While in hospital wounded, I caused the following to be sent to my parents:—
Camp before the Ruins of Sebastopol,
September 14th, 1855.
My Dear, Dear Parents,
Thank God I have been saved alive through the grand but bloody struggle. You will see this is not my writing. I may as well tell you at once that they have hit me again. You will, most likely, see my name in the papers as badly wounded, but you must not despair; I am at present very comfortable in hospital, with one of my comrades to look after me, who now writes this from my dictation. I must tell you they hit me on the head, in two places, and knocked my left hand about rather badly, but I live in hopes of getting over this, and I will warm them for it if ever I get a chance. Well, to my story. To start with, I am happy to inform you that the town is taken at last, but it has been, as I always said it would be, a hard nut to crack. I told you in my last that I did not think we should be long before we were let loose at it; everything was kept very quiet; the last, our grand bombardment, opened on the morning of the 5th, and the roaring of the heavy guns was something deafening. I went into the trenches on the night of the 6th; had a rough little bit of work on the night of the 7th; it was then that I began to smell a rat that something was in the wind; some of our poor fellows who had gone through the whole campaign were, by a mistake, shot down by their own comrades; I was in charge of the party, thirty odd men, and lost two-thirds of them in two or three minutes, through the men in the front trench not being informed that we were out. I did not find out what was before me until I reached the camp about 1 a.m. on the terrible 8th. I cannot now describe that awful day’s work which ended in a glorious victory. I find our loss and that of the French has been frightful; it is reported that our united loss has been upwards of 12,000, killed, wounded, and missing. I do hope that this will be the last item in the butcher’s bill. If we are to have any more fighting let’s go at them in the open field, and then if our numbers are anywhere near their’s we will soon let you know who will take possession; they fight well behind earthworks, but they want a lot of Dutch courage into them to make them show up in the open field. I hope you will be contented with what I have said; I must not do anymore to-day; I must keep quiet.
Well, I’ve had a few hours’ rest and I feel that I should like to bring this letter to a close; and will, if I am spared, give you a long account of that terrible fight that laid Sebastopol at our feet, and I am proud to say that a great number of Norfolk and Suffolk men have helped to plant our glorious old flag on the blood-stained walls of that far-famed town, Sebastopol. It was a Norfolk man that led us to the finishing stroke (Windham), and right well he did it—it was, ‘Come on, boys, and I will show you the way!’ The fighting, dear Parents, in the interior of the Redan was desperate; when I come to recall it, it seems almost too much for me. I cannot express my gratitude to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who shielded my life,—I hope for some good purpose,—on those bloody parapets, when my poor comrades fell like Autumn leaves all around, to rise no more. It seemed utterly impossible that any could escape; and we had a great number of very young men with us who had come out with drafts to fill up the gaps. But they were too young for the trying work, many of them had not seen seventeen summers; plenty of them had not had two months’ service. We wanted 20,000 tried veterans; but through some mismanagement they were kept back.
I will write again as soon as I get a little more strength—so cheer up, dear parents. Tell Tom he had better eat some more beef and dumplings before ever he thinks of soldiering; one in a family is quite enough to be shot at, at a time. Tell poor mother to cheer up, I will come home to Norwich some day, and give her as warm a greeting as the Frenchmen gave me at Malta. I must now conclude. Give my kind regards to all inquiring friends, and believe me, dear parents,
Your affectionate son,
T. GOWING,
Sergeant, Royal Fusiliers.
P.S.—What a lot of nonsense they put in the papers—it’s only filling up stuff, or, in plain language, boast. Men had far better not write at all, if they cannot confine themselves to the truth; for they only get laughed at, as the papers are read in the camp. Please send Illustrated.
Yours, &c.,
T. G.