Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1889 — The Crisis at Waterloo. [ARTICLE]

The Crisis at Waterloo.

All at once came the tragedv. To the left of the English and on our right the .head of the column of cuirasriers reared with a fearful clamor. Arrived on the ridge, wild, furious and running to the annihilation of the squares and cannon, the cuirassiers saw between them and the English a ditch —a grave. It was the sunken road of Obain. It was a frightful moment. There was the ravine, .unlooked for, gaping before their very horses’ feet, two fathoms deep between its banks. Tire second rank pushed in the first and the third pushed in the second. The horses reared, fell backward struggled with their feet in the air, heaping up and overturning their riders. There was no power to retreat; the whole column was but a projectile; the momentum gathered to crush the English crushed the French. The pitiless ravine still gaped till it was filled Riders, horses, rolled in together pellmell, mangling each other, making common flesh in this gulf, and when the grave was full of living men the rest rode over them and passed on. Almost a third of Dubois’ brigade plunged into this abyss.— World of Adventure. Blessings are like birds which hop about us with their wings folded, and we do not see the beauty of their plumage ; but when they spread their pinions for flight then we see all the brilliancy of their color and the ungracefulness of their form. Gray hairs are honorable, no doubt, but there are many old men with nothing honorable about them except their hair.