Count A. Caulaincourt Meanwhile, Marshal Ney's troops were strengthening the pressure on the Russian positions and was achieving some success. And there was the constant fighting at the Moscow road too. Barclay, Erlomolov, Tuchkov and Konovnitsyn - the main forces of the both sides, were concentrated there. The battle lasted until late evening. At 9 p.m. when it became dark, the French 3rd Infantry Division from the Corps of Marshal Davout came through a hollow and attacked the Russian positions. General Tuchkov (the 3rd) led the Ekatherinoslav Grenadier regiment to meet the enemy. During this violent fighting, a horse under Tuchkov was killed, and a short time later Tuchkov himself was wounded in the head and captured. The wounded Russian general was taken to Marshal Murat. "Have you any requests? I will gladly do it for you" were the first words of Murat. "Please, don't forget to reward your officer who took me to you. He was very brave" said Tuchkov. The next day that officer was rewarded with the Order of Legion of Honour.(1) The battle at Lubino (or as it is often called, "the battle at Valutina Hill") was important in itself, but was also a final act of the battle of Smolensk. It was one more attempt of Napoleon to draw the Russian army into a general battle at a very disadvantageous time for the Russian. But in the end this attempt was unsuccessfull too. The battle at Lubino was finished by the retreat of the Russian troops, but it seemed for the French, as Count Segur reported, they paid too high a price for this victory. The fierce, all-day resistance of the Russian rear-guard, the very French heavy losses, the death of Guden (one of Napoleon's best generals,and finally, Marshal Ney's inability to pursue the retreating Russian troops after the battle. All these facts were not like the victories Ney and the other Napoleonic Marshals were used to in other parts of Europe. The Russians stopped firing only after Ney stopped, and only after that did they retreat. Ney realized very clearly what it meant… The battle at Valutina Hill was not a victory. Rather, it was a strategic failure of the French army. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky A.I. "The Description Of The Patriotic War of 1812", St.Petersburg, 1840, Part 2, page 144