Then, against regulations, she let the officer borrow her own horse to hasten his retreat, which left her more vulnerable to attack. During the campaign, she wrote a letter to her family explaining her disappearance. They used their connections in a desperate attempt to locate her. The rumor of an amazon in the army reached Tsar Alexander I, who took a personal interest. Durova's chain of command reported that her courage was peerless. Summoned to the palace at St. Petersburg, she impressed the Tsar so much that he awarded her the Cross of St. George and promoted her to lieutenant in a hussar unit ("Mariupol Hussar Regiment"). The story that there was the heroine in the army with the name Alexander Sokolov had become well known by that time. So the Tsar awarded her a new pseudonym, "Alexandrov", based on his own name. Durova's youthful appearance hurt her chances for promotion. In an era when Russian officers were expected to grow a mustache she looked like a boy of sixteen. She transferred away from the hussars to the "Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment" in order to avoid the colonel's daughter who had fallen in love with her. Durova saw action again during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. She fought in the Battle of Smolensk. During the Battle of Borodino a cannonball wounded her in the leg, yet she continued serving full duty for several days afterward until her command ordered her away to recuperate. She retired from the army in 1816 with the rank of stabs-rotmistr, the equivalent of captain-lieutenant. A chance meeting introduced her to Aleksandr Pushkin some twenty years later. When he learned that she had kept a journal during her army service he encouraged her to publish it as a memoir. She added background about her early childhood but changed her age by seven years and eliminated all reference to her marriage. Durova published this as "The Cavalry Maiden" in 1836. Durova also wrote five other novels. Durova continued to wear male clothing for the rest of her life. She died in Yelabuga and was buried with full military honors. Durova's descendants seem to have inherited her talent for training animals. Nadezhda's great-grandsons Vladimir and Anatoly Durov were the famous Russian circus animal trainers and founders of the "Durov Animal Theater" in Moscow. Currently the Theater is run by another descendant of Nadezhda, Natalia Durova.