The second company at Chobham camp was relieved on the 22nd of July by the fifth company, with the greater part of the eleventh from the Wellington camp, and repaired that day to Chatham. The company was played from the ground by the band of the 79th Highlanders, who, from good feeling, volunteered to confer the honour; and as it passed the tents of the 79th three cheers from the assembled regiment testified its esteem and friendship for the departing company.[[119]] The total force then left for the field duties of the camp, exclusive of the surveyors, numbered 100 men of all ranks.
As some further pontoon operations were ordered to be executed, and the force at the camp was considered to be numerically inadequate for the duty, sixty-five non-commissioned officers and men were sent to the field from Chatham on the 25th of July, and after the completion of the work, they returned on the 28th to their destination.
The party from Sandhurst and colour-sergeant Brown’s detachment were billeted at Sunning-hill and Sunning-dale. On Captain Lovell arriving with his company at Shrub’s-hill, finding no billets or tents he stayed for three days in a barn at Bagshot Park House. On the 16th of May the company was for the first time tented on the skirts of Colonel Challoner’s wood, then on Sheep’s-hill, and lastly on the Oystershell-hill near the “Magnet.” The division under Lord Seaton reached the encampment on the 14th of June, when in allusion to the appearance and exertions of the troops as they took up their ground, a leading journal of the day observed, “that the sappers and miners, probably the most intelligent and best-educated men in our army, make the least external show.”[[120]] The pontoon train was encamped about one and a half miles from Virginia Water, near the Wellington Bridge, from which the camp took its name. The detachment of sixty-five men furnished to assist in the formation of the bridge across the Thames at Runnymede, was billeted during its short stay at Egham.
The camp equipment for the Chobham company embraced five marquees, fourteen circular tents, one hospital tent for officers’ mess, one for orderly room, one guard tent, and one store and ammunition tent, besides fourteen Flanders’ kettles. For the pontoon train there were four marquees, thirty-four circular tents, two hospital tents for workshops and stores, one laboratory tent, and twenty-five camp kettles. Each man was supplied with a wooden canteen, haversack[haversack] and blanket, but no bedding. Straw was afforded in abundance to sleep on. The men were distributed in parties of nine and ten to each tent, which permitted the senior non-commissioned officers to be provided with ample canvas accommodation, and some spare tents to be used for various incidental military purposes.
A detail of the duties and services performed by the sappers and miners in connexion with the encampment follows. In some of them they were assisted by small levies from the guards and the line. The senior non-commissioned officers were colour-sergeants Henry Brown, Noah Deary, and Timothy Sillifant, who throughout the service were indefatigable in their exertions, and their skill and contrivances were on many occasions found very useful.[[121]] In the early stage of the preparations, Viscount Hardinge inspected the camp on Sheep’s-hill, and expressed in a few pointed sentences his satisfaction of the appearance of the field, and the steps taken to render the accommodation of the troops as comfortable as the resources of the district would admit.
It was deemed indispensable that a map should be provided of the country for several miles round the encampment, to guide the Generals in the choice of positions, manœuvres, marches, &c. The district had been surveyed sixty years before, in common with the general survey of the south of England, and was drawn on a scale of two inches to a mile. The better to meet the present requirement, the plans were enlarged and drawn to a scale of four inches to a mile. All the improvements which had arisen within the last half century were also supplied, and the original work corrected where necessary. This was done by taking magnetic bearings with a prismatic compass and pacing the ground. The distance examined and corrected, included an area of about 220 square miles, the cardinal angles of which were Chertsey, Wokingham, Farnham, and Guildford. All was carried out and completed between the 1st May and 14th June. The principal part of the hills were sketched by Lieutenant Stotherd, assisted by four non-commissioned officers of the corps, who, although heretofore wholly employed in the operations of a civil survey, were, without any previous practice in the art, made to turn their talents to account in military sketching. The survey—comprised on four large sheets—was compiled, lithographed, and coloured under the direction of Captain W. D. Gosset, R.E. Corporal Sinnett drew the 12-inch plan of the encampment furnished for the use of Colonel Vicars. A special survey of the ground at Aldershot Heath was also made and plotted on a scale of six inches to a mile, by sergeant Spencer and corporal Macdonald. The soldiers most conspicuous for their usefulness in the Chobham survey were—
Sergeant Benjamin Keen Spencer; for surveying, levelling, and hill sketching.
Corporal William Jenkins; trigonometrical observations, levelling, and traversing.
Second-corporal James Macdonald; traversing and surveying.
Lance-corporals John Erskine Daveran and Valentine Sinnett; hill sketching, surveying, &c.