Page:Battles of Quatre Bras & Waterloo.pdf/6

 the Duchess of Richmond, when intelligence arreivd of the advance of the French. Blucher's dispatches announced it as an affair of the outposts. Orders were immediately issued to the troops to be ready at a moment's warning. At midnight a courier arrived, his horse covered with foam, announcing that the affair had become serious— that Charleroi was taken that the French had advanced to the position which Blucher had determined to defend, and that a general engagement was expected next day.—The drum immediately beat to arms, and in less than three hours, every regiment was on the road to Charleroi. The Duke of Wellington attended by his staff and some squadrons of light horse, having arrived in front of Quatre bras, he commanded the Prince of Wiemar, to join him with his forces, while he awaited the coming up of the regiments from Brussels.

The first and second corps of the French army, under Marshall Ney, were ordered to advance on Quatre Bras, and attack the Brstish; while Napoleon with his whole force, went against the Prussians. Profiting by their numbers, the French attacked some battalions of the British who were separated from the main body, and almost annihilated them. A corps of Belgians was ordered to advance with the 42d regiment, to assist another detachment, and whether occasioned by the ardeur with which that regiment rushed to the fight, or the reluctance of the Belgians, the two battalions were seperated, and a column of French lancers, who were lying in ambush, concealed by hedges, and high standing corn, rushed upon them. Colonel Macara ordered the regimient which was advancing to form into a square; but in performing this evolution, two companies were in the act of falling in, when the lancers charged,