| Guards, about | 1,000 |
| Second Division | 2,500 |
| Light Division | 1,000 |
| Fourth Division | 2,200 |
| Third Division | 1,000 |
| ——– | |
| 7,700 |
The odds were therefore, frightful, and it was only three hours later that General Bosquet opportunely arrived with his splendid division, six thousand strong, the same which had fought at the Alma.
The Russians in the front had now advanced to within five hundred yards of the encampment, and the action commenced. The musketry fire was awful, and the enemy, who had now guns upon every favorable position, hurled shell and round shot at the advancing lines.
The enemy’s columns continued to push forward, trying to overwhelm the British regiments with their superior numbers. “And now (to quote the words of an eye-witness of the battle) commenced the bloodiest struggle ever witnessed since war cursed the earth. It has been doubted by military historians if any enemy have ever stood a charge with the bayonet, but here the bayonet was often the only weapon employed in conflicts of the most obstinate and deadly character. Not only did the English charge in vain, not only were desperate encounters between masses of men maintained with the bayonet alone, but they were obliged to resist bayonet to bayonet, with the Russian infantry again and again, as they charged the British with incredible fury and determination.”
The battle of Inkerman admits of no description. It was a series of dreadful deeds of daring, of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing rallies, of desperate assaults, in glens and valleys, in brushwood glades and remote dells, hidden from all human eyes, and from which the conquerors, Russian or British, issued, only to engage fresh foes.
It was essentially a struggle between pluck and confidence, against fearful odds and obstinate courage.
No one, however placed, could have witnessed even a small portion of the doings of this eventful day, for the vapors, fog, and drizzling mist, obscured the ground where the struggle took place to such an extent, as to render it impossible to see what was going on at the distance of fifty yards. Besides this, the irregular nature of the ground, the rapid fall of the hill towards Inkerman, where the deadliest fight took place, would have prevented one, under the most favorable circumstances, seeing more than a very insignificant and detailed piece of the terrible work below.
It was six o’clock when all the Head-quarter camp was roused by roll after roll of musketry on the right, and by the sharp report of field-guns.
Lord Raglan was informed that the enemy were advancing in force, and soon after seven o’clock he rode towards the scene of action, followed by his staff, and accompanied by Sir John Burgoyne, Brigadier General Strangways, and several aides-de-camp.