operations, a fund was raised by Captain and Adjutant Somerset to aid
the wives and children of men of the corps ordered to the East. The
Central Association took its rise from a letter which appeared in the
‘Times’ on the 22nd February, 1854, on which date, singularly enough,
Captain Somerset received the first subscriptions for his fund. As the
working of this regimental charity could not but be limited, Captain
Somerset did his best to lessen the chances of its being too soon
exhausted. He therefore personally advised every married man before
embarking, as to the course he ought to pursue during his absence from
England, and obtained from him an agreement to make a monthly
remittance, suitable to his means, for the support of his wife and
family. This was not a difficult interference, for the men were only
too anxious to make the utmost provision it was in their power to
arrange. Of this regimental fund Captain Somerset had the entire
charge. By his exertions it reached the sum of 240_l._; of which
72_l._ were subscribed by the four survey companies. The rest was
added by officers of the corps at home, a few companies of sappers,
and the personal friends of the Adjutant. Its plan was to make
advances—obtaining repayment of them by remittances from the seat of
war; also to award donations, and to provide, in unforeseen
circumstances, domestic troubles, sickness and death, such relief as
the several cases needed, and which could only be met in this way.
“The Somerset Fund,” so quiet and unpretending in its exercise, was of
great benefit to the corps; and of about sixty women and nearly one
hundred children who, by loans and grants, drew support from its
means, not one ever had occasion to seek the cold shelter of a
workhouse. With one or two exceptions, the wives of the sappers
behaved with virtuous propriety during the absence of their husbands,
and were a credit both to them and the corps.
The Central Association was a national undertaking, in which the wives
and families of the corps, equally with those of the rest of the army,
shared to the full extent of its numbers. It properly does not belong
to this history to notice the gigantic operations of the Association,
and the extraordinary good it achieved; but it may nevertheless be
permitted to say, that the royal sappers and miners will ever retain a
warm recollection of its beneficence, and cherish the name of Major
the Hon. Henry Littleton Powys—the untiring advocate of protection to
the soldier’s wife and family, and the gratuitous Honorary Secretary
of the Association—with feelings of lasting gratitude.
1854.
CRIMEA.
September—18th October.
Instructional operations—Embarkation for the Crimea—The landing—The
sappers sink wells—Attempt to erect a pier for landing the horses—Bed
of the Bulganak improved with reeds for the passage of artillery—The
Alma—Services of the sappers during the battle—They repair the Buliack
timber bridge—March to Balaklava; Sir John Burgoyne; services of the
third company—The corps encamps at Balaklava—Then removes to the
heights before Sebastopol; misery for want of tents—Parties assist to
reconnoitre the positions and trace the lines—An instance given—Two
sappers carrying the mail miss their way, are wounded and
benighted—Destruction of Upton’s aqueduct—Positions on the heights;
staff engineers—The attacks; parks—Sapper brigades—Reliefs—Breaking
ground—Duties of the sappers—Their deficiency of tact in working the
skilled portions of the batteries—Progress of the works; a party
wanders from the trace—Sergeant Morant misses his way, and only
discovers his mistake when encountered by a Russian guard—A mistrusted
guide restores confidence by his conduct—State of the works on the
night before the first bombardment—The batteries and parallels—Siege
operations—Restoration of the works—Sir John Burgoyne’s remarks on
them.
Preliminary to active operations in the Crimea, the companies of the
corps at Varna superintended contingents of the line in preparing a park
of gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms for siege purposes. Each
sapper at the duty had charge of fifteen men of the line, divided into
three squads of five in a squad. The troops were also practised in the
hasty formation of field-works; and these instructional services were
not without profit to the men of the corps, who, as overseers,
superintended their execution.
Early in September the allied forces embarked for the Crimea, and the
naval arrangements for the occasion, though vast and complicated, were
comprehensive and perfect. To each of the British divisions was attached
a body of sappers and miners, bearing with them intrenching tools. Up to
this time there had landed in Turkey six companies of the corps,
mustering a force of 513 non-commissioned officers and men, which had
been reduced to 492 men by the decease of 21 non-commissioned officers
and privates, chiefly from cholera and exposure. Leaving the seventh
company at Gallipoli, also detachments at Varna, Redout Kaleh, and
Bucharest, and the sick on board the transports and at Scutari, the
force of sappers and miners that landed near Lake Tuzla in Kalamita Bay
on the 14th and 16th September counted a total of 308 of all ranks.
Under a teeming rain, two of the companies debarked, and without tents
or covering, took up a miserable bivouac with their divisions. In the
night they lay huddled together for warmth, while the storm beat
ceaselessly upon them, and turned their selected resting-places into
pools and quagmires. The returning day found them drenched, stiff, and
comfortless; but in none, except those poor enfeebled fellows still
suffering from the pest that had proved so fatal to the troops at Varna,
was there wanting a cheerfulness to work, a spirit to master hardship,
and a determination to endure. Unsheltered as they were, that fearful
weather brought on many aggravated cases of cholera.
Water, the first want felt after landing at Lake Tuzla, caused several
wells to be sunk by the sappers on the strip of land which stretched
between the lake and the Black Sea. The supply thus obtained was too
brackish for human use, and the duty of furnishing the troops,
therefore, depended on the fleet.
At noon on the 15th, a detachment of the fourth company commenced to
erect a temporary pier for landing the horses, with timbers furnished by
the fleet. For a considerable distance to seaward, the water was
shallow, but it swelled to the beach, and broke there with great
violence. Trestles fixed and braced were held for a time in their places
by sturdy men, but the driving breakers rushed to the shore with so
resistless a force it was impracticable to proceed; and men and timbers
borne away in the surge, only escaped by grasping at ropes which were
laid conveniently to the site in anticipation of such accidents.
When the army was put in motion, and the Bulganak stream was reached,
its bed was found to be too muddy for the passage of the artillery with
the 4th division. Early in the morning of the 20th a portion of the
fourth company was told off to make a track through the water for the
guns. Collecting the reeds which grew there in abundance, the sappers
tied them faggot fashion into long bundles, and placing them in the bed
of the stream from bank to bank, the artillery, in twenty-two minutes
from the time of commencing, was crossing the river with clean wheels in
comparative ease.
On the 20th was fought the battle of the Alma, which was gained in three
hours by the allies, with a loss to the British exceeding 2,000 killed
and wounded; whilst the carnage amongst the Russians was even greater.
The sappers and miners during the action were thus distributed:—
No.
Head-quarters. 3rd company 36
Light division, 10th ” 62
1st ” 11th ” 62
2nd ” 8th ” 77
3rd ” 4th ” 34
4th ” 4th ” 35
The fourth division was not engaged, being in reserve; but the sappers
with the other divisions, though not called upon to participate to an
extent that placed them in much danger, were under fire. The companies
were held back, ready with their intrenching tools, to perform any
service for which they might suddenly be required; but the daring
advance and overpowering prowess of the British rendered a resort to
field-works as a means of defence wholly unnecessary. The tenth company
crossed the river by the ford and bridge while the battle raged. The
eighth company, attached for the moment to one of the field-batteries,
assisted in dragging through the river some field-carriages belonging to
the royal artillery, one of which, having become disabled, capsized in
the stream.
The eleventh company, under the direction of Captain Montagu of the
engineers, rapidly repaired the broken timber bridge of Buliack, part of
the sheeting of which had been removed by the Russians, leaving the end
on the side of the British untouched. Had this artful contrivance not
been discovered, the troops would doubtless have suffered fearfully in
their attempt to pass over the bridge. Its restoration was of great
service, as it enabled the whole of the baggage to be up with the army
the same evening. For six hours there was an uninterrupted stream of
well-laden carts and other vehicles crossing it, which tested to the
utmost the efficiency of its renewal, and corroborated in part the
encomium of Captain Montagu that it was “done right well and very
quickly.” The fourth company was stationed about a quarter of a mile
away from the Alma, and the third was with the baggage in rear.
On the night of the 20th the companies bivouacked on the site of the
battle, where one of the privates, worn out by disease and fatigue,
covered himself with his blanket and died. Resuming the march, the
allies passed the Katscha on the 23rd September, on which day the third
company, attached to the head-quarters of the army, was reinforced by
the arrival from Woolwich of 66 non-commissioned officers and men under
Captain W. M. Inglis of the royal engineers. Two days later the march
was continued across the Belbec, and on the 26th to Balaklava by a bold
flank movement through a difficult and thickly-wooded country. Sir John
Burgoyne passed a night in bivouac with the company, and all that could
be got for him to rest upon was an old door. Upon that the aged warrior
stretched himself with a composure and satisfaction that showed how well
he had braced himself to the vicissitudes and hardships of war. On the
way the baggage of a Russian division, spreading over a vast extent of
road, fell a prize to the British army. The third company was hurried to
the front with artillery to remove it, and tumbling the waggons over the
hill they broke in fragments in the valley. When the army pushed
forward, the third company remained, blew up a magazine of thirteen
barrels of gunpowder which was found with the train of baggage, and then
hastened to Balaklava. All the companies arrived there on the 27th
September, and were at once disposed of in making roads, sinking wells,
and repairing shattered waggons, while the third company made good a
rough pier at Balaklava, at which were landed the heavy ordnance,
ammunition, and siege stores.
The royal engineers formed their encampment on the S.S.E. of the harbour
of Balaklava, whither the siege material was conveyed. With great
promptitude, guns and ammunition, gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and
tools of all descriptions, unsurpassed in magnitude, were collected, and
then despatched to the depôt about four miles nearer to the scene of
operations.
By the 30th September a strong force of sappers moved to the ground, and
soon commenced those services which the public, too enthusiastic in its
anticipations, expected would reduce a fortress of unexampled strength
in a few days. Full twenty days the company were without tents, their
camp equipage having been left in the ships which conveyed the sappers
from the shores of Bulgaria; and, exposed as they were in bivouac to the
damp and chills of night, many robust and able men fell a prey to
cholera at Balaklava, or predisposed, by these early trials and rigours,
to disease, were struck down by suffering and exhaustion in the camp
before Sebastopol.
Next night some sappers, pushed forward under their officers, assisted
to examine the ground in front of the fortress towards Chersonese Bay;
and although at times within rifle-range of the walls, were unmolested
by the Russians. It was at first intended that the English troops should
occupy this position, but in consequence of the tools of our allies
being too light to carry out the heavy intrenchments assigned to them on
the right, the disposition of the forces was altered to adapt them to
the situations for which their material seemed to render them adequate.
This change in the arrangements was followed by the preliminary duty of
tracing the sites of the required trenches and batteries inland, in
which some sappers were permitted to participate.
Among those who first left the camp to reconnoitre were lance-corporal
McKimm and private Jenkins, in whose resolution and discipline reliance
could be placed. They were apt men and sufficiently acute in
comprehending orders not to worry their officers with strings of
fatiguing questions about small details; and such was their stamp and
bearing, they were not likely, in danger, to leave their officer
unshielded. To Captain Montagu’s party of six sappers they were
attached. In the darkness of the morning of the 1st October, the whole
moved on in advance of the outlying pickets for nearly a mile and
a-half, and quietly and in whispers, wandered over a country guarded by
pickets in ambuscades as yet unknown. On their way they passed some
posts which were alive with Cossacks, one of which they unwittingly
approached so closely, that a couple of shots were fired at them. This
was simply tendered as a warning to depart, for the Cossacks made no
attempt to follow the explorers, and so continuing to give the points of
ground and intersections to the Captain to enable him to form his sketch
of the position of the left attack, the delineation was, in three or
four hours, finished. With a careful pace yielding no perceptible sound,
and a sharp look out, the party in returning crossed hill and ravine and
passed pickets and sentries, reaching the camp safely at six o’clock in
the morning.
It being necessary to despatch the mail from the first division at
Balaklava to that of General Cathcart’s on the heights S.W. of
Sebastopol, corporal John McQueen and private James Brennan volunteered
for the duty. Cheerfully they jogged along the lonely road, and having
delivered the letters at the camp commenced to return with that easy
_abandon_ so becoming soldiers. McQueen had been out on a coasting
expedition, and prided himself with the belief that because he knew
Sebastopol from the sea, he must as a consequence know every step of the
road to Balaklava. He, however, soon found out his mistake. Losing their
way, the letter-carriers struck on a road which took them into the
Picket House ravine, up which they strode at a steady pace, straining
their eyes through the darkness to discover a clue which should
enlighten them as to their situation. Presently they were hounded by
some dogs led on by a horseman with a glimmering lamp attached to his
girdle. Luckily a cavern was near, and the sappers bounding into it, the
dogs and the Cossack passed on. Allowing sufficient time to elapse to
confuse the rider and his canine attendants, the comrades emerged from
the cave, and regaining the road, turned in the direction of Sebastopol,
impressed with the conviction that they had taken the correct route for
the port. Allured by a fire which was burning on the hill to the left of
the ravine, they began to ascend the slope to join the picket—supposed
to be a Turkish one—who, grouped around the blazing sticks, were
enjoying their pipes—an enviable pastime in which McQueen was anxious to
participate. The night was still black; nothing could be seen,
especially in the valley, for the picket-fire spread its capricious
illumination over so small an area, that beyond the guard, the faint
outline of objects only could be traced, and a little further on the
dimness thickened into impenetrable darkness. So, suddenly coming on a
pair of sentries concealed under some overhanging rocks, the sappers as
suddenly stopped without losing their coolness. “Give me light, Turco?”
said McQueen, placing a pipe between his teeth and pressing its bowl
near the sentry’s chibouk. The sentry shrunk back: he was a Russian; and
without word or challenge, in a moment the bayonet flashed, and the next
it was plunged through the corporal’s body, while the companion sentry
stabbed Brennan in the left shoulder. At the instant McQueen shot up in
the air, then fell; but deadly wounded as he was, his entrails bursting
through the puncture, he started from the ground, and, accompanied by
Brennan, both ran at a furious speed pursued by the swift-footed
sentinels. A wide ditch interrupted their course, into which McQueen and
Brennan tumbled, but the cowardly Russians—for such they were to attack
two unarmed men—gave up the pursuit.
McQueen moved not from the spot where he fell, for the shock he had
received had doubled him up, and though his agonies were deep, he
retained his consciousness. Brennan, suffering himself, set to work to
alleviate, if possible, those mortal pains which at times made the
corporal writhe and groan. His hand came on a well of blood, which told
him, if the flow were not immediately stopped, the closing scene would
soon be over. His plan of action in this extremity was quickly fixed,
and taking off his shirt he tore it in strips, and tying them into one
length bound it round his comrade. This, however, was not enough, for
the blood still oozed through the bandage, and tearing away as much as
he could of the corporal’s shirt without increasing his pangs, he
knotted this also, as he added shred to shred, and plied it over the
wound. This was the most he could do, except to encourage his spirit to
bear the trial with the manliness his comrades would expect to hear he
had exercised. “My head feels cold,” said he faintly. Both had lost
their caps in the violent run they made to the ditch. Brennan instantly
took off his coatee and turbaned it round the poor fellow’s head. “Here
is a little bag with fourteen shillings in it,” said the corporal, as he
released it from his neck. “Give it to my wife. It will never be my
happiness to see her or the children.” This he said with an affectionate
but choked utterance. “Tell her,” he added in a stronger voice, “I’m
sorry I shall not see Sebastopol fall.”
“Why not? there’s plenty of skill in the camp to cure you,” returned
Brennan in a tone of mingled sympathy and confidence.
But McQueen had become absorbed in his thoughts, and his agonies giving
him but little disposition and energy to hear with attention anything
that Brennan might say, the latter proposed to reconnoitre in the hope
of discovering some means of bringing in succour or of escaping. The
corporal assented, and Brennan stole away bare to the waist with a
streaming wound bitten by the cold of a raw night. The battery above
them was an earthen one well armed, but no gunners were in it. From its
ditch he proceeded by a sort of ramp towards the Garden batteries, and
came upon a strong structure built, as it seemed, out of a ship’s side.
It was near the Flag-staff battery, and mounted many guns, forty-five of
which he counted—some of very large calibre. Clear it was that he was in
the heart of the Russian outworks. In that direction there was no
escape, and as every step towards the creek bore the aspect of seeking
danger when there was still a chance of evading it, he returned to the
ditch, and threw himself by the side of the corporal. Time wore on
sluggishly; moments were minutes, minutes hours. At length the morning
broke; still he waited till it had sufficiently opened, to guide
himself, to the best of his reason, aright; when, gathering up the
wounded man, he bore him in his arms to a broken wall in front of a
wine-press where had lived a Scotchman for more than twenty years before
the war had driven him from his chosen homestead. Here Brennan,
overpowered, laid down his comrade, for he was a massive man and deadly
heavy. Concealing him in a secure place, and binding up his head with a
handkerchief, Brennan dressed himself again in his worn coatee, and
darted off for assistance, keeping well under the rocks which, overgrown
with broom and wild vegetation, helped to cover him from observation. At
last he made the bend of the ravine, and climbing up the steep, gained
the top, where, crawling onwards among the heather and scrub he saw at
the back of the hill the red points of six English tents—distant about
fifty yards. It was a grateful sight, but he had not time fully to enjoy
it; and so dashing up to the encampment, breathlessly demanded help for
his suffering comrade. A few words to explain the nature of the painful
adventure which had occasioned his unexpected appearance was more than
enough for the officer of the 60th rifles in command. With two men of
his regiment bearing a stretcher they hastened along the ravine guided
by Brennan, now running, now walking to recover breath. It was a bright
morning; hazard was in every step, but the errand was one of humanity,
and they pushed on. At length they made the broken wall, from whence
they carried the corporal for more than two miles to the tents of the
rifle guard. In a few minutes medical aid was doing its best for the
sufferer, but though his wounds were laved and dressed, the air had
caught his torn bowels and gangrene was irretrievably at work. He was
now borne to the camp at Balaklava, where, gradually sinking, he was the
first of the siege army to die by the hand of the enemy before
Sebastopol.
Meanwhile a party of twelve armed sappers, with sergeant James H. Drew,
directed by Lieutenant Ravenhill of the royal engineers, repaired to the
Inkermann ravine, and cut off the main aqueduct which supplied the docks
in the Karabelnaia with water. This was known as Upton’s aqueduct. It
was situated in a hollow of the plain which stretched onwards, and at
its extremity were some well-appointed horsemen or Cossacks watching for
chances to display their prowess. When they retired, the sappers,
concealed by some bushes which clothed the slopes of the valley, crept
from the underwood and stole on to the reservoir, advancing two sentries
to look out from among some trees to give warning of impending peril.
The sluice of the aqueduct was arched with stone. All the machinery by
which it was manipulated was destroyed; the gate driven into the channel
to stop the supply, and coping-stones, key-bricks, and earth jammed into
the well and against the now useless gate. Without opposition the
demolition was effected, and the little party returned to camp after
being out seven hours in this preliminary adventure.
Charged with the right attack, the British held the position which
approached the Tchernaya valley, while the French spread in a curve to
the left, as far almost as Chersonese Bay. The ground was a sterile
waste, wild, rocky, and undulated; bleak in winter, burning in summer.
Sir John Burgoyne conducted the British portion of the siege, supported
by Colonel Alexander, Major J. W. Gordon, and many officers of the
corps. Colonel Alexander, from overwork and anxiety, soon died, and the
executive direction of the works devolved on Major Gordon. In time the
veteran engineer Sir John Burgoyne, recalled to England to discharge the
responsible duties of his home appointment, was succeeded by
Major-General Jones, who had received honour and promotion for his
distinguished services in the capture and destruction of Bomarsund.
Major, now Colonel, Gordon commanded the companies in the Crimea as a
regiment; Captain, now Major, C. B. Ewart filled the appointment of
adjutant, and Lieutenant A. Leahy that of quartermaster, afterwards that
of Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General.