About six o'clock
More than fifteen hundred cannon were thundering at once . Our poor little fusillade was like the humming of a bee in a storm , and we sometimes ceased firing , on both sides , to listen . It seemed as if some supernatural , infernal battle were going on ; the air was filled with smoke ; the earth trembled beneath our feet : our soldiers like Pinto declared they had never seen anything like it . About six o'clock , a staff-officer brought orders to Colonel Lorain , and immediately after a retreat was sounded . The battalion had lost sixty men by the charge of Russian hussars and the musketry . It was night when we left the forest , and on the banks of the Partha -- among caissons , wagons , retreating divisions , ambulances filled with wounded , all defiling over the two bridges -- we had to wait more than two hours for our turn to cross . The heavens were black ; the artillery still growled afar off , but the three battles were ended .