Memoirs of a Cavalier

On the 8th of March the king decamped, and, marching up the river Maine, bent his course directly for Bavaria, taking several small places by the way, and expecting to engage with Tilly, who he thought would dispute his entrance into Bavaria, kept his army together; but Tilly, finding himself too weak to encounter him, turned away, and leaving Bavaria open to the king, marched into the Upper Palatinate. The king finding the country clear of the Imperialists comes to Nuremberg, made his entrance into that city the 21st of March, and being nobly treated by the citizens, he continued his march into Bavaria, and on the 26th sat down before Donauwerth. The town was taken the next day by storm, so swift were the conquests of this invincible captain. Sir John Hepburn, with the Scots and the English volunteers at the head of them, entered the town first, and cut all the garrison to pieces, except such as escaped over the bridge.

I had no share in the business of Donauwerth, being now among the horse, but I was posted on the roads with five troops of horse, where we picked up a great many stragglers of the garrison, whom we made prisoners of war.

'Tis observable that this town of Donauwerth is a very strong place and well fortified, and yet such expedition did the king make, and such resolution did he use in his first attacks, that he carried the town without putting himself to the trouble of formal approaches. 'Twas generally his way when he came before any town with a design to besiege it; he never would encamp at a distance and begin his trenches a great way off, but bring his men immediately within half musket-shot of the place; there getting under the best cover he could, he would immediately begin his batteries and trenches before their faces; and if there was any place possibly to be attacked, he would fall to storming immediately. By this resolute way of coming on he carried many a town in the first heat of his men, which would have held out many days against a more regular siege.

This march of the king broke all Tilly's measures, for now he was obliged to face about, and leaving the Upper Palatinate, to come to the assistance of the Duke of Bavaria; for the king being 20,000 strong, besides 10,000 foot and 4000 horse and dragoons which joined him from the Duringer Wald, was resolved to ruin the duke, who lay now open to him, and was the most powerful and inveterate enemy of the Protestants in the empire.

Tilly was now joined with the Duke of Bavaria, and might together make about 22,000 men, and in order to keep the Swedes out of the country of Bavaria, had planted themselves along the banks of the river Lech, which runs on the edge of the duke's territories; and having fortified the other side of the river, and planted his cannon for several miles at all the convenient places on the river, resolved to dispute the king's passage.

I shall be the longer in relating this account of the Lech, being esteemed in those days as great an action as any battle or siege of that age, and particularly famous for the disaster of the gallant old General Tilly; and for that I can be more particular in it than other accounts, having been an eye-witness to every part of it.

The king being truly informed of the disposition of the Bavarian army, was once of the mind to have left the banks of the Lech, have repassed the Danube, and so setting down before Ingolstadt, the duke's capital city, by the taking that strong town to have made his entrance into Bavaria, and the conquest of such a fortress, one entire action; but the strength of the place and the difficulty of maintaining his leaguer in an enemy's country while Tilly was so strong in the field, diverted him from that design; he therefore concluded that Tilly was first to be beaten out of the country, and then the siege of Ingolstadt would be the easier.

Whereupon the king resolved to go and view the situation of the enemy. His Majesty went out the 2nd of April with a strong party of horse, which I had the honour to command. We marched as near as we could to the banks of the river, not to be too much exposed to the enemy's cannon, and having gained a little height, where the whole course of the river might be seen, the king halted, and commanded to draw up. The king alighted, and calling me to him, examined every reach and turning of the river by his glass, but finding the river run a long and almost a straight course he could find no place which he liked; but at last turning himself north, and looking down the stream, he found the river, stretching a long reach, doubles short upon itself, making a round and very narrow point. "There's a point will do our business," says the king, "and if the ground be good I'll pass there, let Tilly do his worst."

He immediately ordered a small party of horse to view the ground, and to bring him word particularly how high the bank was on each side and at the point. "And he shall have fifty dollars," says the king, "that will bring me word how deep the water is." I asked his Majesty leave to let me go, which he would by no means allow of; but as the party was drawing out, a sergeant of dragoons told the king, if he pleased to let him go disguised as a boor, he would bring him an account of everything he desired. The king liked the notion well enough, and the fellow being very well acquainted with the country, puts on a ploughman's habit, and went away immediately with a long pole upon his shoulder. The horse lay all this while in the woods, and the king stood undiscerned by the enemy on the little hill aforesaid. The dragoon with his long pole comes down boldly to the bank of the river, and calling to the sentinels which Tilly had placed on the other bank, talked with them, asked them if they could not help him over the river, and pretended he wanted to come to them. At last being come to the point where, as I said, the river makes a short turn, he stands parleying with them a great while, and sometimes, pretending to wade over, he puts his long pole into the water, then finding it pretty shallow he pulls off his hose and goes in, still thrusting his pole in before him, till being gotten up to his middle, he could reach beyond him, where it was too deep, and so shaking his head, comes back again. The soldiers on the other side, laughing at him, asked him if he could swim? He said, "No," "Why, you fool you," says one of the sentinels, "the channel of the river is twenty feet deep." "How do you know that?" says the dragoon. "Why, our engineer," says he, "measured it yesterday." This was what he wanted, but not yet fully satisfied, "Ay, but," says he, "maybe it may not be very broad, and if one of you would wade in to meet me till I could reach you with my pole, I'd give him half a ducat to pull me over." The innocent way of his discourse so deluded the soldiers, that one of them immediately strips and goes in up to the shoulders, and our dragoon goes in on this side to meet him; but the stream took t' other soldier away, and he being a good swimmer, came swimming over to this side. The dragoon was then in a great deal of pain for fear of being discovered, and was once going to kill the fellow, and make off; but at last resolved to carry on the humour, and having entertained the fellow with a tale of a tub, about the Swedes stealing his oats, the fellow being a-cold wanted to be gone, and he as willing to be rid of him, pretended to be very sorry he could not get over the river, and so makes off.

By this, however, he learned both the depth and breadth of the channel, the bottom and nature of both shores, and everything the king wanted to know. We could see him from the hill by our glasses very plain, and could see the soldier naked with him. Says the king, "He will certainly be discovered and knocked on the head from the other side: he is a fool," says the king, "he does not kill the fellow and run off." But when the dragoon told his tale, the king was extremely well satisfied with him, gave him a hundred dollars, and made him a quartermaster to a troop of cuirassiers.

The king having farther examined the dragoon, he gave him a very distinct account of the shore and the ground on this side, which he found to be higher than the enemy's by ten or twelve foot, and a hard gravel.

Hereupon the king resolves to pass there, and in order to it gives, himself, particular directions for such a bridge as I believe never army passed a river on before nor since.

His bridge was only loose planks laid upon large tressels in the same homely manner as I have seen bricklayers raise a low scaffold to build a brick wall; the tressels were made higher than one another to answer to the river as it became deeper or shallower, and was all framed and fitted before any appearance was made of attempting to pass.

When all was ready the king brings his army down to the bank of the river, and plants his cannon as the enemy had done, some here and some there, to amuse them.

At night, April 4th, the king commanded about 2000 men to march to the point, and to throw up a trench on either side, and quite round it with a battery of six pieces of cannon at each end, besides three small mounts, one at the point and one of each side, which had each of them two pieces upon them. This work was begun so briskly and so well carried on, the king firing all the night from the other parts of the river, that by daylight all the batteries at the new work were mounted, the trench lined with 2000 musketeers, and all the utensils of the bridge lay ready to be put together.

Now the Imperialists discovered the design, but it was too late to hinder it; the musketeers in the great trench, and the five new batteries, made such continual fire that the other bank, which, as before, lay twelve feet below them, was too hot for the Imperialists; whereupon Tilly, to be provided for the king at his coming over, falls to work in a wood right against the point, and raises a great battery for twenty pieces of cannon, with a breastwork or line, as near the river as he could, to cover his men, thinking that when the king had built his bridge he might easily beat it down with his cannon.

But the king had doubly prevented him, first by laying his bridge so low that none of Tilly's shot could hurt it; for the bridge lay not above half a foot above the water's edge, by which means the king, who in that showed himself an excellent engineer, had secured it from any batteries to be made within the land, and the angle of the bank secured it from the remoter batteries on the other side, and the continual fire of the cannon and small shot beat the Imperialists from their station just against it, they having no works to cover them.

And in the second place, to secure his passage he sent over about 200 men, and after that 200 more, who had orders to cast up a large ravelin on the other bank, just where he designed to land his bridge. This was done with such expedition too, that it was finished before night, and in condition to receive all the shot of Tilly's great battery, and effectually covered his bridge. While this was doing the king on his side lays over his bridge. Both sides wrought hard all day and night, as if the spade, not the sword, had been to decide the controversy, and that he had got the victory whose trenches and batteries were first ready. In the meanwhile the cannon and musket bullets flew like hail, and made the service so hot that both sides had enough to do to make their men stand to their work. The king, in the hottest of it, animated his men by his presence, and Tilly, to give him his due, did the same; for the execution was so great, and so many officers killed, General Altringer wounded, and two sergeant-majors killed, that at last Tilly himself was obliged to expose himself, and to come up to the very face of our line to encourage his men, and give his necessary orders.

And here about one o'clock, much about the time that the king's brigade and works were finished, and just as they said he had ordered to fall on upon our ravelin with 3000 foot, was the brave old Tilly slain with a musket ball in the thigh. He was carried off to Ingolstadt, and lived some days after, but died of that wound the same day as the king had his horse shot under him at the siege of that town.

We made no question of passing the river here, having brought everything so forward, and with such extraordinary success; but we should have found it a very hot piece of work if Tilly had lived one day more, and, if I may give my opinion of it, having seen Tilly's battery and breastwork, in the face of which we must have passed the river, I must say that, whenever we had marched, if Tilly had fallen in with his horse and foot, placed in that trench, the whole army would have passed as much danger as in the face of a strong town in the storming a counterscarp. The king himself, when he saw with what judgment Tilly had prepared his works, and what danger he must have run, would often say that day's success was every way equal to the victory of Leipsic.

Tilly being hurt and carried off, as if the soul of the army had been lost, they began to draw off. The Duke of Bavaria took horse and rid away as if he had fled out of battle for his life.

The other generals, with a little more caution, as well as courage, drew off by degrees, sending their cannon and baggage away first, and leaving some to continue firing on the bank of the river, to conceal their retreat. The river preventing any intelligence, we knew nothing of the disaster befallen them; and the king, who looked for blows, having finished his bridge and ravelin, ordered to run a line with palisadoes to take in more ground on the bank of the river, to cover the first troops he should send over. This being finished the same night, the king sends over a party of his guards to relieve the men who were in the ravelin, and commanded 600 musketeers to man the new line out of the Scots brigade.

Early in the morning a small party of Scots, commanded by one Captain Forbes, of my Lord Reay's regiment, were sent out to learn something of the enemy, the king observing they had not fired all night; and while this party were abroad, the army stood in battalia; and my old friend Sir John Hepburn, whom of all men the king most depended upon for any desperate service, was ordered to pass the bridge with his brigade, and to draw up without the line, with command to advance as he found the horse, who were to second him, come over.

Sir John being passed without the trench, meets Captain Forbes with some prisoners, and the good news of the enemy's retreat. He sends him directly to the king, who was by this time at the head of his army, in full battalia, ready to follow his vanguard, expecting a hot day's work of it. Sir John sends messenger after messenger to the king, entreating him to give him orders to advance; but the king would not suffer him, for he was ever upon his guard, and would not venture a surprise; so the army continued on this side the Lech all day and the next night. In the morning the king sent for me, and ordered me to draw out 300 horse, and a colonel with 600 horse, and a colonel with 800 dragoons, and ordered us to enter the wood by three ways, but so as to be able to relieve one another; and then ordered Sir John Hepburn with his brigade to advance to the edge of the wood to secure our retreat, and at the same time commanded another brigade of foot to pass the bridge, if need were, to second Sir John Hepburn, so warily did this prudent general proceed.

We advanced with our horse into the Bavarian camp, which we found forsaken. The plunder of it was inconsiderable, for the exceeding caution the king had used gave them time to carry off all their baggage. We followed them three or four miles, and returned to our camp.

I confess I was most diverted that day with viewing the works which Tilly had cast up, and must own again that had he not been taken off we had met with as desperate a piece of work as ever was attempted. The next day the rest of the cavalry came up to us, commanded by Gustavus Horn, and the king and the whole army followed. We advanced through the heart of Bavaria, took Rain at the first summons, and several other small towns, and sat down before Augsburg.

Augsburg, though a Protestant city, had a Popish Bavarian garrison in it of above 5000 men, commanded by a Fugger, a great family in Bavaria. The governor had posted several little parties as out-scouts at the distance of two miles and a half or three miles from the town. The king, at his coming up to this town, sends me with my little troop and three companies of dragoons to beat in these out-scouts. The first party I lighted on was not above sixteen men, who had made a small barricado across the road, and stood resolutely upon their guard. I commanded the dragoons to alight and open the barricado, which, while they resolutely performed, the sixteen men gave them two volleys of their muskets, and through the enclosures made their retreat to a turnpike about a quarter of a mile farther. We passed their first traverse, and coming up to the turnpike, I found it defended by 200 musketeers. I prepared to attack them, sending word to the king how strong the enemy was, and desired some foot to be sent me. My dragoons fell on, and though the enemy made a very hot fire, had beat them from this post before 200 foot, which the king had sent me, had come up. Being joined with the foot, I followed the enemy, who retreated fighting, till they came under the cannon of a strong redoubt, where they drew up, and I could see another body of foot of about 300 join them out of the works; upon which I halted, and considering I was in view of the town, and a great way from the army, I faced about and began to march off. As we marched I found the enemy followed, but kept at a distance, as if they only designed to observe me. I had not marched far, but I heard a volley of small shot, answered by two or three more, which I presently apprehended to be at the turnpike, where I had left a small guard of twenty-six men with a lieutenant. Immediately I detached 100 dragoons to relieve my men and secure my retreat, following myself as fast as the foot could march. The lieutenant sent me back word the post was taken by the enemy, and my men cut off. Upon this I doubled my pace, and when I came up I found it as the lieutenant said; for the post was taken and manned with 300 musketeers and three troops of horse. By this time, also, I found the party in my rear made up towards me, so that I was like to be charged in a narrow place both in front and rear.

I saw there was no remedy but with all my force to fall upon that party before me, and so to break through before those from the town could come up with me; wherefore, commanding my dragoons to alight, I ordered them to fall on upon the foot. Their horse were drawn up in an enclosed field on one side of the road, a great ditch securing the other side, so that they thought if I charged the foot in front they would fall upon my flank, while those behind would charge my rear; and, indeed, had the other come in time, they had cut me off. My dragoons made three fair charges on their foot, but were received with so much resolution and so brisk a fire, that they were beaten off, and sixteen men killed. Seeing them so rudely handled, and the horse ready to fall in, I relieved them with 100 musketeers, and they renewed the attack; at the same time, with my troop of horse, flanked on both wings with fifty musketeers, I faced their horse, but did not offer to charge them. The case grew now desperate, and the enemy behind were just at my heels with near 600 men. The captain who commanded the musketeers who flanked my horse came up to me; says he, "If we do not force this pass all will be lost; if you will draw out your troop and twenty of my foot, and fall in, I'll engage to keep off the horse with the rest." "With all my heart," says I.

Immediately I wheeled off my troop, and a small party of the musketeers followed me, and fell in with the dragoons and foot, who, seeing the danger too as well as I, fought like madmen. The foot at the turnpike were not able to hinder our breaking through, so we made our way out, killing about 150 of them, and put the rest into confusion.

But now was I in as great a difficulty as before how to fetch off my brave captain of foot, for they charged home upon him. He defended himself with extraordinary gallantry, having the benefit of a piece of a hedge to cover him, but he lost half his men, and was just upon the point of being defeated when the king, informed by a soldier that escaped from the turnpike, one of twenty-six, had sent a party of 600 dragoons to bring me off; these came upon the spur, and joined with me just as I had broke through the turnpike. The enemy's foot rallied behind their horse, and by this time their other party was come in; but seeing our relief they drew off together.

I lost above 100 men in these skirmishes, and killed them about 180. We secured the turnpike, and placed a company of foot there with 100 dragoons, and came back well beaten to the army. The king, to prevent such uncertain skirmishes, advanced the next day in view of the town, and, according to his custom, sits down with his whole army within cannon-shot of their walls.

The King won this great city by force of words, for by two or three messages and letters to and from the citizens, the town was gained, the garrison not daring to defend them against their wills. His Majesty made his public entrance into the city on the 14th of April, and receiving the compliments of the citizens, advanced immediately to Ingolstadt, which is accounted, and really is, the strongest town in all these parts.

The town had a very strong garrison in it, and the Duke of Bavaria lay entrenched with his army under the walls of it, on the other side of the river. The king, who never loved long sieges, having viewed the town, and brought his army within musket-shot of it, called a council of war, where it was the king's opinion, in short, that the town would lose him more than 'twas worth, and therefore he resolved to raise his siege.

Here the king going to view the town had his horse shot with a cannon-bullet from the works, which tumbled the king and his horse over one another, that everybody thought he had been killed; but he received no hurt at all. That very minute, as near as could be learnt, General Tilly died in the town of the shot he received on the bank of the Lech, as aforesaid.

I was not in the camp when the king was hurt, for the king had sent almost all the horse and dragoons, under Gustavus Horn, to face the Duke of Bavaria's camp, and after that to plunder the country; which truly was a work the soldiers were very glad of, for it was very seldom they had that liberty given them, and they made very good use of it when it was, for the country of Bavaria was rich and plentiful, having seen no enemy before during the whole war.

The army having left the siege of Ingolstadt, proceeds to take in the rest of Bavaria. Sir John Hepburn, with three brigades of foot, and Gustavus Horn, with 3000 horse and dragoons, went to the Landshut, and took it the same day. The garrison was all horse, and gave us several camisadoes at our approach, in one of which I lost two of my troops, but when we had beat them into close quarters they presently capitulated. The general got a great sum of money of the town, besides a great many presents to the officers. And from thence the king went on to Munich, the Duke of Bavaria's court. Some of the general officers would fain have had the plundering of the duke's palace, but the king was too generous. The city paid him 400,000 dollars; and the duke's magazine was there seized, in which was 140 pieces of cannon, and small arms for above 20,000 men. The great chamber of the duke's rarities was preserved, by the king's special order, with a great deal of care. I expected to have stayed here some time, and to have taken a very exact account of this curious laboratory; but being commanded away, I had no time, and the fate of the war never gave me opportunity to see it again.

The Imperialists, under the command of Commissary Osta, had besieged Biberach, an Imperial city not very well fortified; and the inhabitants being under the Swedes' protection, defended themselves as well as they could, but were in great danger, and sent several expresses to the king for help.

The king immediately detaches a strong body of horse and foot to relieve Biberach, and would be the commander himself. I marched among the horse, but the Imperialists saved us the labour; for the news of the king's coming frighted away Osta, that he left Biberach, and hardly looked behind him till he got up to the Bodensee, on the confines of Switzerland.