[CHAPTER XV.]
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
Lord Raglan—His Life—Battle of Inkerman—Morning of Battle—Sons of Emperor Nicholas—The Attack—Troops Engaged—Fierce Encounters—Sir George Cathcart—His Death—Russian Cruelty—French Infantry—The Zouaves—Chasseurs—Russians Retire—Renewed Attack—Repulsed by the French—Defeat—Sorties—Night after Battle—Treaty with Austria of 2d Dec.—Negotiations for Peace—The Four Points—Landing of Omer Pacha at Eupatoria—Death of the Emperor Nicholas—Alexander II.—Fall of Sebastopol.
FIELD-MARSHAL LORD RAGLAN.
Lord Raglan, Commander-in-Chief of the English army, is a descendent of the Somersets, the youngest son of the fifth Duke of Beaufort. He was born in Sept. 1788, and christened Fitzroy James Henry Somerset. He was a cornet in the 4th light dragoons at sixteen, and rose in military rank, as the boyish sons of Dukes do rise, over the heads of their seniors. He was a captain at twenty. He went with the troops to Portugal, and fought in the first great battle—that of Talavera, in which the French and English armies fairly and singly tried their strength against each other.
Lord Fitzroy Somerset was then under one-and-twenty, and it was not the first battle he had seen since he landed in the Peninsula. He learned much of his military science within the lines of Torres Vedras, and was severely wounded at the battle of Busaco.
LORD RAGLAN
By this time, the young soldier had won the notice and strong regard of Wellington, who had made him, first, his aide-de-camp, and then his military secretary, a singular honor for a man under two-and-twenty. The duties of his various functions kept him diligently occupied during the whole of the Peninsular War. He was present and active in every one of the great Peninsular battles, and was, in the intervals, the medium of the Duke’s commands and arrangements. The Duke’s avowed opinion was, that the successes of that seven years’ war were due, next to himself, to his military secretary. He became Major in 1811, and Lieutenant-Colonel the year after. He returned to England after Bonaparte’s abdication, in 1814.