The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-03 00:00:00

(FROM A FIELD OFFICER MENTIONED FOR DISTIN-
GUISHED CONDUCT IN LORD RAGLAN'S DESPATCH.)
Camp before Sebastopol, Dec. 12.
We are going on much as usual, receiving rein-
forcements, sometimes by a regiment or two, some-
times by draught, but in both cases burying them
or sending them to hospital quite as fast as they
arrive. A ship comes in to Balaklaya with men on
board, it is raining in torrents, but a staff officer in
snug quarters shows his zeal and his smart manner
of, doing his work by sending an order for their
immediate disembarkation and joining the camp.
It is promptly obeyed. A hundred or a thousand
men, as the case may be, wet through and through,
and up to the tips of their shakos in •mud, some-
times without blankets, often without tents, take
up their ground at a late hour, and there they lie.
If they have something to eat, they are lucky ; if
they have not, they go without. They grumble
and swear violently, and that is all they have for
it. They thus • begin to learn to bo reckless at
starting. Their frightful exposure brings on cer-
tain disease, and in a few days the dying and the
sick are the. exclamation of every one. Lord Rag-
lan (if Lord Raglan be really here, and not in Lon-
don) is never seen. Whether h.. 3 knows anything
of how things are going on or not I do not know ;
I am sure he ought to do so.. I have drawn any-
thing but an exaggerated picture of what happens
over and over 'again. The 9th Regiment marched
up without a medical officer at all ; they had several
cases of serious illness the next day, and when a
medical officer came there was no medicine. The
medicine chest had not accompanied the regiment,
because they had no draught animals or means
of carrying it. 'This is precisely the way in
which everything is conducted, and yet Lord
Raglan has been made a Field-Marshal. The
blood of his officers and mon has won it for him,
and net his own abilities. lam told Sir De Lacy
Evans will speak 'out, and I most earnestly hope
he may. He can make great exposures, and do
much good, if he will. It is generally understood
that ho has gone home in the greatest disgust with
every thing. It will hardly be credited that, al-
though the exposed state of our right flank before
the Inkerman battle was the sUbjeCt of frequent
comment,
Raanygltahningneovf tei,r once rode over the
ground,
or Lordkne knew
until the Russians
attacked us.
Everything about the French contrasts. with' 'us
most strongly. Their sick are not numerous.;' their
men are always clean and uniformly drassed. They
seem to have good rations, cook well, and seem a
happy set. Our men are a mass of dirt, rags, and
misery. They seem sunk in despondency and in-
difference ; nothing moves them but an alarm, for
they have no hope but to fight it out and get it
over. They think, poor fellows, that another good
fight must decide it. Our sick yesterday-under
canvass, exclusive of the shiploads at Balaklava
and in the hospitals of the Bosphorus, were 3,181.
The French, with their largo army, take charge of
1,000 of them for us to-day. The 46th Regiment
disembarked on the 10th of November 706
strong. They have lost 114 men up to to-day,
and they have at this moment 2&7 sick. This
regiment has never yet been engaged with the
enemy further than in the trenches. They lost
12 men in one day from sickness alone. I saw six
dead bodies lying in their camp this morning. If
things go on as they are doing—and as the 'winter
advances there is every chance of their being worse
rasher than better—we shall have no army left.
The 34th and 90th Regienenta have arrived, but,
owing to the want of transport, they are unable to
get beyond Balaklays. The French have batteries
with 147 guns ready to open on the place at, frptii
200 to GOO yards. They only wait for us to get lip
some guns to draw off a. portion of the enemy's fire.
If the fine weather we have just now holds for but
a few days, you will soon hear of the assault . being
given. The
.Russians have certainly shown a great.
want of enterprise iu leaving us so long unmolested,.
situated as we are. We are most careless and court
ruin over and over again. The indomitable courage
of men and efficers alOne saves us. I have never
heard of any one getting- an order yet in any action,
I have been in. We all do as we like.: We have
had two alarms lately—the one last night, the gusts
Of wind preceding the storm. We shall have a de-
cisive affair before long. It is,' however, a very
dreary prospect before us. It is said that the Em-
peror Nicholas engages to send all that are left of
us in the spring away in a single line-of-battle ship.
Our encampment is one mass of graves and dead
bodies of horses and cattle, but there is no :offensive
'smell; There is a portion of the Russian army,
strongly intrenehed still in our rear ; but they are
on the right of the Tchernaya, 'and
.their
command the, bridge that gives us the only means"
by which they- could be attacked.

It is rumoured. in Berlin that the Cabinet hat been
taken somewhat aback by the Russian Envoy at Vienna..
having assisted at the conference without even expressing
a regret at the absence of that of Prussia. But the
party here console themselves with the old illusion
of infallibilitir and inevitability ; and further, wjth
that of Austria not being disposed to advance an inch
further in her demands upon Russia than is specified La-
the body of the December, treaty. Profound silence 'is
maintained meantime by the Government organs rela-
tive to the results of Baron Usedom's stillborn mission,
and to thenegative effects produced by the Prussian note
of the 19th. -

GALLANT EXPLOIT OF ADMIRAL BR UAL—The
Journal du Loiret 'contains a letter from the,Critnea,
which says :--" Admiral Brunt's daring is proverbial in
the fleet. In spite of the fits of gout with which this
officer is so frequently attacked, or perhaps on account
to gain
of that affliction, he sometimes has the idea of such
audacious attempts as are more to be expected from a
young lieutenant who haasdhoiustip,rio:sotvioisnit
the channel
from an admiral. Lately, after,* severe attack of gout,
the admiral called some of his officers into his cabin, and
said, 'Gentlemen, .a good idea bee just occurred to me
—Ms, to go quietly in, and
of Sebastopol. 'We shall so
cieharlbe,lme
atannejudpguet forofr oaunrd.
selves what its situation realty. s• The proposition
7eirscrajoiyfoufllthy
eacbcoeaptated,_a.": thebinoats
Th
touchedwmwenicitthdithehirsoofuogwthhne ehrigaetthrit
Everything
hnavetreetrycrhoetfaahiinitt:bgwaehnw. admiraliddicahli:hmacelloensiasgtehde
so entranceciev ofy the military port.
erl on the part of the
'admiral'°-PartY that not a single Russian sentinel was
ware of their approach. But day began to break while
the boats were still far down in the harbour, and the
alarm was immediately given. A terrible fire wals then
oliened hll along the fortifications of the channel, and it
itae"undor' a fearful shower of- projectiles of every de•
scription that the boats made their way out. Fortu-
nately, not a man was wounded, though the longboat
of the Charlemagne was somewhat damaged by the
enemy's shot. This bold, attempt, so successfully exe-
cuted, has since been the principal object of converse,
tion and praise in the fleet."