Surveys, &c.—Casemates in the Redan and contiguous works—Roads—Injuries sustained by men in their execution—Huts and stables—Wharfs at Balaklava—Company to Cossack Bay—Peace—Bridge across the Tchernaya—Reinforcements to the East—Barrel-floats for the embarkation of the army—Graveyards and monuments—Parting Order by Lord Paulet to tenth company—Final services; Miss Nightingale—Order of leaving the Crimea and Turkey—Reviews at Aldershot; inspections by the Queen—Names of the distinguished men specially paraded before Her Majesty—Wreck of the Clarendon—Last detachment from the East—Statistics since the fall of Sebastopol—Surveys near Erzeroum—Parties detached for employment in the rectification of the Moldavian and Danubian boundaries—Company added to the Cape of Good Hope command—Corporal Mack present at the coronation of the Emperor of Russia at Moscow—A company to Portsmouth—Another to Aldershot—Removal of the museum from Marlborough House to Kensington Gore—A company moved to Devonport—Augmentation—A party embarks for Ceylon—Another for Mitylene—Corporal Pennington wins the “Champion’s Belt” at the foot races on Chatham Lines—Corps incorporated with the royal engineers—Grade of private changed to that of sapper—History of the royal sappers and miners closed.

While the services described in the previous chapters were in progress, others were in hand, which though not so striking, possessed importance either as necessities, precautions or improvements.

A few intelligent men assisted their officers in making observations and surveys of our trenches and the Russian works, and also of the country and coast in the vicinity of the conquered fortress, embracing an area of about twenty square miles.

Other non-commissioned officers and men assisted in taking an inventory of engineer stores which stocked the arsenal of Sebastopol.

The lines covering the fortress were remarkable for the bold expedients adopted by the enemy to shelter the troops required to defend the several works. Rude as they were they were speaking specimens of a nation’s warlike genius. Caves had been hollowed out of the terreplein behind the traverses which ran parallel to the faces of the several formations, and were made bomb-proof by ships’ masts and spars covered by a deep substratum of earth. The descent into them was by narrow flights of stone steps. Lighted by small loop-holed windows, a few inches above the level of the ground, and fitted up with guard-beds, tables, &c., these spacious subterranean chambers gave cover to a large force of defenders who were thus shielded from the chances of hurt even during the raging of a bombardment. As soon as the curiosity with which these structures had been viewed had passed, Captain Schaw of the engineers having under him a number of sappers and miners, set to work to destroy them. Holes were augured into the beams and ribs—hard almost as rock—and when loaded with gunpowder, were blown to pieces. The wood thus broken up was stacked by the line; and in the cold winter, when the means of obtaining fuel was precarious, the supply from the demolished Redan and contiguous ruins was found nearly equal to the demand.

For road-making a large force of sappers was daily detailed. Enormous working parties from the line were also employed. The great trunk communication from Balaklava to Cathcart’s Hill was improved and partly formed from the port to the windmill by the Army Works Corps, and from the Forks on the plateau to the hill by the sappers and line. The stone for it was obtained by mining from two quarries, one on either side of the ravine. To make a solid foundation, the ground for the latter portion was picked up by the line, and when properly formed was covered by Macadamized stone. Its length from the Forks was about two miles, and its width thirty-five feet, including the side channels hollowed out by blasting for carrying off the surface water. It was a thorough serviceable road, and ages will roll over before this instance of British industry will be effaced from those physical characteristics by which the allied occupation of that war-trodden country has been marked. From this great road radiated others, somewhat narrower, from the commissariat stores on the plateau to the several divisions. The ninth company at Kamara with the Highland division repaired the old Baidar road, and made a new piece, nearly half a mile long, running through the Sardinian encampment, which connected the Baidar and Woronzoff roads. Stretches of thoroughfare were also constructed through the cantonment. Each regiment at Kamara furnished working parties for the duties; and all the roads, except that confined to the exertions of the Army Works Corps, were superintended by the sappers as overseers, the engineer officers being the directors.

The sappers injured in forming or mending the roads were privates Alexander Allan and Charles H. Cronk. Both were blown up, receiving severe wounds in the face. Private Samuel Williams at head-quarters had his back broken by a bank of earth falling on him, and died in consequence.

Hutting was another of their employments, and building stables or sheds for horses and mules. The companies with the divisions provided parties for these services. The form of the stabling varied according to circumstances and situation. Some of them—those of the first division for example—were as long as sixty yards by sixteen feet in the clear, with a passage up the centre marked by lines of poles supporting the roof. The sides and ends were made of the staves of barrels, which being bent and open assisted ventilation. Close boarding would have made the places insufferably hot. The roofs were of rough scantling; the planks overlapped and were spiked to rafters. Louvre boards run along the ridge the entire length of each gable. A little more attention and skill were paid to the internal fitments of the officers’ stables; and stalls, troughs and mangers were added.

For several months corporal Stacey superintended the erection of the wharf works at Balaklava, and was removed, when but little was required to be completed, on the 28th February 1856. The wharfage built round the harbour exceeded 500 yards and was appropriated for the use of the several departments, each bearing its own name. There was the “Commissariat wharf,” which had a run of nearly 300 yards; the “Ordnance wharf” had less ambitious dimensions; the “Quarter-Master-General wharf” occupied a length of shore for 150 yards, while the “Engineer wharf” and the “Cattle wharf” were amply provided with spaces. Strong piles from forty to fifty feet in height supported the flooring composed of timbers three inches thick. Vessels to receive their freight came broadside to the wharfs which had been built well into the sea for the purpose. These wooden quays were rapidly and substantially built, everything being put out of hand to serve the wear and tear of years, and was as creditable to the skill of the artificers as if they had been produced in times less trying and exciting. The whole range of wharfs was chiefly built by the 89th and 82nd regiments with casual assistance from other corps and a few sappers. On being relieved from the duty, corporal Stacey was commended for his “excellent conduct and steady perseverance” in constructing the wharf works “in a most satisfactory manner.”

On the 26th the eighth company, under Captain Schaw, with Lieutenant Edwards attached, marched to Cossack Bay, and had traced out a line of entrenchments to be executed for covering the embarkation of the rear of the army in the event of such an operation being needed, when an event transpired which rendered the service unnecessary. The company remained nearly two months at the bay, during which it built a pier on the shore and run a road to it from the camp.

An armistice was concluded in the Crimea on the 29th, which temporarily suspended military operations till the 31st March; but as the plenipotentiaries at Paris had not then made known their agreement to a treaty, the armistice was prolonged indefinitely. The treaty, however, had already been ratified bearing date the 30th March, and on the 2nd April peace was proclaimed in the Crimean camps, ending a stubborn war which had taught Russia a grave lesson of the strength and firmness of the Anglo-French alliance, and proved that her shores and her fortresses—though vaunting an aspect of menacing impregnability, were open to the endurance and valour of the quadruple league.

To break the boundaries which war had narrowed to prison limits and afford opportunities of intercourse between the belligerents was now a measure of first consideration. This was the chivalric wish of Sir William Codrington. To effect it the Tchernaya bridge was renewed. In thirty-two hours a party of sappers, directed by Lieutenant C. G. Gordon of the royal engineers, built a superstructure on the burnt tops of the old piles. The damaged portions, in part, were cut away, and cross beams being spiked to them, each pair of piles was clamped together by their heads. There were six pairs of piles at either side of the bridge, and along the series of clamps was stretched from end to end a stout beam on which rested a number of girders to support the roadway. This roadway was ten feet broad and twenty-six long from bank to bank and raised eighteen inches above the level of the stream. The Tchernaya was not a tidal river, but was swelled at times to an average depth of ten feet by mountain streams and the meltings of snow from the Tchater-Dagh range. The communication between the armies was open on the 6th April.

While a probability existed of the pending negociations for peace terminating unfavourably, the War Minister, alive to this eventuality, did not stay his hand in keeping up the organizations of the Crimea to an efficient standard. Unmitigated vigour was displayed everywhere; troops were on the way to Balaklava, and a reinforcement of sappers, 299 strong, which had embarked at Liverpool on the 10th March, landed at Scutari on the 8th April. This force consisted of the 17th and 24th companies, with detachments to complete the old companies which had suffered during the war. Too late to be of service, they had not the good fortune to tread on Crimean soil. Up to this date the strength of the corps despatched to the East, including Lieutenant and Adjutant Saville, who joined from the royal artillery at the siege, reached a total of 1,644 of all ranks.

One of the stipulations of the treaty was the rapid evacuation of Russian territory; and the British troops, with inviolable honour, were not slow in fulfilling this condition. The breaking up of camps and the pulling down of huts and stables followed with rapidity. The sappers and miners performed its share in this extraordinary clearance, and among an endless variety of services, made stalls for the officers’ horses on board ships, and portable deck contrivances for the accommodation of the troops; but its most popular labours, at this time, were devoted to the construction and working of flying bridges for the embarkation of the army. No less than sixty rafts, made of beer barrels and rum casks, with the usual superstructure of baulks and chesses, were prepared for the operation. Each raft had fourteen barrels—seven to a pier; and the sixty rafts were lashed together into eight floats, varying in length according to circumstances, with pier-heads nearest the shore to bear the pressure of heavy baggage. The vessels were anchored with their sterns to the shore, so that each occupied a position between two bridges; and the troops, as they marched down the floats, only halted to run up the ladders, which had been reared for them, to the decks. Every movement of the floats was carried out so adroitly and with so much celerity that one regiment—second battalion of the rifle brigade—was embarked in less than twenty minutes!

Rubble walls were built round several of the British graveyards by some bricklayers and masons of the corps, while many stone-cutters were permitted to erect tombs and monuments to departed worth. Most of the memorials were built and inscribed by the sappers. Lance-corporal Simon Williams was one of the best artificers in this description of service. He erected the monument to the 44th regiment; the modest stone which covers the grave of Sir John Campbell; and the simple cross and reclined slab which mark the spot where repose the remains of Lieutenant-General Sir George Cathcart. The epitaph, which records in simple language the great events of his life, is written in English and Russian.^[208] Corporal Keyte built the monument to the corps of sappers, which bore the name of every man who had fallen or died during the war. He also worked several other tombs and grave-stones, among the best of which was the one erected in honour of Major Ranken of the engineers. Private David Thompson, an excellent mason, erected the monuments to the officers of the 23rd, 30th, and 33rd regiments. The masons of the tenth company, under the direction of Lieutenant Brine, executed the obelisks which stand at Balaklava and Inkermann. The one built in front of the Redan—of stones taken from the docks of Sebastopol—was reared chiefly by the companies quartered in the Karabelnaia and finished by the tenth. These three memorials rested on pedestals with copings, mouldings, and simple ornature, and were approached by three or four steps with broad treads. One panel of each displayed a cross, the other three short inscriptions in English and Russian. Private D. Thompson lettered those at Balaklava and Inkermann and assisted to inscribe the Redan monument. Private James Dickson of the third company executed two of its epitaphs and the cross.^[209]

Just prior to breaking up the light division, Major-General Lord William Paulett commended the tenth company in his orders of the 7th June—“My thanks,” wrote his Lordship, “are also due to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the tenth company royal sappers and miners, whose assistance has been most valuable to the division and their conduct most exemplary.” Lieutenant Brine commanded the company.

The last services performed by the corps in the Crimea were building two tablets in memory of Lord Raglan in the wall of the room where his lordship died.^[210] This was done by private William Church. A monument was also built on Balaklava heights, overlooking the Sanatorium, which could be seen from the sea. It was a plain white marble colossal cross, without inscription, cut by Turkish and Armenian masons at Constantinople, and arrived after all appliances necessary to raise it had been stowed away in the ships about to sail for England. Its erection, nevertheless, proceeded, tackle being lent for the purpose from the ‘Leander,’ and was accomplished by some sappers hurriedly and with difficulty under Mr. Sargent, late of the corps. The cross was risen at the expense of Miss Nightingale, whose many graceful acts of deep sympathy and patient exertion for a suffering army have given her name historic celebrity. A strange influence she possessed which worked out remarkable results. Hundreds of mutilated soldiers, and hundreds more wasted by pestilence and disease, seemed to revive by her presence; and lived to bless her, or died unrepining, cheered through the vale, by the solace of her voice and the charm of her encouragement. How she brought order out of chaos; how she overcame giant obstacles; how she managed interminable offices, nursed the sick and wounded stretched before her in miles of ward and corridor, and in her tender devotion was herself twice thrown down by dangerous fevers, to renew, when only partially recovered, her hard but noble labours, are events which belong to the history of the world as well as the war. England has produced many self-denying and heroic philanthropists whose calm zeal to ameliorate human misery and suffering have won the lasting admiration of nations; but the beautiful honour of being the chief of that excellent band belongs to Florence Nightingale.

The companies of royal sappers and miners embarked at Balaklava in the following order:—

The three companies which marched to Aldershot under Major Nicholson were inspected with the division at the camp on the 15th July by Lieutenant-General Knollys. Next day all the troops that had served under fire in the Crimea were inspected by the Queen. The 17th was a day of review, when all the sappers, including the 21st company, had again the honour of appearing before the Queen. The companies manœuvred with the troops as a battalion of infantry, and though they had not been regularly drilled for some years, their steadiness was very remarkable. In line their movements were not inferior to any troops on the field, and Her Majesty did not permit the occasion to pass without expressing her approbation of their appearance. Driving through the camp on the 18th, the Queen pulled up at the quarter occupied by the sappers and directed Major Nicholson to bring before her some of the men who had distinguished themselves during the war. The order, suddenly given, did not admit of making the best selection, and a number were instantly paraded. Major Nicholson explained their services, and “the Queen was graciously pleased to express herself in terms of great admiration of the devotion shown by this branch of the service;” and after speaking a few never-to-be-forgotten words to each man, Her Majesty ordered the Major to send a list of those whom she had seen to Osborne. The non-commissioned officers and privates who were thus honoured and whose names are among the royal documents are the following:—

Most of the above had been decorated with medals or orders for bravery and unfailing zeal in the trenches. “Upon the sappers undoubtedly devolved the hardest work of the siege,” and Major Nicholson in his several personal interviews with the Queen was gratified to find that their services were fully appreciated. Desirous of retaining the recollection of their merits, Her Majesty ordered as an additional mark of her royal favour that four of the distinguished men should be photographed by Mr. Cundall of Bond Street. Those selected for this special distinction, and whose likenesses are among Her Majesty’s Crimean portraits, were—

Eight sappers embarked in the ‘Clarendon’ on the 9th July at Balaklava. The troops on board were 150 and the horses 111. Lieutenant Graham, R.E., was in command. Buffeted and strained by a heavy gale the transport sprang a leak; but wearing on till the next day at noon—when the water had extinguished the fires—the troops, no longer able to remain with safety, were removed in boats without casualty to the French merchant ship ‘Constance’ off Cadiz. Several horses, however, had been killed during the storm, three of which belonged to officers of engineers. The ‘Clarendon’ after running ashore six miles to the westward of Cadiz was next day got off and towed by two steamers into the harbour with nine feet of water in the hold. In the ‘Constance’ the sappers remained about a week, from which they were transferred to H.M.S. ‘Centaur,’ and sailing for Portsmouth landed on the 12th August, arriving soon after at Chatham.

The last detachment from the East was one of 34 non-commissioned officers and men, which embarked at Scutari in the ‘Resolute’ on the 31st July, under the command of Lieutenant Malcolm of the engineers, and marched into head-quarters on the 17th August.

To complete the detail of Eastern statistics which have already been shown to the 9th September in a previous chapter, the following statement of casualties is added:—

The total casualties from the beginning of the war to the date when the last detachment quitted the Bosphorus was 550 out of a strength of 1,644 of all ranks; and if anything is calculated to excite remark and amazement it is the fact that out of so large a force only 252 had died!

Two months after Kars had fallen, second-corporal Edward Stephens and Thomas McEneney left England on the 28th January for Erzeroum to make special surveys of the city and its environs. At Marseilles they took passage on board the ‘Sima,’ and on arrival at Scutari waited till telegraphic instructions had been received, which directed them to proceed to Trebizond. Embarking on board the Lloyd’s Austrian boat ‘Egitto,’ the vessel pushed into the Black Sea, and three days after, while passing Karasund, struck on a rock and remained fast. Amid the alarm and consternation which followed, the corporals sustained the British character for firmness and courage; and seeing that boats were approaching from the little watering village, quickly got their vast stores and luggage on deck and removed them to the shore. While doing so they had to stand with bared swords at the gangway to prevent the property in their charge being tumbled into the sea; for although there was no danger to be apprehended, the rush to the boats was such as might have been expected had the ship given signs of immediate sinking. At the command of the Pacha of Samsoon, who was on board, a Turkish war steamer on the third day arrived, and pulling the ‘Egitto’ from the rock, she sailed for Trebizond. Landing there, the corporals were provided by the consul with every requisite for their journey. Fifteen horses was the measure of transport allowed for themselves and stores, and off they started for Erzeroum through a country strangely wild and picturesque. Theirs nevertheless was a long and dreary ride over mountains—one having an altitude of 9,000 feet above the sea—with the snow in places rising by drift into piles from two to twenty feet in height. Along precipices where the path was barely two feet broad they rode for an hour at a time, from which an inauspicious slip might have dashed them down the cliffs a thousand feet below. Skeletons of horses were bleaching by hundreds at the base of those terrific heights, which told a melancholy tale of accident and death. After a journey of thirteen days over tracks unimproved for centuries, they arrived at the seat of the pachalic on the 21st March 1856, and reported themselves to Colonel Geils, H.M. commissioner and chief engineer with the army of Anatolia. In a day or two the corporals had full employment. Stephens was sent ten miles away to reconnoitre an advanced position for a Turkish entrenched camp, and McEneney was despatched to Alti for a similar purpose. While these warlike reconnaissances were in execution the news of peace reached Erzeroum on the 11th April, and the surveyors were recalled to carry out services in the city and vicinity. When the last accounts were received in England the corporals were about to be employed, one in laying out a line of road from Erzeroum to Persia, and the other to Trebizond. What specific services they accomplished in connection with this or other objects are unknown at head-quarters. Enough, however, has been communicated to show that they have added, by the efficiency of their labours, to the reputation of the corps. Under date of the 3rd June, Colonel Geils wrote to Lord Panmure concerning them in these terms: “The party of surveyors have been at work from eight to twelve hours a-day since their arrival, with the exception of one Sunday. I have now had an opportunity of testing their abilities, and find them excellent draughtsmen and experienced surveyors. Their rank produces most disagreeable results when brought into contact with Turkish officers. These corporals are superior in military acquirements to most high officers in the Turkish army. Their character has been severely tested and found to be unexceptionable, and I think Her Majesty’s service would profit by their being commissioned officers. I consider the step advisable on the score of merit, even more than expediency.” And as if to fritter away this anomaly to the greatest extent in his power, the colonel promoted them to be lance-sergeants.

Out of the treaty of peace arose the appointment of distinct commissions to carry on special surveys of the territory to be ceded by Russia both as a penalty for her aggressive predilections and to lessen the chances of future pretexts for interfering with neighbouring states. To assist these commissions Lieutenant-Colonel Stanton and two officers of royal engineers with seven sappers—corporal James Fisher being the chief subordinate—were sent to Bessarabia in May to survey the line of the new boundary between Russia and Moldavia; and Major Stokes, R.E., having under his orders five of the corps, including the two lance-sergeants from Erzeroum, was despatched soon after to survey and regulate the Danubian demarcations. These two men joined Major Stokes from Erzeroum early in September. As the surveyors will have to undergo great hardships in carrying on the work, much in water, along muddy shores and through the winter, usually severe in those regions, Lord Panmure has sanctioned the issue to them of rates of survey pay to the extent of four shillings a-day according to the amount of ability and energy each may display.

To supply the place of the company removed from the Cape of Good Hope during the war, the twenty-fifth company under Captain Akers embarked for that colony on the 25th July, increasing the sapper force there to two companies.

The singular honour of permitting a non-commissioned officer of sappers to be present at the coronation of the Emperor of Russia is an incident in its history of which the corps may be honestly proud. Corporal James Mack, whose services in connection with the Great Exhibition, the Department of Practical Science and Art, and the Paris Exposition have been so highly appreciated, was selected for this interesting tour. He left for Moscow at the end of July with the Embassy Extraordinary to Russia, and returned to London at the conclusion of the fêtes and reviews in October, bringing with him a collection of photographs of the most striking scenes he had witnessed, and which he had himself photographed for national uses. A greater honour succeeded. A day was fixed for his attendance at Windsor Castle, when in person he was permitted to present to Her Majesty and Prince Albert a set of his photographic views, explaining, as the Queen and His Royal Highness passed from one to the other, the incidents and specialities of each.^[211] He has also had the gratification of exhibiting them to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Panmure, Mr. F. Peel, and Sir Benjamin Hall.

A new station was opened for the corps at Portsmouth on the 5th August, on which date the eighth company, under the command of Major De Vere, was removed from Chatham for the duties of the engineer department. A few days after, a detachment of the company was sent to the Isle of Wight, taking up quarters in Cliff-end Fort.

The strength of the sappers at Aldershot was increased on the 9th by the arrival there of the 4th company under Major Nicholson.

On the 12th August twelve non-commissioned officers and men were sent to Kensington Palace to remove the Museum from Marlborough House to Brompton House at Kensington Gore, and to assist in its re-arrangement. The services of the sappers were so truly useful that an addition of eighteen men was made to the party two months subsequently.

Devonport, another new station for the corps, was occupied by the seventh company, which proceeded thither on the 26th August under Lieutenant Anderson.

As the army works corps had been disbanded, and the disasters in the Crimea, arising from an insufficient sapper force leading to sudden and expensive organizations, had shown the necessity of maintaining the corps in tolerable strength as a working body to meet unforeseen pressures in war, its establishment was increased on the 1st October, from twenty-six to thirty-two companies, exclusive of the troop of drivers, each company being constituted as follows:—

Three non-commissioned officers with sergeant Winzer in charge, sailed for Ceylon on the 8th October in the ‘Sumatra’ from London. This little party of observers, surveyors and draftsmen, were asked for by Captain W. D. Gosset, the surveyor-general, who having for many years been the executive under the superintendent of the national surveys, knew the varied qualifications of the sappers and the value of military organization in conducting the duty “in a country chiefly wooded and excessively rough in many districts.” While he sought to obtain subordinates with the amplest qualifications for colonial survey duty, Captain Gosset took care to secure, as an equivalent for their employment in a hot climate, an income which has far exceeded any remuneration ever offered to a soldier. According to their merits and exertions he has the power to reward each with a daily pay ranging from 5s. to 15s., exclusive of imperial pay and other colonial allowances.

Four non-commissioned officers under the command of Lieutenant R. M. Smith embarked at Portsmouth in the ‘Gorgon’ on the 13th October for Greece to be employed, as may be directed by Mr. Newton the vice-consul at Mitylene, in making excavations in the buried city of Teos, now Boudroun, to discover monuments, statues, and other antiqua for the British Museum. The party was selected with reference to the nature of the work to be carried out. One was a draftsman and photographer; the others respectively a carpenter, a stonemason, and a blacksmith, all able and handy men, adapted by strength, experience and intelligence to any service. Two of them had been travellers prior to their enlistment, and understood Greek. To associate these sappers with an interesting mission their names are given below:—

All but Spackman had been in the Crimea and received medals and clasps. Jenkins, a ponderous man with a shaggy beard, the true type of an Englishman, was well known throughout the army for his services at the siege; and his gallantry on more than one occasion, was acknowledged by the gift of a medal “for distinguished service in the field.”

On the 17th October—the second anniversary of opening the siege—the designation of the Royal Sappers and Miners was altered by Royal authority, probably as a compliment to the corps for its approved services before Sebastopol. The announcement was made in the ‘London Gazette’ as follows:—

“The Queen has been graciously pleased to direct, that the corps of royal sappers and miners shall henceforward be denominated the corps of royal engineers, and form one body with the existing corps of royal engineers.”^[212]

Thus is removed that standing misnomer by which the sappers and their officers, virtually one body, were by some incomprehensible caprice in the now obsolete military economy of the ordnance, called by a plurality of titles. Separated by name from their officers, and thrown seemingly into a cold unfriendly shade, the want of a family patronymic—one title of identity in common—was keenly felt by the sappers. Sir Charles Pasley was the first to moot the question. His representations ran through a period of forty years. Many other officers, considering that no sacrifice of exclusiveness should stand in the way of improving the status of the corps, adopted his views; and with the generous assistance of Sir John Burgoyne and the ready acquiescence of Lord Panmure the change was effected—breaking up an anomaly which it is proudly hoped will interlink and cohere both officers and men.

Accompanying this change was the abandonment of the rank of private—an unmeaning name for a well-defined grade, and substituting for it the more expressive and appropriate designation of sapper.

The history of the Royal Sappers and Miners is now closed. Henceforward its services belong to the history of the Royal Engineers.