It was a terrific struggle and a memorable failure. Already weakened by disease, Lord Raglan, ill able to bear the defeat, survived it only a few days. A warrior, trained under the Duke of Wellington, possessing in the highest degree habits of calmness, patience, and controlling perseverance, he was the fittest general in the English army at the time to bear the responsibility of a great and critical command; and the distinguished talent and bravery with which he conducted it, gaining three brilliant battles and sustaining a violent siege for seven months with only one drawback—that which cost him his noble life—his career as a commander-in-chief in a great war, will, in after time, meet the honourable reward it merits from impartial history.

General Simpson, the chief officer of his lordship’s staff, succeeded to the command.

1855.
18th June-16th July.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Condition of the batteries; their repair—Alarm of a sortie—Noble intention of four comrades to recover the body of corporal Baker—Strategic occupation of the rifle redoubt behind the cemetery—Interchange of civilities between the Russian and English truces—Capture of a memento—Escape of Lieutenant Donnelly and lance-corporal Veal—Lodgment in the cemetery—A sortie frustrated—Destruction of the rifle redoubt—No. 18 battery, right attack—Perils in the saps in advance of the quarries—Progress of the works—Re-occupation of the cemetery—The stone double sap; corporal J. T. Collins—The two Dromios—Industry of the miners—Progress of the works and repairs—Even during a storm—Advance of the chevaux-de-frise up the Woronzoff ravine—Sappers annoyed by light balls—Difficulties in executing the works—Demolitions in the rear parallels—The Picket-house—Approach to the cemetery—Wooden bridge—General officers’ hut—Abstraction of gabions by the French—Gallantry in pushing the sap from left advanced parallel, right attack—Night details—No. 15 battery, left attack—Obstacles to success in commencing the fifth parallel, right attack—Trenches in the cemetery—Progress of the works—Conduct and exertions of the engineers and sappers.

By the enemy’s fire, a number of embrasures had been seriously damaged or demolished, and their early fall was ascribed to the unsubstantial manner in which they had been built under the superintendence of some young and inexperienced sappers fresh from England. The works which bore the brunt of the fight were the 21-gun battery and Nos. 13, 14, and 17 on the right attack. The first had ten embrasures in ruins, while the remaining batteries scarcely retained a vestige of resemblance to their original construction. At night there were 20 sappers on the right, and 22 on the left, assisted respectively by working parties of 100 and 273 men. Many of the damaged embrasures were rebuilt before morning; a passage was widened round the traverse in Egerton’s pit for the passage of guns, and a number of gabions which had been thrown down or fractured during the bombardment were replaced in the zig-zags leading to the quarries, and in the saps issuing from them. The platforms which had been stoutly laid resisted with firmness the violence to which they had been subjected, and the magazines withstood an exasperated cannonade with remarkable success. Several scaling ladders which had fallen with their intrepid bearers in the unavailing assault, and many of the abandoned woolsacks were removed; and it was due to the endeavours of a few spirited volunteers, that about twenty-five men, found on the field disabled by frightful wounds, were carried to the trenches.

At midnight there was an alarm of a sortie among the French in front of the Mamelon, which rapidly spread to the quarries. A brisk play of projectiles took place on both sides, in which the men in the rear trenches heartily joined. Without a real object to deserve such warmth—for the Russians had not left their works—they necessarily fired at random, and some of the workmen in the foremost trenches were wounded from our own missiles.

A wounded sergeant of the 3rd division had crept into the lines next day, and reported that a corporal of sappers was still alive in the garden. Four of his comrades—corporals William Donald, John Medway, Samuel Varren, and Robert J. Fitzgerald, all of the third company—with a nobleness of feeling that did them infinite credit, agreed, though not on duty, to go out and bring him to camp. Accordingly they pushed into the trench in front of the caves, and seeing, by the aid of an opera lorgnette, that Baker was motionless, they were desired by Lieut. Donnelly to defer the attempt, as a truce would shortly take place, which would enable them to recover the corporal without peril or molestation.

Major-General Eyre wanting support, was compelled to leave the cemetery he had gallantly taken on the 18th. Conceiving that circumstances favoured a bloodless appropriation of the rifle-pits near the cemetery, Lieutenant Donnelly secured the services of these four men to accompany him; and while he collected twenty volunteers from the 20th regiment, private Fitzgerald was sent away to get ten riflemen. Communicating his orders to the officer commanding the covering party of the rifle brigade, the number of men were soon made up; but before Fitzgerald arrived with the detachment, Lieutenant Donnelly had gone with his party from the left of No. 11 battery down the ravine to the garden, where, as the firing was hot, he and the volunteers were obliged to lie among the grass and fruit trees till a momentary lull gave them an opportunity of moving cautiously to some suburban houses, among which they dodged, and then crept on all-fours to the wall of the cemetery, where they concealed themselves. Meanwhile Fitzgerald leading the riflemen, started from one of the boyaux behind No. 7 battery, and dashing down the hill under a close fire—for all were exposed—they reached the garden wall nearest to our trenches. It was some five or six feet high, built of dry rubble stone, behind which, as they were blown by their fleetness, they halted to take breath. Relieved by a brief stay, Fitzgerald, the first to spring over the wall, was followed by the rifles, like bloodhounds in full chase; and redoubling their speed, raced onwards under an incessant rattle of musketry, stopping not till they had joined Lieutenant Donnelly at the cemetery wall.

Another move was now made to the head of the ravine, where Lieutenant Donnelly placed four men in the first pit, and pushed on to a more commanding pit on a green knoll; but, unable to occupy it, he distributed his volunteers, for safety, among some trees and old walls in the neighbourhood. While these dispositions were being enacted a truce was agreed upon, which turned the young officer loose on the little Mamelon, around which he placed his detachment as sentries. The Russians regarding the pits as in our possession, did not ascend the mound, but an officer, disinclined to yield the spot, passed the sentries; and after scrutinizing the locality with speculative curiosity, returned to his men. The four sappers then went in quest of Baker. When found, he was dead, and had been so for some hours. He was, therefore, borne away to camp.[[188]]

At last the melancholy duty of giving a rough and unceremonious sepulture to the many dead was accomplished, and Lieutenant Donnelly descending the mound, moved to the nearest rifle-pit, as did also lance-corporal James Veal, who bore the white flag. Whilst standing near the pit, shrouded by the sacred truce, two rifle shots, and shortly after, a score or two of Miniés were aimed at them. This angry attack was no doubt occasioned by the report of the officer who forced the sentries. It was useless now to wave the banner to seek protection under colour of the truce, and as little hope for their lives was left them, they depended upon the tact they could exercise to effect their escape. Lieutenant Donnelly jumped over the parapet, and as he ran, a constant fire, which would have appalled many an older head, neither made him falter nor stay his course; and he reached the trenches, as if an egis had shielded him, without a stroke. Veal remained in the pit, assailed by an incessant shower of grape and Miniés, shot and shell, which made gaps in the screen that covered him. There he stood till the darkness fell; when stealing unperceived from the danger he had for so many hours outlived, he scrambled ahead as best he could, and picking his way through the suburbs and gardens, hastened up the hill-side to the 5-gun battery in the first parallel, with the same scathless fortune as his officer.