Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-12-03

craving along on the ground up the side OF q
hull, till they appear TO be within three hundred
yards OF the enemy and thus they lie on their
bellies till chance offers, when crack goes q
Mimic and down falls a Russian. was in.
formed most credibly that one of these brave
fellows, few days since, thought he would 60
and do little business on his own account, got
away from his company, and crawled up close
to battery under shelter of a hill, lay on his
back and loaded, and turned over and fred
when, after killing eleven men, a party rushed
out and he took to his heels, but sad to say,
] volley fred after him by this party, leveled
him with the earth, and he was consequently
picked up with thirty-two balls In his body.
A MARROW EsCAPE.-A series of hand to hand
encounters go on between our skirmishers and
those OF the enemy all day long, and in which
our fellows are uniformly successful. They
| go out TO these encounters with almost childish
delight, and the escapes of some of them seem
miraculous. In one of these encounters a
riaeman was taken on the Goth, and carried
| prisoner into the Russian trenches. There, in
| the presence of our army, he succeeded in
killing and wounding three of the enemy,
| broke through all who tried to stop him,
scrambled over the Russian works, and, though
| whole volleys of shot were sent after him, and
ne was pursued by hundreds, he contrived to
elude all, and reached our. camp amid tremen-
dous cheers. Lord Raglan, to mark his sue
cessful gallantryJ made him present of f5,
and paid him high compliment on his cour-
age aFd activity.
HE GREAT CAVALRY CHARGE.-The Rus
slams have had some severe struggles, but they
have not the "pluck" of Englishmen, for,
though we are far inferior in numbers, we al
ways beat them back. We are in the saddle
NIGHT dav oov,ft 49,, 4. -, Ia,
since | was undressed; only know that it has
been SO long that ! have forgotten it. The
worst affair we had was the day before yester-
day. AT daybreak the enemy appeared, and
| advanced in such numbers that they took from
| the Turks two of their batteries, and turned
the guns upon us. We were obliged to retreat
| out OF range of the guns; and this so elated
the enemy that they actually had courage
enough to come into the open field with us.
Three regiments of their cavalry tried to gain
possession of the Highlanders' (93d) position,
and charged them, but they had not time to
repent, for they went down like cut corn; what
| were left Of them turned and fed, and we pur-
| sued them over their own hills; here they were
REINFORCED by three more regiments of cavalry,
| including Nicholas's crack Imperial Guards.
There were the Greys and first royals up at
this time, and we charged them-they had
nothing else for it, so they charged at the same
time. oh, Godl l cannot describe it; they
were so superior in numbers that they "out-
aanked' us, and we were in the middle Of them.
| never certainly felt less fear in my life than
| did at that time, and hope God will forgive
| me, for felt more like devil than q man.
We fought our way out of them as only Eng
lishmen can fight; and the fourth, fifth, and
sixth, were there up with us. escaped with
out scratch, thank God, though was covered
with blood; my horse was not even wounded;
but OIL the work of slaughter that then be-
gan--'twas truly awful but / suppose it was
necessary; we cut them down like sheep, and
they did not seem to have power to resist.
The plain is covered with dead Russians, and
OF course we left some Of our poor comrades on
the field. We only lost two, and about seven
wounded.
FRENCH SHARP-SHooTERs. must tell you
| what the .francstireurs are. There are two
| companies of them, each composed of $50
men, chosen from among the best marksmen
of the Chasseurs de Vincennes. In the night
they creep in front of the entertainments, dig
holes, and place themselves in them as well as
1 they can. Then they fire at the Russian artil-
lerymen. They have already killed SO many
that the Russians now close their embrasures
with sort Of double door, which is ball proof.
But they are obliged to open it TO point their
gun and FIRE, and no sooner is this done than
twenty balls whistle through it. The Russians
have sustained such losses that they were at
times seized with despair-raising their guns
from behind, they fred volleys of grape shot at
their disagreeable visitors. Nevertheless, the
latter have succeeded in extinguishing all the
first line of their batteries. say first line, be-
cause there are several others in the rear, the
part of the town which faces MS being an in
clined plane on which batteries have been
raised in lines one above the other. That our
trancstirenrs have done good execution is evil
dent from the fact that, in the evening of the
10Th, General De Martimpre, chief of the gene
raj staff received note informing him that
the Russians FIRE had become uncertain, and
that artillerymen were so scarce that the guns
had to be served BY the infantry. Express no
surprise at the word uncertain for from the
9Th to the 18th the Russian gentlemen did not
cease TO point their guns at us as at target,
while we did not design TO answer them even
| by a musket shot They consequently attained
such precision, that the day on which we un-
masked our batteries, their balls entered our
embrasures as IL cast by the hand. One ball
went into the very mouth of cannon, but was
too large TO penetrate more than a third It,
however, stuck fast. This was considered so
| curious that the gun was carried TO the gene
RAILS tent to be shown TO him.
FROM THE TowN.-On October "a, being
bombarded for eight days, the town had indeed
suffered great deal, but the feet is unhurt !;
the steamer Vladimir has got two balls in her.
The sailors who man the works erected by Col
Todtleben suffered the most. The resistance
seems TO irritate the besiegers for the last
few days they have been firing with red-hot
bullets. You cannot escape them anywhere in
the town. If the bombardment lasts long the
streets of the southern part viii be, so to say
paved with iron. The sailors under Todtleben
are, as II were, the living bulwark of the Cri-
mea. They are admirable Nachimoff, who
formerly had never been on horseback, is now
continually riding along the lines Of batteries.
In his own concise manner he addresses his
sailors, who adore him. The moral influence
Of such men makes them saviors in great crises.
Menschikof, too, does not.spare himself As
be was lately riding along the Notifications in
the briskest Of the fire, the artillerymen called
out to him This 10 not the place for your
highness ]" The commander Of bastion said
To him: Have Won come here because vou do