Out of the treaty of peace arose the appointment of distinct commissions to carry on special surveys of the territory to be ceded by Russia both as a penalty for her aggressive predilections and to lessen the chances of future pretexts for interfering with neighbouring states. To assist these commissions Lieutenant-Colonel Stanton and two officers of royal engineers with seven sappers—corporal James Fisher being the chief subordinate—were sent to Bessarabia in May to survey the line of the new boundary between Russia and Moldavia; and Major Stokes, R.E., having under his orders five of the corps, including the two lance-sergeants from Erzeroum, was despatched soon after to survey and regulate the Danubian demarcations. These two men joined Major Stokes from Erzeroum early in September. As the surveyors will have to undergo great hardships in carrying on the work, much in water, along muddy shores and through the winter, usually severe in those regions, Lord Panmure has sanctioned the issue to them of rates of survey pay to the extent of four shillings a-day according to the amount of ability and energy each may display.
To supply the place of the company removed from the Cape of Good Hope during the war, the twenty-fifth company under Captain Akers embarked for that colony on the 25th July, increasing the sapper force there to two companies.
The singular honour of permitting a non-commissioned officer of sappers to be present at the coronation of the Emperor of Russia is an incident in its history of which the corps may be honestly proud. Corporal James Mack, whose services in connection with the Great Exhibition, the Department of Practical Science and Art, and the Paris Exposition have been so highly appreciated, was selected for this interesting tour. He left for Moscow at the end of July with the Embassy Extraordinary to Russia, and returned to London at the conclusion of the fêtes and reviews in October, bringing with him a collection of photographs of the most striking scenes he had witnessed, and which he had himself photographed for national uses. A greater honour succeeded. A day was fixed for his attendance at Windsor Castle, when in person he was permitted to present to Her Majesty and Prince Albert a set of his photographic views, explaining, as the Queen and His Royal Highness passed from one to the other, the incidents and specialities of each.[[211]] He has also had the gratification of exhibiting them to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Panmure, Mr. F. Peel, and Sir Benjamin Hall.
A new station was opened for the corps at Portsmouth on the 5th August, on which date the eighth company, under the command of Major De Vere, was removed from Chatham for the duties of the engineer department. A few days after, a detachment of the company was sent to the Isle of Wight, taking up quarters in Cliff-end Fort.
The strength of the sappers at Aldershot was increased on the 9th by the arrival there of the 4th company under Major Nicholson.
On the 12th August twelve non-commissioned officers and men were sent to Kensington Palace to remove the Museum from Marlborough House to Brompton House at Kensington Gore, and to assist in its re-arrangement. The services of the sappers were so truly useful that an addition of eighteen men was made to the party two months subsequently.
Devonport, another new station for the corps, was occupied by the seventh company, which proceeded thither on the 26th August under Lieutenant Anderson.
As the army works corps had been disbanded, and the disasters in the Crimea, arising from an insufficient sapper force leading to sudden and expensive organizations, had shown the necessity of maintaining the corps in tolerable strength as a working body to meet unforeseen pressures in war, its establishment was increased on the 1st October, from twenty-six to thirty-two companies, exclusive of the troop of drivers, each company being constituted as follows:—
| Colour Sergeant. | Ser- geants. | Cor- porals. | 2nd Corpls. | Bugls. | Privates. | Total. | General Total. | ||||||||
| 28 | general service companies, each | 1 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 100 | 120 | = | 3360 | |||||
| 4 | survey companies, each | 1 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 94 | 120 | = | 480 | |||||
| The band | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 30 | 33 | 33 | |||||||
| Troop Serg.- Major. | Troop Q.-M.- Serg. | Sergts. | Far- rier. | Corpls. | 2nd Corpls. | Shoe- ing Smiths. | Collar Ma- kers. | Wheel- ers. | Trump- eters. | Drivers. | Total. | ||||
| Driver troop | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 100 | 129 | = | 129 | |
| Staff— | Non-commissioned officers: 4 sergeant-majors; 4 quartermaster-sergeants;1 bugle-major; 2 staff-sergeants, and 12 supernumerary-sergeants | 23 | |||||||||||||
| Officers— | 1 assistant-adjutant-general, 2 adjutants to corps, 1 adjutantof drivers, 4 quartermasters, and 1 veterinary surgeon | 9 | |||||||||||||
| General Total | 4034 | ||||||||||||||