“In now taking leave of his comrades of all ranks he thinks he cannot wish them better fortune than that finally in this enterprise they may meet with success, that as far as depends upon them is so well earned.”
To this was added the following remark:—
“I entirely concur in the sentiments above expressed.
(Signed) \“Raglan.”
A sortie was made on the night of the 22nd March against Nos. 7 and 8 batteries of the left third parallel, in which Captain Montagu of the Engineers was taken prisoner. For half an hour the batteries were held by the Russians, whose impetuosity had given them a footing there. Driven out at length at the point of the bayonet, led by Captain Chapman, 20th regiment, assistant engineer, they took with them in their flight 70 pickaxes and 50 shovels. There were only eleven sappers in the trenches at the time, who, being unarmed and dispersed over the different works, were unprepared for the fight. A few of them, however, joined in the repulse with arms taken from the grasp of some slain linesmen, whilst others did their best in bludgeoning the Russians with pick-helves and sticks.
A like sortie rushed into the advance parallel and mortar-battery on the right attack, but was repulsed with loss. Three British officers were killed and two wounded. Of the latter one was Major Gordon of the Engineers, severely in the right arm. Of colossal height, he was observed on the top of the parapet with no better defence than a swish whipping the Russians from the works. Under his orders there were five brigades of sappers scattered to various points of the chequered operations, who escaped that night without casualty.
After the sortie had failed, corporal Lendrim, led by the groans of a wounded man about thirty yards in front of the battery, clambered over the parapet, and followed by two linesmen, moved to the spot where the sufferer was lying. He was a Russian. No lack of bullets were flying at the time to warn the corporal and his comrades of the risk they incurred, but holding to the task they had humanely undertaken, they carried him to the parapet. Gently laying him down, they were about to renew their lift, when the last struggle seized the poor Russian, and in a few seconds he was no more.
Too weak to afford an adequate force for the emergencies of the siege, irrespective of the demands which had been fruitlessly made for its services in the rear, it was considered of moment to augment the corps. Accordingly, on the 22nd March, an authority was given for forming four new companies of 120 sergeants and rank and file each, by which the royal sappers and miners were swollen from a strength of 2,658 officers and men to one of 3,140 of all ranks. The new companies were designated the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th. The first two were raised on the 1st April; the others were not embodied before September and October.
The 23rd company was constituted a driver troop for the conveyance of the royal engineer field equipment. Hitherto the engineers had to depend in great measure for the movement of its stores on the resources of other departments, which too frequently accorded insufficient assistance. To be at the mercy of any caprice or department was undesirable in a service whose success, in degree, depended upon the prompt transport of its materials; and the suggestions on this question, derived from the experience of the Peninsular engineers, meeting with the approbation of Lord Panmure, the troop was called into existence. Very readily was it formed, for the standard to recruit ostlers and others of that genus, was reduced so low that a lad of ordinary growth could easily command the admitted altitude. In a few days the necessary number had been enlisted; but this troop of dwarfs, accustomed though they had been to horses and driving, required some time to throw them into shape and order, and this could only be done by discipline and imparting to them as much of the art of military equitation and manœuvring as was consistent with their organization and intended services. One hundred and twenty round-bodied cobs, purchased at an expense of 36l. each, formed the complement of horses for this novel troop. Captain Siborne was its commanding officer. A few months after its formation, Sir John Burgoyne inspected the corps at Woolwich, and he was more than surprised at the smartness of the company and the expertness with which the young troopers managed their horses. A sergeant from the royal artillery—William Handyside—was promoted into the company with the rank of Lieutenant and Adjutant, but before the appointment reached him, having obtained a commission in the Land Transport Corps, he declined the Adjutancy. It proved a wise resignation for him, as soon after, he was promoted in his own corps to the rank of Captain. Another sergeant—Henry Saville—from the artillery in the Crimea, was commissioned into the troop on the 22nd October, 1855, with the pay of 9s. 10d. a-day.
To supply the general increase, several new recruiting stations were opened, and the militias were canvassed for candidates. The old stations sent in batches with their usual steadiness, scarcely accelerated by the popularity of the war; but the new ones, opening with a sort of burst, detailing the advantages of enlistment on gorgeous bills, offering high bounties, and lecturing the applicants with that hyperbolical eloquence which, though unfair, is tolerated as a necessary evil in military life, were very successful. Strong instalments of militia-men constantly arrived, but recruited as many of them were by line officers appointed to canvas particular districts, who knew nothing of the qualifications required of the candidates, not a few were useless for the general duties of the corps. But those were not times to stand opposed to the reception of men who, though they lacked the antecedents so uniformly exacted from recruits by officers of the royal engineers, might yet be made to perform serviceable duties in the trenches. In this way a vast number of militia-men—too many of them undersized, unseemly, and professionally incapable, of an entirely different stamp in character and impress to the genuine craftsman and sapper—fell into the ranks of the corps, who in less pressing times would have been regarded as not worth the trouble of a negotiation. In the course of nine months from the date of the increase no less than 500 militia-men and about 800 other recruits joined the royal sappers and miners.