" Sir John Hepburn took the case up something gravely, and
drinking a glass of Leipsic beer to the captain, said, "Come, captain,
don't press these gentlemen; the king desires no man's service but
what is purely volunteer." So we entered into other discourse, and the
colonel perceiving by my talk that I had seen Tilly's army, was mighty
curious in his questions, and seeming very well satisfied with the
account I gave him.
The next day the army having passed the Elbe at Wittenberg, and joined
the Saxon army near Torgau, his Majesty caused both armies to draw
up in battalia, giving every brigade the same post in the lines as he
purposed to fight in. I must do the memory of that glorious general
this honour, that I never saw an army drawn up with so much variety,
order, and exact regularity since, though I have seen many armies
drawn up by some of the greatest captains of the age. The order by
which his men were directed to flank and relieve one another, the
methods of receiving one body of men if disordered into another, and
rallying one squadron without disordering another was so admirable;
the horse everywhere flanked lined and defended by the foot, and the
foot by the horse, and both by the cannon, was such that if those
orders were but as punctually obeyed, 'twere impossible to put an army
so modelled into any confusion.
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