We abstain from entering on details of the battle.  It is enough to state that throughout the day the troops of the Netherlands sustained the character for courage which so many centuries had established.  Various opinions have gone forth as to the conduct of the Belgian troops on this memorable occasion.  Isolated instances were possibly found, among a mass of several thousands, of that nervous weakness which neither the noblest incitements nor the finest examples can conquer.  Old associations and feelings not effaced might have slackened the efforts of a few, directed against former comrades or personal friends whom the stern necessity of politics had placed in opposing ranks.  Raw troops might here and there have shrunk from attacks the most desperate on record; but that the great principle of public duty, on grounds purely national, pervaded the army, is to be found in the official reports of its loss; two thousand and fifty-eight men killed and one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six wounded prove indelibly that the troops of the Netherlands had their full share in the honor of the day.  The victory was cemented by the blood of the Prince of Orange, who stood the brunt of the fight with his gallant soldiers.  His conduct was conformable to the character of his whole race, and to his own reputation during a long series of service with the British army in the Spanish peninsula.  He stood bravely at the head of his troops during the murderous conflict; or, like Wellington, in whose school he was formed and whose example was beside him, rode from rank to rank and column to column, inspiring his men by the proofs of his untiring courage.

Several anecdotes are related of the prince’s conduct throughout the day.  One is remarkable as affording an example of those pithy epigrams of the battlefield with which history abounds, accompanied by an act that speaks a fine knowledge of the soldier’s heart.  On occasion of one peculiarly desperate charge, the prince, hurried on by his ardor, was actually in the midst of the French, and was in the greatest danger; when a Belgian battalion rushed forward, and, after a fierce struggle, repulsed the enemy and disengaged the prince.  In the impulse of his admiration and gratitude, he tore from his breast one of those decorations gained by his own conduct on some preceding occasion, and flung it among the battalion, calling out, “Take it, take it, my lads! you have all earned it!” This decoration was immediately grappled for, and tied to the regimental standard, amid loud shouts of “Long live the prince!” and vows to defend the trophy, in the very utterance of which many a brave fellow received the stroke of death.

A short time afterward, and just half an hour before that terrible charge of the whole line, which decided the victory, the prince was struck by a musket-ball in the left shoulder.  He was carried from the field, and conveyed that evening to Brussels, in the same cart with one of his wounded aides-de-camp, supported by another, and displaying throughout as much indifference to pain as he had previously shown contempt of danger.