The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVEN IljG, OCTOBER io, t 854.

NEWMARKET RACES.
(THIS DAY.)
(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPEI: )

THE BATTLE OF ALMA.

ANOTHER ACCOUNT.

CESAREWITCH STAKES
MUSCOVITE

The following is a highly interesting account of
the glorious victory achieved on the banks of the
Alma :

Twenty-one ran.

bdthesli
" BANKS OF THE ALMA, SEPT. 19.—Last night orders
were given by Lord Raglan that the troops should strike
tents at daybreak, and that all tents should be sent on
termed upon, and it was understood that the Russian
~ig oahrt cavalry i pbsadofbteheenflseweete.
piOngur advance had been de-
the h
plies up to a short distance of t
oure c
nu
en
st rayn
do f
oaul
ys
iunpg-
pickets. At three o'clock in the morning the camp was
roused by the revel!, and all the 30,000 sleepers woke
into active life. The boats from the ships lined the beach
to receive the tents. The commissariat cfficers struggled
in vain with the very deficient means at their disposal to
meet the enormous requirements of an army of 26,000
men for the transport of baggage, ammunition, and food,
;tad a scene, which to an unpractised eye would seem
,ine of utter confuion, began and continued for several
hours, 1-elieved only by the steadiness and order of the
regiments as they paraded previous to marching.
"The French, in advance on our right, were up be-
times, and the camp fires of the allied armies, extending
for miles along the horizon and mingling with the lights
of the ships, almost anticipated the morning. The order
...if march was as follows :

LATEST BETTING AT NEWMARKET.
CESAREWITCH.
4to 1 agst Muscovite.
7 to 1 agst Cobout.
10 to 1 agst Ammonia.
10 to 1 agst Rodomeli.
12 to 1 agst Rattle.
13 to 1 agst La Belle.
20 to 1 agst Indian Warrior.
20 to 1 agst D. 0.
25 to 1 agst Ethelwolf.
30 to 1 agst Hungerford.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
15 to 1 agst Early Bird.
15 to 1 agst _RAU°.
50 to 1 agst Star of Surrey.

Cavalry,
Bth, 11th, lith.

Light Division.

Artillery. :: Second Division.;

First Division. Artillery.

Third Division.

Cavalry.

Commissariat Train.

Fourth Division. E i Fourth Division.

animals ripped open by shells from chest to loin,
as though it were done by a surgeon's knife, had
subsided, was that Sir E. Landseer, in his picture of
War,' must have seen one of the animals before us—
the glaring eve-ball, the distended nostril, the gnashed
teeth, are all true to life. When the Russians had
retired beyond the heights, orders were given to halt
and bivouac for the night, and our tired men set to
work to gather the weeds for fuel. As soon as the ra-
tions of rum and meat were served out, the casks were
broken up, and the staves served to make fires for cook-
ing, aided by nettles and long grass. At night the
watch fires of the Russians were visible on our left.
. . .

Great numbers of stragglers came up during the night,
most of them belonging to the 4th division. It was a
cold night, and if I could intrude the recital of the sor-
rows of a tentless, baggageless man, wandering about
in the dark from regiment to regiment in hope of find-
ing his missing baggage, I might tell a tale amusing
enough to read, but the incidents in which were very
distressing to the individual concerned. The night was
cold.and damp, the watch tires were mere flashes, which
gave little heat, and barely.sufficed to warm the 'rations;
but the camp of British soldiers is ever animated by the
very soul of hospitality ;. and the wanderer was lucky
enough to get a lodging on the ground beside a kindly
c(slonel, who was fortunate enough to have a little
deld-tent with him, and a bit of bread and biscuit to
spare after a march of 10 miles and a fast of 10 hours.
_III night arabas were arriving, and soldiers who
had fallen out or got astray came up to the sentries
to find their regiments. Sir George Brown, Sir 1).
Evans, the B,igadier-Generals and staff officers went
about among their divisions and brigades ere the
man lay down, giving directions for the following day,
.iald soon after dusk the regiments were on the ground,
wrapped up in great coats and blankets to find the best
repose they could after the day's exertions. It was
much regretted that our cavalry force was se miserably
•leficient, for if we had been even two to three we could
readily have disposed of the vapouririg Lancers on the
hill, who had irritated the men very much by their de-
risive cries when our skirmishers retired. It was ad-
mitted that as a military spectacle the advance of our
troops and the little affair of artillery, as well as the
management of the cavalry, formed one of the most pic-
turesque and beautiful that could be imagined. No
pencil could do it justice, for the painter's skid fails to
impart an idea of motion, and the writer 14e. not yet ,
been born who can describe with vividness and force,
so as to bring the details before the reader, the events
of even the slightest skirmish.
" HEIGHTS ABOVE ALMA, SErT. 21.—The order in
which our army advanced was in columns of brigades
in deploying distance, protected by a line of skirmishers,
of cavalry, and of horse artillery. The advantage of the
formation was, that our army, in case of a strong at-
tack of cavalry and infantry on the left or rear, could'
assume the form of a hollow square, with the baggage
in the centre. Our great object was to gain the right
of the position, so that our attacking' parties could be
sheltered. by the vertical firs of the fleets.
"We had, in fact, altered our base of operations. As
we marched forward to Bulganac, we allowed the
enemy to deprive us of our old basis of operations, in
order that we might get a new one. For this purpose
the baggage was brought up and covered by the 4th
division, and the Cossacks were allowed .to sweep the
country in our rear far behind us. Our
,new principle
in fact was to open communication with our fleets, and,
as far as possible, obtain their material and moral aid..
In advancing towards the sea obliquely, on the morning
of the 19th, we were met by 17 squadrons of cavalry,
deployed to meet our handful of horse, and it was neces-
sary to make a demonstration of artillery and infantry
to extricate our men from the difficulty into which they
bad been plunged by advancing too far in front of their
supports. However, the enemy were driven back by our
guns, which made beautiful practice, and the cavalry
maintained their ground, haiing retired in splendid order
before a force which refused to meet them when they
might have done so, by a charge down from the elevated
position they occupied, with a fair chance of an encoun-
ter ere our artillery could corns up. Our line of march
on the 20th, as I have said, was towards the right of our
former base. and brought us in contact with the French
left, under Prince Napoleon, it being understood that
Sir De Lacy Evaus's division o,n the extreme right
should act in concert with that of his Royal Highness
the Prince, which was of course furthest from the sea.
AR soon as we had ascertained the position of our
allies accurately, the whole line, extending itself
across the Champaign country for seine five or six
miles, advanced. At the distance of two miles we
halted to obtain a little time to gather up our rear,
and then 'the troops steadily advanced in grand lines
like the waves of the ocean, with our left frittered away
as it were into a foam of skirmishers under Col. Law-
rence and M:sjor Norcott of the Rifle Brigade, 2d batta-
lion, covered by squadrons of the 11th and Bth Hussars,
and portions of the 4th, 13th Light Dragoons, and 17th
Lancers. This was a sight of inexpressible grandeur,
and for the first time one was struck with the splendid
appearance of our Infantry in line in the distance. Red
is the colour, after all, and the white slashings of the
breast of the coat, and the cross-belts, though-rendering
a man conspicuous enough, give him an appearance of
size which other uniforms do not produce. The dark
French columns on our right looked very small compared
to our battalions, though we knew they were quite as
strong ; but the marching of our allies, laden as they
were with all their packs, &c., was wonderful—the pace
at which they went was really killing.' It was ob-
servable too, that our staff was more conspicuous and
more numerous than the staff of our brave friends, No-
thing strikes the eye at Buell a distance as a cocked hat
and bunch of white cock's feathers, and several of our
best officers very wisely doffed the latter adornment,
thinking that they were quite conspicuous enough by
their advanced position on horseback and by the number
of their staff around them.

" The scheme of operations concerted between the
generals, and chiefly suggested to Lord Ita,glan, it was
said, by M.M. Marshal St. Arnaud and General
Canrobert, was that the French and Turks on mar
right were to force the passage of the river, a rivulet
of the Alma, and establish themselves on the heights
over the stream at the opposite side, so that they could
enfilade the position to their right and opposite to our
left and centre. The Alma is a tortuous little stream,
which has worked its way down through a red clay soil,
deepening its course as it proceeds seawards, and which
drains the steppe-like lands on its right bank, making at
times pools and eddies too deep to be forded, though it
can generally be crossed by waders who do not fear to
wet their knees. It need not be said that the high banks
formed by the action of the stream in cutting through the
soil are sometimes at one side, sometimes at another,
according to the sweep of the stream.
" At the place where the bulk of the British army
crossed the banks are generally at the right side, and
vary from two and three to six or eight feet in depth to
the water ; where the French attacked tho banks are
generally formed by the unvaried curve of the river on
the left-hand side. Along the right or north bank of
the Alma are a number of Tartar houses, at times nume-
rous and close enough to form a cluster of habitations
deserving the name of a hamlet; at times scattered wide
apart amid little vineyards, surrounded by walls of mud
and stone of three feet in height: Thabridie over which
the poSt road passes from Bulga.nad to Sebastopol' runs
close to one of these hamlets—a village, in fact, of some
50 houses. This village is approached from the north by a
road winding through a plain nearly level till it comes near
to the village, where the ground dips, so that at the distance
of 300 yards a man on horseback can hardly see the
tops of the nearer and more elevated houses, and can
only ascertain the position of the stream by the willows
and verdure along its banks. At the left or south side
of the Alma the ground assumes a very different cha-
racter—smooth where the bank is deep, and greatly ele-
vated where the shelve of the bank eccurs, it recedes for
a few yards at a moderate height above the stream,
pierced here and there by the course of the winter's
torrents, so as to form small ravines, commanded, how-
ever, by the heights above. It was on these upper
heights that the streegth of the Russian position con-
sisted. A remarkable ridge of mountain, varying in
height from 500 to 700' feet, runs along the course of
the Alma on the left or south side with the course of the
stream, and assuming the form of cliffs when close to the
sea. This ridge is marked all along its course by deep
gullies, which run towards the river at various angles, and
serve no doubt to carry off the floods produced by the
rains and the melting of the winter snows on the hills and
table lands above. If the reader will place himself
on the top of Richmond-hill, dwarf the Thames in ima-
gination to the size of a Hampshire rivulet, and imagine
the lovely hill itself to be deprived of all vegetation and
protracted for about four miles along the stream, he
may form some notion of the position occupied by the
Russians, while the plains on the north Or left bank of
the Thames will bear no inapt similitude to the land over
which the British and French armies advanced, barring
only the verdure and freshness. At the top of the ridges,
between the gullies, the Russians bad erected earthwork
batteries, mounted with 321 b. and 241 b. brass guns, dup.
'ported by numerous field pieces and howitzers. These
guns enfiladed the tops of the ravines parallel to them,
or swept them to the base, while the whole of the
sides up which an enemy, unable to stand the direct
fire of the batteries, would be forced to ascend, •were
filled with masses of skirmishers armed with an excellent
two-groove rifle, throwing a large solid conical ball with
force at 700 and 800 yards, as the French learntto
their cost. The principal battery consisted of an.tthe h
earth-
work of the form of two sides of a triangle,
aides
apex pointed towards the bridge, and the
,with
the
evebrienngd binotthhesidrievserofbtehleewsittr,eaamt,thceorrdiesstapnli
s°of the village
500 yards. This was
yards, while; with a fair elevation, the 32 p underonsgfthirto,
toas twhee saw
distance very
eofftein;4oboeyeonndd
hill
e house
aGnOoOthfeeert
50 feet above
the constructedriver,
buotn theh the
ihill brow
re s
eo f
ds the road. The ascent of
tbhefieorbeililtwdoipopeendfialawdaoyd tboywatir,e fire of throe batteries of
capableanother onof c thee
covering,,
,atnhde
baelhdinldl aibtofuo:
these batteries were equally
earthworth on the right, and by
village, the stream, and the slopes which led up the hill
to their
tsheir position. In the first battery were 13 32-pounder
guns of exquisite workmanship, which only
told
too well. In the other batteries were some 25 guns in an.
It was said the Russians had 100 guns ou the hills
and 40,000 men (40 battalions of infantry 1,000 strong
each of the 16th, 31st, 32d, and 52d Regiment). we
were opposed principally to the 16th and 32d Regiments,
judging by the number of dead in front of us. I have
not been able to ascertain by whom they were com-
manded, but there is a general report that Menschikoff
commanded the army in chief, that the left was under
Gortschakoff, a relative of the diplomatist, and that the
right was under Bodahoff, the military Governor of
Sebastopol. It seems strange that an Admiral shonld
be appointed to'comtnand -an army, bUt 'strange thitids
do happen in Russia. It is also affirmed that the car-
riage of Menschikoff was taken, and in it was found a
_copy of a despatch addressed to the. Emperor, in which
the Prince stated that 40,000 men might take Selma-