The colonel of the Mousquetaires Gris, an old officer, whose breast was covered with stars and medals, was pistolled by one of our corporals; and Prince Xavier of Saxony, separated from his discomfited column, found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Hob Elliot.
Aware of the vast difference between them in strength and stature, worthy Hob Elliot tried to spare and capture the Prince, of whose rank he was ignorant, and who was a very little man; but he resisted bravely, and gave our poor Borderer several severe sword-cuts. Hob at last lost all patience, cut him down, and was about to capture him by the collar, when a stray shot struck the unfortunate Prince, who fell dead from his horse.
This occurred immediately in front of our 51st Foot.
While we waged this conflict on the right, the valour of the Prussian and Hanoverian Dragoons under the Prince of Holstein and others on our left, repulsed the enemy, and compelled them to seek safety in a flight which soon became general along the whole line, despite every effort of the Duc de Broglie and Maréchal de Contades.
"It was at this instant," says an historian of the war, "that Prince Ferdinand sent orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the British and Hanoverian Horse which composed the right wing of the allies, to advance to the charge. If these orders had been cheerfully obeyed, the battle of Minden would have been as decisive as that of Blenheim. The French army would have been utterly destroyed, or totally routed and driven out of Germany. But whatever was the cause, the orders were not sufficiently precise, were misinterpreted, or imperfectly understood."
The cause of the misfortune was this.
We had just re-formed after repelling the Household Cavalry, when Major Shirley, minus his cocked-hat and kid gloves, and what was more, his presence of mind, looking ghastly pale and wild, and so agitated apparently that he could scarcely articulate, rode up to Colonel Preston (who was sitting on his old horse as cool as a cucumber, with the bullets whistling about him), and inquired for Lord George Sackville, whose whereabouts the colonel indicated, by pointing with his sword to a horseman whose aspect was somewhat shadowy amid the eddying smoke.
Shirley's conventional smile had vanished now, and he rode hurriedly on. His instructions were to order the whole line of cavalry to pursue; but this message in his then state of mind he failed to deliver, and hence the omission of an immediate cavalry advance—a miscarriage for which Lord George Sackville, after being victimized by the public press, had to appear before a general court-martial.
Shirley's undisguised panic was, however, unnecessary, as his presentiment was not fulfilled, and he escaped untouched amid the horrors of a field whereon lay one thousand three hundred and ninety-four officers and men of our six British infantry regiments alone, and I know not how many of our allies.
Two thousand French were hurled at the bayonet's point into the Weser, and five thousand more, with Princes Xavier and De Camille, were left dead upon the plain, with many standards and forty-three pieces of cannon. On some of the latter I saw "25th and 51st Foot" chalked, to indicate that these corps had taken them. The Comte de Lutzelbourg and the Marquis De Monti, two maréchaux-de-camp, were captured by the Greys.