At Leipzig, Blücher and his staff recognized the extent of the costly but momentous victory. On 19 October, Gneisenau wrote to his wife that “our assault on Leipzig was very bloody. After many hours of work our troops stormed the city. General Blücher and I were the first to enter. We found a mass of prisoners, 20,000 wounded, even more sick. The dead lay everywhere. Destroyed houses, overturned baggage wagons, troops of all nations; it is a mess without equal. Every step has been taken to pursue the enemy briskly. We will destroy the remainder of his army.” Blücher also boasted to his wife that on the 16th he had engaged the French at Möckern, taking 4,000 prisoners, 45 guns, 1 Eagle, and various other standards. He described the events on the 18th and 19th as “the greatest battle the earth has ever seen; 600,000 men fought with each other; around 2:00 P.M. I took Leipzig by storm, the king of Saxony and many generals were captured, the Polish prince Poniatowski drowned; 170 cannon were taken and around 40,000 men are now prisoners. Napoleon escaped, but he is not safe. At this moment my cavalry has brought in another 2,000 prisoners; the entire [French] army is lost.” Yet not all observers wrote such gleeful accounts. Commenting on the barbarity of war, the British ambassador to Austria, George Hamilton Gordon, Lord Aberdeen, noted: “For three or four miles the ground is covered with bodies of men and horses, many not dead. Wounded wretches unable to crawl, crying for water amidst heaps of putrefying bodies. Their screams are heard at an immense distance, and still ring in my ears.”