The Redan evacuated! This was news indeed, and the captain with a young subaltern, Lieutenant Dumaresq, strode away to authenticate by a personal visit to the Redan the corporal’s report. He was also accompanied by sergeant Landrey, corporal Ross and a few sappers, who were joined in the fifth parallel by some men of the line. On the way the corporal pointed out his wounded comrade and the rifleman. Over the first Ross placed his greatcoat, and Lieutenant Dumaresq took off his peacoat and spread it over the sergeant; at the same time a few of the privates were despatched to the trenches for stretchers. The little band now shot on briskly to the salient. Ross and a line sergeant were in front. When the ditch was gained the party pushed into it, and quickly ascending the escarp by the ramp, they drove through an embrasure into the interior, where, seeing a Russian, the sergeant of the line sprang on him, and seized him as his prisoner. No time was lost by the officers in making a reconnaissance of the place; all sorts of dimensions were taken and a mental inventory of its peculiarities treasured up. Between five and ten minutes the adventurers were in the body of the work, and as explosions were going off every few minutes, the debris from which was falling on them, it was considered wise to return. Ross brought away with him two Russian musquets, the first trophies from the Redan. With a generosity equal to his bravery he gave one to Captain De Moleyns and the other to Lieutenant Dumaresq. On the way back the party sought the wounded men, and as the stretchers had not arrived, Ross bore away poor Carswell and Landrey the rifle sergeant. Of the gallant demeanour of these non-commissioned officers, Captain De Moleyns spoke commendably. The corporal’s report, first received with incredulity, was now satisfactorily affirmed, and General Simpson, who had intended to renew the assault at daybreak, gave orders for the re-occupation of the place. At the dawn of the 9th the troops marched unchecked into the Redan and took possession of the two towns which the enemy had evacuated.[[197]]

“Throughout this long and arduous siege,” wrote Sir Harry Jones on the 9th, “the royal sappers and miners have invariably performed the duties required of them in a highly satisfactory manner. Many have been conspicuous for their bravery and coolness under fire. Their names I brought under the notice of the Commander of the Forces, who was pleased to reward them according to the nature of the case.

“The duties of the Adjutant to the royal sappers and miners,” adds the General, “have been very efficiently performed by Captain Ewart, who has devoted his best energies to the men.”

In the order issued by the Commander-in-Chief, when the occupation of the Redan had become a settled event, occurs this passage:—

“General Simpson avails himself of this opportunity to congratulate and convey his warmest thanks to the general officers, officers, and soldiers of the several divisions, to the royal engineers and artillery, for their cheerful endurance of almost unparalleled hardships and sufferings, and for the unflinching courage and determination which, on so many trying occasions, they have evinced.”

So ended a conflict carried through a period of 337 days made up of a freezing winter and a wasting summer. The trenches were nearly nine miles long, and counted 22 batteries on the right and 20 on the left, which, for the final assault, were armed with 116 guns and 85 mortars. In the formation of the works no less than 20,000 gabions, 4,000 fascines, 340,000 sand-bags, 7,413 bread-bags, and a hundred different extemporized expedients had been employed to give them shape and solidity. Some of them were of colossal magnitude and master-pieces of field art. Rearing such formidable structures in rocky ground, amid hardships and catastrophes, harassed by sorties, surprises, and alarms, and opposed by tempests of shell and shot, grape, canister, and Miniés, were exploits of toil and constancy, the lustre of which can never be lessened by any example which history may offer as a parallel; and when it is considered that the works were run up by men overworked and wearied, oppressed by sickness, privation, and difficulties, and carried on in the presence of an enemy teeming with numbers, inspired by religious fanaticism, and protected by a stupendous array of works backed by an arsenal exhaustless in siege appliances, in artillery, and the engines of war, a day may come when it will be the fashion of the world to speak less of the military achievements of old Greece and Rome, but more of those of England and France.

1855.
SEBASTOPOL.
9th September, 1855-28th January, 1856.

Statistics—Andrew Anderson—Misconduct of the sappers—Non-commissioned officers and men who received honours, appointments, or commissions for their gallantry or useful services—Sergeant Samuel Cole—Field electric telegraph—Private Fox taken prisoner—Exploring the batteries for machines and electric wires—Commence batteries near Fort Paul—Sappers removed to the Karabelnaia—Reinforcements from Gibraltar and England—Driver troop to Scutari—Sapper quarters in the docks—Huts—Companies attached to divisions of the army—Expedition to Kinbourn—Marshal Pelissier’s acknowledgment of services of the sappers attached to it—Sir William Codrington assumes the command of the army—Explosion of the great French magazine—Exertions of tenth company in arresting the fire—Gallantry in preserving the Inkermann magazine mill—And removing live shells from the vicinity of the flames—Construction of a magazine for small-arm ammunition—Stone bridge over the middle ravine—Barrel causeway across its swampy bottom—Another reinforcement from England.

The siege concluded, it may not be amiss to afford a statistical recapitulation of matters connected with the contest which concern the royal sappers and miners. From the commencement of the campaign nine companies were sent to Turkey and the Crimea, as also small parties for especial services. Some of the companies served for a period in the unhealthy region of Varna, and detachments were employed on the Danube, at Bucharest, and in Circassia. The united sapper force despatched to the East up to the 9th September, 1855, counted a total of 935 non-commissioned officers, privates, and buglers. Of this number 887 reached the Crimea, the remainder being retained in Bulgaria, Scutari, and Gallipoli for particular services, or on account of sickness which invalided them to England.

The casualties were as follows:—