Up to the middle of June the record of the XVIIIth is one of exceedingly hard work, unbroken by the excitement of any important engagement. The Royal Irish were employed in many different ways. They toiled along the track, first from Balaclava, and then from railhead to the camps on the Upland, laden, to use the soldiers’ expression, “like commissariat mules,” with stores; they were on fatigues of every kind, from digging parallels and throwing up batteries to making gabions and fascines; and they took their turn in the trenches, where, though they demanded and often obtained the dangerous privilege of guarding the approaches nearest to the enemy, their losses were small. Between the 6th of February, when their first casualty occurred, and the 17th of June, only six men were killed and thirty-six wounded. Of these injuries, however, many were of the gravest nature: on one occasion a shell from a Russian mortar burst among a detachment on its way to the trenches and struck down ten of the party. To save the lives of the wounded the surgeons had to perform amputations upon each of them, and seven men lost a leg apiece, two an arm each, while the least hurt escaped with the loss of a hand. This comparative immunity from casualties, however, was not to last, for the regiment was now to be called upon to undergo an ordeal nearly as severe as those in its campaigns under William III. and Marlborough. At the beginning of June the immediate object of the Allies was the capture of three outlying fortifications, outposts which covered the left of the line of Russian defences. The trenches of the French right attack were faced by the White Works and a hill called “the Mamelon,” the latter of which barred the way to the Malakoff redoubt, one of the keys of the main position; the British sap led to “the Quarries,” where a number of works covered the Redan, a fort as formidable and as important as the Malakoff itself. On the 6th of June another great bombardment began; five hundred and forty-four pieces of heavy ordnance hurled shot and shell into the Russian works, and though answered by almost an equal number inflicted great injury: many cannon were dismounted and earth-works ruined before darkness imposed silence upon our guns, though not upon our howitzers, which continued to fire throughout the night. Thanks to the boundless energy of Todleben and the dogged industry of his men, much of the damage was made good before dawn; the cannon were remounted and the parapets rebuilt; but early in the morning the English and French re-opened fire with such terrible effect that in two hours the morale of the defenders was seriously affected. Then the infantry of the Allies was let loose, and after heavy fighting succeeded in taking the points assailed. In these achievements the XVIIIth had no part, as the third division was not employed in the capture of the Quarries.
As soon as these three outlying works had been taken, the Allies began to prepare for an attack on the Malakoff and the Redan, and on the 17th of June the batteries concentrated a furious fire on the Russian fortifications, with results so destructive to the enemy’s artillery that everything appeared to promise success for the assault on the morrow. Lord Raglan and Marshal Pélissier, who had recently been placed in command of the French army, had already agreed upon their plans; remembering how rapidly during the night of the 6th-7th of June the Russians had re-fitted their batteries, the Generals decided that the cannonade should be resumed at daylight for two hours, when it was calculated that the enemy’s guns would be silenced and the repairs of the night destroyed. The infantry was then to come into action, the French against the Malakoff, the British against the Redan. Barnard’s brigade of the third division was to support the storming columns, while on the extreme left Eyre, with the other brigade of the same division, was to threaten the fortifications on the Russian right of the Redan and in front of the Dockyard Creek, and to convert his demonstration into a serious attack if the assault on the Redan proved successful. Raglan’s preparations for the execution of his part of this scheme were completed, when suddenly, late on the night of the 17th, Pélissier informed the British Commander-in-Chief that he had resolved to dispense with the preliminary bombardment, and to storm the Malakoff at daybreak. Against his own judgment, and in an evil hour for the Allied armies, Raglan consented to this all-important change of plan; the infantry attacks on the Malakoff and the Redan were delivered without adequate artillery preparation; Todleben, who had done wonders during the night, was ready at every point, and the combined assault was beaten back with heavy loss. The only troops on whom Fortune smiled this day were those of Eyre’s brigade, who fought magnificently, and worthily sustained the honour of the British army. The brigade was at this time composed of the 9th, XVIIIth, 28th, 38th, and 44th regiments, but so heavily had the campaign told upon them that, when in the small hours of the 18th of June Eyre mustered these five battalions, there were but two thousand men in their depleted ranks. Covered by an advance-guard of a hundred and fifty sharpshooters—volunteers from each company in his command—the General left his camp while it was still black night, and marched down the great ravine towards the Dockyard Creek. At daybreak, just as the troops detailed for the assault on the Redan were swarming out of the trenches in which they had been assembled, Eyre’s advance-guard reached a cemetery, surprised the occupants of the rifle pits by which it was defended, and captured it without much trouble. This cemetery marked one flank of the enemy’s line, the other rested on a mamelon;[170] and to quote the words of Eyre’s report, the intervening ground “was intersected, and the road barricaded with stone walls, which our men were obliged to pull down under fire before they could advance. In rear of this position, towards the fortress, the enemy occupied several houses, there were bodies of the enemy seen in rear, but in what strength I could not say. This position, under cover of the walls of the fortress, was strong.” Well might General Eyre describe the position as “strong.” The suburb, of which these houses formed part, consisted of villas standing in gardens, planted with peach-trees in full blossom, and surrounded with low stone walls, thickly overgrown with vines. From several points it was commanded by the Russian artillery; to our “half-left” was the Garden Wall battery; in front rose the Creek battery, built at the head of the inner harbour of Sebastopol; on our right was the Barrack battery, and hidden behind the Redan were field-guns, which after the assault on that work had failed turned their fire upon Eyre’s regiments.
Before describing the doings of the XVIIIth in detail it will be well to give a short account of the work done by the brigade as a whole. Such an account is to be found in the letter to ‘The Times’[171] by Sir William Russell, the celebrated war correspondent, who, writing only two days after the battle, seems to have obtained his facts from the reports supplied to Eyre by the officers commanding his units. As Russell’s letter is in substantial agreement with Eyre’s report to his divisional general, its evidence appears valuable. After mentioning that the advance-guard occupied the cemetery with small loss, he says—
“the moment the enemy retreated, their batteries opened a heavy fire on the place from the left of the Redan and from the Barrack battery. Four companies of the XVIIIth at once rushed on out of the cemetery towards the town, and actually succeeded in getting possession of the suburb. Captain Hayman was gallantly leading on his company when he was shot through the knee. Captain Esmonde followed, and the men, once established, prepared to defend the houses they occupied.[172] As they drove the Russians out, they were pelted with large stones by the latter on their way up to the battery, which quite overhangs the suburb. The Russians could not depress their guns sufficiently to fire down on our men, but they directed a severe flanking fire on them from an angle of the Redan works. There was nothing for it but to keep up a vigorous fire from the houses, and to delude the enemy into the belief that the occupiers were more numerous than they were. Meanwhile the Russians did their best to blow down the houses with shot and shell, and fired grape incessantly, but the soldiers kept close, though they lost men occasionally, and they were most materially aided by the fire of the regiments in the cemetery behind them, which was directed at the Russian embrasures; so that the enemy could not get out to fire on the troops below. The 9th regiment succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the houses in two or three different places, and held their position as well as the XVIIIth.... While these portions of the 9th and XVIIIth, and parties of the 44th and 28th were in the houses, the detachments of the same regiments and of the 38th kept up a hot fire from the cemetery on the Russians in the battery and on the sharpshooters, all the time being exposed to a tremendous shower of bullets, grape, round-shot, shell. The loss of the brigade under such circumstances, could not but be extremely severe. One part of it, separated from the other, was exposed to a destructive fire in houses, the upper portion of which crumbled into pieces or fell in under fire, and it was only by keeping in the lower storey, which was vaulted and well built, that they were enabled to hold their own. The other parts of it, far advanced from our batteries, were almost unprotected, and were under a constant mitraille and bombardment from guns which our batteries had failed to touch.”
Though the repulse of the main British column left Eyre in a situation of hourly increasing peril, he resolutely continued to hold the points which the dash and bravery of his troops had gained. At first he hoped that the Redan might yet be stormed, when his brigade would be ready to follow up the victory; and when it became clear that the attack was not to be renewed he declined to fall back, until an authority higher than his own had decided how much of the ground that his brigade had won was to be retained. Though Eyre was wounded comparatively early in the day, it was not until late in the afternoon that, after giving orders for the gradual withdrawal of the troops from the houses nearest to the enemy, he made over his command to the next senior officer and quitted the battlefield. The process of withdrawal took several hours, and it was not until 9 P.M. that the Royal Irish, the last regiment of the brigade to retire, began its march back to the camp of the third division.
How the XVIIIth fared must now be told, as far as possible, in the words of the officers who had the honour to be present. Late on the 17th, the rumour had run through the lines of the Royal Irish that the town was to be assaulted next day. The men were wild with joy at the prospect of taking part in the attack, and talked and sang in their tents so incessantly that the officers could get no rest during the few hours allowed the regiment for sleep. At 1 A.M. on the 18th of June, a date ever memorable in the annals of the regiment, six hundred and sixty-nine officers and men paraded in front of the camp of the 9th regiment, where the brigade was formed, the XVIIIth in front, the 44th, 38th, 28th, and 9th regiments following in the order named. On the march down the great ravine occurred an interesting instance of the rigidity of the drill which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, fettered the movements of the British army. It has been mentioned that every infantry regiment then had two flank companies of picked men: those of the right, or grenadier company, were chosen for height and strength; those of the left, or Light company, were selected for activity and intelligence. On the parade ground the rule was that all battalion movements should be made from the right, and consequently that in column the grenadier company should always lead. Colonel Edwards had learned in the school of the Chinese and Burmese wars that all drill is but the means to one end, the successful attack on an enemy; and thinking that on this occasion the quick-moving “Light Bobs” were the men first to be employed, marched off “left in front.” This daring innovation did not long pass unnoticed, and almost within sight of the enemy he was ordered to halt, and countermarch his regiment in order to bring the grenadier company to the head of the column. In 1855, the countermarch was an evolution slow and ponderous in broad daylight, and doubly difficult of execution in semi-darkness, at a time when the pulses of all ranks were throbbing with the excitement of a night march and an impending battle. After the manœuvre was carried out, the brigade once more advanced, forming into a mass of close columns whenever the ground permitted. Though it was now almost day the Russians had not yet detected the presence of Eyre’s troops, and the General took an opportunity of addressing the Royal Irish, telling them he knew they would prove themselves good soldiers and “this day do something that will ring in every cabin in Ireland.” Then he added, “Now, men, above all things you must be quiet or you’ll get peppered!” In answer to this very reasonable appeal a shout arose from the ranks, “All right, your Honour, we’ll get in. Three cheers for the General!” Before the officers could stop them the men had given three lusty cheers. Eyre remonstrated, but the Royal Irish were far too eager for the fray to be sensible, and in response to his reiterated entreaties for silence they burst out into stentorian cheering, this time for Old Ireland. “Let them go in and attack,” cried the General in despair; “they will only draw fire upon us!”
From a letter written by Colonel Edwards two days after the battle, it appears that while the advance-guard was driving the Russians from the cemetery at the point of the bayonet, the XVIIIth
“halted in the open ready for action. Just here the first round-shot danced among us, and as the advance party had extended and were under such cover as they could find, we met the intruder. That peculiar thud (once heard, never forgotten) denoted that the round-shot had told, two men being killed. But we were compelled to wait a little longer, and then the Grenadier company moved off in skirmishing order, soon followed by Nos. 1 and 2 companies. These three companies occupied the ruined houses on the Woronzoff road.”
As the grenadiers, led by Captain Armstrong, were pressing forward they found their way obstructed by one of the stone walls mentioned in General Eyre’s report. Two subalterns raced for the wall, and leapt it at the same moment: Lieutenant Taylor landed safely on the other side, but Lieutenant Meurant was shot dead as he rose at the jump. Soon afterwards the remainder of the regiment in column of sections was moved forward in support, along a lane leading towards the suburb from the great ravine, the rocky cliffs of which gave the XVIIIth some cover from cannon shot. The Russian riflemen, however, speedily found the range, “and the men,” says Colonel Edwards,
“commenced to fall fast. The General had given me orders to stand there, but the casualties were then so great that I put the men behind the houses and walls, which saved them much. I did not see the General again; he was wounded across the head.