Nature of the ground—Position of the sappers—Their strength—Quarters and cantonments—Equipment—Duties and services—The survey—Marking out the encampment—Forming tanks—Wells—Lakes—Construction of stables—Camp-kitchen—Oven—Incidental employments; Royal pavilion; Queen’s road—Sentry-boxes—Post-office and postal statistics—Intrenchments—Submarine mining—Passage of Virginia Water—Her Majesty’s gracious acknowledgments of the conduct of the sappers in the operation—The second passage of the lake—Also of the Thames at Runnymead—Field-days—Inspections by the Queen—Breaking up the camp—Satisfaction of Colonel Vicars and Lord Seaton.

In common with the army, the royal sappers and miners furnished detachments for the camp at Chobham about four miles from Chertsey. The common where the encampment was formed was an extensive tract of waste, varied with hill and dale. The amplitude of the district, its freedom from enclosures, from wood or bush, or from barriers or hedges to mark the boundaries of individual or corporate properties, and its succession of swelling heights, well adapted it for the purposes of an instructional encampment, and for the campaigning evolutions of a concentrated force, assembled less for military parade and display than to realize in degree some of the chequered difficulties and vicissitudes which fill up the hard and comfortless career of an army engaged in the active operations of war.

The camp was established on the concave edge of the ridge. Each end was advanced, while the centre with a sweep receded, giving to the position a curved line approaching the segment of a circle. The detachment of sappers was tented south of the ‘Magnet,’ the name given to the hill where the head-quarters were established, and next to the left of the Coldstream guards, close to the road leading across the common to Bagshot. The line regiments which succeeded, fell back from the detachment. To be regimentally correct, the sappers should have been on the right of the Grenadier guards, but the position was chosen for the corps because it was central, prominent, and easily accessible to the troops requiring the use of entrenching tools and field implements. The division, consisting of a due proportion of cavalry, artillery and infantry, was under the orders of Lieutenant-General Lord Seaton, G.C.B. The sappers were among the first troops on the ground. AsAs soon as it was determined to form the camp, the party at Sandhurst—one sergeant and twelve rank and file—was directed to suspend its services at the college, and remove to the encamping district. It commenced work on the 21st of April and ceased on the 7th of May, when it returned to the royal military college to carry out the concluding operations of the term. Lieut. Drake, R.E., commanded this party.

To make a hurried survey of the ground one sergeant and eighteen rank and file were detached from Southampton between the 27th of April and the first of May, who, as the service permitted, returned in sections to the ordnance survey. A small party detained at Windlesham for special purposes, in connexion with the military survey, did not quit the district till late in July. Lieutenant Stotherd, R.E., directed the detachment.

Colour-sergeant Henry Brown and twenty rank and file from Chatham, reached the encamping ground on the 9th of May. On the 13th following, this detachment was increased to a company (numbered the 2nd) of three sergeants and eighty-seven rank and file from the royal engineer establishment, under the command of Captain Lovell, R.E. Lieutenant and Adjutant Somerset from Woolwich, joined the company on the 14th of June. The whole were under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Vicars, R.E.

To diversify the operations, a pontoon train was ordered to be attached to the division; and on the 20th of June, the sappers appointed for this duty commenced to move in detachments. The force consisted of drafts from the first, fifth, and eleventh companies detached from Chatham, and reached a total of

under the command of Colonel Harry D. Jones, assisted by Captains H. St. George Ord, G. Ross, and W. M. Inglis, and ten subalterns of the royal engineers. The great bulk of the men arrived at Wellington camp on the 22nd of June, on which date the totals of the combined force of sappers counted 297 of all ranks.

A day or two after the pontoon operations at Virginia Water were concluded, the first company, with a detachment of the eleventh, quitted Wellington camp, and returned to Chatham the same day.

The second company at Chobham camp was relieved on the 22nd of July by the fifth company, with the greater part of the eleventh from the Wellington camp, and repaired that day to Chatham. The company was played from the ground by the band of the 79th Highlanders, who, from good feeling, volunteered to confer the honour; and as it passed the tents of the 79th three cheers from the assembled regiment testified its esteem and friendship for the departing company.^[119] The total force then left for the field duties of the camp, exclusive of the surveyors, numbered 100 men of all ranks.

As some further pontoon operations were ordered to be executed, and the force at the camp was considered to be numerically inadequate for the duty, sixty-five non-commissioned officers and men were sent to the field from Chatham on the 25th of July, and after the completion of the work, they returned on the 28th to their destination.

The party from Sandhurst and colour-sergeant Brown’s detachment were billeted at Sunning-hill and Sunning-dale. On Captain Lovell arriving with his company at Shrub’s-hill, finding no billets or tents he stayed for three days in a barn at Bagshot Park House. On the 16th of May the company was for the first time tented on the skirts of Colonel Challoner’s wood, then on Sheep’s-hill, and lastly on the Oystershell-hill near the “Magnet.” The division under Lord Seaton reached the encampment on the 14th of June, when in allusion to the appearance and exertions of the troops as they took up their ground, a leading journal of the day observed, “that the sappers and miners, probably the most intelligent and best-educated men in our army, make the least external show.”^[120] The pontoon train was encamped about one and a half miles from Virginia Water, near the Wellington Bridge, from which the camp took its name. The detachment of sixty-five men furnished to assist in the formation of the bridge across the Thames at Runnymede, was billeted during its short stay at Egham.

The camp equipment for the Chobham company embraced five marquees, fourteen circular tents, one hospital tent for officers’ mess, one for orderly room, one guard tent, and one store and ammunition tent, besides fourteen Flanders’ kettles. For the pontoon train there were four marquees, thirty-four circular tents, two hospital tents for workshops and stores, one laboratory tent, and twenty-five camp kettles. Each man was supplied with a wooden canteen, haversackhaversack and blanket, but no bedding. Straw was afforded in abundance to sleep on. The men were distributed in parties of nine and ten to each tent, which permitted the senior non-commissioned officers to be provided with ample canvas accommodation, and some spare tents to be used for various incidental military purposes.

A detail of the duties and services performed by the sappers and miners in connexion with the encampment follows. In some of them they were assisted by small levies from the guards and the line. The senior non-commissioned officers were colour-sergeants Henry Brown, Noah Deary, and Timothy Sillifant, who throughout the service were indefatigable in their exertions, and their skill and contrivances were on many occasions found very useful.^[121] In the early stage of the preparations, Viscount Hardinge inspected the camp on Sheep’s-hill, and expressed in a few pointed sentences his satisfaction of the appearance of the field, and the steps taken to render the accommodation of the troops as comfortable as the resources of the district would admit.

It was deemed indispensable that a map should be provided of the country for several miles round the encampment, to guide the Generals in the choice of positions, manœuvres, marches, &c. The district had been surveyed sixty years before, in common with the general survey of the south of England, and was drawn on a scale of two inches to a mile. The better to meet the present requirement, the plans were enlarged and drawn to a scale of four inches to a mile. All the improvements which had arisen within the last half century were also supplied, and the original work corrected where necessary. This was done by taking magnetic bearings with a prismatic compass and pacing the ground. The distance examined and corrected, included an area of about 220 square miles, the cardinal angles of which were Chertsey, Wokingham, Farnham, and Guildford. All was carried out and completed between the 1st May and 14th June. The principal part of the hills were sketched by Lieutenant Stotherd, assisted by four non-commissioned officers of the corps, who, although heretofore wholly employed in the operations of a civil survey, were, without any previous practice in the art, made to turn their talents to account in military sketching. The survey—comprised on four large sheets—was compiled, lithographed, and coloured under the direction of Captain W. D. Gosset, R.E. Corporal Sinnett drew the 12-inch plan of the encampment furnished for the use of Colonel Vicars. A special survey of the ground at Aldershot Heath was also made and plotted on a scale of six inches to a mile, by sergeant Spencer and corporal Macdonald. The soldiers most conspicuous for their usefulness in the Chobham survey were—

Marking out the encampment was done by the sappers under Colonel Torrens, assistant quartermaster-general, by driving pickets into the ground in the places selected to mark the salient points of the boundaries, to be occupied by the several regiments.

The springs and watercourses were sought for and collected into small reservoirs or basins, at sites as convenient for access as practicable. In some places small trenches were excavated, to afford easy channels for conveying the water to the terraces. These tanks were for domestic uses. Attached to them were larger ones for washing purposes, which were filled by the surplus water from the drinking reservoirs through the agency of small troughs, fixed near the top of the partitional embankments.

From the dipping and trawling of so many utensils of different kinds into the tanks, and the constant washing of the water against the sides of the embankments, it became very dirty and disagreeable. To obviate this, pumps were fixed in the tanks, large wooden troughs being added to them to convey the water to the recipients, and sentries being posted over the reservoirs to compel all parties to take the water from the approved contrivances instead of resorting to the objectionable mode which had been attended with so much discomfort.

Where springs could not be found in sufficient number, wells were sunk to afford water for the troops. Some of these answered excellently, and yielded a good supply. In several instances the men were interrupted in the service by the presence of moving quicksand, which prevented them digging to the depth they otherwise would have done. These wells, nevertheless, were ultimately made available for use. To keep the ground from being undermined by the sand, rough sap rollers were at first constructed and sunk, but as these were found inadequate to meet the difficulty, on account of the sand oozing through the interstices of the brushwood, some barrels were securely fixed at the bottom, which at once offered an effectual resistance to any encroachment, and secured a serviceable quantity of good clean water. Into several of the wells two or three bushels of pebbles and shells were thrown to purify the water in its infiltration. Wells cased or lined with fir poles—an expedient first resorted to—were found not to answer, as the water collected in them tasted disagreeably of an impregnation of turpentine. Many failures in seeking for water occurred. Three or four in elevated parts of the field were sunk through a stratum of sand and clay to the depth of thirty-five feet without success. Two artesian wells were also bored late in July, one to a depth of sixty feet and the other to thirty-five feet, without any beneficial result.

Tradition or experience was of little avail in selecting places to sink the wells with anything like certainty of finding water. Nor were any men present who possessed the occult and mysterious faculty of using the divining rod to discover it. Several ingenious suggestions were made and acted on with no better result. All depended upon chance; and to make up for the deficiency from this source, greater attention was paid to gathering the nests of springs, and opening up courses and channels for their unfettered issue into reservoirs. Commonly, depths beyond thirty feet were obtained without the use of the windlass, or the application of materials to support the sides. Many of the sappers in these experiments turned out expert well-diggers, and executed the heavy duty with energy and coolness.

The formation of lakes was effected by damming up some small brooks and rivulets, in the valleys which emptied themselves into Virginia Water. The dams were raised on piles formed from the ends of fir poles, which, to make a firm foundation, were driven into the ground about ten or fifteen feet wider at the base than the road was at the top. The sides were built with good sods, and filled in with the best soil that could be gathered on the spot. Where the bog was unstable, it was replaced by stiff clay, which was puddled. In this way two or three fine expansive sheets of water were formed, which were extremely useful for the cavalry horses; and a safe and ready passage was also afforded for the troops across some valleys and morasses over the roadway of the dam. One sheet was behind the cavalry stabling on Egham Common, and the others, named “The Great Arm” and “The Little Arm,” were at the base of Black-hill and of Sheep’s-hill.

The stables were constructed of a uniform width, but the length varied according to circumstances. For a stable of six horses, the dimensions were twenty-seven feet by thirteen feet six inches. The uprights or stanchions were nine feet long, three feet of which were driven into the ground and well rammed. A wall-plate was then fixed to the stanchions at the height of six feet from the ground. The rafters were made of rough poles, secured by a collar-beam four feet from the top, and then nailed firmly down on the wall-plates, every alternate one being strapped with hoop-iron. The centre was supported by a king-post rammed three feet into the ground, and besides being nailed to the collar-beam, was tied for steadiness and stability at the top with rope-yarn. Poles were also fixed and secured on either side and at the ends, which, with the doors, were thatched or wickered with fir branches, compactly intertwined. The whole was roofed with canvas, and stayed by guy-ropes. The canvas was made under contract, in pieces to cover a stable for six horses, but after a few days’ rain the pieces shrunk about sixteen inches, and caused throughout the period of the camp much inconvenience to the horses. The stabling was made to accommodate 1,800 horses at an expense of nearly 1,000l. An experimental stable of the above form was run up in two hours and a quarter by twelve men, under sergeant George Pringle, directed by Lieutenant Drake, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief—Viscount Hardinge—who expressed his satisfaction both with the exertions of the men and the suitability of the construction.

The camp-kitchen for the sappers was built six feet wide and ten feet long, and was approached by a ramp. The flues were ten feet long and one foot wide, with a space intervening through the entire length of twenty inches, which was six inches deep in front and lessened to nothing as it neared the neck of the chimney, for the purpose of facilitating the action of the air and producing a rapid draught. Its sides were built up with sods to the height of fourteen inches, and the top was covered over with the blades of broken shovels. Intervals of nine inches were left to receive the camp-kettles. A trench was dug round the kitchen from which at one end rose, to the height of above six feet, a mud stack containing two distinct chimneys shaped into ornamental pots. At the other end, the two fires were lighted. The flues were kept independently of each other, and, with the chimney-stack, were plastered both inside and out with clay. This expedient gave to the kitchen a neat appearance, and sufficient durability to stand the wear and tear of constant use. Sometimes it was converted into an oven by removing the kettles, and temporarily closing the open spaces with sods. The kitchen cooked for 100 men. Though somewhat troublesome to inexperienced men to construct, compared with the old Peninsular range adopted by some regiments in camp, it was a decided improvement both in form and utility, inasmuch as it economised fuel, received with readiness the few appliances used in military cooking, and enabled the culinary art to be carried on with more alacrity and on a larger scale.

An oven was also constructed after the model of the kitchen with one flue and chimney only. It was built with bricks made on the spot, from clay in the vicinity of the camp. Amid so much rusticity and so many rude campaigning inventions, this oven, from its neatness and success, was much admired. Sergeant Timothy Sillifant, an ingenious mechanic, designed both the kitchen and the oven, and superintended their construction.

Some incidental services executed by the sappers were of a character which it may not be considered inappropriate to notice. So various were their duties and so frequent the calls for their assistance, that the encomiums passed upon them after a full test of their usefulness were not extravagant when it was said “that in all their capacities, from the driving of a nail to the marking out of a fortification, they seemed to be equally as au fait as if each service was their special and sole vocation.”^[122] They repaired and adapted the poor-house at Burrow Hill for a general hospital; erected a flag-staff for displaying the royal standard; enclosed a large area of ground with a canvas wall seven feet high, within which were pitched marquees and different tented conveniences for the use of the Queen and Her Majesty’s Consort and guests; and watched and managed the tent-ropes of the royal pavilion, &c., within the compound. Here likewise they erected a cookhouse of brick, after the form of their own kitchen, and cut a road about two miles long, from Colonel Challoner’s plantation to the “Magnet,” as a carriage drive for Her Majesty. The road led across one of the artificial sheets of water, and at either side of this causeway was fixed a temporary railing, which gave it an appearance of strength and completeness. Contrivances were also adopted for permitting the water to run freely through the embankment so as to insure the stream rising to the same level at both sides of the bridge. The road was, moreover, a useful one, for in manœuvring the troops it was sometimes employed to accelerate their movements, and the passage across it formed a grand feature in the reviews. It was called the “Queen’s Road,” and the dam across the sheet of water was dignified with the name of the “Queen’s Bridge.” The sappers also attended to the pitching and adjusting of the marquees of some of the staff officers; drained the camp ground; taught soldiers of the line the readiest methods of effecting these duties, and built several sentry-boxes. One was erected under the superintendence of a French captain, of rough poles driven into the ground in a circle, after the manner of the initial gabion. In front, one stake was omitted for the entrance. The box was built to the usual height, was covered in with a conical top, and the whole was thatched with, straw in courses, which gave it in the distance, when the sun was shining upon it, the semblance of a richly-flounced dress. Another box of this kind revolved on a pivot at pleasure, to screen the sentry from wind or rain; and after the camp was broken up, it was given a place in the grounds of Colonel Challoner. A third was run up by private James Queen,^[123] which, from its mechanical pretensions, was applauded as a work of taste, but could never be successfully imitated unless by talented workmen accustomed to build with neatness and exactness. The structure was of a mural character and defensible, having loopholes in its sides and rear. An heroic bust, made of clay by the private, who had shown some aptitude as a sculptor, was to have surmounted the box, but it was unfortunately destroyed by some of his comrades, during an excited criticism upon its merits.

“Much as we admired,” wrote a London daily journal, “the universal utility of the corps, we thought we had seen the extent of their capacities, but when looking a little more into the variety of their employment we found them in a new sphere, and discovered that corporal Richard J. Letton had been, under Mr. Smith, discharging the details connected with the Post-office with the usual off-hand success which seems to pertain to the corps.”^[124] The receiving-office at the “Magnet,” was a sub one to the post at Chertsey. The number of letters sent to and from the camp, as detailed below, from the first day of opening the office to the day of closing it on the removal of the troops, shows that it transacted a fair amount of business.

Of these the number of registered letters were 257, and the postage-stamps sold realized the sum of 123l. 17s. 3d. The number of letters to the camp showed but little variation through the course of the month, but those despatched from it were much affected by the field days, and on one occasion they fell from 1,526 to 601. The management of the postal arrangements was highly satisfactory, and reflected great credit upon Mr. Smith and the corporal.^[125] The latter, in a testimonial from his chief, was eulogized for having performed his duty with the greatest zeal, integrity, and attention.

To give an additional warlike feature to the evolutions of the division, some temporary field-works were thrown up. These consisted of three redoubts, two irregular, with faces of very unequal length, on Oystershell and Catton hills, and one regular, on Sheep’s-hill. The one on Oystershell-hill was revetted on one of its faces with brushwood and fir-branches woven upon pickets, while its remaining sides were cased with sods. The other redoubts were revetted wholly with sods. Sheep’s-hill redoubt was a square work, with two platforms for one field-piece each, and its sides in the interior were each sixty feet long. Four shafts of six feet deep were sunk under its right face, and the charges, in boxes containing each 100 lbs. of gunpowder, were laid and tamped ready for explosion on the 6th August. The Queen was present on that day and witnessed the manœuvres, which were closed by blowing up the redoubt. At the appointed time, the wires were applied to the voltaic battery, but from some mismanagement, supposed from the communication becoming disconnected, the mines did not go off. Two sappers immediately repaired to the spot where the charges were chambered, and after removing the earth which covered them, and affixing in the ordinary way the powder-hose to form the train, Captain Inglis fired it with portfire, and a successful explosion was the result. The whole face was blown up. The field-works were completed early in August, and were only on three or four occasions used in the general operations. Contingents of men from the guards and the line threw them up. Some of the sappers acted as overseers, and others took part in the trenches. The shafts for the mines were dug and the powder placed in them in the night-time.

A series of seven or eight sub-aqueous mines, fired by voltaic electricity, were made in Virginia Water, to show the effect of such expedients if the service rendered recourse to them desirable. The largest charge fired contained 35 lbs. of powder. The charges were fixed in tin cans of sizes to suit the bulk of the powder, and fired from the shore. Sergeant Entwistle and one private had the preparation of the charges, &c., and Captain Inglis, R.E., invariably fired them. One on the 12th July was exploded in the presence of the Prince of Wales, and was successful, a column of water being thrown into the air to a considerable height.

As soon as the pontoon train and equipment arrived, the corps commenced and continued for several days to carry out such instructional practice as was considered essential to render the contemplated bridging perfect. The train consisted of—

and the requisite stores, forge, &c., and all were packed on the margin of Virginia Water on the 25th June, 1853.

In accordance with appointed arrangements, a military display took place on the 5th July, in the presence of Prince Albert and Her Majesty. Early in the morning about 8,000 troops were marched to the Water, on the north side of which an enemy was supposed to have established himself, represented by the second company of sappers and detachments of the Grenadier guards and 23rd fusiliers. While a sharp and prolonged attack was being made upon the brigade of Sir De Lacy Evans at Blacknest Bridge, a body of sappers 125 strong, directed by a captain and five subalterns of royal engineers, began to form the pontoon bridge, and to carry out other subsidiary means for effecting the passage of the lake. The six carriages of the train, packed with twelve pontoons and their superstructure, were horsed by the royal artillery, and moved down to the water’s edge, where they were unloaded. The remaining pontoons, eighteen in number, had already been stored on the margin of the lake in readiness for the service. The moment the order was given, the sappers in fatigue-dress launched the pontoons, and with the greatest silence, precision, and diligence, formed in forty-five minutes a bridge of thirty cylinders with two bays across an arm of the lake 324 feet broad. The pontoons were lashed in intermediate intervals of eight feet apart, which is considered to be the proper adjustment of buoyancy for the transport of the varied weights of artillery. While the bridge was booming out, Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert, with their illustrious guests, embarked in a royally-decorated barge, drew near the bridge and watched with evident interest the movements and exertions of the men.

During the operation a party of twenty-one non-commissioned officers and men, under three subalterns of the royal engineers, formed two rafts and one demi-raft of the India-rubber pontoons, and rapidly ferried across the lake four companies of the rifle brigade, who took shelter in the woods close to the edge of the water. This service was executed in exactly the same time that was occupied in forming the bridge.

About noon, the cannonade on the left at Blacknest Bridge ceased, and the supposed enemy, having discovered Lord Seaton’s real intention, advanced to dispute his passage over the pontoons. Not a moment was now lost on either side. One wing of the rifles was thrown across, and forming line on the opposite bank, opened a spirited fire on their opponents. The batteries also boomed from the south side of the water, and under cover of the cannonade—for the whole woodland for some minutes was shrouded in the smoke it occasioned—a battalion of the Grenadier guards defiled over the bridge. Scarcely had they concealed themselves in the embowering woods when the sappers, who had left the pontoons for an interstitial duty, suddenly returned with bundles of fern and brake, which they strewed over the superstructure to render the passage as secure as practicable for the batteries and the cavalry. Now followed two 6-pounder batteries and a 9-pounder battery of 6 guns each, the 6th Dragoon guards, and a battalion of the Coldstream guards and of the 42nd Highlanders, with all the staff.

The remainder of Major-General Fane’s brigade of cavalry proceeded by the iron gate to the high ground on the north side of the lake, whilst the brigade of Sir De Lacy Evans, now unopposed by the enemy, marched by Blacknest Bridge to Smith’s lawn, where the troops were reviewed by Her Majesty. The second company only of the corps was present at the review; the other companies being necessarily detained with the pontoons.

To provide as much as possible for the safety of the horses in crossing, the sappers, with an oar extended from man to man, lined the bridge at each side, by which a kind of railing or balustrade was formed from one end of the bridge to the other. The plan had unquestionable advantages in encouraging the horses and retaining them in their places, but it was somewhat dangerous to the men. As the second battery approached the middle of the stream, the floating motion of the bridge caused some of the horses to become restive, and in the efforts made to control their progress, five of the sappers were thrown into the lake. No casualty, however, happened, and the men, after a little swimming, resumed their stations on the bridge.

In testimony of the services of the corps on this occasion, Lord Seaton published the following order from Her Majesty:—

The 11th July was another day of field manœuvring appointed expressly to experimentalize with the pontoons. Before the arrival of the troops at the lake, a bridge was quickly formed with twenty-four pontoons, on the same site as that occupied on the 5th instant, and by the same detachment. At eleven o’clock a part of the division under Major-General His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge passed over it in the order of movement detailed below:—

The time occupied in the passage of the troops was fifty minutes, and on its completion, the bridge was speedily broken up into rafts. These, with the assistance of the India-rubber rafts, manned by the same detachment as on the 5th July, were afterwards employed in ferrying back the 38th and 93rd regiments at a spot 150 yards wide, below where the bridge had been constructed. This duty was also completed in fifty minutes. In all the operations, there appears to have been a remarkable coincidence of duration, which, had the facts not been carefully ascertained and recorded, would seem to be the errors of carelessness or inexperience.

In crossing the bridge, many of the horses of the Life Guards became unmanageable. Not a few of them got into a gallop and started off, sometimes as many as three abreast. Several of the artillery horses also were restive. Among so much violence and disorder, the sappers, who lined the bridge as before, had to bear their full share of accident and danger, and before the passage was effected, as many as twenty-five sergeants and rank and file were thrust overboard. All fortunately could swim, and soon made good their places on their respective rafts.

This day’s bridging closed the operations on Virginia Water. With the exception of seven rafts and the six carriages, the remainder of the pontoons and stores were packed up and removed to their original stations at Woolwich and Chatham. The seven rafts, &c., were soon afterwards conveyed to Staines, in readiness for ulterior service over the Thames.

On the 27th July another pontoon bridge was thrown, this time across the Thames, at Runnymede, celebrated alike for its historic claims and attractions, and for the beauty of the surrounding landscape. The point chosen was an angle of the river about a mile from the town of Egham, opposite Ankerwycke House. The operation bore some resemblance to that which took place on Virginia Lake on the 5th July. The sappers commenced their march at eight o’clock in the morning, and, proceeding with the pontoons along the Windsor and Staines roads, halted on the banks of the river at Runnymede at a quarter to eleven. At once the men set to work, and under the more natural circumstances of steep banks and a strong tidal current, unfelt at Virginia Water, threw in thirty-five minutes a bridge consisting of six rafts of twelve cylindrical pontoons in open order, twelve feet apart, and two half bays. To allow the operation to be conducted without interruption, a mimic battle was fiercely carried on some distance higher up the river, and to afford protection to the bridge as it approached the Ankerwycke shore, parties of the 79th Highlanders were rapidly rowed across in punts, which at the time were lying unemployed and captured for the occasion. Soon the combat was removed to the pontoons, and a heavy fusillade was for a long time kept up. Under cover of the guns of the horse artillery, fired from a commanding position, the troops poured over the bridge in a continuous stream, and followed the retreating enemy, with all the impetuosity of enthusiastic pursuit into Magna Charta Island. There the fight was hotly maintained, and ultimately won by the little band of mixed troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Vicars.

The troops that crossed the bridge were a battalion of the Guards, 4th Light Dragoons, the other battalion of Guards, 79th Highlanders, the Horse Guards Blue, and some batteries of horse and foot artillery.

An accident took place just as the last battery was crossing the bridge. The vertical motion of the rafts was such as to startle the horses, and some, from the dull reverberating noise produced by their tramp, coupled with the booming roll of the heavy wheels on the superstructure, became ungovernable, and six horses tumbled into the stream dragging with them a gun with its carriage and limber. As usual, the sappers lined the bridge with extended oars, and in the struggling of the horses, four of the men were swept into the current. Three of them were injured—two severely. These were privates John Piper and William Swann,^[126] who were also nearly drowned. The latter was entangled with the horses in the water, and it was with great difficulty he succeeded in getting on the back of one of them, when he was picked up by the crew of a boat quickly manned for the purpose. Four of the horses were cleverly rescued by colour-sergeant William Jamieson and private Henry Collins, who dexterously cut the traces; but the two wheel-horses, borne down by the carriage, could not be saved. Privates Daniel Port, Henry Collins,^[127] and Elias Garratt conducted themselves with intrepidity on the occasion by plunging from the bridge into the river to rescue the men and save the horses.

After the operation the sappers bivouacked on the ground, and dined on the day’s ration taken with them from the camp. The bridge was afterwards dismantled, packed on the waggons, and then accompanied the troops to Staines. The company belonging to the Chobham force did not reach its tents till eight o’clock in the evening.

On field days the sappers, together with a company of the Guards, on several occasions under Captain the Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, and a company of the 23rd fusiliersfusiliers, represented the enemy under the command of Colonel Vicars, R.E. All acted as skirmishers; and when pressed by charges of the troops, formed squares, or resorted to such other simple manœuvres as were best adapted to their position and circumstances. On these days the expenditure of ammunition by the company was enormous; 100 rounds per man at least were consumed. On the first day of the pontooning at Virginia Water, the sappers, who were posted to prevent the passage of the troops by Blacknest Bridge, fired in an hour and a-quarter about 120 rounds a man. The firing of the main body of the division was always comparatively trifling. From the hard nature of the duties that devolved upon the enemy, the men composing it gained in camp the familiar designation of “The Kaffirs.” The last field day at Chobham was one of labour and fatigue to the men. They fired more than an average quantity of ammunition, and at its close the sappers marched at the head of the line in review, before the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Seaton. Their blackened faces, dingy accoutrements, and well-worn apparel afforded a striking contrast to the clean appearance, unsoiled appointments, and bright uniform of the passing squadrons and battalions; and it was no inappropriate commendation to say on this, their last camp inspection, that in their endurance, their hardihood, their wearied but dauntless aspect, they looked like “Polish patriots—few, but undismayed.”

On the 21st June and 5th July the Queen inspected the second company in common with the rest of the troops at the camp. The Prince Albert and Lord Hardinge accompanied Her Majesty. The King and Queen of Hanover were present on the first day. The fifth company and a detachment of the eleventh were also reviewed by the Queen and the Prince Consort on the 4th and 6th August. On the latter date Her Majesty did not personally inspect the troops. On all occasions of the royal presence at the camp, the sappers were in full notice of Her Majesty, for they possessed the advantage of occupying a position close to the Bagshot road, and next to one of the special entrances, which led the Queen and the royal cortege immediately past their tents to the “Magnet.”

After the breaking up of the camp, the sappers remained for four days to dismantle the stables and collect the stores. All the canvas was stripped off the stables, and packed in two days and a half, throughout which time the men were exposed to a ceaseless rain, which fell in torrents. The pontoons and carriages were conveyed to Chertsey, and embarked for Chatham. After completing these duties, the fifth company and the detachment of the eleventh, under Captain W. M. Inglis and Lieutenant W. C. Anderson, R.E., arrived respectively at Chatham and Woolwich on the 24th August. On that day Lord Seaton finally gave up his command. A party of one sergeant and eight privates—the last troops at the camp—detained for the closing duties of clearing the ground, and collecting and packing the Ordnance and Commissariat stores, joined at head-quarters on the 27th August. Novel and memorable was the reappearance of these companies with the corps, for both officers and men had doffed their plumes, and substituted for them bunches of blooming heather, gathered from the ridges and valleys of the now famous Chobham. On their route to Chertsey they were met by Colonel Vicars, who complimented them for their excellent conduct and exertions during the period of their encampment, and expressed to them the satisfaction of Lord Seaton for their alacrity and readiness at all times to meet the wants of the service. This testimony was afterwards corroborated in a letter dated Hyam’s, 25th August, 1853, to Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, in which his lordship, after alluding to the active assistance of the officers of royal engineers, and the detachment of the corps of sappers under the command of Colonel Vicars, added “that their conduct and exertions on all occasions have been most satisfactory.”