There is always time enough to surrender prisoner of war. This should
be deferred, therefore, till the last extremity. And here I may be
permitted to cite an example of rare obstinacy in defence, which has
been related to me by ocular witnesses. The captain of grenadiers,
Dubrenil, of the thirty-seventh regiment of the line, having been
sent on detachment with his company, was stopped on the march by a
large party of Cossacks, who surrounded him on every side. Dubrenil
formed his little force into square, and endeavored to gain the skirts
of a wood (within a few muskets’ shot of the spot where he had been
attacked), and reached it with very little loss. But as soon as the
grenadiers saw this refuge secured to them, they broke and fled,
leaving their captain and a few brave men, who were resolved not to
abandon him, at the mercy of the enemy. In the meantime, the fugitives,
who had rallied in the depth of the wood, ashamed of having forsaken
their leader, came to the resolution of rescuing him from the enemy,
if a prisoner, or of carrying off his body if he had fallen. With this
view, they formed once more upon the outskirts, and opening a passage
with their bayonets through the cavalry, penetrated to their captain,
who, notwithstanding seventeen wounds, was defending himself still.
They immediately surrounded him, and regained the wood with little
loss. Such examples are not rare in the wars of the Revolution, and
it were desirable to see them collected by some contemporary, that
soldiers might learn how much is to be achieved in war by determined
energy and sustained resolution.