On Sunday, the 28th of October, Captain Paris joined the Allied squadron blockading the Bug and Dnieper, with orders to take the command as soon as Admiral Stewart went; and we left that officer with the Beagle, Viper, Snake, and another English gun-boat, and four French gun-boats, to keep up that dismal duty. Admiral Stewart sailed from the Bug on Tuesday morning, the 30th of October, and joined the fleet at Kinburn. A portion of the fleet which had gun-boats to tow started for Kamiesch the same evening. The Allied fleet, under Sir E. Lyons and Admiral Bruat, Sir H. Stewart and Admiral Pellion, sailed the following day for the same anchorage.
Ere the expeditionary force returned to Kamiesch and Kazatch the most effectual measures which could be adopted were used to put the garrison of Kinburn in safety for the winter. All the curtains of the Fort of Kinburn were rebuilt, the ruins cleared away, the damaged guns removed, and ships' fine guns put in their place; the fosse cleared out and deepened, the palisades repaired, the south-eastern gateway filled up, and its approaches covered by a strong ravelin; the crest of the parapets repaired solidly and well with fascines and earthwork, the Russian guns rendered efficient, the casemates cleared out and filled with stores or adapted as barracks, and the interior buildings in course of reconstruction and renovation. The result proved the defensive preparations were so formidable, that the enemy never attempted to operate against the French troops stationed there, although the sea (a very unusual occurrence) was frozen hard across to Oczakov.
Kinburn having been secured against the attack of any forces the enemy could bring against it, and covered completely by the guns of the formidable flotilla we left to protect it, the greater portion of the fleet sailed for Balaklava and Kamiesch before November.
The blockade of the Bug and the Dnieper was of course raised by the first frost, and the gun-boats engaged in that service had dropped down and joined the flotilla at Kinburn. Before the expedition started, nearly all the smaller gun-boats were despatched to reinforce Captain Sherard Osborne's flotilla in the Sea of Azoff, where that active and energetic officer was harrying the Russians as a hawk perturbs a field of larks.[30]
The Cossacks showed themselves from time to time in the neighbourhood of Kinburn, but the state of the Spit prevented them from establishing a camp or even a grand guard near the fort. Three military and three naval French officers, who went out shooting on the Spit a few days after the sailing of the ships for Kamiesch, were picked up and made prisoners by these lynx-eyed gentry. They surrounded our gallant Allies under cover of a fog, and then lured them one after another into their snares, by shouting in French, and discharging their carbines. They literally used snares, for they had ropes all ready for each man as they caught him, and to bind him if he resisted or tried to give the alarm to his comrades.
CHAPTER V.
Promotions—Peaceful Toils—Improvements—Memorandum of October 15th—Expedition to Eupatoria countermanded—Intelligence by Telegraph—State of Affairs in Sebastopol—Want of Proper System and Organization—French Review—Extract from Divisional Orders.
DURING the progress of the Kinburn Expedition, General Orders announced the promotion of Colonel Windham to the rank of Major-General "for distinguished services in the field," and his appointment to the command of the Fourth Division, with which he served as Assistant-Quartermaster-General until he was named to the command of that Brigade of the Second Division, at the head of which he fought on the 8th September.
Lord William Paulet assumed the command of the 2nd Brigade of the Fourth Division, and occupied General Bentinck's old quarters on Cathcart's Hill.
PREPARING FOR WINTER.