At Fort Cox, on the 28th September, second-corporal James Wilson behaved with intrepidity in repulsing a meditated attack on the cattle-guard. A body of Kaffirs intended to drive the cattle from the post unperceived, and then to massacre the guard. Two civilians and the corporal happened to go out at the time for recreation to an unfrequented spot, and were unconsciously directing their steps to the bush where the enemy were concealed in ambush. Fortunately one of the two in advance fired a random shot, and suddenly more than 200 Kaffirs made their appearance. The civilians were in front, and the corporal considerably in rear followed in support. A sharp fire now opened on the corporal, and the enemy made a disposition to surround him; but the corporal stealthily retired, and took up a favourable position, from which he kept up an unerring fire on his adversaries, who fortunately for him seemed more bent on capturing the cattle than spending their efforts in beating down a single opponent. Taking advantage of their predatory activity, the corporal shot down five of the Kaffirs before any assistance was rendered by the military cattle-guard. On being apprised of the approach of the enemy, the guard lost no time in collecting and driving off the cattle to a place of security, but in the attempt two soldiers of the 45th were shot dead. The Kaffirs at once stripped them, and placing their red jackets on their own bodies, danced frantically at their triumph. While this scene of exultation was going on, corporal Wilson, through the intricate windings of the bush, cautiously neared the group, and firing, one of the savages received the ball from his carbine and fell dead. On the troops advancing, the corporal at once joined them, and assisted in driving the enemy from the post.[[63]]

From the 14th to the 31st October, two sergeants and thirty-one rank and file served in the field operations with Major-General Somerset’s division in the Water Kloof, Fuller’s Hoek, Blinkwater, and Kat river. Again, from the 4th to the 7th November, two sergeants and forty rank and file were on patrol in Seyolo’s country; and again, from the 1st December until the 18th January, nine rank and file were present in the long marches and difficult services of the division under Colonel Eyre. This party was intended to cut loop-holes in the missionary station at Butterworth. The India-rubber pontoon raft taken with the party, was used in the passage of the Kei. This service occupied two days, and the sappers worked with much ardour in its accomplishment.

With the exception of two or three patrols, in which the sappers were commanded by the officers already named, it was the good fortune of the corps in every instance during the campaign to be under the orders of Captain C. D. Robertson, R.E.

The cessation of the works at the Mauritius made the services of the company there available for duty at other stations. Accordingly, with the sanction of Earl Grey, the seventeenth company, under Captain Fenwick, R.E., quitted the island on the 25th October, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope on the 19th November. The force of sappers on the Eastern frontier now consisted of three companies, and counted 276 men of all ranks.

Speaking of the reinforcement Sir Harry Smith thus wrote to Earl Grey, under date the 4th October, “I assure your Lordship that I very much appreciate the value of this reinforcement. No officers and soldiers in Her Majesty’s army do their duty in a more gallant and exemplary manner.”[[64]] On the same date, Sir Harry thus wrote to Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of fortifications, “I have 120 sappers here now, under as gallant a fellow as ever lived—Captain Robertson. These men are the finest soldiers I almost ever saw, and have taken their tour of most arduous patrol duty heart and soul.”

“From being employed on the works,” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Cole, the commanding royal engineer, “and their usual industrious habits, the men were generally found to endure long marches and fatigues better than the line, particularly in the commencement of the war.” “Besides,” said Captain W. C. Stace, R.E., “the performance of garrison, patrols, and escort duties in the field at most of the posts on the frontier, the works provided for in the annual estimates, and several special and numerous incidental services, many of them contingent on the war, were executed by the sappers and miners, and their important and valuable services have been duly acknowledged to me verbally by different officers. The want of such a body of men would have been seriously felt on many urgent occasions during the war, in consequence of the difficulty at all times, and sometimes impracticability, to obtain artificers when required.”

1851.
GREAT EXHIBITION.

Sappers attached to it—Opening—Distribution of the force employed—Duties; general superintendence—Clerks and draughtsmen—Charge of stationery—Robert Marshall—Testing iron-work of building—Workshops—Marking building—Receiving and removing goods—Custom-house examination—Fire arrangements—Ventilation—Classmen—Private R. Dunlop—Clearing arrangements—Miscellaneous services—Bribery—Working-pay—Close of the Exhibition—Encomium by Colonel Reid—Also by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners—Honours and rewards—Their distribution—Statistical particulars—Lance-corporal Noon—Removing the goods—Return of companies to Woolwich—Contributors to the Exhibition—The Ordnance survey—And Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major.

It was the good fortune of the royal sappers and miners this year to be associated with the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, by which its name and character, its acquirements and usefulness, became more extensively known, appreciated, and commended. For this honour, the corps is indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, the Chairman of the Executive Committee. Receiving the cordial concurrence of his civil colleagues, he represented to Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners, the desirableness of military co-operation for carrying out the subordinate details of the work. The measure—at once approved of—was ordered to be carried into effect, and accordingly, three lance-corporals—Richard Rice Lindsay, Thomas Baker, and Charles Fear—were attached on the 11th September, 1850, to the executive committee. The two former were clerks and draughtsmen, and the latter an ingenious mechanic and modeller. Their first duty was to execute a plan and model of the proposed arrangements for the Exhibition. By the end of the year, fifteen rank and file, clerks and draughtsmen, including a founder and an engineer, were added to the party, who for a time were quartered in Kensington cavalry barracks. By degrees the force continued to augment, and at last by the arrival of the fifth and twenty-second companies, under Captains Owen and Gibb, R.E., and a strong detachment under Lieutenant Stopford, R.E., who was appointed acting-adjutant, the corps, on the 21st April, 1851, counted 200 non-commissioned officers and men. This was the greatest number of the sappers ever employed at the Exhibition. The enlarged force was furnished on the ground that as the corps was composed of artizans, its services would be especially useful, particularly in the mechanical part of the arrangements. As soon as the small cavalry barrack was full, the subsequent arrivals at the Exhibition were quartered in the royal palace at Kensington, and ultimately the detachment in the former barrack was also removed to the palace.

Just prior to the opening of the Exhibition on the 1st May, parties of the corps placed barriers across the various entrances into the building and also at some of the naves leading into the transept. At each outer barrier a small section of men was posted to prevent its removal, or the ingress of persons not authorized to view or take part in the state ceremonial. Within the area of the transept a strong detachment was stationed near Her Majesty, to attend to any orders which Prince Albert or the Royal Commissioners might see necessary to enforce. As the crowd kept flowing in, the “temporary barriers to protect the space round the throne were in part swept away” by the excusable impetuosity of the throng, “and the entire space of the nave seemed to be permanently in possession of the spectators. In this emergency Colonel Reid called out a party of sappers who soon restored order, and thus,” wrote ‘The Times,’ to whose columns these pages are indebted for the above description—“added one additional service to the many others which they had contributed for months within the walls of the Exhibition.” With temper and management the confusion soon subsided, and by ten o’clock order was established, “and reasonable facility afforded for the royal progress round the nave of the building.”[[65]] Immediately the Queen proclaimed the Exhibition opened, the sappers removed the barriers, and the avenues of the building were at once rendered free for the unrestrained passage of the people. For the temperate, quiet, and efficient conduct of the sappers on the occasion, they received the thanks of Colonel Reid, Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, and Sir Richard Mayne, the Chief Commissioner of Police.[[69]]