The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-08 00:00:00

I pieces by this means were brought up and placed in bat-
tery, and the Imperial Guard were entered for the de-
fence, in addition to the troops employed in the assault.
The cannon of the Russians were turned against the
enemy, and the place in a manner fortified against the
Russians themselves. After this, as Pelissier said, the
Malakhoff was secure, and could not be retaken.
It is true, after the Russians had finally repulsed the
English, but not till then, they returned to the assault
of the French in the Malal•:hoff ; and they brou7,ht
their thole army to this operation. But it was too
late. T!.is attack was desperate and courageone in
the extreme ; but they failed, after immense slaughter
on their past, as well as that of the French. Such, how-
ever, was the desperate and powerful nature of their
attack, that all the French with whom I have conversed
admit, with the greatest frankness, that had the assault
of,the Russians been made immediately after the first
French success, before they had time to fortify them-
selves, the French would have been certain to have been
driven out of the Malakhoff, and the affair would have
ended as it did on the 18th of June. The French ,are,
therefore, right in saying that the Eoglish, by their
heroic resistance in the Redan, are entitled to as much
credit and honour for the final reduction of Sebastopol
as are those who were employed directly in the capture
of the l‘l&akhoff.

Such, Mr. Editor, is the opinion of all military men
in Paris, and, indeed, of all classes ; for our generous.
allies do us full credit. It, is only the ignorant, carping,
and conceited correspondents, with the TiIMCS at their
heal, who talk of the blood of the English soldiers
being shed ingloriously and uselessly on the Bth of Sep-
tember.—l remain, &c.,

JAMES AYTOUN.
Paris, October 1, 1855.

SCRAPS FRO II TEE CAMP.

(FE.OM A YOUNG CAVALRY OFFICER.)
Camp, Sebastopol, Sept. 17.
I promised, in my last, to describe to you the
Redan, Malakhoff, and Sebastopol, as soon as I
could get leave by my senior troop officer emerging
from sick quarters. Well, this has occurred; and
obtaining a pass I rode off to the Redan. I went
by the picket-house and 21-gun battery, and then
through the parallels and semi-parallels, as they
were called when I was at college, and I emerged
within 150 yards of the counterscarp of the Redan,
the distance between being an open space. An in-
telligent non-commissioned officer was with me,
who had served in the trenches, and he pointed
out the remarkable spots. "Here," said he,
pointing to a little ditch in the open space, not more
than three feet deep, with a bank about two feet
high, at two feet in front of the ditch, " the sen-
tries were placed at night." About ten yards in
advance a similar ditch was occupied by Russian
sentries ; so the hostile picketi were only ten yards
apart at night. " And,' said my informant, "we
could see them, sir, lighting their pipes." I found
the ditch of the Redan neither deep nor wide, but
I have since learnt that its depth was diminished
by the bodies of the poor fellows, both English and
Russians, buried in it. Riding into the sedan, I
looked around with amazement, for my college
fortification instruction had not led me to expect
anything so colossal. Dismounting, and taking a
survey from the parapet, my wonder was increased
by the retrenchment or double line of works. I
asked au artilleryman to show me the bomb
proofs, and he led me to a hole under the parapet,
but it was so blocked up, with bedding, coats,
cloaks, and other matters, that we could not get
in, and were obliged to go to another. Here we
entered a sort of cave, six feet three or four
in height, and ten feet wide ; beds were slung
side by side, making it a regular barrack along
one face of the Redan. The roof was about 25 feet
thick, and no shell could possibly penetrate.
Beams of wood, apparently from the dockyard, of
great diameter, formed the ceiling, then earth,
then iron tanks filled with earth, then bags of sand
gabions, fascines, and finally earth, making a thick-
ness of from 20 to 25 feet. The magazine was
similarly formed ; it had been exploded, but the
only damage done was to upset a couple of guns
and destroy one of the caves. The second parapets
or retrenchments in the rear were about eight feet
high and ten feet thick, and I do not think above
15 feet distant from the base of the interior slope
of the front parapet ; besides these there were tra-
verses at every two guns. The embrasures bad
mantlets of coils of thick rope, protecting the gun-
ners, but, I think, a Minie ball at 100 yards would
go through them. The artillery man now called my
attention to one of the guns which had been hit in
three places, twice near the muzzle, and once at
the breach. "This," said he, "is the only gun
that was damaged worth speaking of." If it be
the fact, it says a great deal for the defensive cha-
racter of the works, or for the tact of the Russians
iu withdrawing their guns when our firing was
heavy. The shells must have made great havoc,
and there were hundreds of holes where they had
fallen, but I suspect the Russians kept few troops
in the works, and those few in the bomb proofs.
The artillery officer in charge of the Redan was
good enough to show me his room. It was under
the second parapet, and facing the centre. It had
a comfortable iron bedstead, and when he first
took possession a nice mahogany table, but some-
body had walked off with it. The room had a
ceiling of sack. There was a military sketch-
board, so I suppose its former occupier had been
an artillery or engineer officer. I remarked
that in this room, being in the second parapet,
the roof was not above three feet thick, and a
shell had fallen upon it, but had not penetrated
to the interior. From the Redan I descended to the
lesser harbour, and keeping by its shore reached
the arsenal, barracks, and dockyard, passing mul-
titudes of new guns lying in rows ; most of these,
I believe, were rendered useless by having had a
shot rammed home. The dry docks were first-rate.
From the barracks I heard whistling, and well-
known tones—" I say, Jack," " Come here, Tom,"
&c., and sundry expressions not particularly po-
lite, indicating that the vicissitudes of war had
replaced the former occupants by English troops.
I wonder the Russians on the other side do not
disturb their hilarity, for the guns of Forts Con-
stantine and Alexander can reach them ; and new
batteries are being raised ; but whether to be de-
fended or to cover their retreat remains to be seen.
I now found myself near the Malakboff, but the
French sentry refused to let mein. While argu-
ing the matter in bad French, an English Horse
Artillery serjeant cantered up, and without saying
a word entered, and I followed his example ; the
sentry uttering certain phrases not complimentary
to us. The plan of construction of the Malakhoff
is that of the Redan ; but it appeared to me that
the retrenchments were even thicker and higher
and it was closed at the rear. In my humble
opinion it is much stronger than the Redan. I
observed that the French sap was up to the coun-
terscarp of the ditch, and this enabled the storm-
ing party to rush in so quickly.
Sebastopol proper was a well-built, handsome
town, chiefly of stone houses. On ascending one
of the streets, and looking back, I was reminded
a good deal of the main harbour at Malta. Al-
though the walls of the houses have not been much
injured by shot and shell, yet there is scarcely a
whole roof in the town. The conflagration and
shelling have effected this. I saw a new church
in course of erection. Probably a well organised
fire brigade prevented our shells firing the town,
and the Russians, no doubt, had recourse to com-
bustibles to aid them as incendiaries, for quantities
of dry forage had been observed coming over from
the north side.

Sept. 21.

Report will still have it that we arc to take the
field for a short time. The impression, however,
is that the Russians are evacuating the north side,
and we in due course of time shall walk in. I must
admit, from what I saw on my second visit to the
Racial], that it looks probable, from the quantities
of carts, which, with a good glass, appeared plainly
to be leaving the place ; but where they go to is
uncertain. I saw a regular string of them, and the
French were firing rockets at them from a little
below the Malakhoff. A battery was also firing
upon the north side, at an earthen work which has
been lately erected from our part of Sebastopol ;
but the battery was French. We apparently aro
doing nothing, and the Sardinians aro helping us
—the active party is the French. Their force _by
the Tchernaya has of late increased immensely.
Whether anything is to be attempted by Macken-
zie's Farm time will show. The Russians are busy
raising batteries on the northern side ; but it is
said in camp that it is only with a view to cover
their retreat, and that when they have got the im-
pediments well away, they will walk off and blow
i
the forts up, as was done on this side. If we march,
I am all ready, but my baggages reduced to a
are allowed only on 1-
at horse,
we u
tmhienipmoourmb,efaosrtacannot carry more than a box, thes
bed, and the tent.
a second visit to the Red
an, have paid R e an, and am
still inclined to think the Malakhoff is twice as
strong ; but as the French sap had reached the
counterscarp of the ditch, their rush was only of a
few yards, while our poor fellows had to run over
more than 150 yards, mowed down by grape and
canister. The retrenchments in the Malakhoff are
awful.

Tho Bath, Chronicle has been favoured with the
following extracts from a letter written by a gen-
tleman on board one of her Majesty's ships in the
Black Sea to his friends in Baba
" Yesterday we went to inspect the ruins of Se-
bastopol. We went over all the Russian lines, and
such a scene of destruction I never saw. Ido not
believe that in a circuit of 15 miles there is a
,ua,re yard. of ground without a splinter of shot or
shell upon it. The first place we went to was the
Quarantine Fort, where a tremendous explosion
took place during the tight ; the whole interior of