The Powers of Europe and Fall of Sebastopol

by A British officer

As they approached the volume of sound, the steady unceasing thunder of gun, and rifle, and musket, told that the engagement was at its height. The shell of the Russians, thrown with great precision, burst so thickly among the troops that the noise resembled continuous discharges of cannon, and the massive fragments inflicted death on every side.

Colonel Gambier was at once ordered to get up two heavy guns (eighteen pounders) on the rising ground, and to reply to a fire which the light guns were utterly inadequate to meet. As he was engaged in this duty he was severely wounded, and obliged to retire. His place was taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Dickson, who, in directing the fire of these two pieces, which had the most marked effect in deciding the fate of the day, elicited the admiration of the army.

But long ere these guns had been brought up, there had been a great slaughter of the enemy, and a heavy loss of the British. The generals could not see where to go. They could not tell where the enemy were—from what side they were coming, or where going. In darkness, gloom, and rain, they led the lines through thick scrubby bushes and thorny brakes, which broke the ranks, and irritated the men, while every place was marked by a corpse or man wounded from an enemy whose position was only indicated by the rattle of musketry, and the rush of ball and shell.

Sir George Cathcart, seeing his men disordered by the fire of a large column of Russian infantry, which was outflanking them, while portions of the various regiments composing his division were maintaining an unequal struggle with an overwhelming force, went down into a ravine in which they were engaged to rally them. He rode at their head encouraging them, and when a cry arose that the ammunition was failing, he said coolly, “Have you not got your bayonets?” As he led on his men, it was observed that another body of men had gained the top of the hill behind them on the right, but it was impossible to tell whether they were friends or foes. A deadly volley was poured into the scattered British regiments. Sir George cheered them, and led them back up the hill, but a flight of bullets passed where he rode, and he fell from his horse close to the Russian columns. His body was recovered mutilated with bayonet wounds.

When he fell, Colonel Seymour, who was with him, instantly dismounted, and was endeavoring to raise the body, when he himself received a ball which fractured his leg. He fell to the ground beside his general, and a Russian officer and five or six men running in, bayoneted him, and cut him to pieces as he lay helpless. The Russians bayoneted the wounded in every part of the field, giving no quarter, and apparently determined to exterminate the Allies, or drive them into the sea.

The conflict on the right was equally uncertain and equally bloody. To the extreme right a contest, the like of which, perhaps, never took place before, was going on between the Guards and dense columns of Russian infantry of five times their number. The Guards had charged them and driven them back, when they perceived that the Russians had outflanked them. They were out of ammunition, too, and were uncertain whether there were friends or foes in the rear. They had no support, no reserve, were fighting with the bayonet against an enemy who stoutly contested every inch of ground, when the corps of another Russian column appeared on their right far to their rear. Then a fearful mitraille was poured into them, and volleys of rifle and musketry.

The Guards were broken; they had lost twelve officers dead on the field; they had left one-half of their number dead on the ground; and they retired along the lower road of the valley; but they were soon reinforced, and speedily avenged their loss.

The French advance, about ten o’clock, turned the flank of the enemy.