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

men to come out, and succeeded several times in
forming a few of them, but they melted away as
fast as he laid hold of them, and either fell in their
little ranks or retired to cover to keep up their
fusillade. Many of them crowded to lower parts
of the inner parapet and kept up a smart fire on
the enemy, but nothing would induce them to come
out into the open space and charge the breastwork.
This was all going on at the proper left space of the
the
nande front thet
only
Redan, while nearly the same scene was being re-
peated at the salient. Every moment our men were
diminishing in numbers, while the Russians came
up in swarms from the town, and rushed down
from the Malakhoff, which had now been occupied
by the French. Thrice did Colonel Windham send
officers to Sir E. Codrington, who was in the fifth
parallel, begging of him to send up supports in some
order of formation ; but all these three officers
were wounded as they passed from the ditch of
the Redan to the rear, and the Colonel's own aide-
de-camp, Lieutenant Swire, of the 17th, a gallant
young officer, was hit dangerously in the hip, as
he went on his perilous errand. Supports were,
indeed, sent up, but they came up in disorder
from the fire to which they were exposed on their
way, and arrived in dribblets only to increase the
confusion and the carnage. Finding that he could
not collect any men on the left face, Colonel
Windham passed thrtaigh one of the cuts
of the inner parapet, and walked over to the
right face at the distance of thirty yards from
the Russian breastwork, to which he moved in a
parallel line, exposed to a close fire, but, wonderful
to say, without; being touched. When he got
behind the inner parapet at the right face
he found the same state of things as that
which existed at the left. The men were behind
h
firing away at the Russians or
blazinge
flown
avtertsheesm, from the broken parts of the front,
frwoomrktshfeor coversalient
while they loaded and fired at the enemy. The
Colonel got some riflemen and a few men of the
got
to
behi came
behind
dhwe
88th together, but no sooner had he brought them
out than they were killed, wounded, or dispersed
by a concentrated fire. The officers, with the
noblest devotion, aided Colonel Windham,
.and be-
came the special marks of the enemy's riflemen.
The narrow neck of the salient was too close to allow
of any kind of formation, and the more the men
crowded into it the more they got out of order,
and the more they suffered from the enemy's fire.
This miserable work lasted for an hour. The
Russians were now in dense masses behind the
breastwork, and Colonel Windham walked back
again across the open space to the left to make one
more attempt to retrieve the day. The men on
the parapet of the salient, who were firing at the
Russians, sent their shot about him, and the lat-
ter, who were pouring volley after volley on all
points of the head of the work, likewise directed
their muskets against him, but he passed through
this cross fire in safety, and got within the inner
parapet on the left, where the men were becoming
thinner and thinner. A Russian officer now stepped
over the breastwork, and tore down a gabion with
his own hands ; it was to make room for afield-piece.
Colonel Windham exclaimed to several soldiers who
were firing over the parapet, " Well, as you are so
fond of firing, why don't you shoot that Russian ?"
They fired a volley and missed him, and soon
afterwards the field piece began to play on the head
of the salient with grape. Col. Windham saw there
was no time to be lost. He had sent three officers
for reinforcements and, above all, for men in forma-
tion, and he now resolved to go to General Codring-
ton himself. Seeing Capt. Crealock, of the 90th,
near him, busy in encouraging his men, and exert-
ing himself with great courage and energy to get
them into order, he said—" I must go to the Gene-
ral for supports. Now mind, let it be known, in case
I am killed, why I went away." He crossed the pa-
rapet and ditch, and succeeded in gaining the fifth
parallel through a storm of grape and rifle bullets
in safety. Sir Edward Codrington asked him if he
thought he really could do anything with such sup-
ports as he could afford, and said ho might take the
Royals, who were then in the parallel. " Let the
officers come out in front—let us advance in order,
and if the men keep their formation the Redan is
ours," was the Colonel's reply ; but he spoke too late
—for at that very moment our men were seen leap-
ing down into the ditch, or running down the pa-
rapet of the salient, and through the embrasures
out of the work into the ditch, while the Russians
followed them with the bayonet and with heavy
musketry, and even threw stones and grapeshot at
them as they lay in the ditch. The fact was that
the Russians havingaccumulated several thousands
of men behind the breastwork, and seeing our men
all scattered up and confused behind the inner
parapet of the traverse, crossed the breast-
work, through which several field-pieces were
now playing with grape on the inner face of the
Redan, and charged our broken troops with the
bayonet, at the same time that the rear ranks
getting on the breastwork, poured a heavy hail pf
bullets on them over the heads of the advancing
column. The struggle that took place was short,
desperate, and bloody. Our soldiers, taken at every
disadvantage, met the enemy with the bayonet too,
and isolated combats took place in which the brave
fellows who stood their ground had to defend them-
selves against three or four adversaries at once. In
this melee the officers, armed only with their
swords, had little chance ; nor had those who car-
ried pistols much opportunity of using them in such
a rapid contest. They fell like heroes, and many
a gallant soldier with them. The bodies of Eng-
lish and Russians inside the Redan, locked in an
embrace which death could not relax, but had
rather cemented all the closer, lay next day inside
the Redan as evidences of the terrible animosity of
the struggle. But the solid weight of the advanc-
ing mass, urged on, and fed each moment from the
rear by company after company and battalion after
battalion, prevailed at last against the isolated and
disjointed band, who had abandoned the protec-
tion of unanimity of courage and had lost the ad-
vantages of discipline and obedience. As though
some giant rock had advanced into the sea and
forced back the waters that buffeted it, so did the
Russian columns press down against the spray of
soldiery which fretted their edge with fire and steel
a,ad contended in vain against their weight. The I
struggling band was forced back by the enemy, who
moved on crushingfriend and foe beneath their solid
tramp, and, bleeding, panting, and exhausted, our
men lay in heaps in the ditch beneath the parapet,
sheltered themselves behind stones and iii bomb-cra-
ters in the slope of the work, or tried to pass back to
our advanced parallel and sap, and-had to run the
gauntlet of a tremendous fire. Many of them lost
their lives, or were seriously wounded in this
attempt. The scene in the ditch was appalling,
although some of the officers have assured me that
they and the men were laughing at the precipitation
with which many brave and gallant fellows did not
hesitate from plunging headlong upon the mass of
bayonets, muskets, and sprawling soldiers—the lad-
ders were all knocked down or broken, so that it
was difficult for the men to get up at the other
side, and the dead, the dying, the wounded, and
the sound were all lying in heaps together. The
Russians came out of the embrasures, plied them
stones, grape-shot, and the bayonet, but were soon
forced to retire by the fire of our batteries and rifle-
men, and under cover of this fire many of our men
escaped to the approaches. In some instances the
enemy persisted in remaining outside in order to ,
plunder the bodies of those who were lying on the
slope of the parapet, and paid the penalty of their
rashness in being stretched beside their foes ; but
others came forth on a holier errand, and actually
brought water to our wounded. If this last act be
true, it is but right to discredit the story that the
Russians placed our wounded over the magazine in
the rear of the Redan, near the Barrack Battery,
ere they fired it—the only foundation for which, as
far as I can discover, is that many of the bodies of
our men found in the Redan were dreadfully
scorched and burnt ; but there were many Russians
lying there in a similar state. General Pelissier
observed the failure of our attack from the rear of
rnnyoßd-nfcsCuesose,ahusl
and
leaniddfnnd,
the
.Malakhoff, and sent over to General Simpson to
theFtmio.
eomoeumau
Fourth
tmdi
ttsehhandoenDof. Commander-in-Chief
Tevthurhhi -se
Guards
ask if lie intended to attack again. The English
is
siaHmnr
redeoi
egpoes
nnheto
ddldroalfi
Highlanders,
haveettnveroedsrt
doubtful
asuutedvrbhreontevfiressuTeohslphewwl
di
Areehdm:l
el
el
ttaathuhhtneneai
dr.st-
rials for another assault, but the subsequent move-
the glory of carrying the
Redan,
and of redeeming
the credit of our arms, would not have been dearly
purchased by the effusion of more valuable blood.
e assault the
As soon as we abandoned th
but
most ceased along our front, in the rear of the
Malakhoff there was a fierce
contest going on be-
tween masses of Russians, now released from the
Redan, or drawn from the town, and the French,
inside the work, and the fight
on the proper loft of
th for the Little Redan
Malakhoff', was raging
furiously. Clouds of smokee and
scene, but the rattle of musketry incessant,
dust covered the
and betokened the severe nature ofwas
the
below. Through the breaks in thesmokestruggle
could be seen now and then a tricolour,
surmounted there
by an eagle, fluttering bravely overtle inner
rapet of the Malakhoff. The storm of battle rolled-
fiercelybut it was
sustained round it, and beat against it • e
sustained by strong arms and stout hearts, and all
the assaults of the enemy were directed in vain
against it. We could see, too, our noble allies
swarming over into the Malakhoff from their splen-
did approaches to it from the Mamelon, or rushing
with swift steps towards the right, where the Rus-
sians, continually reinforced, sought in vain to
beat back their foes and to regain the key of their
position. The struggle was full of interest to us
all, but its issue was never doubted. It would be
untrue to say that theresult of our assault Was not ;

the source of deep grief and hiordiieslidu iii ids,
which all the glorious successes of our allies could
I.not wholly alleviate. Even those who thought any
attack on the liedan useless and unwise, inasmuch
as the possession of the Malakhoff would, in
their opinion, render the Redan untenable, could
not but regret bitterly that, as we had given the
assault, we had not achieved a decisive triumph,
and that so much blood had been, if not inglo-
riously, at least fruitlessly, poured forth.
The French, indeed, have been generous enough
to say that our troops behaved with great bravery,
and that they wondered how we kept the Redan so
lcng under such a tremendous fire, but British
soldiers are rather accustomed to the nil admirari
under such circumstances, and praise like that
gives pain as well as pleasure. Many soldiers, of
the opinion to which I have alluded, think that we
should at once have renewed the attempt once
made, and it is but small consolation to them to
know that General Simpson intended to attack the
Redan the following morning, inasmuch as the
Russians anticipated our probable success, and by
retreat deprived us of the chance of retrieving our
reputation, and at the same time acknowledged,
by their desperate withdrawal, the completeness of
the success achieved by our allies.
Our attack lasted about an hour and three-
quarters, as well as I could make out, and in that
time we lost more men than at Inkerman, where
the fighting lasted for seven hours. At 1.48 p.m.,
which was about the time we retired, there was an
explosion either of a tumbril or of a fougasse
between the Mamelon and the Malakhoff, to the
right, which seemed to blow up several French-
men, and soon afterwards the artillery of the Im-
perial Guard swept across from the rear towards
the Little Redan, and gave us an indication that
our allies had gained a position from which they
could operate against the enemy with their field
pieces. From the opening of the attack the French
batteries over Careening Bay had not ceased to
thunder against the Russian fleet, which lay si-
lently at anchor below, and there was a lively
cannonade between them and the Inkerman bat-
teries till the evening, which was interrupted now
and then by the intervention of the Redoubt Vic-
toria, the English Redoubt, and the late Seling-
hinsk and Volhynia redoubts, which engaged the
Russian batteries over the last end of the harbour.
At 1 o'clock wounded men began to crawl up from
the batteries to the camp ; they could tell us little
or nothing. " Were we in the Redan ?" " Oh,
yes ; but a lot of them was killed, and the Rus-
sians were mighty strong." Some were cheery,
others desponding ; all seemed proud of their
wounds. Half-an-hour more, and the number of
wounded increased • they came up by twos and
threes, and—what I had observed before as a bad
sign—the number of stragglers accompanying them
under the pretence of rendering assistance be-
came greater also. Then the ambulances and the
cacolets (or mule litters) came in sight along the
Woronzoff-road filled with wounded. Every ten
minutes added to their numbers, and we could
see that every effort was made to hurry them
down to the front as soon as they were ready for
a fresh load. The litter-bearers now added to
the length of the melancholy train. We heard
that the temporary hospitals in front were
full, and that the surgeons were beginning
to get anxious about accommodation for the
wounded. It may here be observed that on
the occasion of the 18th of June some of these
temporary hospitals, which are intended to afford
immediate aid in cases requiring operations on the
spot, were under fire, and a shell' burst in the very
tent in which Dr. Paynter and his assistants were
operating, the ground around it being continually
torn up by round shot. On this occasion more care
was taken in determining the sites of the tents.
Another bad sign was that the enemy never ceased
throwing up shell to the front, many of which burst
high in the air over our heads, while the pieces flew
with a most unpleasant whir around us. These
shells were intended for our reserves ; and although
the fuses did not burn long enough for such a
range, and they all burst at a considerable eleva-
tion, they caused some little injury and annoyance
to the troops in the rear, and hit some of our men.
The rapidly-increasing numbers of wounded men,
some of whom had left their arms behind them,
gave rise to suspicions of the truth ; but their an-
swers to many eager questioners were not very de-
cisive or intelligible, and some of them did not
even know what they had been attacking. One
poor young fallow who was marching stiffly up with
a broken arm and a ball through his shoulder,
carried off his firelock with him, but ho made the
naive confession that he had "never fired it off, for
he could not." The piece turned out to be in ex-
cellent order. It struck one that such men as
these, however brave, were scarcely a fit match for
the well-drilled soldiers of Russia ; and yet we
were trusting the honour, reputation, and glory of
Great Britain to undisciplined lads from the plough
or the lanes of our towns and villages I As one
example of the sort of recruits we have received
here recently I may mention that there was a con-
siderable number of men in draughts which
came out last week to regiments in the Fourth
Division who had only been enlisted aj few days,
and who had never fired a rifle in their
lives ! It must not be imagined that such raw-
ness can be corrected and turned into military
efficiency out here, for the fact is that this siege
has been about the worst possible school for de-
veloping the courage and manly self-reliance'of a
soldier ; neither does it teach him the value of dis-
cipline and of united action. When he goes into
the trenches he learns to dodge behind gabions and
to take pot shots from behind stones and parapets,
and at the same time he has no opportunity of
testing the value of his comrades, or of proving him-
self against the enemy on the open field. The
natural result follows. Nor was it ominous of good
that there have been two courts of inquiry recently
on the conduct of two most distinguished regiments
—one, indeed, belonged to the highest rank of our
infantry, and the other a well-tried and gallant re-
giment, which was engaged in this very attack, in
consequence of the misconduct of their young sol-
diers during night affairs in trenches. The old
soldiers behaved admirably, and stood by their ;
officers to the last ; nor was there any lack of
courage among the young lads just joined, but they
were wanting in discipline and iu confidence of
their officers. No one can doubt that the assault
by the Third and Fourth Divisions would have
been quite successful had it been necessary. Gene-
ral Simpson remained in the Green-hill Battery till
6 o'clock, at which hour General Pelissier sent
to inform him that the Malakhoff was quite safe,
and asked him what the English intended to do
with respect to the Redan. General Simpson had
by this time arrived at the determination of attack-
ing it the following morning at 5 o'clock with the
Third and Fourth Divisions. The difficulty of get-
ting accurate information of the progress of an
action cannot be better exemplified than by this
fact, that at 3 o'clock a General of Division did not
know whether we had taken the Redan or not.
Towards dusk the Guards who had been placed in
reserve behind our Right Attack were marched off
to their camp, and a portion of the Highlanders
were likewise taken off the ground. The Guards
only arrived from the trenches this morning, but,
to their great credit be it said, they turned again
withcut a murmur after a rest of a couple of hours
for breakfast, although they had been "on" for 48
hours previously. The Third Division and a por-
tion of the Highlanders were sent down to do the
trench duties in the evening and night.
From the following statement of the loss in the
Light Division it will be seen that this gallant body,
which behaved so well at the Alma, and main-
tained its reputation at Inkerman, suffered as
severely as it did in gaining the former great vic-
tory, and an examination of the return, which is
tolerably correct, and is certainly rather under the
mark, will, I fear, show that the winter, the
trenches, and careless recruiting have done their
work, and that the officers furnished a noble ex-
ample of devotion and gallantry,:which their men
did not imitate. In the Light Division there are
73 officers and 964 men wounded—total, 1,037.
The loss of this division was 1,001 in killed and
wounded at the Alma.
The number of officers killed amounts to 13 ; of
men killed to 94—total, 107: The regiments of
the division which furnished storming columns
were the 90th (or Perthshire Volunteers) and the
97th (or Earl of 'Ulster's). In the 90th Captain
Preston and Lieutenant S wift and Lieutenant Will-
mer were killed. Lieutenant Swift got the fur-
thest of all those who entered the Redan, and his
dead body was discovered far in advance. Captain
Grove, Captain Tinling, Captain Wade, and Lieu-
tenant Vaughan, were all severely ; Captain Perrin
slightly ; Lieutenant Rattray, Lieutenant Rous,
Lieutenant Raitt, and Lieutenants Graham and
Haydock, slightly wounded; 125 men were wound-
ed ; killed not known. In the 97th Lieut.-Col.
the Hon. H. R, Hatidcock, Major Welsford, and
Lieut. Douglas M'Gregor were killed, 114 men
wounded, and 37 were killed. The colonel was
shot through the head, and was carried to his tent,
but the ball lodged in the brain he never was
was sensible, and expired that night. His widow
was watching the progress of the struggle from the
Picket-house, and all her worst fears were soon
realised, for her husband's body was brought by
the very place where she stood. Lieut. M'Gregor,
the son of the Inspector-General of Irish Consta-
bulary, was adjutant of the regiment, and was as
remarkable for his unostentatious piety and Christian
virtues as for his bravery and conduct in the field.
Capt. Lumley is dangerously, Capt. Sibtborp, Capt.
Woods, Lieut. Goodenough, Ensigns Hill and Fitz-
gerald and Browne are slightly wounded. The rest of
the division was engaged in supporting the storming
columns. In the 7th Royal Fusiliers Lieutenant