Louis of Bavaria rode proudly at the head of thirty thousand foot, and fifteen hundred steel-clad horsemen.

Frederic of Austria, the handsomest man of his age, towering above all his retinue, was ostentatiously arrayed in the most splendid armor art could furnish, emblazoned with the Austrian eagle, and his helmet was surmounted by a crown of gold.
As he thus led the ranks of twenty-two thousand footmen, and seven thousand horse, all eyes followed him, and all hearts throbbed with confidence of victory.

From early dawn, till night darkened the field, the horrid strife raged.

In those days gunpowder was unknown, and the ringing of battle-axes on helmet and cuirass, the strokes of sabers and the clash of spears, shouts of onset, and the shrieks of the wounded, as sixty thousand men fought hand to hand on one small field, rose like the clamor from battling demons in the infernal world.

Hour after hour of carnage passed, and still no one could tell on whose banners victory would alight.