“left,”[158] their contiguity being broken by a deep ravine through
which passed the Woronzoff road. The right abutted on the heights
overlooking the middle ravine, and the left leaned away to the position
of the allies, but separated from it by the precipitous sides of the
Picket House ravine, which debouched on the head of the inner harbour.
No longer attached to divisions, the fourth, eighth, and tenth companies
of sappers were appointed to the right, and the third and eleventh
companies to the left. The united strength of the companies amounted to
a force of about 386 non-commissioned officers and men, 32 of whom were
sick and 21 at Balaklava. On the high road leading from Sebastopol, and
near the windmill, was stationed the engineer depôt for the right
attack; while that for the left occupied an area in rear of the third
division, on a plateau adjacent to the artillery depôt. At both the
parks, the carpenters, sawyers, and blacksmiths of the companies carried
on the mechanical requirements of the operation unprotected from the
weather, or at best in scanty sheds of the most primitive character. In
order that the sappers might be easily distinguished in the trenches,
they were ordered to wear a band of white tracing tape round the
forage-cap.
The strength of the brigades of sappers altogether depended upon the
exigencies of the duty, and the numbers available for work. As a general
rule, however, each brigade of sappers comprised a non-commissioned
officer and eight privates; and each brigade of carpenters a
non-commissioned officer and three privates. Whatever may have been the
changes in the distribution of the men, there were seldom less at work,
on the right, than three brigades of sappers and two of carpenters by
day; and two of sappers and one of carpenters by night; while on the
left, where a diminished force was employed, the arrangements only
permitted for the daily routine two brigades of sappers and one of
carpenters; and, for the night duty, one brigade of each.
Usually, the brigade remained twelve hours in the trenches, being
relieved at daybreak and soon after dusk; but this period of duty, on
many occasions, was necessarily prolonged, when any pressure required
particular works to be completed in haste. Some of the most reliable men
were on duty in the front eight nights out of nine. Fatigue and sickness
caused very inconvenient fluctuations in the numbers disposable for the
operation; but when less vigour was demanded in the formation of the
lines, the men were relieved from duty in the trenches for three or four
days at a time—the interval being filled up with labours in the camp,
and in the performance of a variety of services subsidiary to the siege.
At nightfall, on the 8th October, ground was broken before Sebastopol.
It commenced at the Greenhill battery left attack; and on the right
attack at the 5-gun battery in front of Victoria hill, and at the
picket-house for the right Lancaster-gun. By order of Lord Raglan, the
working-parties, after receiving the necessary tools and instructions,
were marched from the park, guided by engineer officers and sappers, to
the trenches. This proceeding was followed throughout the siege; and it
was also a practice to send both sappers and operatives into the
batteries unarmed, to prevent the paramount work of the lines being
neglected for the more natural one of resorting, on any slight instance
of alarm, to measures of personal defence.
Acting as overseers, it was the province of the sappers and miners to
instruct the line and the Turks in forming the trenches and batteries,
attending themselves to the more constructive portions of the works
requiring art and skill;—such as laying the gabions, fascines,
sand-bags, and platforms; erecting the splinter-proof magazines, and
sloping and lining the embrasures. Formidable obstacles occasionally
offered serious impediments to the progress of the excavations, for the
soil was rocky: to overcome the difficulties, the sappers led the way
with an earnestness and zeal that stimulated the workmen to activity and
exertion; but such was the sacrifice of useful energy, that many a brave
fellow, already enfeebled by overwork, scanty rations, and hard weather,
faltered from the trenches never more to return.
Singular as it may appear, the sappers at first were somewhat at a loss
in carrying out their more ordinary duties. The details were easy enough
in peaceful practice; but in a siege where every effort required the
utmost care and caution to make the work strong and durable and to avoid
danger, it was much more difficult. A little earnest experience however
in actual conflict, taught them the secrets of their art, gave them
confidence and cunning, and rendered them, as far as their numbers
permitted, quite equal to the emergencies of the enterprise.
Everywhere the lines continued to be prosecuted with commendable
rapidity, and to claim even the fastidious attention of the sappers with
regard to the smoothness and accuracy of the slopes of the interior
revetments and the sharpness of the angles. The Madras platforms, to
which a high reputation was attached, were quickly laid for the general
siege-pieces, and common ones were fixed for the naval guns. There were
times, however, when, from the guiding sappers missing their way to the
appointed hill, the works were somewhat retarded in their execution. An
instance of this kind occurred on the 10th October, when some sappers,
sent to throw up a battery in front of the right of the light division,
could not discover the position. The night was densely dark, foggy, and
close. For more than two hours they endeavoured to find the points
marked previously by Major Gordon, but finally seeing the fruitlessness
of their efforts, they quitted the front and returned to camp. The
working parties were retained in rear under cover; the only men exposed
on the hill-top that night were two captains of engineers, and sergeant
Coppin and lance-corporals Stupple and Kerr.
A more serious mistake occurred, the next night. Ground had been broken
at eight o’clock by a working party of 400 men on the brow of a hill to
the left of the light division. Sergeant Joseph Morant, who had received
instructions as to the direction he was to take to reach the work,
started at midnight with seventeen sappers to relieve the men of the
corps whose tour of night-duty had expired. Marching along the Woronzoff
ravine, he passed a huge boulder on which was carved a cross, and
shortly after reached a large shell which had stuck in the middle of the
road. These, for want of better indications, were two of the points on
which he relied for the accuracy of his course. Having still to press on
for another half-mile and more, and the night being dark, he missed the
hollow up which he was to move to the site of the parallel. On he went
with his men, when, seeing at length on either height a picquet, he
hesitated under an impression he had gone too far; but private George
Harvey, apparently priding himself upon his knowledge of the locality,
persisted in saying that the picquets were British. Unable to trust to
his own sight, for his vision was defective, the sergeant, thus assured,
pushed forward steadily with the party, till he observed a few yards in
his front, an outpost drawn up across the road. The sappers now halted,
and the two parties strained their eyes in surprise at this unexpected
proximity. Morant, who was intently looking about him, struck against a
wooden pillar of some altitude, streaked with painted bands of alternate
black and white-supposed to be a milestone. By this his conviction was
settled that the Russians were facing him. Alarmed at the visit, the
enemy’s picquet fell back on the main body, and Morant just then gave
orders for his men, who were unarmed, to retire stealthily. This was
done for a short distance, when turning about, the whole batch, as if
winged for the occasion, run the gauntlet for their lives between the
two hill picquets, relieving themselves as they fled of such
encumbrances as were likely to impede their haste. In this way their
greatcoats and wooden canteens, in part, were left behind; and as the
distance between the parties was inconsiderable, and the fire from the
different picquets sharp upon the sappers, it is somewhat extraordinary,
that not a man was wounded so as to draw blood, Several had their
greatcoats, trousers and jackets perforated or torn by bullets, and a
few were grazed on the legs and arms, while the sergeant had a choice
lock of his hair clipped off, and a slight touch in the cartilage of the
left ear.[159]
This mishap was not without advantage, for it frustrated the execution
of a sortie which was then preparing. From the flashes of the Russian
fire, strong battalions of infantry could be seen moving towards our
works, to repel which the second and light divisions at once turned out;
the riflemen too, always ready, poured a destructive fusillade into the
advancing battalions, and the artillery, never from their posts, saluted
them with volleys of shot and shell. For nearly an hour the combat
lasted, when the enemy, flying before the rush and cheer of the 88th,
took shelter under the walls of the fortress, keeping up, however, for
the rest of the night, a desultory fire upon the works. The loss in the
trenches was trifling, and our batteries, which were much exposed,
remained intact.
Notwithstanding this attack, the new battery was considerably advanced
in its construction before the morning, for no less than 840 gabions had
been laid in it during the night by lance-corporal George H. Collins.
A few nights after the mishap stated above, the non-commissioned officer
just named was selected to conduct a working party to the 21-gun
battery. It was exceedingly dark, and the men moved on cautiously. The
“valley of the shadow of death” had been crossed; the picket-house
passed; indeed the greater part of the journey had been marched when the
field-officer in charge expressed his doubts that the proper track had
been taken. To remove the officer’s misgivings and to prove the
correctness of his own conduct, the corporal offered to go alone to the
battery, which, regarded as the wiser course, was at once approved of.
Off started the guide, and having reassured himself by a visit to the
work, that his direction was right, returned to the officer within a
quarter of an hour. To regain the party was more difficult than he
anticipated. He knew not the relative position of the point where the
halt was called, and on coming back bore away to the right about 200
yards. He judged by the time he was absent that he must be near the
workmen, and so hailing them by whistling signals, which were recognized
and answered, he was extricated from a dilemma it would probably have
taken the night to solve. Satisfied with the integrity of his guide, the
field-officer now readily moved on the column as Collins led, and soon
reached the battery. The work was afterwards known by the name of the
“Gordon Battery.”
By the 16th October the vigilance of the working parties had placed the
lines in so forward a state that, on the following evening, orders were
issued to the troops respecting the bombardment. No exertions were
spared throughout the night to complete the works in every detail, and
the sappers, being told off into storming parties of twenty men each
under an officer of the corps, were attached to the several divisions of
the army to lead the way in any enterprise in which their professional
services might be demanded. For this purpose they were furnished with
picks and shovels to form lodgments; crowbars, felling-axes, and
sledge-hammers to remove impediments; bags of gunpowder for blowing in
gates; and scaling ladders with which to storm walls and towers.
Eight or more distinct works had been erected, mounting above sixty
guns, including Lancasters, which, during the siege, were increased or
diminished according to circumstances. They were connected with a line
of excavations exceeding a mile in length on the right, and 1,200 yards
on the left, including deviations offered for acceptance by the
undulations of the hills. The chief batteries—named after the officers
of engineers who superintended their construction, held a position on
the heights at a distance exceeding 1,350 yards from the Russian lines,
while the French, working in easy soil, pushed up much nearer to the
fortress by the usual process of sapping and mining. On the part of the
English the plan of attack was necessarily a departure from recognized
rules, owing to the rocky character of the ground and the deep glens
which separated the works.
On the morning of the 17th, there were, including the sick, 351
non-commissioned officers and men in camp and in the trenches. As many
as could possibly be collected were sent to the batteries to share in
the first day’s bombardment. Under cover of the darkness, the embrasures
of the batteries, blinded with gabions, were quickly unmasked by the
sappers, and before the dawn had fairly opened, sixty-three guns belched
their fire upon the fortress. By a preconcerted signal the French,
hurling destruction from fifty-six pieces of ordnance, commenced the
siege simultaneously with the English, and the allied navies took part
in the contest. This was the first day’s firing on the part of the
besiegers; and although the garrison kept up a warm cannonade upon the
allies from the moment that any show was made in the construction of the
trenches, the Anglo-French never once attempted, by the discharge of a
single piece of ordnance, to lessen the interference of the enemy, or to
interrupt the progress of their defences.
From both sides the cannonade was continued with more or less vigour
according to the nature of events, and the result evidenced only too
plainly the devastating effect of the firing. Our batteries were much
damaged; those of the allies were scattered, whilst two of their
magazines blew up with mournful results. The works of the enemy were in
some places almost demolished: their firing varied as they found cover
to stand to the guns; but the day’s fury was at length terminated by the
terrific explosion of a magazine behind an earthen redoubt, which threw
a feeling of awe even among the besiegers. There was much skill,
however, in the Russian engineers, and before morning, by extraordinary
exertion, the works were restored and replaced with guns. No less
energetic were the English sappers in strengthening the lines and
repairing the batteries; for although erected with admirable solidity,
the shells from the fortress ploughed up the works and tore down the
embrasures. In all such cases, if the restoration could not be deferred
till night, the sappers, with a daring equal to their usefulness, would
spring into the openings, and while exposed to the hottest of the fire,
make good the breaches. One of the bravest and best in this exposed
service was corporal John Paul. Fortunately, in the early stages of the
siege, repairs in open day were seldom imperative. The damages done in
the day by the cannonading of 155 guns were expeditiously made good at
night; and so efficiently, that each morning the batteries stood up as
compact and bold as they did before the firing opened on the 17th
October.
After the first day’s firing, Sir John Burgoyne thus wrote to the
Commander-in-chief. “I would call Lord Raglan’s attention to the great
and successful exertions of the royal engineers and sappers under very
trying circumstances. The very rocky soil presents the extreme of
difficulties to the establishment of trenches and batteries; the very
act of obtaining cover in one night in such soil, which was done on
every occasion, requires a great effort, and to construct in it
substantial batteries, still more.
“The proportion of good platforms and stuff for magazines embarked, was
too insignificant to be worthy of notice: these objects had to be
prepared (and for a very heavy description of ordnance) from the
irregular masses of timber and plank that could be procured from
buildings pulled down. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the work
has been pushed on with rapidity, the substantial nature of the parapet
has been proved by the few casualties incurred, and the embrasures and
platforms have required, during the very heavy cannonade of yesterday,
less repairs and adjustment than I have ever been witness to on similar
occasions; and no accident has occurred to any magazine, although some
shells have been observed to explode on them, all proving the
substantial goodness of the works performed.”
-----
Footnote 157:
Familiarly and indiscriminately called “Gordon’s battery or parallel,”
“21-gun battery,” or “Frenchman’s Hill.”
Footnote 158:
Called “Chapman’s battery or parallel,” or “Green-hill.”
Footnote 159:
On the 18th October a 15-inch shell, termed “Whistling Dick,” struck
the roof of a magazine in the 21-gun battery, and, in exploding,
knocked down sergeant Morant and corporal George Pearson, burying them
under a heap of sand-bags. The corporal soon struggled to his feet,
but the sergeant, more severely stunned, was pulled from the mass by
Lieutenant Murray of the engineers.
1854.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
18th October-31st December.
A corporal guides the field officer to the 21-gun battery in open
day—The last shot—Two sappers mend a gap of some magnitude in a
mortar battery—Scarcity of soil and materials for carrying
on the works—Picket-house battery—Mishap to a tracing
party—Platforms—Magazines—A detachment with arabas moves from the
valley during the battle of Balaklava—Private Lancaster the only
sapper engaged in it—Steady conduct of the sappers at the platforms
during Sir De Lacy Evans’s combat—Battle of Inkermann—A corporal
gallantly alters the splay of an embrasure while the fight
rages—Sappers trench the road leading to the heights from the
harbour—Two privates repair an embrasure under a severe fire—Submarine
divers—Progress of the works—Hurricane of the 14th November; wreck of
the ‘Prince’—and the ‘Rip Van Winkle’—Effects of the storm on
shore—Lines of Inkermann—Mode of proceeding with the construction of
the general works—Strength of corps at the siege and detached—Field
electric telegraph—Sergeant Anderson—Casualties—Sergeant Drew—Arrival
of second company; its colour-sergeant taken for a Pacha—Incentives to
induce the Turks to work—The Navvies—Army Works Corps—The sappers,
though under a seeming cloud, are upheld by a vigorous vindication in
Parliament.
Next day the bombardment continued to rage, and Colonel Hood of the
Grenadier Guards, the field-officer of the trenches on the right attack,
was killed. He was succeeded by Colonel Walker of the Scots’ Fusilier
Guards. Corporal George H. Collins, chosen as a sure guide, went off
with the colonel, passing from the engineer park by the sailor’s camp
into the ravine. They then took the Woronzoff road at a run for nearly
half-a-mile, and arrived at the foot of a rocky watercourse leading to
the hill on which was situated the 21-gun battery, where the colonel
dismissed the corporal, and dashed on alone into the work. In going,
shot and shell fell furiously into the valley, requiring a sharp
look-out to keep clear of splinters. It was even worse in returning; for
as the corporal’s back was turned to the fire, he barely allowed himself
time to see what were his chances of life and death. Considering that
his risks increased by delay, he bounded along the tortuous and broken
road, stopping now and then to take breath and cover under some low
rocks which jutted from the hill side; and then, pushing up the other
slope of the ravine, marched into the camp unhurt. One might have
thought that a service of this nature would have excused the corporal
from a tour in the trenches; but such was the pressure for sappers, it
could not be. At night he was on duty in the Gordon parallel, and four
days later was grazed in the back by a shot, which, after striking the
earth, rushed past him, and knocked him senseless.[160] He was
superintending at the time a party working in the right Lancaster
battery, clearing away the rock for a platform.
Lance-corporal Rinhy, a ready and spirited sapper, was in No. 3 battery
of the left attack on the 19th. Well had he worked that day in the
embrasures; and at dusk, as the order was given to cease the cannonade,
he went up to No. 6 gun to see the _last_ shot fired. The sailors manned
the gun, loading it with a Russian 26-pounder ball, which had hopped
among the shot piled in rear of the parapet. The ball stuck in the
muzzle, and while Rinhy and the seamen were vainly trying to withdraw
it, another shot whisked through the embrasure, cut the man-o’-war’s man
in two, and striking the trunnion from the gun, the 24-pounder fell and
smashed the sailor underneath it. The same shot passed so close to
Rinhy, that it rasped a button from his jacket, and the ferocity of its
wind knocked him against a traverse some five yards away. In the same
battery, two or three days later, he repaired an embrasure no less than
twenty-one times during his tour of duty, and kept the cheeks in such
serviceable order, that the 68-pounder which fired there, discharged
before nightfall as many as 198 shells and 84 shot into the Russian
works, dismounting, according to nautical calculation, no less than six
guns in the Redan.
Private William Denham was killed this day, while repairing a platform
in the 21-gun battery. A shot carried away the back of his head.
Among the instances of well employed zeal that occurred in this
bombardment, was one in which privates Jenkins and John Wallace
signalized themselves under the eye of Major Biddulph, of the artillery,
assistant engineer. They were stationed on the 22nd in No. 3 battery
left attack, against which the fire of several guns was concentrated
with so ruinous an effect, that about fourteen feet of the parapet was
broken down before ten o’clock in the morning. To venture into so
exposed a gap in broad day, under a frightful fire, needed a courage
which few men could prevail on themselves to exercise; but with a
willing promptitude which spoke of their resolution and daring, these
two stern sappers passed into the breach, each working for a quarter of
an hour at a spell, with the strength of a giant. In seven hours the
damage was mended, during which the battery continued in action, though
a mortar or two was necessarily silent until sufficient cover was
obtained to shield the seamen fighting there.