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

RETREAT OF THE RUSSIANS.

( Prom the Times' Special Correspondent.)
FOURTH DIVISION CAMP,
MONDAY, SEPT. 10.
The contest on which the eyes of Europe have
been turned so long is nearly decided—the event
on which the hopes of so many mighty empires
depended is all but determined. Sebastopol is in
flames ! The fleet, the object of so much diplo-
matic controversy, and of so many bloody struggles,
has disappeared in the deep ! One more great act of
carnage has been added to the tremendous, but
glorious tragedy, of which tha whole world, from
the most civilised nations down to the most bar-
barous hordes of the East, has been the anxious
and excited audience. Amid shouts of victory
and cries of despair—in frantic rejoicing and
passionate sorrow a pall of black smoke,
streaked by the fiery flashings of exploding fort-
resses, descends upon the stage, on which has
been depicted so many varied traits of human
misery and of human greatness, such high en-
durance and calm courage, such littleness and
weakness—across which have stalked characters
which history may develope as largely as the
ttruggle in which they were engaged, and swell
to gigantesque proportions, or which she may
dwarf into pettiest dimensions, as unworthy the
part they played. A dull, strange silence, broken
at distant intervals by the crash of citadels and
palaces as they fly into dust, succeeds to the in-
cessant dialogue of the cannon which have spoken
so loudly and so angrily throughout an entire year,
and tired armies, separated from each other by a
sea of fires, rest on their arms and gaze with
varied emotions on all that ,remains of the object
of their conflicts. How trite all these announce-
ments appear ! How disheartening it is to
the writer to .feel that all he is describing
is known in England, and has been discussed
and canvassed in every homestead ere he can
sit down to tell the story, and that by the
time his letters reach those for whom they
are intended all that to him appears as novel,
and recent as it is interesting and important, will
be a twice-told tale! To every one out here the
occurrences of the last few days seem prodigious,
startling, and momentous. Time will show whe-
ther we duly appreciate them. On Saturday we
felt that the great- success of our valiant Allies
was somewhat tarnished by our own failure, and
it was doubtful whether the Russians would aban-
don all hope of retaking the Malakhoff. On Sun-
day, ere noon, we were walking about the streets
of Sebastopol and gazing on its ruins. The army
is now in suspense as to its future. The south side
of the city is in the hands of the Allies. On the
north side the great citadel and numerous regular
forts, backed by enormous earthworks and defendeil
by a nutnerousarmy, bidus defiance across a narroai
strip of watex, and Russia may boast that she has
not yet lost Sebastopol. The Allied fleet remains
outside, paralysed by Fort Constantine and its de-
pendencies, and every one is going about asking,
" What are we to do now'"
In my last letter, a portion of which was written
ere the mail started on Saturday, I was so confused
by the accumulation of events that I made a seri-
ous mistake in my dates, which I trust has been
rectified at Nome. It is rather hard to have to
sit down to save the post when one knows that in
15 minutes from the time he is writing he will ly;
the witness of a general assault on one of the
strongest places in the world. The last and decisive
cannonade.was, as the world knows ever so long ago,
begun on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 5, by
the French, against the Russian right, consisting;
of the Quarantine Batteries, the Bastion Centrale,
and the Bastion du Mat with great vigour and
effect,, and at night began a devastating bombard-
ment, in which all the allied batteries joined.
A frigate was fired by a French shell and sunk
at night. On the morning of the 6th the English
and French together opened the cannonade, be -
neath which the Russian batteries were almost
broken to pieces, and which they did not dare t(►
answer. In the evening the bombardment wag;
renewed and kept up all night ; a fire appeared
behind the Redan, and the enemy seemed by their
constant signalling to be in much uneasiness. lt
was observed that great qvantities of forage were
being sent across the bridge from the north to the
south side, although there were no cavalry in the
latter. On the 7th the cannonade was continued
in salvoes, as before, and it was remarked that
tie town showed in an unmistakeable manner the
terrible energy of the nightly bombardment.
Nearly every house within range was split and in
ruins. The bridge between the north and the
south side was much crowded all day with men
and carts passing to and fro, and large con-
voys were seen entering and leaving the town
at the north side. Towards evening the head of
the ()Teat dockyard shears, so long a prominent
object from our batteries, caught fire, and burnt
fiercely in the high wind, which was raging all
day. A two-decker was set on fire by the French
shells, and was destroyed, and a steamer was
busily employed towing a large dismasted frigate
to the dockyard, out of range. In the middle of
the day there was a council of Generals, and at
2 o'clock it becathe generally known that the
allies would assault the place at noon on the Bth,
after a vigorous cannonade and bombardment.
The hour was well selected, as it was certain that
i
n a siesta
the Russians are accustomed to indulge
about that time. Iu the course of the night there
was an explosion behind the Redan. And now
comes the memorable

DAY OF THE ASSAULT.

SATURDAY, SEPT. S.

The weather changed suddenly yesterday. This
morning it became bitterly cold. A biting wind
right from the north side of Sebastopol blew
intolerable clouds of harsh dust into our faces.
The sun was obscured ; the sky was of a leaden
wintery grey. Early in the morning a strong
force of cavalry, under the command of Colonel
Hodge, was moved up to the front and formed a
chain of sentries in front of Ca,thcart's-hill and all
along our lines. No person was allowed to pass
this line, unless he was a staff officer or was pro-
vided with a pass. Another line of sentries in
the rear of them was intended to stop stragglers
and idlers fromßalaklava, and the object in view
was probably to prevent the Russians gathering
any intimation of our attack from the unusual
accumulation of people on the look-out hills.
If that, were so it would have been better to
have kept the cavalry more to the rear, and
not to display to the enemy a line of Hussars,
Lancers, and Dragoons along our front. At
11.30 the Highland Brigade, under Brigadier
Cameron, marched up from Kamara and took
up ita position in reserve at the Right Attack,
and the Guards, also in reserve, were posted on
the same sido of the Woronzoff-road. The first
brigade of the Fourth Division served the trenches
of the Left Attack the night before, and remained
in them. The second brigade of the Fourth Di-
vision was in reserve. The Guards, who served
the trenches of the Left Attack, and only marched
out that morning, were turned out, again after
arriving at their camp. The Third Division,
massed on the hill side before their camp, were
also in reserve, in readiness to move down by the
Left Attack in case their services were required.
General Pelissier during the night collected about,
30,000 men in and about the Mamelon, to form the
s tor rai ng columns for the Malakhoffand Little Redan
and to provide the nezessary reserves. The French.
wet %) reinforced by 5,000 Sardinians, who marched

up from the Tchernaya last night. It was arranged
that the Fren ch were to attack the Malakhoff at noon,
and, as soon as their attack began, that we were
to assault the Redan. At the same time a strong
column of French was, I understand, to make a
diversion on the left and menace the line of the
Bastion du Mat, but I do not believe it was in-
tended to operate seriously against this part of
the town, the possession of which, in a military
point of view, would be of minor importance.
The cavalry sentries were posted at 8.30. At
10.30 the Second Division and the Light Divi-
sion moved down to the trenches, and were placed
in the advanced parallels as quietly and unostenta-
tiously as possible. About the same hour General
Simpson and staff moved down to the second paral-
lel of the Green-hill Battery. Sir Harry Jones, too
ill to move hand or foot, nevertheless insisted on
being carried down to witness the assault, and was
borne to the parallel on a litter, in which he re-
mained till all was over. It was, as I have said, a
bitter cold day, and a stranger would have been
astonished at the aspect of the British Generals
ias they viewed the assault. The Commander-ni-
-1 Chief, General Simpson, sat in the trench, with
his nose and eyes just facing the cold and dust,
t and his cloak drawn up over his head to protect
' him against both. General Jones wore a red
nightcap, and reclined on his litter, and Sir
Richard Airey, the Quartermaster-General, had a
white pocket-handkerchief tied over his cap and
ears, which detracted somewhat from a martial
and belligerent aspect. The Duke of Newcastle
was stationed atlCathcart's-hill in the early part of
the day, and afterwards moved off to the right to
the Picket-house looking out over the Woronzoff-
road. All the amateurs and travelling gentlemen,
who rather abound here just now, were in a state
of great excitement, and dotted the plain in eccen-
tric attire, which recalled one's old memories of
Cowes, and yachting and sea-bathing—were
engaged in a series of subtle manoauvres to turn
the flank of unwary sentries, and to get to the
front, and their success was most creditable to
their enterprise and ingenuity.
The Tartars, Turks, and Eupatorians were sin-
gularly perturbed for such placid people, and
thronged every knoll which commanded the
smallest view of the place. At 10.45 General
Pelissier and his staff went up to the French
Observatory on the right. The French trenches
-were crowded with men as close as they could
pack, and we could see our men through the
breaks in the clouds of dust, which were most
irritating, all ready in their trenches. The can-
nonade languished purposely towards noon ; but
the Russians, catching sight of the cavalry and
troops in front, began to shell Cathcart's-hill
and the heights, and disturbed the equanimity
of some of the spectators by their shells
bursting with loud " thuds " right over their
heads. A few minutes before 12 o'clock the
French, like a swarm of bees, issued forth from
their trenches close to the doomed Malakhoff,
swarmed up its face, and were through the em-
brasures in the twinkling of an eye. They
crossed the seven metres of ground which sepa-
-1 rated them from. the enemy at a few bounds—
they drifted as lightly and quickly as autumn
leaves before the wind, battalion after battalion,
into the embrasures, and in a minute or two after
the head of their column issued from the ditch
the tricolour was floating over the Korniloff Bas-
tion. The musketry was very feeble at first--
indeed, our allies took the Russians quite by sur-
prise, and very few of the latter were in the
Malakhoff ; but they soon recovered themselves,
and from 12 o'clock till past 7 in the evening
the French had to meet and defeat the repeated
attempts of the enemy to regain the work and the
Little Redan, when, weary of the fearful slaughter
of his men, who lay in thousands over the exterior
of the works, the Muscovite General, despairing
of success, withdrew his exhausted legions, and
prepared with admirable skill to evacuate the
place. Of the French attack on the left I know
nothing, but that, if intended in earnest, it was
Inot successful, and was followed by some loss to
our allies. As soon as the tricolour was observed
Iwaving over the parapet of the Malakhoff through
1 the smoke and dust, four rockets were sent up
from Chapman's attack one after another as a sig-
nal for our assault on the Redan. They were
, almost borne back by the violence of the wind,
( and the silvery jets of sparks they threw out on
exploding were nearly invisible against the raw
grey sky. I take it for granted that there is no
one in England who is not by this time quite well

( acquainted with the exterior of the Redan, and
, who does not know its shape and situation. In
I my next letter I will endeavour to give au idea
of what it is like inside ; at present I have no
time to describe it, nor the appearance of Sebas-
topol, now that one can walk through its flaming
i streets.

Iu order to give au idea of the plan of the at-

tack I send you a copy of the "Divisional After
Order," in accordance with which it was arranged,
and for the sake of comparison there is appended
to it a copy of the essence of the orders issued for
the attack of the 18th of June. It will be seen
that the differences between the two plans relate
to details, and not to principle. When the order
was received on the 7th, the general remark was,
" This looks like another 18th of June." In fact,
the attacking columns were not strong enough, the
supports were not strong enough, and were also
too far behind, and the trenches did not afford
room for a sufficient number of men. Now, it
will be observed that, vhere we attacked the Re-
dark with two divisions only, a portion of each
being virtually in reserve and not engaged in the
affair at all, the French made their assault on
the Malakhoff with four divisions of the second
corps u'armee, the first and fourth divitiJlls
forming the storming columns, and the third
and fifth being the support with reserves of 10,000
men. The French had, probably, not less than
30,000 men in the right attack on the 7th of
September. The divisional orders for the 2d di-
vision were very much the same as those for the
light division. The covering party consisted of
100 men of the 3d Buffs, -sunder Captain John
Lewes, who highly distinguished himself, and 100
men of the Second Battalion of the Rifie Brigade,
I believe under the command of poor Captain
Hammond. The scaling-ladder party consisted of
160 of the 3d Buffs, under Captain Maude, whose

gallantry was very conspicuous throughout the
affair, in addition to the 160 of the 97th, under
Ithe gallant and lamented Welsford. The part
of the force of the Second Division consisted
I of 260 of the 3d Buffs, 300 of the 41st (Welsh),
200 of the 62d, and a working party of 100
men of the 41st. The rest of Windham's
Brigade, consisting of the 47th and 49th, were
in reserve, together with Warren's Brigade of
the same division, of which the 30th and 55th
were called into action, and suffered severely.
Brigadier Shirley was on beard ship, but as soon
as he heard of the assault
c he
.resolved to join his
ame up to camp that
brigade, and ho accordin,,e'ly
very morning. Colonel Unef-t, of the 19th Regi-
ment, was the senior officer in Brigadier Shirley's
absence, and on him would have devolved the
duty of leading the storming column of the Light
Division had the latter not returned. Colonel
Unett, ignorant of the Brigadier's intention to
leave shipboard, had to decide with Colonel
Windham who should take precedence in the
attack. They tossed, and Colonel Unett won.
He had it in his power to say whether he would
go first or follow Colonel Windham. He looked '
at the shilling, turned it over, and said, "My
choice is made ; I'll be the first man into the
Redan." But fate willed it otherwise, and he was
struck down badly wounded ere yet he reached the
them as
abattis, although he was not leading the column.
S
carcely had the men left the fifth parallel when
the
on the flank of the Redan opened
on
as they moved up rapidly to the
salient, in
cannon, as which there were of course no
the nature of such a work does not
permit of their being placed in that particular
position. In a few seconds Brigadier Shirley was
temporarily
blinded by the dust and by earth
knocked into his eyes by a shot. He was obliged
to retire, and his Place was taken by Lieut.-Col.
Banbury, of the 23d Regiment, who was next in
rank to Col. Unett, already struck down and car-
ried to the rear. Brigadier Van Straubenzee re-
ceived a contusion on the face, and was also forced

to leave the field. Col. Handcock fell mortally
wounded in the head by a bullet, and never spoke
again. Capt. Hammond fell dead. Major Wels-
ford was killed on the spot. Capt. Grove was
severely wounded. Many officers and men were
hit and fell ; and of the commanders of parties
only acting Brigadier-General Windham, Capt.
Fyers, Capt. Lewes, and Capt. Maude got un-
touched into the Redan, and escaped scatheless
from the volleys of grape and rifle balls which
swept the flanks of the works towards the salient.

It was a few minutes after 12 when our men left

the fifth. parallel. The musketry commenced at
once, and in less than five minutes, during which
the troops had to pass over about 30 yards from
the nearest approach to the parapet of the Redan,
they had lost a large proportion of their officers,
and were deprived of the aid of their leaders, with
the exceptions I have stated. The Riflemen ad-
vanced admirably, but from their position they
could not do much to reduce the fire of the guns on
the flanks and below the re-entering angles. The
bravery and coolness of that experienced, deserv-
ing, and much-neglected officer, Captain Fyers,
were never more brilliantly displayed, or urgently
called for. And here let me ask how it

is that an officer like Captain Fyers, with
twenty-one years' full service, who went through
the campaigns of Candahar and Affghanistan
in 1841 and 1842, and was present in five ac-
tions—who was at Khelat, and was with his
regiment throughout Nott's campaign—who was
conspicuous for his gallantry at the Alma, and ,
whose conduct in the trenches has been beyond all
praise, is exposed to the pain and mortification of
seeing young men who were scarcely born when he
was a soldier raised above his head because they
have had the good fortune to look at a battle from
a distance, or to ride in the rear "of some cautious
general ? I know nothing of Captain Fyers' past
services except by Hart's Army List, by which I
learn, also, that he has purchased all his steps.
Of his conduct at the Alma and of his present ser-
vices I hear the praise from every lip. It is to be
hoped, at all events, that the question will not do
him any harm, and if it does not, it is as well that
the country should know how well he has served
her. However, it is time to return to our storm-
ing party. As they came nearer the enemy's
fire became less fatal. They crossed the abattis
without difficulty ; it was torn to pieces and de-
stroyed by our shot, and the men stepped over and
through it with ease. The light division made
straight for the salient and projecting angle of the
Redan, and came to the ditch, which is here about
15 feet deep. The party detailed for the purpose
placed the ladders, but they were found to bo too
short. However, had there been enough of them
that would not have mattered much, but some had
been left behind in the hands of dead or wounded
men, and others had been broken, so that if one
can credit the statements of those who were pre-
sent there were not more than six or seven ladders
at the salient. The men led by their officers leaped
into the ditch, and scrambled up the other side,
whence they got up the parapet almost without
opposition, for the few Russians who were in front
ran back and got behind their traverses and breast-
works as soon as they saw our men on the top, and
opened fire upon them. To show what different
impressions the same object can make on different
people, let me remark that one officer of rank told
me the Russians in the Redan did not exceed 150
men when he got into it, and that the men could
have carried the breastwork with the greatest ease
if they had only made a rush for it, and he ex-
pressed an opinion that they had no field-pieces in-
side the breastwork. A regimental officer, on the
other hand, positively assured me that when he got
on the top of the parapet of the salient he saw at
about 100 yards in advance of him a breastwork
with gaps in it, through which were run the
muzzles of field-pieces, and that in the rear of it
were compact masses of Russian infantry, the front
rank kneeling with fixed bayonets as if prepared
to receive a charge of cavalry, while the two rear
ranks over them kept up a sharp and destructive
fire on our men. The only way to reconcile these
discrepancies is to suppose that the first spoke
of the earliest stage of the assault, and that the
latter referred to a later period when the Rus-
siansmayhave opened embrasures in the breastwor k
and had been reinforced by the fugitives from the
Malakhoff, and by the troops behind the.barracks in
its rear. Lamentable as it no doubt is, and incre-
dible almost to those who know how the British
soldier generally behaves before the enemy, the
men, when they got on the parapet, were seized by
some strange infatuation, and began firing, instead
of following their officers, who now began to fall
fast as they rushed on in front and tried to stimu-
late their soldiers by their example. Notwithstand-
ing the popular prejudice to the contrary, most
, men stand fire much better than closing with an
enemy. It is difficult enough sometimes to get
cavalry to charge if they can find any decent excuse
to lay by their swords and take to pistol and cara-
bine, with which they are content to pop away for
ever, but when cover of any kind is near at hand a
trench-bred infantry man finds the charms of the
cartridge quite irresistible. The small party of the
90th, mach diminished, went on gallantly towards
the breastwork, but they were too weak to force it,
and they had to retire and get behind the traverses,
where men of different regiments had already con-
gregated, and were keeping up a brisk fire on the
Russians, whose heads were just visible above the
breastwork. Simultaneously with the head of the
storming party of the Light Division, Colonel
Windham had got inside the Redan on their right,
below the salient on the proper left face of the
Redan, but in spite of all his exertions, could do
little more than the gallant officers of the 90th and
97th, and of the supporting regiments.
As the Light Division rushed out in the front
they were swept by the guns of the Barrack Battery
and by several pieces ou the proper right of the
Redan, loaded heavily with grape, which caused
them considerable loss ere they reached the salient
or apex of the work at which they were to assault.
The storming columns of the Second Division, issu-
ing, out of the fifth parallel rushed up immediately
after the Light Division, but when they came up
close to the apex Brigadier Windham very judici-
ously brought them by a slight detour on the right
flank of the Light Division, so as to come a little
down on the slope of the proper left face of the Re-
dan. The first embrasure to which they came was in
flames, but, moving on to the next, the men leaped
into the ditch, and, with the aid of ladders and of
each other's hands, scrambled up on the other side,
climbed the parapet, or poured in through the em-
brasure which was undefended. Colonel Windham
was the first or one of the very first men in on this
side, and with him entered Daniel Mahoney, a great
grenadier of the 41st, Killeany, and Cornellis of the
same regiment. As Mahoney entered with a cheer,
he was shot through the head by a Russian rifleman
and fell dead across Colonel Windham, and at the
same moment Killeany and Cornellis were both
wounded. The latter claims the reward of 51. of-
fered by Colonel Herbert to the first man of his di-
vision who entered the Redan. Running parallel to
the faces of the Redan there is, as I have described,
an inner parapet, intended to shield the gunners
at the embrasures from the effects of any shell
which might fall into the body of the work, and
strike them down if this high bank were not there
to protect them from the splinters. Several cuts
in the rear of the embrasures permitted the men
to retire in case of need inside, and very strong
and high traverses ran all along the sides of the
work itself to afford them additional shelter. At
ins].
aar be ruera sv
et,wuopr ltc
0,
ao r aa rn
eau
kr
wr ahpi paeth
runs
the base of the Redan, before the re-entering
m
n's
aanngilrerse,g
in front of the body of the place. As our men
were
bbeehtwinedenthtehelastatleirenat sr
nbrar e at
hs tewt(r) rale_
entered through the embrasures, the few Russians
nadngdotthif
retreatedwh o
verses to its protection. irom it
they poured in a
quick fire on the parapet of the
crowded by the men of the Light Division, and on
the gaps through the inner parapet of the Redan,
and our men, with an infatuation which all officers
deplore, but cannot always remedy on such occa-
sions, began to return the fire of the enemy with-
, out advancing or crossing behind the traverses,
loaded and fired as quickly as they could, but did
but little execution as the Russians were well
covered by the breastwork. There were also groups
of Russian riflemen behind the lower traverses near
the base of the Redan, who kept up a galling fire
on our men. As the alarm of an assault was spread
the enemy came rushing up from the barracks in
rear of the Redan, and increased the force and in-
tensity of their fire, while our soldiers
dropped fast
and encouraged
the Russians by their immobility
and usi a
the weakness of their e, d from which the
f
enemy were well protected. In vain the officers, by
voice and act, by example and daring, tried to urge
•
our soldiers on.
They had an impression that the
and that if they advanced they
Redan was mined,
but many of them acted as
would all be blown up,
became the men of .
Alma and Inkerman, and, rush-
ing to the front, were
on swept down by the enemy's
all sides, singled out for
fire. The officers fell
courage.
The men of the
different regiments became the enemy's fire by their
me
mingled together in
,in-
extricable confusion. The 19th men did not care for
the 88th, nor did the
the orders of the officers of
soldiers of the 23d heed the commands of an officer
who did not belong to his regiment. The officers
could not find their men—
the men had lost sight
of their own officers. All the Brigadiers, save Col.
Windham, were wounded or rendered unfit for
the guidance of the attack. That gallant officer
did all that man could do to form his men for the
attack, and to lead them against the enemy. Pro-
ceeding from traverse to traverse, he coaxed the