State of the batteries—The foremost saps—Repairs to embrasures while opposed by blinding dust driven through the trenches by a fierce wind—Distribution in the trenches—No. 22 battery—Final attack of the Redan and the Malakoff—Names of the sapper storming party—Their brave and steady demeanour and exertions—Escapes of corporal Baker—Valour of private Bowman—Casualties—Continuation of the foremost saps—Daring adventure of corporal Ross—His report leads to the bloodless occupation of the Redan—Conduct of the corps in the siege—Captain Ewart—Reflections.

With no abatement of activity the works progressed on the 6th. The sap on the Redan had 60 men working in it, and extra efforts were given to build No. 22 battery on the right. In both attacks there were 58 sappers, 32 of whom were carpenters. The embrasures were put in as fresh a state as possible; the platforms were in good condition; the magazines and traverses tolerably sound, and even the early batteries, whose age and decrepitude gave reason to expect their fall, looked up with more firmness than was warranted by their seared complexion and feebleness. Broken and hollowed, as if water-courses had worn their faces, the best that could be done was to bolster them up to stand a share of the fire from day to day. Sand-bags were filled in great numbers during the night, and eight sappers cut new embrasures in No. 13 battery, and patched up its shivered parapets and merlons. Forty men of the 14th regiment passed the materials to the sappers, and exerted themselves with so much spirit that the work was nearly finished. “Great credit,” says Captain Nicholson of the engineers, “is due to them and also to the sappers who directed them.”

At eight in the evening 34 sappers were pushed into the right lines, and 16 into those of the left, who were generally employed in restoring the bombarding batteries, several of which had been greatly injured during the day; some of the merlons were also damaged, and there were gaps in different parts of the revetments. Nearly all the repairs and reforms had been executed before the parties quitted at two in the morning. The few embrasures which could not be completed were masked, to protect the sappers who might be allotted to the work next day.

In the fiery sap on the Redan there were 2 sappers and 40 of the 90th regiment, by whose exertions twenty-five gabions were added to the trench, which was, moreover, strengthened where necessary, and backed up with earth. The approach now began to curve to the left, and thus to form the starting-point of the sixth parallel. The head of the sap turned into an indurated vein, which, from the difficulty of moving it, augmented the fatigues of the men. Crowbars and picks driven into chinks partially loosened the rock, which, broken up into fragments, was piled into the parapet. All worked with so much zeal that notice was taken of their services, and corporal John Wright and private Bernard Murray were named to General Simpson for their personal labours and effective superintendence. During its progress a light-ball fell very near the sap, which exhibited its whole outline. Every head was sunk below the revetment in an instant, and as the flaming compound was speedily extinguished by earth thrown on it from the parapet, not a man was touched.

In the right approach near the little ravine there were two sappers and about 50 men. Its prolongation was by flying sap, but its progress was exceedingly tedious. Eleven gabions were staked, but nine only filled. So true was the work in range, that the party shelled out had to take refuge in securer trenches, bringing with it four men wounded. Not only had the workmen to bear a direct fire, and to be disturbed and interrupted by light-balls, but to suffer from accidents arising from shot and shell rebounding from the hill-side, and rolling in all their fury into the sap beneath.

Six sappers in the 21-gun battery repaired each an embrasure, all of which were in a very shattered state. Fierce and gusty was the wind at midnight, collecting the dust and light sand in its vortex, and blowing it in the faces of the workmen. The trenches were swept as if a hurricane were passing. Difficult to hold up against an annoyance of this kind, the progress made in every direction was, nevertheless, satisfactory. “I may,” writes Lieutenant Ranken, who was the engineer on duty for the right attack, “take this opportunity of reporting very favourably of the manner in which the sappers and men employed in repairing the embrasures of the batteries performed their work, in spite of a high wind and blinding dust;” and Sir Harry Jones, in seconding the commendation, thus wrote to the Commander-in-chief, “I should recommend that notice be taken in general orders of the conduct of the sappers and 90th regiment.”

On the 7th, 55 sappers remained a long day of fourteen hours under fire. On the right the linesmen were relieved four times; on the left twice in the day. The carpenters, 16 in number, were chosen men under sergeant Leitch, the master-carpenter of the right attack, who had been daily in the trenches from the end of June. With energy never before surpassed they laid four gun platforms in No. 22 battery and built there a magazine, as well as one in the quarries for small-arm ammunition. In the following night there was a similar force of sappers at work, who, having had an ample supply of sand-bags and gabions, made good all the breaches in the embrasures and parallels. Accustomed to encounter danger, they worked steadily and manfully, as if the point of hazard and duty were the place of safety. The distribution of the workmen on the right attack was as follows:—

The working party and sappers on the left, were confined in great part to the bombarding batteries.

No. 22 battery was completed during the night, its embrasures opened, ramps cut and guns brought into it; but this formation, pushed on with so much zeal, was never armed. Near Egerton’s pit it stood, the creation of many hours’ strenuous toil, as impotent as a ruin.

The sap leading to the Redan was improved in cover by heaping sand-bags on the gabions. It had been run out about 600 feet, and stopped 197 yards from the salient. As far as it went it was complete, and banquettes were built along its length as also in the fifth parallel for sharpshooters. A hundred men of the Highland brigade built the steps, of old casks, broken gabions, and fascines, under private George Harvey, whose spirit and steadiness never relaxed for the eighteen hours he was on trench duty. Nothing was left undone to be ready for an attack, which it was arranged should take place the following morning.

Next day—8th September—17 sappers and 50 men of the infantry were in the left works, mending the breaches as they occurred in battery and trench; and one man of the corps was wounded. No working party was given for the night attack, as the assault on the Redan by the English, and the Malakoff by the French, was ordered to take place at midday. A number of scaling ladders had been carried to the sap approaching the salient during the preceding night, and all the engineering details for the storming were fully prepared by daybreak.

For the assault a column from the second and light division was formed as under:—

The whole were under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir William Codrington and Major-General Markham, but the storming party was directed by Brigadier-General Windham. Sir Harry Jones, the chief engineer, though suffering from an attack of sciatica, and barely recovered from his wound, was borne to the sap on a litter to witness the assault.

Three days’ incessant firing had considerably injured the enemy’s works, and loosened the whole fabric of the lines; but the guns of the Redan and various batteries, peeping from beneath strong rope mantlets, triply plied and tarred, were still serviceable. The apertures through which the missiles were disgorged—small as possible for the purpose—were further blinded by a tarred rope disc matted round the muzzle of the gun just in front of the trunnions, which interposed between the sight of the English riflemen in the trenches and the unseen gunners in the Redan. Ragged and deformed as were the batteries, they, nevertheless, bore up with veteran fronts, and as but few of the Russian artillery were silent, it was expected that the resistance would be obstinate.

At twelve o’clock the French, emerging from their saps—which were about 20 yards from the edge of the Malakoff ditch—bounded into the tower and the little Redan. With a display of heroism which befitted their ancient prestige they captured the Malakoff; but though the little Redan was penetrated by a portion of the column, it was met by a solid mass of the enemy, which sprang on the allies with a fierceness so irresistible it was in vain they contended; and a few minutes more saw them hastily retreating to their lines. Meanwhile the attack on the tower proceeded with desperate violence. Few struggles for triumph were more determined and terrific. At last the Malakoff was won; but the achievement cost a shuddering sacrifice of the best troops of the Emperor.

Now came the signal for the English to advance. When the column knew that the French had conquered, excitement was at its highest, and eager to show how the Redan could be captured, the skirmishers vaulted unexpectedly over the parapet from the advance saps before the party with the ladders had time to debouch from the head of the trench. This was an anxious moment for Lieutenant Ranken. Equal, however, to the difficulty, he run out the sappers, carrying crowbars, axes, and a few intrenching tools, with all speed to the front, and flew on with the foremost ladders under a close fire of musketry and grape. The distance between the gorge of the sap and the ditch at the salient was 197 yards, and in striding on with the ladders across the open slope many a brave man fell. Nevertheless there was no halting, for the stormers were selected for the duty on account of their approved courage; and the column pressed on to the abbattis, which was instantly trodden down or pulled aside by the foremost men with as much ease as if the boughs had been faggots of sticks. Through the gaps the assailants pushed, followed unswervingly by the leading ladders, each 24 feet long, which were quickly planted against the counterscarp of the ditch, the height of which was barely 15 feet. The first one was planted by sergeant Leitch and private Harris, and the latter was the first man to descend by it into the ditch. Scrambling down, many tumbling headlong from the surge behind and many more in the heat of desire jumping into the moat, the stormers quickly tossed the ladders across to the escarp, up which ascended a stream of daring fellows into the body of the work. So skilfully were the ladders placed around the salient, that the troops in sinking into the ditch or climbing into the Redan were but little exposed to the flanking fire of its faces. The first portions of the column moved on steadily to the attack, but succeeding parties running to the head of the sap were so blown, they waited for a few minutes to recover breath. This done, they started in fitful batches, assailed by a withering mitraille. No longer in the orderly formations which characterize the battle-field, the troops in independent groups or sections reached the ditch, where, swelling around the salient, they dived into the fossé, and ascended or descended the ladders, as the events in the Redan fed their courage or starved their ardour. General Windham, whose valour and marvellous escapes on that day have astonished Europe, made his way into the place with some 80 or 100 men, but such was the virulence of the fire, such the carnage, a few only of the bold men who had had the temerity to mount the parapet could be induced, though the General himself walked amid the deadly storm, to rush from the traverse behind which they had shielded themselves.

Meanwhile the sappers, one of whom was appointed to every two ladders, after assisting to rear them in the most secure and advantageous situations, were collected by Lieutenant Ranken and set to work to form a practicable entrance into the Redan by means of a ramp. Wherever else their discipline failed, here it was perfect; and not a pulse of fear seemingly beat in any breast. Earth for the ascent was tumbled from the parapet above by a few of the party. Harris was the foremost sapper. Under a horrible fire he bravely tried to dig himself down behind the escarp revetment in order to push the gabions into the ditch, but the soil had been so strongly tamped, and was otherwise so solid with shot and shell which had poured into it from the breaching batteries that he gave up the attempt, and employed himself in efforts which, though they promised less, were in the end more certain of success. At this time there was only one shovel with the party; the few intended to come up with it had failed through casualties and accident. The hulk of the tools were with the lodgment party still in rear. Much depended on the use of this one shovel, but it was soon shattered to atoms in the hands of the workman, private Oldham.

The earth was now literally pushed from the parapet, and a rough incline in a few minutes was executed. So easy indeed was the ascent by this simple means, that the stormers rushed up the slope, steep and yielding as it was, in preference to climbing the ladders. As the workmen, waiting for the signal to advance had not yet come up, Lieutenant Ranken now appointed his sappers, aided by a few men of the assaulting column, to throw up a breastwork to the left of the salient across the ditch, to counteract the raking fire of the enemy. Well was it that the moat was only eight feet broad. Had it been a yard or two more the service might have been attended with a sacrifice of life appalling to contemplate. Gabions and fascines and boughs of trees and small rough timbers which had been used as binders by the Russians, were torn by some strong and impetuous sappers from the face and crest of the counterscarp to form the caponnière. Earth too was thrown on the rising mound from the parapets above, and the gabions, by extraordinary zeal, were loaded with sand and stones dislodged from the revetment and grubbed up from the bed of the ditch. In this way partial cove was obtained, but it was yet too shallow to protect the troops from the sharp peals of musketry which poured up the fossé. For about twenty minutes the work was persevered in when the impossibility of proceeding, temporarily suspended its progress.

By this time a working party of fifty men of the 77th regiment arrived. No signal for advancing had been given to them, for the almost hopeless state of affairs in the Redan did not warrant the step; but corporal Baker, a trustworthy sapper of known intrepidity and judgment, properly anticipating there would be occasion for the services of a working party, led the detachment to the salient, and driving into the ditch was soon engrossed in the construction of a caponnière across its bottom, a little on the right of the salient. While these engineering details were being stubbornly executed, the troops in the Redan, vainly waiting for two hours to seize an opportunity to dash into the town, many falling in the stand they had made around the traverse, commenced the retreat. With it retired the working party, the ladder-men and sappers; and in passing the open—till the gorge of the foremost sap was reached—so hot was the fire upon the repulsed stormers, that the ground was covered with slaughtered hundreds.

The names of the storming party of sappers were—

“The sappers,” writes Lieutenant Ranken, “all behaved well and exerted themselves in carrying out my orders to the best of their power.” He then proceeds, “I beg especially to call your attention to the conduct of sergeant Leitch who was wounded, and corporal Curgenven who, with privates Harris and Wotherspoon were up with the leading ladders and who worked hard in pulling down gabions and placing and filling them according to my instructions, and of lance-corporal Baker who came up subsequently with the working party of the 77th, and who showed coolness, zeal, and activity in executing my orders.”

Singular were the escapes of corporal Baker. A musket-ball passed through his cap carrying it a few yards in his rear, and another bullet knocking both heads out of his water-bottle struck him in the hip as if a stone had been thrown at him. Had it not been that his canteen was full of water, the ball in all probability would have inflicted a dangerous wound.

It is not often that men who have but little hope of distinction before them, voluntarily undertake a supererogatory service, in venturing which is likely to subject them to the penalties of martial law. Such however was the case with private John Bowman of the first company who was of great height and strength, intrepid and useful. He had been sentry over the tools in the quarries; but when the signal for the advance was given he quitted his post without orders. In passing to the front he saw Captain Sedley of the engineers in the fifth parallel severely wounded. Tendering his assistance he placed his strong arm round the body of the captain and holding him up by the waist-belt supported him to the rear, where he left him in care of a few men who bore him to the camp. Impatient to share in the assault, he now ran through the trenches, and on his way to the Redan accoutred himself with the arms and appointments of a slain linesman. With all haste he joined Lieutenant Ranken and ascended the parapet, where, after firing for a time and throwing heavy stones with his strong arm at any Russians who dared to show themselves; he was killed. He fell on the crest of the work and then pitched headlong into the ditch followed by a mass of earth which crushed him beneath it.

That so few casualties occurred among the sappers of the storming party is attributable to the manner in which Lieutenant Ranken directed the placement of the ladders. More serious however were the casualties in the batteries and parallels. Those struck in the trenches were—

The assault having failed, Captain Montagu, who was in command of the royal engineer department for the day, employed in the afternoon the sappers and working party at his disposal, in continuing the right advance sap in the direction of a rifle pit which this day’s operations had embraced in the British circumvallation. So wearied and stricken were the Russians by their exertions and losses that they permitted the approach to proceed unmolested.

In the night of the 8th no sappers were told off to the left attack, but thirty-six non-commissioned officers and men were distributed to the lines on the right. Three sappers in charge of one hundred men of the 42nd Highlanders were thrown into the right advanced sap and prolonged it by staking and filling one hundred gabions, in which they were only slightly interrupted by the enemy. The remainder of the brigades and working parties bustling among the parallels and batteries, repaired the embrasures, merlons, and platforms. Corporal John Ross was in charge of a party mending the embrasures of the quarry battery.

While these services were in progress fires broke out in several places in Sebastopol, and magazines blew up which cast at intervals over the doomed fortress a dismal glare of illumination, which was again deadened by clouds of thick smoke hanging heavily in the air. Conceiving that these were the throes of a general wreck, indications in fact of the desperation with which the enemy was resigning his stronghold, corporal John Ross who has more than once been noticed for his bravery at the siege, went forward to test the accuracy of his surmises and search for two missing sappers who had been left behind in the retreat. It was a beautiful night, mild and starlight. Four or five explosions had just taken place, which in the corporal’s view were ominous of the grave events transpiring in the fortress. As it was not usual to interfere with the sappers in the trenches go where they would, Ross had no trouble to pass the pickets and sentries in the fifth parallel, and a few more paces found him in the last approach. An artillery officer was there looking earnestly over the parapet, but the corporal moved silently along stepping over the bodies of the wounded, who in numbers had crawled into the trench after the failure. Inquiring hastily whether they had observed any Russian pickets lately, he was told they had been withdrawn early in the night. “Have you seen any wounded sapper lying outside?” he asked. “One straight to the front under the abattis,” was the reply of an infantry man who had witnessed his struggles. With this information Ross went on. It was about a quarter-past twelve o’clock when he issued from the outlet of the sap and directed his course to the Redan. The dead were strewn thickly on the open, and the wounded were writhing helplessly. When near the abattis another mine was sprung in the fortress. Ross stopped, for the coolest minds in extreme danger hesitate to make an useless venture. The bursting of magazines and the blowing up of forts and fortifications impressed him with the necessity of caution; and lying still in a momentary reverie, he was again shook into activity by falling stones from the explosions. On his hands and knees over torn ground, cannon balls, fragments of shells, and decomposing remains, he crept noiselessly on. Under the abattis he found his comrade private Carswell and a sergeant of the rifles. The meeting in such a spot was hurried, but as cordial as friendship and imminent hazard could make it. A few interrogatories and answers were interchanged which verified the report relative to the withdrawal of the Russian outposts. “That’s well,” said Ross, calmly. “I’m going into the Redan, and if all goes right I shall be back directly and have you taken to camp.” With them Ross left his flask of rum and water, and moved away. “Thanks—God speed you!” reached his ears in whispers as he glided ahead cheered by the hope that Providence, which had hitherto miraculously saved him from hurt or harm, would extend to him in this adventure the same gracious protection. As the distance between him and the fortress lessened his daring increased, and without a tremor to disturb the firmness of his purpose, he found himself at the brink of the ditch. For a short time he lay and listened. Russians might have been there plundering the dead and alarming the dying, but not a soul was astir. Hearing nothing but the groans of the wounded, he slid into the fossé, clambered up the escarp by the ramp made during the storming, and entered the jaws of a broken embrasure on the right of the salient of the Redan. The gun was there but no artillerymen. Yet he pressed his ear in the direction of the interior to discover, if possible, the footsteps of the gunners or the sound of voices. All was silent, and with a burglar’s creep, soft and wary but determined, he gained the neck of the aperture. At either side he looked, but nothing started up to show that the batteries were occupied. He looked ahead with straining eyes and onwards; still, nothing could he see but huge broken works, and streams of light shooting from burning buildings. All indeed was quiet save the crackling timbers in the distance, the booming of mines and the falling of houses. The Redan, that furnace of the siege, was indeed deserted and desolate! Being alone and unarmed Ross did not descend into the place to invite a conflict with concealed prowlers; and so after keeping watch for a few minutes in the withered embrasure, he quitted the opening while tongues of lurid flame jetting from clouds of heavy smoke, enabled him to pick his way from the battery without treading on wounded men struggling in dissolution. Charged with the possession of important intelligence he ran across the open, recovering himself with strange celerity as he dropped into shell holes or tripped against obstacles that encumbered the ground; and moving with almost winged haste to the engineer hut, he reported, about a quarter to one o’clock, the result of his self-imposed mission to Captain De Moleyns of the engineers.

The Redan evacuated! This was news indeed, and the captain with a young subaltern, Lieutenant Dumaresq, strode away to authenticate by a personal visit to the Redan the corporal’s report. He was also accompanied by sergeant Landrey, corporal Ross and a few sappers, who were joined in the fifth parallel by some men of the line. On the way the corporal pointed out his wounded comrade and the rifleman. Over the first Ross placed his greatcoat, and Lieutenant Dumaresq took off his peacoat and spread it over the sergeant; at the same time a few of the privates were despatched to the trenches for stretchers. The little band now shot on briskly to the salient. Ross and a line sergeant were in front. When the ditch was gained the party pushed into it, and quickly ascending the escarp by the ramp, they drove through an embrasure into the interior, where, seeing a Russian, the sergeant of the line sprang on him, and seized him as his prisoner. No time was lost by the officers in making a reconnaissance of the place; all sorts of dimensions were taken and a mental inventory of its peculiarities treasured up. Between five and ten minutes the adventurers were in the body of the work, and as explosions were going off every few minutes, the debris from which was falling on them, it was considered wise to return. Ross brought away with him two Russian musquets, the first trophies from the Redan. With a generosity equal to his bravery he gave one to Captain De Moleyns and the other to Lieutenant Dumaresq. On the way back the party sought the wounded men, and as the stretchers had not arrived, Ross bore away poor Carswell and Landrey the rifle sergeant. Of the gallant demeanour of these non-commissioned officers, Captain De Moleyns spoke commendably. The corporal’s report, first received with incredulity, was now satisfactorily affirmed, and General Simpson, who had intended to renew the assault at daybreak, gave orders for the re-occupation of the place. At the dawn of the 9th the troops marched unchecked into the Redan and took possession of the two towns which the enemy had evacuated.^[197]

“Throughout this long and arduous siege,” wrote Sir Harry Jones on the 9th, “the royal sappers and miners have invariably performed the duties required of them in a highly satisfactory manner. Many have been conspicuous for their bravery and coolness under fire. Their names I brought under the notice of the Commander of the Forces, who was pleased to reward them according to the nature of the case.

“The duties of the Adjutant to the royal sappers and miners,” adds the General, “have been very efficiently performed by Captain Ewart, who has devoted his best energies to the men.”

In the order issued by the Commander-in-Chief, when the occupation of the Redan had become a settled event, occurs this passage:—

“General Simpson avails himself of this opportunity to congratulate and convey his warmest thanks to the general officers, officers, and soldiers of the several divisions, to the royal engineers and artillery, for their cheerful endurance of almost unparalleled hardships and sufferings, and for the unflinching courage and determination which, on so many trying occasions, they have evinced.”

So ended a conflict carried through a period of 337 days made up of a freezing winter and a wasting summer. The trenches were nearly nine miles long, and counted 22 batteries on the right and 20 on the left, which, for the final assault, were armed with 116 guns and 85 mortars. In the formation of the works no less than 20,000 gabions, 4,000 fascines, 340,000 sand-bags, 7,413 bread-bags, and a hundred different extemporized expedients had been employed to give them shape and solidity. Some of them were of colossal magnitude and master-pieces of field art. Rearing such formidable structures in rocky ground, amid hardships and catastrophes, harassed by sorties, surprises, and alarms, and opposed by tempests of shell and shot, grape, canister, and Miniés, were exploits of toil and constancy, the lustre of which can never be lessened by any example which history may offer as a parallel; and when it is considered that the works were run up by men overworked and wearied, oppressed by sickness, privation, and difficulties, and carried on in the presence of an enemy teeming with numbers, inspired by religious fanaticism, and protected by a stupendous array of works backed by an arsenal exhaustless in siege appliances, in artillery, and the engines of war, a day may come when it will be the fashion of the world to speak less of the military achievements of old Greece and Rome, but more of those of England and France.