about eight o'clock
Day was breaking when the 7th corps marched out of Osches en route for Mouzon by way of la Besace , where they should have bivouacked . The train , cause of so many woes , had been sent on ahead , guarded by the first division , and if its own wagons , well horsed as for the most part they were , got over the ground at a satisfactory pace , the requisitioned vehicles , most of them empty , delayed the troops and produced sad confusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne . After leaving the hamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between wooded hills on either side . Finally , about eight o'clock , the two remaining divisions got under way , when Marshal MacMahon came galloping up , vexed to find there those troops that he supposed had left la Besace that morning , with only a short march between them and Mouzon ; his comment to General Douay on the subject was expressed in warm language . It was determined that the first division and the train should be allowed to proceed on their way to Mouzon , but that the two other divisions , that they might not be further retarded by this cumbrous advance-guard , should move by the way of Raucourt and Autrecourt so as to pass the Meuse at Villers . The movement to the north was dictated by the marshal 's intense anxiety to place the river between his army and the enemy ; cost what it might , they must be on the right bank that night . The rear-guard had not yet left Osches when a Prussian battery , recommencing the performance of the previous day , began to play on them from a distant eminence , over in the direction of Saint-Pierremont .