down and the barrels which made it splinter proof, were turned to
account in improving the revetments of Nos. 14 and 16 batteries on the
left attack. The picket-house battery, No. 6 armed with three heavy guns
and three 10-inch mortars, posted on the French side of the ravine, was
also demolished, and its serviceable materials used in the advanced
works. The battery took its name from a deserted residence that stood in
the glen a little below it, and which, from the commencement of the
siege was occupied by a picket. The picket-house, known as such, _par
excellence_, was situated on the crest of the Woronzoff ravine to the
rear of the 21-gun battery. It was first the look-out place of the
generals, and lastly the rendezvous of officers and amateurs of all
countries; but even that interesting quarter yielded to the devastating
necessities of the siege and was razed to the ground by some sappers.
Its rafters, planks, and doors, torn by many a shell, were converted
into platforms and splintering for magazines and huts. By degrees the
walls were removed, chiefly for building hospitals; and fragments of
wood, turned into articles of taste, were retained by the curious as
memorials of the picket-house. Nothing was left of that celebrated
structure, associated with so many exciting reminiscences, but the
crumbled vestiges of its humble stateliness designated by the French “La
ruine des Anglais.”
Corporal Lockwood on the 7th had charge of fifty men and three sappers
forming a parapet with stones in the communication leading from the
fourth parallel to the graveyard. The sappers attended to the building
of the wall and the line handed to them the blocks and fragments. In
time not a stone could be found not even as large as a walnut; and in
order to keep the builders at work, the corporal spread a few of his
party over the hill side in front to collect materiél. In this situation
they were uncovered. Just then a fire-ball dropped among them, and on
came discharges of grape and shells which struck down the corporal
wounding him severely in the right thigh by the splinter of a shell.
About this time the sapper carpenters built a wooden bridge across the
communication from the fourth boyau to No. 14 battery on the left
attack. The battery rose out of the centre of the third parallel, and
the approach stretched obliquely across the hill. This and one or two
other similar constructions were the only instances during the siege of
bridges being thrown under fire. The ramps formed out of the solid rock
were blasted and shaped by six miners. Indeed the entire communication,
about sixty feet, was driven through rock with no little skill.
On the right the sapper carpenters erected a splinter-proof hut for the
general of the trenches in the new zigzag from the left of the second
parallel. The struts and timbers were strong and braced, to resist, as
far as contrivance could ensure safety, the shocks of heavy projectiles.
Its roof was formed of fascines resting on rafters, thickened by three
layers of sand-bags with earth riddled in among them to fill up the
vacuities. The hut was nine feet six inches long by six feet broad and
about seven in height, with a passage into it just ample enough for a
good sized man to enter. There was no royal road to safety; no means of
isolating this interesting quarter from the chances of danger. Sunken as
it was, bringing its roof only a few feet above the level of the trench,
and protected by traverses and parapets, splinters of shells and large
shot were lying in its environs in dismal corroboration of the fact that
the siege was no respecter of persons nor recognised any spot as
entitled to the privilege of escape.
Seeing a collection of gabions idle, some French soldiers of the 20th
and 27th regiments of the line, carried off about a hundred from the
store and broke them up for firewood. Private Calderwood in charge of
them, failing to make his bad French understood, remonstrated with the
depredators by an extravagant display of gesture and grimace. The allies
were humourous and treated the appeal of the irate sapper with more
risibility than was agreeable. Lieutenant Darrah of the engineers
appearing, he spoke of the abstraction to one of their officers, telling
him the gabions were British property; and as if to add weight to his
assertion, pointed out the unarmed soldier who had charge of them.
Without attempting to excuse the appropriation, the French officer
shrugging his shoulders, merely observed, that as the sapper had no
carbine to show the nature of his authority, he could not be regarded as
a sentinel; and so the gabions were borne away to cook French soup!
Next night 2 privates and 50 of the line were deputed to the right
advance of the Gordon attack, who, in the face of light-balls and grape,
staked no less than 79 gabions. Under the circumstances this was a feat
in war. Nevertheless, from the briskness of the fire, there was an
unwillingness to continue the sap, and the private in charge withdrew
the party for a time to the left advanced trench, reporting the
arrangement to Lieutenant Graham, who indisposed to spare the labour of
a moment from the work, repaired himself to the spot. No sooner had he
and the sapper arrived, than a shot bounded before them, and scattering
the stones with great force, wounded Lieutenant Graham so severely that
the trenches for a while were deprived of his services. The fire on the
party in its new position, being still unrelaxed, the line-officer who
commanded felt it his duty to take his men away, telling the sapper left
in charge, that he regarded the place too perilous for line-men to work
in. Inferentially, it was not too dangerous for sappers; but as a
solitary individual could not hope to do much in so exposed a situation,
he was removed by the assistant-engineer, Captain Wolseley, 90th
regiment, to other work in the foremost trenches. Private Bernard Murray
was this night wounded in the right hand, and next day privates James
Mehan in the right ankle and Peter McNulty slightly by rifle bullets.
The last had done good service in repairing an embrasure under fire at
the request of a naval officer; and besides being in brigade orders for
his conduct was given a donation by Lord Raglan.
On the night of the 10th, 18 sappers provided for the Gordon attack were
told off to the following works under Captain Cooke of the engineers and
Major Campbell, 46th, assistant-engineer:—
Sappers. Men.
3 200— new trench in front of No. 18 battery; placed and filled
143 gabions.
1 38— building 18 battery.
1 41— building traverses in 19 battery, and trenching an
approach to it.
1 21— carrying platforms.
2 50— left advanced trench; placed and filled 14 gabions and
improved old part of trench.
2 80— right advanced trench; placed and filled 42 gabions, and
connected the cutting with end of new wall.
4 60— wall in continuation of right advanced trench; built it up
four feet high and two feet six inches thick, grape
proof.
3 90— turning the advanced Russian trench into a parallel, in
which considerable progress was made.
1 20— excavating for small arm ammunition magazine and engineer
hut.
The above detail, taken with all its precision from the diary of the
siege, may be regarded as the type of employment and distribution of the
sappers at this era of the struggle.
About this time was finished No. 15 mortar battery in the third
parallel. It was commenced on the 24th June, under the foremanship of
second-corporal James Hill, who since the middle of May had been
employed as one of Major Bent’s permanent day overseers. The way to it,
from No. 14 battery, was driven through rock when occurred a good stiff
clayey soil, upon which the new formation was founded. Wholly built of
earth accessible at the spot, without a single sand-bag to assist its
solidity, it was reckoned to be the boldest construction on the left
attack. Stretching along the trench for 200 feet, with a parapet about
10 feet deep and 26 to 30 broad, it covered an armament of twelve
10-inch mortars, which were fed from three strong magazines and a
shell-room. Free from the annoyance of cross-fires, there were no
traverses in the work; and it was remarkable that during its progress
only three shells pitched into it in day-time. One killed a line-man at
the mouth of a magazine, another burst in the distance, and the third
passed between Major Bent and the corporal. It was near enough to be
alarming, but both were instantly prostrate, and on exploding the
splinters flew high above them. When the battery opened fire, the earth
shook down in various places, especially at the angles; to remedy which
powder-barrels were added to the revetment. No work perhaps throughout
the siege cost less labour in repairs and less casualties than No. 15
battery.
On the 14th July was commenced the fifth parallel of the Gordon attack
on most intricate ground. The pioneers were horribly exposed to a
cannonading from the Redan, Garden batteries, and Bastion du Mât. Hours
of dogged labour failed to show an excavation which was worth the
trouble of calculating its dimensions. Earth was collected with as much
care as flour in a famine and brought on men’s shoulders from a distance
to give quality to the cover. Every stone dislodged by the miners,
treasured as if it possessed intrinsic value, was pitched into the
gabion or added to the parapet behind. Upon the tier of gabions forming
the revetment, sand-bags were laid in courses as fast as they could be
delivered by the line. The trials of this foremost work were
incalculable; the placement of every gabion was opposed, and every inch
of progress furnished its obstacles. On one occasion several of the
baskets were thrown down and not a few were broken and rendered useless.
Difficult to labour under such circumstances, most of the working party
were withdrawn; but all the breaches nevertheless were made good before
the morning at a cost of two sappers and six of the line wounded.
Blanched bones buried for years in the Russian cemetery turned up in the
excavations, took their places in the parapets with blocks of rock,
broken tombstones, shattered coffins, and consecrated earth. It was not
a time to care about memories, or removing marks fixed with hallowed
care to point out the sites of favoured remains, but an innate feeling
of reverence for the dead prevented the sappers and workmen, as much as
in them lay, from disturbing the dread repositories of the dead or
defacing the memorials, rude as many of them were, which filled the
graveyard with melancholy records of the departed. This consideration
for the relics of poor humanity did not produce among the workmen any
false sentiment with regard to the living; and on every side powerful
works and engineering stratagems were in operation to weaken the vigour
and hauteur of a brave but insolent enemy.
Ceaseless perseverance drove on the works and sustained valour kept the
men at their posts. One trench after another was added to the vast
net-work of defences, which, crowding on the edges of the hills,
descended the valleys as if pushed down by some capillary law. In this
way the glens were crossed more than twice with saps. New approaches
were thrown out in front like so many antennæ striving to clutch the
enemy’s works. Still the progress was slow, for the oolitic rocks out of
which the hills were formed obtruded everywhere, defying from their
hardness all arts but those of blasting. Rifle-pits on the right were
constructed on the very rim of the hill in front of the fourth parallel,
to which they were connected and each to the other by long zigzags and
passages. One built in a secluded nook or gorge commanded the
chevaux-de-frise which stretched across the Woronzoff road. About this
time the use of hay-band hurdles was resorted to with fair success as
screens to the embrasures, to cover the artillerists at the guns. The
pressure in front for materials caused some of the field-battlements in
the rear to be dismantled, and the stores and armaments to be employed
in the new works, while a few coopers augmented the stock by recovering
the staves of broken casks and rehooping, them with iron.
So well, indeed, were the extensive and complicated requirements of the
siege attended to, that Major-General Jones, a close observer of the
exertions of his force, commended it in these encouraging words on the
16th July. “The officers of engineers and the men of the royal sappers
and miners continue to perform their duties in a very zealous manner.”
None flinched, none evaded his allotted labour; but many, from the
“great heat of the trenches,” and the constant recurrence of a hard and
fatiguing duty, were worn out or laid up and consumed by fevers. Truly
wasting was the season, very light breezes only being astir to mitigate
its oppressiveness. Strong hot winds at times, and heavy thunderstorms
with frightful lightning playing above in angry forks or blazing sheets,
told of its sultriness. Genial showers, however, now and again occurred
to relieve it, which had the effect, in some degree, of refreshing the
men, and giving an inspiriting spur to the flagging energies of
overtasked industry.
-----
Footnote 188:
A Russian officer who could speak English fluently had charge of a
searching party to collect the dead. Entering freely into conversation
with an officer of the 14th foot, he expressed a hope that the day
would soon come when the belligerents would again be cordial friends.
Warming with the occasion he asked the officer and his men if they
were disposed to make any exchanges with him as pledges of the
interview and probably hereafter of recognition. Corporal R. Jasper
Fitzgerald of the third company, was specially spoken to by the
Russian; and feeling in his pockets to meet the wishes of the
inquirer, mentioned his regret that he had nothing to offer except a
penny. “Let me see it,” said he, and Fitzgerald at once presented it.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Russian officer with evident pleasure, “It’s one
of old George’s! If this is a fair exchange you are welcome to it.”
And the good-natured officer handed Fitzgerald a handsome silver
devotional cross. To the British officer he gave a silver snuff-box.
In the peregrinations Fitzgerald felt it desirable to make to increase
his acquaintance with the locality, thinking it not improbable he
might soon have a “job” there, he entered a house near the cemetery,
and not wishing to quit it without some memento of his visit, nothing
apparently turned up for acceptance more valuable or less portable
than a sofa! A burly sailor and he shouldered the huge piece of
Russian furniture and stumped away with it wonderfully tickled with
the idea of the fun it would occasion when they reached the trenches;
but while jogging on, an alarm being given of the termination of the
truce, the bearers instantly dropped the “family seat” and run for
their lives. The alarm proved to be a false one, and Fitzgerald and
the jolly Tar, having like coursers retraced their steps to recover
the spoil, found that swifter feet than theirs had taken a fancy to
the prize and vanished with it.
Footnote 189:
The corporal belonged to Captain Brine’s company. With a warm
appreciation of military merit, the lady of the Captain presented
Collins with a miniature legion of honour, in order to impress the
Queen, when she reviewed three of the Crimean companies at Aldershot,
with a more adequate notion of his services than would have been
conveyed to Her Majesty had he only worn the ribbon of a chevalier. At
that time the French decorations had not been issued to the troops.
He had a brother with him in the Crimea, so exactly like himself in
face, figure, and speech, it was perplexing to say which was Joseph
which George. The old story of the two Dromios, to a certain extent,
was acted over again in their persons. Both were useful and brave;
neither more so than the other. Joseph obtained all the honours which
a gallant soldier could claim and to which he was fully entitled, but
George seemed to have been totally eclipsed, no one could explain how,
by his brother. Joseph, indeed, was considered to be George, and
George the veritable Joseph; and so in this “Comedy of Errors,”
George, by the misfortune of resemblance to his brother, was lost
among the undecorated.
It is almost a marvel to add, that Joseph, though a first corporal,
wearing orders that none of his rank had obtained, deserted from the
corps soon after landing in this country from Sebastopol.
1855.
17th July-25th August.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
Trials in carrying on the works—Fifth parallel, right attack—Detachments
and statistics—Spirited conduct of corporal Ross—Neglect of
non-commissioned officers—Trench dress of the line—Shifts of the
miners to form the parallels and approaches—Siege minutæ—Trenches
flooded—A sergeant, in the absence of an engineer officer, in charge
of the lines—Casualties—Sortie by the Russians—Sergeant Docherty
examines the chevaux-de-frise—Overseers of the miners—The
carpenters—Renewal of the chevaux-de-frise demolished in the
sortie—Casualties during a moonlight night—Exertions of sergeant
Jarvis and party; the sailors—Strange sensation produced by the blow
of a shell splinter—Resources for field-work purposes—Progress of the
trenches and batteries—Removal of the right attack sappers to the camp
of the left attack—They thus escape a subsequent catastrophe—Fifth
bombardment—Cost of a whiff of tobacco—Activity of the sappers in the
batteries and works—Anecdote of a new comer visiting the works—No. 17
battery, left attack—Corporal Jenkins, the master carpenter of the
left attack—The white-banded cap—Fifth parallel, right attack—Breaking
ground from it for the last approach to the Redan—Workmanlike industry
and vigour of corporal Ross in the sap—Corporal William Baker, 7th
company—Progress in the advanced trenches; sergeant Hale of the
guards; corporal Stanton—Prolongation of fifth parallel, right
attack—Effects of wounds.
In the trenches were distributed, on the 17th July, a working party of
550 men superintended by 97 sappers. Of the latter, 73 were on the left
where the mines demanded the skilled employment of men used to blasting.
Several carpenters were detailed to the platforms and magazines, and
others were sprinkled singly to the different works, embrasures and
traverses. The majority were in advance prolonging the parallels and
blowing up the rock. On the right attack, corporal George Luke was
killed. A first-class miner and sapper, he was of signal service in the
trenches, and his steady conduct throughout the siege added to the
credit he had received for his exertions at Bomarsund.
In the night an old Russian trench, which by degrees had been reversed,
was connected with the fifth parallel on the right attack by 11 sappers
and 200 men, while 4 of the corps and 100 linesmen joined the approach
from the left of No. 19 battery to the fourth parallel. These junctions
were both effected under Lieutenant Brine of the engineers. Of the fifth
parallel, a moiety was formed wholly of rubble masonry. Lacking gabions
and revetting materials, the stones thrown up in blasting were the
readiest means of forming the parapet. This rubble mound, forming a line
of trench for about 450 feet, and stretching along the brow of the hill
to the left of a hollow in the rock, which had acquired in official
description the designation of the “little ravine,” was completed and
backed in with earth by the 28th July. Being so near the enemy’s works,
and disturbed by daily showers of grape, shell, &c., the construction of
this stone parapet formed one of the curiosities of the siege.
Both attacks were hourly approaching nearer to those extraordinary
structures it was hoped every day to storm. It still required time to
render the preparations complete for the dénouement. The ever present
rock, covered only by a few inches of soil, greatly increased the trials
of the workmen. Sacrifices of energy and strength were made in its
removal that ended in casualties unknown in former wars. The siege was
one continuous battle; yet it was more than strange, considering the
ferocity of the cannonade, that comparatively so few casualties
occurred. Engines to destroy human life in the most approved methods
were complete among the Russians; still they did not scruple to resort
to the uncivilized use of horse-shoes and scrap-iron to mow down the
assailants. So close were the parallels to the enemy’s works, that, on a
clear day, a finger could easily be discovered above the parapet. Where
the cover was scanty, it was a virtue to double up one-self into a
cramped position and labour like a giant. The miners and sappers in
every contortion of body, wheedled themselves under cover and stole
onwards with insidious certainty; but to preserve a strict concealment
was not an easy matter. For ambitious men the times were tempting;
opportunities seemed to impel one forward, or to unbend one-self into an
erect posture in delivering a blow; for, intent on progress, the mind
forgot dangers, and it was just then that the ardent man let his head or
his arm appear above the parapet, or his leg stray beyond the last
pitched gabion, when he was struck down. It was different, however, at
night, when all were alike veiled by the darkness. Works then were
commonly prosecuted on the open in front of batteries, on the tops of
merlons and magazines, and the crests of parapets. Experienced sappers
after dusk seldom sought to shield themselves by the sap-roller or
mantlet. A check to their progress, it was almost always cast aside to
be used by men who feared to go ahead without it.
Private Rowland Nicholas was struck severely in the right foot while
working in the fifth parallel of the right attack, and died of his
wounds. The firing was more true than severe and eight casualties
occurred in this parallel during the night.
There were nine companies in the Crimea on the 21st July, each of
reduced strength, giving a total of 678 sergeants and rank and file. Of
these there were 97 detailed to the following places:—
Sergts. Corporals. Bug. Privates. Total.
St. Paul near Kertch. 0 2 0 12 14
Scutari 2 3 0 21 26
Balaklava 2 6 0 22 30
The monastery 0 0 0 2 2
Telegraph stations 1 1 2 10 14
Head-quarters of the army 1 2 0 8 11
——
97
Otherwise employed, and as batmen 5 0 1 33 39
——
Total 136
——