New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1855-07-24
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enjoys only Moderate reputation amepe the
others now ia camp.
Later m the evening preceding the assault. Sir
1eorge 5,s, discoyered that the major commanding
the 23d was laid up with wound receiyeSi IN
the attack on the Quarries, and that the senior
captain an officer, by the way, Of some siah-
teen years' service-wonld have charge al the
| corps during the stormiDg ss impossible: this
| will never do," said the friend Of apoplectic
neck furniture, ssanother regiment, with a field
officer in com mand, must Le substituted
A message to this effect was telegraphed to
head quarters, but Lord Raglan, with degree
| 81 common sense which was quite unniilitary.
| overruled his seconds objection, and replied
tnat an officer Of captain Is length of SER
VICE. Do bis rank what it might, should be quite
as NJ 70 lead his regiment into action as any field
oifieer In the service, and, accordingly, that no
ga tuition should be made, Imerely mention
enese trlneS TO show the state of uncertainty
and confusion in which our preparations we're
till almost within an hour before the assauttine
force marched down toward the scene of its
struggle and defeat
Then another deviation from the original plan
Of the attack was made, also at the eleventh
hour, by Gen. Pelissier, to which both military
sense and common sense agree In attributins no
small share of both the French and our own
failure Though the bombardment had been
Kept up vigorously the whole Of Sunday, nign5
Lecessarily compelling slackening Of the allied
ire, and during this respite there was reason to
expect that the Russians would employ them
selves IN making good the injuries done to their
batteries during the day. 1t was therefore ar
ranged that at daybreak on Monday terrific
hre OF shot and shell should be poured into the
Retaan and Malakoff, to render as MANY Of their
guns as possible incapable of mischief An hour
or so, however, before the combined forces
marched from the camp the French commander
in-ehief rode over to cur own headquarters and
declared that he could not wait for this pre-
iminary assault Of artillery, as lie would have
30 many men IN his trenches before the MalakoE
that there would he no cover for them and
consequently they (and we} must attack at
day break, at all hazards, and takesthe chance
OF huding the enemy's guns in the most favore-
Die condition IN which our bembardment and
heir owners subsequent idleness might have
left them S
or courseL Lord Raglan complied, though forty
nine cut Of fifty Of the suha.terns in fis camp
would have foretold the consequences TO be ex-
pected; and accordingly, soon after the first
streaks of sunlight broke over the horizon the
doomed thousands rushed to defeat and death
SO little is even known OF the details of French
operations here, that can give you few psrtic-
uiars Of the attack on the Malakof; but their
plan of assault appears to have consisted in
assaulting the work on both fanks and the
numbers-25,0 600 are said to have been en-
gagged.
In just retribution for the disregard of their
General to the good to be expected from short
mornings bombardment, they found the re-
doubts swarming with defenders, and guns brist-
ling from every embrasure On them, as on
our own men, showers of grape and canister
were poured out, literally moving down whole
battalions at time; while from along tie whole
semiclrcular line of parapet the CROWD of rifle
men sent volley after yoley into their disordered
ranks, that passed through them like sheet of
molten lead. Three times they gave way, and
as often rallied; but were finally driven back
after a struggle Of some three hours and o half,
leaving the space between the Mamelon and
Malakof literally covered with the dead and
dying.
With our own men, the space to bepassed over
from our most advanced trenches TO the Redan
was somewhere about seven hundred yards, and
from the frat moment of their rushing over the
parspet toward the point of attack, they were
met by the same awful and annihilating storm
of canister and grape Many fell within the
first dozen yards, and thence on to some broken
ground about midway, in which the remainder
sought cover, the field was strewed with the slain
and wounded An officer present in the affair,
and who was one of the few who escaped unin-
jured described the fire to me as being perfectly
awful-much more severe, he assured me, than
that which greeted our Lien at Alma, where he
also fought, and received wound. Few of them
ever reached the abattis in front of the work
none, believe. ever even saw the deep ditch
which protects its approaches
have already mentioned the confusion which
characterized the first commencement Of our
movement; and coupling this with the murder-
ous preparations made by the enemy, you will
be at no loss to understand that success was
most improbable. l shall presently mention
hiatt
as repeated by one Of them in my own hearing
During the whole affair Lord Raglan and Sir Ct.
Brown were ensconced within our eight gun bat
terry, but though this afforded good view Of the
scene of the struggle and the disorder which
marked it, for some reasons unknown to uninl-
tiated spectators, they appeared unable to give
any efficient directions for the correction of our
multiplied blunders When the sad scene was
ended our men struggled back by every safe ay-
enue to the camp in a state of dispirited confu-
sion we'll in keeping with the m0b-iike disorder
in which they had been throughout the assault
know not what may have been the feelings
of your home public on reading the telegraphlc
news of eur defeat-for presume the scribes at
headquarters made no attempt to conceal the
naked fact that our repulse was neither more
nor less than defeat-but here mingled shame
and Indignation were general throughout the
camp. Officers and men alike felt that disgrace
had been incurred, and that in consequence of
the unredeemed mismanagement Of their gener-
ais. From drum-boys to eoionels sense
Of humiliation filled every breast, the deeper
that every body was sensible that neither men
nor regimental officers had shown themselves
deficient in what, under proper guidance, would
have commanded success. 2
About midnight on Monday, was reused up
by the sound of d terrific cannonade, and sus-
tanned musketry fire, along the whole front
from our left to the French right, and on has
tening out to the height in advance Of the Vic
toria Redoubt, heard and Witnessed what in
duced me to believe that night attack had
been made by ourselves and the French to
retrieve the fortune of the day From the Mala-
kof to the extreme left of the Eedan-a space
of about q mile--whole clouds OF fame burst
along the line from the sustained discharges OF
some two hundred cannon, while muskstry hlied
up the short intervals from both our eWn and
Ihe enemy's ground The night was pitch dark,
and as the storm Of shells whistled through the
| air, nothing could be grander than the fery
| parabolas Of these terrible messengers, from
battery to redoubt and from redoubt back again
| to battery. @ HF
/ Tbano na;tbar timn nar pnxyay. IN he the