with Generals Niel and Bizot of the French engineers. It was then
determined to open a new approach on the right of the advanced
mortar-battery in the third parallel to run into the middle ravine, and
there connect with the French parallel from the Inkermann attack. In the
following night the work was commenced with a force of 28 superintending
sappers, some of whom were early dismissed from day duty to keep their
energies intact for the new work. The line furnished two reliefs of 285
and 211 men, for each of which the duration of work was about five and a
half hours, but for the sappers eleven. As if by the touch of a
magician’s wand, though the night was excessively dark, 444 gabions were
lodged along the outstretched arm of the parallel. The sappers led the
way, leaving the line to seek the cover; and in this also the former
afforded active assistance when they had completed the deposition of the
gabions. In some parts the cover was very inadequate, owing to the rocky
nature of the ground, and the work was somewhat interrupted by an alarm
which drove the working parties to their arms. With all this obstruction
the progress was surprising, and corporal Alexander Ramsay of the
corps—a man of cultivated ideas and daring demeanour—was particularly
useful during the night in leading and instructing the men. Two other
corporals—William Wilson and Kester Knight—displayed so much “zeal and
capacity” in the operations that, noticed by Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden,
they were promoted to be sergeants, and a like advancement would have
been conferred on corporal Ramsay, but he early fell an example of
bravery and devotion.
Before commencing the work, Majors Gordon and Tylden went out to trace
it, taking with them lance-corporal Evans[172] and private William
Harvey, as also a man of the 34th as a sentry. Having gone as far as
they intended, the Majors went away alone to reconnoitre, leaving the
men lying on the alert at the end of the tape. In a few minutes the
officers returned, and all went forward some distance to a semi-circular
rifle-screen built of loose stones about six feet high. This was to be
destroyed with all possible haste and the utmost quietness. Pushing into
the screen, the sappers disintegrated the stones and handed them to the
officers outside, who laid them gently on the ground. Not one was
permitted to drop. So went on the demolition till about three feet of
the wall had been taken down, when, some Russians having crept up to
occupy the screen, and finding from the grating of the stones, which
they could distinctly hear, that strangers were present, fired a volley
and killed the sentry, who was shot in three places. At the instant, the
unarmed sappers vaulted over the masonry, but Harvey having leaped
against Major Tylden, both rolled into a stony hollow which had been
broken by quarrying. Beyond a bruise or two they felt no inconvenience
from the fall. Quickly regaining their feet, they bounded swiftly
onwards with Major Gordon and the corporal, and returned to the trenches
followed by a stream of fire which miraculously missed them. Of Harvey
the official record runs thus:—“He has done good service on different
occasions, particularly in assisting to trace works near the enemy’s
sentries.”
In the succeeding night the ground was further opened for 200 yards, but
a sortie obstructed the operation; and on the return of the Russians
they coolly bore away with them, as trophies of their boldness, between
forty and fifty unwieldy gabions to embody in their own defences. On the
13th the enemy’s fire on the extended parallel was so annoying the
linesmen were withdrawn, leaving two brigades of sappers to continue the
work, but they, too, were eventually recalled to save them from
unnecessary danger. Night after night the work on this long lean arm of
the parallel was pushed forward, and as much accomplished in daylight as
the Russian fire permitted. Much blasting was required to deepen and
widen the trench, and on several occasions none but sappers could be
allotted for the work. Once, when so disposed—the sappers being
concealed behind a bend of the revetment—some Russian riflemen stole up
in daylight to the head of the trench and rolled from the trace several
baskets, which they bore away as far as they were able. Nothing could
have been more tantalizing than this audacious proceeding, but there was
no help for it, as the sappers were unarmed. Gabions being scarce, cover
was obtained by building strong stone rubble walls. With entire success
and without material loss, though close to the enemy’s riflemen and
exposed to shot, shells, and grape, the Anglo-French parallels were
connected on the 17th March.
A few days prior to the union of the international trenches, Captain
Craigie of the Engineers was killed. He was returning with his sappers
from the 21-gun battery, and had reached the middle ravine, when a shell
from the Malakoff burst in the air, and a splinter striking him in the
back he fell dead. He was preceded by his bugler—Armstrong—and followed
by corporals Kester Knight and John Rowley. When the shell burst, the
two non-commissioned officers, seeing the splinter coming, moved on
either side, and it passed between their heads, fatally alighting on the
Captain. His party carried his body to the camp, and he was mourned by
the men as an officer whose kindness had been shown to them in a
thousand inobtrusive ways. Just before he dropped he had been conversing
with his non-commissioned officers on the best mode of avoiding an
exploded shell, but a bursting missile defies all theory and experience,
and makes the escape of life depend not on the adroitness of poor
humanity, but the will of Providence. The fourth company, which the
captain had commanded for several years, and over whose interests he had
watched as a friend and father, erected a small monumental cross to his
memory at the spot where his remains were interred.[173]
Private Henry Masters was wounded on the 14th.
Sir John Burgoyne, who held a consultative appointment, and shared in
degree with Lord Raglan the responsibility of the siege, was, though an
aged General, ever present to direct the various works, and on resigning
his connection with the army, he issued the following parting address to
the corps:—
“_Head-quarters before Sebastopol,
“21st March, 1855._
“The Inspector-General of Fortifications cannot quit this army without
expressing his strong testimony to the exemplary manner in which the
officers of royal engineers, and non-commissioned officers and
privates of royal sappers and miners have performed, under his own
eye, their arduous duties before Sebastopol.
“The I. G. F. is not aware of any siege which has been carried on
under more trying and difficult circumstances, and he has had great
pleasure in repeatedly pointing out to the Commander-in-Chief how
gallantly and creditably every operation by the engineer department
has been conducted.
“In now taking leave of his comrades of all ranks he thinks he cannot
wish them better fortune than that finally in this enterprise they may
meet with success, that as far as depends upon them is so well
earned.”
To this was added the following remark:—
“I entirely concur in the sentiments above expressed.
(Signed) \“RAGLAN.”
A sortie was made on the night of the 22nd March against Nos. 7 and 8
batteries of the left third parallel, in which Captain Montagu of the
Engineers was taken prisoner. For half an hour the batteries were held
by the Russians, whose impetuosity had given them a footing there.
Driven out at length at the point of the bayonet, led by Captain
Chapman, 20th regiment, assistant engineer, they took with them in their
flight 70 pickaxes and 50 shovels. There were only eleven sappers in the
trenches at the time, who, being unarmed and dispersed over the
different works, were unprepared for the fight. A few of them, however,
joined in the repulse with arms taken from the grasp of some slain
linesmen, whilst others did their best in bludgeoning the Russians with
pick-helves and sticks.
A like sortie rushed into the advance parallel and mortar-battery on the
right attack, but was repulsed with loss. Three British officers were
killed and two wounded. Of the latter one was Major Gordon of the
Engineers, severely in the right arm. Of colossal height, he was
observed on the top of the parapet with no better defence than a swish
whipping the Russians from the works. Under his orders there were five
brigades of sappers scattered to various points of the chequered
operations, who escaped that night without casualty.
After the sortie had failed, corporal Lendrim, led by the groans of a
wounded man about thirty yards in front of the battery, clambered over
the parapet, and followed by two linesmen, moved to the spot where the
sufferer was lying. He was a Russian. No lack of bullets were flying at
the time to warn the corporal and his comrades of the risk they
incurred, but holding to the task they had humanely undertaken, they
carried him to the parapet. Gently laying him down, they were about to
renew their lift, when the last struggle seized the poor Russian, and in
a few seconds he was no more.
Too weak to afford an adequate force for the emergencies of the siege,
irrespective of the demands which had been fruitlessly made for its
services in the rear, it was considered of moment to augment the corps.
Accordingly, on the 22nd March, an authority was given for forming four
new companies of 120 sergeants and rank and file each, by which the
royal sappers and miners were swollen from a strength of 2,658 officers
and men to one of 3,140 of all ranks. The new companies were designated
the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th. The first two were raised on the 1st
April; the others were not embodied before September and October.
The 23rd company was constituted a driver troop for the conveyance of
the royal engineer field equipment. Hitherto the engineers had to depend
in great measure for the movement of its stores on the resources of
other departments, which too frequently accorded insufficient
assistance. To be at the mercy of any caprice or department was
undesirable in a service whose success, in degree, depended upon the
prompt transport of its materials; and the suggestions on this question,
derived from the experience of the Peninsular engineers, meeting with
the approbation of Lord Panmure, the troop was called into existence.
Very readily was it formed, for the standard to recruit ostlers and
others of that genus, was reduced so low that a lad of ordinary growth
could easily command the admitted altitude. In a few days the necessary
number had been enlisted; but this troop of dwarfs, accustomed though
they had been to horses and driving, required some time to throw them
into shape and order, and this could only be done by discipline and
imparting to them as much of the art of military equitation and
manœuvring as was consistent with their organization and intended
services. One hundred and twenty round-bodied cobs, purchased at an
expense of 36_l._ each, formed the complement of horses for this novel
troop. Captain Siborne was its commanding officer. A few months after
its formation, Sir John Burgoyne inspected the corps at Woolwich, and he
was more than surprised at the smartness of the company and the
expertness with which the young troopers managed their horses. A
sergeant from the royal artillery—William Handyside—was promoted into
the company with the rank of Lieutenant and Adjutant, but before the
appointment reached him, having obtained a commission in the Land
Transport Corps, he declined the Adjutancy. It proved a wise resignation
for him, as soon after, he was promoted in his own corps to the rank of
Captain. Another sergeant—Henry Saville—from the artillery in the
Crimea, was commissioned into the troop on the 22nd October, 1855, with
the pay of 9_s._ 10_d._ a-day.
To supply the general increase, several new recruiting stations were
opened, and the militias were canvassed for candidates. The old stations
sent in batches with their usual steadiness, scarcely accelerated by the
popularity of the war; but the new ones, opening with a sort of burst,
detailing the advantages of enlistment on gorgeous bills, offering high
bounties, and lecturing the applicants with that hyperbolical eloquence
which, though unfair, is tolerated as a necessary evil in military life,
were very successful. Strong instalments of militia-men constantly
arrived, but recruited as many of them were by line officers appointed
to canvas particular districts, who knew nothing of the qualifications
required of the candidates, not a few were useless for the general
duties of the corps. But those were not times to stand opposed to the
reception of men who, though they lacked the antecedents so uniformly
exacted from recruits by officers of the royal engineers, might yet be
made to perform serviceable duties in the trenches. In this way a vast
number of militia-men—too many of them undersized, unseemly, and
professionally incapable, of an entirely different stamp in character
and impress to the genuine craftsman and sapper—fell into the ranks of
the corps, who in less pressing times would have been regarded as not
worth the trouble of a negotiation. In the course of nine months from
the date of the increase no less than 500 militia-men and about 800
other recruits joined the royal sappers and miners.
At night on the 27th, sergeant Docherty accompanied Lieutenant Penn,
R.A., to a point in the ravine near the cemetery where some rifle pits
were to be established. After acquainting himself with the locality, he
was directed by the officer to return to the trenches and visit the
workmen. The night was very dark, and danger was apprehended from some
Russian screens near the garden wall. Docherty picked his way as best he
could, without a track to guide him, over broken ground and by detached
blocks of rock and precipitous cliffs, till he clambered up a beetling
brow to the crest of the valley, where, lying down, he applied his ear
to discover if any one was astir in his vicinity. There were footsteps
not far from him—the measured pace of a sentinel, towards whom he
cautiously moved; but as he went nearer, he saw, through the darkness,
the shadowy outline of two men whom he suspected belonged to a Russian
picket. Wishing, as he was still unobserved, to be assured of his
position before proceeding further, he used the faint whistle which the
English sentries knew how to acknowledge, and his signal was returned by
a purling sound equally faint. No longer in doubt of his safety he
advanced to the two men, one of whom was a sergeant; but as Docherty,
approaching them from the front, was looked upon as a spy, he was
marched to the field officer of the trenches. Speaking English, and
making known his corps and rank, were only so many proofs to the
sergeant that his prisoner was a clever Russian. The field officer
examined him, and receiving accurate replies to his interrogatories on
subjects which a sapper only could have become acquainted with,
dismissed him—to the surprise of the sergeant, who was thus deprived of
the chance of recording, among the incidents of his trench life, the
capture of a Russian spy.
Fears were expressed on the 29th March that the enemy was mining under
one of the cave magazines on the right attack. A sapper acquainted with
the methods of detecting subterranean noises volunteered to enter the
cave to ascertain if any work was being carried on beneath it. In this
hole, with enough gunpowder in it to excite alarm, he coolly immured
himself for more than two hours; but hearing nothing to convince him of
the existence of a countermine, quitted his concealment and allayed by
his report the apprehension.
On the 31st March, private William Relf was severely wounded in the
knee, and second-corporal Richard Bridgman was hit slightly in the face
and shoulder. Both were struck by splinters from the same shell. For
months this non-commissioned officer was daily and nightly in the
trenches serving out the tools on the right attack, and on three or four
occasions the helves of axes and shovels have been shattered in his hand
while passing them to the workmen.
During the night of the 2nd April, a zig-zag was opened from the right
rifle pit in front of the advanced parallel right attack by flying sap.
One hundred and twenty yards were trenched, and the cover thrown up was
very tolerable. The moon being bright, the “flying” nature of the
operation was reduced to one of tardy but impulsive efforts. As the
light, however, gave but a dim outline of the sap to the enemy, the
Russian fire from two field-pieces was delivered indifferently; but when
the morning began to break, greater accuracy was obtained, and a few men
were struck down. Among them were privates Robert Russell killed, and
Thomas McNeil severely wounded. The former had his head smashed by a
round shot, and, singularly enough, a fragment of his quivering jaw flew
off and wedged into the jaw of his comrade—McNeil—and broke it.
Early in the morning of the 4th April, Lieutenant Bainbrigge of the
engineers was killed. He had given directions to corporal William Baker
of the seventh company, relative to strengthening the parapet of a
battery to the left of No. 9, in the second parallel right attack, when
a shell was observed coming towards them from the Redan. Roth were on
the open without the remotest chance of taking cover. To avoid the
danger the corporal started to the right, the young subaltern to the
left, as if to allow the missile to pass between them. At that instant
it plunged at the feet of the officer, and bursting, blew his body to
atoms. The corporal was untouched. There were, at the time, fifteen of a
working party in a shallow trench, throwing earth from the front to the
merlon of the battery, but not a man was struck.
Next night corporal J. J. Stanton, with four sappers, was entrusted with
the extension of the third parallel, right attack. He was a daring man
was the corporal, and flying on with the work, he laid himself no less
than 170 gabions. His four overseers filled them with bags of sand,
handed forward by a working party of 200 men, who also broke the ground
and improved the cover, despite an annoying fire from the rifle-pits
about fifty yards in front. The soil fortunately was easy, and the men
worked so well that, when the morning relief arrived, the parapet had
risen to a height sufficient for a working party to improve the trench
by day. The corporal was named in brigade orders for his spirited
example and successful superintendence.
Increased exertions were turning to deadly account all the means
necessary for giving magnitude and certainty to the operations.
Everywhere the works were rising in different forms, menacing in aspect,
which, only for the wide area of stony clay and rock which covered the
hills, would, by this time, have almost intermingled with the advanced
positions of the Russians. Impenetrable by pickaxe, mining was the
common process of dislodging the stones. At particularly hard or exposed
works it was impossible to employ any but sappers. The 21-gun battery,
insatiable in its wants, commanded the zeal of strong parties. Rifle
screens were begun, deepened, or improved far away in advance to pioneer
the enterprise. That system of hostile espionage had been so successful,
it was enlarged to lessen the fire of the enemy’s tirailleurs. An
advanced excavation had been formed across the Woronzoff road in the
middle ravine; but this not affording sufficient security against a
surreptitious sortie, was further defended by a stout chevaux-de-frise
fixed some distance in its front. Splinter-proof surgeries were also
constructed, intimating an impending struggle. Limestone caverns in the
sides of the hills were converted into receptacles for ammunition,
shells, &c., and their rude entrances were protected by walls of
sand-bags and dry stones. Other magazines were also made by driving
galleries under the super-incumbent rock into a bed of clay resting on a
vein of shells. Scooping out the earth between, artificial caves were
thus formed with rocky roofs and testaceous floors. To provide against
the chances of the arches falling in, by the concussion of heavy mortars
in the batteries, strong props were fixed in those grottoes, and the
powder deposited within them was preserved by the usual contrivances.
All the revetments were put into fighting trim, and embrasures cut or
masked as events dictated. The merlons, too, were thickened, so also
were the traverses and parapets, more particularly in the parts where
the works standing on the crests of the hills in advance were the most
exposed. On the right attack, the sappers were driving on vigorously in
advance of the second parallel. The first night’s work for this object
was given on the 3rd April. In a short time the zig-zag was run out to
the intended point, and turning off like a shepherd’s crook, it seemed
as if it were ambitious to hook on to the Redan.
Three days later, seventy men were employed on the left attack, forming,
on the right extremity of the third parallel, a work for two 9-pounders.
Four hours they had laboured at it, when daylight having exposed them,
the field officer refused to permit the continuance of their services.
As, however, it was important to push the work, Major Chapman, of the
20th regiment, the assistant engineer on duty, ordered ten sappers under
lance-corporal Robert Hanson, to repair to the trench. It was a clear
morning and the work exciting. Gabions and fascines had been laid by a
previous party, so that the sappers were covered from musketry, though
not from heavier missiles. As they were strengthening the parapet, the
earth thrown up being seen by the enemy, a fire of every description of
projectile, even links of chain, was hurled against it. In some measure
to prevent accident, a “look-out man,” in turn, took his station at the
head of the trench to peep round the hot corner. Sweeping with a quick
eye the cordon of ordnance in front, the caution to “look out” came
thick and fast. In time it was so rapidly reiterated, occasioning
interruptions which did not coincide with the men’s notions of progress,
that, preferring to toil without this species of questionable
assistance, the “look out man” was withdrawn, and made to unite his
strength with the shovellers. With faultless energy and confidence, they
persevered in the work though harassed by an incessant fire, with grape
in clusters, blown from mortars, dropping into the trench. Presently a
shot crashed against the revetment, capsized three gabions and two
fascines, wounded lance-corporal James Veal in the neck, and knocking
down corporal Hanson, buried him beneath the rubbish. There was great
reason to fear that the smash was fatal, and Major Chapman, who happened
to be in the work at the moment, called out in the forlorn hope of
receiving a reply, “Are you hurt, corporal?” Unexpectedly there was a
movement in the mass; the gabions rolled lazily aside as the corporal
struggled from the debris; and in springing to his feet he cheerfully
exclaimed, “All right, sir!” The perils of the battery were of a nature
to induce Major Chapman instantly to withdraw the sappers. Two nights
after, the work was finished and its embrasures were opened.
On the day of the 7th, lance-corporals Rinhy and Jenkins were building a
magazine in No. 8 battery of the left attack. The timbers were just
rising when, seeing a 13-inch shell approaching from the Flagstaff, the
latter dashed between the uprights and screened himself behind a
traverse. Rinhy, less fortunate, had to endure all the horrors of
anticipated annihilation, for the shell, plunging towards him, passed
with the swiftness of a meteor an inch or two from his back, and in
bursting carried away the frame, without touching the carpenter.
During the next night the mouths of No. 7 battery, on the left attack,
were cut by a strong party of sappers, but the deep mud in the
excavations did not admit of the guns being moved into position, so that
in the interim the openings were blinded with sand-bag screens.
Extra exertions were made in every work for an impending bombardment.
All the sappers available for duty, including those even who had been
relieved from the front at six o’clock in the morning, were dispersed
through the batteries, mending the soaked embrasures and parapets.
The weather had been tempestuous, and the rain, which fell as in a
storm, flooded the trenches. The winds were howling and driving, and the
cold very great. To work under such disadvantages was exceedingly hard.
“Man or beast,” says ‘The Times,’[174] “could not remain without some
shelter. Not a man is now out, except the shivering camp sentinels and
the men employed in the batteries.”
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Footnote 165: