made a sortie to recover them. So far had they succeeded, that the
sentries and workmen occupying the further screen were driven back into
the nearest trench; but the lodgment there had been so well managed and
its details so well carried out, that the troops holding it made sure
work of the defence, and the Russians, pressed at all points, hastily
retreated. Now it was that the valiant Colonel Egerton was killed. His
promises, however, were caught up by Colonel Tylden, who failed not to
make such a representation of sergeant McDonald’s conduct as earned for
him substantial reward and honour. After the hopeless abandonment of the
pits, the enemy, from the furthest screen, which was still in his
possession, kept up a constant rifle fire on the sappers and line in the
lodgment. Lieutenant James, royal engineers, directed them in their
final efforts till daylight, and received, as a sign of his presence, a
ball through his cap. He arrived just as McDonald fell; and himself,
with that good and constant man Ewen, assisted to bear the sergeant to
the rear.
The casualties in the assault were 6 officers and about 40 men. Of
these, three were sappers—the colour-sergeant before named,
lance-corporals John Evans, killed, and Peter Towell, dangerously
wounded. The right arm of the latter was broken, and the amputation
which followed ended in his death. This non-commissioned officer had
only been wounded a few nights before.
It should be noted to show the ardour of the man, though perhaps in many
cases such conduct would be imprudent, that corporal Samuel Cole left
his post at the sand-bag battery without orders and pitched into the
thick of the fight. In reversing the trench he laboured with great zeal,
and while endeavouring to place a gabion in a difficult spot, Evans, a
fearless soldier, not to be outdone in prowess, leaped outside the
trench and pressed the basket in the line. In this act of devotion he
fell by the blow of a grape-shot.
The following complimentary order was promulgated to the corps relative
to the assault:—
“Brigade orders before Sebastopol, April 23, 1855.
“It was with much satisfaction that the Major-General Commanding
received Lieut.-Colonel Tylden’s report of the able manner in which,
on the night of the 19th instant, a lodgment was effected in the
enemy’s rifle pit immediately in front of the left advance, ‘right
attack,’ under Captain Owen and Lieutenant Baynes, R.E., whose zeal
and gallantry were most conspicuous, while the conduct of
colour-sergeant McDonald, royal sappers and miners, on the same
occasion, when, in consequence of the above-named officers being
severely wounded, he was left in charge of the working party, was not
only highly creditable to that non-commissioned officer, but so
distinguished as to attract the notice of the field officer commanding
in the trenches; and the Major-General is glad to find, that the
sappers engaged, exerted themselves with their accustomed energy.”
-----
Footnote 175:
Dispatch, 10th April, 1855.
Footnote 176:
‘Times,’ April 26, 1855.
Footnote 177:
Captain, now Major Ewart, R.E., the sapper Adjutant in the Crimea.
Footnote 178:
‘Times,’ April 26, 1855.
Footnote 179:
Light Division orders by Lieut.-General Sir George Brown, dated 16th
April, 1855, taken from Captain Owen’s report to Major-General Jones
two days earlier.
1855.
20th April-15th May.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
First day’s work in the lodgment—Improviséd grenades—Polish
fusilier—Capture of the third rifle pit—Preliminary incidents
connected with it—Saps issuing from the pits—No. 13 sand-bag
battery—No. 9 battery, left attack—Building a magazine in
day-time—Constancy of sappers in the trenches—But little relief
afforded them—Apparent want of ingenuity in their camp
arrangements—Reason why so few sappers die—Their miserable
condition—Regimen; its effects—Care of the baggage animals—The means
employed to preserve them becomes a vexed question—Rifle holes—No. 11
battery, left attack—Generals’ and engineers’ huts—Diversified
engagements of the sappers—Death of Lieutenant Carter—Progress of the
works—Wells—Repairing the advance saps after a sortie—Expedition to
the sea of Azoff—Storms of rain, and consequent difficulties in
carrying on the works—Sortie—Effects of the rain—Endurance of the men
exposed to it—Casualties.
Twenty armed men from the 7th foot were appointed to labour in the
captured pits on the 20th April, into which for about thirty yards they
crawled on their hands and knees. Sergeant Joseph Morant was with them,
so also was Lieutenant Sheehy, of the 64th, assistant-engineer, who
directed their exertions. Many of the gabions had only been partly
filled the previous night, and spaces of a few inches occurred here and
there between the baskets. Barely had the linesmen placed their muskets
at the back of the trench, when a provoking fire from the near pit and
quarries, knocked over four or five of their number. Unaccustomed to
work in such slight cover, very little progress was made in improving
the trench, and Lieutenant Sheehy withdrew the men. Waiting a short
time, twelve sappers arrived; and with four or six volunteers from the
7th regiment, the work in the approach was resumed. In four hours much
had been done to strengthen it, and the parapet, in great part, was made
defensible with banquettes. Finding that the trenchmen pertinaciously
held to their work, the Russians tried the effect on them of a couple of
great guns. The first rounds pitched high; but the next, better aimed,
hurled the gabions from the trace, and dividing the parapet by an ugly
chasm, separated the workmen into two parts. Those in the left of the
pit, struck with stones and half blinded with sand, not seeing their
danger, were about to join the main body by crossing the gap; but the
warning of their comrades stopped their precipitation and confined them
for a time behind a few feet of insecure revetment. Had they attempted
to move, not a man would have escaped, for the muzzles of the Russian
rifles, only a few yards off, would have struck them down. Hot as was
the place, the sappers and volunteers continued to work, and the breach
quickly filled up with sand-bags, soon extricated the men at the end of
the zigzag from hazards to which less alacrity and courage would have
committed them. So jealous was the enemy of any progress in this
quarter, it was not an easy, matter to throw a few shovels-full of earth
over the parapet without a visit from a pair of round shot. That so
little harm was done to the workmen was due to the nearness of a Russian
screen to the captured pit. Generally the practice was high. To have
struck the new approach and not the Russian pit, would have been a nice
achievement in gunnery. At last Captain Browne of the engineers, removed
the line party, but left the sappers at the end of the trench with
orders not to throw anything over the parapet. No exertion being now
visible to the enemy, the fire from screen, quarry, and fortress was, in
great part, discontinued, and the sappers quietly improved the revetment
till nightfall, when another party relieved them.[180]
Before daylight on the morning of the 21st, the furthest screen in the
Russian series, about fourteen yards in front of the captured pits, was
taken by a detachment of 100 men from the guard of the trenches, under
an adjutant, accompanied by a small band of twelve volunteers as a
working party consisting of four men of the 19th regiment, four of the
90th, and three of the sappers, under the direction of corporal George
Cann of the 7th company. The covering party was directed not to fire but
to use the bayonet. All having mustered on the open, the adjutant gave
the word to advance. On went the stormers at the charge, and jumping
into the screen, which fortunately had been vacated, they took
possession of it unassailed by a single shot. Quietly the destroying
party set to work, and before returning to the trenches, completely
uprooted the ambuscade. The parapet had been formed of discarded casks,
crested with large sand-bags made of old sails, specimens of which were
brought away by the men to show the expedients adopted for Russian
protection. The names of the sappers who shared in the sortie were
lance-corporal William J. Lendrim, and privates William Harvey and
Alexander Hosie.
This service will bear a little elucidation. At dusk the previous
evening, the four sappers went into the trench issuing from the first
captured pit, to reconnoitre. Each selected his own place to look out,
but Harvey having crawled round the head of the sap on all fours,
watched for a few minutes the operations in front. The Russians were
busy in the screen, and seeing one more bold than the rest strengthening
the parapet, Harvey remarked, as he returned to the trench, it was
strange that the sentry, a man of the 88th, did not pick him off. He was
a Milesian was the 88th man, and a good deal irate to think that, though
he felt sure he could lessen the number in the pit by at least the head
which dared now and then to overlook the parapet, he was under orders
not to fire: but when he learned from Harvey that the pit was to be
captured in the morning, the sentry, forgetting his orders, discharged a
bullet at the Russian, and thus brought on a fire which produced a
number of casualties. Taking up the arms of a wounded man, Harvey,
mounting the parapet with others, blazed away till he was called from
the summit by Lieut.-Colonel Tylden to answer for his conduct in
bringing an unnecessary fire of musketry on the sap. He had been
reported by the officer of the line on duty there as the cause of it;
but a few words of explanation made clear the misunderstanding, and
Harvey, the first to volunteer for the assault, was so conspicuous in
his exertions to raze the screen, that he was subsequently distinguished
by a medal for gallant behaviour, and received a gratuity of five
pounds. It was well that the firing took place as it did, for to its
warmth is no doubt attributable the evacuation of the pit without a
hand-to-hand encounter.
It was not long before these pits were incorporated with the besiegers’
works by communications hastily thrown up and revetted despite the
accurate firing of the enemy’s riflemen; and they held so prominent a
place in the tactics of the engineers, that in an after period they
formed the outlet for a sortie upon the celebrated quarries. A flying
sap from the screens was early extended to the left as far as the rim of
the hill overlooking the Woronzoff road, and again to the right, in line
with a row of pits still possessed by the Russians, and which run along
the whole extent of the quarries. The cover in the lodgment was almost
made impenetrable by the sappers who erected a wall of gabions,
sand-bags and stones intermixed, as far as the very edge of the ridge.
On the right attack, No. 13 battery for four guns was finished and armed
on the night of the 21st April. It was situated to the left of the
second parallel near the Woronzoff ravine. Between eight and ten
thousand sand-bags swelled its dimensions into a noble field
construction. The men of the corps who gave it form from the engineer’s
trace, finished it off with something like artistic neatness. The
defences of the battery were improved by the addition of lock traverses
across the boyau on its left. This was perhaps the first battery built
during the siege entirely of sand-bags; and though well ploughed with
shot and shell, it made a fair resistance. Its bags frequently burst,
and gaps were often made in its puffed-up features, while the pent-up
sand was showered over the battery as if winnowed by the wind. There was
no lack of the reliable sand-bag, however, and the damages sustained
were always expeditiously repaired.
During the same night the embrasures of No. 9 battery on the left attack
were nearly all cut through by the sappers and the openings covered up
again with masks before daylight. By the 23rd, at night, the remaining
mouths were opened and the cheeks of all were flattened by a few parting
plashes of the spade. Grim guns occupied the spaces, and at the proper
moment No. 9 co-operated with the other works in shelling the enemy’s
defences. In the formation of the battery, corporal Robert Hanson of the
7th company, displayed great zeal and ability in superintending a
detachment of the 50th regiment, of whose exertions more than once
creditable mention was made.
So well in range was No. 10 battery on the left attack it was hazardous
to venture into it. Still it was necessary to furnish it quickly with a
magazine. To obtain the chance of executing the work in day-time, a
temporary blind of sand-bags was thrown up in front of the site during
the night, and the sapper carpenters and miners took their stations
behind the screen at dawn. The delving and blasting for a durable
foundation were done in broad daylight; then up went the frame, and the
sheeting followed, covered for a roof with timbers, sand-bags, and
earth; and in a few days, without casualty among the builders, the
magazine was completed.
Whatever accidents or failures in arrangements took place with the line
contingents by which they were late for the trenches or not provided,
the sappers always appeared in the lines and turned to the work with
great ardour. As an instance, it may be mentioned, that the trench party
of twenty-eight sappers were, on the 22nd April, three hours in the
batteries before the morning relief arrived, during which, besides
attending to various matters of essential detail, they levelled two
crumbling embrasures in the 21-gun battery, and rebuilt them for action
with stout revetments in little more than two hours.
Too inexorable was the siege to allow any relaxation in the development
of the lines, and every day added to the accumulation of posts and
duties which called for the anxious attention and valorous exertions of
the engineers. The officers were severely wrought and the casualties
among them spoke of their labours and exposure. The sappers likewise
were greatly overtasked. Some nights they were in the trenches as long
as the darkness lasted, and then only left to repeat their long vigils
the ensuing night. Next day, perhaps, they would be permitted to rest
for a few hours, when at noon some camp duty, some hutting or draining,
the making of fascines, or the execution of a tedious round of et
cetera, absorbed the remaining portion of the day. The approaching night
or the next, again saw them at work in the far-spreading trenches. For
several months this was their constant routine, when, happily,
reinforcements arriving, they were, in degree, relieved from an excess
of fatigue and watchfulness which, were it not for their hardihood,
would have considerably diminished their weak files.
It has been remarked that the sappers exhibited less ingenuity and
application of resource in their camp arrangements than many regiments
in the Crimea. Much skill was shown by some corps in the use of
contrivances and rural expedients for rendering their locations
comfortable within, and pleasing and picturesque without. All these
devices were strangely absent among the sappers. Oddly enough this
seems; but it is easily accounted for by the fact, that the men, more
constantly at work than other troops, were too tired to seek for
superfluous comforts when ordinary ones satisfied their few wants.
Indeed they had no leisure to busy themselves about extraneous
conveniences.[181]
Overworked as the linesmen were, the regiments possessed facilities for
carrying out domestic minutiæ which wore off the rougher asperities of a
trying campaign. To most of them washermen were appointed who attended
to the concerns of the regimental laundry and ensured to the men the
comfort of wearing clean linen. Such was not the good fortune of the
sappers. Every man was wanted for some absolutely pressing duty, and it
was only when the caprices of chance threw in their way a vagrant
interval that they could seek to afford themselves the companionship of
a well-washed shirt. From this cause it can occasion no wonder that the
men were often foul and distressed by vermin. In this condition there
were not a few who would steal at times into some cave to relieve
themselves in silence of the loathsome brood. No perseverance, however,
was sufficient to free them from the creeping things which swarmed in
every seam and around every fretted hole of their threadbare clothes. So
extreme was this discomfort felt by many poor fellows, that a general
officer of the corps, who took great interest in the feeble and
attenuated invalids as they landed at Portsmouth from the Crimea, was
constrained officially to represent the pitiable state in which he found
them. Comparatively of all the troops they were the most miserable and
sympathising with their misfortunes, the general and his benevolent lady
generously supplied the sufferers with clean linen and apparel.
Then, again, though sufficient food was afforded them, it was not of
that description and variety to give the pioneer adequate strength and
cheerfulness to bear up against his depressing toils. Hard biscuit, salt
beef and pork formed the staff of the military regimen. Now and then
they enjoyed the luxury of tasting fresh meat. None of the sappers at
this time could command sufficient relief from front duty to master the
mysteries of the _cuisine_ so as to manufacture anything like a
relishable meal. This was left as an achievement for after times when
the inimitable Soyer superintended the military kitchens. Many hardy men
at last broke up; and one hale fellow—the type of many more—in alluding
to his trials on account of the rations, observed, “My teeth are the
only parts that are failing me!” Hardship was unequal to make an inroad
upon that strong man’s frame, but flinty biscuit and tough beef spoiled
the efficiency of an apparatus which, under other circumstances, might
have stood his need for half a century. He then added, “all the money I
can get goes for soft bread to ease my teeth and mitigate the aching of
my jaws. The French come round with it almost every day, and we give
2_s._ 6_d._ and sometimes 3_s._ for a three-pound loaf!” Those indeed
were hard times and the prices such as would be excessive in a famine.
If there were reason to complain of the want of fresh meat none could be
alleged against the quantities of rations supplied. While the troops
were suffering great privations, the sappers always had full provisions
and “when warm clothing was available for them it was brought up without
delay.” This arose from the mules furnished for the engineer field
service having been planked up in sheds at Balaklava in the early
campaign and carefully attended to.[182] In the fatal winter that
followed, the engineer mules were thus protected from its rigours, while
the unsheltered baggage animals of different corps, and even the troop
horses, fell dead in frightful numbers at their tethers. The great storm
of November, 1854, rendered the animals almost powerless and the little
strength they possessed wholly gave way when the slightest pressure was
applied to derive from their employment any urgent assistance. Nothing
on the other hand baffled the few mules attached to the engineer
department but the conveyance of the huts; and this was a service so
extremely heavy, it was utterly beyond their capabilities. To corporal
Matthew Stevens was attributed the preservation of the engineer
transport stud. He had with him a small party of sappers who soon turned
themselves into efficient drivers, and emulating the energy and care of
the corporal, assisted to produce a result which became a striking
incident of the campaign.[183]
So effective an adjunct of the siege was the rifle screen, that on the
left attack four pits commanding the Woronzoff ravine were commenced in
front of the second parallel on the night of the 22nd April and daily
additions were made to the number. A fortnight later other pits in the
same attack were made extending from the right of the second parallel to
the front of the third, and also from the right flank of No. 8 battery.
The chain consisted of forty holes spotting the ground with light troops
in snug and commanding positions. These were commenced by Lieutenant C.
G. Gordon of the engineers, with a force of 180 linesmen and a
proportion of 24 sappers who were that night allotted for the works. In
time the pits became an enlarged item in the system of attack, and
formed, occasionally, the starting points from which new zigzags or
parallels were struck out. Old pits, moreover, which had been abandoned
by the Russians—as the besiegers’ works compressed their
circumvallation—were taken advantage of and turned against them.
Corporal John Landrey, a very good sapper, was noticed for his zeal and
intelligence in leading and instructing the working parties on the 24th,
and sergeant Benjamin Castledine, while visiting a working party in the
extended parallel to the right of the mortar battery on Gordon’s attack,
received a bullet wound in the hand.
Battery No. 11 for seven guns was begun in the night of the 27th on a
rocky eminence, somewhat isolated though imposing, to the left of the
second parallel. Ground was broken by 300 of the line and 50 seamen with
as many sappers as could be taken out of 35 detailed that night for the
trenches of the left attack. Captain Porter had the direction of the
work. All his arrangements were so admirably carried out, that the
parapet—256 long—was risen to a height of six feet, and the two right
gun portions and epaulment, worked as a half sunken battery, had a
parapet nearly twelve feet thick revetted with sand-bags. Nor was this
all; the remaining portion of the battery, shaped after the elevated
form, was revetted partly with casks and partly with gabions, and
obtained a thickness varying from seven to nine feet. Receiving no
little access of spirit from the joyous exertions of the happy sailors,
the men worked hard and excellently, but at the period of relief they
left the battery jaded and exhausted. Sergeant Jarvis, and
lance-corporals Hanson, J. T. Collins, and Jenkins of the sappers,
acquired the credit of having laboured splendidly, which was recorded to
their honour in the orders of Major-General Jones. A constant and
irritating fire was directed against the workmen the greater part of the
night, but the result when summed up, was one slight wound, and the
smashing of six stands of arms.
A few nights later Captain Armit gave orders for the earth of the
battery to be thrown well to the front. With a manner less absolute than
persuasive, Sergeant Drew, who was in charge, requested the workmen to
go on the parapet for the purpose, but they refused, alleging, “it was
sappers’ work.” The moon was shining bright in the rear, baring the
battery to Russian fire and rendering the duty anything but inviting.
Taking Rowland Hill’s plan of doing the work himself when his servants
quarrelled about their legitimate portions, the sergeant laid aside his
jacket and pushing on the merlon toiled away like a navvy. Distributed
to various details of the battery, the sappers hearing that the working
party had declined to assist, left their several tasks and joined the
sergeant. This was more than a brave rifleman could well bear, and with
an example that none of the workmen cared to imitate, he attempted to
take his place with the shovellers; but a sapper who happened to be
below, altogether averse to accepting any services which seemed to
spring from other considerations than duty, pulled the rifleman down,
observing, in tones of sarcastic resentment, “that, as the work was,
according to the opinions of the party, purely sappers’ work, none but
sappers ought to share in the credit of its execution.” The
strengthening of the merlon, therefore, that night, with heavy
discharges of shot and some shell directed against it, was wholly
carried out by sergeant Drew and his sappers.
Before the end of April, a few men of the corps assisted by working
parties completed a hut for the general officer of the trenches on the
right attack with stout timbers and sheeting and gave it as much proof
with sand-bags and earth as practicable. A similar chamber was reared
soon after for the general on the left. Considering its position it was
a cozy quarter in the storm, and its social character was enhanced by
the introduction of an old door and a glazed window screened from fire
by a traverse. All that it wanted was a stove and the wreathing smoke
from a chimney-pot to make it a palace for a peasant.