The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-19 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

(Front the Times Correspondent.)

CAMP BEFORE SEBASTOPOL, FEB. 4.

A bright sun rose this morning upon the camp
before Sebastopol, and the snow was crisp with
frost. My earliest observation of the thermometer
gave 8 deg. Fahrenheit below freezing point, but
the sun bad then been up an hour and shining on
the back of the wooden wall against which the
thermometer hung, so that the quicksilver had
probably been some degrees lower before daybreak.
As the morning advanced the frost surface every-
where gave, and the camp and roads around it be-
came deep and muddy. Nevertheless, soon after
noon a great number of officers were seen riding
and walking in the direction of Sebastopol. At
about half-past 12 o'clock Marshal Pelissier, in his
carriage, drawn by four greys, attended by his
staff and followed by his escort of Chasseurs, drove
through the Light Division camp along the Wo-
ronzoff-road. Just about the same time up came
General Codrington and his Staff, and a group of
Sardinian officers of rank. General Codrington
went on to the Redan ; Marshal Pelissier paused
in frgnt of Picket-house-hill, on a slope which com-
mands an excellent view of the town. Here were
assembled a large number of officers, English,
French, and Sardinian, and to the right and left,
on every elevated point, numerous groups wore
seen, while Cathcart's-hill was crowded with spec-
tators too busy or toolazy to go further from camp.
The cause of this unusual muster was an expected
explosion. Fort Nicholas was to be blown up at 1
p.m. The French engineers were punctual to their
time. Marshal Pelissier had been little more than
a quarter of an hour chatting and pacing about on
a bank he had selected for his station, and General
Codrington could have been but a few minutes in
the Redan, when a double burst of smoke fixed
everybody's eyes upon the fort. This is (I should
now say, was) of a curved shape, forming nearly a
quarter of a circle, one extremity of the arc point-
ing south and the other east. The two extremities
were first blown up, and the principal explosion
seemed to be that of the eastern end, which was
in the form of a round tower. The effect of the
rising smoke was very striking and peculiar. The
day was extremely fine, the sky nearly cloudless ;
the white masonry of Sebastopol, beautiful even in
those ruins with which the well-preserved but
doomed fort conspicuously contrasted, lay silent
and seemingly abandoned in the embrace of the
bright green sea. Suddenly, forth gushed the
smoke, not rapidly, but in heavy billows, rising
and rolling one above the other, as if the vapour
were so dense that it bad a struggle to ascend.
Slowly it rose ; so slowly that it was easy to imagine
fantastical forms, melting away but gradually.
Immediately over the eastern explosion there hung
for some seconds what seemed a mighty gray lion,
with head, mane, end body perfectly defined in
shadowy delineation. Others besides myself re-
cognized the fanciful image, acceptable as the
emblem of dissolving Russian strength, and pre-
sently replaced by other vague shapes. Upwards
of 20 seconds elapsed before the explosions were
audible in front of Picket-house-hill. There was
so little wind that the smoke rose to a considerable
height before it began to drift off in a south-
westerly direction, and it rose, not in columns,
but rather in heaps or domes such as are sometimes
seen in the sky when clouds are piled on each
other. The lower parts of these heaps of vapour
joined, and the scattered summits dispersed and
mingled before the light north-easterly current,
sooner than the centres blended, and so there re•
mained a sort of loophole in the smoke, through
which was seen a patch of the emerald water glit-
tering in the brilliant sunbeams. The effect, of
course very transient, was extremely beautiful. The
whole mass of smoke then began to clear off, and
the spectators impatiently awaited the moment
when the windward extremity of the fort should be
disclosed to their gaze. A sort of low gray spit was
presently seen, but was almost immediately again
overclouded by other explosions which now rapidly
succeeded each other. There were seven in all,
none of them much louder than the report of a very
heavy piece of ordnance. When the explosions in
the docks took place, on various occasions within
the last two months, there was always great alarm,
commotion, and plungingamong the horses tethered
in the rear of the dockyard wall, and, notwith-
standing the great difference of distance, some-
thing of the kind was anticipated among the nume-
rous chargers and ponies assembled this morning
on the hill in rear of our old trenches. Few of them,
however, appeared to notice the explosions, and
those showed but slight uneasiness. When all
the mines lied been fired and the smoke cleared off,
we saw how completely the French engineers had
done their work.
The long, massive, stone fort—certainly the most
prominent object in a bird's-eye view of Southern
Sebastopol--had totally disappeared, and in its place
was a low flat bank of gray ruins, as nearly as might
be of the same colour as the smoke that had jest
been blown away from it, and of which some lin-
gering remains still oozed and curled out from the
rubbish. So important a feature was this fort, that
its removal has made quite a change in the physiog-
nomy of the town. Before the explosion the Rus-
sians had been firing from the north batteries—not
heavily, perhaps at the rate of a shot per minute ;
and we fully expected that, on witnessing the de-
struction of one of . their finest forts, they would
open an angry fire, as they have done on many
former occasions, in hopes of damaging the troops
and engineers they supposed to be in the town. But
they did not do so, and fired less after than before
the explosion. One shell burst high over the Mala-
khoff, and another from the battery east of Fort
Constantine over the town, and one or two of the
Inkerman batteries sent a shot or two in the direc-
tion of our lines, but that was nearly all, and, after
waiting awhile in hopes that they were mute only
from astonishment and would presently make up
for the delay, most of the spectators, whose feet
were by- this time getting benumbed in their stir-
ruin, turned their horses' heads homewards. I
have not yet ascertained with certainty the quan-
tity of powder used to blow up the fort, but, judg
ins from the extent and great solidity of the build-
ing, and from the completeness of the destruction,
it must have been very large. I was told to-day
that it exceeded the quantity destroyed iu the un-
fortunate explosion of the French left siege train.
The destruction of the western and last remaining
dock was completed last week, without noteworthy
incident. great deal of the ruin has been

effected with the Russians' own powder captured
in Sebastopol.
The explosion I have described is the only inci-
dent of importance that has broken the monotony of
camp life since I last wrote. A shocking murder
was committed last week in one of the Light Divi-
sion hospitals by a soldier of the 77th Regiment, a
youth of 11, named Day. He was hospital orderly,
and was in attendance upon an artilleryman who
had been badly hurt when the French siege train
blew up. The artilleryman, grateful for his care,
took a purse, containing cr about 121., from under his
pillow, and gave him ss. The sight of the gold
was too strong a temptation for Day, who, it is
said, was a London thief before enlistment. He
took a crowbar and dealt a violent blow on the
artilleryman's head. The poor fellow shrieked
" Murder !" when a second blow fractured his arm.
His cries brought in the other orderlies, and, after
a most violent resistance, Day was overpowered
and secured. The artilleryman is since dead.
The money-order offices at Balaklava and Head-
quarters have now been a week open, and the use
that has hitherto been made of them more than
justifies the most sanguine anticipations of those
who predicted that they would be accepted by the
army as a boon and great convenience. On Mon-
day, at Head-quarters' post-office orders were given
to the amount of 170/. ; on Friday to that of 3001.
On Wednesday, at Balaklava, 300/. of orders were
issued, and on Saturday, 5001. This gives a total of
1,2701. sent home in one week by the army in the
Crimea, in sums varying from 1/. to Si. There
were few cases where the same man sent home more
than Si. (by taking two or more orders), and a few
others where sums of less than B. were sent. If
we take 21.105. as the average amount of the or-
ders, we find that upwards of 500 men have availed
themselves of this cheap and ready means of remit-
ting money to their families. There can hardly be
a doubt that a very large portion of the money
thus sent is rescued from the canteen men and
other sharks, who prey upon the soldier, and into
whose hands it would othmtwise fall. The army is
much indebted to the Post-office authorities in
Constantinople and in London—by whom, as I
hear, the plan was simultaneously suggested—for
extending to it ,the benefits of an institution the
introduction of which of course gives a good deal of
additional trouble to post-offico employes in the
East, but which will tend to diminish drunkenness
and to improve the character of the soldier—to say
nothing of the comfort it will be to many a poor
family in England having father, husband, or bro-
ther serving in the Crimea. The senders of the
money are from all branches of the service, in-
cluding the men in the Army Works Corps, among
whom, as we have had abundant opportunities of
seeing upon the roads and in the neighbourhood of
their camp, there has hitherto been a good deal of
drunkenness, owing in part, no doubt, to the very
high wages they receive. It would perhaps save
trouble, prevent crowding at the post-office, and
prove an accommodation to soldiers, whom duty
may prevent from getting to Head-quarters or
Balaklava during the hours of issue, if a sergeant
of each regiment were to take the money from the
men, the list of names and necessary particulars,
and procure the orders. But doubtless the com-
manding officers of corps will make such arrange-
ments of this kind as are most fitting and conve-
nient, and best calculated to induce soldiers to
remit money to England instead of squandering it
in the Crimea.
FEB. 5.

Nothing new to-day. Weather fine ; cold mode-
rate ; 22 deg. Fahrenheit this morning at 8 o'clock.
3001. post-office orders given yesterday at the
Head-quarters post-office.