, the capricious little man; and that Finck should be left in Saxony instead of him. All which weakens Saxony not a little. But Friedrich hopes the Reichs Army is a feeble article;ill off for provision in those parts, and not likely to attempt very much on the sudden. Accordingly:--FRIEDRICH MARCHES, ENIGMATICALLY, NOT ON GLOGAU, BUT ONREICHENBACH AND GORLITZ; TO DAUN'S ASTONISHMENT.
SUNDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22d, Convoy of many wagons quit Bautzen (Bautzen Proper, not the Village, but the Town), laden with all the wounded of Hochkirch; above 3,000 by count, to carry them to Dresden for deliberate surgery. Keith's Tebay, I perceive, is in this Convoy; not ill hurt, but willing to lie in Hospital a little, and consider. These poor fellows cannot get to Dresden: on the second day, a Daun Detachment, hussaring about in those parts, is announced ahead; and (by new order from head-quarters) the Convoy turns northwards for Hoyerswerda,--(to Tebay's disgust with the Commandant; "shied off," says Tebay, "for twelve hussars!" [Second LETTER from Tebay, in Mitchell, ubi supra.])--and, I think, in the end, went on to Glogau instead of Dresden. Which was very fortunate for Tebay and the others. The poor wounded being thus disposed of, Friedrich next night, at 10 o'clock, Monday, 23d, in the softest manner, pushes off his Bakery and Army Stores a little way, northward down the Spree Valley, on the western fork of the Spree (fork farthest from Daun); follows, himself, with the rest of the Army, next evening, down the eastern fork, also northward.
"Going for Glogau," thinks Daun, when the hussars report about it (late on Tuesday night): "Let him go, if he fancy that a road TONeisse! But, indeed, what other shift has he," considers Daun, "but to try rallying at Glogau yonder, safe under the guns?"--and is not in the slightest haste about this new matter. [Tempelhof, ii.
341-347.]
United with his baggage-column, Friedrich proceeds northeastward;crosses Spree still northward or northeastward; encamps there, in the dark hours of Tuesday; no Daun heeding him. Before daylight, however, Friedrich is again on foot; in several columns now, for the bad country-roads ahead;--and has struck straight SOUTHeastward, if Daun were noting him. And, in the afternoon of Wednesday, Daun is astonished to learn that this wily Enemy is arrived in Reichenbach vicinity; sweeping in our poor posts thereabouts; immovably astride of the Silesian Highway, after all!
