On May 9 a Rifleman (Private Connolly of the 1st Battalion) died from the effects of a wound received on April 26, by the explosion of a Russian shell, which was carelessly dropped by a soldier of another regiment, while they were gathering shells in Sebastopol.
On the 24th the two Battalions were marched to Balaklava plains to celebrate (with the rest of the troops) the Queen’s birthday. On this occasion the medals granted by the Emperor of the French were distributed.
On June 4 the 1st Battalion marched to Balaklava at eight in the morning, and embarked immediately in H.M.S. ‘Apollo,’ and went out of harbour in tow of H.M.S. ‘Medusa;’ and after touching at Scutari, Malta, Algiers and Gibraltar, anchored off Corunna on the 27th. Here they were visited by Spanish Generals, soldiers, ladies (upward of fifty of whom came on board), and apparently everyone who could get a seat in a boat. A strange contrast to the scene forty-seven years before, when the Battalion embarked at Corunna!
Leaving Corunna on the 28th the Battalion landed at Portsmouth on July 7, and proceeding at once to Aldershot by rail, encamped there.
On June 8 the 2nd Battalion embarked at Balaklava on board the sailing transport ‘King Philip,’ and arrived at Portsmouth on July 11 and proceeded by rail to Aldershot.
On the 1st Battalion leaving the Crimea the following General Order was published by Major-General Garrett, K.H., commanding the 4th Division:
‘Camp before Sebastopol, June 3, 1856. Division After-Order.
‘Major-General Garrett regrets that the separation of the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade from the 4th Division by their embarkation to-morrow for England, calls on him to take leave of them.
‘The Major-General will look back with pride and pleasure to those eventful days when they were under his command, first as a Brigadier and afterwards commanding the Division, for upwards of a year and a half. During that period the willingness and smartness which the officers and the men invariably evinced, whether on duties in camp or in the trenches, clearly showed that that magnificent esprit de corps which descended from their predecessors, the old 95th, still animates the young soldiers, who were brought to supply the heavy casualties of the late campaign; which they quickly caught up from the fine old soldiers whose education had been formed in the rough and arduous enterprises of two Kaffir wars.