the field artillery journal - Fort Sill - U.S. Army

PURSUIT AFTER BATTLE IN LORRAINE
adjutant with about 20 men, whose horses had in the meantime
been brought forward, to ride by the shortest route to the ridge
about 4 kilometers distant and to take possession of the guns.
But in spite of the unconcealed retreat of the French army, we
had made our plans without considering our not-to-be-despised
enemy. My adjutant did not get any nearer than about 1500
meters to the hostile position at Avricourt and was there greeted
from all directions with a heavy infantry fire, so that in spite of
several attempts to make a detour, he was compelled to turn
back. This decision he was compelled to make because these
mounted men were absolutely without adequate weapons or
arms.
While my batteries kept up a slow and easy continuous fire
upon the deserted hostile battery in order to nip in the bud any
attempt at renewing fire, our comrades of the hostile battery
got busy themselves in order to save what remained to be
saved, and right here I desire to state by way of introduction
that they accomplished their task in a really masterful manner,
and looking at it from an idealistic artillery point of view and
as professional comrades, it could not have been done better. In
fact it was a type example of how, in a retreat, the one should
help the other out of a bad situation. Meanwhile, during the
pause in the firing which now set in, our comrades in St.
Barbara no doubt were considering and planning how to get
this battery out of its precarious position. At least two if not
more hostile batteries were directed to smother us, with an
overwhelming and prolonged fire, our position being now
pretty accurately located by the French; in other words to
neutralize us by preventing us from firing. During this action
the unlucky battery was to get its guns back over the crest as
quickly as possible and in the best way it could, disappearing
quickly and abandoning the position, for considering the great
extent to which the retreat of the French Infantry had
progressed, it was high time for the batteries to pull out or a
few more batteries might also be left behind.
19