IN THE CRIMEA
1856
The voyage from Joppa to Constantinople was a succession of surprises,
from Latokea to Lanarca, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Smyrna. At Beyrout we were
the guests of a pasha, the leading man of the place. Henry Kennard,
banker, of Heywood, Kennard & Co., of London, who had joined us in
Jerusalem, went with us through Syria and was going as far as the
Crimea. MacFarlane was still with our party. We had a day off in
Beyrout, and went up to Lebanon, inland, where the cedars seem to
antedate the olive-trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.
When we got to Smyrna we entered a beautiful bay, somewhat like that of
Rio Janeiro, and I went out on the fortified hill that overlooks the
city. I saw from the hill that troops were marching on parade, and went
off alone to see them. I was told to let my donkey go his own way. He
brought me to a place where were about one hundred stone steps, almost
perpendicular. I had a little hesitation about going down these steps,
but he seemed to know what he was about, and I could do nothing with him
but hang on his back. I expected him to tumble, and that would have been
the last of me. He didn't miss a step, however, but took me safely to
the bottom. I thought of General Putnam's stone-step ride. If he had
only had a Turkish donkey he would have missed being a hero.
My donkey seemed to know more than I about the streets of Smyrna, and I
gave him the rein. He took me past the sentinels to the parade ground,
as he appeared to know the password, and across the parade, which was
against regulations. When we arrived at the center of the ground, he
began very peculiar operations, as if he had been with Barnum. Here was
a donkey that would have made a fortune for a circus. The soldiers were
coming up in platoons, when the donkey began to stand on his hind feet,
and then on his fore feet. The roar of the advancing regiment convinced
me that I was in a tight place. I got off his back and walked alone on
the opposite side, and then escaped through a gate. I have never heard
of the obstinate animal since.
From Smyrna to Constantinople we passed among famous Greek
islands--Rhodes, and Chios, where twenty-two thousand Greeks were killed
by the Turks--but we had not time to stop at any of them. At
Constantinople I preferred to take passage in a transient steamer,
instead of waiting for the Government boat. I stopped here only to see
our minister, Carroll Spence, of Baltimore, and then hurried on through
the Marmoro Strait and the Bosporus, and into the Black Sea, and there
found an immense fleet of transports, from the port of Sebastopol. I was
delighted to see alongside of one another three of our Boston clippers,
built by Donald Mackay in East Boston, that had brought French troops
from France: the Great Republic, Captain Limeburner, the Monarch of the
Seas, Captain Gardner, and the Ocean Queen of clippers, Captain Zerega.
Ships filled the little bay, bows and sterns touching the shore on one
side and the other. Not one could have got out in case of fire.
We immediately got horses to go out to Balaklava, and there I was glad
to meet my old friend, Captain Furber, of the Black Ball Line and the
Ocean Clipper, who gave me a state-room and all the courtesies of his
ship. He had come for the French. Kennard went with the British. Horses
and attendants were furnished me by the French generals free of cost.
My object in going to the Crimea was to speculate in munitions of war,
which I supposed would be sold for a mere bagatelle. But the armies took
their material away with them--English, Russian, Turkish, French,
Sardinian--so there was no chance for business there. The British
troops were in rags and tatters. Their new uniforms had not arrived,
and their shoes were worn out. I went on board one of the clippers and
spoke about the shoes not having arrived. "What!" exclaimed the captain;
"I am loaded with shoes! I have been here six months." "Have you
notified the commissary?" "Yes." What could I do? All this was afterward
described by "Bull Run" Russell. He was then the correspondent of the
London Times, and so exposed the mismanagement of the war that ships
were sent with provisions, uniforms, and everything, after the war was
over.
Through the courtesy of French officers, I visited the city of
Sebastopol, a ten-mile journey from Balaklava, and saw the
twenty-one-gun battery, the Redan, and the Malakoff, and, of course, the
ruin of the famous city. I could see the masts of the ships at the
entrance of the bay, the fleet that had been sunk by the Russians to
block the channel. Here they had crossed in the night to the Star Fort
on the opposite side, which was strongly fortified. It would have been
almost impossible for the allied armies to interfere with the Russians.
They had made up their minds to fight it out to the end.
The French zouave commander got up a banquet for me with twenty of the
officers of all the armies--Turkish, French, English, Sardinian, and
Russian. I did something to stir up the battle spirit again, and
several times almost got them fighting over the table, especially when I
asked some question that brought a reply from the zouave general of the
Ninety-sixth regiment of Algiers. He rose and said to the Englishmen who
had disputed his word: "You were asleep at the Alma, you were late at
Inkerman, late at Balaklava, ran from the Redan and at Chernaya." This
of course roused the English officers, and we had to pour oil on
troubled waters.
There were two princes among the Russians, and of course they were
delighted to see the allies fighting among themselves. They helped me in
stirring up the quarrel. I made them admit that Todleben's earthworks
were a new feature in war--baskets of earth used for forts on the inside
of Sebastopol, put up impromptu, and holding these armies so long at
bay. In the Redan it was complete slaughter, two thousand persons being
killed. MacMahon in the Malakoff saw at once that it was not a close
fort, and said, "J'y suis, j'y reste." Speaking of MacMahon, a very
singular thing has been suggested. Put together a half dozen faces of
French notables--MacMahon, de Lesseps, Alexandre Dumas (_pere et fils_),
Victor Hugo, President Faure, and add my portrait, and you could hardly
tell which was which.
Tennyson has given to the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava the
power of his name and genius, but that fight has been a terribly
exaggerated affair, so far as massacre was concerned. Only one third was
killed, with nearly one half the horses. In our civil war, where a
million men were killed, at the cost of a billion dollars, from the
firing into Sumter to Appomattox, on both sides, there were many charges
where the slaughter was proportionately greater than that. Take
Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, where a whole division was mowed
down--or Custer's command (with Sitting Bull, in the Black Hills), all
massacred, with the exception of one man.