About 9 thousand men of the corps of Marshal Oudinot passed over the first
bridge and under great precautions took two cannons along. Arrived on the
other side, Oudinot faced some troops of infantry which General Tschaplitz,
the commander of the advance guard of Tchitchakoff, had brought there. The
engagement was very lively but of short duration. The French killed 200 men
of the enemy and were able to establish themselves in a good position, from
where they could cover the passage. Time was given now for the passage of
enough troops to meet Tchitchakoff, during the rest of the day, the 26th.
and the succeeding night. Concerning many details I have to refer to
Thiers' description.
At 4 o'clock in the afternoon the second bridge was completed. Napoleon, on
the Studianka side, yet supervised everything; he wanted to remain among
the last to cross the bridge. General Eble, without himself taking a moment
of rest, had one-half the number of his pontooneers rest on straw while the
other half took up the painful task of guarding the bridges, of doing
police duty, and of making repairs in case of accidents, until they were
relieved by the others. On this day the infantry guards and what remained
of cavalry guards marched over the bridge, followed by the artillery train.
Unfortunately, the left bridge, intended for vehicles, shook too much under
the enormous weight of wagons following one another without interruption.
Pressed as they were, the pontooneers had not had time to shape the timber
forming the path, they had to use wood as they found it, and in order to
deaden the rumbling of the wagons they had put moss, hemp, straw--in fact,
everything they could gather in Studianka--into the crevices.
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