The Express.
London, England, 1855-09-26 00:00:00

THE FALL

SEBASTOPOL.

FULL DETAILS.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CO]

CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL, Sari. 11.
The Union Jack and the Tricolour are at last
weviog over Sebastopol. Long before the following

detailsof the great achievement by which this glo-
rious result has been accomplished can reach you,
the electric telegraph will have spread the news of
our triumph throughout England and France, bring-
ing joy to the masses, and sorrow, alas! to many a
bereaved home; it remains, therefore, to as, whose

slower messenger is the post, merely to furnish the
particahus of the struggle which has ended in so

glorious, though costly, a sumer.
When my last letter wu being despatched the final
volleys of Ibe bombardment were booming on the ear,

and the brave battalions by whom the attack was to
be made were parading a few hundred yards from
my tent door. The Light and Second Divisions
being those selected for our own share of the opera-

tion, the regiments of those two most distinguished

sections of our army received orders on Friday night
to have two days' rations cooked and served out at six

o'clock on the following morning. At 7 a.m. the
first storming party, consisting of one hundred men of
the 97th Regiment, under Major Welsford, and first
severing party, 100 men of god battalion Rifle Brigade,
under Captain Filers—paraded, and shortly after-

wards marched down to the trenches; where the

former took up their position in the new boyeau run-
ning out of the centre of the fifth parallel, and the
latter in extended order on their left, ready to cover
their advance, and keep down the fire from the para-
pet of the Rrdan. Half-an-hour later, the 'cooed
body of 'farmers, compered of two hundred of the

97th under Colonel Hancock, and three hundred of

the 90th under Captain Grove, tollowtd, and formed
immediately behind the first, in the parallel
itself. After a similar interval, these again

were followed by working parties of one hundred
nen from each of the two Divisions engaged, sue-

ceeded, half-an-hour later, by supports of 750 men
each from the 19th and 88th Regiments, with part of
• brigade of the Second Division ; these were stationed
laths fourth parallel, ready for advancing into the fifth
as mes• as the assault was made. Lastly came the
suferefteonsisting of the first brigade of the Light
Dlvisien,who as the sequel will show, with their
usual losit. came in for a share of the actual tumult.
This, I think, is a tolerably accurate statement of the
relative division of the duties of the attack, and of the
istrength of the parties employed.
As on the 18th of June, it was again arranged that
the Euglish should assault the Redan aad the French
the Malakhoff. The experieace of that disastrous
occasion, however, taught the necessity of permitting
the latter redoubt to be first captured before our own
men attempted the former; inasmuch as the guns of
the Round Tower effectually commanded the open
space over which a force attacking the Reda° must
cross. To be sure, there was reason to believe that the
Malakhuff had at length been effectually silenced ;
but • similar notion was entertained on the occasion
of the lest assault, and its error dearly
I proved. Every embrasure but one of the
INlelskhoff had been blocked up as early as d.y-
light of the 7th ; bat this was no guarantee that
the guns had not, as before, been drawn in under
cover, ready in a minute's time to clear an opening
for themselves and receive an attacking force with
grape and canister, u on the morning of the 18th of
June. Accordingly, the guns of our own right attack
continued to play vigorously on the Round Tower till

. . _
a few minutes before noon on Saturday, notwitb-

standing that its own fire had all but entirely ceased
the day before—•as occasional shot from a single gun
being all the reply it gave to the onslaught of the
besieging artillery. On the Malakhoff, therefore,
even more than on the Redan,which was to be stormed
by our own men, did our gunsdirect their fire, rendering
the work a perfect furnace of exploding shells, and to
the sustained vigour and precision of this practice is
mainly to be attributed the success of the attack which
followed. In the meantime nearly 30,000 French had
been moved down into their advanced trenches before
the Mamelon and other covering spots around it,
ender the commend of General Bouquet. Oar own
force, I am forgetting to mention, was under the chief
direction of Sir William Codrington, with General
Markham as second in command; General Simpson
himself being somewhere near the Twenty-one Gun
Battery, but without any direct share in the manage-
ment of the operations.
At twelve o'clock exactly the fire of the batteries
ceased, and the party of Zouaves, who led the French
attack, dashed over the parapet of their advanced
sap, and in leas than a minute had crossed the inter-
vening forty yards, and were scrambling up the pa-
rapet of the Round Tower. Contrary to all hope,
the solitary gun on the proper right of the work was
the only piece that rec°ived the vaulters with a dis-
charge, and there was no time to reload it before
our allies were inside the redoubt; the mischief in-
flicted by its one round of grape was but small.
Swarm after swarm of our allies crowded up the
steep embankment, till the whole parapet was
literally covered with them, and then com-
menced such a fire of musketry as never
echoed through the ravines round Sebastopol
before. I can compare its unbroken continuity to
nothing but the rattling tattooer of a thousand tenor
drums. I base witnessed 70,000 men engaged in a
general action ; but the infantry fire delivered on the
singleton was but as child's play compared with the
naseleas roll that poured in upon the Malakhoff during
Ilaturda)'s attack. As usual, no circumstantial or
complete narrative of the operation can be given, from
tits habitual incommunicativeness which our allies
dime in all their proceedings; but from one of the
friers who led the attack, I learn that the prepared
teslitb•ce was much less than had been expected. The
INNS, had evidently been taken by surprise, and after
• feeble stand made by the supports within the re-
doubt when the French entered, the place was
vacated by its forgoer holders, who kept up a running
tire as they retired : reserves, however, were speedily
brought up, but as the French continnefl to pour in