ON the 16th of August the long-threatened attack of the Russians took place, and ended in their complete defeat. Movements of large numbers of troops in the neighbourhood of Sebastopol, the unanimous reports of the deserters, of whom several came in every day, and information gained from Tartars, had given intimation that the Russians intended to try their luck once more in an offensive operation. Although, at first, the line of the Tchernaya suggested itself as the point which the Russians would most probably attack, a supposition which was moreover confirmed by all the deserters, yet, as large numbers of newly-arrived troops were seen concentrated in and about the Russian works, apprehensions were entertained that they might attempt the positions before Sebastopol.

Several deserters came in on the 15th, and spoke with the utmost certainty of an intended attack on the Tchernaya; but no particular attention was paid to their reports, and no special orders were given to the troops, except "to be prepared;" and this had been so often repeated that it made no impression. In Baidar, whence the English cavalry had been withdrawn, two regiments of heavy French cavalry, and detachments of Chasseurs and Zouaves, were stationed. On the 15th, General d'Allonville sent word by semaphore, that large numbers of Russian troops were concentrated on the heights, and that he expected to be attacked. Late in the evening, notice of this message was sent to General Della Marmora and Osman Pasha. No additional precautions were taken on the Tchernaya line, and the advance was scarcely less a surprise than that of Inkerman. The first news of the attack was brought about daybreak by some Chasseurs forming part of a patrol who fell into an ambuscade and escaped, while their comrades were taken prisoners. Soon afterwards the outposts across the Tchernaya were driven in, and at daybreak the cannonade began.

The Tchernaya, issuing from the narrow gorge in which it runs after leaving the Valley of Baidar, at the Tower of Karlovka, flows between a succession of hillocks, which formed the basis of the position of the allied armies. On the extreme right, the Turks were stationed. They occupied two hillocks, between which are two roads leading from Higher Tchorgoun and the Tower of Karlovka into the Woronzoff Road. The Sardinians leant on the little mountain stream which limited the Turkish position to the left, and on the large hillock above the road from Balaklava to Tchorgoun, and occupied a position of the utmost importance in the defence of the line of the Tchernaya. In front, and divided from it by the aqueduct, was another hillock, smaller but equally steep, accessible from the first by a stone bridge on which the Sardinians had a small Épaulement. They had outposts at the other side of the Tchernaya, on the hillock near the Mackenzie Road. The French occupied three hillocks to the left of the Sardinians, and guarded the road leading to Balaklava over the Traktir Bridge from Mackenzie's Farm. The first of these, to the right, was separated from the others by the road to the bridge; and the third, on the left, was protected by the basin of the aqueduct. In front of the bridge there was an Épaulement, beyond which were the outposts.

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF THE TCHERNAYA AUGUST 16th 1855. Reduced from the Q.M. General's Plan.

The first attack of the Russians was against the outposts of the Sardinians. Corresponding to the hillocks on the south side of the Tchernaya were three plateaux from which their guns could command not only the ground opposite occupied by the Sardinians and Turks, but the plain which opens towards the French position. A company of infantry, and a company of bersaglieri, formed the Sardinian outposts. They were attacked at dawn. As the troops were not under arms, it was necessary to hold this position for a while, and General Della Marmora sent Major Govone, of the Etat-Major, with a company of bersaglieri, to reinforce the companies. They crossed the aqueduct and the river, and went up the plateau; but, when they arrived on the crest, the two companies had just left the Épaulement, which had become untenable, as it was swept by the guns which the Russians had brought up on the plateaux, and was exposed to be taken in the rear. The Sardinians retired in good order across the river, and went to reinforce the post which occupied the second hillock on the aqueduct.

The cannonade on both sides commenced. Scarcely had the cannonade opened when three compact columns of infantry advanced towards the French position, and attacked the bridge and the hillock to the right.

The French outpost beyond the bridge consisted of a company of the 2nd regiment of Zouaves. The other avant postes, to the right of the Zouaves up to the Sardinian outposts, were furnished by the 20th lÉger and the 22nd of the line. The rÉveillÉe had not yet gone in camp, when the sentinels were alarmed by hearing the tramp of men, whose forms were yet invisible in the darkness. The posts had not time to stand to their arms ere they were driven across the river; but the desultory firing had given timely warning to the main guards and to the camps, and the men turned out just as a storm of round shot began to rush over the ground.

The Russian columns, protected by the fire of their artillery, moved in excellent order down to the river side, notwithstanding the heavy fire of artillery which greeted them in front from the French, and in flank from the Sardinians. At the river the first column detached itself from the rest, and dividing into two parts crossed the river, which is easily fordable in summer.

Before the troops were properly under arms the Russians were at the bridge and at the foot of the hillock. The 20th lÉger and the 2nd battalion of Zouaves had to stand the first shock, and they certainly stood it gallantly. The Russians, without losing time in firing, advanced with an Élan scarcely ever seen in Russian troops. They were new troops, belonging, according to the prisoners and wounded, to the 5th division of the 2nd corps d'armÉe, lately arrived from Poland.

The aqueduct which ran close to the foot of the hillock, formed the chief defence of the French. About nine or ten feet wide and several feet deep, it skirts the steep hills so close, that it is nearly in all places supported by a high embankment, offering considerable difficulties for an advancing force, and exposing them as soon as they reach the top of the embankment, to commanding musketry fire. Notwithstanding this, the Russians crossed it on the right, and were beginning to scale the heights, when, taken in flank by the Sardinian batteries, which fired with admirable precision, they were swept down wholesale and rolled into the aqueduct.

This first rush did not last ten minutes. The Russians fell back. Scarcely had they gone a few hundred yards when they were met by a second column, which was advancing at the pas de charge, and both united and again rushed forward. This second attempt was more successful than the first. They forded the river on the right and left, at the bridge, and forced its defenders to fall back. The moment the bridge was free two guns of the 5th Light Brigade of Artillery crossed it and took position between two of the hillocks on the road which leads to the plain of Balaklava. A third gun crossed the river by a ford, and all three began to sweep the road and the heights. The infantry, without waiting for the portable bridges, the greater part of which had been thrown away during the advance, rushed breast-deep into the water, climbed up the embankment, and began to scale the heights. They succeeded in getting up more than one-half of the ascent, where the dead and wounded afterwards showed clearly the mark they reached; but by this time the French met them in the most gallant style. The Russians were by degrees forced back, and driven across the bridge, carrying away their guns.

While this conflict took place on the bridge, the other column attacked the French right in such a swarm that they could neither be kept back by the aqueduct, nor cowed by the Sardinian guns, which were ploughing long lanes through their ranks. On they came, as it seemed, irresistible, and rushed up the steep hill with such fury that the Zouaves, who lined the sides of it, were obliged to fall back. The officers might be seen leading the way and animating their soldiers. This furious rush brought the advancing column to the crest of the hillock, where it stopped to form. But the French had not been idle. Scarcely did the column of the enemy show its head, ere the guns opened upon it with grape, and a murderous fire was poured in by the French infantry. The column began to waver; but the impetus from those behind was so powerful that the head was pushed forward a few yards more, when the French, giving one mighty cheer, rushed upon the enemy, who, shaken already, immediately turned round and ran. But the mass was so great that all the hurry could not save them, and more than 200 prisoners were taken, the banks of the aqueduct, the aqueduct itself, and the river side were covered and filled with the dead and the wounded. The Sardinian and French artillery poured a murderous cross-fire into the scattered remains of the column. It was a complete rout. The French drove them far across the plain. This defeat completely depressed them; nothing more was attempted against this side.

Not so on the bridge. Notwithstanding the heavy loss suffered in the second attack, the Russians collected the scattered remains of the column which had been routed on the right of the French, and brought up all their reserves. They crossed the river, and the aqueduct too, but the French were now thoroughly prepared, and the tenacity of the Russians only served to augment their losses. This last failure was decisive, and immediately the advance of the artillery—the usual Russian preparation for retreat—showed they were on the point of retiring. Three batteries, each of twelve guns, began to open fire, while the remains of the infantry rallied behind a rising ground leading up towards the plateau of Ayker, or Mackenzie's Height.

The Sardinians, who, with the exception of the little outpost fight on the opposite side of the Tchernaya, had only supported the French by their artillery, began to move across the aqueduct. The Russian riflemen, after the last defeat on the right, had retired behind the banks of the Tchernaya. A battalion of Piedmontese, preceded by a company of bersaglieri, advanced in beautiful order as if on parade, and soon drove these riflemen from their position. It even advanced some way, but it was not intended to force the heights. The French brought up a new division (Dulac's). The English and French cavalry were in readiness on the ground of the Light Cavalry charge, to receive the enemy if they should debouch on the plain. But General Morris would not risk the cavalry on the plain, intersected as it was by the branches of the river, and defended, as it was still, by the Russian guns on the height; so only two squadrons of Chasseurs d'Afrique followed the retreating enemy.

The guns which the Russians had brought up to cover their retreat suffered so much by the fire, which from our side was increased by Captain Mowbray's battery from the open ground between the Sardinian and the French positions, that they made off. As the guns retired, a brilliant line of cavalry appeared from behind the rising ground. I could distinguish five regiments—three in line and two other regiments in second line. They advanced at a gallop, and wheeling round, allowed twelve guns to pass, which again opened fire, but at half-past nine or ten o'clock black lines moving off, through clouds of the dust on the Mackenzie Road, were the only traces which remained of the so long threatened attack of the Russians.

Although not quite so obstinate and sanguinary as the Battle of Inkerman, this affair resembled it in many points. The Russians gave up manoeuvring, and confided entirely in the valour of their troops. The difference was in the manner of fighting. At Inkerman the Russians fell under file firing; on the Tchernaya it was the artillery which did the greatest execution. On the banks of the aqueduct particularly, the sight was appalling; the Russians, when scaling the embankment of the aqueduct, were taken in flank by the Sardinian batteries, and the dead and wounded rolled down the embankment, sometimes more than twenty feet in height.

According to the account of the prisoners, and judging from the straps on the shoulders of the wounded and dead, three divisions were engaged in the actual attack,—the 5th of the 2nd corps d'armÉe (of General Paniutin), then lately arrived from Poland, under the command of General Wrangel; the 12th division of the 4th corps d'armÉe (Osten Sacken's), formerly under the command of General Liprandi, afterwards under General Martinolep; and the 17th division of the 6th corps d'armÉe (Liprandi's), under Major-General Wassielkosky. Before the attack began, General Gortschakoff, who commanded in person, read a letter from the Emperor before them, in which he expressed a hope that they would prove as valorous as last year when they took the heights of Balaklava; and then there was a large distribution of brandy. Besides the three divisions which attacked, the 7th occupied Tchorgoun and the heights, but was not engaged except in the small outpost affair of the Sardinians.

The French had three divisions engaged—the Division Faucheux to the right, the Division d'Herbillon in the centre, and the Division (Camou) on the left of the bridge; their loss was about 1,000 in killed and wounded. The Sardinians had only one division engaged (the Division Trotti), and lost but a few hundred men; they had to regret the loss of a distinguished general officer, the Brigadier-General Count de Montevecchio, who died of his wounds; but they gained great confidence from the day, and were proud of holding their own so well under the eyes of their allies.

The battle had been raging for an hour ere I reached the line of the French works at Fedukhine. From the high grounds over which I had to ride, the whole of the battle-field was marked out by rolling columns of smoke, and the irregular thick puffs of the artillery. All our cavalry camps were deserted; but the sun played on the helmets and sabres of the solid squadrons, which were drawn up about two miles in advance of Kadikoi, and just in rear of the line of hills which the French and Sardinians were defending, so as to be ready to charge the Russians should they force the position. The French cavalry, chasseurs, hussars, and two regiments of dragoons, were on our left. Our light and our heavy cavalry brigades were formed in two heavy masses, supported by artillery in the plain behind the second Fedukhine hillock, and seemed in splendid case, and "eager for the fray." The Allies had, in fact, not less than 6,000 very fine cavalry that day in the field; but they were held in check, "for fear" of the artillery, which there is no doubt they could have captured, in addition to many thousands of prisoners, if handled by a Seidlitz or a Murat. But the French General would not permit a charge to be executed, though French and English cavalry leaders were alike eager for it, and so this noble force was rendered ineffective.

Having passed by the left of the cavalry, I gained the side of the hill just as a large body of French troops crowned it at the pas double, deployed, and at once charged down towards the aqueduct, where a strong column of Russians, protected by a heavy fire of artillery on the crest of the ridge, were making good their ground against the exhausted French. This new regiment attacking them with extraordinary impetuosity on the flank, literally swept the Russians like flies into the aqueduct, or rolled them headlong down its steep banks; and at the same moment a French battery on my right, belonging, I think, to the Imperial Guards, opened on the shattered crowd with grape, and tore them into atoms. This column was the head, so to speak, of the second attack on the lines, and emerging through the flying mass, another body of Russian infantry, with levelled bayonets, advanced with great steadiness towards the aqueduct once more. As far as the eye could see towards the right, the flat caps and grey coats were marching towards the Allied position, or detaching themselves from the distant reserves, which were visible here and there concealed amid the hills. As the French battery opened, a Russian battery was detached to answer it, and to draw off their fire; but our gallant Allies took their pounding with great gallantry and coolness, and were not diverted for a moment from their business of dealing with the infantry column, the head of which was completely knocked to pieces in two minutes. Then the officers halted it, and tried in vain to deploy them—the column, wavering and wriggling like a great serpent, began to spread out from the further extremity like a fan, and to retreat towards the rear. Another crashing volley of grape, and they are retreating over the plain.

And now there breaks high over all the roar of battle, heavier thunder. Those are the deep, angry voices of the great English heavy battery of 18-pounders and 32-pounder howitzers, under Mowbray, which search out the reserves. These guns were placed far away on my right, near the Sardinians, and it is acknowledged by all that they did good service upon this eventful day. The advance I had just witnessed was the last effort of the enemy. Their infantry rolled in confused masses over the plain on the other side of the Tchernaya, were pursued by the whole fire of the French batteries and of the 8-inch English howitzers in the Sardinian redoubt, and by a continuous and well-directed fusillade, till they were out of range. Their defeat was announced by the advance of their cavalry, and by the angry volleys of their artillery against the positions of the Allies. Their cavalry, keeping out of range, made a very fair show, with lances and standards, and sabres shining brightly; but beyond that they did nothing—and, indeed, they could do nothing, as we did not give them a chance of action. The Russians were supported by guns, but they did not seem well placed, nor did they occupy a good position at any time of the fight. The infantry formed in square blocks in the rear of this force, and then began to file off towards the Mackenzie Road, and the French rocket battery opened on them from the plateau, and, strange to say, reached them several times. It was about eight o'clock when their regular retreat commenced, and the English cavalry and artillery began to retire also at that hour to their camps, much discontented, because they had had no larger share in the honours of the day.

The march of the Russians continued till late in the day—their last column gained the plateau about two o'clock. It must have been a terrible march for them—not a drop of water to be had; and even when they gained their arid camp, it is only too probable that they had nothing to drink; indeed, the prisoners told us the men were encouraged to the attack by being told that if they gained the Tchernaya they would have abundance of water—the greatest inducement that could be held out to them. I rode down towards the tÊte-du-pont. In order to get a good view of the retreat, I descended to the bridge, which was covered with wounded men. Just as I gained the centre of it, a volley of shells was pitched right upon it, and amid the French, who, with their usual humanity, were helping the wounded. Some burst in the shallow stream, the sides of which were crowded with wounded men; others killed poor wretches who were crawling towards the water,—one in particular, to whom I had just an instant before thrown a sandwich; others knocked pieces out of the bridge, or tore up the causeway. As the road was right in the line of fire, I at once turned off the bridge, and pulling sharp round, dashed under an arch just as the battery opened on us a second time, and there I remained for about ten minutes, when the Russians seemed ashamed of themselves, and gave us a respite for a few moments. The next time they fired was with round shot; and as I retreated up the road, to obtain shelter behind the hills, one of these knocked a wounded Zouave to pieces before my eyes. In the rear of the hill, there was a party of about five hundred Russian prisoners en bivouac. Many of them were wounded; all were war-worn, dirty, ill-clad,—some in rags, others almost bootless. The French sentries who guarded them seemed to commiserate the poor fellows; but two or three of their own officers, who sat apart, did not look at them, but smoked their cigars with great nonchalance, or talked glibly to the French officers of the fortune of war, &c.

In a short time I returned to the front, and saw General Simpson and a few staff-officers descending from the Sardinian position, whence they had watched the battle. They were on their way back to head-quarters; but Captain Colville, aide-de-camp to the General, a young officer of ability and promise, and always of an inquiring turn of mind, turned back with me, and we rode over the bridge. The French were, however, obdurate, and would not let us cross the tÊte-du-pont, as we were en pleine portÉe of the guns posted behind a white scarp on a hillock on the opposite side. We could see that the Sardinians had recovered their old ground, and occupied the height from which their advanced posts were driven early in the day. Further, we could see the Russian cavalry, but the great mass of infantry was in full retreat; and at nine o'clock the road to Mackenzie's Farm was thronged with a close column of thirsty, footsore, beaten Russians. The aspect of the field, of the aqueduct, and of the river, was horrible beyond description;—the bodies were closely packed in parties, and lay in files two or three deep, where the grape had torn through the columns. For two days the bodies rotted on the ground which lay beyond the French lines, and the first Russian burying party did not come down till the 18th, when the stench was so very great that the men could scarcely perform their loathsome task. General Read was killed early in the battle; and the Russians lost every officer in command of an attacking column. Their total loss was, we estimated, at from 12,000 to 15,000 men.

CHAPTER III.

AFTER the affair of the 16th, the siege operations monopolized, in great measure, the military interest which the Tchernaya had attracted for one moment. But the Tchernaya became a point of attraction for all curiosity-seeking persons, whose name was legion, in the Allied armies. Officers and soldiers, although numerous enough, were few in proportion to the merchant sailors, suttlers from Balaklava and Kamiesch, and other nondescript camp-followers, who formed a class of themselves, and were as sure to appear after an action was over as vultures. Everything was acceptable. They had little chance of getting hold of medals, amulets, and crosses, and other more valuable spoil, for these disappeared marvellously; but they were not particular. The Russian muskets were most in request—cartridge-boxes, riflemen's swords, bayonets, &c., were taken faute de mieux. There were some excellent rifles, with sword-bayonets, which were in great request; they were, as was usually the case with all valuable things, picked up by the Zouaves, who certainly had the best right to them, having won them by their bravery. The Zouaves sold them, and the gendarmes took them away again, leaving the purchaser free to single out the Zouave who sold the rifle, and to get back his purchase-money. But the gendarmes confiscated all arms, whether paid for or not, as, according to the regulations of the French army, they ought to have been collected on the battle-field by the Artillery—a thing which was never done.

The fire, which opened at daybreak on Friday, continued the whole of Saturday and Sunday, but slackened on Monday. The progress of the French works was considerable, and the French seemed duly sensible of the service of our cannonade. I heard a French officer say on Saturday evening that it had enabled them to do in four hours what they previously could not have done in fifteen days. Their foremost parallel, which had been begun at the two ends, could not be completed, owing to its near proximity to the Malakoff. As soon as a gabion was put up, a storm of projectiles was hurled against it and the working party; afterwards the extremities were connected under the cover of our fire. The distance was indeed so greatly reduced between the French trenches and the Russian defences, that a vigorous assault seemed certain to succeed.

The Russians always considered it a point of honour to go off in great style on the first day of a bombardment; after which they ran their guns behind the parapets, covered them with sandbags, and allowed us to blaze away without making frequent reply. Although earthworks take a deal of hammering before they show its marks, both the Redan and Malakoff began to present a very battered appearance. We had, of course, no means of ascertaining the Russian loss of men. Every night our people kept up the musketry against the proper right and the curtain of the Malakoff to protect the French workmen, and shells and bouquets of shells flew all along the lines right and left—very pretty to look at, but unpleasant to meet.

At sunset on Saturday evening, the 18th of August, a party of the Naval Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Gough, dragged a 68-pounder up to No. 11 Battery left attack to bear on the mole-head and on the bridge across the creek, but it did not appear to impede the movements of the enemy.

On the afternoon of the 20th, between five and six o'clock, the French batteries on the left opened a furious fire, to which the Russians warmly replied. General Pelissier, in his open carriage, with his aides-de-camp and usual hussar escort, passed through the English camp and went up to Cathcart's Hill. The fire lasted until nightfall, and then diminished. At midnight it had almost ceased, and one saw but an occasional shell in the air. At 2 A.M. orders came for the army to turn out. This was rapidly done; the troops moved to the front, and remained there until daylight. A line of telegraphic lights had been observed, commencing at Sebastopol, and running along the Inkerman heights, and it was supposed that an attack was intended. These "turns-outs" were frequent and harassing during this period of the siege.

The French, who were convinced that in the face of a strong force of the enemy, who might come down with his battalions in a few hours during the night, field fortifications were never de trop, threw up three redoubts to command the bridge, which was the weakest point of their defence. They were named Raglan Redoubt, Bizot Redoubt (in honour of the fallen general of Engineers), and La BussoniÈre Redoubt (in honour of the colonel of Artillery of that name who fell on the 18th of June).

The Sardinians strengthened their position. Their works assumed the shape of an entrenched camp, and every variation in the ground was taken advantage of. The hills were particularly suited for fortified lines.

The Turks, who occupied the extreme right of our position, and who had to guard the two roads leading from the valley of Varnutka, did nothing in the tabia line. In vain did the Sardinian engineers throw out gentle hints about the propriety of erecting a couple of Épaulements, and point out divers hills and heights peculiarly suited for a redoubt; they turned a deaf ear to all these suggestions, and, except the works which had been previously thrown up by the Piedmontese, when they held some of the positions guarded by the Turks, not a shovelful of earth was turned up. This would have seemed so much the more surprising, as the Turks had become notorious by their fortification, at Kalafat, Giurgevo, Silistria, and Eupatoria.

On the 25th, the Highland division under General Cameron encamped close to the Piedmontese. On the same day, General Simpson reconnoitred with great care the position of the enemy, who had massed a considerable number of troops on the Mackenzie Plateau at Taura and Korales, and had pushed forward strong parties as far as Makoul. It was understood from the spies that two regiments of the Grenadier Corps had been sent down in light carts from Simpheropol. At the same time the Russians were busy at a line of earthworks connecting all their defences from the sea to the West Inkerman Lighthouse Hill. Their bridge of boats or pontoons from north to south, across the road, was completed. It passed from the western curve of Fort Nicholas on the south, to the creek between Nachimoff Battery and Fort Michael. From the 20th to the 23rd of August inclusive, we lost 2 sergeants, 24 rank and file killed; 8 officers, 8 sergeants, 168 rank and file wounded—total, 220 hors de combat. On the 20th, Lieutenant Home, 48th, was contused on the shoulder; Lieutenant Campbell, 72nd, slightly wounded; Lieutenant McBarnet, 79th, ditto; Captain Dickson, R.A., ditto;—on the 21st, Lieutenant Smith, 28th, ditto;—on the 22nd, Lieutenant Campbell, Scots Fusileer Guards, ditto; Lieutenant Wield, 95th, severely;—on the 23rd, Lieutenant de Winton, R.A., slightly. The casualties from the 24th to the 26th of August were—24 rank and file killed; 9 officers, 6 sergeants, and 137 rank and file wounded and missing. On the 24th, Major Warden, 97th, and Lieutenant Bigge, 23rd, were slightly, and Captain J. F. Browne, R.E., was severely wounded. On the 25th, Captain R. Drummond was dangerously wounded. Colonel Seymour (who was wounded in the thumb at Inkerman) was hit in the head by a piece of a shell. Lieutenant Laurie, 34th, was slightly wounded the same day; on the 26th, Lieutenant Rous, of the 90th, and Captain Arbuthnot, R.A., were wounded severely. On the 28th, Captain Forbes, Grenadier Guards, received a very slight flesh scratch. On the 29th, Captain Farquharson, Scotch Fusileer Guards, and Major Graham, 41st Regiment, were wounded, the first slightly, the latter severely; and on the 30th, Captain Wolsley, of the 90th acting as Engineer, was severely wounded. From the 27th to the 30th August, 1 officer, 1 sergeant, and 20 rank and file were killed; 6 officers, 4 sergeants, and 152 rank and file were wounded. The casualties from 31st August to 2nd September were 1 officer, 1 sergeant, 22 rank and file killed; 6 officers, 7 sergeants, 106 rank and file wounded; 1 officer, 1 rank and file missing. Captain Fraser, 95th, was killed on the 31st, and on the same night Lieutenant Burningheim, of the 3rd Regiment, was slightly, and Lieutenant Forbes, 30th Regiment, mortally wounded; and Captain Ross, of the Buffs, was missing. On 1st September, Lieutenant Price, R.A., was slightly, and Lieutenant Cary, Rifle Brigade, was severely wounded. On the 2nd September, Lieutenant Roberts, R.A., and Captain Smith, 90th, were slightly wounded. On the 4th, the 82nd Regiment disembarked from Corfu, and relieved the 13th at Balaklava.

The 56th Regiment, about 800 strong, arrived at Balaklava, and were annexed to the First Division. The army continued to get under arms before daybreak. On the 26th the cavalry turned out 2,950 sabres, and 500 or 600 more could have been brought into the field.

Reports that the Russians meditated an attack upon Balaklava caused the Admiral to order the Leander and Diamond to moor by a single cable, and the Triton was ordered to be ready to get steam up at brief notice, in order to tow them out to a position whence their guns could bear on the Marine Heights.

Notwithstanding these preparations, there were many rumours of peace. We had a peace party in camp, who reasoned that the Russians could sustain the contest no longer. According to these authorities, in a couple of months the British Army was to go home again. But there is no magic in wishes any more than in words, and these prophets of peace underrated the tenacity and endurance of the Russian Government and people. Our works on the left continued to advance. Several new batteries—one of 15 mortars—were constructed in front of what had been our most advanced positions on that part of the line.

The English cavalry came down to the valley every morning, as if haunting the ground where its comrades fell, and watching an opportunity to revenge them. The effect was imposing—perfect, one might say, if anything human could be called so. Horses and men were in excellent condition, as fit for work as any cavalry could be.

CHAPTER IV.

ALL the latter part of August passed quietly away: the Russians on the alert to resist an assault—we prepared to meet the rumoured attack upon our lines. After the failure of June 18, our cannonade languished. We talked of it as slackening, and considered it extinct. Prince Gortschakoff assured the world that it was a mere squib, a feeble firework, which did those tough Russians no harm, and caused their troops no inconvenience; and yet, somehow or other, between the 18th of June and 18th of July, not less than eight thousand pretty little globules of iron, eight, ten, and thirteen inches in diameter, and falling with a weight equivalent to fifty and to ninety tons, were deposited inside the lines of Sebastopol, and every one that burst sent forth some six or eight fragments, of several pounds weight each, a distance of two or three hundred yards, unless they were stopped in transitu by traverse or sinew.

The authorities took active measures to curtail the proportions of the vast village of suttlers' houses at Kadikoi. As there was a report that the fair was a nest of spies—that strange fires were occasionally lighted up on the hills behind it, towards Karanyi, and were answered by the Russians on the Plateau Mackenzie, and people came and departed as they listed without any interference with their movements, it was resolved to keep its limits more under control and supervision.

Some divisions managed to get together a considerable accumulation of stores in advance, and almost in anticipation of the winter, but fuel was brought up de die in diem by a most thriftless process. It was no unusual thing to see a string of fine Spanish mules and ponies, each of which cost a good round sum, coming from Kasatch or Balaklava with a couple of stout boughs lashed to each side of their pack-saddles, the ends trailing on the ground, and the drivers urging them at full speed. The proper load of wood for a mule is 200lb. Judging from the loads I saw weighed, they actually carried less than 100lb., and at the same time the costly pack-saddles were ruined, and the animals distressed and injured by this clumsy mode of carriage. As I could not help exclaiming at the time, "How the money is flying! If Mr. John could but have stood upon one of the hill-tops in the Crimea, and if, after gladdening his heart with the sight of his fine fleet floating grandly on the water outside the 'beleaguered city,'—rejoicing over his brave sons whose white tents studded the brown steppe row after row,—and rubbing his hands with delight at the thunder of his batteries—he would just have wiped his glasses and looked at the less glorious and exciting portions of the scene, he would have some uneasy tinglings in his breeches-pockets, depend on it."

"Where are all these horses going to?"

"Oh, they're Spanish horses, which have been cast by the artillery, and they're going to be sold as unfit for service."

"Why, Lord bless me! it's only a few months since I paid £30,000 for that very lot, and they've done nothing, I hear, but stand at their picket ropes ever since. They cost me, I'm sure, carriage and all, £100 a-piece. What do you think I'll get for them?"

"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't think as how they'll fetch more than £10 a-head, if so much."

To speak plainly, for the old gentleman's peace of mind, I would not advise him to be too inquisitive, and a visit to the camp, when in its most flourishing condition and healthy aspect, might injure his nerves irremediably.

"Who are those fellows in that secluded valley, hunting among the vines for some grapes, while their horses are left to wander through the neglected gardens?"

"They belong to Division A, or B, or C, or D; see the letter branded upon the horses' flanks. They are Turks, Elamites, Affghans, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Kurds, Parthians, Canaanites, Greeks, for whose services in the Land Transport Corps you, John, pay daily the sum of 3s. per man, and they ought now to be carrying up provisions for your soldiers; but, being philosophers of the Epicurean school, they prefer the pursuit of the grape and the insouciance of the siesta to tramping over dusty roads, or urging their mad career down stony ravines on thy much be-whacked quadrupeds!"

"And those miles of mules and carts winding all along the plain, emerging from ravines, ascending hills, and that vast army of drivers in quaint attire, the concentration of the floating vagabondage of the world, the flotsam and jetsam of the social life of every nation, civil and barbarous, on earth—to whom do they belong, and who pays them and for them?"

"Even you, my dear sir, and very handsomely too, I can assure you."

"And those ships in Balaklava?"

"Yours again, sir; but don't be uneasy; things are managed better there now; occasionally the authorities root out a great demurrager, and send her off hopping after she has lain perdu some months doing nothing. The other day the Walmer Castle, a fine Indiaman, sir, was sent off at last—she had been in Balaklava since February, doing nothing but affording comfortable lodgings for a few of the authorities. But we won't talk of these things any more, for really the arrangements are much improved."

"Who are those officers in blue, with grey, yellow, and red facing's—apparently men of rank, with stars and crowns and lace on their collars?"

"They are of the Land Transport Corps—captains and quartermasters of brigade."

"Hallo! is there a theatrical company here? Who're the queer-looking chaps with the huntsmen-in-Der-Freischutz-caps and tunics, smoking short pipes, and driving their carts like so many Jehus?"

"Well, we have the Zouave Theatre and the Sailors' Theatre, but these men belong to Colonel McMurdo, and certainly they have let their hats get cruelly out of shape; they were neat enough and looked well while the rosettes were clean, but now——"

"And who are the gentlemen in grey, with black braid and swords, and pouch-belts and telescopes—some new riflemen, eh?—capital dress for sharpshooters."

"Why, dear me, sir, don't you know those are harmless civilians, who neither wish to shoot any one or to be shot at themselves? They are civil engineers and civilians belonging to your recently formed Army Works Corps."

"Hallo! here's another—what's he? a felt helmet with a spike in it and brass binding—a red frock with black braid—a big horse—a cavalry man, eh?"

"Well, he's one of the Mounted Staff Corps, and he gets as much as an Ensign in the line for being ready to go anywhere—when he's wanted."

"Who's that drunken fellow—an old soldier in the odd uniform, with medals on his breast?"

"Hush! he's the last one left of the Ambulance Corps. They cost a lot of money, and did some good, but McMurdo won't have them now, unless he gets his own way with them, and——"

"I beg your pardon, but who is that foreign officer in a white bournous, and attended by a brilliant staff of Generals—him with the blue and silver stripe down his trousers I mean, and gold braid on his waistcoat, and a red and white cap; it must be Pelissier?"

"That! why, that's M. Soyer, chef de nos batteries de cuisine, and if you go and speak to him, you'll find he'll talk to you for several hours about the way your meat is wasted; and so I wish you good morning, sir, and every success in trade and commerce to enable you to pay all the gentlemen you have seen to-day, as well as a speedy entry into Sebastopol."

At one o'clock on the 30th August the camp was shaken by a prodigious explosion. A tumbrel, from which the French were discharging powder into one of the magazines near the Mamelon, was struck by a shell, which bursting as it crashed through the roof of the carriage, ignited the cartridges; 1400 rounds, 10lbs each, exploded, shattering to atoms the magazine, and surrounding-works, and whirling in all directions over the face of the Mamolen and beyond it, 150 officers and men. Of these, 40 were killed upon the spot, and the rest were scorched and burnt, or wounded by splinters, stones, and the shot and shell which were thrown into the air by the fiery eruption. A bright moon lighted up the whole scene, and shed its rays upon a huge pillar of smoke and dust, which rose into the air from the Mamelon, and, towering to an immense height, unfolded itself and let fall from its clustering waves of smoke and sulphurous vapour a black precipitate of earth, fine dust, and pebbles, mingled with miserable fragments, which dropped like rain upon the works below. There was silence for an instant, and but for an instant, as the sullen thunder rolled slowly away and echoed along the heights of Inkerman and Mackenzie. Then the Russians, leaping to their guns, cheered loudly, but their voices were soon smothered in the crash of the French and English batteries, which played fiercely upon their works. The Russians replied, but they were unable to take any advantage of our mischance, owing to the firmness of the French in the advanced trenches, and the steadiness with which the cannonade was continued. The dark cloud hung like a pall for nearly an hour over the place, reddening every moment with the reflection of the flashes of the artillery, which boomed incessantly till dawn. The musketry was very heavy and fierce all along the advanced trenches, and as no one except those in the parallels near the Mamelon knew the precise nature of the explosion, great anxiety was manifested to learn the truth. Some persons asserted that the Russians had sprung a mine—others, that the French had blown in the counterscarp of the Malakoff—and with the very spot under their eyes, people were conjecturing wildly what had taken place; just like those at home, who did not hesitate to make the boldest assertions respecting the events which occurred in the Crimea, and of which they knew neither the scene nor the circumstance.

There were rumours that the garrison of Sebastopol was in an extremely disorganized state. The losses in the town were frightful, and notwithstanding their official and non-official declarations, the Russians suffered from want of water and of spirits. Indeed, it was confidently affirmed that, owing to the deficiency of forage, their cavalry had been compelled to fall back on the road to Bakschiserai. They threw up another battery, close to the Spur Battery, commanding a small path from the Tchernaya. The French constructed strong redoubts on the site of the old redoubts in the plain. These works were in connection with the outer line of defence from Kamara, Traktir, and Tchorgoun, and the Sardinian and Turkish batteries towards Baidar, and behind them were the old batteries defending Balaklava, which became one of the strongest positions in the world.

Our allies were losing heavily, in the White Works, which they captured on the 7th of June, where they lost one-half of the men who went into it every day. The 12-gun battery on the north side took them in flank and reverse, the Malakoff enfiladed them on the other side, and they were exposed to the direct fire of the shipping in front. They called the place "l'Abattoir." Our own losses were very heavy, but still the army were full of hope and courage.

As for Jack Tar, he can speak for himself. This was the bill of his play:—

Theatre Royal, Naval Brigade.
On Friday Evening, 31st of August, will be Performed
Deaf as a Post!
To be followed by
The Silent Woman.
The whole to conclude with the laughable Farce, entitled,
Slasher and Crasher.
Seats to be taken at 7 o'clock. Performance to commence
precisely at 8 o'clock.
God save the Queen! Rule Britannia!

And right well they played. True, the theatre was the amputating house of the Brigade, but no reflections as to its future and past use marred the sense of present enjoyment. The scenes were furnished from the London, the actors from the Brigade. There was an agreeable ballet girl, who had to go into the trenches to work a 68-pounder at three o'clock in the morning, and Rosa was impersonated by a prepossessing young boatswain's mate. Songs there were in plenty, with a slight smack of the forecastle, and a refrain of big guns booming down the ravine from the front; but they were all highly appreciated, and the dancing was pronounced to be worthy of Her Majesty's ere Terpsichore and Mr. Lumley retired. Nor were fashionable and illustrious personages wanting to grace the performance with their presence, and to relieve the mass of 2,000 commoners who cheered and laughed and applauded so good-humouredly. The "Duke of Newcastle" paid marked attention to Deaf as a Post, and led the encore for a hornpipe. Lord Rokeby was as assiduous as his Grace. The sense of enjoyment was not marred by the long-range guns, which now and then sent a lobbing shot near the theatre; and if the audience were amused, so were the performers, who acted with surprising spirit and taste. What would old Benbow or grim old Cloudesley Shovell have thought of it all?

There was a sortie early on the morning of the 1st of September on the advanced trenches of our right attack, and the Russians kept up a very heavy fire upon our working parties.

As the crisis of the siege approached, it was affirmed that the enemy were about to try the chances of war once more, in one grand attack, at three or four points between Baidar and the gorge of Inkerman, and to make a sortie in force on our works. Prince Gortschakoff, Generals Liprandi, Paniutin, and Osten-Sacken were mentioned as the generals of the attacking columns. The mass was concentrated on the plateau between Kamishli and Kalankoi, on the south side of the Belbek, supported by divisions echeloned on the road to Bakschiserai. Near Kalankoi a bad and difficult mountain road to Balaklava crosses the Belbek; strikes off to the right to Mackenzie's Farm; descending thence from the plateau, crosses the Tchernaya at the bridge of the Traktir, and sweeps across the plain of Balaklava, intersecting in its course the Woronzoff Road. Several paths or indifferent roads branch from this grand causeway ere it descends the plateau of Mackenzie's Farm, leading by Chuliou and Ozenbasch towards Baidar, and it was thought that the Russians might have put these in tolerable condition, and rendered them available for the passage of troops and artillery. The Russians concentrated considerable masses in and about Upu, Ozenbasch, and Chuliou, and Prince Gortschakoff visited the army destined to operate against the Turks, French, and Sardinians on the rear, and was prodigal of promises and encouragement. The intelligence received by the English, French, and Turkish Generals coincided on these points, and was believed to be entirely trustworthy. It seemed incredible that any General would trust his army among those defiles and mountain-passes, because a failure on the part of the corps on his right to seize Tchorgoun and Kamara would have left him without support, and an active enemy could have easily pursued and crushed him before he could have possibly gained the plateau from which he had descended. Nothing would have given such universal satisfaction to the whole army as another attempt by the enemy to force our position. If the Russians descended into the plain we were sure of success, and the prospect of a sanguinary engagement gave positive pleasure to both officers and men, alike weary of the undistinguished, if not inglorious, service of the trenches.

With nearly 3,000 English, and upwards of 5,000 French sabres, we should have made signal examples of our defeated foes in their retreat; and our 56 field guns, all in high efficiency and order, together with the admirable batteries of the French, would have annihilated any artillery which the Russians could have placed in position. As to their cavalry, they were inferior in number to our own, and in dash and pluck they could not have matched the men who charged at Balaklava. As to a sortie, although it might have been made with large bodies of men, it had no better chance of success, for our reserves had been kept in readiness to act at once, and the force in the trenches was greatly augmented. It had been our practice to send only 1,400 men into the trenches of the left attack, of which one-half was of the reserve; and, as the latter were allowed to go back to camp in the day, it frequently happened that only 700 men were left to guard the whole of our extensive works in Chapman's attack. But afterwards our force was increased, and the reserves were maintained in all their integrity, so as to be ready to give efficient support to the trench guard should the enemy make any serious demonstration against our lines.

I took the opportunity of referring to this matter to make the following remarks, which many officers at the time assured me conveyed their feelings on the subject: "And here I may be permitted to offer one word on behalf of such officers and men as have not had an opportunity of sharing the honours conferred on those who have been so fortunate as to be engaged in general actions during this war. I am certain that there is a very general feeling in the army that there should be some distinctive decoration for 'service in the trenches.' Men have been decorated for the battles of the Alma, Inkerman, and Balaklava, who were not in the least danger, or even more under fire than if they had remained in their club card-room; but no man goes into the trenches who is not exposed to a heavy fire and to continual danger. The Adjutant-General's returns will show that in a fortnight we lose nearly as many officers and men as are put hors de combat in a regular battle, although it will be observed that the proportion of officers to men killed and wounded is far smaller than it is on occasions of drawn battle. A man who has served thirty nights in the trenches will have undergone more fire than if he had been in the hottest fight of the campaign. Why not let him have a decoration, were it only a bit of iron with the words 'Trenches before Sebastopol' engraved upon it? The arduous nature of our trench service is best indicated by our returns, and by the fact that many young officers who come out from England are rendered unfit or unable to discharge their duties after a few weeks' experience. Although there are many complaints of the rawness of the recruits, they are as nothing compared to the outcry against the crudity of the lads who are despatched as 'officers' to the Crimea, and who perforce must be sent in responsible positions into the trenches. A reference to the daily General Orders will satisfy any one of the truthfulness of that outcry. The number of officers who sicken and are ordered home, or to Scutari, or to go on board ship, is increasing, and it is not found that the recently arrived regiments furnish the smallest portion of those worn out by ennui, and reduced from good health to a state of illness by a few days' service. The old officers, of course, grumble, and the grim veterans who have remained with their regiments since the beginning of the campaign are indignant at having as comrades puling boys, who, from no fault of their own, are utterly helpless and inefficient, and soon sicken, and leave the duties of the regiment to be performed by their overworked seniors. Why should not vacancies in regiments out here be filled up from regiments stationed elsewhere? Such a course was pursued in the Chinese war, in our Indian wars, and I believe in the long war, and it secured the services of experienced soldiers. There are many ensigns of four, five, and six years' standing in the latter regiments, while it would be difficult to find many lieutenants who have seen so much service in any regiment which has been here since the beginning of the war.

"With all our experience we still permit the existence of absurdities and anomalies. About 100 doctors are sick from overwork or of disgust, and yet we have civil hospitals on the Dardanelles, maintained at some expense, in which the medical men have so little to do that they come up to camp to 'tout' for patients and practice. The surgeons say that, as it is very evident Government will never give them any honour or reward, except mere service promotion and pay, they will look to the latter alone, and it may be easily imagined in what frame of mind they will serve in cases where they can escape the necessity of energetic exertion. With a kind of refined irony, two of the medical officers were 'invited to attend' at the investiture of the K.C.B.'s the other day, as none of them were eligible as C.B.'s. Two commissariat officers were kindly invited to represent their body. These complaints are the echoes of voices in the camp, loud enough to be heard, and as such I report them."

The Sardinians, acclimatized, flushed with triumph, and anxious for another opportunity to try their steel, formed a fine corps of about 8,000 effective bayonets, and the Turks could turn out about 13,000 strong. The French, notwithstanding their losses in the capture of the Mamelon, in the assault on the 18th of June, and, above all, in the trenches, where they had on an average 150 hors de combat on "quiet nights," and perhaps twice as many when the enemy were busy, could present 55,000 bayonets to the enemy.

From the French sap in front of the Mamelon one could at this period lay his hand on the abattis of the Malakoff! It was a hazardous experiment sometimes. Major Graham lost his arm in trying it en amateur, for he was hit as he was returning up the trench; indeed, it was a subject of remark that amateurs and officers who had then recently come into the trenches were more frequently hit than was consistent with the rules of proportion. Mr. Gambier, a midshipman of the CuraÇoa, went as an amateur into the advanced parallel of the left attack, and took a shot at a Russian rifleman; he was rewarded by a volley from several of the enemy, and in another instant was going up on a stretcher, with a ball through both his thighs. It was a very common thing to hear it said, "Poor Smith is killed; just imagine—his first night in the trenches." "Jones lost a leg last night; only joined us this week, and his second night on duty," &c. The Russians, of course, suffered in the same way, but I doubt if they had many amateurs. They had quite enough of legitimate fighting, and their losses were prodigious.

On the 3rd of September, at a quarter past 9 P.M., a heavy fire of musketry to the left of the Malakoff showed that the enemy were attacking. The night was dark, but clear, and for half an hour our lines were a blaze of quick, intermittent light. The musketry rattled incessantly. Chapman's and Gordon's Batteries opened with all their voices, and the Redan, Malakoff, Garden, and Barrack Batteries replied with roars of ordnance. When the musketry fire flickered and died out, commenced for a quarter of an hour a general whirling of shells, so that the light of the very stars was eclipsed, and their dominion usurped by the wandering flight of these iron orbs. Twenty or thirty of these curves of fire tearing the air asunder and uttering their shrill "tu whit! tu whit! tu whit!" as they described their angry flight in the sky, could be counted and heard at once. While it lasted, it was one of the hottest affairs we have yet experienced.

A party of the 97th, under Captain Hutton, was posted in the advanced trench of the left of the Right Attack. The Russians attacked our working party and drove it in. Lieutenant Brinkley and Lieutenant Preston, with 100 of the 97th, were ordered to proceed to the right of the new sap. On arriving at the trench they found it crowded with the 23rd, that it was impossible to keep the party of the 97th together. This crowded state of the trench is said to have arisen from the 23rd not having recommenced working, and remaining in the trench with the covering party of the 77th, when the firing ceased. At 12.30 Lieutenant-Colonel Legh, 97th, was ordered to take his men to Colonel Bunbury, 23rd, who was in advance of the new sap. He collected forty-five rank and file, and telling Lieutenant Preston to advance with the rest, proceeded to the head of the sap. Here Lieutenant Preston was hit, and one man killed. About fifteen yards in front of the sap were stationed Colonel Bunbury and a party of the 77th, under Captain Pechell. That party having been relieved by the 97th, Colonel Legh placed his men in cover, sending out two parties under Sergeants Coleman and O'Grady in advance. The Russians all of a sudden gave a loud cheer, and the 97th stood up, expecting a rush. When the Russians saw the effect of their ruse, they fired a volley, Lieutenant Preston, in front of Colonel Legh, was mortally wounded, and carried to the rear by Sergeant Coleman; Sergeant O'Grady fell dead just as he had demanded permission to take the enemy's rifle-pits. Lieutenants Ware and Whitehead were sent down to assist. Ware was wounded; but Lieutenant Whitehead succeeded in bringing in all the wounded, except Corporal Macks, who was lying close to the rifle-pit with two legs broken. Lieutenant Brinkley came up in support. The Russians retired from the pits before dawn, having put 3 officers and 24 men hors de combat. The Russians lost at least 600 men. The French loss was upwards of 300 men hors de combat.

CHAPTER V.

AT last, on the morning of the 5th of September, the Allied batteries opened fire for the sixth time, and the LAST BOMBARDMENT commenced. A gentle breeze from the south-east, which continued all day, drifted over the steppe, and blew gently into Sebastopol. The sun shone serenely through the vapours of early morning and wreaths of snowy clouds, on the long lines of white houses inside those rugged defences of earth and gabionnade which have so long kept our armies gazing in vain on this "august city." The ships floated on the waters of the roads, which were smooth as a mirror, and reflected the forms of these "monarchs of the main." Outside our own fleet and that of the French were reposing between Kasatch and Constantine as idly as though they were "painted ships upon a painted ocean."

From Cathcart's Hill, therefore, on the right front of the Fourth Division camp, one could gain an admirable view of certain points of the position from the sea on the left to our extreme right at Inkerman. That advantage was, however, rarely obtainable when there was any heavy firing, as the smoke generally hung in thick clouds between the earthworks, not to be easily dispelled, excepting by the aid of a brisk wind. If one of the few persons who were in the secret of the opening of the French batteries had been on Cathcart's Hill on the morning of the 5th he would have beheld then, just before half-past five o'clock, the whole of this scene marked out in keen detail in the clear morning air. The men in our trenches might have been seen sitting down behind the traverses, or strolling about in the rear of the parapets. Small trains of animals and files of men might have been continually observed passing over the ground between the trenches and the camp, and the only smoke that caught the eye rose from the kettles of the soldiery, or from the discharge of a rifle in the advanced works. On the left, however, the French trenches were crowded with men, and their batteries were all manned, though the occupants kept well out of sight of the enemy, and the mantlets and screens were down before the muzzles of some of their guns. The men beneath the parapets swarmed like bees. A few grey-coated Russians might have been noticed repairing the works of the Flagstaff Battery, or engaged in throwing up a new work, which promised to be of considerable strength, in front of the second line of their defences.

Suddenly, close to the Bastion du MÂt, along the earthen curtain between Nos. 7 and 8 Bastions, three jets of flame sprang up into the air and hurled up as many pillars of earth and dust, a hundred feet high, which were warmed into ruddy hues by the horizontal rays of the sun. The French had exploded three fougasses to blow in the counterscarp, and to serve as a signal to their men. In a moment, from the sea to the Dockyard Creek, a stream of fire three miles in length seemed to run like a train from battery to battery, and fleecy, curling, rich white smoke ascended, as though the earth had suddenly been rent in the throes of an earthquake, and was vomiting forth the material of her volcanoes. The lines of the French trenches were at once covered as though the very clouds of heaven had settled down upon them, and were whirled about in spiral jets, in festoons, in clustering bunches, in columns and in sheets, all commingled, involved together, and uniting as it were by the vehement flames beneath. The crash of such a tremendous fire must have been appalling, but the wind and the peculiar condition of the atmosphere did not permit the sound to produce any great effect in our camp; in the city, for the same reason, the noise must have been terrific and horrible. The iron storm tore over the Russian lines, tossing up, as if in sport, jets of earth and dust, rending asunder gabions, and "squelching" the parapets, or dashing in amongst the houses and ruins in their rear. The terrible files of this flying army, extending about four miles in front, rushed across the plain, carrying death and terror in their train, swept with heavy and irresistible wings the Russian flanks, and searched their centre to the core. A volley so startling, simultaneous, and tremendously powerful, was probably never before discharged since cannon were introduced.

The Russians seemed for a while utterly paralysed. Their batteries were not manned with strength enough to enable them to reply to such an overlapping and crushing fire; but the French, leaping to their guns with astounding energy, rapidity, and vigour, kept on filling the very air with the hurling storm, and sent it in unbroken fury against their enemies. More than 200 pieces of artillery of large calibre, admirably served and well directed, played incessantly upon the hostile lines. In a few moments a great veil of smoke—"a war-cloud rolling dun"—spread from the guns on the left of Sebastopol; but the roar of the shot did not cease, and the cannonade now pealed forth in great irregular bursts, now died away into hoarse murmurs, again swelled up into tumult, or rattled from one extremity to the other of the line like the file-fire of infantry. Stone walls at once went down before the discharge, but the earthworks yawned to receive shot and shell alike. However, so swift and incessant was the passage of these missiles through the embrasures and along the top of the parapets, that the enemy had to lie close, and scarcely dare show themselves in the front line of their defences. For a few minutes the French had it all their own way, and appeared to be on the point of sweeping away the place without resistance. This did not last long, as after, they had fired a few rounds from each of their numerous guns, the Russian artillerymen got to work, and began to return the fire. They made good practice, but fired slowly and with precision, as if they could not afford to throw away an ounce of powder. The French were stimulated rather than restrained by such a reply to their astonishing volleys, and sent their shot with greater rapidity along the line of the defences, and among the houses of the town. Our Naval Brigade and siege train maintained their usual destructive and solid "hammering" away at the faces of the Redan and of the Malakoff, and aided our Allies by shell practice on the batteries from the Creek to the Redan. Now two or three mortars from Gordon's, then two or three mortars from Chapman's, hurled 10 and 13-inch shell behind the enemy's works, and connected the discharges by rounds from long 32's or 68's.

The French had obtained a great superiority in the number of their guns. On the 5th their armament was as follows:—

FRENCH BATTERIES.
	Guns.
Left Attack.—Against Flagstaff-Bastion	129
Left Attack.—Central-Bastion	134
Left Attack.—Quarantine-Bastion	83
	346
Right Attack.—Against Malakoff, &c.	281
Total French	627

ENGLISH BATTERIES.
	Guns.
13-inch mortars	34
10-inch	27
8-inch	10
Cohorns	20
8-inch guns	37
10-inch "	7
32-pounders	61
68-pounders	6
Total English	202

It may be as well to add that Batteries Nos. 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 12, and 13 of the Right Attack bore on the Malakoff; Batteries Nos. 5 9, 10, 11, and 12 bore on front and flanks of Redan and other works. In our Left Attack, Batteries Nos. 1, 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, bore on Barrack and Redan; No. 4 on Bastion du MÂt and Garden; No. 3 on Redan; No. 5 on Creek; No. 6 on Garden; No. 8 on Barrack and Lower Garden; No. 10 on Creek, Barrack, Redan, and Malakoff; No. 13 on Garden and Barrack; and No. 14 on Creek and Parrack.

It will be observed that there was a great difference in the material of this armament from that with which we began our first attack on Sebastopol. On the 17th of October, 1854, we had but ten mortars, and they were 10-inch. We had also two Lancasters; no 24-pounders. On 17th of October nearly one-half of our guns were 24-pounders. Sixty-one 32-pounders as compared with seven on 17th October, thirty-seven 8-inch guns as compared with sixteen, seven 10-inch guns as compared with nine, six 68-pounders, and three 9-pounders for the heads of the saps. We threw 12,721 bombs into the town as compared with 2,743 in the first bombardment; and we fired 89,540 shot against the place as compared with 19,879 on the same date. In the left attack our batteries had been advanced 2,500 feet towards the front of the old line of fire, but it was impossible to make any further advance by sap for the purpose of assault, as the very steep ravine by which the Woronzoff Road sweeps into the town ran below the plateau on which the attack was placed, and separated it from the Redan. The old parallel of the attack, wherein our Batteries Nos. 3, 4, and 5 were placed at the ridiculous distance of 4,000 feet from the Redan, and our Batteries Nos. 9 and 12 at the same distance from the Flagstaff Bastion works, was now a mere base from which the advanced works had proceeded. The second parallel was 15,000 feet in front of it, and in that parallel were Batteries Nos. 10 and 14, still 2,500 feet from the parapet of the Redan. The third parallel was about 700 feet in front of the second; and as it was found that we could not hope to advance much beyond that position, owing to the nature of the ground, our batteries were placed more towards the proper left face of the Flagstaff Battery, and towards the Garden Battery in the rear of it. In this parallel, Batteries Nos. 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15 were opened. Our fourth parallel, which was unarmed, was about 600 feet in advance of the third, and was filled with infantry and riflemen, who kept up a constant fire on the place, more particularly at night. The ravine in which the Woronzoff Road is made ran between our Left and Right Attack, and separated them completely. The Right Attack, which was by far the most important, was originally commenced at the distance of 4,500 feet from the Redan, and of more than 5,000 feet from the Malakoff. It contained Batteries Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; at its right was the old Lancaster Battery detached on No. 11; and in an advanced parallel on the left flank of No. 12 was Battery No. 10. In the approach from the first to the twentieth parallel was Battery No. 7. The second parallel was more than 1,000 feet in front of the first parallel; and it contained Batteries Nos. 9, 14, 12, 6, and 15. The Battery No. 8 was in the third parallel, which was a few hundred feet in advance of the second. The fourth parallel, which communicated with the Quarries, was about 1,200 feet in advance of the third parallel. In the Quarries were the Batteries Nos. 16 and 17. The fifth parallel, from which the assault took place, was about 300 feet in front of the Quarries; and there was a feeble attempt at a sixth parallel a few yards in advance.

Our Quarry Battery, armed with two mortars and eight cohorns, just 400 yards below the Redan, plied the suburb in the rear of the Malakoff vigorously with bombs, and kept the top of the Redan clear with round shot and grape. Redan and Malakoff were alike silent, ragged, and torn. At most the Redan fired three guns, and the adjoining batteries were equally parsimonious. The parapets were all pitted with shot and shell, and the sides of the embrasures greatly injured, so that the gabions were sticking out, and dislodged in all directions. There was no more of that fine polishing and of that cabinet-maker's work which the Russians bestowed on their batteries; our constant fire by night, the efforts of our riflemen, and incessant shelling, having rather checked their assiduous anxiety as to external appearance.

After two hours and a half of furious firing, the artillerymen of our Allies suddenly ceased, in order to let their guns cool and to rest themselves. The Russians crept out to repair damages to their works, and shook sandbags full of earth from the banquette over the outside of their parapets. Their gunners also took advantage of the sudden cessation to open on our Sailors' Batteries in the Left Attack, and caused us some little annoyance from the "Crow's Nest." At ten o'clock, however, having previously exploded some fougasses, as before, the French reopened a fire if possible more rapid and tremendous than their first, and continued to keep it up with the utmost vigour till twelve o'clock at noon, by which time the Russians had only a few guns in the Flagstaff Road and Garden Batteries in a position to reply. We could see them in great agitation sending men and carts to and fro across the bridge, and at nine o'clock a powerful column of infantry crossed over to resist our assault, while a movement towards Inkerman was made by the army of the Belbek. Soon after our fire began, the working parties which go over to the north side every morning were recalled, and marched back again across the bridge to the south, no doubt to be in readiness for our expected assault. From twelve to five o'clock P.M. the firing was slack; the French then resumed their cannonade with the same vigour as at dawn and at ten o'clock, and never ceased their volleys of shot and shell against the place till half-past seven, when darkness set in, whereupon all the mortars and heavy guns, English as well as French, opened with shell against the whole line of defences.

A description of this scene is impossible. There was not one instant in which the shells did not whistle through the air; not a moment in which the sky was not seamed by their fiery curves or illuminated by their explosion. Every shell burst as it ought, and the lines of the Russian earthworks of the Redan, Malakoff, and of all their batteries, were rendered plainly visible by the constant light of the innumerable explosions. The Russians scarcely attempted a reply. At five o'clock it was observed that a frigate in the second line, near the north side, was smoking, and, as it grew darker, flames were seen to issue from her sides. Men and officers rushed to the front in the greatest delight and excitement, and, as night came on, the whole vessel was enveloped in one grand blaze from stem to stern. The delight of the crowd upon Cathcart's Hill was intense. "Well, this is indeed a sight! to see one of those confounded ships touched at last!" These, and many different and stronger expressions, were audible on all sides, but there were some wise people who thought the Russians had set the ship on fire, or that incendiaries and malcontents were at work, and one gentleman even went so far as to say that he "thought it was merely a signal maybe to recall their cavalry from Eupatoria!" It is not known precisely how the thing was done. Some said it was done by the French; others, by ourselves; and bombs, red-hot shot, and rockets were variously named as the means by which the vessel was set on fire. In spite of the efforts of the Russians, the flames spread, and soon issued from the ports and quarter-gallery. At eight o'clock the light was so great that the houses of the city and the forts on the other side could be distinguished without difficulty. The masts stood long, towering aloft like great pillars of fire; but one after the other they came down; the decks fell in about ten o'clock, and at midnight the frigate had burnt to the water's edge.

At night a steady fire was kept up with the view of preventing the Russians repairing damages. At 10 P.M. orders were sent to our batteries to open the following morning, as soon as there was a good light, but they were limited to fifty rounds each gun. At 5.30 A.M. the whole of the batteries from Quarantine to Inkerman began their fire with a grand crash. There were three breaks or lulls in the tempest; one from half-past eight till ten; another from twelve till five; and the third from half-past six till seven—during these intervals the fire was comparatively slack.

The agitation in the town was considerable throughout the day; and the enemy seemed to be greatly distressed. They were strengthening their position on the north side—throwing up batteries, dragging guns into position, and preparing to defend themselves should they be obliged to leave the city. They evinced a disposition to rely upon the north side, and were removing their stores by the large bridge of pontoons, and by the second and smaller bridge of boats to the Karabalnayia. Notwithstanding the large number of men in the town, the enemy showed in strength from Inkerman to Mackenzie; and General Pelissier and General Simpson received intelligence which led them to believe that the enemy meditated another attack on the line of the Tchernaya as the only means of averting the fall of the place.

The bombardment was renewed on Thursday night at sunset, and continued without intermission till an hour before daybreak on Friday. The trench guards were ordered to keep up a perpetual fusillade on the face of the Russian works, and about 150,000 rounds were expended each night after the opening of the bombardment. At daybreak on Friday, the cannonade was reopened, and continued as before—the Russians made no reply on the centre, but their Inkerman Batteries fired on the French Right Attack. A strong wind from the north blew clouds of dust from the town, and carried back the smoke of the batteries, so that it was very difficult to ascertain the effect of the fire; but now and then the veil opened, and at each interval the amount of destruction disclosed was more evident.

A bright flame broke out in the rear of the Redan in the afternoon, and another fire was visible in the town over the Woronzoff Road at a later period of the evening. At 11 P.M. a tremendous explosion took place in the town, but it could not be ascertained exactly where or how it occurred. At dusk, the cannonade ceased, and the bombardment recommenced—the thunder of the bombs bursting from the sea-shore to the Tchernaya sounded like the roll of giant musketry. The Russians replied feebly, threw bouquets into the French trenches, and showers of vertical grape into ours, and lighted up the works now and then with fire-balls and carcasses. Captain John Buckley, Scots Fusileer Guards, was killed in the evening as he was posting his sentries in the ravine between the Malakoff and the Redan in front of our advanced trench of the Right Attack. Major McGowan, 93rd Regiment, was taken prisoner, and Captain Drummond was killed soon afterwards at this spot. Captain Buckley was a young officer of zeal and promise. He was devoted to his profession, and although he was wounded so severely at the Alma that he could have had every excuse and right to go home, he refused to do so, and as soon as he came out of hospital, on board a man-of-war, in which he was present when the attack of the 17th October was made, he returned to his regiment and shared its privations during the winter of '54-5. In twenty-four hours, we lost 1 officer 11 rank and file killed, and 48 rank and file wounded.

In addition to the burning ship and the fires in the town, a bright light was observed at the head of the great shears of the Dockyard about four o'clock in the afternoon, and it continued to burn fiercely throughout the night. It was probably intended to light up the Dockyard below, or to serve as a signal, but it was for some time imagined that the shears had been set on fire by a shell.[22] The night was passed in a fever of expectation and anxiety amid the roar of the bombardment, which the wind blew in deafening bursts back on the Allied camp.

At midday, a council of generals was held at the British headquarters. After the council broke up, orders were sent to the surgeons to clear out the hospitals of patients, and prepare for the reception of wounded. The Guards received orders to occupy the right trenches at night, and were relieved by the Highlanders in the morning—the attack was confided to the Light and Second Divisions.

Our losses indeed were becoming so heavy, that even the slaughter of an assault, if attended with success, was preferable to daily decimation. From the 3rd to the 6th, we had 3 officers, 3 sergeants, and 40 rank and file killed; 3 officers, 9 sergeants, and 180 rank and file wounded. Captain Anderson, Acting Engineer, was killed on the 4th; and Captain Snow, R.A., was killed on the 6th. On the 3rd, Lieutenant Chatfield, 49th; on the 5th, Captain Verschoyle, Grenadier Guards, and Lieutenant Phillips, 56th Regiment, were slightly wounded.

CHAPTER VI.

THE contest on which the eyes of Europe had been turned so long—the event on which the hopes of so many mighty empires depended, was all but determined. On the 9th September, Sebastopol was in flames! The fleet, the object of so much diplomatic controversy and of so many bloody struggles, had disappeared in the deep! One more great act of carnage was added to the tremendous but glorious tragedy, of which the whole world, from the most civilized nations down to the most barbarous hordes of the East, was the anxious and excited audience. Amid shouts of victory and cries of despair—in frantic rejoicing and passionate sorrow—a pall of black smoke, streaked by the fiery flashings of exploding fortresses, descended upon the stage, on which had been depicted so many varied traits of human misery and of human greatness, such high endurance and calm courage, such littleness and weakness—across which had stalked characters which history may hereafter develope as largely as the struggle in which they were engaged, and swell to gigantic proportions, or which she may dwarf into pettiest dimensions, as unworthy of the parts they played. A dull, strange silence, broken at distant intervals by the crash of citadels and palaces as they were blown into dust, succeeded to the incessant dialogue of the cannon which had spoken so loudly and so angrily throughout an entire year. Tired armies, separated from each other by a sea of fires, rested on their arms, and gazed with varied emotions on all that remained of the object of their conflicts. On the 8th we felt that the great success of our valiant Allies was somewhat tarnished by our own failure, and were doubtful whether the Russians would abandon all hope of retaking the Malakoff. On the next day, ere noon, we were walking about the streets of Sebastopol, and gazing upon its ruins.

The weather changed suddenly on the 7th September, and on the morning of the 8th it became bitterly cold. A biting wind right from the north side of Sebastopol blew intolerable clouds of harsh dust into our faces. The sun was obscured; and the sky became of a leaden wintry grey. Early in the morning a strong force of cavalry, under the command of Colonel Hodge, received orders to move up to the front and form a chain of sentries in front of Cathcart's Hill, and all along our lines. No person was allowed to pass this boundary excepting staff officers or those provided with a pass. Another line of sentries in the rear of the camps was intended to stop stragglers and idlers from Balaklava, the object of these arrangements being in all probability to prevent the Russians gathering any intimation of our attack from the unusual accumulation of people on the look-out hills. If so, it would have been better to have kept the cavalry more in the rear, and not to have displayed to the enemy a line of Hussars, Lancers, and Dragoons, along our front. At 11.30 the Highland Brigade, under Brigadier Cameron, marched up from Kamara, and took up its position in reserve at the Right Attack; and the Guards, also in reserve, were posted on the same side of the Woronzoff Road. The first brigade of the Fourth Division served the trenches of the Left Attack the night before, and remained in them. The second brigade of the Fourth Division was in reserve. The Guards, who served the trenches of the Left Attack, and only marched that morning, were turned out again after arriving at their camp, and resumed their place with alacrity. The Third Division, massed on the hill-side before their camp, were also in reserve, in readiness to move down by the Left Attack in case their services were required. General Pelissier, during the night, collected 36,000 men in and about the Mamelon, to form the storming columns for the Malakoff and Little Redan, and to provide the necessary reserves.

The French were reinforced by 5,000 Sardinians, who marched up from the Tchernaya. It was arranged that the French should attack the Malakoff at noon, and, as soon as their attack succeeded, we were to assault the Redan. Strong columns of French were to make a diversion on the left, and menace the line of Bastion du MÂt, Centrale and Quarantine Bastions. The cavalry sentries were posted at 8.30 A.M. At 10.30 A.M. the Second and the Light Division moved down to the trenches, and were placed in the advanced parallels as quietly and unostentatiously as possible. About the same hour, General Simpson and Staff repaired to the second parallel of the Green Hill Battery, where the Engineer officers had placed them for the day. Sir Harry Jones, too ill to move hand or foot, nevertheless insisted on being carried down to witness the assault, and was borne to the trenches on a litter, in which he remained till all was over. The Commander-in-Chief, General Simpson, and Sir Richard Airey, the Quartermaster-General, were stationed close to him.[23] The Duke of Newcastle was stationed at Cathcart's Hill in the early part of the day, and afterwards moved off to the right to the Picket-house look-out over the Woronzoff Road.

At 10.45, General Pelissier and his Staff went up to the French Observatory on the right. The French trenches were crowded with men as close as they could be packed, and we could, through the breaks in the clouds of dust, which were most irritating, see our troops all ready in their trenches. The cannonade languished purposely towards noon; but the Russians, catching sight of the cavalry and troops in front, began to shell Cathcart's Hill and the heights, and the bombs and long ranges disturbed the equanimity of some of the spectators by bursting with loud "thuds" right over their heads, and sending "the gunners' pieces" sharply about them. After hours of suspense, the moment came at last.

At five minutes before twelve o'clock, the French issued forth from the trenches close to the Malakoff, crossed the seven mÈtres of ground which separated them from the enemy at a few bounds—scrambled up its face, and were through the embrasures in the twinkling of an eye. They drifted as lightly and quickly as autumn leaves before the wind, battalion after battalion, and in a minute after the head of their column issued from the ditch the tricolour was floating over the Korniloff Bastion. Our Allies took the Russians by surprise, very few of the latter were in the Malakoff; but they soon recovered themselves, from twelve o'clock till past seven in the evening the French had to meet repeated attempts to regain the work: then, weary of the fearful slaughter, despairing of success, the Muscovite General withdrew his exhausted legions, and prepared, with admirable skill, to evacuate the place. As soon as the tricolour was observed waving through the smoke and dust over the parapet of the Malakoff, four rockets were sent up from Chapman's attack one after another, as a signal for our assault upon the Redan. They were almost borne back by the violence of the wind, and the silvery jets of sparks they threw out on exploding were scarcely visible against the raw grey sky.

Now, it will be observed that, while we attacked the Redan with two divisions only, a portion of each being virtually in reserve and not engaged in the affair at all, the French made their assault on the Malakoff with four divisions of the second Corps d'ArmÉe, the first and fourth divisions forming the storming columns, and the third and fifth being the support, with reserves of 10,000 men. The French had, probably, not less than 30,000 men in the Right Attack on the 7th of September. The divisional orders for the Second Division were very much the same as those for the Light Division.

The covering party consisted of 100 men of the 3rd Buffs, under Captain Lewes, and 100 men of the Second Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, under the command of Captain Hammond. The scaling-ladder party consisted of 160 of the 3rd Buffs, under Captain Maude, 160 of the 97th Regiment, under Welsford. The force of the Second Division consisted of 260 of the 3rd Buffs, 300 of the 41st, 200 of the 62nd, and a working party of 100 men of the 41st. The rest of Windham's Brigade, consisting of the 47th and 49th, were in reserve with Warren's Brigade of the same division, of which the 30th and 55th were called into action and suffered severely. Brigadier Shirley was on board ship, but as soon as he heard of the assault he came up to camp. Colonel Unett, of the 19th Regiment, was the senior officer in Shirley's absence, and on him would have devolved the duty of leading the storming column of the Light Division. Colonel Unett tossed with Colonel Windham, and Colonel Unett won. He looked at the shilling, turned it over, and said, "My choice is made; I'll be the first man into the Redan." But he was badly wounded ere he reached the abattis, although he was not leading the column.

It was a few minutes after twelve when our men left the fifth parallel. In less than five minutes the troops, passing over about two hundred and thirty yards from the approach to the parapet of the Redan, had lost a large proportion of their officers. The Riflemen behaved, as usual, admirably; but could not do much to reduce the fire of the guns on the flanks and below the re-entering angles. As they came nearer, the fire became less fatal. They crossed the abattis without difficulty; it was torn to pieces and destroyed by our shot, and the men stepped over and through it with ease. The Light Division made straight for the salient and projecting angle of the Redan, and came to the ditch, at this place about fifteen feet deep. The men, led by their officers, leaped into the ditch, and scrambled up the other side, whence they scaled the parapet almost without opposition; for the few Russians who were in front ran back and got behind their traverses and breastworks, and opened fire upon them as soon as they saw our men on the top.

As the Light Division rushed out into the open, the guns of the Barrack Battery, and on the proper right of the Redan, loaded with grape, caused considerable loss ere they reached the salient.

Brigadier Shirley, blinded by dust knocked into his eyes by a shot, was obliged to retire; his place was taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Bunbury, of the 23rd Regiment, next in rank to Colonel Unett, already carried to the rear. Brigadier Von Straubenzee received a contusion on the face, and left the field. Colonel Handcock was mortally wounded. Captain Hammond fell dead. Major Welsford was killed as he entered the work through an embrasure.

Captain Grove was severely wounded. Only Colonel Windham, Captain Fyers, Captain Lewes, and Captain Maude got into the Redan scatheless from the volleys of grape and balls which swept the flanks of the work.

One officer told me the Russians visible in the Redan when we got into it did not exceed 150 men, that we could have carried the breastworks at the base with the greatest ease, if we had only made a rush for it. He expressed his belief that they had no field-pieces from one re-entering angle to the other. Another officer positively assured me that when he got on the top of the parapet he saw, about a hundred yards in advance, a breastwork with gaps, through which were the muzzles of field-pieces, and that in rear of it were compact masses of infantry, the front rank kneeling with fixed bayonets as if prepared to receive a charge of cavalry, while the rear ranks kept up a sharp and destructive fire. The only way to reconcile these discrepancies is to suppose that the first spoke of the earliest stage of the assault, and that the latter referred to a later period, when the Russians, having been reinforced by the fugitives from the Malakoff, and by the troops behind the barracks in the rear, may have opened embrasures in the breastwork. Lamentable as it no doubt is, and incredible almost to those who know how well the British soldier generally behaves in presence of the enemy, the men, when they reached the parapet, were seized by some strange infatuation, and began firing, instead of following their officers, who were now falling fast. Most men stand fire much better than the bayonet—they will keep up a fusillade a few paces off much sooner than they will close with an enemy. It is difficult enough sometimes to get cavalry to charge, if they can find any decent excuse to lay by their swords and take to pistol and carabine, with which they are content to pop away for ever; and when cover of any kind is near, a trench-bred infantry-man finds the charms of the cartridge quite irresistible.

The 77th Regiment furnished 160 men for the ladder party, and 200 for the storming party. The former, under the command of Major Welsford, were to proceed to the advanced parallel, and the latter, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Handcock, were to be in the fifth parallel. At 5 A.M. the regiment paraded and marched off. Eight men were told off to each ladder, and they had orders to leave the trench when the appointed signal was made from the Malakoff. They were to be preceded by 100 of the Rifle Brigade, and by some Sappers and Miners to cut down the abattis, and they were to be followed by 160 of the 3rd Buffs, with twenty ladders also. The storming party was to follow the ladder party. A few minutes after twelve, Major Welsford, seeing the signal flying from the Malakoff, gave the word—"Ladders to the front!" The men instantly ran out of the parallel towards the salient of the Redan, and at the same time, Colonel Handcock, with his 200 stormers of the 97th, and 100 of the 90th, left the parallel. The ladders were managed with difficulty, but on entering the place there was little or no resistance. However, the Russians were soon roused out of their casemates, and flocked to the traverses, from which they kept up a heavy fire on the men getting over the parapet or through the embrasures. By a rapidly increasing flanking and direct fire, converging on the salient, the Russians diminished our force; and as we were weakened they were strengthened by parties from both re-entering angles. The leader of the ladder party was killed by a gun fired as he entered the embrasure; Captain Sibthorpe was hit in two places; Lieutenant Fitzgerald and Ensign Hill were wounded; Lieutenant-Colonel Handcock was mortally wounded; M'Gregor fell inside the Redan; Captain Lumley was badly wounded; Lieutenant Goodenough died of his wounds; Captain Woods and Lieutenant Browne were also hit,—so that the 97th Regiment had five officers killed and six wounded, out of a complement of thirteen engaged; and 201 non-commissioned officers and men out of 360. Those officers of the regiment who saw Colonel Windham in the Redan say they were in ten minutes before they observed him. The 3rd Buffs and 41st came in through the embrasures immediately after the 97th and 90th, then the enemy made their rush, and drove the English into the angle, and finally over the parapet to the exterior slope, where men of different regiments of the Light and Second Divisions were packed together firing into the Redan. One hour and a half had elapsed. The Russians had cleared the Redan, but were not in possession of the parapets, when they made a second charge with bayonets under a heavy fire of musketry from the rear, and throwing quantities of stones, grape and round-shot, drove those in front back on the men in the rear, who were precipitated into the ditch. The gabions in the parapets gave way, and rolled down with those upon them; the men in the rear retired precipitately into the fifth parallel. A party of the 30th advanced from this parallel just as Colonel Windham was asking for reinforcements, and ran up to the salient of the Redan, where they suffered severe loss.[24] Captain Rowlands, 41st, made a gallant attempt with a few men, but they were nearly all killed or wounded, and he was obliged to retire. Colonel Legh, Lieutenant Whitehead, Captain Sibthorpe, Lieutenants Browne and Fitzgerald, remained, till only three privates were left in the angle.

The storming columns of the Second Division issuing out of the fifth parallel rushed up immediately after the Light Division; but when they came close to the apex, Colonel Windham brought them to the right flank of the Light Division, so as to come on the slope of the proper left face of the Redan. The first embrasure to which they came was in flames, but, moving on to the next, the men leaped into the ditch, and, with the aid of ladders and of each other's hands, scrambled up on the other side, climbed the parapet, or poured in through the embrasure, which was undefended. Colonel Windham was the first or one of the first men to enter, and with him, Pat Mahony, a great grenadier of the 41st, Kennelly and Cornellis, privates of the same regiment. As Mahony entered with a cheer, he was shot through the head by a Russian rifleman, and fell dead; at the same moment Kennelly and Cornellis were wounded. (The latter claimed the reward of 5l. offered by Colonel Herbert to the first man of his division who entered the Redan.) Running parallel to the faces of the Redan there was an inner parapet, intended to shield the gunners at the embrasures from the splinters of shell. Cuts in the rear enabled the men to retire, and strong and high traverses ran along the sides.

At the base of the Redan, before the re-entering angles, was a breastwork, or, rather, a parapet with an irregular curve, which ran in front of the body of the place to the height of a man's neck. As our men entered through the embrasures, the few Russians who were between the salient and this breastwork retreated behind the latter, or got behind the traverses for protection. From these they poured in a quick fire on the parapet of the salient, which was crowded by the men of the Second and Light Divisions; and they began to return the fire without advancing or charging. There were riflemen behind the lower traverses near the base of the Redan, who kept up a galling fire. The Russians were encouraged to maintain their ground by the immobility of our soldiers and the weakness of a fusillade from the effects of which the enemy were well protected. In vain the officers, by voice and example, urged our soldiers to clear the work. The men, most of whom belonged to regiments which had suffered in the trenches, and were acquainted with the traditions of June 18th, had an impression that the Redan was extensively mined, and that if they advanced they would all be blown up. The officers fell, singled out as a mark for the enemy by their courage. The men of the different regiments got mingled together in inextricable confusion. All the Brigadiers, save Colonel Windham, were wounded, or rendered unfit for the guidance of the attack.

This was going on at the proper left face of the Redan, while nearly the same scene was being repeated at the salient. Every moment our men were diminishing in numbers, while the Russians were arriving from the town, and from the Malakoff, which had been occupied by the French. Thrice did Colonel Windham despatch officers to Sir W. Codrington, who was in the fifth parallel, to entreat him to send up supports in formation; all these three officers were wounded as they passed from the ditch of the Redan to the rear. Supports were, indeed, sent up, but they advanced in disorder, and in driblets, only to increase the confusion and the carnage. The narrow neck of the salient was too close to allow of any formation; and the more the men crowded into it, the worse was the disorder, and the more they suffered from the enemy's fire. This miserable work lasted for an hour. Colonel Windham resolved to go to General Codrington himself. Seeing Captain Crealock, of the 90th, he said,[25] "I must go to the General for supports. Now, mind, let it be known, in case I am killed, why I went away." He succeeded in gaining the fifth parallel, through a storm of grape and bullets, and standing on the top of the parapet he again asked for support. Sir W. Codrington asked him if he thought he really could do anything with such supports as he could afford, and said, if he thought so, "he might take the Royals," who were then in the parallel. "Let the officers come out in front—let us advance in order, and if the men keep their formation the Redan is ours," was the Colonel's reply. But at that moment our men were seen leaping into the ditch, or running down the parapet of the salient, and through the embrasures out of the work into the ditch, the Russians following them with the bayonet, musketry, and throwing stones and grape-shot at them as they lay in the ditch.

But the solid weight of the advancing mass, urged on and fed each moment from the rear by company after company, and battalion after battalion, prevailed at last against the isolated and disjointed band, which had abandoned that protection which unanimity of courage affords, and had lost the advantages of discipline and obedience. As though some giant rock advanced into the sea, and forced back the agitated waters that buffeted it, so did the Russian columns press down against the spray of soldiery which fretted their edge with fire and steel, and contended in vain against their weight. The struggling band was forced back by the enemy, who moved on, crushing friend and foe beneath their solid tramp. Bleeding, panting, and exhausted, our men lay in heaps in the ditch beneath the parapet, sheltered themselves behind stones and in bomb craters in the external slope of the work, or tried to pass back to our advanced parallel and sap, having to run the gauntlet of a tremendous fire.

The scene in the ditch was appalling, although some of the officers assured me that they and the men were laughing at the precipitation with which many fellows plunged headlong upon the mass of bayonets, muskets, and sprawling soldiers, the ladders were all knocked down or broken, so that it was difficult for the men to scale the other side, and the dead, the dying, the wounded, and the uninjured, were all lying in piles together.

General Pelissier observed the failure of our attack from the rear of the Malakoff, and sent over to General Simpson to ask if he intended to renew it. The English Commander-in-Chief did not feel in a condition to do so. The Guards and Highlanders, the Third and Fourth Divisions, and most of the reserves, had not been engaged. As soon as we abandoned the assault, the firing slackened along our front; but in the rear of the Malakoff there was a fierce contest going on between masses of Russians, released from the Redan, or drawn from the town, and the French inside the work; and the fight for the Little Redan, on the proper left of the Malakoff, was raging furiously. Clouds of smoke and dust obstructed the view, but the rattle of musketry was incessant, and betokened the severe nature of the struggle below. Through the breaks in the smoke there could be seen now and then a tricolour, surmounted by an eagle, fluttering bravely over the inner parapet of the Malakoff. The storm of battle rolled fiercely round it, and beat against it; but it was sustained by strong arms and stout hearts, and all the assaults of the enemy were vain against it. It would be untrue to say that the result of our assault was not the source of deep grief and mortification to us, which all the glorious successes of our Allies could not wholly alleviate. Even those who thought any attack on the Redan useless and unwise, inasmuch as the possession of the Malakoff would, in their opinion, render the Redan untenable, could not but regret bitterly that, having undertaken the assault, we had not achieved a decisive triumph, and that so much blood had been, if not ingloriously, at least fruitlessly, poured forth.

The French, indeed, were generous enough to say that our troops behaved with great bravery, and that they wondered how we kept the Redan so long under such a tremendous fire; but British soldiers are rather accustomed to the nil admirari under such circumstances, and praise like that gives pain as well as pleasure. Many soldiers, entertaining the opinion to which I have alluded, think that we should at once have renewed the attempt. It is but small consolation to them to know that General Simpson intended to attack the Redan the following morning, inasmuch as the Russians by their retreat deprived us of the chance of retrieving our reputation, and at the same time acknowledged the completeness of the success achieved by our Allies, and the tremendous superiority of the fire directed against them.

The Second Brigade, Light Division, stormed at noon. The 97th and 90th, 300 of each, commanded, the former by Major Welsford (whose head was blown off as he was mounting an embrasure—the gun was fired by a Russian officer, who immediately gave himself up as a prisoner to a sergeant of the 97th, that entered the moment after, throwing down his sword and saying, "I am a prisoner of war"), the latter by Captain Grove, the senior officer of the regiment present with the service companies. The salient was carried at once, and the men entered the stronghold, which is a work traced on a most obtuse angle, requiring a large mass of men to assault it, not only at the salient, but at the same moment on both flanks, so as to turn them, and to enable the salient storming party to advance down the interior space of the works at once, taking the defenders in front and flank, and indeed in rear, at the same moment. In consequence of attacking the salient only, no front could be formed, on account of the small interior space at that point; the men were forced to advance by driblets, and at the same moment fired on from traverses on either flank, where they could not see their assailants, an evil at once obviated had the attack on the flanks and salient been simultaneous. The handful of men who assaulted and took the salient most gallantly held it against far superior numbers for a considerable time, until their ammunition being nearly expended, and receiving no flank support, which could alone assist them to any purpose, and being rushed on from these flanks by a vastly superior force, they retreated to the extreme side of the parapet, where they remained, and, being reinforced by some fresh men, kept up a heavy and continuous fire on the Russians in the interior of the work. They held their ground on this fast sinking parapet of loose earth, stones and broken gabions, under a most galling fire from both flanks and in front, and continuous showers of vertical grape, from inside the work, for an hour and a half at least, when a sudden rush, made by the enemy, who had crept up the faces by the traverses, obliged the troops to give way, and step by step, pelting each other with huge stones, they retired, slipping and tumbling into the ditch, where many poor fellows were buried alive, from the scarps giving way. Then came the fearful run for life or death, with men rolling over like rabbits, then tumbling into the English trench, where the men lay four deep on each other. The men once in manned the parapet, and kept up a heavy and continuous fire on the enemy on the parapets of the Redan.

The rest you know. The Rifles behaved nobly, and where they had tried to creep up the ditch to pick off the Russians on the flanks, they lay four and five deep, all together. Colonel Lysons, of the 23rd, as usual, was all energy, and, though severely wounded through the thigh and unable to stand, remained on the ground cheering on the men. Colonel Handcock, of the 97th, was shot through the head on the crest of the Redan, and died soon after arriving in camp. Captain Preston, and Lieutenants Swift and Wilmer, of the 90th, were all killed inside, where their bodies were found the next morning. Captain Vaughan, of the 90th, was shot in both legs, and taken prisoner when we left the place, it being impossible to get him over the ditch. He was found in a Russian hospital and brought to camp to die. Lieutenant and Adjutant Dyneley, of the 23rd Fusileers, was mortally wounded. Individual deeds of daring were too frequent to particularize. The first dead Russian on the extreme salient was a Russian officer shot through the mouth—a singularly handsome man, with hands and feet white and delicate as a woman's.

The 41st, which followed the Light Division storming party, whose position in advance was determined, as I have already stated by Colonel Windham and Colonel Unett "tossing up for choice," got into the Redan nearly as soon as the 90th and 97th, who formed the leading column of attack on the salient, and the parties of each division were soon inextricably mixed. I do not know the names of the first soldiers of the 90th and 97th who got in, but several soldiers of these regiments lay dead and wounded in advance near the Russian breastwork on the morning of the 9th. The men of the 41st who rushed into the Redan with Colonel Windham, were, Hartnardy, Kennelly, Cornellis, and Pat Mahony; the last, a fine tall grenadier, fell dead in the embrasure by Colonel Windham's side, shot through the heart as he was shouting, "Come on, boys—come on!" His blood spouted over those near him, but the men rushed on till they became confused among the traverses, and then the scene took place which I have tried to describe. The salient, however favourable to the assailants in one sense, was extremely disadvantageous to them in another, inasmuch as it prevented them getting into any kind of formation. It was, of course, the apex of the triangle, and was very narrow, while the enemy firing from the base poured a concentrated fire upon the point, and felled every man who showed boldly from behind the traverses, and the parapet upon which our soldiers were crowded. At the first rush, had Colonel Windham been able to get a handful of men together to charge at the breastwork, the few Russians there must have been routed, and by the time their reinforcements came up our men would have been able to reverse the face of the breastwork, and to close the Redan to their assailants. But seconds of time generate great events in war. Our delay gave the enemy time both to recover from their panic when they were driven from the salient, and to send up strong bodies of men from their bomb-proofs and the cover at the back of the Redan; and by degrees this accumulating mass, advancing from the angles of the breastwork, moved up along the traverses parallel with the parapets of the Redan, and drove our men into the salient, where, by feeble driblets and incapable of formation, they were shot down in spite of the devotion and courage of their leader and the example of their officers. The salient was held by our men for one hour and fifty-six minutes!

While General Codrington, who seemed (in the opinion of those around him) to have lost for the time the coolness which characterized him, was hesitating about sending up more men, or was unable to send them up in any formation so as to form a nucleus of resistance and attack, the Redan was lost,[26] and our men, pressed by the bayonet, by heavy fusillades, and by some field guns which the enemy had now brought up, were forced over the parapet into the ditch. Colonel Eman, one of the very best officers in the army,—a man of singular calmness and bravery, who was beloved by his regiment, his officers and men, and whose loss was lamented by all who knew him,—was shot through the lungs as he was getting his men into order. His sword arm was uplifted over his head at the time, and it was thought his lungs were uninjured. The surgeon, when he was carried back, told him so, but he knew too well such hopes were vain. "I feel I am bleeding internally," he said, with a sad smile. He died that night. Two Captains of the same regiment fell beside him—Corry and Lockhart. Captain Rowlands, who very much distinguished himself, had the most extraordinary escapes, and was only slightly wounded, though hit in two places. This detachment lost 184 officers and men. The 49th, who were in reserve, lost 1 officer killed, 2 wounded, 2 privates killed, and 23 wounded. For the last thirty minutes of this contest the English, having exhausted their ammunition, threw stones at their opponents, but the Russians retaliated with terrible effect by 'hand-grape' and small cannon-shot, which they hurled at our men. Captain Rowlands was knocked down and stunned by one of these missiles, which hit him right on the eye. As soon as he recovered and got up, he was struck by another grape-shot in the very same place, and knocked down again.

The 30th Regiment was formed in the fourth parallel, left in front, on the right of the 55th; and when the storming party moved out of the fifth parallel the supports occupied it, and were immediately ordered to advance on the salient angle of the Redan, by three companies at a time, from the left. The distance from the place in which they were posted up to the salient considerably exceeded 200 yards; and as the men had to cut across as quickly as they could in order to escape the raking fire of grape, and to support the regiments in front, they were breathless when they arrived at the ditch. When they arrived, all blown by this double, they found only two scaling-ladders at the scarp, and two more at the other side, to climb up to the parapet. They got over, however, and ascended the face of the Redan. By the time the supports got up, the Russians were pushing up their reserves in great force, and had already got some field-pieces up to the breastwork; and the regiment falling into the train of all around them, instead of advancing, began to fire from the parapet and upper traverses till all their ammunition was exhausted, when they commenced pelting the Russians with stones. In this condition no attempts were made to remove the reserves whatever, while the Russians accumulated mass after mass upon them from the open ground in rear of the Redan, and deployed their columns on the breastwork, whence they delivered a severe fire upon us. The whole garrison of the Malakoff and their supports also came down on the left flank of the Redan and added to our assailants; and indeed there was reason to fight, for the possession of the Redan would have destroyed the enemy's chance of escape. In this gallant regiment there were 16 officers, 23 sergeants, &c., and 384 privates. On marching down to the trenches, 1 officer was killed and 10 were wounded, 6 sergeants were wounded, 41 privates were killed and 101 privates were wounded, and 2 officers and 6 privates died of their wounds.

The 55th Regiment was the support along with the 30th, and was stationed in the fourth parallel till the assaulting columns had cleared out of the fifth parallel, which it then occupied, and left soon afterwards to mingle in the mÉlÉe at the salient of the Redan. Poor Lieut.-Colonel Cuddy, who assumed the command when Lieut.-Colonel Cure was wounded in the right arm, was killed as he led his men up the open to the face of the Redan; and of the remaining ten officers who went out with the regiment, Captain Morgan, Captain Hume, Lieutenant J. R. Hume, and Lieutenant Johnson were wounded. The regiment went out less than 400 strong, and suffered a loss of 140 officers and men killed and wounded.

The 62nd Regiment went into action 245 of all ranks. They were formed into two companies, with four officers to each, and the Colonel, Major, Adjutant, and Acting. Assistant-Surgeon O'Callaghan, and formed part of the storming party. Colonel Tyler was hit in the hand crossing the open space in front of the Redan, and retired. Lieutenant Blakeston was shot in getting through an embrasure of the Redan. Lieutenant Davenport was shot through the nose. On the parapet 2 officers were killed or died of their wounds, and 4 officers were wounded out of a total of 11; 3 sergeants were killed and 4 wounded out of 16; 1 drummer was killed out of 8, and 14 rank and file were killed, and 75 were wounded, out of 210. Such was this heavy day. To show how it fell on our Allies, I give the following fact:—The 15th Regiment, Colonel Garrain, went into action 900 strong against the Little Redan, and came out 310. The 2 Chefs-de-Bataillon were killed, 11 officers were killed, and 19 officers were wounded. It was observed that an immense number of the Russian dead in the front were officers.

Our attack lasted about an hour and three-quarters, and in that time we lost more men than at Inkerman, where the fighting lasted for seven hours. At 1.48 P.M., which was about the time we retired, there was an explosion either of a tumbrel or of a fougasse between the Mamelon and the Malakoff, to the right, which seemed to blow up several Frenchmen, and soon afterwards the artillery of the Imperial Guard swept across from the rear towards the Little Redan, and gave us indication that our Allies had gained a position from which they could operate against the enemy with their field-pieces. From the opening of the attack the French batteries over Careening Bay had not ceased to thunder against the Russian fleet, which lay silently at anchor below; and a lively cannonade was kept up between them and the Inkerman batteries till the evening, which was interrupted every now and then by the intervention of the English redoubt, and the late Selinghinsk and Volhynia redoubts, which engaged the Russian batteries at the extremity of the harbour. At one o'clock wounded men began to crawl up from the batteries to the camp; they could tell us little or nothing. "Are we in the Redan?" "Oh, yes; but a lot of us is killed, and the Russians are mighty strong." Some were cheerful, others desponding; all seemed proud of their wounds. Half an hour more, and the number of wounded increased; they came up by twos and threes, and—what I had observed before as a bad sign—the number of stragglers accompanying them, under the pretence of rendering assistance, became greater also. Then the ambulances and the cacolets (or mule litters) came in sight along the Woronzoff Road filled with wounded. Every ten minutes added to their numbers, and we could see that every effort was made to hurry them down to the front as soon as they were ready for a fresh load. The litter-bearers now added to the length of the melancholy train. We heard that the temporary hospitals in front were full, and that the surgeons were beginning to get anxious about the extent of their accommodation for the wounded.

Another bad sign was, that the enemy never ceased throwing up shell to the front, many of which burst high in the air, over our heads, while the pieces flew with a most unpleasant whir around us. These shells were intended for our reserves; and, although the fusees did not burn long enough for such a range, and they all burst at a considerable elevation, they caused some little injury and annoyance to the troops in the rear, and hit some of our men. The rapidly increasing swarms of wounded men, some of whom had left their arms behind them, at last gave rise to suspicions of the truth; but their answers to many eager questioners were not very decisive or intelligible, and some of them did not even know what they had been attacking. One poor young fellow, who was stumping stiffly up with a broken arm and a ball through his shoulder, carried off his firelock with him, but he made a naÏve confession that he had "never fired it off, for he could not." The piece turned out to be in excellent order. It struck one that such men as these, however brave, were scarcely a fit match for the well-drilled soldiers of Russia; and yet we were trusting the honour, reputation, and glory of Great Britain to undisciplined lads from the plough, or the lanes of our towns and villages! As one example of the sort of recruits we received, I may mention that there was a considerable number of men in draughts, which came out to regiments in the Fourth Division, who had only been enlisted a few days, and who had never fired a rifle in their lives!

As I wrote at the time—"It must not be imagined that such rawness can be corrected and turned into military efficiency out here; for the fact is, that this siege has been about the worst possible school for developing the courage and manly self-reliance of a soldier; neither does it teach him the value of discipline and of united action. When he goes into the trenches he learns to dodge behind gabions, and to take pot shots from behind stones and parapets, and at the same time he has no opportunity of testing the value of his comrades, or of proving himself against the enemy in the open field. The natural result follows. Nor can it be considered as aught but ominous of evil that there have been two Courts of Inquiry recently held concerning two most distinguished regiments—one, indeed, belonging to the highest rank of our infantry; and the other a well-tried and gallant regiment, which was engaged in this very attack—in consequence of the alleged misconduct of their young soldiers during night affairs in the trenches."

The difficulty of obtaining accurate information of the progress of an action cannot be better exemplified than by this fact, that at three o'clock one of our Generals of Division did not know whether we had taken the Redan or not. Towards dusk, the Guards, who had been placed in reserve behind our Right Attack, were marched off to their camp, and a portion of the Highlanders were likewise taken off the ground. The Guards had only arrived from the trenches the very same morning; but, to their great credit be it said, they turned out again without a murmur after a rest of a couple of hours for breakfast, although they had been "on" for forty-eight hours previously. The Third Division and a portion of the Highlanders were sent down to do the trench duties in the evening and night.

From the following statement of the loss sustained by the Light Division, it will be seen that this gallant body, which behaved so well at the Alma, and maintained its reputation at Inkerman, suffered as severely as it did in gaining the former great victory; and an examination of the return will, we fear, show that the winter, the trenches, and careless recruiting did their work, and that the officers furnished a noble example of devotion and gallantry. In the Light Division there were 73 officers and 964 men wounded—total, 1,037.

The loss of this division was 1,001 in killed and wounded at the Alma.

The number of officers killed was 15; of men killed, 94—total, 109. The regiments of the division which furnished storming columns were the 90th (or Perthshire Volunteers) and the 97th (or Earl of Ulster's). In the 90th, Captain Preston and Lieutenants Swift and Wilmer were killed; only 3 men were killed. Lieutenant Swift penetrated the furthest of all those who entered the Redan, and his dead body was discovered far in advance, near the re-entering angle. Captains Grove, Tinling, and Wade, Lieutenants Rattray, Pigott, Deverill, and Sir C. Pigott, and 90 men severely; Captains Perrin and Vaughan, Lieutenants Rous, Graham, and Haydock and 35 men slightly wounded. Total killed, 3 officers, 3 men; wounded, 12 officers, 126 men. In the 97th, Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. H. R. Handcock, Major Welsford, Captain Hutton, and Lieutenant Douglas M'Gregor, and 1 man were killed. Captain Lumley and 10 men dangerously; Captain Sibthorpe, Lieutenant Goodenough, and 38 men severely; Captain Woods, Lieutenants Hill, Fitzgerald, Brown, and 40 men slightly wounded. Total killed, 4 officers, 1 man; wounded, 7 officers, 88 men. The colonel, having been shot through the head, was carried to his tent, but, the ball having lodged in the brain, he was never sensible, and expired that night. Lieutenant M'Gregor, the son of the Inspector-General of Irish Constabulary, was adjutant of the regiment, and as remarkable for his unostentatious piety and Christian virtues as for his bravery and conduct in the field. The rest of the division was engaged in supporting the storming columns.

In the 7th Royal Fusileers, Lieutenants Wright and Colt, and 11 men were killed; Major Turner, Lieutenant-Colonels Heyland and Hibbert, Captain Hickey, and Captain Jones (Alma), were wounded; 67 men were wounded. In the 23rd (Royal Welsh Fusileers), Lieutenants Somerville and Dyneley were killed; Lieutenant-Colonel Lysons was slightly wounded, and the following officers more or less injured by shot, shell, or bayonet:—Captains Vane, Poole, Millett, Holding, Beck, Hall-Dare, Williamson, Tupper, O'Connor, Radcliffe, Perrott, and Beck. Total killed, 2 officers, 1 man; wounded, 13 officers, 130 men. In the 33rd, Lieutenant Donovan, a most promising and dashing officer, lost his life while looking over the parapet at the fight. He went with the regiment as an amateur, in company with his brother, all through Bulgaria, and into action with them at the Alma as a volunteer, where he so much distinguished himself that the colonel recommended him for a commission, which he received without purchase. Lieutenant-Colonel Gough, who was shot through the body at the Alma, was severely wounded; Captain Ellis and Lieutenants Willis and Trent were slightly, and the Adjutant Toseland severely, wounded; 45 men wounded. Total killed, 1 officer; wounded, 5 officers, 45 men. In the 34th, which was in the parallel behind the columns, 3 men were killed. Lieutenants Harris and Laurie were severely wounded, and 62 men were wounded. In the 19th, nearly every officer was touched more or less, 128 men were wounded, and 25 killed. The officers wounded were—Colonel Unett, severely (since dead); Major Warden, slightly; Captain Chippindall, ditto; Lieutenants Godfrey, Goren, and Massey, dangerously; Molesworth severely; Bayley, slightly; Ensign Martin, slightly; and Ensign Young, dangerously. Total killed, 25 men; wounded, 10 officers, 128 men. In the 77th, 42 men were wounded; killed not known; Captain Parker mortally wounded. Wounded, Captain Butts, slightly; Lieutenants Knowles, Leggett, and Watson, ditto. One officer killed; 4 officers, 42 men wounded. In the 88th Regiment, 105 men were wounded. Captain Grogan was killed; Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, C.B., was wounded twice in the thigh and once in the arm severely. Captains Mauleverer and Beresford, Lieutenants Lambert, Hopton, Scott, and Ensign Walker were wounded severely. Total, 1 officer killed; wounded, 9 officers, 105 men. In the Rifle Brigade, Captain Hammond, who was only three days out from England, and Lieutenant Ryder and 13 men were killed; and Lieutenant Pellew slightly, Lieutenant Eyre severely, Major Woodford slightly, Captain Eccles and Lieutenant Riley severely wounded. Total, 2 officers, 13 men killed; wounded, 8 officers, 125 men. The loss of officers in Windham's Brigade, and in the portion of Warren's Brigade which moved to his support was equally severe.

The Second Division had on the General Staff 1 officer, Lieutenant Swire, Aide-de-camp, dangerously; 2 officers, Major Rooke and Lieutenant Morgan, Aide-de-camp, severely; 1 officer, Brigadier Warren, slight scratch in head; and 1 officer, Colonel Percy Herbert, a still slighter scratch. Total, 5 officers wounded. In 1st Royals, 2nd Battalion, 1 man was killed; 2 officers, Major Plunkett and Lieutenant Williams, and 3 men, severely; Captain Gillman, and 2 men, dangerously; Lieutenant Keate, and 13 men slightly, wounded. Total killed, 1; wounded, 4 officers, 18 men.

3rd Buffs, 39 men killed, 76 wounded, 7 officers. Brigadier Straubenzee, a scratch over the eye; Captain Wood Dunbar, Lieutenant Cox, Ensigns Letts and Peachey, wounded. In 41st Foot, 2 officers, Captains Lockhart and Every, 2 men, killed; Colonel Eman, C.B., dangerously (since dead); Lieutenant Kingscote, severely; Major Pratt, Captain Rowlands, Lieutenants Maude and Hamilton, slightly wounded. Total killed, 2 officers, 2 men; wounded, 6 officers, 111 men. In 47th Regiment, 3 men killed, 27 men wounded. In 49th Regiment, Captain Rochfort and 2 men killed; Major King, Ensign Mitchell, and 26 men, wounded. In 55th Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Cuddy, killed; Major Cure, Captain R. Hume, Captain J. Hume, Captain Richards, Lieutenant Johnson, and 105 men, wounded. In 62nd Regiment, Captains Cox and Blakeston, killed; Lieutenant-Colonel Tyler, Major Daubeney, Captain Hunter, Lieutenants Dirin and Davenport, and 67 men, wounded. In 95th Foot, Captain Sergeant and Lieutenant Packinton, slightly contused, and 3 men slightly wounded.

In the First Division, 2nd Brigade, the 31st Foot lost an excellent officer, Captain Attree, before the assault took place; he was mortally wounded in the trenches. They had two men slightly wounded. In the Scots Fusileer Guards, and 56th Foot, there were only two men slightly wounded—one in each regiment; out of 256 men admitted into the General Hospital, Third Division, camp, 17 died almost immediately. In the Highland Division, the 42nd Foot had 12 men wounded; the 72nd Foot had 1 officer, Quartermaster Maidmont, mortally wounded; 1 man killed, and 17 men wounded; the 79th had 11 men wounded; and the 93rd had 5 men wounded. In the Fourth Division, the 17th Regiment had Lieutenant Thompson and Lieutenant Parker, and 19 men wounded; the 20th Regiment had 6 men wounded; the 21st, 8 men wounded; the 46th Regiment, 1 man wounded; the 48th, 6 men wounded; the 57th, 4 men wounded; the 63rd Regiment, Colonel Lindsay (severely), and 4 men wounded, and 1 killed; the 68th, 1 man wounded; The Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion, 2 men killed, and 9 men wounded. In the Right Attack of the Royal Artillery Siege Train, Commissary Hayter and 5 men were killed; Captain Fitzroy, Lieutenants Champion and Tyler, and 34 men were wounded. In the Left Attack, Captain Sedley, Major Chapman, Lieutenant Elphinstone, R.E. and 7 Sappers and Miners, were wounded. The regiments in the trenches lost as follows:—Rifle Brigade, 2 wounded; 3rd Foot, 2 ditto; 17th, 1 ditto; 23rd Fusileers, 13 ditto; 41st, 3 ditto; 55th, 1 ditto; 62nd, 2 killed, 3 wounded; 77th, 1 killed, 1 wounded; 88th, 1 wounded; 90th, 1 killed, 11 wounded; 93rd, 1 wounded; 97th, 2 wounded; 19th, 1 killed, 1 wounded. The total given by Sir John Hall was—24 officers, and 129 men killed; 134 officers and 1,897 men wounded.

CHAPTER VII.

THERE was a feeling of deep depression in camp. We knew the French were in the Malakoff only, and we were painfully aware that our attack had failed. It was an eventful night. The camp was full of wounded men; the hospitals were crowded; sad stories ran from mouth to mouth respecting the losses of the officers and the behaviour of the men.

Fatigued and worn out, I lay down to rest, but scarcely to sleep. At my last walk to the front after sunset, nothing was remarkable except the silence of the batteries on both sides. About seven o'clock, an artillery officer in the Quarries observed the enemy pouring across the bridge to the north side, and sent word to that effect to General Simpson. About eleven o'clock my hut was shaken by a violent shock as of an earthquake, but I was so thoroughly tired, that it did not rouse me for more than an instant; having persuaded myself it was "only a magazine," I was asleep again. In another hour these shocks were repeated in quick succession, so that Morpheus himself could not have slumbered on, and I walked up to Cathcart's Hill. Fires blazed in Sebastopol, but they were obscured with smoke, and by the dust which still blew through the night air. As the night wore on, these fires grew and spread, fed at intervals by tremendous explosions. The Russians were abandoning the city they had defended so gallantly and so long. Their fleet was beneath the waters. A continuous stream of soldiery could be seen marching across the bridge to the north, side. And what were we doing? Just looking on. About half past five o'clock General Bentinck came out of his hut, close to Cathcart's Hill, to "see what the matter was." Of course, that careful officer was not in any way concerned in the arrangements for the attack or for the assault. He was only a divisional officer, and could not in any way direct the action of the troops.

At 8 o'clock the night before, the Russians began to withdraw from the town, in which they had stored up combustibles, to render Sebastopol a second Moscow. The general kept up a fire of musketry from his advanced posts, as though he intended to renew his efforts to regain the Malakoff. About 12.30 A.M. the Highland Division on duty in the trenches, surprised at the silence in the Redan, sent some volunteers to creep into it. Nothing could they hear but the breathing and groans of the wounded and dying, who, with the dead, were the sole occupants of the place. As it was thought the Redan was mined, the men came back. By 2 o'clock A.M. the fleet, with the exception of the steamers, had been scuttled and sunk. Flames were observed to break out in different parts of the town. They spread gradually over the principal buildings. At 4 o'clock A.M. a terrible explosion behind the Redan shook the whole camp; it was followed by four other explosions equally startling. The city was enveloped in fire and smoke, and torn asunder by the tremendous shocks of these volcanoes. At 4.45 A.M. the magazine of the Flagstaff and Garden Batteries blew up. At 5.30 A.M. two of the southern forts, the Quarantine and Alexander, went up into the air, and a great number of live shell followed, and burst in all directions. While this was going on, a steady current of infantry was passing to the north side over the bridge. At 6.45 A.M. the last battalion had passed, and the hill-sides opposite the city were alive with Russian troops. At 7.10 A.M. several small explosions took place inside the town. At 7.12 A.M. columns of black smoke began to rise from a steamer in one of the docks. At 7.15 A.M. the connection of the floating-bridge with the south side was severed. At 7.16 A.M. flames began to ascend from Fort Nicholas. At 8.7 A.M. the last part of the bridge was floated off in portions to the north side. At 9 A.M. several violent explosions took place in the works on our left, opposite the French. At 10 A.M. the town was a mass of flames, and the pillar of velvety fat smoke ascending from it seemed to support the very heavens. The French continued to fire, probably to keep out stragglers; but, ere the Russians left the place, the Zouaves and sailors were engaged in plundering. Not a shot was fired to the front and centre. The Russian steamers were very busy towing boats and stores across. His steamers towed his boats across at their leisure, and when every man had been placed in safety, and not till then, the Russians began to dislocate and float off the different portions of their bridge, and to pull it over to the north side.

This Redan cost us more lives than the capture of Badajoz, without including those who fell in its trenches and approaches; and, although the enemy evacuated it, we could scarcely claim the credit of having caused them such loss that they retired owing to their dread of a renewed assault. On the contrary, we must, in fairness, admit that the Russians maintained their hold of the place till the French were established in the Malakoff and the key of the position was torn from their grasp. They might, indeed, have remained in the place longer than they did, as the French were scarcely in a condition to molest them from the Malakoff with artillery; but the Russian general possessed too much genius and experience as a soldier to lose men in defending an untenable position, and his retreat was effected with masterly skill and with perfect ease in the face of a victorious enemy. Covering his rear by the flames of the burning city, and by tremendous explosions, which spoke in tones of portentous warning to those who might have wished to cut off his retreat, he led his battalions in narrow files across a deep arm of the sea, which ought to have been commanded by our guns, and in the face of a most powerful fleet. He actually paraded them in our sight as they crossed, and carried off all his most useful stores and munitions of war. He left us few trophies, and many bitter memories. He sank his ships and blew up his forts without molestation; nothing was done to harass him in his retreat, with the exception of some paltry efforts to break down the bridge by cannon-shot, or to shell the troops as they marched over.

It was clear that the fire of our artillery was searching out every nook and corner in the town, and that it would have soon become utterly impossible for the Russians to keep any body of men to defend their long line of parapet and battery without such murderous loss as would speedily have annihilated an army. Their enormous bomb-proofs, large and numerous as they were, could not hold the requisite force to resist a general concerted attack made all along the line with rapidity and without previous warning. On the other hand, the strength of the works themselves was prodigious. One heard our engineers feebly saying, "They are badly traced," and that kind of thing; but it was quite evident that the Russian, who is no match for the Allies in the open field, had been enabled to sustain the most tremendous bombardments ever known, and a siege of eleven months; that he was rendered capable of repulsing one general assault, and that a subsequent attack upon him at four points was only successful at one, which fortunately happened to be the key of his position; and the inference is, that his engineers possessed consummate ability, and furnished him with artificial strength that made him equal to our best efforts.

It is sufficient to say that of the three or four points attacked—the Little Redan and the Malakoff on the right, and the Bastion Centrale and the re-entering angle of the Flagstaff Work on the left—but one was carried, and that was a closed work. The Great Redan, the Little Redan, and the line of defence on the left were not taken, although the attack was resolute, and the contest obstinate and bloody for both assailants and defenders. Whether we ought to have attacked the Great or Little Redan, or to have touched the left at all, was another question, which was ventilated by many, but which it is not for me to decide. It is certain that the enemy knew his weakness, and was too good a strategist to defend a position of which we held the key.

The surprise throughout the camp on the Sunday morning was beyond description when the news spread that Sebastopol was on fire, and that the enemy were retreating. The tremendous explosions, which shook the very ground like so many earthquakes, failed to disturb many of our wearied soldiers.

As the rush from camp became very great, and every one sought to visit the Malakoff and the Redan, which were filled with dead and dying men, a line of English cavalry was posted across the front from our extreme left to the French right. They were stationed in all the ravines and roads to the town and trenches, with orders to keep back all persons except the Generals and Staff, and officers and men on duty, and to stop all our men returning with plunder from the town, and to take it from them. As they did not stop the French, or Turks, or Sardinians, this order gave rise to a good deal of grumbling, particularly when a man, after lugging a heavy chair several miles, or a table, or some such article, was deprived of it by our sentries. The French complained that our Dragoons let English soldiers pass with Russian muskets, and would not permit the French to carry off these trophies; but there was not any foundation for the complaint. There was assuredly no jealousy on one side or the other. It so happened that as the remnants of the French regiments engaged on the left against the Malakoff and Little Redan marched to their tents in the morning, our Second Division was drawn up on the parade-ground in front of their camp, and the French had to pass their lines. The instant the leading regiment of Zouaves came up to the spot where our first regiment was placed, the men, with one spontaneous burst, rent the air with an English cheer. The French officers drew their swords, their men dressed up and marched past as if at a review, while regiment after regiment of the Second Division caught up the cry, and at last our men presented arms to their brave comrades of France, the officers on both sides saluted with their swords, and this continued till the last man had marched by.

Mingled with the plunderers from the front were many wounded men. The ambulances never ceased,—now moving heavily and slowly with their burdens, again rattling at a trot to the front for a fresh cargo,—and the ground between the trenches and the camp was studded with cacolets or mule litters. Already the funeral parties had commenced their labours. The Russians all this time were swarming on the north side, and evinced the liveliest interest in the progress of the explosions and conflagrations. They took up ground in their old camps, and spread all over the face of the hills behind the northern forts. Their steamers cast anchor, or were moored close to the shore among the creeks, on the north side, near Fort Catherine. By degrees the Generals, French and English, and the Staff officers, edged down upon the town, but Fort Paul had not yet gone up, and Fort Nicholas was burning, and our engineers declared the place would be unsafe for forty-eight hours. Moving down, however, on the right flank of our cavalry pickets, a small party of us managed to turn them cleverly, and to get out among the French works between the Mamelon and Malakoff. The ground was here literally paved with shot and shell, and the surface was deeply honeycombed by the explosions of the bombs at every square yard. The road was crowded by Frenchmen returning with paltry plunder from Sebastopol, and with files of Russian prisoners, many of them wounded, and all dejected, with the exception of a fine little boy, in a Cossack's cap and a tiny uniform greatcoat, who seemed rather pleased with his kind captors. There was also one stout Russian soldier, who had evidently been indulging in the popularly credited sources of Dutch courage, and who danced all the way into the camp with a Zouave.

There were ghastly sights on the way, too—Russians who had died, or were dying as they lay, brought so far towards the hospitals from the fatal Malakoff. Passing through a maze of trenches, of gabionades, and of zigzags and parallels, by which the French had worked their sure and deadly way close to the heart of the Russian defence, and treading gently among the heaps of dead, where the ground bore full tokens of the bloody fray, we came at last to the head of the French sap. It was barely ten yards from that to the base of the huge sloping mound of earth which rose full twenty feet in height above the level, and showed in every direction the grinning muzzles of its guns. The tricolour waved placidly from its highest point, and the French were busy constructing a semaphore on the top. There was a ditch at one's feet, some twenty or twenty-two feet deep, and ten feet broad. That was the place where the French crossed—there was their bridge of planks, and here they swarmed in upon the unsuspecting defenders of the Malakoff. They had not ten yards to go. We had two hundred, and the men were then out of breath. Were not planks better than scaling-ladders? This explains how easily the French crossed. On the right hand, as one issued from the head of the French trench, was a line of gabions on the ground running up to this bridge. That was a flying sap, which the French made the instant they got out of the trench into the Malakoff, so that they were enabled to pour a continuous stream of men into the works, with comparative safety from the flank fire of the enemy. In the same way they at once dug a trench across the work inside, to see if there were any galvanic wires to fire mines. Mount the parapet and descend—of what amazing thickness are these embrasures! From the level of the ground inside to the top of the parapet cannot be less than eighteen feet. There were eight rows of gabions piled one above the other, and as each row receded towards the top, it left in the ledge below an excellent banquette for the defenders.

Inside the sight was too terrible to dwell upon. The French were carrying away their own and the Russian wounded, and four distinct piles of dead were formed to clear the way. The ground was marked by pools of blood, and the smell was noisome; swarms of flies settled on dead and dying; broken muskets, torn clothes, caps, shakos, swords, bayonets, bags of bread, canteens, and haversacks, were lying in indescribable confusion all over the place, mingled with heaps of shot, of grape, bits of shell, cartridges, case and canister, loose powder, official papers, and cooking tins. The traverses were so high and deep that it was almost impossible to get a view of the whole of the Malakoff from any one spot, and there was a high mound of earth in the middle of the work, either intended as a kind of shell proof, or the remains of the old White Tower. The guns, which to the number of sixty were found in the work, were all ships' guns, and mounted on ships' carriages, and worked in the same way as ships' guns. There were a few old-fashioned, oddly-shaped mortars. On looking around the work, one might see that the strength of the Russian was his weakness—he fell into his own bomb-proofs. In the parapet of the work might be observed several entrances—very narrow outside, but descending and enlarging downwards, and opening into rooms some four or five feet high, and eight or ten square. These were only lighted from the outside by day, and must have been pitch dark at night, unless the men were allowed lanterns. Here the garrison retired when exposed to a heavy bombardment. The odour of these narrow chambers was villanous, and the air reeked with blood and abominations unutterable. There were several of these places, and they might bid defiance to the heaviest mortars in the world: over the roof was a layer of ships' masts, cut into junks, and deposited carefully; then there was over them a solid layer of earth, and above that a layer of gabions, and above that a pile of earth again.

In one of these dungeons, excavated in the solid rock, and which was probably underneath the old White Tower, the officer commanding seems to have lived. It must have been a dreary residence. The floor and the entrance were littered a foot deep with reports, returns, and perhaps despatches assuring the Czar that the place had sustained no damage. The garrison were in these narrow chambers enjoying their siesta, which they invariably take at twelve o'clock, when the French burst in upon them like a torrent, and, as it were, drowned them in their holes. The Malakoff was a closed work, only open at the rear to the town; and the French having once got in, threw open a passage to their own rear, and closed up the front and the lateral communications with the curtains leading to the Great Redan and to the Little Redan. Thus they were enabled to pour in their supports, in order and without loss, in a continued stream, and to resist the efforts of the Russians, which were desperate and repeated, to retake the place. They brought up their field-guns at once, and swept the Russian reserves and supports, while Strange's batteries from the Quarries carried death through their ranks in every quarter of the KarabelnaÏa. With the Malakoff the enemy lost Sebastopol. The ditch outside, towards the north, was full of French and Russians, piled over each other in horrid confusion. On the right, towards the Little Redan, the ground was literally strewn with bodies as thick as they could lie, and in the ditch they were piled over each other. Here the French, victorious in the Malakoff, met with a heavy loss and a series of severe repulses. The Russians lay inside the work in heaps, like carcases in a butcher's cart; and the wounds, the blood—the sight exceeded all I had hitherto witnessed.

Descending from the Malakoff, we came upon a suburb of ruined houses open to the sea—it was filled with dead. The Russians had crept away into holes and corners in every house, to die like poisoned rats; artillery horses, with their entrails torn open by shot, were stretched all over the space at the back of the Malakoff, marking the place where the Russians moved up their last column to retake it under the cover of a heavy field battery. Every house, the church, some public buildings, sentry-boxes—all alike were broken and riddled by cannon and mortar. Turning to the left, we proceeded by a very tall snow-white wall of great length to the dockyard gateway. This wall was pierced and broken through and through with cannon. Inside were the docks, which, naval men say, were unequalled in the world. The steamer was blazing merrily in one of them. Gates and store sides were splintered and pierced by shot. There were the stately dockyard buildings on the right, which used to look so clean and white and spruce. Parts of them were knocked to atoms, and hung together in such shreds and patches that it was only wonderful they cohered. The soft white stone of which they and the walls were made was readily knocked to pieces by a cannon-shot.

Of all the pictures of the horrors of war which have ever been presented to the world, the hospital of Sebastopol offered the most horrible, heartrending, and revolting. How the poor human body could be mutilated, and yet hold its soul within it, when every limb is shattered, and every vein and artery is pouring out the life-stream, one might study there at every step, and at the same time wonder how little will kill! The building used as an hospital was one of the noble piles inside the dockyard wall, and was situated in the centre of the row, at right angles to the line of the Redan. The whole row was peculiarly exposed to the action of shot and shell bounding over the Redan, and to the missiles directed at the Barrack Battery; and it bore in sides, roof, windows, and doors, frequent and distinctive proofs of the severity of the cannonade.

Entering one of these doors, I beheld such a sight as few men, thank God, have ever witnessed. In a long, low room, supported by square pillars arched at the top, and dimly lighted through shattered and unglazed window-frames, lay the wounded Russians, who had been abandoned to our mercies by their General. The wounded, did I say? No, but the dead—the rotten and festering corpses of the soldiers, who were left to die in their extreme agony, untended, uncared for, packed as close as they could be stowed, some on the floor, others on wretched trestles and bedsteads, or pallets of straw, sopped and saturated with blood, which oozed and trickled through upon the floor, mingling with the droppings of corruption. With the roar of exploding fortresses in their ears—with shells and shot pouring through the roof and sides of the rooms in which they lay—with the crackling and hissing of fire around them, these poor fellows, who had served their loving friend and master the Czar but too well, were consigned to their terrible fate. Many might have been saved by ordinary care. Many lay, yet alive, with maggots crawling about in their wounds. Many, nearly mad by the scene around them, or seeking escape from it in their extremest agony, had rolled away under the beds, and glared out on the heart-stricken spectator—oh! with such looks! Many, with legs and arms broken and twisted, the jagged splinters sticking through the raw flesh, implored aid, water, food, or pity, or, deprived of speech by the approach of death, or by dreadful injuries in the head or trunk, pointed to the lethal spot. Many seemed bent alone on making their peace with Heaven.

The attitudes of some were so hideously fantastic as to appal and root one to the ground by a sort of dreadful fascination. Could that bloody mass of clothing and white bones ever have been a human being, or that burnt black mass of flesh have ever held a human soul? It was fearful to think what the answer must be. The bodies of numbers of men were swollen and bloated to an incredible degree; and the features, distended to a gigantic size, with eyes protruding from the sockets, and the blackened tongue lolling out of the mouth, compressed tightly by the teeth, which had set upon it in the death-rattle, made one shudder and reel round.

In the midst of one of these "chambers of horrors"—for there were many of them—were found some dead and some living English soldiers, and among them poor Captain Vaughan, of the 90th, who afterwards died of his wounds. I confess it was impossible for me to stand the sight, which horrified our most experienced surgeons; the deadly, clammy stench, the smell of gangrened wounds, of corrupted blood, of rotting flesh, were intolerable and odious beyond endurance. But what must have the wounded felt, who were obliged to endure all this, and who passed away without a hand to give them a cup of water, or a voice to say one kindly word to them? Most of these men were wounded on Saturday—many, perhaps, on the Friday before—indeed it is impossible to say how long they might have been there. In the hurry of their retreat, the Muscovites seem to have carried in dead men to get them out of the way, and to have put them on pallets in horrid mockery. So that their retreat was secured, the enemy cared but little for their wounded. On Monday only did they receive those whom we sent out to them during a brief armistice for the purpose, which was, I believe, sought by ourselves, as our over-crowded hospitals could not contain, and our over-worked surgeons could not attend to, any more.

The Great Redan was next visited. Such a scene of wreck and ruin!—all the houses behind it a mass of broken stones—a clock turret, with a shot right through the clock; a pagoda in ruins; another clock tower, with all the clock destroyed save the dial, with the words, "Barwise, London," thereon; cook-houses, where human blood was running among the utensils; in one place a shell had lodged in the boiler, and blown it and its contents, and probably its attendants, to pieces. Everywhere wreck and destruction. This evidently was a beau quartier once. The oldest inhabitant could not have recognized it on that fatal day. Climbing up to the Redan, which was fearfully cumbered with the dead, we witnessed the scene of the desperate attack and defence, which cost both sides so much blood. The ditch outside made one sick—it was piled up with English dead, some of them scorched and blackened by the explosion, and others lacerated beyond recognition. The quantity of broken gabions and gun-carriages here was extraordinary; the ground was covered with them. The bomb-proofs were the same as in the Malakoff, and in one of them a music-book was found, with a woman's name in it, and a canary bird and a vase of flowers were outside the entrance.

CHAPTER VIII.

AS the Russian steamers were intact, notwithstanding the efforts of the French battery at the head of the roads near Inkerman to touch them, it was resolved, on the day after the fall of the place, to construct a battery on the ruins of Fort Paul, within 700 yards of the northern shore, under which they had taken refuge. The steamers lay in three irregular lines to the eastward of Fort Catherine, where the deep creeks in the high cliffs gave them some sort of shelter against the fire of the French. There they had been agents of much mischief and injury to the Allies, from the time of the battle of Inkerman. There was the famous Vladimir, with her two large funnels and elegant clipper hull; the Elboeuf, the steamer which made the celebrated dash into the Black Sea through all our fleet the year before, and burnt some Turkish vessels near Heraclea, just as the Vladimir was seen in Odessa harbour in the month of July, 1854; there was the Gromonossetz, which had caused such an annoyance from the Dockyard Creek; the Chersonese, and Odessa; and there were three others with hard, and to me unknown names, as calmly floating on the water as though no eager eyes were watching from every battery to lay a gun upon them. A number of very capacious dockyard lumps and row-boats were also secured in these creeks, or hung on by the steamers.

On the morning of the 11th, about an hour after midnight, an exceedingly violent storm raged over the camp. The wind blew with such fury as to make the hut in which I was writing rock to and fro, at the same time filling it with fine dust. The fires in Sebastopol, fanned by the wind, spread fast, and the glare of the burning city illuminated the whole arch of the sky towards the north-west. At 2 o'clock A.M. the storm increased in strength, and rain fell heavily; the most dazzling flames of lightning shot over the plateau and lighted up the camp; the peals of thunder were so short and startling as to resemble, while they exceeded in noise, the report of cannon. The rain somewhat lessened the intensity of the fire at Sebastopol, but its flames and those of the lightning at times contended for the mastery. There was, indeed, a great battle raging in the skies, and its thunder mocked to scorn our heaviest cannonade. In the whole course of my life I never heard or saw anything like the deluge of rain which fell at 4 o'clock. It beat on the roof with a noise like that of a cataract: it was a veritable waterspout. The lightning at last grew fainter, and the gusts less violent. At 9.45 the tornado passed over the camp once more—hail, storm, and rain. The ground was converted into a mass of mud.

In the course of the afternoon some of the Russian guns in the ruined battery below the Redan were turned on these steamers, and in a few rounds—not more than twelve, I think—succeeded in hulling them eight times. The range was, however, rather long, and it became expedient to move a little nearer. On Tuesday evening, when Lieutenant Gough, of the London—who commanded in the Naval Batteries on the Left Attack—came down with his men, he was ordered to take his relief over to the Right Attack and to accompany Lieutenant Anderson, R.E., down to the town, in order to erect a battery for two 95-cwt. guns on the right of St. Paul's Battery. The site of this battery was about 700 yards from Fort Catherine, on the opposite side. The men, although deprived of the quiet night and undisturbed repose they anticipated, set to work with a will, and began throwing up the parapet and filling gabions; and as it was possible that some interruption of the work might take place from the other side, a covering party of 120 men was ordered down from the trenches. There were French sentries in charge of this portion of the place, and the little party found that their Allies were on the qui vive, and were keeping a sharp look-out on all sides. The men had been working some time, when it was observed that one of the enemy's steamers had left the north side, and was slowly and noiselessly dropping down to the very spot where the sailors and the covering party were at their labours. The night was dark, but they could clearly make out the steamer edging down upon them, and coming closer and closer. Every moment they expected their guns to open upon them with grape and canister. The men, therefore, lay down upon their faces, and kept as near to the ground as they could, and the steamer came over gently till she was within about 100 yards of the very spot where they had been working. They heard her anchor splash into the water, and then the rattle of her cable as it ran through the hawsehole. Now, certainly, they were "going to catch it," but, no—the Russian opened no port and showed no light, but seemed to be making himself comfortable in his new quarters.

Captain Villiers, of the 47th, who commanded the covering party, ordered his men to observe the utmost silence, and the same injunction was given to the seamen. About 2.30 in the morning, when she had been an hour or so in her novel berth, a broad light was perceived in her fore hatchway. The leading steamer on the opposite side in a second afterwards exhibited gleams of equal brightness, and then one! two! three! four! five!—as though from signal guns, the remaining steamers, with one exception, emitted jets of fire. The jets soon became columns of flame and smoke—the wind blew fresh and strong, so the fire soon spread with rapidity, and soon lighted up the whole of the heavens. The masts were speedily licked and warmed into a fiery glow, and the rigging burst out into fitful wavering lines of light, struggling with the wind for life: the yards shed lambent showers of sparks and burning splinters upon the water. The northern works could be readily traced by the light of the conflagration, and the faces of the Russian soldiers and sailors who were scattered about on the face of the cliff shone out now and then, and justified Rembrandt. The vessels were soon nothing but huge arks of blinding light, which hissed and crackled fiercely, and threw up clouds of sparks and embers; the guns, as they became hot, exploded, and shook the crazy hulls to atoms. One after another they went down into the seething waters.

At daybreak only one steamer remained. A boat pushed alongside her from the shore, and after remaining about ten minutes regained the shore. Very speedily the vessel began to be seized with a sort of internal convulsion—first she dipped her bows, then her stern, then gave a few uneasy shakes, and at length, after a short quiver, went down bodily, cleverly scuttled. Thus was Sinope avenged. Of the men who planned, the sailors who executed, and the ships which were engaged on that memorable expedition, no trace remained. Korniloff, Nachimoff, Istomine, and their crews, disappeared: their vessels rest at the bottom of the roadstead of Sebastopol. The Russians preferred being agents of their own destruction, and did not give the conqueror a chance of parading the fruits of his victory. We could not delight the good people of Plymouth or Portsmouth by the sight of Russian liners and steamers. We could only drive the enemy to the option of destroying or of doing the work for him, and he invariably preferred the former.

In one year we stormed the heights of the Alma, sustained the glorious disaster of Balaklava, fought the great fight of Inkerman, swept the sea of Azoff and its seaboard, wasted Kertch and seized upon Yenikale, witnessed the battle of the Tchernaya, opened seven bombardments upon Sebastopol, held in check every general and every soldier that Russia could spare; and, after the endurance of every ill that an enemy at home and abroad could inflict upon us—after passing through the summer's heat and winter's frost—after being purged in the fire of sickness and death, repulse and disaster, and, above all, in the glow of victory, the British standard floated over Sebastopol! But our army was not the same. Physiologists tell us that we undergo perpetual charge, and that not a bit of the John Smith of 1854 goes into the composition of the same respected individual in 1864; but we had managed to work up tens of hundreds of atoms in our British army between 1854 and 1855, and there were few indeed to be found in the body corporate who landed in the Crimea a twelvemonth before. Some regiments had been thrice renewed, others had been changed twice over. The change was not for the better—the old stuff was better than the new. The old soldiers had disappeared; in some regiments there were not more than fifteen men, in others there were not so many, remaining out of those who moved in magnificent parade to their first bivouac. Those whom the war had swallowed up were not replaced by better men. The Light Division—those steady, noble soldiers of the Rifle Brigade; the gallant Fusileers; the 19th, the 23rd, the 33rd, the 77th, the 88th—the men who drew the teeth of that terrible Russian Battery on the bloody steeps of the Alma—how few of them were then left to think and wonder at the failure in the Redan! The Second Division, old companions of the Light in hard fighting and in hard work, were sadly reduced. The Third Division, though singularly freed from active participation in any of the great battles or sanguinary struggles of the war, had been heavily smitten by sickness, and had borne a large share of the exhausting and harassing duties of the trenches and of the siege, and its old soldiers had been used up, as those of the other corps. The Fourth Division earned for itself a high reputation. In the fierce contest of Inkerman it won imperishable laurels, which few of the winners were left to wear. As to the Guards—those majestic battalions which secured the fluttering wings of victory on the Alma, and with stubborn front withstood the surge of Muscovite infantry which rolled up the ravines of Inkerman—disease and battle had done their work but too surely, notwithstanding the respite from the trenches during our wintry spring-time, which was allowed perforce to their rapidly vanishing columns.

The silence in camp was almost alarming; were it not for a gun now and then between the town and the north side, and across the Tchernaya, it would have been appalling. The Naval Brigade was broken up and sent on board ship. Our batteries were disarmed; the Army Works Corps, assisted by soldiers, engaged in the formation of a new road from Balaklava, parallel with the line of railway. Everything around us indicated an intention on the part of the chiefs of putting the army into winter quarters on the site of their encampment.

The Sappers and Miners sank mines, to destroy the docks that had cost Russia so much anxiety, money, and bloodshed; and, if it were not that they were intended to be, and had been, accessory to violence, one would have regretted that such splendid memorials of human skill should be shattered to atoms. But the fleet of Sinope sailed thence, in them it was repaired on its return; and these vessels were built, not to foster peace and commerce, but to smite and destroy them.

There was an armistice on Tuesday, Sept. 11th, to effect an interchange of letters, for the benefit of the prisoners, and to make inquiries respecting missing officers on both sides. The Russian officer who conducted it, and who was supposed to have been the commander of the Vladimir, expressed the same opinion as the Russian Admiral did on Monday, Sept. 10th—"With this before us," pointing to the ruins of Sebastopol, "peace is farther off than ever." The Russians had very large parks of artillery on the north side of the harbour; and the piles of provisions, matÉriel, and coal which were visible, showed that they did not want the means of carrying on the war, as far as such things were concerned. Many of the guns found here were cast at Carron, from the letters on their trunnion heads and breeches.

The enemy persisted in casting up formidable earthworks on the north side, and we looked on as we did from September 27 till October 17, 1854, and saw them preparing their defences, with the sure conviction that we should be able to carry them, or sap up to them, or take them in some way or other in a year or two. Meantime, the weather came in with a word of its own, and said to our deliberating Generals, "Stop! as you have waited so long, I won't let you move now."

It was on the 19th of September, twelve months before this was written, that the Allied armies marched from Old Fort, and that the Russians drew first blood at Bouljanak. What an eventful year had elapsed! and how few survived through all our sufferings and our glories!

The medals and ribands issued to commanding officers were distributed on the 20th of September, about ten medals for each company. As to the riband, there was but one opinion,—that it was unbecoming and mesquin to a degree. Men differed as to the merits of the medal; but a large majority abused it, and the clasps were likened generally to the labels on public-house wine-bottles. The proceedings at the distribution were tame and spiritless. A regiment was drawn up, with the commanding officer in front; beside him stood a sergeant, with a big bag. "John Smith" was called.

"Here."

The Colonel dipped his hand into the bag, took out a small parcel, and said, "John Smith, you were Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman?"

"Yes." The Colonel handed him the parcel, and John Smith retired to his place in the ranks, carrying the said packet in his hand, which he opened at the "dismiss." Perhaps the John Smith alluded to never saw a shot fired except at a distance. He might have been on peaceful guard at Lord Raglan's head-quarters on the 5th of November; yet he wears the clasp for Inkerman. He might have been engaged in no more sanguinary work than that of killing oxen and sheep for the division in the commissariat slaughter-house, and yet he will show on his breast "Crimea," "Alma," "Balaklava," "Inkerman."

This great anniversary was celebrated enthusiastically throughout the army. There were many "Alma dinners" in the regiments, among both officers and men; and music and song kept the camp awake till long after midnight. Many a memory of the dead was revived, many an old wound reopened, at these festive meetings. The French also had their banquets and festivities. They had a grand ceremony early in the morning—a Missa Solennis for the repose of the dead.

General Pelissier was made a Marshal of France, and received from Her Majesty the Grand Cross of the Bath. Of the latter order he seemed exceedingly proud, and he signed his name "Pelissier, G.C.B." General Simpson received the distinction of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

At daybreak on the morning of the 21st of September, I saw through the mist on the Mackenzie ridge a numerous line of watch-fires, and later in the early light a strong column of the Russian infantry was visible in bivouac to our right of the telegraph station and to the left of the Spur Battery, near the Mackenzie Road. Part of these marched away again in the course of the day; the rest remained in the same place, and hutted themselves with great skill and alacrity. They were encamped in a sort of chapparell, and they converted the branches into the sides and coverings of their huts. Their arms were piled when they first arrived at the bivouac, but three hours later the glistening barrels and bayonets had disappeared, having possibly been placed in some dry and secure place. Having secured their right flank by the very formidable earthworks and batteries which we permitted the enemy to erect, in addition to their former defences and their regular forts, the Russians directed the bulk of their army to protect their centre, resting on the Tchernaya and Mackenzie, and their left at Aitodor, and on the Upper Belbek to Bakschiserai. They prepared to hold this extensive line; and as the Allies could scarcely spare men enough to send to Eupatoria, and thence to march on Simpheropol, or to force the Russian position on the Belbek by a moving corps to operate against them on the north, and as there was no apparent intention of attacking them from Inkerman or the Tchernaya, the dead lock was likely enough not to be relaxed that winter.

The quantity of stores removed by the Russians from the north side to their depÔt showed that they were not in want of provisions, unless they took the trouble to carry dummy sacks and fill their carts with "make-believes." It must have been difficult for them to feed their army, but somehow or other they did so. They left considerable quantities of food behind them in the city; large flocks and herds studded the plains near the citadel. The soldiers who fell into the hands of the Sardinians and French on the 16th of August carried abundance of bread and spirits, and they had meat and plenty of everything except water, when they came down to attack the Allies; so that, altogether, I was not so very sanguine as to think the Russians would be forced to abandon their position on the approach of winter. The country around them would supply abundance of wood for fuel, and they were skilled in making comfortable and warm underground huts. The enemy, therefore, would be as well housed as the Allies, supposing the latter succeeded in getting up huts before the winter set in. "Leaving them alone" would never drive a Russian army out of the field; the only thing to do that was the French and English bayonet, and plenty of fighting.

The Muscovite generals cannot be accused of any great regard for their killed and wounded, but they have certainly much respect for the prejudices and feelings of their soldiers. We were over and over again astonished at the wonderful way in which the dead and wounded disappeared after the repulse of a sortie in which there were probably 200 of the enemy put hors de combat. Except the dead and wounded left in our trenches, none were ever to be seen after such contests when day broke. A soldier of the 68th (M'Geevor), who was taken prisoner in a sortie, and who returned to his regiment after a long and (to others) interesting march in Russia, explained the mystery, such as it was. On the night alluded to it could not be ascertained what the Russian loss was, but it was certain that the firing had been very heavy and the work very warm while it lasted. As this man was being carried to the rear after a stout resistance, he observed that there were hundreds of soldiers without weapons between the reserves and the column of sortie, and that these men were employed exclusively in removing the dead and wounded, who would otherwise have been left in the hands of the British. The most extensive provision we make in such cases is sending one, or at most two, litters to a regiment, except when the ambulances go out for a pitched battle. Perhaps we do not calculate on leaving our ground, but the best General is always prepared for retreat as well as for victory, and if ever we should be placed in the same circumstances as the Russians have been, it would be advisable to follow their example.

On the 24th Sir Edmund Lyons and Admiral Stewart, with several post-captains, attended at head-quarters, and it was understood that they, in common with the whole fleet, were most anxious "to do something" ere the season was too far advanced for naval operations. At Eupatoria they found no less than 31,000 Turkish infantry in a fine state of discipline, and in perfect readiness for any military service. These soldiers were all reviewed and inspected on the occasion, and officers of rank, English and French, were alike gratified by the disciplined alertness and efficiency of these neglected and almost useless infantry. It is difficult to imagine that these Turks could not have aided us materially in driving the enemy from Sebastopol if strengthened by an English division and two French divisions, which could have been easily spared from the army before Sebastopol. Moreover, they might have been aided by all our cavalry, which were in very excellent condition, and were of no earthly service at Kadikoi or Baidar. Between French, English, and Sardinians, we could have sent a force of at least 5,500 sabres to the north side of the Alma, which certainly would have had nothing to fear from any Russian cavalry in the Crimea. The Land Transport Corps had more than 10,000 horses and mules. The allied fleet could have embarked and landed the whole force in sixty hours, at any point between Balaklava or Kamiesch and Eupatoria. Army and fleet were alike inactive—the only tokens of military life were displayed on the side of the enemy.

The celerity with which they threw up and finished the most formidable-looking redoubts on the land and sea sides was astonishing. The Russians are admirable diggers, and if Marshal Turenne's maxim, that as many battles were won by the spade as by the musket be true, they are good soldiers. The fire across the roads increased in frequency and severity every day, but the mortars of the French caused some injury and impediment to the Russian workmen, and occasionally damaged their magazines.

The army, French, English, and Sardinians, as well as the few Turkish troops, prepared for the winter with energy, but no steps were taken to operate against the enemy. Balaklava presented a singular aspect. There were only some dozen of the original houses left scattered amid iron storehouses, mountainous piles of wood, heaps of coal, of corn, of forage, of shot and shell, and of stores multitudinous. The harbour was trenched upon by new quays and landing-places, and two long wooden jetties projected far into its waters at the shallow head of the harbour, and rendered good service in taking the pressure off the quays at the waterside. The quantity of corn issued for horses, mules, and ponies in the English army was 280,000lb. daily.

Many of the officers were hutted, some constructed semi-subterranean residences, and the camp was studded all over with the dingy roofs, which at a distance looked much like an aggregate of molehills. In order to prevent ennui or listlessness after the great excitement of so many months in the trenches, the Generals of Division began to drill our veterans, and to renew the long-forgotten pleasures of parades, field-days, and inspections. In all parts of the open ground about the camps, the visitor might have seen men with Crimean medals and Balaklava and Inkerman clasps, practising goose-step or going through extension movements, learning, in fact, the A B C of their military education, though they had already seen a good deal of fighting and soldiering. Still there were periods when the most inveterate of martinets rested from their labour, and the soldier, having nothing else to do, availed himself of the time and money at his disposal to indulge in the delights of the canteen. Road-making occupied some leisure hours, but the officers had very little to do, and found it difficult to kill time, riding about Sebastopol, visiting Balaklava, foraging at Kamiesch, or hunting for quail, which were occasionally found in swarms all over the steppe, and formed most grateful additions to the mess-table. There was no excitement in front; the Russians remained immovable in their position at Mackenzie's Farm. The principal streets of Sebastopol lost the charm of novelty and possession. Even Cathcart's Hill was deserted, except by the "look-out officer" for the day, or by a few wandering strangers and visitors.