Sketch Of Suwarow.
The most able military commander that Russia has produced was in person miserably thin, and five feet one inch in height. A large mouth, pug nose, eyes commonly half shut, a few gray side locks, brought over the top of his bald crown, and a small unpowdered queue, the whole surmounted by a three-cornered felt hat ornamented with green fringe, composed the “head and front” of Field-marshal Suwarow; but his eyes, when open, were piercing, and in battle they were said to be terrifically expressive. When any thing said or done displeased him, a wavy play of his deeply-wrinkled forehead betrayed, or rather expressed, his disapproval. He had a philosophical contempt for dress, and might often be seen drilling his men in his shirt sleeves. It was only during the severest weather that he wore cloth his outer garments being usually of white serge turned up with green. These were the most indifferently made, as were his large, coarsely greased slouching boots; one of which he very commonly dispensed with, leaving his kneeband unbuttoned, and his stocking about his heel. A huge sabre and a single order completed his ordinary costume; but on grand occasions his field-marshal's uniform was covered with badges, and he was fond of telling where and how he had won them. He often arose at midnight, and welcomed the first soldier he saw moving with a piercing imitation of the crowing of a cock, in compliment to his early rising. It is said that in the first Polish war, knowing a spy was in the camp, he issued orders for an attack at cock-crow, and the enemy expecting it in the morning, were cut to pieces at nine at night—Suwarow having turned out the troops an hour before by his well-known cry. The evening before the storm of Ismail, he informed his columns—“To-morrow morning, an hour before daybreak, I mean to get up. I shall then dress and wash myself, then say my prayers, and then give one good cock-crow, and capture Ismail.” When Ségur asked him if he never took off his clothes at night, he replied, “No! when I get lazy, and want to have a comfortable sleep, I generally take off one spur.” Buckets of cold water were thrown over him before he dressed, and his table was served at seven or eight o'clock with sandwiches and various messes which Duboscage describes as “des ragouts Kosaks detestables;” to which men paid “the mouth honor, which they would fain deny, but dare not,” lest Suwarow should consider them effeminate. He had been very sickly in his youth, but by spare diet and cold bathing had strengthened and hardened himself into first-rate condition.