A Daun hastening as never before. This news of a Daun already at
Bautzen awakened Friedrich's utmost speed: 'Never do, that Daun be
in Silesia before us! Indispensable to get ahead of Bautzen and
him, or to be waiting on the flank of his next march!' Accordingly,

"SUNDAY, JULY 6th, Friedrich, at 3 A.M., is again in motion;
in three columns, streaming forward all day: straight eastward,
Daun-ward. Intends to cross the Spree, leaving Bautzen to the
right; and take post somewhere to northeast of Bautzen, and on the
flank of Daun. The windless day grows hotter and hotter; the roads
are of loose sand, full of jungles and impediments. This was such a
march for heat and difficulty as the King never had before.
In front of each Column went wagons with a few pontoons; there
being many brooks and little streams to cross. The soldier, for his
own health's sake, is strictly forbidden to drink; but as the
burning day rose higher, in the sweltering close march, thirst grew
irresistible. Crossing any of these Brooks, the soldiers pounce
down, irrepressible, whole ranks of them; lift water, clean or
dirty; drink it greedily from the brim of the hat. Sergeants may
wag their tongues and their cudgels at discretion: 'showers of
cudgel-strokes,' says Archenholtz; Sergeants going like threshers
on the poor men;--'though the upper Officers had a touch of mercy,
and affected not to see this disobedience to the Sergeants and
their cudgels,' which was punishable with death. War is not an
over-fond Mother, but a sufficiently Spartan one, to her Sons.
There dropt down, in the march that day, 105 Prussian men, who
never rose again. And as to intercepting Daun by such velocity,--
Daun too is on march; gone to Gorlitz, at almost a faster pace, if
at a far heavier,--like a cart-horse on gallop; faring still worse
in the heat: '200 of Daun's men died on the road this day, and 300