Alexandria Daily Advertiser

SUMMARY.

As the London Papers furnish a great many lengthy articles of interest, which we cannot now find room to detail, the following abstract is made:

Battle of Friedland, &c.

The French bulletins do not give the particulars of the battle of Friedland; the following is the account of the French general Kosciusko:

The enemy was compelled to accept battle on the 14th. The column under the grand duke of Berg, marshals Soult and Davoust, had marched towards Konigsberg. At 10 o'clock in the morning of the 14th, marshal Lannes attacked the enemy, who were at least eight times stronger than his column. The marshal maintained the fight till 4 o'clock, when marshal Mortier, with his corps of the 3d Polish legion, came to his assistance: these two corps, which did not exceed 32,000 men, sustained for a whole day, the furious attacks of the enemy, whose army was four times stronger than ours and possessed several local advantages. At noon the emperor arrived upon the field of battle with his guard. At 4 o'clock all our columns were united, and the emperor took the command, in order to put an end to the battle by his manoeuvres. At 6 o'clock, marshal Ney attacked the enemy's left wing, and, in a moment, the horizon was quite overcast with smoke and dust. The enemy had but one bridge to effect his retreat over the Alle, and a great quantity of artillery, carriages, baggage, &c. went into the Alle, together with a vast number of men and horses. Between Friedland and Posthenen, only half a league distant from each other, several islands appeared to have been formed of the materials scattered by the Russians in their flight. In order to cover their retreat, the Russians set fire to that part of Friedland beyond the bridge. At 10 at night the battle and the cannonade, which had lasted the whole day, ceased, and then the cries and the groans of the wounded were alone heard. Even now four days after the battle, we have not finished bringing in the enemy's wounded. General Dombrowski is wounded in the same leg which was hurt before, in the battle of Eylau. A Russian officer writes thus: From Heilsberg we went to Friedland, skirmishing all the way continually. There the French annihilated us. The affair is disgraceful to us. In the morning we were victorious. One single fault was the cause of the misfortune that happened to us in the evening and also of our total defeat, that of not having sufficiently furnished our left wing. All those who could not get over the bridge were obliged to throw themselves into the Alle. I was taken prisoner. Our left wing was to drive the enemy out of the woods. We kept up a brisk fire all day, without being able to effect it, till a regiment of chasseurs ran up to the enemy with a frightful hurrah and drove them from the wood, but this regiment at length found itself within reach of the fire of a masked battery, which overwhelmed it with bullets and case shot. (The Russian officer then relates the manner in which he was made prisoner, and by what means he escaped, in passing the river before a picquet of Cossacks.) There I found the army in full rout, retiring in disorder to the frontiers of Russia. God knows what will be the result of all this. We all wish for peace, and we hope we shall not long be without it.