Opening

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Transcriber’s Note:

This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as italic.

Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are referenced. In the printed text, the numbering of footnotes began again at ‘1’ for each chapter. In this version, footnotes have been re-sequenced across the text for uniqueness of reference.

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HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SAPPERS AND MINERS,

FROM THE FORMATION OF THE CORPS IN MARCH 1772, TO THE DATE WHEN ITS DESIGNATION WAS CHANGED TO THAT OF ROYAL ENGINEERS, IN OCTOBER 1856.

T. W. J. CONNOLLY, QUARTERMASTER OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS.

“Of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents, by flood and field; Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.”—Shakspeare.

“There is a corps which is often about him, unseen and unsuspected, and which is labouring as hard for him in peace as others do in war.”—The Times.

=With Seventeen Coloured Illustrations.=

SECOND EDITION, WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. II.

LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS. 1857.

LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

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1848.

PAGE

Staff appointments—Survey of London—Colour-sergeant Smith—Sergeant Bay—Trigonometrical operations—Opposition to the military survey—Observatory above St. Paul’s; the scaffolding—Privates Pemble and Porteous—Sergeant Steel—Industry and conduct of the Sappers in the Metropolitan survey—Preliminary arrangements of the Arctic expedition—Privates Waddell and Sulter—Corporal Mackie—Expedition starts; corporal McLaren—Coasting journeys and services—Overland march—Winter at Fort Confidence—Party detached to Great Bear Lake—Close of the search for Sir John Franklin and his crews 1

1848.

Augmentation to corps—A calculating prodigy—Company removed from Portsmouth to Ireland—Chartist demonstration and services of the sappers in London—Road-making in Zetland—Company to the Mauritius—Major Sandham—Sergeant Anderson—Sergeant Ross—Sir Harry Smith’s frontier tour at the Cape—Passage of the Mooi; corporal Pringle—Passage of the Konap; sergeant McLeod; also of the Orange River—Boem Plaatz—Spirited conduct of a party in removing an ammunition tumbril, which had upset in some burning grass—Peace—Inspection at Gibraltar by Sir Robert Wilson—Also at Hong-Kong by Major-General Stavely—Company at Corfu—Return of party to England from the Falkland Islands—Sergeant Hearnden 16

1849.

Breach in the sea embankment at Foulness—Company to Portsmouth—Augmentation to corps—Homeward journey of the Arctic expedition—Private Brodie—Great Slave Lake party—Expedition arrives in England—South Australia—Sergeant R. Gardiner—Road-making in Zetland—Survey of Dover—Wreck of the ‘Richard Dart’—Miserable condition of the survivors on Prince Edward’s Island—Found, and taken to the Cape—Remeasurement of the base-line on Salisbury Plain—Shoeburyness—Eulogium by the Marquis of Anglesey—Fatal accident at Sandhurst College 27

1850.

Sir Robert Gardiner’s opinion of the corps—Party to the penal settlement at Swan River—Detachment to New Zealand—Draft to Hong-Kong—Mining operations at Seaford Bay—Determinations of the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations—Sergeant James Steel—Professor Airy—The leisure of the sergeant—New method of acquiring a knowledge of chess—Hardships of a party landed at Rona 42

1851.

Malta—Portsmouth—Swan River—Brown Down batteries—Kaffir war—Strength of sappers at the Cape—Corporal Castledine—Attack on Fort Beaufort—Whittlesea, &c.—Skirmish near Grass Kop Tower—Also in Seyolo’s Country—Patrol—Fight at Fort Brown—Patrol—Storming Fort Wiltshire—Patrols—Action at Committy’s Hill—Gallantry of corporal James Wilson at Fort Cox—Patrols—Increase to the Cape by withdrawal of Company from the Mauritius—Sir Harry Smith’s opinion of the sappers—Eulogies concerning them by Lieutenant-Colonel Cole and Captain Stace, R.E. 56

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—Customhouse 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 68

1851.

SHETLAND ISLANDS.

Observations—Road from Lerwick to Mossbank—To the western districts—and southwards—Between Olnafirth and Doura Voe—Voe to Hillswick; corporal Andrew Ramsay—Island of Yell; sergeant John F. Read—Intrepid bearing of corporal Ramsay—Conduct and usefulness of the party employed on the roads 88

1852.

Party attached to the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition—Mount Alexander—Corporal John McLaren—Spike Island—Brown Down—Hurst Castle—Holmfirth Reservoir—Alderney—Cambridge Asylum—Tidal observations, river Dee—Van Diemen’s Land—Channel Islands—Kaffir war—Passage of the Kei—Patrols—Party benighted in the bush—Action at the Konap pass—Patrol—Fort White—Patrols—Expedition against Moshesh—Orange River—Passage of the Caledon—The Lieuw—Battle of Berea—Return of the expedition; crossing the drift at the Lieuw—Repassage of the Caledon—Perils of the “sick-waggon” in crossing—Thanks of General Cathcart—Conduct of the sappers during the campaign 93

1853.

Expedition to Central Africa—Private E. Swenny—Journey to Beni-Olid—Hospitality of the natives at Sokna—Black Mountains—Privations and exertions—Private John Maguire—Gatrone—Sufferings of the slaves in their march across the desert—Evidences of the number that perish—Trials of the expedition; halts at Kouka—Party with the department of Practical Art—Sanitary survey of Woolwich—Detachment for survey of Van Diemen’s Land—Additional commissions to the corps—Company at Alderney—Corporal James S. Taylor at New York—Company recalled from the Cape—Company to the Mauritius—Party to Melbourne—Inconvenience of its popularity—Epidemic at Bermuda—Detachment for the Mint at Sydney—Greatcoats 114

1853.

CHOBHAM CAMP.

Nature of the ground—Position of the sappers—Their strength—Quarters and cantonments—Equipment—Duties and services—The survey—Marking out the encampment—Forming tanks—Wells—Lakes—Construction of stables—Camp-kitchen—Oven—Incidental employments; Royal pavilion; Queen’s road—Sentry-boxes—Post-office and postal statistics—Intrenchments—Submarine mining—Passage of Virginia Water—Her Majesty’s gracious acknowledgments of the conduct of the sappers in the operation—The second passage of the lake—Also of the Thames at Runnymead—Field-days—Inspections by the Queen—Breaking up the camp—Satisfaction of Colonel Vicars and Lord Seaton 126

1854-1856.

Staff appointments—Party to Melbourne—Mint detachment to Sydney—Survey of Aldershot heath—Department of Practical Science and Art—Staff ranks to the survey companies—Dress—Party detached to Heligoland—Also to Paris for the Exhibition—Corporal Mack’s services in testing woods—A foreigner’s surprise at the varied employments of the sappers—Sergeant Jenkins’ interview with the Emperor—Fire at the Manutention du Commerce—Radical change in the dress—Arms and accoutrements—Costume of the quartermasters—Supernumerary sergeants—Additional staff appointments—Exhibition at the Mauritius—Arrival of company from Bermuda, and removal to Aldershot—Chatham becomes the head-quarters—Rejection of the services of Van Diemen’s Land detachment by the Legislative Council, which are accepted by the Governor of New South Wales—Organization and pay of driver troop—Additions to the corps and various incidental alterations—Detail of establishment of corps—The band—Its costume—Dress of the bandmaster—Party recalled from Purfleet—Detachment to Hythe for rifle practice, &c.; the system pursued there becomes a leading feature in the instruction at Chatham 147

1854.

BOMARSUND—TURKEY—BULGARIA—WALLACHIA.

War with Russia—Detachment attached to Baltic fleet—Second company to the Aland Islands—Landing—Brigadier—General Jones—Preliminary services—Operations—Fort Nottich attacked—Adventure at Fort Tzee and escape from it—Bomarsund captured—Destruction of the forts—Conduct of the company—Sickness; it returns to England—Detachment to Turkey—Augmentation to the corps—Seventh company withdrawn from Hurst Castle—Eleventh and seventh companies to Turkey—Odessa—Services of the first detachment in Turkey—Corporal Cray—Gallipoli; Boulair; Ibridgi—Commendation by Sir George Brown—Tenth and eighth companies to Scutari—Redoubt Kaleh—Works there—Circassia—Working-pay—Companies attached to divisions of the army—Buyuk Tchekmedjie—First detachment to Varna—Followed by the tenth company—Also by the eleventh—Complimentary order for services of the latter—Contrast between the French and English sappers—Works at Varna—Also at Devno—Encampments at Aladyn and Varna—Works at Gallipoli and Boulair—Eighth company to Varna—Gallantry of corporal Swann and private Anderson—Sappers join at Varna from the fleet—Coast of Circassia—Photographers—Detachment to Rustchuk—Trestle bridge at Slobedzie—Bridge of boats over the Danube—Return to Varna of a portion of the sappers from Rustchuk—Misconduct of the detachment; also of the seventh company—Spirited conduct of corporal Cray—Major Bent and party of sappers to Bucharest—Private Anderson and the Austrian Dragoons—Fourth company to Varna—The Somerset Fund—The Central Association 171

1854.

CRIMEA. September—18th October.

Instructional operations—Embarkation for the Crimea—The landing—The sappers sink wells—Attempt to erect a pier for landing the horses—Bed of the Bulganak improved with reeds for the passage of artillery—The Alma—Services of the sappers during the battle—They repair the Buliack timber bridge—March to Balaklava; Sir John Burgoyne; services of the third company—The corps encamps at Balaklava—Then removes to the heights before Sebastopol; misery for want of tents—Parties assist to reconnoitre the positions and trace the lines—An instance given—Two sappers carrying the mail miss their way, are wounded and benighted—Destruction of Upton’s aqueduct—Positions on the heights; staff engineers—The attacks; parks—Sapper brigades—Reliefs—Breaking ground—Duties of the sappers—Their deficiency of tact in working the skilled portions of the batteries—Progress of the works; a party wanders from the trace—Sergeant Morant misses his way, and only discovers his mistake when encountered by a Russian guard—A mistrusted guide restores confidence by his conduct—State of the works on the night before the first bombardment—The batteries and parallels—Siege operations—Restoration of the works—Sir John Burgoyne’s remarks on them 196

1854 SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL. 18th October—31st December.

A corporal guides the field officer to the 21-gun battery in open day—The last shot—Two sappers mend a gap of some magnitude in a mortar battery—Scarcity of soil and materials for carrying on the works—Picket-house battery—Mishap to a tracing party—Platforms—Magazines—A detachment with arabas moves from the valley during the battle of Balaklava—Private Lancaster the only sapper engaged in it—Steady conduct of the sappers at the platforms during Sir De Lacy Evans’s combat—Battle of Inkermann—A corporal gallantly alters the splay of an embrasure while the fight rages—Sappers trench the road leading to the heights from the harbour—Two privates repair an embrasure under a severe fire—Submarine divers—Progress of the works—Hurricane of the 14th November; wreck of the ‘Prince’—and the ‘Rip Van Winkle’—Effects of the storm on shore—Lines of Inkermann—Mode of proceeding with the construction of the general works—Strength of corps at the siege and detached—Field electric telegraph—Sergeant Anderson—Casualties—Sergeant Drew—Arrival of second company; its colour-sergeant taken for a Pacha—Incentives to induce the Turks to work—The Navvies—Army Works Corps—The sappers, though under a seeming cloud, are upheld by a vigorous vindication in Parliament 214

1855. 1st January-8th April.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Sanitary state of companies—Warm clothing—Collecting detachments in England to forward to the siege—Services of party with Omar Pasha’s army—Granted medals by the Sultan—Mishap on the Tchernaya—Destruction of the village of Inkermann—Exertions of sappers in the trenches during snow-storms—Anecdote, Corrigan’s charcoal—Obstructions to the trenches by mud—Arrival of first company—Hut stables for the cavalry horses—French build No. 9 battery; right attack—Conduct of Corporal Lendrim—Sappers’ share of the work—The parallels—Huts—French sappers entertained at Southampton—Casualties—Reforming works to counteract enfilade fire—Nos. 7 and 8 batteries, left attack—Moving guns to the front—International parallel; zeal of non-commissioned officers—Destroying a rifle-screen—Completion of the parallel—Death of captain Craigie—Sir John Burgoyne’s farewell address—Sorties—Bearing in a wounded Russian—Augmentation to corps—Driver troop—Efforts to obtain recruits; militia-men—Sergeant Docherty captured on suspicion of being a Russian spy—Countermine under cave magazine—Casualties—Zigzag from right rifle-pit in advance of second parallel; wound sustained by a singular agent—Death of Lieutenant Bainbrigge—Third parallel, right attack—Progress of the works—Faultless energy of sappers in building a two-gun battery in the third parallel, left attack—Two corporals singularly escape from a shell which destroyed the magazine they were erecting—Embrasures of No. 7 battery opened—Preparations for a bombardment—The weather 233

1855. 9th to 19th April.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Second bombardment—Gallant exertions of individual sappers—Repairing a magazine—Assistance to a comrade in an embrasure—Fatal meeting of schoolfellows—Cheerfulness in suffering—Slippery platforms—Repairing telegraph wire—Resistance of the magazines—Inkermann lighthouse battery—Progress of the siege—Mud in the trenches—Battery for two light field-pieces—Magazine on fire—Burning sand-bag on a merlon—Fixing mantlets—Unshrinking labours of sappers—Damages and repairs—Progress of the siege and works—Gallantry of two sappers—and two linesmen—Noble perseverance in an embrasure—Exertions at the batteries—Explosion of a magazine—No. 9 battery, left attack—Gallant extension of left advance sap, right attack—Firmness of the last leading sapper in it—Progress of the works—Capture of the rifle-pits—Gallantry of sergeant McDonald—Casualties—Corporal Coles—Acknowledgment of services of sappers in the attack 263

1855. 20th April-15th May.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

First day’s work in the lodgment—Improviséd grenades—Polish fusilier—Capture of the third rifle-pit—Preliminary incidents connected with it—Saps issuing from the pits—No. 13 sand-bag battery—No. 9 battery, left attack—Building a magazine in day-time—Constancy of sappers in the trenches—But little relief afforded them—Apparent want of ingenuity in their camp arrangements—Reason why so few sappers die—Their miserable condition—Regimen; its effects—Care of the baggage animals—The means employed to preserve them becomes a vexed question—Rifle-holes—No. 11 battery, left attack—Generals’ and engineers’ huts—Diversified engagements of the sappers—Death of Lieutenant Carter—Progress of the works—Wells—Repairing the advance saps after a sortie—Expedition to the sea of Azoff—Storms of rain, and consequent difficulties in carrying on the works—Sortie—Effects of the rain—Endurance of the men exposed to it—Casualties 285

1855. 16th May-7th June.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

The batteries—Stoical tranquillity in blasting rock—Round-hill or fourth parallel—State of the works—Siege materials and expedients—Corporal William Swann—Expedition to Kertch—Second international communication—No. 15 battery on the right—Rope mantlets—Hospital caves—Companies reviewed by General Jones—French officers’ opinion of the corps—Repairing right rifle-pit—Arrival of ninth company—Progress of the works—Third bombardment—Bravery in the embrasures—Corporal Stanton in the batteries of the second parallel on the right attack—Casualties—First appearance of ninth company in the trenches trenches—The sailors—Voluntary resolution of Corporal Lockwood and his sappers—The engineers—Inobtrusive devotion in an embrasure—Adam McKechnie—Death of Captain Dawson—Selection of old sappers for front duty; their sterling exertions—Labours in the batteries; platforms—Magazine blown up—Russian plan of extending their trenches—Capture of the quarries and white works—The lodgment—Death of Lieutenant Lowry; bravery of corporal Stanton—Casualties—Lord Raglan’s approbation of the sappers—Infernal machines in the quarries 305

1855. 8th June-18th June.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Repairs to the works—Death of corporal Fraser—Conduct of private Orr—Improviséd church—Perseverance in the quarries—Segmental trench in front of them—Successful exertions of the miners—Yenikale—Cape St. Paul—Detail of sappers furnished for the trenches—Completion of defences in the lodgment—Casualties in a party mending a trench bridge—State of the works—Platforms—What is an embrasure?—Destruction of one—Its repair—Casualties—A tolerated grumbler—Generous conduct of corporal Lockwood—Fourth bombardment; preparations for assault—Vigorous conduct of sergeant Anderson in repairing the electric wires—And of corporal Borbidge in renewing a platform for a sea-service mortar—First storming of the Redan—Chivalric behaviour of private Head—Casualties—Conduct of the sappers in the assault—Volunteer services of sergeant Drew and corporal Jenkins—They rescue some of the wounded—So also does private Ramsay—Brigadier-General Eyre’s column in the cemetery grounds—Valiant behaviour of corporal Baker—General casualties—Death of Lord Raglan 327

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—Reoccupation 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 357

1855. 17th July-25th August.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Trials in carrying on the works—Fifth parallel, right attack—Detachments and statistics—Spirited conduct of corporal Ross—Neglect of non-commissioned officers—Trench dress of the line—Shifts of the miners to form the parallels and approaches—Siege minutiæ—Trenches flooded—A sergeant, in the absence of an engineer officer, in charge of the lines—Casualties—Sortie by the Russians—Sergeant Docherty examines the chevaux-de-frise—Overseers of the miners—The carpenters—Renewal of the chevaux-de-frise demolished in the sortie—Casualties during a moonlight night—Exertions of sergeant Jarvis and party; the sailors—Strange sensation produced by the blow of a shell splinter—Resources for field-work purposes—Progress of the trenches and batteries—Removal of the right attack sappers to the camp of the left attack—They thus escape a subsequent catastrophe—Fifth bombardment—Cost of a whiff of tobacco—Activity of the sappers in the batteries and works—Anecdote of a new-comer visiting the works—No. 17 battery, left attack—Corporal Jenkins, the master carpenter of the left attack—The white-banded cap—Fifth parallel, right attack—Breaking ground from it for the last approach to the Redan—Workmanlike industry and vigour of corporal Ross in the sap—Corporal William Baker, 7th company—Progress in the advanced trenches; sergeant Hale of the guards; corporal Stanton—Prolongation of fifth parallel, right attack—Effects of wounds. 380

1855. 26th August-5th September.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

State of the works—Russian floating-bridge across the harbour—Gallantry of corporal McMurphy and his sappers—The sailors—Advance from fifth parallel on salient of Redan—and on its extreme left flank—Defection of the workmen in the latter sap and firmness of the two sappers in charge—Valour of sergeant Castledine and private McKellar—Intrepid continuance of the right sap—The double sap, left attack—Fifth parallel of the same attack; corporal Paul its overseer—Experienced hands selected for the front; charge of the non-commissioned officers—Casualties—Fresh details—Trench from fifth parallel to cemetery—Unsuccessful attempt to open a screen in advance of white rifle-pit—Notice of corporal Phillips—A sapper guides his party along the open or part of fifth parallel in preference to taking a longer route though a covered one—Perseverance of sappers in the front saps—Sixth bombardment—The works and repairs proceed steadily—Results of the cannonading—Fatal meeting of friends—Siege career of sergeant Wilson 405

1855. 6th September-9th September.

SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

State of the batteries—The foremost saps—Repairs to embrasures while opposed by blinding dust driven through the trenches by a fierce wind—Distribution in the trenches—No. 22 battery—Final attack of the Redan and the Malakoff—Names of the sapper storming party—Their brave and steady demeanour and exertions—Escapes of corporal Baker—Valour of private Bowman—Casualties—Continuation of the foremost saps—Daring adventure of corporal Ross—His report leads to the bloodless occupation of the Redan—Conduct of the corps in the siege—Captain Ewart—Reflections 423

1855.

SEBASTOPOL. 9th September, 1855-28th January, 1856.

Statistics—Andrew Anderson—Misconduct of the sappers—Non-commissioned officers and men who received honours, appointments, or commissions for their gallantry or useful services—Sergeant Samuel Cole—Field electric telegraph—Private Fox taken prisoner—Exploring the batteries for machines and electric wires—Commence batteries near Fort Paul—Sappers removed to the Karabelnaia—Reinforcements from Gibraltar and England—Driver troop to Scutari—Sapper quarters in the docks—Huts—Companies attached to divisions of the army—Expedition to Kinbourn—Marshal Pelissier’s acknowledgment of services of the sappers attached to it—Sir William Codrington assumes the command of the army—Explosion of the great French magazine—Exertions of tenth company in arresting the fire—Gallantry in preserving the Inkermann magazine mill—And removing live shells from the vicinity of the flames—Construction of a magazine for small-arm ammunition—Stone bridge over the middle ravine—Barrel causeway across its swampy bottom—Another reinforcement from England 439

1855-56. 13th September-1st March.

DEMOLITIONS AT SEBASTOPOL.

Testing the authenticity of some Russian plans concerning the docks—Force employed in the demolitions—Situation of the docks—Their magnitude and strength—The operations—Difficulties encountered in their execution by storms and frosts—Labours and hardships of the miners—The explosions—Destruction of the docks—Accidents; intrepid exertions of corporal Cray—Poisonous gas in a gallery; prompt efforts to rescue the sufferers—Shelling the docks while the demolitions were proceeding—Sir William Codrington’s despatch reporting the success of the operations—Also Colonel Lloyd’s report—The White Barracks—Their destruction—Death of Major Ranken; notice of conduct of second-corporal Baker 462

1856.

CONCLUDING SERVICES IN THE CRIMEA.

Surveys, &c.—Casemates in the Redan and contiguous works—Roads—injuries sustained by men in their execution—Huts and stables—Wharfs at Balaklava—Company to Cossack Bay—Peace—Bridge across the Tchernaya—Reinforcements to the East—Barrel-floats for the embarkation of the army—Graveyards and monuments—Parting Order by Lord Paulet to tenth company—Final services; Miss Nightingale—Order of leaving the Crimea and Turkey—Reviews at Aldershot; inspections by the Queen—Names of the distinguished men specially paraded before her Majesty—Wreck of the Clarendon—Last detachment from the East—Statistics since the fall of Sebastopol—Surveys near Erzeroum—Parties detached for employment in the ratification of the Moldavian and Danubian boundaries—Company added to the Cape of Good Hope command—Corporal Mack present at the coronation of the Emperor of Russia at Moscow—A company to Portsmouth—Another to Aldershot—Removal of the museum from Marlborough House to Kensington Gore—A company moved to Devonport—Augmentation—A party embarks for Ceylon—Another for Mitylene—Corporal Pennington wins the “Champion’s Belt” at the foot races on Chatham Lines—Corps incorporated with the royal engineers—Grade of private changed to that of sapper—History of the royal sappers and miners closed 476

1856.

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

Establishment of the corps—Organization of companies—Distribution—Establishment at Chatham—The Ordnance Survey—Its divisional districts—and military character—Qualifications of the observers—List of the non-commissioned officers employed as such—Greatest distances observed by them—Importance of the services of the non-commissioned officers, as proved by the reduction of the officers—Situations of trust filled by them—Strength of the companies—Average distribution in the United Kingdom—Division of labour—Great triangulation—Private James Weir—Secondary and minor triangulations—Other general survey duties—Perambulation of boundaries—Sergeant Robert Meade—Pay and allowances—Skilful and distinguished talents and usefulness of eleven non-commissioned officers; and of quartermaster William Young—Merits and services of the survey companies 494

APPENDIX 529

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL. II. XVI. Uniform 1854 } XVII. Working-dress 1854 } To face Title.

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HISTORY

OF THE

ROYAL SAPPERS AND MINERS.

---------------------

1848.

Sergeant-major Jenkin Jones was commissioned to be quartermaster to the corps on the 11th January, 1848, vice Hilton retired. These pages amply testify to the merits of Mr. Jones. A more indefatigable non-commissioned officer never served his country, nor one more worthy of the honours conferred upon him. Colour-sergeant Michael Bradford, a good soldier and foreman, succeeded him as sergeant-major at Woolwich.

With a view to establish a system for the sanitary improvement of the drainage of London, a survey of the metropolis, under the auspices of the Commissioners of Sewers, was commenced in January, 1848, and continued with a fluctuating detachment—once as many as forty-three strong, and as few as two men only—until January, 1850. Captain Yolland, R.E., had the direction of the work, and colour-sergeant Joseph Smith[1] was first appointed to the executive charge, but he being soon afterwards discharged, it then fell upon sergeant Andrew Bay,[2] sergeant Doherty, and others. With this survey was connected the determination of the relative levels of all parts of London.

The great triangulation was the first point attended to. “That wonderful specimen of skill, the scaffolding on and around the cross of St. Paul’s, put up in the spring, was the main station for observations. The summits of Primrose and other hills, the towers,” steeples, “and roofs of churches, the parapets or terraces of public buildings or houses,” were made “available as the sites for signal-staffs, visible from each other and from St. Paul’s.”[3] By these observations, “the relative angular positions” of the several points were obtained, from which, as the bases of the work, a detailed survey was made, embracing not only the principal streets and squares, but the minutiæ of alleys and single buildings. Of every street the slope or ascent was ascertained, and also the exact height of every spot above the assumed datum or base-line.[4] The benchmarks to show the permanent points of the survey and levels were cut in stone, or on the most prominent objects, by the sappers, who, though not brought up to that work, became very expert in the use of the mallet and chisel. At least twelve parties with twelve-inch instruments were scattered to the most conspicuous places in the metropolis and its vicinage, to complete the observations; and sergeant James Donelan, with the great three-feet instrument, visited some of the old stations celebrated by the labours of General Roy and other officers, to check the smaller triangles formed by the operation of the twelve-inch instruments. Some of those stations were at Hanger’s Hill near Twyford, Banstead Downs, Severndroog Castle on Shooter’s Hill, &c. The survey, including the city, extended to a distance of eight miles in every direction from St. Paul’s.[5]

London was unaccustomed to see soldiers employed in so important a work as the metropolitan survey, and much excitement was caused by their unobtrusive and peaceful operations. The jealousy of a class of surveyors was at once called into angry activity, and under the name of the “Associated Civil Surveyors,” they formed themselves into a body, and opposed by meeting, petition, and remonstrance, the continuance of the sappers on the duty.[6] The Metropolitan Commissioners did the Association the honour calmly to investigate their grievance; but from the lucid and truthful statements of Mr. Edwin Chadwick and others, the continuance of the sappers on the duty was confirmed and justified, not only on the score of competency, but of policy, from the disciplined experience of the men, and the perfection of the Ordnance system of responsibility and resource.[7]

The particular objects which elicited from the public the most attention were the observatories on the summit of the north-west tower of Westminster Abbey, and above the cross of St. Paul’s. The latter, from the dexterity with which the construction of the cradle at that dizzy height was pursued, supported only by the architectural ornaments of the structure, excited much curiosity and wonder. The scaffolding was of rough poles; the stage, ten feet square, formed of planks, which supported the observatory, rested on the golden gallery on the top of the great cone. “The four lower posts, twenty-nine feet long, stood upon short planks bedded on the stone footway; and the top supported the angles of four horizontal planks, each twenty-three feet long, bolted together at the angles. From these planks a screen of boards was erected to prevent materials, &c., from falling. The base of the four upper posts, fifty-three feet long, rested on the angles of the above planks; and the scaffold, in addition to these posts, consisted of four sets of horizontal and four sets of transverse, braces on each of the four sides, the whole being fastened together with spikes and ropes. Fifty-six of the uprights were double poles, placed base and point, and bound together with hoop iron and wedges, and with bolts and hoop iron at the splices. The height from base to floor was eighty-two feet, and to the extreme top of the observatory, ninety-two feet.”[8] A railing, roughly but securely put up, surrounded the “crow’s-nest.” “The ascent was by the inside of the tower or lantern to the circular openings, then to the outside of the foot-ladders set at the north-east corner, parallel to the north-east principal post inside the scaffold. The whole of the materials were drawn up from the floor by a permanent windlass erected in the tower, to the golden gallery, and thence passed to the outside, horizontally, through an aperture thirty-two inches wide, and finally were drawn up and put into position by purchase erected for the purpose.”[9] The whole construction weighed about five tons, and though designed by sergeant James Steel, was erected by sergeant James Beaton, the most successful builder of these aerial fabrics, assisted by privates Richard Pemble and John Porteous,[10] and some civil labourers, under the direction of Captain Yolland.[11] The time occupied in going up the ladder was about seven minutes, but the descent required only four or five.[12] On the 2nd November the last piece of the scaffolding was removed and carted away. In the hazardous and intricate operations of building and dismantling it, not the slightest accident to human life or limb—not even the breaking of a single pane of glass—occurred.[13]

The observations were taken by sergeant James Steel with an eighteen-inch theodolite, both at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s. When not prevented by haze, the sergeant attended to his duty, frequently when the breeze shook his small location to a perilous degree, with a coolness, perseverance, and accuracy that were highly praiseworthy. Sometimes he and his assistant sapper—private John Wotherspoon[14]—ascended to the observatory at St. Paul’s as often as three times a-day, and this carried through a period of four months—between the 17th June and 16th October—with unflinching resolution and assiduity, made the sergeant and the sappers objects of much interest and of curious and anxious inquiry. The observations taken from this height comprised between 8,000 and 10,000. In many instances the same subject was gone over as many as six times, none less than three or four, and the utmost distance obtained was twenty-six miles.[15] The points thus trigonometrically fixed were 2,140, a vast number being church towers, spires, conspicuous public buildings, and manufactories.

To carry on the survey during the day in crowded streets, with an unbroken stream of vehicles in double transit, was an extremely difficult and irksome operation; but to be free as much as possible from this interruption, the sappers went to work every morning as soon as day broke, and pushed the survey while the metropolis was still at rest. The survey was completed in January, 1850, and the mapping finished at Southampton. For the merit and talent with which the work was conducted, the periodical press frequently expressed its admiration; and Sir Henry de la Beche and Mr. Edwin Chadwick—two of the Commissioners of the highest authority—praised the survey as being one of extreme success.[16] At another time the former gentleman observed at a special court of the Commissioners, that “the Ordnance undertook the work of the surface. A triangulation of no common order, but such as they might have expected from that distinguished service, was undertaken and executed; and upon that triangulation was founded a block plan of extreme efficiency and completeness; and it was also no common map, for it always had reference to that great triangulation to which he had already referred.”[17]

The arctic expedition, which halted in October, 1847, for the winter, detached in the spring of 1848 a party of sappers to Cedar Lake to repair the boats, first cutting the wood for the purpose. When this preliminary service was accomplished, six of the party were selected to drag three planks each to Cedar Lake. Each man took with him ten days’ provisions; but from the weary labour and fatigue of carrying such heavy burdens, and the snow-blindness that affected the men, the journey was not completed under sixteen days. The party consequently suffered great privation. After the boats were made thoroughly seaworthy, the sappers brought them and the stores up to Cumberland House on the first opening of the Saskatchewan.[18]

Privates James Waddell and John Sulter afterwards started from Cumberland House without a guide, considering the half-disclosed tracts of a previous party to be sufficient for their purpose. They were going to Cedar Lake. At Point Partridge, however, the snow having fallen heavily, the track was missed and they lost their way. For several days they continued to travel, and were wholly without food for more than seventy-two hours. Hunger pressed them to resort to expedients to mitigate their cravings. In this extremity Waddell, who had a spare pair of mocassins and a morsel of buffalo grease, consigned both to the canteen. When boiled, the old boots were speedily devoured, and the soup equally divided among the famished adventurers, formed a novel but refreshing repast. Onwards the party went, winding through the woods and trending through the deep snow, when after a journey of about four miles they gained an Indian encampment, where the natives provided them with musk-rats to eat, and one of their number guided them to the lake.

It is right also to record another little adventure in which lance-corporal Robert Mackie was the actor. He strayed in the winter on Cedar Lake. Overpowered by exertion and weariness he laid down on his planks and fell asleep. When he awoke two of his toes were frozen. Nothing dismayed by this untoward affliction, he started off to seek a retreat from his difficulties. A native sent to search for him, found the wanderer “contentedly steering for the moon, which being near the horizon and gleaming red through the forest, was mistaken by him for the fire of the men’s bivouac. The snow which covered the ground at the time fortunately enabled the Indian who went in pursuit of him to trace his steps before he had gone many miles.”[19]

Reinforced by the party from Cedar Lake, the expedition started in May, 1848, from Cumberland House, with boats fully laden, leaving two sappers behind “who were unequal to the labours of the voyage.” One had received an injury in the hand by which he lost a joint of one of his fingers, and the other suffered from scurvy and pains in the bones. Both were sent to England by the first conveyance after their arrival at York Factory; and the expedition thus lost the services of second-corporal James McLaren, a man of enlarged intelligence and experience, and active zeal.

Very prosperously the expedition now moved on, crossing rivers, lakes, and streams, pulling the boats over difficult and rugged portages, and bearing heavy burdens. For three days they were delayed by ice in Beaver Lake, and then pressing on anew, tracked the course to Methy Lake, where on the 27th June, Sir John Richardson reached his men. They had encamped at the landing-place the previous day, and were advanced one stage of different lengths according to the physical capabilities of the respective individuals. “On visiting the men, Sir John found two of the sappers lame from the fatigue of crossing the numerous carrying places on Churchill River, and unfit for any labour on the long Methy portage.”[20]

The baggage, which it was indispensable to carry with the expedition, was equally distributed, which gave to each man a burden of 450lbs., exclusive of his clothing and bedding, all of which he shouldered over the portages in three or more trips according to the measure of his strength. This was an enormous load, and was borne day after day under constantly-varying circumstances of trial and fatigue. The boats with their masts, sails, anchors, &c., were also carried by the whole party at every portage.[21]

“On the 3rd July the baggage and the boats were brought to the banks of the Little Lake; and on the 6th, everything having been taken over to Clear-water River, the expedition descended from the Cockscomb, where they had been encamped for two days,” and in nine days more completed the laborious passage of the Methy portage. “The transport of the four boats was made on the men’s shoulders, and occupied two days and a half.”[22]

On the 7th two of the boats were broken in crossing the portage of the woods, but, being repaired with some dexterity by the sappers, they were ready for proceeding the following morning. Athabasca Lake was entered on the 11th July, but two of the boats taking a more easterly branch of the river in the night, delayed the arrival at Fort Chipewyan. In the misguided craft were the chief artificers of the sappers, and the accident prevented the boats being completely repaired and furnished with false keels, to contend with the difficulties inseparable from adventure. All leaks, however, were stopped, and some damaged planks replaced, which enabled the party to start again on the 12th July.[23]

Many days were now spent in effecting the clearance of numerous portages over broken and rocky prominences, and driving on through narrow and tortuous channels made picturesque by the presence of frosted cascades, dashing over ledges, or rushing past blocks of trees and drift timber—the accumulation of ages. A boat was upset in one of the portages by lowering it down a narrow channel, when several articles of marine importance were lost or damaged, among which were the indispensable oars, which, however, were soon replaced by the assiduity of the sappers. Fort Resolution was gained on the 17th July, from which, by rapid marches, laboured boat journeys, and toilsome industry, they made, on the 24th, the first range of the Rocky Mountains. Hurried stages, through intricate courses and over rocky chasms, with gales blowing and heavy rains falling, brought them on the 2nd August to Point Encounter, where they encamped for the night; and on the 3rd they reached the estuary of the Mackenzie River, where a horde of Esquimaux visited the boats. The interview on the part of the natives was characterised by a spirit of intrigue and hostility, but terminated without serious consequences; and, striking out from the shore, the boats pushed on to Copland Hutchison Inlet, Cape Bathurst, Point Deas Thomson, and Cape Young, where the expedition went ashore to repair the boats, which had been rendered unseaworthy by the ice tearing the planks into leaks. The damage was repaired by the sappers in the evening.

Near Point Cockburn, on the 22nd August, a storm overtook the party. The sky was dark and lowering, heavy showers fell, and a waterspout was seen on shore. Sir John Richardson thus alludes to it. “Ice-floes lying close off Cape Hope caused us no little trouble, the passages among them being very intricate, and the perpendicular walls of the masses being too high to allow of landing or seeing over them. In the afternoon we passed Cape Bexley, running before a stiff breeze, and at 5 P.M. a storm suddenly coming on we were compelled to reduce our canvas to the goosewing of the mainsail, under which we scudded for an hour, and then entering among large masses of ice, about two miles from Point Cockburn, found shelter under some pieces that had grounded.” To encamp was impracticable, for the shore was flat, and they passed a bitter night in the open boats. “The ice-cold sea-water chilled the men as they waded to and fro;” and, as the wind was too strong to admit of the employment of any expedient to shelter or warm them, no protection could be afforded against the biting bleakness of the storm.[24]

On the 26th August the expedition was at Lambert Island. A frosty night covered the sea and ponds with young ice, and glued all the floes immoveably together so that the rise of the tide was no longer of service. “Assisted by the seamen, the sappers launched the boats and carried the cargo ashore, devoting the greater part of the day to the operation of cutting through tongues of ice, dragging the boats over the floes, moving large stones” that intersected the route, and resorting to every conceivable expedient to make progress. Two more rugged portages were also crossed; and in that day of severe toil and unremitted zeal a journey of five miles only was accomplished. Heavy snow-storms now succeeded, the cold became intense, and the surface of the pools of sea-water was converted into a consistency like paste, which demanded great physical exertion in pushing on the boats. On the 28th, three hours were spent in moving forward an inconsiderable distance—about one hundred yards—owing to the benumbing coldness paralysing the physical energies of the men.[25]

With little incentive to spirit and none to amusement, save what the incidents of arctic travel were calculated to produce, the men relaxed no effort, and avoided no danger, in their endeavour to achieve the great purpose of the enterprise. Against obstacles both by land and sea, from wind and storm, they bore an undismayed front, and, driving on day by day, they gained Basil Hall Bay, and encamped about eight miles from Cape Kendall. In dragging the boats over the floes in these parts they were greatly shattered, the planks being torn and broken, although they had been strengthened by the sappers “on the water-line with sheets of tin beat out from the pemican cases.”[26]

Here terminated the coasting voyage, some distance from the Coppermine River, on account of the ice having, from the severity of the weather, become too thick and firm to admit the continuance of the ascent, without jeopardising the safety of the expedition, in the few frail boats employed in their along-shore adventures. An overland journey in quest of Sir John Franklin and his missing crews was therefore decided upon, and arrangements for the march were at once entered into. Thirteen days’ provisions were packed up for the party, with cooking utensils, bedding, snow-shoes, fowling-pieces, a portable boat, &c. The burdens were apportioned by lot, each load weighing about 70lbs.[27] The boats, tents, stores, &c., that could not be taken on were abandoned on the coast; and on the 3rd September, after breakfast, prayers being read to propitiate guidance and protection from a gracious Providence, the march commenced. With few exceptions, the men trudged on with so indifferent a pace, that to keep up they lightened their loads by leaving their carbines behind. About seven-miles from Cape Kendall a halt was made, and the men slept at night in the cold air, under the miserable shelter of some towering blocks of basalt 200 feet high. Private Donald Fraser this day sprained his knee, and on the next he was so unfit for his task that his burden was eased by throwing away his large hatchet, and distributing, for carriage, a portion of his pemican among the other travellers. Several of the men straggled and made but slow progress. Rae’s and Richardson’s Rivers being crossed—the latter by a portable boat fastened to a hawser—the expedition reached, on the 5th September, the Coppermine River and bivouacked about three miles above a dreary spot bearing the tragic designation of the Bloody Fall.[28]

On the 6th the weather was clear, with a hard frost, but the sun, which had been a stranger for more than a fortnight, now shone brilliantly. Generally the party walked briskly, protected in some degree from frostbite by an addition to their cumbersome apparel of warm seal-skin boots; “but three of the seamen and two of the sappers and miners were so lame it was necessary to make long and frequent halts to allow them to close in;” so much so, that they “were unable to accomplish two geographical miles in the hour.” To give respite to their sufferings and time to gather strength, a camp was formed which greatly refreshed them; and next day they resumed the march in the face of a snowstorm, heightened by a piercing northerly wind.[29] Two rapid torrents, full of boulders, were forded in the course of the day’s journey, and “the discomfort of the march was greatly augmented by the men’s clothes, which had been saturated in crossing the streams, freezing on their backs.” In the vicinity of some narrow lakes by the side of a cluster of low, naked, but wide spreading spruce trees the expedition encamped, and here, as in other places, they arranged a “bivouac by placing small branches between the frozen ground and their blankets.” The following day found them resting near the Copper Mountains, crossing which, they walked onwards in snow-shoes, not without much difficulty and fatigue; and those of the travellers who lagged were assisted on their way by easing them “of everything but their blankets, spare clothing, and a few pounds of pemican.”[30]

The Kendall River was crossed on the 11th by a raft made on the spot of dry timber assisted by the sappers. It supported in its transit three at a time. A fresh disposition of the burdens was made here, and the carriage of some books and dried plants relinquished. The log raft was also broken up to recover the cordage by which the timbers were lashed together. This done the course of the party was shaped across the country for Dease’s River. They started in a fog, which became denser as they proceeded, so that at length an object three yards in advance could not be seen. The compass was necessarily used to steer by; all wended onwards in Indian file, and though the pace was brisk none fell back. The lakes which barred their way had a dreary aspect, for they were not seen until the travellers “came suddenly to the brink of the rocks which bounded them, when the contrast of the dark surface of their waters with the unbroken snow of their borders, combined with the loss of all definite outline in the fog, caused them to resemble hideous pits sinking to an unknown depth.” The intersection of their track by these lakes was very hazardous, and it was a wonder none of the straggling explorers fell into the abysses and met their fate. At night they spread their blankets on an isolated rock, and without supper, or the cheering gleams of a fire to give solace to their spirits, sought to snatch some repose. Snow fell on their exposed bodies as they lay. Many groaned bitterly with pain, and but few could sleep. Next morning, however, all were early afoot, and before the day fairly opened, they had marched three hours, and forded, up to their waists, a tributary of the Kendall, by which they “were all more or less benumbed.”[31]

In a country like the arctic region much is uncertain, and extremes may be experienced with almost incredible rapidity. Here a supperless night was succeeded by one which gave a sumptuous meal of venison, and a sound night’s rest in a snug encampment. With light loads, full stomachs, and a long halt in prospect, the spirits of the party received a barometrical rise that indicated alike their satisfaction and cheerfulness. Hill after hill they mounted; and traversed, with unusual alacrity and ardour, stretches of undulated country. Now they were wading through a swamp, now trending a rough hummocky tract of land, now scaling a difficult height, and then forcing across an expanse of deep snow. The journey was trying and harassing, and each night, the party, jaded, lame and footsore, sought repose in open bivouac; but on the morning of the 15th of September, after fording the Dease, the travellers arrived at Fort Confidence—the haven appointed to recruit their wasted energies, and to shelter them from the storms and tempests of the coming winter. The overland journey had occupied thirteen days.

Three days subsequently, Sir John Richardson, finding he could dispense with the services of eighteen persons, sent them on to the fishery location of Big Island on Great Slave Lake. Ten of the detached party were sappers, leaving only three of the corps with the chief, viz: lance-corporals James Mitchell and Robert Mackie, and private David Brodie. The two latter fitted up the meagre establishment with tables and chairs, and such other social commodities as were considered to be requisite to give the fort a character of domestication, and to afford facilities of comfort to the adventurers. The fort was about three miles from the mouth of the Dease River and near to Fishery Island.

As far as the European contingent was concerned, the expedition was brought to a close; and the search, prosecuted under very trying circumstances, amid perils, hardships, and want, failed to discover any trace of the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin and his crews. The shores of Wollaston and Victoria could not be examined as had originally been intended, as Sir John Richardson had no means of carrying out the project, his craft having, unavoidably, been abandoned in September, 1848. With the only boat, however, taken up to Fort Confidence, Mr. Rae, with a party of natives, essayed unsuccessfully to pass to Wollaston land. Had this been achieved, a defined clue, in all probability, would have been presented to the track of the missing adventurers. It was in the vicinity of this region, a few years after, that the mournful relics of the fated explorers, found by some Esquimaux, passed into the possession of Mr. Rae, and confirmed in this country the certainty of the appalling destiny of the expedition.

-----

Footnote 1:

For some twenty years he was in charge of office and field parties on the detail survey and plan drawing. He had the local superintendence and direction, under Captain Williams, R.E., of the survey of the property belonging to the duchy of Lancaster at Langeinor, in South Wales, and of the Royal domain of Windsor Castle, under Major Tucker, R.E. His qualifications, as displayed in the direction of these surveys, led to his selection for the charge of the London survey, but his connection with it on the part of the Ordnance, was early broken, by his receiving, in July, 1848, the appointment of surveyor to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, at 200_l._ a-year, which salary has since been considerably increased. On leaving the corps he received a silver medal and gratuity for his long services and exemplary conduct. Ever since his discharge he has had the superintendence of a large staff of draughtsmen and men surveying underground in the sewers. In February, 1851, seven hundred miles of sewers had been thoroughly examined, and the levels of the different parts minutely ascertained. “The result of this,” observed Sir Henry de la Beche, “is that they had documents connected with the condition of these seven hundred miles of sewerage, such as were not possessed by any metropolis in Europe. It was but justice,“ adds Sir Henry, “in referring to the work as examined, to call attention to the officer who had charge of it—Mr. Joseph Smith, who had executed his task with an ability, a zeal, and perseverance, deserving the highest eulogiums both of that court and the inhabitants of the whole metropolis.”—‘The Times,’ 1st February, 1851. Mr. Smith afterwards became conspicuous for his report condemning the construction of the Victoria Sewer, which was nullified by an entirely antagonistic report from Mr. Forster, the engineer, and gave rise to some little discussion in the House of Commons between Sir Benjamin Hall and Lord Ebrington.—‘The Times,’ July 30, 1851.

Footnote 2:

Remarkable for his great endurance of fatigue and exertion, and as being one of the best and quickest surveyors in the Ordnance. In his early career in Ireland, it is said, he once walked twenty-two miles to work, surveyed twelve miles of lines, and returned the same evening—twenty-two miles—to his quarters! This was considered at the time to be fair progress for six days; indeed, it was facetiously said of him that he carried on his work by moonlight. He was also clever as an observer with the two-feet theodolite, and the accuracy of his arcs was so rigidly faithful, that an officer visited him specially to watch his work, and test the value of his services. More than twenty-one years he took part in the national surveys, and had the local superintendence for many years of large parties dispersed over extensive districts. He also assisted with much credit in the survey of the disputed territory in North America; and, receiving for his good conduct and long services a gratuity and silver medal, was discharged from the corps in January, 1851. Soon afterwards he emigrated to Canada.

Footnote 3:

‘Companion to Almanac,’ 1849, p. 37.

Footnote 4:

Ibid., p. 38.

Footnote 5:

Ibid.

Footnote 6:

‘The Observer,’ April 9, and June 4, 1848; ‘Civil Engineer and Architectural Journal,’ and some of the London press.

Footnote 7:

The ‘Times,’ June 10, 1848. “The example of the employment of this corps,” said Mr. Chadwick, “on beneficial public works, qualifying them for civil employment, was worthy of public note, for in their case, the discharge from the military service was not, as he had in Poor Law administration too frequent occasion to observe, the creation of paupers, or mendicants, or worse. There was no class of persons who so soon got into productive civil service.”—Ibid.

Footnote 8:

‘Illustrated London News,’ June 24, 1848.

Footnote 9:

Ibid.

Footnote 10:

The privates here named have died under rather singular circumstances; Porteous suddenly, in September, 1853, when encamped on Brandon-hill; Pemble in June, 1854, at Elvanfoot, in Lanarkshire, from exhaustion and exposure to stormy weather. The latter had been sent from the camp to build a pile for trigonometrical purposes, and next evening, after a fatiguing day’s work, he was returning to the station, when he lay down to rest himself by the side of a mountain stream, and perished. Both these soldiers were the chief practical workmen in the formation of the structures for the observatories. At lofty heights, where the senses of most men would paralyze, borne up on shaking props or slender supports, they calmly carried on their dangerous operations with spirit, activity, and ingenuity.

Footnote 11:

‘Illust. Lond. News,’ June 24, 1848; ‘Historic Times,’ January 19, 1849. In both of which are spirited cuts of the scaffolding, &c.

Footnote 12:

The ‘Times,’ November 4, 1848.

Footnote 13:

Ibid. Here, however, it should be noted, that a pole about four feet long, on being let down into the boarded screen below, struck on a moulding and went down whirling. In its descent it struck the great dome, where it received a shell-like range, and dashed off, at a sharp angle, to the North Transept, where it made a hole through the lead of the roof, similar to what a ball of the same diameter would have done if let fall from the same height. In taking down the scaffolding, an eight-feet plank fell on its flat side from the lantern to the pavement in the area of the Cathedral, and the report was like the booming of a piece of ordnance from the deck of a ship of war.

Footnote 14:

Distinguished himself by his gallantry in the storming of the Redan on the 8th September, 1855.

Footnote 15:

The ‘Times,’ November 4, 1848.

Footnote 16:

‘Builder,’ 7th April, 1849, p. 165.

Footnote 17:

The ‘Times,’ February 1, 1851.

Footnote 18:

Sir John Richardson’s ‘Boat Voyage,’ i., p. 53.

Footnote 19:

Sir John Richardson, ii., p. 141.

Footnote 20:

Sir John Richardson, i., p. 110.

Footnote 21:

Ibid., i., pp. 110, 111.

Footnote 22:

Ibid., i., p. 115.

Footnote 23:

Ibid., pp. 119-131.

Footnote 24:

Sir John Richardson, i., p. 289.

Footnote 25:

Ibid., i., p. 294.

Footnote 26:

Ibid., p. 299.

Footnote 27:

Sir John Richardson, p. 308.

Footnote 28:

Ibid., i., pp. 309-318.

Footnote 29:

Sir John Richardson, i., p. 321.

Footnote 30:

Ibid., p. 326.

Footnote 31:

Sir John Richardson, i., p. 331.

1848.

The nineteenth company was formed on the 1st of April and appropriated for the duties of the survey.[32] On the 1st of September, another company, numbered the 20th, was organized, which increased the establishment from 1,800 to 2,000 of all ranks. The detachment of one sergeant, one corporal and twelve privates, formed by royal warrant in July, 1839, for service in South Australia, merged into the establishment in December, by an order dated 15th of that month, and thus reduced the corps from 2,000 to 1,985 of all ranks. This measure was effected to simplify details and to make the detachment form part of a company, without removing it from the province. Its expense still continued to be borne by the colonial government.

The company at Portsmouth, ninety-eight strong, under Captain Robertson, R.E., was sent by rapid conveyances to Dublin, and arrived there on the 2nd of April, to assist in quelling the rebellion in Ireland. Late in July, Lieutenant Akers, R.E., with one sergeant and fifteen rank and file, accompanied the troops under the command of Major-General Macdonald to Thurles, and encamped about a mile from the town, and returned to Dublin in September, without any necessity for their services arising. The meditated revolt was crushed, and Smith O’Brien with some other demagogues, convicted of traitorous designs, were expatriated. The company on being withdrawn from Ireland, removed to Woolwich, where it arrived on the 19th of February, 1849.

A rising of the Chartists being anticipated, measures were taken to thwart their designs. Troops were collected with rapidity from all quarters and appointed to various posts in London, to act if occasion required. Late in the evening of Saturday the 8th of April, a company of 100 strong with sergeant-major Bradford, under the command of Captain Tylee, R.E., was detached from Woolwich to the Tower of London. Each man took with him forty rounds of ammunition. The company slept in the Tower that night, but early next morning, two sergeants and thirty-two rank and file, under Lieutenant Sedley, R.E., were sent to the Ordnance Office, Pall Mall, to oppose any attempt at possession by the Chartists. Another party with sergeant-major Bradford under Lieutenant Wilkinson, R.E., was removed to the Bank of England. On the roof of this edifice were built platforms; and at certain places, massive timbers with loop-holes were run up as positions for defence. Several thousand sand-bags filled the upper tier of windows facing the Royal Exchange, and others as high as a man were piled upon the parapet of the roof, with apertures between them for musketry. Over the entrance of the building, a strong wooden machicouli, resting upon ponderous beams, projected into the street, which held a party of the corps ready to open a volley on the rabble, had an attempt been made to force an entrance. In the yard leading to the workshops, &c., the sappers also erected an enormous barricade of casks, handcarts, &c.

The detachment at the Tower was no less zealous. At the Byward tower, the face—overlooking the entrance to the fortress from the Thames by the bridge—was loop-holed, as also a building to command the other entrance. About thirty yards inside—from the gate of the Byward tower—a strong intrenched stockade was erected; and on the wharf near the Traitor’s tower, two barricades were constructed of crates with bricks in them, iron coal boxes, &c., which were loop-holed for musketry. Along the Traitor’s wall was an erection of sand-bags with openings for firing, and on the roof of the barracks, banquettes, to enable the troops to play on the mob in the rear near to the Mint, were formed of scaffolding and military forms. The old bricked-up embrasures facing Tower Hill were also rendered ready for the reception of guns by picking out the bricks and clearing away the debris, which for years had been accumulating there. Fortunately no outbreak occurred, and the company returned to Woolwich on the 14th of April.

There happened at the time to be a handful of the corps in London employed in the metropolitan survey, who, as the occasion was ominous and pressing, were relieved from their professional operations to assist in those of defence. So well did they discharge the duties intrusted to them in barricading the entrances to the high offices of the State, that their conduct was acknowledged in a communication from Lieut.-Colonel Alderson of the engineers in these terms. “I have been requested by Mr. Trevelyan, on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other authorities of the government, to express their satisfaction at the good conduct of the detachment of royal sappers and miners, under the command of colour-sergeant Smith, during their employment under me at the Treasury and government-offices on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday last; also in the efficient professional aid they afforded, in putting the Treasury-buildings and Downing-street in a state of defence.”

In May, Captain Webb, R.E., with one sergeant and one private, both surveyors, proceeded to Zetland by an order from the Commissioners of the Treasury, and laid out and surveyed nearly ninety miles of road, upon which the poor of the islands were employed to afford them relief. In September, the party returned to Woolwich, where Captain Webb and the sergeant completed the plans of the work for the Home Office. The conduct and zeal of sergeant R. Forsyth were specially brought to the notice of the Treasury, and in a letter from Sir Charles Trevelyan to Captain Webb, dated 26th of December, 1848, it is stated, “that my lords have received with satisfaction your report of the zeal and intelligence displayed by sergeant Forsyth in assisting in this service; and that if his exertions shall continue to be equally useful, they will be prepared to grant him some moderate additional remuneration when these operations have been brought to a close.”[33]

A new station was opened for the corps this year, by detaching to the Mauritius a company of 100 strong, under the command of Captain J. Fenwick, R.E., which embarked at Gravesend on the 2nd of May, and landed from the ‘Edmundsbury’ on the 19th of August. A half company had previously been employed there, but on the completion of the citadel in 1840, it was removed to the Cape of Good Hope.

Captain John Walpole, R.E., was commissioned as brigade-major to the corps on the 1st of June, 1848, vice Major Sandham removed to the ordnance office as second inspector-general. With the sappers, Major Sandham had served for many years, and the great interest he took in their concerns is well known. Strict impartiality and a penetrating discrimination marked his whole conduct; and his attention to the discipline and drill, raised the character of the corps for military appearance and efficiency. The ready testimony of Lord Bloomfield, the commandant of Woolwich garrison, was frequently awarded to Major Sandham for his success in these particulars, and never was the corps present at a garrison parade, but his lordship called the attention of his staff to its correct marching and manœuvring. A sterling friend to the sappers, Major Sandham, with hearty goodwill, provided many non-commissioned officers and men with comfortable and lucrative situations in civil life, although in doing so, he laid himself under many and deep obligations to those from whom he obtained the patronage.[34]

At the Cape of Good Hope, the companies were still dispersed to about fifteen stations on the eastern frontier and at Pieter Maritzburg. In February, corporal George Pringle, having under him twelve men of the 45th regiment, threw a raft of casks for the passage of his Excellency Sir Harry Smith and his guard, over the rivers Umgani, Mooi, Bushman’s, and the two Tugelas. Sir Harry was taking a peaceful tour of the colony from the frontier to Natal, during which he inquired into the disaffection of the Boers, and settled matters with Pretorius relative to the sovereignty of some territory north of the Orange river, and eastward as far as the Draakenberg mountains.[35] Corporal George Pringle and party, under Lieutenant Gibb, R.E., went from Pieter Maritzburg to the foot of the Draakenberg range, about 120 miles, to meet him. His Excellency noticed corporal Pringle for the activity and intelligence he displayed on this service. When crossing the Mooi, in consequence of the strain on the hawser which had been previously fastened to the opposite bank, the raft capsized, and threw the pontoon party and fifteen men of the Cape mounted rifles into the stream. Corporal Pringle and a man of the 45th regiment, alone clung to the raft; and as it swept along with the rapid current, whirling round and round with the eddy, the corporal dexterously seized the end of a breast-line, jumped into the stream, and swimming to the shore, moored the raft to a clump of bush, by which it swung in safety. All the saddles and carbines, the waggon, and Sir Harry Smith’s horse, which were on the pontoon at the time, were thrown into the river. The horse, by means of a lasso, was soon rescued; and the waggon, about five feet under water, was recovered by the coolness of the corporal, who swam to the spot, and lashing it to the boom, hauled it, with the assistance of his party, to the bank. All the soldiers were saved. The corporal now adopted another method to take his Excellency and the guard across, and the passage of the Mooi, more than fifty yards wide, was eventually effected without accident to the troops or injury to the baggage.

Six privates, under sergeant Alexander M. M‘Leod, left King William’s Town on the 2nd August with a division commanded by Sir Harry Smith, to chastise the rebel Boers at Boem Plaatz. On nearing the Konap, the party was sent in advance to discover the ford. All night was spent in the tedious search, but by daylight next morning it was effectually traced and the march across the Konap commenced. The train, however, was soon stopped in its progress, as the leading waggon, unskilfully conducted by the vorlooper in charge of it, got off a ledge of rock upon which it was proceeding safely, and sinking into the water, the gunpowder it contained was destroyed. At the same time the vorlooper, young and weak, unable to stand against the current, was swept off his legs. In this emergency Colonel Buller directed the sergeant to assist the train in crossing. Standing in the centre of the stream, he controlled the refractory oxen and drove them to the opposite shore. There, however, fresh difficulties arose, for, as the soil was greasy and the bank steep, the oxen could not draw the waggons out of the river. Instantly the party of sappers reduced the bank, and throwing the excavated earth on the slippery beach, the waggons were at length dragged to the shore.

Arriving at the Great Fish River, the troops, guns, and baggage were ferried across on the India-rubber raft taken with the sappers, while the empty waggons were drawn over by means of a hawser. On the 20th the Orange River was reached; next day four other sappers were added to the party, and on the 22nd, at day-light, the India-rubber float was launched for the passage of the division. The river was 250 yards wide and a very rapid tide was running, when, having stretched a sheer line across the stream fastened on either shore to a tree, the operation was successfully carried out. Forty men were ferried across at a time, the expedient of the guiding hawser considerably lessening the labours of the party. Three guns and several waggons were also taken over. The latter were simply rolled on the raft without disturbing their loads, and were deprived of any dangerous motion by blocking their wheels. Not a single accident occurred; and in compliment to the unfailing zeal and efficiency of the men, Sir Harry Smith took occasion, on a general parade at Graham’s Town in October, 1848, to acknowledge that to the royal sappers and miners he was “greatly indebted for the means with which he had been enabled to make the passage of the Orange River, many of the men swimming in the river like dolphins in getting across the baggage and material.”[36]

Marching for Boem Plaatz the detachment was present in an engagement with the Boers, remaining for a time in the rear in charge of ten ammunition tumbrils, and four engineer waggons, containing engineer tools and stores; but ordered to the front by the Governor’s aide-de-camp, Captain Holdich, they pressed forward with four ammunition waggons, and did good service, during the remainder of the action, by serving out the cartridges to the troops.

It was not long before the Boers were beaten, and the column advanced, followed by the sappers and the train of waggons. The grass was on fire on either side of the road. Just at this time the fore-skean or linch-pin of the leading waggon broke, the near fore-wheel came off, and the tumbril upset. Another minute and the burning grass would have blown it up; but there were resolute spirits in the party, who, undaunted by the danger, rushed to the spot, raised the dismembered waggon from the fire, and replacing the wheel, fastened it by the drag-chain through the spokes to the tessel-boom. The expedient answered its purpose for twelve miles, when, by Sir Harry Smith’s orders, the ammunition was removed to a commissariat waggon.

On the 30th August, at Bloem Fontein, the Sovereignty was proclaimed to be British territory. A few days after, marching for Wynberg, the sappers cut a road up the steep and rugged banks of the river they crossed on the route, and repaired a drift for the waggons at Wynberg. There a review was held by Sir Harry Smith. Moshes, the paramount chief of the Sovereignty, and his sons were present, attended by a cortege of 800 armed horsemen clothed in European garb, and 1,500 foot warriors in their war costume and accoutrements. When the display terminated, the Kaffirs formed a circle round Sir Harry Smith and the chief Moshes, and performed a frantic war-dance to serve as an additional proof of the re-establishment of peace. The sappers with the other troops witnessed this barbaric demonstration, and afterwards returned to Bloem Fontein.

The companies at Gibraltar, brought to a strength of 197 men by the arrival of a reinforcement of 53 rank and file, were inspected by the Governor, Sir Robert Wilson, in May, and his report complimented them on their efficiency, zeal, and capacity. “Under arms,” Sir Robert added, “their appearance is soldier-like, and their exercises were creditably performed.” His Excellency, however, had to regret “that the vice of drunkenness should exist in a corps otherwise so respectable.”

In October, Major-General Stavely inspected the half company at Hong Kong, but while he commended the men for their “fine looks” and “being well dressed,” he censured the irregularity which had recently marked their conduct. Intoxication, the greatest bane of the colony, was the chief predisposing cause of disease; and the sappers, who from the nature of their service were continually employed and often much exposed to the sun, carried the propensity to an extent which produced much sickness, and justly called for the Major-General’s animadversion.

Very different, however, was the conduct of the seventh company at Corfu, which, having completed its tour of foreign duty, was relieved early in the year and returned to Woolwich. The Lieutenant-General spoke of their constant good conduct and exertions during the period they had been under his command, and commended them for the excellency of their services. In parting with the company he expressed his good wishes for their welfare, and a vast concourse of the inhabitants cheered them through the streets to the point of embarkation. Since 1824, the companies successively sent to Corfu were chiefly employed in the works of the citadel, and the defences of Vido. Fort Neuf and the church in the citadel, as well as Fort George, Lunette Wellington, and the Maitland Tower at Vido, attest the skilful workmanship of the sappers. Individuals or small parties were at different times detached on particular duty to Santa Maura, Zante, Paxo, and Cephalonia. Of this special duty some idea may be formed, from the nature of the employment of a corporal, who being sent to Santa Maura in December, 1845, by order of the Lord High Commissioner, superintended the workmen engaged in opening a new channel into the port, to render the inner passage once more practicable for ships sailing either up or down the coast.

The detachment at the Falkland Islands was removed from that settlement on the recall of Governor Captain Moody, and landed at Woolwich the 29th November, 1848. For more than six years the party had discharged all the duties of soldiers and artificers, assisted by about forty civilians chiefly labourers; and in that short period a considerable improvement had been made in the colony. Several buildings had been erected, including the Government-house and offices; also a school-house and barracks, and cottages for emigrants and workmen, with houses for boats and stores. Jetties were also constructed, sea-walls made, roads traced and formed, bridges thrown, weirs made for fishing, and kraals for cattle, with numerous ditches, drains, sod walls, and sod huts. To these must be added the performance of an endless variety of services, which the wants and contingencies of a new and inhospitable colony rendered indispensable. Four of the detachment were discharged in the settlement, and the remaining four, soon after reaching England, left the corps by purchase or on pension.[37]

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Footnote 32:

This year was enlisted a calculating youth named Alexander Gwin, a native of Londonderry, who had a brother and an uncle in the corps. When only eight years of age, he had “committed to memory the logarithms of all the natural numbers from one to a thousand.” Two years later, his fame having spread, his precocity was tested at Limerick “in the presence of Colonel Colby, Lord Adare, and several other gentlemen of distinction,” to whom he repeated the whole series, without a mistake, taking up two hours and a half to deliver himself of that gigantic mental effort! “His rapidity and correctness in calculating trigonometrical distances, triangles, &c.” were equally remarkable. “In less than one minute, he could make a return in acres, roods, perches, &c., of any quantity of land, by giving him the surveyor’s chained distances; while,” it is added, “the greatest mathematician with all his knowledge would certainly take nearly an hour to do the same, and not be sure of truth in the end.”—‘Year-Book of Facts,’ 1842. ‘Boys’ Own Book,’ p. 381, published by Bogue. This calculating boy, making allowance for the hyperbole of his admirers, was without doubt a youthful prodigy. He is now a corporal on the survey, useful and energetic in his duties; but as the opportunities for improving his faculty for figures have been considerably lessened by the nature of his employments, he has not become what his infantine capabilities promised—another Bidder.

Footnote 33:

He never received any additional remuneration at the close of the work, but his high rate of working-pay may have been considered a sufficient equivalent for his services.

Footnote 34:

Sergeant James Anderson was one of those who was thus favoured. On obtaining his discharge, with a pension of 1_s._ 10_d._ a day, in August, 1845, he received an appointment in Worsley-yard, belonging to the estate of Lord Ellesmere, as superintendent and storekeeper of the yard, at a salary of 120_l._ a-year, with a residence. Since then, such has been his scrupulous character for honesty and careful supervision, that a very handsome addition has been made to his income, and the utmost confidence is reposed in him.

Another was colour-sergeant John Ross, a very ingenious mechanic, who after his discharge, in April, 1848, was appointed engineer at Runcorn, to attend to a small steam fleet in the canal, under the Bridgewater Trust. He invented the drawbridge at the entrance of Fort Albert, Bermuda, the largest of its class in any military fortification, and which can be easily worked by two men, either in throwing it across the ditch, or pulling it in. Many years of his life had been spent in perfecting a new system of locomotion for ships. His great idea was the construction of a vessel which should ride above the control of the waves, resting upon an arrangement of large cylinders, to serve, like the piers of a bridge, as the natural supports of the ship, and within which should be placed his revolving paddle-wheels, to be moved by steam appliances. By a very ingenious contrivance he provided that the sea, which should come in contact with the paddles, should not only be deprived of its resistance, but made to assist in the propulsion of the vessel. The speed he calculated to obtain by his system was almost incredible. Personal trials of an imperfect model, in the waters at Bermuda, convinced him of the practicability of his bold scheme. After quitting Runcorn, ambitious of higher employment, he emigrated to Canada, where he is pursuing the study and development of his novel notions of shipbuilding and locomotion. He received a gratuity and medal for his services in the corps, and might have been promoted to the rank of sergeant-major, but, restless and speculative, he preferred to try what his mechanical genius would yield him in civil life.

Footnote 35:

‘Cape and the Kaffirs,’ by Mrs. Captain Ward. Bohn’s edit. 1851, p. 230.

Footnote 36:

‘Graham’s Town Journal,’ October 14, 1848.

Footnote 37:

Sergeant Hearnden, so frequently spoken of in these pages, purchased his discharge and emigrated with his savings, nearly a thousand pounds, to North America, where, from his enterprising spirit and commercial tact, he is realizing a fortune. Throughout his service of twelve years in the corps he was constantly employed on particular duty. In the practical instruction of the Cadets at Sandhurst and Woolwich, and in one of the early expeditions to the disputed territory in the state of Maine, he showed much talent and energy, and obtained great credit. For his services at the Falkland Islands no higher testimony could be afforded to a soldier than the repeated warm acknowledgments of Governor Moody. A word may also be given about his horse. Blanco was brought from South America; was perfectly white, and exhibited signs of good breeding. Hearnden purchased him at a rather high figure; but his subsequent usefulness and hardihood in a trying climate gave him ample reason to be satisfied with his bargain. On the 7th January, 1847, at the Falkland Island races, Blanco had the good fortune to win the Governor’s cup, worth 50l. The cup, made of silver, by Hunt and Roskill, stood about eighteen inches high, and was richly ornamented and chased. On one side the sergeant was represented mounted, with sword, sabre-tache, and gauntlets. In another panel was the inscription. The cover was very massive, and both cover and cup were lined with silver gilt.

1849.

On the 10th January fifty-five men, under Captain Tylee of the engineers, were sent by express conveyances from Chatham to Foulness Island, near the entrance of the river Burnham on the coast of Essex, to repair the sea embankment which for about 200 feet had been forced away by a heavy sea. The detachment took with it a quantity of intrenching tools, water-boots, and stores, including 300 fascines and 3,000 sand-bags, which were made and filled in about three hours. In less than twelve hours from the commencement of the work, the breach was effectually mended by an ingenious placement of fascines and sand-bags, at an expense not exceeding 6_l._ 10_s._ The party worked in two divisions. The day was extremely wet, but the men laboured with the utmost zeal, and their conduct both on sea and land was exemplary.[38]

A company was sent from Woolwich to Portsmouth in January to supply the place of the one removed from that garrison to Dublin in February, 1848. The return of a company to Portsmouth induced much opposition to its employment on the part of the civil workmen, and disparaging remarks, with respect both to its conduct and its mechanical abilities, appeared in the provincial journals of the time.

One company, the twenty-first, was raised 1st February, and another, the twenty-second, on the 1st March, thereby increasing the establishment of the corps from 1,985 to 2,185 of all ranks. The royal warrant, authorizing the formation of the last eight companies, is dated 22nd August, 1849, and on its authority the companies were organized as follows,—

Colour Ser- Ser- Cor- 2nd Pri- General geant. geants. porals. Corp. Bugl. vates. Total. Total. 17 Companies, Service, each 1 4 5 5 2 83 100 = 1,700 1 Company, Corfu 1 2 3 3 2 51 62 = 62 3 Companies, Survey, each 1 6 7 7 2 82 105 = 315 1 Company, Survey 1 4 5 5 2 83 100 = 100 ——- 2,177 Staff—1 Brigade-Major, 1 Adjutant, 1 Quartermaster, 2 Sergeant-majors, } 8 2 Quartermaster-sergeants, and 1 Bugle-major, ——- Total 2,185 ——-

When the summer fairly set in, the arctic expedition under Sir John Richardson commenced its return. The van, with corporal Mackie, started about a week before Sir John, who followed on the 7th May with Mitchell, Brodie, and three seamen. In five and a half days the journey over the ice was completed, and on the 12th they encamped at Cape Macdonald, clearing away for the purpose snow to the depth of five feet. They then moved on to Fort Franklin, where the advance division had arrived with a good supply of provisions for the voyage. Soon afterwards a detached party was commissioned to Fort Norman for a barge and stores, for which Sir John Richardson waited nearly a month, having with him Mitchell and Brodie and two fishermen, who, in the mean time, lived on trout, whitefish, herrings, and geese, and “bivouacked under the shelter of a boat’s sail as a substitute for a tent.” In time they quitted the vicinity of the fishing-hut, and moved to the banks of the Bear Lake river, where they encamped until the 9th June, when the descent of the river commenced. In the fishing coble brought from Fort Norman, Sir John Richardson with three of the party embarked, whilst Mitchell, Brodie, and a fisherman named Morrison, walked along the bank of the river, each of them carrying his own bedding and clothing. Narcisse, another fisherman, was left behind in charge of some stores. Half an hour after setting out, the party in the coble put ashore, “and in a short time Corporal Mitchell and Morrison joined them, but private Brodie, having struck into the woods with the view of making a straighter course, did not arrive in the hour that the chief waited for him;” and expecting that he had gone past, the voyage was resumed with Mitchell and Morrison added to the party in the boat.[39]

Fourteen miles from the lake a cache was reached; and as Brodie had not arrived in the course of the day, it was evident he had lost himself, and therefore corporal Mitchell and Morrison were sent “back to the lake to acquaint Narcisse with what had happened, and to engage an Indian living at the fishery to go in quest of Brodie. In the meantime the party at intervals fired their fowling-pieces, and set fire to some trees, that the smoke might be seen by the strayed wayfarer at a distance.”[40]

Next day the men came back from the lake. “After placing written directions for Brodie in the cache, the expedition re-embarked, and in a short time came to the influx of the Black River, then flooded. There another paper of instructions was left for Brodie, directing him to the cache for provisions, and to remain with Narcisse until the barge came for him.” “The incident,” writes Sir John Richardson, “of Brodie’s straying gave me much uneasiness, as I feared he would experience some suffering, though I did not apprehend he would lose his life. He was a man of much personal activity and considerable intelligence. When he discovered he was walking in a wrong direction, he began to mend his pace, and to run, as is usual in such cases, but took an inland course, and at length came to the borders of an extensive swamp. Here the woods being more open he obtained a distant view of the ‘hill at the rapid,’ which he recognized, from having seen it on his former journey to the cache; and as he knew that he must pass it in descending the river, he resolved on walking straight for it, in the hope of arriving there before us. After this he came to the Black River,” a rapid, unfordable stream, scarcely passable by a raft; but, continues Sir John Richardson, “being a fearless swimmer, he swam across it carrying his clothes on his head. The stream being very tortuous, came again in his way, when he crossed it a second and a third time in the same manner; but on the last occasion, his bundle slipping off, floated away, and he regained the bank with difficulty in a state of perfect nudity. After a moment’s reflection, he came to the conclusion that without clothes he must perish, and that he might as well be drowned in trying to recover them as to attempt proceeding naked. On which he plunged in again, and fortunately landed this time safely with his habiliments. He now refreshed himself with a part of a small piece of dried meat, which in his anxiety he had hitherto left untouched, and forthwith decided on finding the cache and returning from thence to the lake. On the third day (11th June) he found my note, together with some provisions which had been suspended to a pole for his use, but he had so husbanded his own small supply, that he had still a morsel of dried meat remaining. He had no difficulty afterwards in joining Narcisse, by keeping sight of the river the whole way;”[41] and in due course he joined the expedition at Fort Simpson, in a barge sent to receive him.

At this fort also joined the ten sappers who had wintered on the Great Slave Lake; and on the 25th June Sir John started again on his homeward journey, encountering a succession of hardships, until he arrived at Norway House on the 13th August. The services of the mission were now wholly ended, and of the sappers, Sir John Richardson thus recorded his opinion: “During the time these men were under my command, not a single act of disobedience occurred. Crews better fitted for heavy portage work and for the ordinary duties of a winter’s residence in the north, might doubtless have been selected in the country, but none that I could have depended upon with so much confidence in adverse circumstances.”[42]

The arctic travellers arrived in England in November 1849, when three or four, in recognition of their usefulness, received gratuities of 15_l._ each, and the remainder 10_l._ each.

Captain Freeling, R.E., appointed surveyor-general in South Australia, with a party of five surveyors—sappers and miners—sailed for Port Adelaide on the 6th March, and landed there the 21st June. These men were forwarded to the colony to fill the vacancies occasioned by men discharged. Captain Frome, R.E., who had commanded the detachment in that province since 1839, was recalled to the corps in consequence of his period on the seconded list having expired.[43]

Early in March one sergeant and five rank and file under the orders of Captain Webb, R.E., returned to Zetland to lay out and superintend the construction of the roads surveyed in the two previous years. Up to this time, there was nothing in the island that could be called a road, except from Lerwick to Scallaway, a distance of about six miles, which, though not finished, was passable for riders, &c. Captain Craigie, R.N., the commissioner for Zetland, accorded them high credit for their exertions in directing the work, and controlling the poor employed upon it; and in a report to the Edinburgh section of the Central Board, he thus wrote of their usefulness and merits: “I cannot close this report without bearing my humble testimony to the invaluable services of Captain Webb, R.E., sergeant Forsyth and the staff of royal sappers and miners, and recording the gratitude felt towards Government by the whole community, for their consideration in granting an officer so eminently fitted to conduct and carry out to completion, works of such public and permanent utility. But great and most important as these works unquestionably are, they fall into comparative insignificance as compared to the social regeneration now in progress, in the industrious habits of the people, and to which their efforts have mainly contributed. The patience, forbearance, the tact and temper with which Captain Webb and his staff have led the people on, step by step, to a knowledge of their physical powers; their indefatigable industry and disregard of difficulties of no ordinary kind in such a climate and country; but above all, their being looked up to as the organ and representatives of government in this remote region, have invested them with a moral influence among all classes which can scarcely be calculated.”

In April eight rank and file from Chatham were employed under the direction of Lieutenant Stotherd, R.E., in completing the survey and contouring of Dover.

A detachment of one sergeant, one corporal, and twenty-six privates, with four women and nine children, embarked at Woolwich on the 3rd April, 1849, on board the brig ‘Richard Dart,’ for New Zealand, under the command of Lieutenant Liddell, R.E. The ship sailed from Gravesend on the 5th April, and made a pleasant voyage until the 15th June, when, to the southward of the Cape of Good Hope, foggy and rainy weather set in, which continuing till the 19th, the ship was carried to the north side of Prince Edward’s Island and struck on the rocks. The waves at the time ran high, and within a few short minutes, the stern cabin-windows were stove in, the boats were filled and torn from the quarter, and while the vessel, beaten by a raging sea fell to pieces, wave after wave swept the decks and rigging and carried forty-seven of the crew and passengers into the deep. Of this number twenty-four men belonged to the detachment of sappers, who, with all their wives and children, and Lieutenant Liddell, perished.

Eleven souls only out of sixty-three were saved. Among those who escaped were the captain of the ship—Samuel Potter—and four sappers, named Thomas Inglis, Owen Devany, James Reid and William Goldsmith. They took refuge in the mainmast rigging; and the wreck, having been driven broadside to the shore, the mainmast went by the board, falling fortunately upon the rock, and the survivors crawled along the shaking spar to the shore. The rocks being exceedingly steep and difficult of access, the men had to undergo much labour and fatigue in reaching the summit of the cliff, occasionally hanging on by fragile sea-weeds and every now and then throwing themselves into crevices to prevent the receding surge drawing them into the sea. Most of the party were barefoot and thinly clad. The night was cold; the snow fell fast and thick, and beating upon their drenched and shivering frames, their sufferings may possibly be imagined but never adequately described.

The island was a mass of black rocks, torn by volcanic violence, and wore an aspect of wild and sterile desolation. Selecting a small green spot where fresh water was found, they made it a temporary residence, and built with the wood recovered from the wreck and some sods, a small hut, which sheltered them in a measure from the bitter wind and frost. A few sperm candles and some blankets, washed from the wreck, were all that could be found to reward their anxious exertions. No provisions of any kind could be picked up; but at length, when forced by hunger, they killed some young albatrosses and fed sparingly on the raw flesh. The candles in this extremity became savoury morsels and were devoured with considerable relish. As they were without fire, or the means of procuring any to assuage the bitterness of their distress, they determined, on the seventh day of their deliverance, to explore the island and see what Providence might turn up to their hopes.

Two of the men, from being frostbitten and cut in the feet, were unable to walk. The remaining nine, therefore, started, leaving a stock of raw meat with the two sick sappers, who laid themselves down on the cold ground only to feel the increase of pangs which the presence even of a spark of fire would have helped to soften. Without a cheering ray to palliate their wretchedness, with the nipping frost gnawing their reeking wounds, they gave themselves up to the destiny which seemed to await them. Hourly the toils and miseries of the adventurers increased. After travelling all day, sometimes over high hills covered with sharp vitrified cinders, sometimes on marshy ground up to their hips in bog, they stopped for the night by the side of a frowning rock. The rain poured in torrents; shelter could not be found; no expedient for kindling a flame succeeded; and in this deplorable condition they sat down on the charred ground, huddled together to preserve some little warmth among them, exposed throughout the night to the drenching storm, covered only by their blankets.

Next morning, resuming their travels, they gained a beach where four sea-elephants were lying basking in the sun, for the day opened with a cheering summer’s warmth. Two of the monsters they killed, but made no use of them. Here the travellers waited for a few days to recruit their strength. The place was called “Double Beach,” but no fissure or cavity could be found to hide them from the winds and rains; and so night after night, rolling themselves up in their blankets, they slept in the open air. After a few days, private Reid, with some others, returned to the first location to visit the invalids. Private Goldsmith—a mere lad, slim and weakly by nature—was much worse; his frame was frightfully emaciated, his agony intense, and his toes were sloughing with gangrene; but private Devany—constitutionally stout and strong—was improving though unable to walk. Three days they remained with their sick comrades to encourage and cheer them with a narrative of their proceedings and a recital of their hopes; and on the 1st July they again repaired to Double Beach, leaving with the sick men the raw flesh of six birds, equal to a week’s provisions. Devany was most assiduous in his attentions to the dying man, and to save his poor mouth from the exertion of mastication, tore up the uncooked flesh into small pieces, and fed him. But the time came when he was no longer able to receive the morsels—the last struggle was upon him—and he closed his eyes for ever.

A snow-storm now set in, which lasted all night and throughout the day of the 2nd. Raw flesh was their only repast, and of this, from the want of powder and gun, they could not obtain a sufficiency to sustain their strength. Weak and attenuated, and completely benumbed by exposure to frost and snow, but little could be done in the way of exploration. Nevertheless they lagged on in their desperate mission, like men contending against some crushing adversity, determined to win. Crusoes they could not hope to be in such a clime and such a barren sea-holm; but whatever was practicable to their ingenuity and strength, they adapted to their use to support life till deliverance gave them succour.

The night of the 2nd July was still more severe in its effects upon the spirits and constitutions of the party, and the rain poured on them incessantly. Miserable nights were these to spend their vigils. Up, however, they rose with the returning dawn—stiff and aching in every limb; then wringing the wet from their stanched blankets, and feasting upon the raw breast of an albatross, journeyed on to seek a retreat from the recurring storms. On the 3rd, private Inglis discovered a cave close to the shore, whither the party joyfully repaired; and as the day was fine, they dried their dripping clothes and blankets. Meanwhile, watching from their lairs upon the passing birds, they brought down eighteen from the wing to replenish their impoverished game store. Stones they threw as if fired from rifles and used sticks with an address not inferior to Kaffirs. Necessity indeed was indulgent to give certainty to the primitive means they employed to secure their prey. Next day, from the return of a severe frost, all power of feeling and motion left their feet and fingers, and confined them to the dreary cave for a full week.

Until the 26th July, the cave afforded them a partial retreat from the severe inclemencies of the weather. On that day, private Inglis, the most successful of the adventurers, discovered a small hut about three miles away, in which a number of men’s names were carved. Under the last name was cut the words, “On a journey round the island, 27th May, 1849.” This unlooked for intimation gave rise to strange emotions and speculations, and the last cloud of despair vanished before the sudden hope which sprung up in his breast. How intensely did he gaze upon the portentous words! and how often did he read them to assure himself that the passage was not the insane impression of a diseased mind! Satisfied that the inscription was not a mental caprice, he started off to announce to his fellow-sufferers the purport of his discovery. All received the intelligence with wondering doubt. “Where! where!” burst from every lip, and hastening forward, they followed Inglis to the hut. There indeed was the “handwriting on the wall;” and seeing in that ominous sentence, the legacy of their lives bequeathed to them by Providence, each voice was swelled in thankful ascriptions to that gracious Power, which, hitherto, had so marvellously preserved them.

It was now resolved that the captain, one seaman, and privates Reid and Inglis, should take a circuit of the sea-girt isle, until they regained the cave, to see whether any one was near to help them. Having started, they reached the hut early in the morning; but as, at the time, it was blowing a heavy gale and snowing hard, they waited a day or two for the weather to moderate. During this interval they consulted together as to their future movements; and private Reid having volunteered to remain alone at the hut, the others commenced, on the 30th July, to make the special tour. Next day two of the party returned to the hut, so that on the 31st July the adventurers were thus dispersed—three on the search, three at the hut, two at the cave, and one of the two sailors in charge of the two sappers at the sick dêpot. The explorers made a long march the first day, examining every nook and every cliff for fresh evidences of habitation. The rain pelted on them; the snow sat in flakes on their gaunt frames; and wearied and foot-sore they dropped at night on the spot where the last speck of twilight left them in darkness. Next morning they were early afoot, and onward they travelled in pursuit of what, so far, seemed an ignis fatuus. Resolved to win their spurs, they would not suffer despondency or gloom to cheat them of their expectations; and another morning had scarcely opened upon them when the reward of their endurance and exertion was within their grasp. It was on the 1st August, when, after rambling about the island for no less than six weeks, shaken and enfeebled by hunger, pain, toil, and frost, they fell in with a party of twelve seafaring men in the service of Mr. Geary of Cape Town. The meeting was one in which mutual amazement and happiness were keenly felt; and for the following thirty-two days, no vessel having touched at the island, the Cape seamen generously shared with the adventurers their scanty stock of farina. Poor Goldsmith was still alive. The strangers carried him more than thirty miles to the cave on the south beach of the island in which they resided. One by one his toes dropped from his feet, and he perished on the 24th August. With every feeling of affection and sorrow for his unhappy fate, his comrades interred his remains on the spot where he ceased the mortal struggle.

The schooner ‘Courier,’ of Cape Town, at length brought up at the island with a supply of provisions; and the survivors of the wreck, after seventy-two days’ sojourn in that bleak and desolate region, having embarked on board of her, landed at Table Bay on the 10th November, where they were gratefully welcomed and entertained by a party of the corps.[44]

A party of sixteen non-commissioned officers and men, afterwards increased to nineteen of all ranks, under sergeant James Steel, was detached on the 1st May with sufficient camp-houses, equipage, and stores, to carry out the remeasurement of the base line on Salisbury Plain, by means of the compensation bars invented by General Colby.[45] No man or officer on the survey had ever seen the apparatus in position before; and sergeant Steel, therefore, has the credit of acquiring a full knowledge of the adaptation and uses of the various instruments belonging to the apparatus, unassisted by the teaching of any practician. This he achieved by more than three months’ unwearied study of some manuscript records on the subject, and by closely observing the results of a series of experiments which he conducted.

During the first fortnight, the line, six miles and three-quarters in length as the crow flies, was three times measured with the chain, marked off, cleared of wood, furze, and other obstacles, and again roughly surveyed. The little wooden encampment of the detachment was by this time in excellent order; and, after three days’ tedious work in testing the apparatus by comparison with the standard bar, the first compensation bar in the remeasurement was laid at Beacon-hill. Owing to the steepness of the ground, and other causes, progress over the hill was both slow and wearisome; but having once mastered the descent, the operation throughout its length presented less difficulties than were at first encountered. From time to time the sergeant communicated to the ordnance map office at Southampton the obstacles, both physical and instrumental, he met with in his progress, and the contrivances he resorted to, to overcome them. The journal so sent was full of practical instruction, of a kind to be easily acquired on future reference, and was replete with interesting information.

The distribution of the party gave ample employment to every man, and the division of labour was adapted to the attainments of the men and the necessities of the duty. Corporal William Jenkins assisted the sergeant at the bars and microscopes. The latter compared the microscopes with the standard on Sundays; and frequently, after a severe day’s work, the same process was necessarily gone through, and other adjustments of the instruments effected. Corporal Edward Harkin constantly attended to the aligning instrument, whilst one man assisted him in preparing the stations, &c.; two privates levelled the triangles for the feet of the supporting stools for the bars; two attended to the adjustment of the stools on the triangles, levelled the camels on them, and moved forward the microscopes, &c.; two carried forward the bars and point-carriers, and levelled the former and fixed the latter; one registered the bars and microscopes, and otherwise aided in moving them forward and adjusting them; one, a carpenter, made the pickets, and repaired the mallets, tents, &c.; four attended to the shifting and placement of the tents; one was sentry over the bars at the dinner hour and during the night, to prevent any disturbance in the apparatus; and two attended to the domestic and miscellaneous duties of the huts.

The camp occupied three different positions on the line. It was thus moved twice forward. On each occasion, for a few days, no progress was made in the remeasurement, and sergeant Steel with two privates, filled up the interval in comparing the bars and microscopes with the standards. In the meantime, the remainder of the detachment fitted up the portable huts in the position selected for them.

Great nicety and precision were required in the placement of the bars; and so rigidly did the sergeant enforce the strictest exactness in their alignment and contiguity, that he would not order the “move forward” until he satisfied himself that the possibility of an error in the operation was not likely to exceed the 10,000th part of an inch. In this way the work was continued till the 16th October, 1848, when the 3,484th bar shot over the old Sarum terminus of the line. This was followed by a spontaneous cheer, hearty and sustained, from the assembled party who thus commemorated the successful accomplishment of the operation. By previous computations from the Lough Foyle base, the perfect accuracy of the remeasurement was proved; for, not only did the predetermined bar reach the gun, but the very inch of it entered the muzzle.

To ascertain by the usual computations whether any error by the omission in the registry of a bar or microscope could be detected, the line was divided into three parts, and each part was used as a base for a minor triangulation. Very great care was taken in executing this triangulation, but it failed to discover any inaccuracy in the measurement. Sergeant James Donelan and corporal William Jenkins, with the two 3-feet instruments, carried out this special service.

The results of the two measurements stand on record as under:—

By General Mudge with Ramsden’s steel-chains in 1794 36575·64 feet. By sergeant Steel, with Colby’s compensation-bars, in 1849 36577·95 ” Computed from Lough Foyle base 36577·34 ”

The precision of the two operations by such different instruments is strikingly close and beautiful, and not only illustrates the excellence of the instruments, but the perfection of the work.

On the completion of the service, corporal Jenkins was intrusted with one of the great theodolites, and removed with a camp party from the base detachment to a mountain station. The remainder were soon dispersed on the general duties of the survey, and sergeant Steel, after again comparing the bars and microscopes with the standard measures, returned with the compensation apparatus, &c., to Southampton.[46]

On the 7th June, one sergeant and twenty-five rank and file were removed from Woolwich to Shoeburyness to erect temporary barracks, &c., for the royal artillery, and also to lay platforms, build batteries, and to execute the varied works which a new station might call for, both for the convenience of the ordnance troops and the interests of the service. The party was increased to thirty of all ranks in July, but in October following was reduced to six non-commissioned officers and privates. Ever since this period, a small detachment has been retained at the station to carry on the current repairs and improvements, and its strength has fluctuated from time to time, in accordance with the prevailing emergencies.

The convicts had been working for a time in repairing the main-sewer in the royal arsenal at Woolwich, but in consequence of the unhealthiness of the duty, were withdrawn from it. As the work was one of considerable importance to the locality in a sanitary point of view, volunteers to finish the drain were therefore demanded from the royal sappers and miners. One sergeant and eight privates at once undertook the work, continuing at it during a portion of the month of August, and its execution was effected without the slightest injury to any one engaged. This led the Marquis of Anglesey, then Master-General, on the 5th September to extol the labours of the party in these words: “I desire to mark my high approbation and admiration of the gallant conduct of the corps of royal sappers and miners, in volunteering an unpleasant and even dangerous service in the cause of humanity. Such self-devotion, wholly devoid as it is of the stimulus of public honour and of glory, far exceeds the renown gained in the battle-field. I offer my thanks to all the individuals concerned.”[47]

On the 6th October an experiment was made at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, to blow in the barrier-gate of the bastion-fort, which cost the lives of the sergeant and one of the privates employed. Sergeant John Cameron under Major Adams, had the conduct of the arrangements and the preparation of the fuse. Nine pounds of powder were placed in a sand-bag having a canvas tube joining into the middle of the powder. In this canvas tube was fixed a grenade fuse with a piece of cotton in it, calculated to burn a sufficient time after the cotton should burst into flame. The bag of powder placed against the barrier, was covered over with a curved iron shield with a hole in it to permit the fuse to come through, and then four sand-bags were lodged against the shield. The arrangements being completed, all the sappers retired except the sergeant and a private to ignite the fuse. Suddenly the explosion took place, and at once the sergeant was blown into the wet ditch, and the private knocked down on the berm. Both were mutilated in a frightful manner and in a few days expired. The accident is supposed to have arisen from some defect in the fuse which was made by the sergeant. Sergeant Cameron was a zealous and talented non-commissioned officer, had several seasons been employed with great advantage at the college, and presented the institution with some interesting military models. His widow was granted a pension of 10_l._ a-year.

-----

Footnote 38:

The ‘Times,’ 12th January, 1849. ‘Corps Papers,’ i., pp. 415, 416.

Footnote 39:

Sir John Richardson, ii., p. 138.

Footnote 40:

Ibid.

Footnote 41:

Sir John Richardson, ii., pp. 138-141.

Footnote 42:

Ibid. ii., p. 144.

Footnote 43:

Sergeant Robert Gardiner, the senior non-commissioned officer of the party, by great assiduity and application so improved his attainments, that he was recommended for the appointment of clerk of works in the royal engineer department. His drawings of the Supreme Court of Adelaide gained him much credit, and his services were marked by skill, zeal, and usefulness up to the period of his discharge, in February, 1854. Military men, particularly in the distant south, have every means of improving their condition; and if they possess a commercial bias, may, with tact, accumulate wealth. Gardiner has not been unmindful of his interests in this respect, and he is in a fair way of making his fortune. Offered for his good services to the public the situation of foreman of works to the department at Hobart Town, he declined it, and he now fills an advantageous appointment in the survey department of the colony of South Australia.

Footnote 44:

‘Cape Town Mail,’ November 17, 1849.

Footnote 45:

General Mudge measured the line in 1794.

Footnote 46:

While on Salisbury Plain he was visited by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Pasley, frequently by Colonel Hall and Captain Yolland, and by about fifty other officers of the royal engineers; also by Professors Airy, Sheepshanks, and Cape. The last gentleman was very free in his inquiries. The mode of aligning the instrument did not, at first, satisfy him, but eventually the process having been minutely explained by the sergeant, he went away convinced and gratified. Captain Gosset was present at the laying of the first bar and Captain Hawkins at the last.

Footnote 47:

In the reign of Tarquin I., 606 B.C., a force of Roman soldiers, ordered to construct common sewers, considered the employment an indignity and destroyed themselves. The self-esteem of the Roman soldier which led to so fatal a result, had a different effect on the modern; for the pride of the latter, tempered by a consideration of duty, urged him into the midst of danger and for the sake of humanity to seek it. Reflecting too, that the service, though paramount, was too objectionable for even convicts to perform, the warm eulogy of the Marquis may not be regarded as undeserved by those on whom it was conferred.

1850.

Early in the year, Sir Robert Gardiner, the governor at Gibraltar, wrote a complimentary letter to Sir John Burgoyne, relative to the companies of the corps under his Excellency’s command. “My opinion of the sappers,” he says, “is everything that you, in your personal, natural, and official station would desire; their movements surprise me, and are proofs of the care and attention of the officers, who must be good tacticians, as well as good engineers.”

On the 15th February, five rank and file embarked at Deptford in the ‘Scindian’ convict ship, under Captain E. Y. W. Henderson, R.E., for the Swan River settlement, and landed at Freemantle on the 11th June. The captain had been appointed comptroller-general of prisons, and obtained the authority of Earl Grey, then Secretary of State for the colonies, to take with him this small detachment. The men were experienced as soldiers and tradesmen: one of their number was a competent draughtsman and architect, and another was acquainted with surveying, camp-duty, and the mode of blasting rock. On their arrival in the colony, they were appointed warders over the convicts, as well to keep them in discipline as to direct them in the execution of the various works that might be undertaken for the establishment of a penal settlement and the development of the colony. The party was also intended to superintend the submarine operations required in the removal of the bar at the mouth of the harbour. The rates of working-pay granted to them, ranged between 1_s._ 3_d._ and 2_s._ a-day. A full company has since been added to the command on the recommendation of Captain Henderson, R.E.

Late in March one sergeant and twenty-six rank and file embarked for New Zealand, under Lieut. F. R. Chesney, R.E., and landed at Auckland on the 26th August, increasing the detachment there to a half-company of forty-one strong. The removal of this party from Woolwich was occasioned by the loss by shipwreck, near the Cape of Good Hope, of the detachment which sailed for that colony in April, 1849.

Fifteen rank and file embarked on the 15th May for China, and landed at Victoria on the 18th October. This was the fifth detachment sent to that country. Two men sent from Woolwich in April, to superintend the laying of asphalte on the government works, arrived at Hong Kong on the 17th June.

At Seaford Bay, on the coast of Sussex, the sea had made considerable encroachment, so as to jeopardise much of the adjacent property, and also the defences and martello-tower in its vicinity. Large sums of money had been expended in the construction of wood groins and clay embankments, with only partial success; and as an effectual remedy, it was proposed to throw down by mining a portion of the chalk rock itself, in the direction of the tidal current, and thus cause it to accumulate the shingle and protect the land and contiguous property. The cliff was high, bold, and bare, and worn at the base into hollows and long perpendicular crevices by the lashing of the waves, which, at high water, rushed up its aged and craggy face. With the view to efficiency and economy, the Master-General approved of the operations being carried out by a detachment of sappers and miners; and accordingly two sergeants and forty-four rank and file of the fourth company left Portsmouth at the end of July under Lieutenant E. W. Ward, R.E., who, on arriving at Seaford, lost no time in commencing the interesting undertaking. Late in August, the party was increased by ten rank and file under Captain Craigie, to assist in completing the final arrangements, and to take the military duty consequent upon the anticipated explosion.

The works were conducted under the direction of Colonel G. G. Lewis, R.E., with Captain E. C. Frome as his executive officer. In the face of the cliff, about thirty-five feet above high-water mark, a nearly horizontal gallery was cut a considerable distance into the chalk. The mouth of this gallery was approached by a ladder and platform, supported by scaffolding. Inside the opening a cave was formed for spare tools and materials, and another also was excavated at the end of the gallery for a similar purpose. At right angles from this gallery, extending fifty-five feet to the right and sixty-five to the left, were corresponding galleries, at the extremities of which were two chambers of about seven feet cube, containing 12,000 lbs. of powder each. Two wires, respectively in connexion with two of Grove’s batteries, completed the arrangements for exploding these charges simultaneously. The chambers of powder were about seventy feet from the face of the cliff, and were intended to drive out its under portions and roll them towards the sea. Upon the surface of the rock, eighty-four feet from its edge, were sunk five vertical shafts, at the bottom of which other chambers were excavated, containing, in three of them, each 600 lbs. of powder, to be fired simultaneously with the two great charges. The two other chambers were not loaded, from the non-arrival of a sufficient quantity of powder. The shaft chambers were connected by wires to a Smee’s battery, placed in a wooden shed erected about 180 feet from the edge of the cliff. The wires to convey the electric fluid to each chamber were covered with tape and varnished or tarred over. The galleries were tamped with sand and chalk, in bags, to within fifty feet of the mouth, both branches being tamped up, and twenty feet down the large gallery. “The men worked in reliefs for the whole twenty-four hours. For the gallery three reliefs of four men each, were appointed; and subsequently for the branches three reliefs of six men for the two.... The relieving hours were 6 A.M., 6 P.M., and midnight, except at periods when the high spring tides prevented the relief passing a projecting part of the cliff at the proper hours, when arrangements were made to equalize the extra time the men were so employed.... The work was hardly ever interrupted in its progress, for by compelling each relief to be in barracks six hours before their turn came for work, the men were invariably fresh at the commencement of their time; and as the working pay was good and the best miners were always employed, the average amount of work performed by night equalled that accomplished by day.”

All the necessary operations being completed, the great explosion, on a signal from the galvanic battery by sergeant Edward Wright took place on the 19th September, under the immediate orders of Colonel Lewis. The effect of firing the two great chambers was to throw out the under portions of the rock, which, from the downward pressure of the superincumbent masses, rolled with a convulsive heaving towards the sea, carrying with them the three smaller chambers unexploded, and causing deep fissures in the chalk as far back as the very foundation of the battery shed. The undertaking, so far as dislocating an immense mass of chalk from the cliff was concerned, was thus perfectly successful; but subsequent experience has thrown doubts upon its utility as a breakwater, for the chalk is gradually being washed away, and if some natural intervention does not take place to conglomerate the mass into a compact resisting body, time will remove the headland altogether, and expose as before the land and its defences to the gradual invasion of the sea.

The explosion was one of the largest that had ever occurred, and passed off without accident, delay, confusion, or inconvenience to any one of the detachment engaged, or to the thousands of spectators who witnessed the operation.[48] The quantity of chalk displaced was about 200,000 cubic yards, or about 292,000 tons. The distance the debris was hurled in front of the original line of cliff was more than 300 feet. The average breadth of the mound formed was about 360 feet, and its mean height about 50 feet.

Much of the expense of the service was paid by Mr. Catt, jun., a miller, to whom the surrounding property belonged, and who, as well for his own interest as for the welfare of Newhaven and its harbour, undertook a large share in the liability. The total cost of the work was 907_l._ 12_s._ 11½_d._ Of this sum only 92_l._ 3_s._ 1_d._ was spent on sapper labour, which included their services for levelling the ground, and other preliminary duties, excavating the galleries, shafts, and chambers, digging a trench above the cliff, loading and tamping the mines, making surveys and sections of the cliff and the works, preparing and laying wires, clearing away the debris, and various other miscellaneous duties, which the extensive and peculiar character of the operations rendered essential.

Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of fortifications, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Pasley, and a number of officers of royal engineers, were present to witness the explosion. Later in the day the non-commissioned officers and privates commemorated the success of their exertions with an excellent dinner. “Night and day,” wrote Colonel Lewis, “the detachment worked with great zeal and alacrity, exposed to colds from draughts and alternations of temperature, and to injury from falling masses. Nevertheless, no material accident occurred to any one, and all gained the praise of their officers, and the respect of the inhabitants of Seaford for their courteous behaviour and good conduct.”[49]

The observations made with Airy’s zenith sector for the determination of the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations used in the ordnance survey of the British Isles, which commenced in 1842, terminated in December 1850, and the results have become the subject of an important volume from the pen of Captain Yolland, R.E. The instrument at first was in charge of officers of the corps, but in course of time, from a paucity in their number, it devolved upon corporal, afterwards sergeant, James Steel. The first man of the sappers honoured with the use of the instrument was private Benjamin Keen Spencer,[50] who was employed with the earliest parties in carrying on the observations; and it is not a little curious to add, that General Colby directed his own personal observations, the work of his most able days to be tested by sergeant Steel. This is a striking proof both of the greatness of his mind, and his freedom from those petty jealousies which sometimes mar the superiority of distinguished characters.[51]

The following table (p. 48), taken from Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume, “shows in a condensed form the stations observed from, the period during which the observations were in progress, the officer of royal engineers, or non-commissioned officer of royal sappers and miners in charge of the instrument, and the strength of the party; also the number of nights on which observations were made, and the number of observations registered at each station.”[52]

────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────── │ │ │ Officer or Number of Number │Observations in progress. │non-commissioned Nights on of Stations │——————- │——————- │ Officer Strength which Ob- Single │ │ │ in charge of of the servations Obser- │From │To │the Instrument. Sappers. were made. vations. ────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────── South Barule, │11 Oct., 1842│12 Oct., 1842│ Lieuts. Hornby 6 2 113 Isle of Man. │ │ │ and Gosset │ │ │ Blackdown, │26 Nov. ” │1 Jan., 1843 │ Ditto 7 20 1087[53] Dorset │ │ │ │ │ │ Precelly │11 Apr., 1843│10 May ” │ Lieuts. Hornby 5 17 674[53] Mountain, │ │ │ and Luyken Wales │ │ │ │ │ │ Forth Mountain, │29 May ” │17 June ”│ Lieut. Hornby 7 12 659 Wexford │ │ │ │ │ │ Hungry Hill, Co.│30 June ” │31 July ” │ Ditto 7 9 295[53] Cork │ │ │ │ │ │ Feaghmann, Co. │14 Aug. ” │26 Aug. ” │ Ditto 7 9 395[53] Kerry │ │ │ │ │ │ Tawnymore, Co. │ 2 Oct. ” │14 Oct. ” │ Ditto 2 7 294 Mayo │ │ │ │ │ │ S. End of L. │ 8 Nov. ” │15 Nov. ” │ Ditto 2 6 335 Foyle Base │ │ │ │ │ │ Monach, │16 June, 1844│3 July, 1844 │ Lieut. Gosset 5 10 180 Stornoway │ │ │ │ │ │ Ben Hutich, │ 5 Nov. ” │24 Nov. ” │ Ditto 6 10 480 Sutherlandshire│ │ │ │ │ │ Hensbarrow, │ 9 June, 1845│14 June, 1845│ Corporal Steel 4 6 290 Cornwall │ │ │ │ │ │ South Barule, │21 July ” │5 Aug. ” │ Ditto 3 2 114 Isle of Man │ │ │ │ │ │ Ben Lomond │ 2 Sept. ” │4 Oct. ” │ Ditto 4 11 635 │ │ │ Ben Heynish, │11 Nov. ” │28 Dec. ” │ Ditto 4 10 267 Isle of Tiree │ │ │ │ │ │ Week Down, Isle │26 Apr., 1846│17 May, 1846 │ Ditto 4 11 556 of Wight │ │ │ │ │ │ Dunnose, ditto │24 May ” │6 June ” │ Ditto 4 13 643 │ │ │ Boniface Down, │13 June ” │21 June ” │ Ditto 4 7 356 ditto │ │ │ │ │ │ Port Valley, │28 June ” │14 July ” │ Ditto 4 10 411 ditto │ │ │ Saxavord, Unst, │ 3 Oct. ” │26 Jan., 1847│ Ditto 4 20 566 Shetland │ │ │ │ │ │ Gerth of Scaw, │16 Feb., 1847│10 Apr. ” │ Ditto 4 21 581 ditto │ │ │ │ │ │ Balta, in │30 Apr. ” │13 July ” │ Ditto 4 20 732[54] Shetland Isles│ │ │ │ │ │ Cowhythe, │ 7 Aug. ” │27 Sept. ” │ Ditto 4 18 641 Banffshire │ │ │ │ │ │ Southampton │21 Oct. ” │4 Sept., 1848│Sergt. Steel and 2 180 8730 │ │ │Corp. W. Jenkins │ │ │ St. Agnes, │13 May, 1850 │1 June, 1850 │ Sergeant Steel 4 11 418 Scilly │ │ │ │ │ │ Goonhilly Down │25 June ” │28 July ” │ Ditto 4 9 442 Cornwall │ │ │ │ │ │ North Rona, │11 Sept. ”│16 Sept ” │ Ditto 4 5 428 Co. of Ross │ │ │ │ │ │ Great Stirling, │14 Nov. ”│6 Dec. ” │ Ditto 4 9 439 Aberdeenshire │ │ │ ────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────

“The list of stars,” says Captain Yolland, “selected for observation fell within the parallels of declination of 37° 38´ and 69° 54´. About two-thirds of this number were originally chosen, so as to admit of a continuous series of observations being made when the weather proved favourable throughout the night, and two observers were for some time employed with the instrument, who relieved each other after an interval of several hours’ work. The observations were frequently carried on continuously for upwards of eight hours, but six hours’ constant observing was reckoned a good night’s work for one person, in consequence of the fatigue caused by his having to ascend twice to the table to make each complete or double observation.”[55] In the course of the service additional stars, not originally selected for observation, were occasionally observed, some of which were not found in the works of the best authorities.[56] Two men, ready penmen, were also employed in booking, and afterwards copying, the observations on the skeleton forms, for transmission to the map office at Southampton, where the necessary computations in connection with the observations, were carried out and completed under the direction of Captain Yolland, R.E.

It would be out of place here to make any copious detail of the employment of the sappers on this special duty, belonging as it properly does to the history of the operation, and being so amply recorded in Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume; but exception may fairly be taken to a few particulars in the personal services of the sergeant, which may prove interesting to the reader, and induce other non-commissioned officers in the corps to render themselves not only useful to their officers, but to deserve, in executing any important duty for which they may be selected, their confidence and approbation.

Sergeant Steel’s first station was at Hensbarrow,[57] from which he was removed to South Barule, and after completing his observations there, he was stationed for a time on the wild and romantic hill of Ben Lomond. There he witnessed a phenomenon which, perhaps, had never before been seen by any one. He had frequently been above the clouds, and at Hensbarrow, of a low altitude compared with Ben Lomond, he had observed the stars a whole night when the clouds beneath him were saturating with their vapour the little village of Roach below; but on Ben Lomond he saw extensive masses of cloud settle down into a level wide-spread stratum, the upper surface of which was at least 500 feet beneath the camp. This was after sunset, on the 10th September, 1845, with a beautiful moon and a clear blue sky above, altogether presenting an impressive coup d’œil. Such was the depth and density of the mass, that it required the powerful influence of the sun’s rays for the two following days to dispel it. The whiteness of snow was grey, contrasted with the silver hoar of the heavy cloud when the sun rose on the 11th, and it offered, said Steel, in his forcible language, “a strong temptation to a lover of nature’s wildest grandeur, to treat himself to a celestial walk on its upper surface to the peak on the neighbouring hill.” Some tourists ascended the mountain on the 11th and 12th of September in the true spirit of enthusiastic enterprise, wishing to connect their names in history with this startling, yet truly magnificent phenomenon, but their amazement was indeed great, when, after penetrating the cloud, they saw above them an encampment of soldiers carrying on the official services of the station, with all the activity and fearlessness of men accustomed to such extraordinary appearances.

At Ben Heynish, in Tiree, one of the westerly isles of Scotland, the sergeant had to struggle in watching and taking a few observations between the almost incessant storms. Next he was employed in the remeasurement of the latitude of Dunnose, the southern extremity of a British arc of meridian, to verify its result as determined with Ramsden’s zenith sector in 1802, and also to test the value of Professor Airy’s sector. The observations for this purpose were carried on both at Week Down and Dunnose. “The near agreement in the results of the comparison proved very satisfactory as regards the work performed with both instruments; but to endeavour to trace the extent and amount of the disturbance that evidently affected the inclination of the plumbline at Dunnose,” the sergeant afterwards made observations both at Boniface Down and Port Valley, in the Isle of Wight, by which “the difference in the geodetic and astronomical amplitudes between Greenwich and Port Valley were found to be almost insensible, and the comparison with Boniface Down and Week Down tolerably good.” The discovery, however, of singular disagreements in the observations at “one of the stations in the Isle of Wight, which had hitherto been looked on as the southern extremity of the longest of the British arcs of meridian, and where no sensible deviation could à priori have been anticipated, led to the re-examination of the northern extremity of the same arc, situated in Balta Island, by revisiting it, and by observing also from two other stations in the Shetland Islands contiguous to it, viz., Gerth of Scaw and Saxavord.”[58] The disturbance alluded to—the effect of local attraction—caused the plumbline and level to be deflected or acted upon, as a loadstone would influence the needle of a mariner’s compass, and thus, when the levels indicated that the instrument was pointed at zenith, it was in fact directed to a point nearly four seconds to the north of it.

To Unst, in Shetland, the northern extremity of the arc just mentioned, sergeant Steel now repaired, and ascertained the existence of a disturbance at Saxavord, but in the contrary direction. This was fully established by taking a similar series of observations at the Gerth of Scaw, near Lambaness, and on the small uninhabited island of Balta. The relative position of these stations he fixed astronomically as to latitude, and geodetically by triangulation and levelling from the mean level of the sea, which involved observations with regard to the ebb and flow of the tides. By the series of observations so far made, it was clearly proved, that the latitude of a place could not be measured with the degree of certainty formerly supposed, and that though astronomers may profess to give seconds, tenths, and even hundredths of a second of their latitude, yet the real truth is, that the record may often be several whole seconds in error. The discovery, now confirmed by sergeant Steel’s inflexible accuracy, is likely to produce some interesting discussion in the scientific world, and has already been made the subject of an article in the ‘Philosophical Journal of Science’ for April, 1853, embraced in a review of Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume.[59]

After passing a station at Cowhythe Hill, in Banffshire, to verify the sector operations of 1813, and which object was satisfactorily attained, the sergeant fixed his observatory at Southampton, where, in carrying on the duty, he made various experiments to ascertain the cause of apparent errors. In taking the usual readings of the telescope micrometers, the value of the zenith point, derived from each double observation of a star, varied sensibly. To determine this more accurately, by ascertaining the true value of the divisions of the screw, and correcting the error involved in the reduction of the whole of the observation, he adopted the method of making two distinct observations of the same star without reversal of the revolving frame, in the manner described in the Sector Volume, page xxvii, and so excellent was this method considered, that the value of the screw thus obtained, was finally applied to all the observations.

In prosecuting the work, it was also evident, that the most northerly stars furnished the greatest, and the most southerly the least resulting latitudes. To arrive at the cause of this anomaly, sergeant Steel devoted much of his time to careful investigation, and his efforts and experiments were both ingenious and interesting. These embraced comparisons of the arc with Simms’ dividing engine, by which the non-existence of any sensible error in the divisions of the limb that would account for the observed errors was proved; but it was at the same time clearly ascertained, after a patient examination of the micrometer screws, the levels, the lenses, and the fullest consideration of the law of expansion by heat or contraction either by cold or pressure, that the immediate cause of the disparity arose from the compression of the divided limb by the downward pressure of the upper screw pivot, which, at each station, varied in proportion to the degree of pressure supplied. This was, ever after, a special point of attention with the sergeant, and as, from the construction of the instrument, no absolutely permanent and uniform pressure could be insured at all times, he regulated its extent as well by his judgment as his recollection.

It was a rule with him, notwithstanding the apparent errors that might be the result, to register his observations with the strictest exactness. Experience had taught him to expect them as well from local as from indefinable causes. He considered, moreover, that the more perfectly an instrument was constructed, the more honestly would it report the discrepancies of both maker and observer, and that although the conclusions would seem to be a volume of errors, more credit and merit were due to the observer for ascertaining, instead of concealing or covering his errors. Influenced by this novel consideration, he threw an amount of earnestness, care, and faithfulness into his work, that rendered his observations of the highest class for accuracy, and deserving of the fullest confidence.

At Southampton he was assisted in the sector service for nearly twelve months by corporal William Jenkins: the one observed from sunset till midnight, and the other from midnight till sunrise. His final observations were at St. Agnes in Scilly, Goonhilly Down near the Lizard Point, North Rona, and Great Stirling—the north-east peak of Scotland. By this series of observations, the arc of meridian, which before terminated at Forth Mountain in the county of Wexford, and Monach in Lewis, was extended to St. Agnes in the south, and to Rona in the north, a small, unknown, and stormy island, about 100 miles west of Orkney.

At Stirling, according to instructions, he examined the promontory to select for his observations a spot, which would be probably free from unequal attraction, and fix its position by triangulation. In this he was quite successful. The point was “so far to the east as to be out of the direct meridional line of attraction of the hills lying south of Cowhythe,” and by this series of observations it was ascertained, “that the deflection existing at Cowhythe, is not general in those latitudes, and that the discrepancy between its observed and calculated latitude, is not due to an error in the figure used in computing the geodetic result, but to local attraction affecting the astronomical latitude.”[60] The fact of local attraction was now fully established; but from some peculiarities of its influence in particular districts, the inference derivable from it is, notwithstanding the skilful conclusions of scientific men, that the figure of the earth is different to the commonly-received opinion of its form.

In these later services he and his party were alike exposed to dangers at sea, and to trials and privations on land; and besides encountering many perils in difficult boat service, and in landing on almost inaccessible coasts and islets, they were on several occasions nearly shipwrecked.

A small party at Rona was subjected to severe hardships. Its number consisted of corporal Michael Hayes and ten civil labourers, who embarked with sergeant Steel’s party on the 29th of August, 1850, to survey the island. On the following day, by a desperate effort, the corporal and his labourers pushed into the boat, and taking with them a little provisions scrambled amid the surf on shore; but as the weather was boisterous, and there was no harbour or anchorage in which the schooner could lie-to, she was compelled to return that evening to Stornoway with sergeant Steel and the sector party. Several days were now spent in intrepid attempts to regain the island, but such was the roughness of the sea, and such the fury of the wind, that all efforts to do so proved fruitless; thereupon, the master of the vessel considering the undertaking to be impracticable threw up his contract, and it was not until the 7th of September, when another vessel had been engaged for the service, that Rona was approached, and a landing effected. All this time, seven days and eight nights, corporal Hayes and his party were pent up in Rona upon a very scanty allowance of food, and exposed without shelter of tent or hut, or even the comfort of warm clothing, to the cold and tempestuous storms of that dreary and desolate island.

-----

Footnote 48:

The accidental destruction of the three smaller chambers was providential, for had they exploded, the battery-shed, with Captain Frome and his assistant, would inevitably have been carried away, and crushed among the falling masses: as it was “the electricity of the two Grove’s batteries, on igniting the powder in the larger chambers, caused an instantaneous disconnection of the Smee’s battery from the smaller chambers, and, at the same time, the table on which they stood was jerked violently forward between two and three feet, upsetting the Smee’s battery on the floor, and throwing out from the others also a quantity of the acids.”—‘Illust. Lond. News,’ September 28, 1850.

Footnote 49:

‘Professional Papers,’ i., N. S., 68-86. Colonel Lewis’s Paper in ‘Jones’s Journal,’ November, 1850.

Footnote 50:

Now a quartermaster-sergeant. In his early career he was employed in the chronometrical determination of the longitude of Valentia, and for many years rendered very useful services in filling in the railways on the one-inch map. His talents and energy have singled him out at different times for the execution of particular duties. He was intrusted with the local superintendence of the survey, &c., of Her Majesty’s domain at Osborne, in the Isle of Wight; and as a mark of approbation for the “attention and care” he exercised in discharging the duty, His Royal Highness Prince Albert presented him with a cheque for ten pounds. He also had subordinate charge of the survey made for the military encampment at Chobham Common.

Footnote 51:

‘Professional Papers, R. E.,’ iii., N. S., p. xxiii.

Footnote 52:

Captain Yolland, ‘Sector Volume,’ p. xiii.

Footnote 53:

Private B. K. Spencer took a few observations at these stations.

Footnote 54:

A few observations were taken at this station by Corporal Jenkins.

Footnote 55:

Captain Yolland, ‘Sector Volume,’ xiii.

Footnote 56:

Ibid., xiv.

Footnote 57:

On journeying from Roach, in Cornwall, to Exeter, he sat by the side of the Astronomer Royal, who made various inquiries concerning the survey. At length, he asked, “What instrument have you been using?” “Professor Airy’s zenith sector,” was the reply. “Indeed, I am Professor Airy!” The surprise and pleasure of the sergeant, before unconscious of the presence of the eminent astronomer, may be left to the imagination of the reader to conceive. The incident is memorable, on account of the introduction, thus singularly obtained by sergeant Steel, and of the information he received from the Professor in the efficient use of the instrument, as well as in some salient points connected with astronomy.

Footnote 58:

Captain Yolland’s ‘Sector Volume,’ pp. xi. xii.

Footnote 59:

When oppressed by the monotony of his employments sergeant Steel sometimes resorted to the study of extraneous subjects to hold his mind fresh for his public duties. In this way he learned phonography and the grave game of chess. The latter he acquired, not by the teaching of any interested instructor, but by an examination of a series of numbers of the “Illustrated London News.”

It may be allowed to expatiate a little on this matter. A gentleman, who had visited the Shetland group, being kindly entertained by Mr. Spence of Haroldswick in Unst, quitted the country favourably impressed with the homestead of that good man. Shortly after, “The Illustrated London News” was sent to Mr. Spence, and has ever since been regularly forwarded to him, either by the unknown visitor or the proprietor himself. The mystery which Still hangs over the generous transaction is not without interest in Unst. From Mr. Spence the illustrated journal was weekly supplied for the perusal of the sergeant, then encamped on the lonely island of Balta, who, after devouring its contents, turned his attention to the study of chess.

Discovering no analogy between the powers of the puppets and their forms or designations, he first applied himself to manufacture a suite of men, which should at least have the merit of corresponding in character with the authority they possessed. Eschewing those fantastic shapes in which chessmen are usually carved, and which, indeed, seem as ancient as the grotesque figures on the court cards of a genuine pack, he devised a simple scheme to remind him of their powers. Thirty-two cubes of wood, sixteen stained white and sixteen black, were marked with lines on all their faces, agreeably to the ranks of the warriors, and the liberty they possessed in moving over the board. The definitions were shown by black lines on the white cubes, and white on the black. The bishop having power to roam, under certain restrictions, in diagonal directions, a piece was assigned to his reverence with diagonal lines marked across the square. The rook having a rectangular motion was indicated by a rectangular figure, while the redoubtable knight, always moving obliquely, was reticulated with lines which pointed out the avenues of his march in quest of the enemy. The queen, combining in her will, the power of motion exercised both by the rook and knight, exhibited on her royal square the necessary lines to make plain the extent of her liberty. Just so with the king, who, in this respect had equal power with his consort; but as the queen had authority to move forward or backward as far as the chequers were open, and the king could only plant his royal foot in one check at a time, Steel, to show the curious difference between their majesties, introduced into the king’s escutcheon, a pellet between each pair of lines to mark the limit of his government and distinguish him from his royal spouse. The pawn—the common soldier of the board—permitted only to move forward perpendicularly, and to capture like his knight obliquely, was singled out from the other puppets by three lines issuing from a common centre—one directed upwards to the edge of the square and the other two diverging obliquely to the angles. By this facile application of geometrical combinations he never required to charge his memory with the relative powers and movements of the several pieces, and thus became a fair player at the game of chess.

Footnote 60:

Captain Yolland’s ‘Sector Volume,’ p. xii.

1851.

The fourth company under the command of Captain Craigie, R.E., was removed from Portsmouth on the 3rd January, and sailed from Southampton for Malta, where it landed on the 17th of that month. This was a new station for the corps, and its employment there was recommended on the ground that its services would be of great advantage in the erection of the proposed fortifications, and in providing an efficient force for the purpose of defence, in the event of the contingencies of the times rendering its co-operation desirable. Head-quarters were established at Valetta, and a large detachment was sent to St. Clement’s to build new barracks. Much opposition was shown by the working people to the employment of the company for months after its landing, and even violence in some instances was resorted to. The press of the island also entered into the controversy, and the ‘Mediterraneo’ used its agency in strong editorial articles against the company to effect if possible its removal from the island; but the ‘Malta Times’ ably defended it, and successfully exposed the statements of its contemporary. Malignant as the ‘Mediterraneo’ was, it nevertheless concluded one of its articles thus:—“The sappers and miners are, we admit, a most efficient and therefore highly useful body of men everywhere.”

Immediately on the removal of the company to Malta another from Chatham succeeded it on the works of the royal engineer department in the Portsmouth district.

The small party of five men at Freemantle, Western Australia, was this year increased to a company by the arrival of ninety-five non-commissioned officers and men under Lieutenant Wray, R.E. The additional force was sent out to superintend the convicts in the erection and repair of the various public works and buildings, and to afford military protection to the colonists in the event of any demonstration of the convicts against authority or the settlers. The first detachment of sixty-five non-commissioned officers and privates embarked at Woolwich 10th September, 1851, under Lieutenant Wray, and anchored in Gage’s Roads 17th December, 1851. The second, under Lieutenants Crossman and E. F. Du Cane, R.E., of two sergeants and twenty-eight rank and file, embarked as a convict guard 21st October, 1851, and landed 2nd February, 1852. The number of women and children that accompanied the parties were seventy-one of the former and ninety of the latter, and ten children were born on the voyage. Located for a time as a sanitary expedient on a slip of land running into the sea, called Woodman’s Point, the company was removed, as soon as the restriction was rescinded, to Freemantle, where the projected works for the formation of the convict establishment at once commenced. Many of the men were appointed instructing-warders, with working pay at 2_s._ a-day each. The company was soon after distributed in small sections through the penal district, superintending the formation of labour depôts for ticket-of-leave men, or working at their trades at the different convict buildings, bridges, &c., and also in the making of roads. One man for many months assisted in the duty of exploring and surveying a portion of the colony under the Surveyor-General; and another—private John Cameron—did good service as a diver in recovering from the wrecks of vessels on the coast, treasure and valuable property.

An additional company was added to the Portsmouth district by the arrival at Gosport from Woolwich on the 10th December, of the second company under the command of Captain J. H. Freeth, R.E. The object of this reinforcement was to enable the commanding royal engineer to construct two large earthen batteries on the sea-shore at Brown Down, some two or three miles below Gosport. As soon as the works were completed, the company, early in April, 1852, was removed to Chatham for instruction in the field duties of the corps.

Hostile irruptions had occasionally been made on the frontiers of the Cape of Good Hope by the Kaffirs from the adjacent territories, and murders of peaceable subjects perpetrated, which rendered it essential to check by force of arms their incursions and their crimes. With that intention the first movement of troops took place in December, 1850. The opposition of the enemy was determined and furious, and there was every appearance in the onslaught to induce the belief that the contest would be severe and protracted.

At the period of the outbreak the total of the sappers in the colony, scattered to fifteen posts and forts on the frontiers, was about 200 of all ranks, and notwithstanding that their services were much required in carrying on the temporary defences in the several localities, they were, in this war, called upon for a more general co-operation than in any previous struggle in the colony.

From the unexpected firing of a field-piece from the tower of Fort Beaufort on the 20th January, 1851, it was feared that the enemy by some means had entered the place unobserved. Corporal Benjamin Castledine of the corps, without any delay, reported the circumstance to Colonel Sutton, Cape mounted rifles, and received his orders to assemble the troops under arms at their several posts. The order was promptly obeyed; but scarcely had it been effected when a reinforcement of the Graaf Reinet levy rode up, and the tumult was readily explained. The firing was given as a salute to the reinforcement by some imprudent civilians who had not communicated their intentions to the authorities. The people who had thus so alarmed the fort were arrested, so that the affair might be fully sifted; but while measures were being taken with this object by Captain Pennington and a detachment of the 91st regiment to secure the persons of the offenders, a concourse of people assembled at Colonel Sutton’s quarters, where his lady was alone and unprotected, and there deported themselves with gross outrage, at the same time demanding an entrance. Corporal Castledine arrived at the moment, threw himself between the garden-gate and the excited people, and effectually prevented, by his firmness and military bearing, the ingress they so valorously sought. The party then made off, but all concerned were afterwards arrested to await the result of a full inquiry into their conduct. At this investigation, the explanations given being sufficiently satisfactory to exonerate them from the perpetration of intentional alarm or of complicity with the enemy, the Colonel at once released them from restraint. The “Graham’s Town Journal” of the 8th February, contained some animadversions on the conduct of corporal Castledine in this matter, which led Colonel Sutton, in the impression of that Journal for the 22nd February, to vindicate in every particular the corporal’s conduct, and added “Corporal Castledine is one of those well-educated, respectable, and efficient soldiers which are only at present occasionally met with.... During twenty-four years’ service as a regimental officer I have never met corporal Castledine’s superior in his position—seldom his equal.”

In the attack on Fort Beaufort in which Hermanus was killed, corporal Castledine was posted with seven sappers in charge of a tower where the ammunition was kept, and commanded a 24-pounder howitzer mounted on it. The post of honour was given to this trustworthy non-commissioned officer in anticipation of an attack from Sandilli, who showed in force on the opposite side of the town. At the commencement of the action corporal Castledine was nominated to be garrison sergeant-major, and held the appointment until ill health compelled him to resign. This occurred in February, 1852, when Major-General Somerset, in a division order, acknowledged that “corporal Castledine had performed its arduous duties with the highest credit.” Colonel Sutton, for many months, was the only officer at Fort Beaufort, and on many occasions, when the nature of the service required his presence elsewhere, corporal Castledine commanded the garrison in his absence. Often he had to send escorts of provisions and ammunition to supply General Somerset’s division, which service was always so satisfactorily performed that both the General and Colonel Sutton repeatedly commended him for his judgment, promptitude, and zeal.

Five rank and file attached to Captain Tylden, R.E., employed surveying in the territory of the chief Mapassa, being interrupted in the duty, were now necessarily occupied in adopting expedients for protection. Early in the year they assisted the inhabitants of Whittlesea in strengthening their houses against attack, and in converting the village into a strong defensible position. Afterwards they constructed a small musket-proof redoubt of dry stones, twelve feet square, with walls three feet thick and seven high, round their own camp, to protect the field guns, military stores, and equipment. The waggons were also brought into requisition, and stone walls were built up under them to render them defensible. By the evening of the second day everything was completed. Into this miserable post the Captain with his five sappers, one officer, a sergeant of police and his wife and four children, took refuge. The sappers worked so hard during the day that the Captain had to take his turn at sentry during the night.[61] Soon after these precautionary services, repeated actions took place between the garrison with the levied troops raised by Captain Tylden, and the neighbouring tribes, in every one of which, though attacked by an immensely-superior force, the little band beat off their assailants with severe loss, and gained for it the admiration and thanks of the General commanding-in-chief. The desperation and difficulties of their isolation, coupled with the paucity of their numbers, whetted their spirit of enterprise, and though their endurance and heroism might be equalled, they could never be excelled. In all the operations at Whittlesea, and in the actions with the tribes at adjacent places, as many of the few sappers as could be spared from the redoubt and the village were engaged, who participated with credit in the frequent desperate attacks, exceeding twenty in number, which it fell to the good fortune of Captain Tylden to repel, and to his strategical tact and prowess to win.

Sergeant John Poole accompanied a patrol of fifteen mounted men on the 18th February, under Ensign Gill of the Cape mounted rifles, in pursuit of Kaffirs. Near Grass Kop Tower the spoor of cattle was discovered and followed up to within sight of Double Drift, where some cattle were seen in charge of about twenty of the enemy. Taking at once to the bush, half the detachment advanced, unperceived, until within a few yards of the kraal, where the Kaffirs fought for a short time, and then fled to the river. In crossing the stream, sergeant Poole shot one of the rebel Kaffir police, and one of the two other Kaffirs who were killed on the occasion. In this gallant affair the patrol captured 106 head of cattle, 2 guns, 3 horses, &c., and received the approbation of Sir Harry Smith. Sergeant Poole was second in command of the party.

One sergeant and twenty rank and file were attached, on the 28th March, to a patrol of 900 men under Major Wilmot, R.A., and assisted in the devastation of Seyolo’s country until the 31st March. With a detachment of the 6th regiment the sappers remained in charge of the pack-horses and ammunition, and when attacked, vigorously dispersed the enemy. Private George Wilson killed two Kaffirs in this skirmish, and private Charles Jarvis was wounded, the ball striking the fore-finger and thumb, and lodging in the stock of his carbine.

Two rank and file under Lieutenant Jesse, R.E., were present in the field with Major-General Somerset’s division from the 27th March to 9th April. During this patrol the country was scoured near the old Tyumie Post, Hertzog, Eland’s Post, and the adjacent highlands. The two men were found very useful in repairing the numerous bad drifts through which the guns and waggons had to pass, and in the execution of various incidental services of a professional character.

Sergeant John Poole and one corporal of the corps were present in repulsing a midnight attack on Fort Brown on the 9th April. The enemy consisted of ninety-three Hottentots and fifteen Kaffirs. Robert Dunlop of the corps was the corporal of the guard that night. Hearing the dogs barking more than usual, he went out to see that the sentries were on the alert; but finding the Hottentot posted over the cattle, away from his post in a cloak, he was satisfied of the existence of some traitorous design, and discovered that the enemy was already in the kraal. Giving the alarm, the guard and the military in the fort were quickly assembled, and, under the command of Ensign Gill of the Cape mounted rifles, a sharp action for two hours was maintained, when the enemy was driven from the fort with great loss. The rebels attacked both the tower and the kraal; but from the latter they succeeded in carrying off about 200 head of cattle.[62]

From the 20th to the 24th April, four sergeants and seventy-six rank and file under Lieutenant Pasley, R.A., were despatched, with Major Wilmot’s patrol, into the country of Stock and Seyolo. Near the Keiskama the sappers and artillery were placed in ambush to attack the flank and rear of the enemy, while the main body of the patrol engaged the Kaffirs in front. The country through which the division passed was very perilous, consisting of high kloofs and dense bush, broken by precipices. In this march the sappers assisted in destroying about 100 huts, several large gardens of the enemy, and capturing some large granaries of corn. In returning, the detachment, acting with the 6th regiment as skirmishers, kept the enemy at bay and desolated their crops.

On the 30th April, two sergeants and forty-eight rank and file, in burgher jackets, and laden with provisions and the usual war equipment, were engaged with the Kaffirs on the march from the Chumie junction to Fort Wiltshire, and shared in storming and driving them from the heights, where they had occupied a strong position, under cover of the ruins of an old tower and a detached outwork. On the 1st May the party was again in action on the Keiskama; and after five days’ patrolling through the territories of Seyolo, Stock, Sonto, Tola, and Botman, regained King William’s Town on the 2nd May. The troops were reported to have conducted themselves admirably. As the sappers re-entered King William’s Town, Sir Harry Smith welcomed them by saying, with characteristic cordiality, “Well done, my lads; you can both build works and storm them!”

Two sergeants and sixty-nine rank and file, from the 9th to the 13th May, were employed with Major Wilmot’s patrol in the Amatola Mountains. In carrying out the service, the division penetrated difficult and precipitous fastnesses, surprised several of the enemy, and captured some cattle. The sappers were reported to have conducted themselves on this duty with willingness and zeal.

From the 17th to the 22nd May, one sergeant and twenty-one rank and file accompanied a patrol of 800 men under Major Wilmot to Seyolo’s country as far as Fort Peddie, and returned with a convoy of waggons, cattle, &c. A similar patrol of two sergeants and forty-one men scoured the Amatola range, was once engaged with the enemy near Bailie’s Grave, and returned to King William’s Town, after a harassing march of seven days, on the 31st May. One sergeant and twenty men were out with another detachment under Major Wilmot as far as Fort Peddie. The march extended over ten days, and the patrol returned to King’s William’s Town on the 14th June. Again from the 19th to 21st July two sergeants and forty-nine men were detached with Colonel Eyre’s patrol, and assisted in clearing the rebels out of the Buffalo Poorts and Mount Kempt. The marching was very heavy, being for the most part, between eighty and ninety miles, through dense bush.

Under Captain Robertson, R.E., four sergeants and seventy-seven rank and file quitted King William’s Town, with the force, about 400 strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel Burns of the 2nd Queen’s on the 30th August. A body of Kaffirs and Hottentots being at Committy’s Hill, the troops marched on the 1st September from their bivouac at Fort Montgomery Williams by Breakfast Vley to the hill. One division of the sappers was extended as flankers on each side of the advancing column, and upon them a galling fire was soon opened from the bush. The sappers readily charged into it, and where the thicket could be penetrated drove the enemy back; but the denseness of the kloof in rear afforded the Kaffirs much security in retreating. Having ascended the summit of the hill, the sappers faced right about, and made a rapid charge down the hill on the enemy, who were gradually collecting in the bush from which they had just been driven, and inflicted considerable loss upon them. The charge was made with cheering, yet not in a hurry; the men stopped at each kloof and fired volleys into it, and then dashed after the fugitives. “It is most gratifying,” writes Captain Robertson, “to report the admirable and gallant conduct of the men under my command during this conflict which lasted nearly three hours, and of the readiness with which they advanced to carry off the wounded of their own and of other corps under a heavy fire.” The officers of the 2nd Queen’s spoke in terms of high commendation of the spirited manner in which the sappers acted, and of their cheerfulness in obeying their officers. Private James Murray behaved with great courage in exciting the men both of the 2nd and his own corps to follow him. Running forward like one whose life depended on the action of the moment, he was followed by several who lined the bush to which he drew them, and some fell in their gallant exertions. Among them was private James Fergus, whose arm was pierced by a ball which passed through the left breast and out near the spine below the heart. He died in camp soon after the action. Private Patrick Conroy, a cool and brave soldier, fired at a Kaffir more than 300 yards away and killed him. Private John Arthur came in contact with one in passing round a bush, and in a personal conflict laid him dead at his feet; and private Robert M‘Intosh, whilst in the act of ramming home a cartridge, saw a Hottentot about to fire at him, but not having time to withdraw the ramrod capped and fired, and the ramrod passed through his opponent’s body. Lance-corporal Hosick Cowen and privates Charles Foot and Thomas Brooking were wounded; the last severely.

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.”

-----

Footnote 61:

Letter from Captain Tylden in the ‘Times,’ April 23, 1851.

Footnote 62:

‘Parliamentary Papers,’ Cape of Good Hope, June, 1851, p. 47.

Footnote 63:

The incidents of this affair, for the most part, are taken from a Cape paper. One day this corporal was fishing in the Keiskama, armed with a loaded carbine, when he was approached from behind by a Kaffir. The latter fired, and corporal Wilson, who was untouched, fell as if killed. Warily the Kaffir neared the spot; but the corporal, watching his opportunity, jumped up and shot his opponent. The wound was not fatal, but a blow from the butt end of his carbine sealed the Kaffir’s fate, and the corporal took home his head as a trophy.

Footnote 64:

‘Parliamentary Papers,’ Cape of Good Hope, presented February 3rd, 1852, p. 164.

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]

The subjoined table shows the strength of the corps at the Exhibition at the beginning of each month from October, 1850, to December, 1851, and also illustrates the divisions of labour in which the several parties were occupied.[70]

─────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────── │ 1850 │ 1851 ─────────────────────────┼───┬───┬───┬───┼───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬─── RANKS—DISTRIBUTION │Sep│Oct│Nov│Dec│Jan│Feb│Mar│Apr│May│Jun│Jul│Aug│Sep│Oct│Nov│Dec ─────────────────────────┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─── Strength:— │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Colour-Sergeants │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ Sergeants │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 4│ 6│ 4│ 6│ 5│ 6│ 4│ 3│ 2│ 1 Corporals │ │ │ │ │ │ 1│ 7│ 10│ 7│ 10│ 6│ 10│ 10│ 9│ 9│ 2 Second Corporals │ 1│ 1│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 3│ 10│ 13│ 8│ 14│ 10│ 13│ 10│ 9│ 8│ 3 Privates │ 6│ 5│ 5│ 9│ 11│ 31│142│158│160│155│137│144│142│132│154│ 17 Buglers │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 1 ─────────────────────────┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─── Total Strength │ 7│ 6│ 7│ 11│ 13│ 37│167│193│185│191│164│179│172│159│179│ 24 ─────────────────────────┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─── Distribution:— │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ General superintendence │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ Clerks, draughtsmen, │ 4│ 3│ 4│ 8│ 9│ 15│ 13│ 25│ 17│ 17│ 17│ 22│ 22│ 17│ 7│ 7 autographic press, &c. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Charge of stationery, &c.│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2 Testing iron-work │ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Modellers—workshops │ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│ 2│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 10│ 8│ 7│ 2│ 1 Lettering and laying out │ │ │ │ │ │ 18│ 18│ 10│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ passages │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Receiving, arranging, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 44│ 46│ 23│ 28│ │ 12│ 3│ 5│121│ 4 unpacking, and removing│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ goods │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Custom-house examinations│ │ │ │ │ │ │ 24│ 24│ 6│ 6│ 4│ 4│ 2│ 2│ 10│ 2 Charge of gates │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 2│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Charge of fire-engines, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 14│ 9│ 20│ 20│ 20│ 22│ 20│ 12│ 3│ 3 &c. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Ventilation │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 2│ 2│ 2│ 2│ 1│ 1│ │ Class superintendents │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 21│ 48│ 46│ 46│ 49│ 50│ 41│ 42│ 3│ Cleaning British side of │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 38│ 38│ 38│ 38│ 37│ 39│ │ building[66] │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Collecting and arranging │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 13│ 4│ 4│ 4 specimens │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ On guard │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 4│ 4│ 4│ 4│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ 5│ Cooks and cooks’ mates │ │ │ │ 1│ 1│ 1│ 10│ 8│ 9│ 9│ 6│ 6│ 8│ 8│ 10│ 1 Sick │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 7│ 9│ 3│ 5│ 3│ 2│ 1│ 1│ 2│ Absent from various │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 1│ 3│ 1│ 2│ │ 4│ 3│ 3│ causes[67] │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Tailors │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 3│ 1│ │ 1│ 2│ 2│ 3│ 8│ 4│ On command[68] │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ 1│ 1│ ─────────────────────────┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼─── Total │ 7│ 6│ 7│ 12│ 13│ 37│167│193│185│191│162│179│172│159│179│ 24 ═════════════════════════╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══╧═══

Footnote 66:

Part of day only.

Footnote 67:

Duty, furlough, pass, &c.

Footnote 68:

Clerk, Royal Engineers’ Department, Glasgow.

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A brief but more extended exposition of their duties than the above detail adduces, is here given to show the general nature of the connection of the sappers with the Exhibition, and the availability of the men to discharge onerous duty and varied occupation.[71]

One of the colour-sergeants during the arrangements superintended the sappers on the British side, and the other on the foreign side. After the opening of the Exhibition, colour-sergeant Thomas Harding acted as sergeant-major; and colour-sergeant Noah Deary as foreman of works, in the repair of damages which accidents and the pressure of the crowd were continually causing to the railings, counters, &c. On two or three occasions when there was a press for money-takers, colour-sergeant Deary and sergeant Thomas P. Cook and William Jamieson did duty as collectors.

The clerks were employed under the various officers, military and civil, of the Executive Committee; the draughtsmen, partly under Sir W. Cubitt and Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, when they found such assistance necessary in the superintendence and record of the progress of the building; but principally under the Executive Committee, in making the numerous plans which were necessary during the preliminary arrangements. It was from their surveys and drawings that the plans in the Commissioners’ First Report were made. The men employed as clerks and draughtsmen varied at different times from three to forty in number. One of the men, lance-corporal John Pendered, was also employed in working an autographic press, which was useful when a few circulars were required at a short notice. The facility with which he acquired a knowledge of the apparatus was creditable to his aptitude, and the simple method he adopted to throw off the copies with rapidity and clearness proved him to be intelligent and skilful. The most distinguished of the draughtsmen were lance-corporals James Mack, Thomas Baker, and Nicholas Clabby, corporal Archibald Gardner, and lance-corporals Richard R. Lindsay and John Venner. The large plans, both of the ground and galleries, made for the convenience of the visitors, to enable them to find their way more easily to the parts likely most to engage their curiosity, and which were displayed at the south side of the transept during the later months of the Exhibition, were prepared by corporals Mack, Baker, Gardner, and Gabby. Both were considered to be highly-creditable specimens of drawing, combining boldness and skill with perspicuity. A daily journal, after noticing one of the drawings, thus wrote of the sappers, “Indeed that body have rendered invaluable services, not only in the general arrangements of the interior, but more especially in making those nice measurements which were essential with reference to the question of space.” It then concluded its notice by making some flattering allusions to the proficiency of the sappers employed on the national surveys.[72] The plans were each twenty-one feet long by six feet wide. Similar drawings on a very reduced scale, from which the plans in the first report were engraved, were executed by corporals Gardner, Mack, Clabby, Venner, and Lindsay, but the principal and most effective part of the work devolved on corporal Mack. The ground plan was drawn by the three first-named non-commissioned officers, and the galleries by corporals Mack and Venner. The interesting coloured diagram to show the fluctuations in the number of visitors, and other characteristic details, was wholly drawn by corporal Mack. The plan of the exhibition building to illustrate the water-supply, and measures for security against fire, was drawn by corporal Lindsay. These four drawings comprised the plans in the First Report.

The chart exhibited in the transept on the 6th October, to show by diagrams the fluctuations in the number of visitors to the building, was prepared by corporals Gardner and Mack, under the direction of Captain Owen. ‘The Times,’[73] said it was “a production of great merit and of much public interest, and resembled those scales of mountain elevations which are usually prefixed to atlasses. The shilling days were the Himalayas and Andes of the chart; while the half-crown and five shilling days were represented by heights of much lower altitude.” With the permission of the Executive Committee, these two non-commissioned officers compiled, on the same principle, a similar diagram with more copious general information, for the proprietors of the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ from which an engraving was made, and copies in immense numbers were thrown off and issued on two stated occasions to the purchasers of that newspaper. Referring to the great chart shown in the Exhibition, the ‘Weekly Dispatch’ thus wrote: “This chart, which is beautifully executed, and is altogether a production of very great merit, reflects the utmost credit upon the authors—corporals Gardner and Mack of the royal sappers and miners, a corps which has rendered most intelligent and valuable service to the Exhibition.”[74]

Corporal Baker, under Mr. Henry Cole, had the honour of preparing a coloured plan of the arrangements for Her Majesty, another for Prince Albert, one for the Duchess of Kent, and several for the members of the Royal Commission. He also surveyed the whole of the arrangements on the ground floor. In an instructive article in ‘Chambers’ Journal,’ on the ‘Crystal Palace,’ allusion is popularly made to this portion of the sappers’ duty, and it is justly added, that “the men were found very useful. All our surveying and planning have been done by them.”[75]

During the latter months of the Exhibition, corporal Clabby recorded hourly the number of visitors who had entered the building up to the time of making the registry. This he did on a large sheet of paper fixed in the transept, at a sufficient elevation for the public to consult it. The rush at the moment of making the record was always great, and the interest with which the corporal was greeted and questioned by the curious, was accompanied by many honourable indications of kindness and good will.[76]

Two men were in permanent charge of the receipt and issue of printed forms, and all articles of stationery to the various officers. Second-corporal John Vercoe was in chief charge. He also assisted as a clerk, and was pay-sergeant for Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment. From the 2nd October, 1850, to 23rd January, 1851, he had the charge of the party then at the Exhibition, and for his courteous deportment and address, was well spoken of by those with whom he was brought in contact.[77]

Two men were employed during the erection of the building in testing the cast-iron girders and columns with an hydraulic press, &c., and in ascertaining that all the bolts were sufficiently screwed up; also in keeping a record of the ironwork fixed each day. This duty was intrusted to lance-corporals Robert Fleming and Joseph Barrow; the former tested the girders, and the latter the proper adjustment of the fitments and bolts. In cases of dispute about the practicable application of some defective columns and girders, the opinion of corporal Fleming was, on three or four occasions, sought for; and he gave it in so clear and manly a manner, that his views were readily followed by the contractors. It is not a little remarkable that this non-commissioned officer was the only sapper recommended by Sir William Reid for promotion, during the period that the Colonel commanded the corps at the Exhibition. Corporal Barrow, when not employed in examining the fitments, took his place in the drawing-room, and notwithstanding the rough occupation he had been accustomed to, was found efficient. For the successful stability of the building, some little credit is at least due to these two humble officials. Their exertions were very great, and their vigilance in the important work intrusted to them was fully equal to the responsibility.

Soon after the building was constructed, and before the goods began to be deposited, it was considered desirable to ascertain the effect of regular oscillation in the galleries. Experiments of different kinds were tried, but to carry out that which was regarded as the most trying, a strong detachment of the corps in close columns, keeping military time and step, was marched several times up and down, and round, and finally were made to mark time. With the result of this last test the eminent scientific men present expressed themselves highly gratified, and the incident was considered to be sufficiently interesting to become the subject of illustration in a popular journal.[78]

Lance-corporal Charles W. Fear made, in the early part of the arrangements, a model of a portion of the building for the information of the Royal Commissioners, and afterwards was employed in making small models of counters of various parts of the building and other things of the kind required during the progress of the work. After the opening of the Exhibition a party was employed in repairing damages caused to the railings, counters, &c., and in copying, in model, some of the simplest and most instructive mechanical inventions and appliances for provincial institutions. The better to carry out the new style of constructing models, four of the party attended lectures on the subject delivered by Professor Cowper at King’s College, Somerset House.

A party, varying from five to twenty-five men, all painters, was employed during the arrangements in numbering and lettering the columns, and laying down on the floor of the building the plan of the proposed passages and counters. Lance-corporal John Venner, who also worked as a clerk and draughtsman, was conspicuous in this division of duty. Corporal Archibald Gardner, also a draughtsman, was in great request for printing. The facility with which he lettered notices, labels, &c., required in an instant, brought him greatly into favour with the officials. The amount of work he had to execute rendered it indispensable that some more convenient substance than Indian ink, which took an immense time to grind, should be found. This he effectually provided, and thereby caused a considerable saving of expense. Gas-stoves were used in the Exhibition offices, in which he observed a very available description of soot to accumulate; and carefully collecting the material and mixing it with common ink and a little glue, he manufactured an abundance of a fine jet black preparation, which was always ready for emergencies.

The number available for unloading the goods when they were coming in varied from twenty to fifty men, and was not sufficient without the assistance of considerable numbers of porters from the docks. As the waggons containing the packages arrived within the building, they were driven to the centre of the transept and there unloaded and marked by a Custom-house officer. From the transept relays of sappers conveyed the packages in trucks to the compartment of the foreign country from which they had been consigned, where another band of Custom-house officers was ready to receive them. There was always a fresh supply of sappers with chisels and other implements to break open lids or other coverings, and who, with military determination, swept everything before them until the goods were revealed. This was the usual course of the reception arrangements.[79] “We have here,” writes a London Journal, “to commend the aptitude and intelligence with which the force of sappers execute the duties intrusted to them. So quietly and precisely do they obey instructions, that their assistance is properly considered of material consequence to the punctual fulfilment of the arrangements in which they are concerned.”[80] Another thus writes, “The sappers and miners form prominent objects in the animated scene. Their work is principally to facilitate the reception of goods, and they get through all they have to do with great energy, and with a certain observance of military precision which is not without its interest to the looker on.”[81]

From ten to twenty men were employed during the receipt of goods in opening the cases, and in assisting the Custom-house examination. Both in this duty and in removing the goods the greatest care was taken; so much so indeed, that only two or three accidents by breakage occurred to the exhibitors’ property.

As early as January, 1851, while the building was still under the control of the contractors, a party of four men of the royal sappers and miners patrolled the building and its workshops every evening after work, remaining until they had seen every fire and light properly extinguished except those in the offices, where the great press of work rendered it necessary to allow fires and lights to be kept up during the night. With the addition of a party of the London fire brigade, this arrangement remained in force until the opening of the building, when a picquet of twenty-four men of the corps was mounted in the building at eight P.M.; this party on arriving at the Exhibition was marched round it to all the stations where the different fire-engines, fire-cocks, tanks, buckets, &c., were placed; thus every individual ascertained that all the stores were correct and ready for use. The whole of the men of the corps at the Exhibition had been drilled to the fire-engines, and made acquainted with all the arrangements undertaken to provide for the immediate extinction of any fire. The twenty-four men slept in the building every night, one man remained on sentry to be in readiness to rouse the men in case of alarm, and a non-commissioned officer and two men patrolled the building every two hours. The picquet came off duty at six A.M., when another party of the sappers relieved them for the usual daily duty. This arrangement continued until the 4th November, 1851. The number was then reduced to twelve, and on the 11th November to two men, who remained all night in the building until it was again given over to the control of the contractors, Messrs. Fox and Henderson, in December, 1851.

By day two non-commissioned officers were selected, one for each side of the building, Foreign and British, whose sole duty it was to take charge of the men who belonged to the fire-party, and in conjunction with the men of the London fire brigade on duty at the building, they were held responsible for all the stores connected with the fire department, that everything was in its proper place and ready for immediate use, and also that the water was on, and the pressure not less than sixty feet. When the body of sappers was marched to work in the building each day, a party of twelve or fifteen men was allotted for each side of the Exhibition, and placed under these two non-commissioned officers, who distributed them to the various fire stations, and visited them during the day to see that they were at their posts, and alert.[82] The promptitude with which this service was attended to was exemplified on an occasion when a fire, in the southern part of the Colonial collection, raised an alarm. The flue attached to a stove in one of the offices of the contractors having become heated, ignited a piece of wood with bunting attached to it. A piece of the burning cloth fell into an open cask of Indian corn, but the drapery of the counter concealed for a time what had happened. Eventually the smoke began to break forth, and as soon as the existence of fire was ascertained, it was extinguished before it had time to do more than slightly char one plank of wood. The stores in charge of the non-commissioned officers were 8 engines complete, 40 cisterns, 16 hydrants, 410 spare buckets, 16 spare hose, 16 axes, 18 hand-pumps, and 15 fire annihilators.

Opening and closing the louvre-boards for ventilation, and keeping a register of the temperature in the building, were attended to by a few of the men. The register was kept from 19th May to the 11th October, and the indications of fourteen thermometers were taken three times a-day.[83] Corporal Thomas Noon was the chief at this duty, and was found very intelligent and attentive.

There were one or more men, termed classmen, attached to each class on the British side, who carried out the orders of the class and district superintendents during the arrangements, and also during the time of the Exhibition. The number of classmen appointed to the thirty divisions of the arrangements during the progress of the building, &c., was fifty-seven; and the number included in the organization for assisting in the classes during the exhibition, was sixty-one of all ranks. Five or six men also assisted on the foreign side, of whom two were attached to the Chinese court. The classmen afforded material help to the exhibitors and their assistants in displaying their property to advantage, and in protecting it.[84] They likewise were often found very useful in giving information to the public, and in conducting individuals through the masses, to those parts of the building which they were the most anxious to visit. Their courteous demeanour and intelligence were rewarded with repeated expressions of thanks and satisfaction, and the exhibitors were desirous to mark, in a substantial form, their appreciation of the services of the classmen, but it was declined on military considerations. Private tokens of respect, however, were frequently presented by some of the superintendents and class assistants to their military subordinates.

A party of about forty men came early in the morning during the Exhibition, and superintended a force of boys in sweeping the British side of the building. The arrangement was systematic, simple, and effective. Six hours—from four o’clock in the morning until ten—were dedicated to this purpose. Had it not been for the peculiarity of the structure, the duty of sweeping would have been insurmountable, but fortunately both floors and roof assisted very greatly to carry off much of the dust and dirt.[85] After finishing the service each morning, the detachment was either kept as a reserve, or returned to the barracks.

In addition to the above they on several occasions assisted the police in their duties, especially on the opening and closing days; occasionally a few trustworthy non-commissioned officers issued tickets during the arrangements,[86] and some of the privates rung the bells at the time the building closed each day. In assisting the police, corporal George Pearson detected an official personage, holding a lucrative situation at the Exhibition, taking money from the place in which it was deposited. The corporal for a long time watched his proceedings, and making known the case to the superintendent of police, the delinquency of the official was fully proved, and his dismissal from employment forthwith ordered.

During the preliminary arrangements the non-commissioned officers who issued tickets, and took charge of the gates and private entrances, were frequently besought by bribes to permit individuals the privilege of entering the building, &c., but no man of the corps was so wanting in a right sense of his duty as in this way to break the trust reposed in him. An instance of another kind was brought to the notice of Colonel Reid by sergeant Thomas P. Cook, who had a party under him employed removing goods from the hoarding to their destination in the building. Many of the exhibitors, wishing to insure a priority of attention in the removal of their property, offered considerations to effect it, but they were justly exposed, and the Colonel made it the occasion of complimenting the sergeant for his integrity.

The working-pay of the non-commissioned officers and men was 1_s._ 3_d._ a-day each; but from twenty-five to thirty of the most useful draughtsmen and others received 2_s._ a-day.

The Exhibition was closed on the 15th October, on which occasion small parties of sappers were posted at the barriers, and in the various passages leading to the transept, to assist the police in preventing the rush of the crowd. They were also placed around three sides of the dais from which the ceremony took place, and from which Prince Albert “took leave of all those who had given their assistance towards conducting the Exhibition to its prosperous issue.”[87] The sappers were engaged the whole of the previous night in removing obstacles likely to interfere with the arrangements for the ceremonial. They also constructed the platform, or dais; and while attending, on the morning of the ceremonial, to the preliminary arrangements for the temporary accommodation of the Prince and the Commissioners, a sustained cheer was given by the visitors for the sappers, as a parting token of thanks and satisfaction for their past services.

Colonel Reid, now Sir William, on being appointed Governor of Malta, resigned on the 27th October, 1851, his charge in London, and the command of the corps at the Exhibition consequently devolved on Captain H. C. Owen, R.E. “I have,” said Sir William on leaving, “the most perfect confidence that they will continue to the end of this service, to perform their duties with the same zeal which they have hitherto invariably shown, and with the same considerate and forbearing conduct towards all with whom they have been connected in this arduous undertaking.”

The crowning testimony to the useful services of the corps was graciously given by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners in a letter to the Marquis of Anglesey, the Master-General of the Ordnance. In promulgating the letter,[88] a copy of which follows, his Lordship expressed his confidence that this high testimonial in approbation of the valuable services of those immediately concerned, would be received with feelings of pride and gratitude by the whole corps of ordnance.

“MY LORD

“WINDSOR CASTLE, Oct. 29th

“I have the honour, as President of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, to convey to your Lordship, both in my own name, and in that of the Commission, our thanks for the cordial aid you lent us in allowing several of the corps of royal engineers, and two companies of royal sappers and miners to assist the executive committee in the arrangement and management of the Exhibition.

“Her Majesty’s Commissioners consider it due to the officers of royal engineers, and to the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, who have been thus employed, to express to your Lordship, in strong terms, the sense which they entertain of the admirable conduct of the whole body while engaged in this novel, delicate, and responsible duty.

“The officers of engineers have, in the able assistance rendered by them, afforded another instance of the useful manner in which a military body may be employed in civil services during a time of peace.

“The Royal Commissioners, being desirous of marking their sense of the share which the different persons employed in connexion with the Exhibition have had in bringing it to a successful issue, have requested the various civilians so employed to accept a certain sum of money in recognition of their services. We have ascertained from Colonel Reid, that such a course would not be agreeable to the feelings of the engineer-officers who have similarly given their assistance, and to whom we could have wished to offer a similar token.

“With regard to the non-commissioned officers and privates, it gives me much pleasure to state, that at the period of the preliminary arrangements, when the labour required was sometimes excessive, their exertions were always cheerfully made. During the course of the Exhibition, they practically demonstrated the great value of their schools of instruction by the many useful plans which they drew; and by carefully acting always in subordination to the civil police force, they established for themselves a character for good conduct and attention to the exhibitors and visitors, greatly to the credit of the corps to which they belong.

“The Royal Commissioners have therefore thought fit to award a sum of 600_l._, to be laid out either in drawing or mathematical instruments, or in other suitable lasting memorial of their connection with the Exhibition, for the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, to be distributed by the officers in such manner as your Lordship and the Inspector-General of Fortifications may approve; and we trust that you will give your sanction to the acceptance of these testimonials of their good conduct.

“I have, &c., “ALBERT, President Royal Commission.

“_Field Marshal the Marquis of Anglesey, “Master-General of the Ordnance._”

In the first report of the Commissioners to the Right Honourable the Home Secretary, the corps of sappers and miners was thus alluded to: “In many parts of these arrangements, both before and after the opening of the Exhibition, the Commissioners derived the most important benefit from the co-operation and assistance of the corps of royal engineers and royal sappers and miners, who had been placed at their disposal.”[89]

To carry out the intentions of the Commissioners with respect to the disposal of the 600_l._ according to individual merit, a board of officers of royal engineers—Captains Owen and Gibb, and Lieutenant Stopford—laid down rules to guide them in the distribution. The cardinal grounds for exclusion were, that none should participate in the rewards who had been less than a month at the Exhibition, or who had been sent to head-quarters in consequence of irregularity, or who had been notoriously idle and useless. Of this character it is satisfactory to add, that among the whole body employed, from the very beginning to the close, only two privates had earned the unenviable distinction.

The distribution of the grant was arranged into sums considered to be equivalent to the criteria of five specific classes of qualification and utility. On this principle therefore, the first class comprised men only, who in situations of considerable responsibility, drew public attention for their steadiness and general ability.

The second and third classes embraced men, who in various degrees called for favourable mention, and who displayed considerable aptitude and zeal.

The fourth class contained men, who not having the same opportunities of distinguishing themselves as the men in the previous classes, gained the commendation of their officers and others for attention to duty, and cheerfulness and exertion in its execution.

The fifth class comprised men who had only been a short time at the Exhibition, but who, nevertheless, rendered themselves, by their conduct and zeal, deserving of a slight memento of their services.

According to this classification, the prizes distributed were in value and number as follows:—

Class. Value. Number.

1st. each 10_l._ 13 2nd. 5_l._ 41 3rd. 3_l._ 41 4th. 1_l._ 97 5th. 10_s._ 14 —- Total 206

The prizes embraced a selection of gold and silver watches, cases of instruments, portable writing-cases, and such other articles as would tend to increase the professional efficiency of the men, and at the same time form a suitable and handsome memorial of their services. Every article was suitably inscribed with the owner’s name, and the source from whence it was obtained.

In addition to these rewards, each non-commissioned officer and soldier, to the extent of the above number, received a bronze medal inscribed with his name, in a morocco case, to be kept as a token of useful services rendered, and also a pictorial certificate signed by Prince Albert.

The number of men sent to the Exhibition from September 1850 to December 1851, reached a total of 274 of all ranks. Sixty-eight of the number reaped no advantage from the grant. Of these, twenty-four had been removed to head-quarters for slight irregularity, two deserted, two did not participate on account of indolence, thirty-three were only three weeks at the Exhibition before it closed, and the remainder, seven men, were removed after short periods of employment, in consequence of illness.

Only one casualty occurred in the companies during their service under the Royal Commissioners. Lance-corporal Thomas W. Noon had obtained leave to visit his friends at Oxford, and was killed by a railway accident at the Bicester station on the 6th September. Liberally educated, and brought up to the profession of an architect and builder, he promised to be very useful both as a non-commissioned officer and foreman. In several situations of responsibility, he proved the superiority of his attainments, and was consequently one of the first men selected for duty in London. Mr. Wiltshire, under whom he was employed at the Exhibition, bore testimony to the value of his services. Much esteemed by his comrades, his melancholy end was deeply deplored, and his remains, interred in the cemetery of St. Sepulchre, at Oxford, were followed to the grave by a large concourse of mourners, among whom were seven non-commissioned officers of the corps from the Exhibition. In a funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. W. Mitchell, M.A., in Hornton-Street Chapel, Kensington, was given a review of the history and character of the deceased, which awakened interesting sympathies in the crowded congregation.

The removal of the goods commenced immediately after the closing of the Exhibition, and all the available sappers were for some weeks employed in assisting the exhibitors and their assistants to pack their property, and remove it from the building. Soon these duties, from the rapidity with which the clearance was carried on, permitted a large force of the corps to be withdrawn, and accordingly, the 22nd company quitted for Woolwich on the 4th November, and the 5th company with the greater part of Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment on the 11th November. Of the number left, a few were employed in collecting and arranging specimens presented to the Commissioners for the formation of a trade museum, and gradually the numbers were reduced to twenty-four, and by the end of the year to nine men only.

Among the contributors to the Exhibition were the Ordnance Survey, and Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major of the corps. The Survey sent a number of artistic specimens of maps, one of which, Lancashire, was fifty feet in height and twenty-seven feet in width. A plan of the city of Dublin, on a scale of sixty inches to the mile, was the finest specimen of map engraving ever produced in the United Kingdom.[90] With this plan was associated the name of colour-sergeant John West, late of the corps, whose services have already received honourable mention in these pages. Among the other maps exhibited, which especially attracted attention, was one of the borough of Southampton, on a scale of six inches to a mile. For finished beauty of execution and truthful delineation of the various features of the ground, it was regarded as unrivalled. This specimen was executed by Charles Holland, formerly second-corporal in the corps, and who is still the leading draughtsman at the Ordnance Map office, Southampton. As already noticed in these pages, he received a case of instruments from Prince Albert for his talent in drawing a similar plan of Windsor. Six or seven specimens of electrotype, to illustrate the different stages of the process of engraving the copper-plates, were also exhibited. Sergeant Donald Geddes assisted in mounting the maps, which from the colossal dimensions of one of them, was found very difficult; and he also arranged the various specimens in the space assigned to them at the end of the western gallery. “The Council gold medal was granted to the Ordnance Department who exhibited the maps, as a just and honourable tribute to the meritorious and scientific officers of that department who prepared them.”[91] “For the copper-plate etchings, and for the use of the electrotype process in reproducing the plates, our eulogium,” say the Jurors, “is justly due to the establishment at Southampton, where they are executed.”[92] Sergeant Geddes had from the first the charge of the electrotype branch at Southampton, under the executive officers of royal engineers, Captain Yolland, and afterwards Captain W. D. Gosset; and by his skill and acquaintance with chemical science, attained that perfection in the art which, but a few years past, it would have been thought chimerical to expect.

Mr. Forbes exhibited a beautiful model of his spherangular pontoon in raft, with all its stores complete, and waggon for carriage. He also contributed the model of an apparatus for the ventilation of mines. Both objects were inventions of his own, and the former, though not adopted in the service, gained for him the present of one hundred guineas from the Board of Ordnance. Mr. Forbes was very late in submitting the articles, and they have therefore not been included in the official catalogues.

-----

Footnote 65:

‘Times,’ May 2, 1851.

Footnote 69:

First Report of Royal Commissioners, Exhibition, App. xxv., p. 128.

Footnote 70:

Ibid., App. vi., p. 50.

Footnote 71:

Chiefly from the First Report, Royal Commissioners, Exhibition, 1851, App. vi., p. 48.

Footnote 72:

The ‘Times,’ July 2, 1851. The reference is too good to be omitted. “The training—which,” proceeds the ‘Times,’ “under Sir C. Pasley’s system they undergo, admirably prepares them for this description of work, and they have brought to it the practical experience acquired during the Irish, Scotch, and English surveys, which it will be recollected they were employed upon in compliance with a most valuable suggestion to that effect made by Colonel Reid. The plan to which we allude is a highly creditable specimen of the skill which the sappers have attained in the art of surveying.”

Footnote 73:

October 7, 1851.

Footnote 74:

October 12, 1851.

Footnote 75:

March 1, 1851, p. 130.

Footnote 76:

Apprehensive of accidents, the public registry of the numbers was, a few days before the closing of the Exhibition, abandoned at the instigation of the police authorities.

Footnote 77:

Robert Marshall, formerly a private in the corps, was also attached to the stationery department. From this he was promoted to be collector from the money-takers. After the Exhibition closed, he received a gratifying testimonial from Earl Granville, and a gratuity of one month’s pay from the Royal Commissioners as a recognition of his services. In consequence of his industry and honesty, he was one of two or three retained for employment under the Commissioners, from whom he was transferred to the Department of Practical Art, to assist in superintending the reception and classified organization of the Trade Museum of specimens presented to it from all countries. In this duty his disciplined habits of order and arrangement made his services of great utility and value. He now holds a lucrative appointment as superintendent to a boarding establishment in London, under the Electric Telegraph Company, obtained for him, in consequence of his creditable conduct at the Exhibition, by Major-General Wylde.

Footnote 78:

‘Illustrated London News,’ March 1, 1851.

Footnote 79:

The ‘Times,’ February 19, 1851.

Footnote 80:

‘Illustrated London News,’ February 22, 1851.

Footnote 81:

The ‘Times,’ February 26, 1851.

Footnote 82:

First Report, App. xxvi., p. 130.

Footnote 83:

First Report, App. x., p. 67.

Footnote 84:

One man, private Alexander Dunlop, in the machinery department, was the operator of an interesting experiment with an article of manufacture in which both England and France were concerned. The incident was related by Mr. Overend, at a public dinner, given at the Cutlers’-hall, Sheffield, to the Great Exhibition Local Commissioners for that town. Among the jurors there was a French Gentleman, who very properly showed great zeal in protecting the interests of his countrymen. He admitted that Sheffield had made the best files, but he maintained that there was a house in France that could make them incontestibly superior. He challenged Sheffield to the trial, and selecting the house with which he would make the test, it happened to be that of the Mayor of Sheffield, Mr. Turton, who accepted it. From France files were brought over for the purpose, and a French engineer was despatched across the Channel to use them. Messrs. Turton did not send to Sheffield to have files made specially for the occasion, but merely went to a London customer, whom they supplied with files, and took a few, indiscriminately, from his stock. Private Dunlop was chosen to use the English file against the French engineer and the French files made for the occasion. Two pieces of steel being selected upon which to try the files, they were fixed in two vices. The Frenchman was stripped to his work, with sleeves turned up, and all encumbrances likely to affect his strength and freedom of action, were removed. Dunlop was very differently garbed; his coat was buttoned up to the throat, and he was, in all respects, going, as it were, to parade. Both now, by a signal, began to work simultaneously, but Dunlop, a very powerful blacksmith, had filed the steel down to the vice before the French engineer had got one-third through. When the files were examined, that of Messrs. Turton was found to be as good as ever, while the French one was nearly worn out. The French juror then said no doubt he was beaten in that trial; but Messrs. Turton’s file must have been made to cut steel only, whereas the French file was better adapted for iron. A new trial then took place upon the iron, and the result was still more in favour of the English file.

Footnote 85:

‘Fraser’s Magazine.’

Footnote 86:

This gave offence to one London periodical—the ‘Builder’ (April 5, 1851, p. 212). Its antagonism, however, is consistent, for it has always advocated that the services of the sappers should be confined purely to military duties, and that the national surveys, &c., should be wholly controlled and regulated by civil energy and operation. Still, with all its opposition, it spoke of the sappers at the Exhibition, in a qualified sense, as intelligent and efficient.

Footnote 87:

‘First Report,’ p. xxxvii.

Footnote 88:

‘First Report,’ App., vi., p. 49.

Footnote 89:

‘First Report,’ p. xxi. It may be worth remarking, that Mr. Cobden, the persevering enemy of naval and military establishments, was so satisfied with the conduct and services of the corps, that he was heard to say, he would never in his advocacy for military retrenchment, seek to reduce the numbers of the sappers.

Footnote 90:

‘Hampshire Advocate,’ May 10, 1851.

Footnote 91:

‘Juries Reports,’ Exhibition, 1851, p. 222.

Footnote 92:

Ibid.

1851. SHETLAND ISLANDS.

Observations—Road from Lerwick to Mossbank—To the western districts—And southwards—Between Olnafirth and Doura Voe—Voe to Hillswick; corporal Andrew Ramsay—Island of Yell; sergeant John F. Read—Intrepid bearing of corporal Ramsay—Conduct and usefulness of the party employed on the roads.

For nearly four years one sergeant and five men of the corps had been employed in Zetland constructing some trunk lines of roads, with the view of relieving the wants of the poor of the islands, who, from the failure of their fisheries and other dreadful visitations, were threatened with starvation. Captain T. Webb, R.E., directed the operations of the party for three years, but throughout the fourth year, sergeant Robert Forsyth was alone responsible for its discipline and conduct. With respect, however, to the execution of the works he received instructions from Captain Craigie, R.N.

The roads constructed under the superintendence of the sappers were, considering the character of the country, its frequent storms, heavy rains, and bleak winds, and the utter inexperience of the peasantry in land labour and the use of implements, very extensive and difficult.

In 1849 there was scarcely a practicable road in Zetland, except a few isolated portions in bad condition. But on the removal of the party in January, 1852, more than 100 miles of excellent road, including the island of Yell, had been made practicable both for pedestrians and wheel vehicles.

From Lerwick to Mossbank, twenty-five and a half miles of good road were cut through a mountainous country intersected with large plots of deep bog. It was fifteen feet wide clear of the water-tables. All through the line it was properly drained and gravelled to a depth of between fourteen and eighteen inches. The undulations of the country and the occurrence of streams called for considerable engineering skill. At different parts of this road were built two stone bridges, the first of fifteen feet span and twenty feet high, and the second of ten feet span. Both were of the best rubble masonry. In different parts of the line there were twenty-four large culverts built of dry masonry as substitutes for bridges. A number of cross drains were also laid and properly paved. About eight miles of the road ran along the side of a high hill, and here an embankment and wall were raised on the lower side, and a cutting made on the upper.

The road from Lerwick to the western districts was constructed over the steep and rugged heights of Wormiedale, for one mile of which a cutting was made from the upper side, which assisted in forming an embankment of five feet average on the lower. From thence to the head of Weesdale Voe the road ran comparatively easy. A large stone causeway, however, had to be built over the point of a sheet of water which communicated with the sea. In this causeway were six openings of two and a half feet by four feet for the free passage of the tide. From the head of Weesdale Voe to the Scord of Tresta, one mile, a cutting was made on the upper side, and a retaining wall built on the lower side of the road. To Gruting Voe, six miles, the road was easily prepared. On this line two bridges were erected: one at Bixter with piers of rubble masonry and the superstructure of stout oak, with a span of ten feet; the other at Tumlin of dry masonry with three openings. At the head of Gruting Voe, a causeway of stones, six feet high by thirteen feet broad, with seven openings of two and a half feet wide each, was constructed, crossing a part of the Voe for 120 yards, and thereby shortening the distance to Walls by three quarters of a mile.

From Lerwick, southwards, a road of twenty-three miles was formed to Dunrossness, and portions of the Test road were also improved. Four stone bridges and a wooden one were constructed on this line over heavy and sometimes impassable streams.

From the bridge at Fitch, four miles from Lerwick, a road of one and a half mile long was made, which joined the Scalloway road and the trunk line together.

From the main line at the Olnafirth branch another road was cut for three and a quarter miles, connecting Olnafirth and Doura Voe, whence there is an easy access by boat to Lerwick. One stone bridge of twelve feet span and nine feet high was erected on this line.

From Voe to Hillswick fifteen miles of bridle road were made, and two substantial stone bridges thrown over deep and rapid burns. The ground was very difficult, and in many places the red granite was so hard that blasting the rock was necessarily resorted to. This road passed through part of the parish of Delting, connecting it with North Mavine by a narrow isthmus about sixty yards wide from sea to sea. On the south of this the hills rose to a height of about 700 feet above the level of the sea, and terminated on the shore in very high precipitous cliffs. To surmount such a barrier with anything like tolerable gradients, it would have been necessary to make a detour of at least one mile and three-quarters over uneven and rough ground. To obviate this, a road was cut along the base of the bold cliffs of Cliva for 590 yards, which, considering the description of labour employed, was an undertaking of no ordinary kind. The method adopted was to blast the face of the cliff, in which only 250 lbs. of powder were expended, and this removed more than 10,000 tons of rock. With the dislodged fragments a retaining wall was built, which formed a rampart of thirteen feet broad and twelve feet average height. Some of the stones used in the wall were two tons weight.[93] Corporal Andrew Ramsay was intrusted with the execution of the work, and the fact that 1,700 blasts had been fired by him among a people unused to these operations, and without a single accident occurring, affords sufficient proof of his caution, discretion, and attention.[94]

In the island of Yell a road of twenty miles, nine feet wide, was cut between the two principal harbours—Cullivoe and Burravoe. The line was through a rugged country, with peat morasses, rapid streams, and mica and silicious rocks. In some places deep excavations were made before gravel could be obtained to form the surface of the road; and from the swampy nature of the ground much draining was required to render the foundation solid and the line durable. The danger of sinking in boggy ground for gravel was often felt. Once in particular when the party had dug to the depth of fourteen feet in a broken morass, the sergeant (Read) observed the whole mass of moss in motion. Instantly he ordered the workmen to leave the pit. Scarcely had they done so when the sides began to close in, and, as a rush of water at the same time came from beneath, the bog was quickly dislocated, and toppling over, filled the pit.[95] Owing to the inequalities of the surface it was difficult to carry on the line with easy gradients, and from Bastavoe and Mid Yell Voe, running far inland, its course was therefore circuitous. A bridge was constructed over the burn of Dalsetter in North Yell, ten feet span and nine feet high, with piers of strong masonry, while the cross beams, planking, and handrail were of substantial oak. A similar bridge was erected over Laxo burn, Mid Yell, and five large culverts, locally termed sivars, with heavy embankments, between that and Burravoe in South Yell. To accommodate South Yell, and to remove a serious obstruction to the conveyance of the mail and the passage of travellers in the winter season, bridges of ten feet span and seven feet high were erected over the dangerous streams of Hamnavoe and Arrisdale. In building that over Arrisdale a middle pier was erected, the span of the arch being otherwise too great to make it a sound work.[96] Sergeant John F. Read was intrusted with the construction of this road. His conduct throughout his service in Shetland was correct and soldierlike.[97] His report on the character of his operations in Yell, detailing the difficulties he surmounted and the improvements effected in the industrial habits of the people, is highly creditable to his ability.[98]

On one occasion while assisting the making of the Yell road, the conduct of corporal Ramsay, under peculiar and trying circumstances, elicited the praise of his officers.[99] An outbreak occurred in his party, and being unarmed he was placed in a critical position. He was, however, cool and determined, and resisted in a manly but forbearing manner the demands of his labourers. By persuasion and command the angry feelings of the labourers were eventually allayed, and they were induced to resume with a more contented spirit the employment they so unsparingly abused.

In accordance with arrangements made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the connection of the party with the Highland Destitution Board closed early this year, and the men arrived at Woolwich on the 27th January. In parting with the detachment Captain Craigie, R.N., spoke highly of its efficient and creditable services and its excellent conduct. Privates Alexander Smith and David Muir executed all the masonry work on the roads. Sergeant Forsyth, in his character of superintendent, evinced considerable ability, zeal, and intelligence in the discharge of his duties, and was unremitting in his efforts to render Captain Webb’s absence as little felt as possible.[100]

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Footnote 93:

The particulars taken from sergeant Forsyth’s statements in ‘Report of Committee of Manage. High. Dest., 1852,’ pp. 15-18, 35-37.

Footnote 94:

‘Report of Committee of Manage. High. Dest., 1852,’ p. 41.

Footnote 95:

Ibid., p. 19.

Footnote 96:

Ibid., pp. 18-21.

Footnote 97:

‘Report of Committee of Manage. High. Dest., 1852,’ p. 41.

Footnote 98:

Ibid.

Footnote 99:

Ibid.

Footnote 100:

Ibid.

1852.

The detachment in London under Captain Owen was throughout the year, attached to the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851. Four of the party were generally in the office performing the duty of clerks and draughtsmen. Among the services executed by them was the organization and classification, for historic and scientific purposes, of the voluminous correspondence, documents, and tabulated forms and returns of the department, previous to their deposit in the royal archives. To this was added the duty of preparing the various certificates with the signature of Prince Albert, and forwarding them, with the exhibitors’ and jurors’ medals, and juries’ reports, to the different local and foreign committees throughout the world. To corporal Gardner was intrusted the office of stamping the Prince’s signature. Before he commenced the task he made some experiments to ascertain the best mode of transferring the royal name from the block to the paper. His object was to make the impression a perfect resemblance of the original, to accomplish which the use of common ink was a desideratum. Observation and ingenuity soon led him to adopt an expedient that proved to be very successful. About 20,000 of these certificates he prepared, and many of the transfers were such faithful fac-similes of the original, that the minutest examination of their details failed to discover the slightest deviation from the character of the royal autograph. For two or three months when the men were not employed on more pressing services, they were advantageously occupied in collecting and arranging specimens received from the exhibitors, now composing the trade collection at Kensington palace. They also examined and took charge of the Exhibition photographs, executed in Paris, 18,000 in number, after their return by Messrs. De la Rue and Co. who mounted them. In the evening after the day’s labour had ended, five of the party attended for four months the Government school of design at Somerset House, and received instruction in free-hand drawing. The privilege thus conceded was not only unprecedented but greatly enhanced by an instant departure from the rule of the institution, which required candidates to avail themselves of its benefits in their turn. By the end of the year the sappers with Captain Owen were reduced to four non-commissioned officers.

In January and February two non-commissioned officers with six civilians as labourers, under Mr. John McLaren,[101] the deputy surveyor-general of South Australia, were employed in establishing an overland route from Adelaide to Mount Alexander. They laid out a line of road between these points through the wilderness, removed all striking obstructions, and formed at every practicable locality convenient wells of water for the use of travellers. The object of laying down this line of communication was principally to assist the transit of the “gold diggers” of the Mount and the contiguous country into Adelaide.

Twelve rank and file were sent from Woolwich in April to Spike Island, to superintend the convict mechanical skill and labour placed at the disposal of the Ordnance, in carrying on the defences of the island and other posts in Cork harbour. This measure was strongly urged by Colonel Oldfield, the commanding royal engineer in Ireland, on the score both of utility and economy; and the services of the party in directing the convicts in the quarries, the excavations, and at their trades, were followed by results, indisputably advantageous to the public.

The seventh company, employed first at Portsmouth and then at Gosport, in conjunction with the second company, in constructing the batteries at Brown Down, was removed in June from Fort Monckton to Hurst Castle, to repair its defences and construct new batteries. The men, not quartered in the castle, were provided with accommodation in a detached shed, which was converted into a barrack for the purpose.

Early in the year, under orders from the Home Government, four men of the corps under lance-corporal James S. Taylor, made surveys and plans of the Holmfirth reservoir and the country in its neighbourhood, to assist Captain R. C. Moody, R.E., in his inquiries to ascertain the cause of the bursting of its embankment and the consequent destruction of life and property. On the completion of the work the men were commended for the active and able manner in which it had been executed, and received a liberal allowance for their services.

A new station was opened for the corps this year at Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, whither the eleventh company, under the command of Captain W. F. D. Jervois, R.E., repaired from Woolwich, and arrived at the island on the 30th June. Some four weeks after the men commenced the construction of the permanent works considered necessary in those precarious days, to enable the garrison to resist any attempt at invasion by the enemy. There being but little accommodation in the island for troops, unused as it had been to have soldiers quartered on it, the company was necessarily divided into two portions, and domiciled more than a mile apart, at Longy and Corblets. The “Nunnery” was constituted an hospital for the sick.

An appeal was made to the corps in June to subscribe towards the erection of an asylum for soldiers’ widows in memory of the late Duke of Cambridge. From most of the companies it was met by contributions, which in the aggregate amounted to 101_l._ 17_s._, and thus insured to the corps a permanent interest in the institution to the extent of nine votes at every election of a widow. The gift from the non-commissioned officers and men of the sappers was the most liberal that had been received from any regiment in the service.

Sergeant John Berry and one private, both surveyors, were employed under Captain Vetch, late R.E., from June to August, in conducting a series of tidal observations in the River Dee at Chester, for the harbour department of the Admiralty, and to carry out also the provisions of the “Dee Standard Restoration Act.” The observations were to extend over a period of twelve months, but the service was concluded in a fourth of the time. The duty was very carefully attended to, and the registrations were always accurately made by the sergeant and his assistant.

One sergeant and fourteen rank and file embarked for Van Diemen’s Land on the 19th July on board the ‘Lady Montagu,’ as a guard over convicts, in conjunction with a detachment of the line under the command of Captain J. S. Hawkins, R.E., and landed at Hobart Town on the 11th December. The Lieutenant-Governor of the colony applied for the assistance of the sappers to constitute, in the first instance, the nucleus of an efficient survey body, and to carry on, both in the city and the distant bush, the trigonometrical and detail survey of the settlement. The men, eleven of whom were married and had families, were selected from the survey companies, and were all competent for the duty both as surveyors and draughtsmen. A change in the designation of the settlement caused the party to be denominated the “Tasmanian Detachment.” Very early after its arrival, the legislative council of the colony showed much hostility to the employment of the sappers, and at last gained the point for which it had pertinaciously worked. After a service of nearly four years in the triangulation and survey of Tasmania, the detachment quitted Hobart Town on the 9th February, 1856, and landed at Sydney, for similar duty, on the 13th following.

A party of six men from Chatham was employed under Captain G. Bent, R.E., from 24th September to 13th December, in surveying and levelling the ground in the neighbourhood of St. Helier’s, Jersey, to the extent of about ten square miles; and afterwards the same party was removed to Alderney, where, under Lieutenant Martin and Captain Jervois, it completed for military purposes a special survey of the island, in May, 1853.

Hostilities at the Cape were this year continued in the same desultory and unsatisfactory manner as in the previous year. The attempts for a fair open fight were quite unsuccessful, and the patrols undertaken to drive the enemy into action were equally as harassing and arduous as in any former war. In these operations the sappers participated to the extent of their numerical means, not without, in one particular instance, suffering greatly both in loss of life and property. The following detail embraces the active services of the corps on the Cape frontier this year.

A party of two sergeants and sixty-five rank and file, under Captain H. C. B. Moody, R.E., returned to King William’s Town on the 1st January, 1852, after three days’ march in escorting supplies to Forts White and Cox.

One sergeant and thirty rank and file accompanied a patrol of nearly 500 troops from King William’s Town, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Skipwith, 43rd regiment, on the 3rd January. Captain Moody with Lieutenant Fowler, R.E., commanded the sappers. The American pontoon was carried with the party. The division crossed the Kei on foot, at a drift, on the 7th and 8th. On the 14th Colonel Eyre’s division appeared in sight, but as the Kei had then risen considerably, the pontoon was used with effect to cross the stream. About one mile and a half above the drift, at a point where the water was smooth though the current was strong, the raft was employed. The river was about 100 yards wide, with a muddy bottom; the bank was easily accessible by infantry, but not by cavalry or artillery. To form the communication a strong hawser was passed over to the opposite bank, and the pontoon, attached to it by two short lines with running loops, was passed from shore to shore, carrying forty men at each trip. On the first day, seven companies of the 73rd and 60th regiments were in this manner ferried across, as also about 100 Fingoe women and children. During the day the tide again rapidly fell, and the waggons, &c., crossed the stream at the main drift. Captain Moody, in reporting upon the conduct of his detachment, said, “Nothing could exceed the energy and willingness with which they all worked.”

From the 31st January to 2nd February one sergeant and forty rank and file, under Lieutenant Fowler, R.E., accompanied the patrol under the command of Captain Campbell, Cape mounted rifles, and, supplied with sickles, assisted in devastating the crops of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Perie and cutting off their supplies. On the Mangoka river a like razzia was effected, and after a night’s bivouac on the Gwokkobi, several huts were burnt and fifty acres of corn cut down. Further destruction was carried on up the Gwokkobi and Umnaza rivers to the Perie station, to the extent of eighty acres. After a slight skirmish with about 200 Kaffirs in the Perie bush, the patrol returned to King William’s Town, laying waste in its route the gardens in the vicinity of Fort Beresford and down the Umtabini to the point of its junction with the Buffalo river, comprising another area of about eighty acres of thriving corn.

Captain Fenwick, R.E., with twenty rank and file, formed the European part of an escort of 100 strong, which conveyed supplies in five bullock waggons, in addition to seventy head of cattle, to Major Kyle’s column in the Tomacha—a distance of seventeen miles from King William’s Town, to which place the detachment returned on the 5th February after two days’ patrolling.

From 27th January to 28th February ten rank and file, under second-corporal William Roberts, were attached to Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre’s column, and during the operations on the march to the Keiskama, and beyond it, were employed in making drifts practicable for waggons, throwing temporary bridges for the passage of the troops, and assisting in the destruction of the enemy’s crops.

A similar party during the same period, under corporal George Grubb, accompanied Major Kyle’s division to Seyolo’s country; and, in addition to the ordinary duties of the camp, assisted in devastating the crops of the Kaffirs, and improved the drifts for the passage of the waggons and the fording of the troops. This detachment also formed part of the waggon escort which conveyed provisions to the column from Fort White.

On the 22nd and 23rd February one sergeant and sixty rank and file were on patrol to Fort White, with supplies for the columns of Colonel Mitchell and Major Kyle. Ten waggons were in charge of the party, five of which were delivered to an escort from Major Kyle’s patrol, and the remainder were unloaded at the Fort. The party then returned to King William’s Town, capturing on the road two Kaffirs and six horses.

From 5th to 27th March nine rank and file under Captain Robertson, were present in the operations of the force under his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, in driving the enemy from the Waterkloof and adjacent fastnesses, and finally from the Amatola mountains. The sappers, commanded by Captain Fenwick, R.E., were most useful in rendering the drifts injured by heavy rains practicable for the passage of waggons. On this service four men of each regiment accompanied the head-quarters as the Commander-in-Chiefs escort. The party of sappers also shared in the honour, by being permitted to add five men to his Excellency’s body guard. One corporal was also attached to the division under Colonel Eyre, and was present in all its operations from 5th March to 27th April. To this patrol were added seven rank and file on the 20th April, who assisted in the concluding services of the division.

Sixty sappers formed part of a patrol of 150 men, under the command of Captain Moody, R.E., sent out on the 27th March to co-operate with Colonel Eyre’s division, and also to intercept fugitives, cattle, &c., flying from him in the direction of the Isili range. That day Captain Moody formed a junction with Colonel Eyre’s force under Murray’s Kraantz, and in working up by Kaffir tracks to the high ground burnt several of the enemy’s huts. The service required that the party should descend again: this was done in a different direction over shelving rocks and through dense underwood. It then crossed one of the sources of the Buffalo, scoured the country in its vicinage, and returned again through the bush under the Buffalo range towards Colonel Eyre’s camp. The paths were most intricate and rocky, and the detachment consequently marched in Indian file. While in the heart of the bush night came on. The darkness was so intense that the men were obliged to trail on by feeling and calling to each other. It was with the greatest difficulty that the path was kept, but at last it was lost altogether, and halting near a stream the men lay down on the wet ground, without fires, and passed the night in a comfortless bivouac. At grey light next morning the patrol was in motion, and the sappers emerged from the bush after about four hours’ exertion. One man missed his way in the jungle, and spent eighteen hours in endeavouring to gain the detachment. He had nearly exhausted his energies in extricating himself from the steep and broken rocks that lay in his track, when luckily he was rescued by some of his comrades who were sent in quest of him. After renewed efforts to clear the bush of prowling Kaffirs, and driving them and their cattle in the direction of Colonel Eyre’s division, the detachment on the 29th March returned to King William’s Town, laying waste on the route three Kaffir gardens. “As usual,” wrote Captain Moody, “the sappers behaved in an excellent manner.” Their conduct also met with the approval of Colonel Eyre.

With a patrol of about 240 troops, commanded by Captain Robertson, R.E., was sent a party of one sergeant and forty rank and file, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E. The patrol left King William’s Town on the 30th March. The sappers, broken up into small sections, aided in scouring the Isili Berg. On the 1st April the patrol quitted the bivouac at the source of the Yellow Wood river, destroyed a few huts and several fields of corn, and reached head-quarters on the 2nd April.

A patrol of 300 men, under Captain Moody, R.E., conveyed supplies of cattle and provisions to Fort Cox for the divisions working in the Amatolas, and returned with the empty waggons without opposition from the enemy. The escort was out three days, from 5th to 7th April, and 100 sergeants and rank and file of the corps, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., formed a part of the force.

Sergeant John Mealey and ten rank and file accompanied, on the 7th April, a small escort under Lieutenant Broke, 60th rifles, with provisions in waggons to the Green river for Colonel Percival’s division, and returned the next day to King William’s Town.

Soon after this, a detachment of thirty-one men, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., built a defensible tower in the Keiskama Hoek, for the purpose of making a demonstration of a fixed purpose permanently to eject the Gaika tribe from that territory and to occupy the Amatolas.

The head-quarters of the ninth company was removed from King William’s Town on the 28th May by Graham’s Town and Fort Brown to Beaufort, at which fort it arrived on the 19th June. Previously to its arrival it was overtaken in the Konap pass on the 13th June by a body of 200 rebel Hottentots, under Ian Cornelis and Damon Kuhn, and at noon was suddenly brought into action. The small force under Captain H. C. B. Moody, R.E., consisted of two sergeants, thirty-one rank and file, and one bugler, in charge of five waggons containing baggage, arms, engineer stores, and 30,000 rounds of musket-ball ammunition, with four women and ten children. The Pass—a long and dangerous one—has a serpentine direction, accommodating itself to the tortuous ravine through which it ascends. On the left, the whole way is a rocky precipice some forty feet high, scarped either by manual labour to form a road or by descending torrents in bygone ages, the summit of which is covered with bush. On the right rises a steep hill, inaccessible, and thickly wooded to the brim; a better position adapted to a lurking foe could not well be imagined, affording the means of enfilade fire at every turn of the road.[102] Acquainted by spies with the movements of the convoy, the rebel Hottentots had before its approach concealed themselves in an impenetrable ambuscade, and as the sappers ascended the hill, the advanced guard was met with a volley which killed three of the mules in the leading waggon and stopped the progress of the train, the road being too narrow to turn it. So sudden and fierce a beginning did not appal the detachment, for instantly, without disorder, they joined issue with the enemy though far superior in force and almost unassailable in position. Some of the party soon tried to push into the bush above them, but the rebels already occupied it close to the edge of the road; and as the thicket was too dense to work in, the men were compelled to retire. At this moment one of the leading drivers showed unmistakeable symptoms of treachery and fraternization with the rebels, and he was instantly shot down by a sapper.[103] In a few seconds the firing was general for more than 150 yards on both sides of the Pass, but the detachment, careful of its ammunition, only fired when the enemy could be seen and picked off. At length the advance men fell back and took cover under the bank, and between it and the leading waggon, where they received a reinforcement of a few men from the rear. Each waggon was now defended with great determination and intrepidity, and each man fought his way through fearful straits. The firing was chiefly within five yards and less of their antagonists. Sometimes in venturing from their shelter to fire upon the rebels in the kloof, they were opposed by a deadly fire from behind, which always lessened the number that returned. At the head of the road a force of the enemy occupied a position which enfiladed the detachment, but the rebels there were held in check by the steady firing of a few men who kept a vigilant look out for them. Without diminishing his fire in the parts he already occupied, the enemy rapidly increased the extent of his flanks and was trying to surround the little band, but to prevent this, and as the men had been driven to the last stand and were fast falling, Captain Moody gave the reluctant order for the women and children to leave the waggons, and all to commence a retreat. Not a move was made to the rear until the order was given; and, with as many of the wounded as could assist themselves, and the women and children—the retreat towards the old Konap post was conducted with steadiness and without precipitation under a spirited fire from the rebels. On clearing the gorge, a section of the men was extended into the bush to keep the advancing enemy in check, and under its cover the detachment gained an abandoned inn, which was soon converted into a post of defence by barricades and loopholes. Here a final stand was to be made, but the Hottentots, although they were aware of the weakness of the party, dared not renew the attack. The action lasted an hour; three-fourths of the time being spent in defending the waggons, which were riddled with balls. The casualties were——

Killed 7— Lance-corporal John Hitchings; bugler David Brotherston; privates John Crilly, John Gillies, James Marr, Edward Phillips, and William Sanderson. Also the wife of private Thomas Hayward, and three or four of the drivers, including young Webb, a lad of eighteen years of age, who was shot dead while receiving some caps from a sapper.[104] Died of wounds 2— Privates William Forgie and John Arthur. Wounded 6— Corporal Edward Wilmore; second-corporal William severely Marshall, and privates Henry Scott, John Cloggie, Philip Gould, and James Reynolds. Wounded 1— Private Thomas Seaman. slightly —— Total 16 ——

The enemy, though ensconced in the thicket, had many killed.[105] All the spare arms, Minié rifles, ammunition, oxen, baggage, and equipments were captured by the rebels, but the waggons, engineer stores, and some minor articles were recovered.[106] The Minié rifles luckily had been “rendered useless by the precaution of removing the nipples.”[107]

Captain Moody’s conduct throughout commanded the confidence of his men. Of their coolness and courage he reported in the highest terms. Colour-sergeant Alexander Spalding who commanded the rear-guard, and sergeant William King, who had charge of the advance, were favourably noticed in the Captain’s despatch. Sergeant John Davis of the 12th regiment, was also highly spoken of, as well for his coolness and courage, as for his offer to proceed with four volunteer sappers to Fort Brown for assistance. While Captain Moody was assisting the men in their charges, one of the rebels took a steady aim at him by resting his gun on the branch of a tree, but his piece snapped, and before he could re-cap he was shot down by private John Murphy.[108] Three times sergeant King collected his men, and bravely headed them in their fruitless charges on the rebels.[109] Private Thomas Hayward volunteered to go to Fort Brown alone, in disguise, after dusk for assistance, but the firing having been heard at that fort, a detachment of the 12th regiment soon appeared, and rendered the hazardous enterprise of the private unnecessary. The arrival of the reinforcement, however, put the men again on their mettle, and Captain Moody and his sappers returned with the party to the scene of the disaster. On both sides of the road they scoured the jungle, but the rebels had decamped with as much booty as they could carry off.[110] “The little band of sappers,” wrote a London journal, “were noble fellows, who often before, under another of their officers, had fought bravely in a fairer field.”[111] In the Government notice of the Commander-in-Chief, dated June 16th, 1852, the conduct of the men “in defending the waggons to the last,” and their “steady and good order in retreat after inflicting a severe loss on the enemy,” were much lauded. The notice then added, that “the greatest credit is due to Captain Moody and his small party of sappers for their soldier-like and gallant bearing on the occasion.” Even the rebel Hottentots themselves in speaking of the massacre said, that “the sappers fought like men.”[112]

The remnant of the party, taking with it the killed and wounded, and the women and children, reached Fort Brown at dusk on the 14th June. There the brave men who lost their lives were interred. A subscription was forthwith made among the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the royal artillery and 12th regiment to meet the urgent wants of the party, and the necessities of the motherless children of private Hayward. A further sum of 100l. was collected among the benevolent citizens of Graham’s Town for the same purpose, and the amount was distributed to the sufferers in proportion to their losses and wants.

A visit to the fatal spot a day or two after afforded unmistakeable evidence of the obstinate nature of the conflict. Dead horses, oxen and mules, shot in the fray, blocked up the road. Two of the Hottentots lay stanched in their blood, and wells of gore were scattered about the path in sickening frequency. Two waggons, speckled with shot-holes, had been overturned; and further on, in the line of retreat, were strewn quantities of torn uniform, broken muskets, blood-stained linen, and commissariat supplies.[113]

Captain Moody, having under him thirteen rank and file, was out on patrol with the force under General the Honourable George Cathcart, from the 6th to 15th July. The sappers kept with the guns. They carried with them a proportion of tools to improve the roads, and assisted in some of the operations for driving the enemy from the Kroome range and the Waterkloof.

On the 25th July sergeant John Mealey and nine men of the corps at Fort White were present with about 100 men of the 12th Lancers, 2nd Queens, and Cape Corps in repulsing an attack on the cattle guard. The Hottentots, about 200 in number, under Uithaalder were on the plain in front of the fort in good skirmishing order. After crossing a drift they stood for a time, and kept up a smart fire on the garrison. They then retreated with the loss of six men to Slambie Kop, to the foot of which they were pursued. The British casualties only counted two slightly wounded. The sappers turned out with great promptitude, not waiting to cover themselves with their jackets, and conducted themselves as good soldiers. Captain Robertson, R.E., was also present, and two of the sappers were near to him in the hottest of the fire. The rebels had a bugler among them who was proficient in his duty. The bugle on which he sounded had been captured by the Hottentots in the Konap Pass a month before from bugler Brotherston, who was killed in the action.

Again Captain Moody, in command of twenty-eight rank and file of the corps, was attached to the troops under his Excellency, which operated from the 29th July to the 29th August across the Kei, by Aland’s Post and Whittlesea. On the 6th August the party was increased by the arrival of nine men at Brome Neck, with the patrol from King William’s Town under Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell. This party brought up the India-rubber pontoons, but the low state of the tides rendered their use unnecessary. The detachment more immediately with Captain Moody was employed on the journey in repairing the defective drifts, and establishing a defensible kraal on the Kei at the standing camp. The conduct of the sappers was well spoken of by the Captain, and his Excellency expressed his satisfaction with all that had been done by them.

A detachment of twenty-seven non-commissioned officers and men landed at the Cape from England on the 11th September, which increased the corps in the colony from 268 to 285 of all ranks.

Eight rank and file left Fort Beaufort, under Captain Moody, on the 11th September, and were attached to the division under his Excellency, to make a demonstration in the Waterkloof. At Nelle’s Farm, under the direction of Captain Jesse, R.E., they constructed an intrenched camp, assisted by the rifle brigade, and formed a similar one in the valley of the Waterkloof near Brown’s Farm. These services were rapidly and creditably executed.

Four rank and file were present in the field services of the column under Colonel Eyre, from 30th September to 30th October. Four also served in the various operations with Major-General York’s division from the 12th to 28th October.

To the expedition against Moshesh commanded by his Excellency Lieutenant-General the Honourable George Cathcart, were attached, on the 7th November, serjeant Joseph Ireland and 13 privates of the corps under Lieutenant Siborne of the engineers. In the column of route, the sappers marched in front of the leading waggon, which carried the intrenching tools; and on several occasions preceded the force, clearing away impediments in the drifts to prevent delay in the progress of the troops. Lieutenant Siborne, aided by Lieutenant Smith of the Kat river levy, directed the sappers in these hurried interstitial labours.

Streams and rivers abounding in the country, the India-rubber floats were necessarily resorted to, to push on the army. The first water of any magnitude on the line of march, was the Orange River, which, having sunk to an accessible depth, the troops breasted it; but to free them from hazard in crossing, their arms, appointments, knapsacks, and personal war equipment were ferried over on the raft by the party of sappers.

Traversing an open country for about 34 miles the army reached the Caledon, which offered the first serious obstruction to the march. The troops luckily had passed on foot, but by the time the waggons arrived the river had risen fifteen feet. Now the current was fierce, surging, and full of eddies; and the trunks of old trees, which, for years, perhaps, had floated with the changing tide, up and down the stream, materially interfered with the operations of the pontoon; but it nevertheless was made to do its work, and the waggons with the supplies were rapidly passed to the opposite bank.[114] Captain Tylden and Lieutenants Stanton and Siborne—the last in charge of the raft—were thanked for their “aid and exertions” in effecting the passage.

A journey of more than seventy miles brought the expedition to the Lieuw—a narrow fordable water, with a dashing tide confined within steep banks. Before however the waggons could cross, both shores had to be cut away to a convenient level by the whole force of sappers assisted by a fatigue party. Still, so difficult was the passage, that five hours were spent in taking over about one-half the train; and then only by the sturdy exertions of a double team of oxen whipped into extra activity by rows of persevering men occupying positions in the river up to their waists in water.[115]

Continuing the march, the Caledon River—which swept round from the level in which it was first encountered—was a second time approached, but as the stream was fordable, the operation of crossing was unattended by the exercise of more than ordinary energy. The troops then moved on to the Berea mountain and fought a battle with the well-equipped horsemen of Moshesh, in which the British casualties were severe. Corporal Edward A. Henderson was the only sapper present in the action, he being at the time with the rocket section of artillery, attached to Dr. Fasson, the Ordnance surgeon, in the capacity of medical orderly. The pontoneers were left in camp at the Caledon with the raft.

Having made the chief aware of the political consequences of his defeat, and obtained his subscription to a treaty, the victorious troops retraced their steps to the colony. The Caledon was easily passed, and after a march of about fifty miles, the Lieuw was gained. Recollecting the difficulty of the previous operation, Colonel Eyre ordered that some efforts should be employed to discover a really practicable drift. A few of the waggons crossed at the old ford, but in the mean time sergeant Ireland—a man who had received praise for his boat services and usefulness in the demolition of the wreck of the ‘Royal George’—discovered a diagonal drift so convenient, as to render the passage one of maximum facility. The bottom was rocky the whole distance, with a shallow flow trippling over the stones; while the general stream escaped through fissures and cavities in the rock, and merged into the river at the other side of the bar. The trickling, however, at the drift, caused it to be very slippery, but to make the footing sure, the defect was remedied by scattering along its surface a quantity of sand, which brought the new ford into favour, and the old one was abandoned.

Crossing the Caledon, a second time, without difficulty, the march was sustained to the Orange River. Its passage, however, was a tedious and protracted operation. The rains had increased the height of the stream, and expanded it to 225 yards. The current was resistless and the weather squally. A heavy flat-bottomed punt and the India-rubber cylinders were the only means within reach to achieve the movement. Such an organization, to throw over an army of some strength with guns and troops of horses, attended by a cumbersome train of waggons of unusual magnitude for number was ridiculously small. Five sappers with Lieutenant Siborne manned the raft, and a like number of the troops oared the punt, each working its course, from bank to bank, on a separate hawser stretched across the stream. Thirty-five men, armed and fully accoutred, were taken over at each trip and landed every ten minutes. Indeed the passage across only occupied a third of the time, owing to a skilful use of sheaves—instead of thimbles and eyes—running on the warps, to which short lines were attached issuing from the raft. The latter again was placed obliquely to the warp, by which one of the angles or shoulders of the float was pressed forward to the hawser. All this is probably too technical to be generally understood. The current just suited the arrangement, and lashing against the cylinders—which were broadside to it—drove the raft onward at a rapid rate. Not needing to help in its propulsion, the men, looking to their equilibrium, simply balanced themselves on the deck. Until sergeant Ireland hit upon this expedient, the iron thimbles worked but idly on the rough hawsers, and the raft was necessarily hauled across by the manual dexterity of the pontoneers. Horses, mules, oxen, howitzers, guns, and all sorts of military equipment were passed over on the pontoons; whilst the punt, which could only bear one waggon at a time, and one or two struggling horses, was in constant requisition to take over the baggage and material of the army. Fortunately the evenings were moonlight, which graced the operation with a charm that influenced the ardour and exertions of the men. Under this sombre aspect, the rush of the stream, the splash of the wave, the dip of the paddles, and the gliding of the raft, gave the exploit a feature as romantic as martial. On two or three occasions the hawsers stretched to their utmost tension, by the increasing height of the river, snapt at their weakest points. To renew them was a labour of some eight hours’ toil; and then, such was the strength of the flow, they could not be safely used. The pontoons too, being light and inflated, danced like corks on the troubled water, and were nearly torn at times from under their superstructure. Still, the men accustomed to such perils were only the more daring and energetic, and the passage was prosecuted without accident. Under the altered circumstances of wind and current, the punt would have lain idle for the want of a tow-line by which to work its way from side to side, but Lieutenant Siborne, enlarging his sphere of action, had the boat pulled down on either bank to a good offing and made to do its share of hard duty. It was however a wearying and exhausting process, for each trip was not performed under three-quarters of an hour.

The conveyance of the “sick waggon” claimed especial care, but untoward mishaps made its short career eventful. When about half way across, one of its sweeps or long oars broke, and the boat with its living freight was at the mercy of the impetuous torrent. Drifting with the current it at length plunged among some willow trees below the landing-place, where a rope, passed from tree to tree, being quickly fastened to the punt, a party on shore hauled it to an opening in the bank. The hawser, however, unable to bear the strain, gave way, and the boat whirled off furiously towards a rapid in the middle of the stream. Recovered again, it was pulled up to the trees with so much force, that the overhanging branches became entangled with the waggon and nearly capsized it into the river. In this dilemma, some four or five sappers, under the direction of Lieutenant Stanton, nimbly vaulted into the willows, and with axes, promptly cut down the impeding branches, whilst others of the pontoneers, “swimming about in the boiling flood,” assisted to clear them away. All the obstacles being thus removed, the punt was successfully pulled to the sand-drift, and biding a prudent opportunity, was safely passed to the other bank.[116]

No less than eight days were consumed in this exciting operation, and the detachment, which had been left behind its division, to complete some necessary details, were now in full route for head-quarters. By forced marches, in forty-eight hours it overtook the column under Colonel Eyre, which had taken five days to travel the same distance. The subsequent rivers in the journey, being as shallow as rivulets, were easily forded, and no necessity occurred for employing the resources which the sappers had at command. The detachment arrived at King William’s Town on the 29th January. Four other sappers despatched from Bloom fontein and attached to the division under Colonel Napier, were also engaged as pontoneers, and completed the concluding operations for crossing the column. On arriving at Graham’s Town they joined a detachment of the corps there.[117] On the following muster parade, a letter was read, in which his Excellency commended the zeal and activity of the sappers as displayed in the passage of the Orange river by the divisions under Colonels Eyre and Napier, and justly attributed the success of the manœuvre to the able manner in which it had been conducted by Lieutenant Siborne.

Lieutenant-Colonel Cole, the commanding royal engineer, in his final report, dated 1st March, 1853, to Brigade-Major Walpole, communicating the termination of the war, thus wrote of the services and conduct of the corps:—“I cannot conclude what is probably my last report to you, without conveying the gratification I have experienced throughout by the value which has been attached to the services of the non-commissioned officers and men of the royal sappers and miners, not only in public dispatches, but from the opinion expressed to me by the late commander of the forces especially, and the officers under whose command they have served, and who have in many instances shown their confidence practically.

“I am enabled to add that from the reports I have received and my own observation, the non-commissioned officers and men have in all instances throughout this arduous struggle shown a zeal and determination to further the service in which they were engaged, and have displayed their usual gallantry and discipline whenever they have been in the presence of the enemy.”

-----

Footnote 101:

Was formerly in the sappers, from which he was discharged a corporal in January, 1838, on a pension of 1_s._ 7_d._ a-day, after a service of twenty-three years. Most of his military career was spent on the survey of Ireland, in which he was found a zealous and correct surveyor. Soon after quitting the corps he emigrated to South Australia, and was hired by the Commissioners for the colony as a draughtsman in the land office. He was one of the first race of surveyors in the settlement, and his duties, carried on through an unexplored intricate wilderness, were extremely toilsome and trying. At one time the survey department was thrown into great difficulty by the resignation of the original survey staff, which was the more embarrassing as emigrants were pouring into the colony by thousands, and land was rapidly purchased. In this extremity corporal McLaren, to meet the great and pressing wants of the colonists, exerted himself with untiring energy. The Governor, Colonel Gawler, in writing of his services (‘Times,’ November 7, 1846), said, “Corporal McLaren was a fine fellow, who would have answered all my purposes if I could have cut him up into ten or twenty living portions, but who, unhappily for me, was not thus divisible.” He was afterwards attached to the department of the surveyor-general, and ultimately, by his commendable labours, his experience, and valuable co-operation, received the appointment of deputy surveyor-general, which he now fills. His income is about 700_l._ a-year. A report by him (‘Times,’ September 20, 1852), on the overland route from Adelaide to Mount Alexander, is a fair specimen of his literary attainments and business-like habits.

Footnote 102:

‘Naval and Military Gazette,’ 21st August, 1852.

Footnote 103:

Ibid., September 18, 1852.

Footnote 104:

‘Naval and Military Gazette,’ September 18, 1852.

Footnote 105:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 237.

Footnote 106:

After this disaster, arms or ammunition were forbidden to be conveyed from one post to another, except by the express orders of the Major-Generals or officers commanding divisions, who were held responsible that sufficient escorts were provided to defend the convoys.

Footnote 107:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 237.

Footnote 108:

Said to be young Webb, a driver (in ‘Naval and Military Gazette,’ August 21, 1852); but Captain Moody has recorded, that the service was performed by private Murphy.

Footnote 109:

The praise due to him was unjustly given both in the colonial and metropolitan press to sergeant Davis, of the 12th regiment: but it was claimed for sergeant King, in a very soldier-like manner, by corporal Wilmore of the party, who was present and wounded in the action. Without attempting to disparage the conduct of the sergeant of the 12th, the corporal explained that at the period the charges took place, sergeant Davis was in the rear at the Old Post, with four volunteer sappers, awaiting orders to proceed to Fort Brown for a military reinforcement.—‘Graham’s Town Journal,’ October 23, 1852.

Footnote 110:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 237.

Footnote 111:

‘Naval and Military Gazette,’ August 21, 1852.

Footnote 112:

‘Graham’s Town Journal,’ October 22, 1853.

Footnote 113:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 236.

Footnote 114:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 301.

Footnote 115:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 309.

Footnote 116:

King’s ‘Campaigning in Kaffirland,’ 2nd edit., p. 328.

Footnote 117:

Much of the information afforded of the expedition is gleaned from an official report by Lieutenant Siborne, and the “Order Book” of the detachment.

1853.

Corporal James F. Church and private Edward Swenny, energetic and intelligent men, were appointed on the 19th February to join the expedition to Central Africa under Dr. Barth. The former was a carpenter, and the latter a surveyor and draughtsman acquainted with the management of philosophical instruments, and had, previously to his enlistment, travelled in Belgium, France, Algiers, and Milan. From political considerations they quitted in the character of civilians, but were armed each with a Colt’s revolver, a rifle, a double-barrel fowling-piece, a bowie knife, and an axe.

On the 20th February they embarked at Southampton, under Dr. Vogel, a young German astronomer attached to the expedition, and after a short stay on shore at Malta, proceeded to Tripoli, where they tarried for some months, devoting their leisure to learning the Arabic dialect, and familiarizing themselves with the mode of riding on camel-back. Corporal Church also mastered the use of the sextant, mountain barometer, azimuth compass, &c., so as to make ready observations with them.

From a dangerous illness private Swenny could not go on with the expedition, and was sent to England with high testimonials for zeal and ability from Dr. Vogel and Colonel Herman, the Tripoline consul. The ill chance which deprived the enterprise of his valuable services was much regretted by Lord Clarendon, who granted the invalid in addition to his salary a gratuity of 15_l._ His place was supplied by private John Maguire, a fine soldier and skilful mechanic, who was selected from among thirty-six volunteers of the company of the corps at Malta.

The caravan under Dr. Vogel was a large one of thirty-seven camels, carrying upwards of four tons of baggage and presents for the sultan of Bornou and other chiefs. The organization of the force, with the packing and distribution of the baggage, was chiefly confided to corporal Church, who in consequence of the temporary indisposition of Dr. Vogel set out in charge of the expedition on the 19th June, in company with Mr. F. Warrington, a gentleman well known in Tripoli, to Beni-olid, where he arrived on the 26th. There Dr. Vogel joined on the 2nd July, and a day or two afterwards the caravan was again in motion.

At Sokna, midway between Tripoli and Moorzuk, a number of the natives approached them with greeting, and conducted them to an ample residence already prepared for their accommodation. A supply of provisions, consisting of melons, green figs, dates, two sheep, two large dishes of bazeen, and three dishes of some other compound, owning a name more curious than intelligible, was placed at their disposal. In the evening a similar presentation was made to them, and the like extravagant proofs of generosity were continued to the travellers for four days more. Presents were made in return to compensate for this hospitality; but the natives would only accept a few specimens of English cutlery in the shape of knives and razors. On quitting Sokna the governor and the people accompanied the caravan a short distance on the road, and took their leave of the adventurers with unequivocal demonstrations of sympathy and good will.

Next day the expedition entered the pass of Gible Asswaa, or Black Mountains, a region of dreariness and desolation. In every direction masses of basalt seemed to have been upheaved by some convulsion of nature, whilst in some places the rock had all the semblance of iron suddenly cooled after leaving the furnace. Much of the road was of the worst character for travelling, for it was not only hard and broken, but ridged with knife-like edges, which gashed the camels’ feet and lamed them. This sterile region extended for more than fifty miles without even a shrub or an insect to invite observation. To add to their trials, the travellers were four days and a-half without water save that carried by the camels, which from being constantly acted upon by the sun was always more than tepid and lost much of its relish. In these mountains the heat was excessive. When exposed to the full blaze of the sun the mercury in the thermometer rushed up speedily to 150°; and afterwards, when corporal Church withdrew the instrument from the sand in which he had buried it about six inches deep, the indication was 130°. After passing the Black Mountains, the corporal counted in one day nine skeletons of camels which had fallen in the waste from exhaustion.

The expedition now traversed a far-spreading plain, and being short of water, pushed on night and day by long marches for the well called Omhul-obid, or the Mother of Slaves. Before gaining it, they were wearied with sixty-six hours’ exertion in the saddle out of eighty, and the camel which Church had ridden from Tripoli, fell dead at Erfad from fatigue.

In a few days afterwards—5th August, 1853—the expedition reached Moorzuk, where private Maguire joined it on the 31st of the same month. This soldier, cool and confident, journeyed from Tripoli with three or four Arabs who were unable to speak a word of English. He was equally unable to exchange with them a word of Arabic. Gesture and grimace, therefore, were the means employed by him to communicate his orders and to express his feelings of satisfaction or discontent; but notwithstanding this impediment, he gallantly drove on, and in thirty-four days accomplished the journey under a fierce sun, without casualty and with credit.

On the 16th October the adventurers left Moorzuk, and had a toilsome journey as far as Gatrone, where they arrived on the 24th of the same month. Seven days Dr. Vogel and his sappers remained at this place to await the arrival of the rest of the lagging camels and stores. In that time they were joined by a caravan of merchants with about fourteen Arabs from Egypt, going to Bornou to purchase slaves.

While at Gatrone a batch of more than 700 slaves, nearly all women and children, passed through the place. The grown-up men in the drove did not seem to exceed twenty in number. All were in a miserably withered state, and many were panting and dying from fatigue and want. Already they had been driven across a desert between 600 and 700 miles, and had yet to go to Tripoli, nearly 700 miles more. Every step of the journey was to be tramped, and most of them had burdens to bear on their heads, of from fifteen to twenty pounds or more in weight, according to their strength. The slave-masters were very cruel to the wretched creatures, for, if they showed signs of lassitude or fell exhausted on the sand, the whip was applied with unmeasured severity to their naked bodies; and if the horrid scourging failed to move them on, they were abandoned to their fate, perhaps three days from the next well, to perish from raging thirst.

The expedition reached Teghery on the 3rd November, and resting for a few days, after collecting dates for the use of the camels, moved on the 7th into the Great Desert. In the first three days no less than 250 skeletons of slaves were passed, and fragments of bones were scattered about in such vast numbers on the route, that one could traverse the wilderness unguided, without much chance of missing the track. At the wells of Meshroo, about two days’ journey from Teghery, the ground had the appearance of an excavated cemetery, or the site of a well-contested battle; and to be free from these sickening relics of mortality, the doctor and his sappers pitched their tents for the night at a distance.

The travelling was carried on at the rate of twelve or thirteen hours a-day, without halting, which was equal to a journey of from twenty-five to thirty miles. This was reckoned to be very fair work, as camels usually only go over two miles and a half of ground in an hour. The average heat of the sun ranged from 125° to 130°, and beamed upon the wayfarers with so oppressive an intensity that their substance and their strength were wasted in excessive perspiration. In the evening they halted, spread canvas, and lay down for the night. The two sappers posted themselves in turn as sentries over the caravan, to protect it from injury or surprise. During the night, owing to the state of the atmosphere falling from its fiery day heat to a temperature sometimes as low as 45°, the men suffered from a feeling of extreme cold.

In this way the expedition journeyed for sixteen days without seeing a single native. For ten marches of the period they looked in vain for the slightest trace of herbage, but at a Waddy called Ekaba, a not very luxuriant oasis, they found a little coarse grass that afforded an acceptable change to the camels after feeding for ten days upon dry dates. On the 27th November the expedition was at Ashanumra, in the country of the tribes of Tibboo.

In due time the expedition reached Kouka where it remained for a while, as Dr. Barth had gone on to Timbuctoo. The return of the chief being uncertain Dr. Vogel explored the country in the vicinity of the lake, taking with him corporal Maguire. Corporal Church was left to carry on the meteorological observations. Contrary to expectation, Dr. Barth, who had been reported dead, returned to Kouka, and soon after, corporal Church accompanied him home. Whatever services may since have been conducted by Dr. Vogel—of which no account has been communicated to the corps, it is proper, nevertheless, to record to the credit of the corporal the very kind terms in which, under date the 4th December, 1855, the doctor wrote of him to the Consul-General at Tripoli:—

“I beg to recommend to your special notice my faithful companion John Maguire, royal sappers and miners, who has, notwithstanding a serious indisposition under which he suffered in the beginning of our journey, used every exertion to promote the object of the expedition, and behaved in the most praiseworthy manner.” For his services corporal Church received a gift of 15_l._ from the foreign minister and a silver watch from the Royal Geographical Society.

The small party under Captain Owen, R.E., at Marlborough House, was increased in February to five rank and file. On the completion of the referential arrangement of the correspondence and documents connected with the Great Exhibition, they were attached in May to the department of practical science and art, under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Cole. Since the transfer they have been engaged in services of a very miscellaneous character, embracing the distribution to national and public schools of examples and models for teaching elementary knowledge, form, and colour, mounting and tinting examples and prints, preparing models, &c., and officiating as clerks and draughtsmen in the offices at Marlborough House. Corporal Mack, in addition to his ordinary duties, produced two or three plans of an interesting character. In arranging some dietary tables Dr. Lyon Playfair engaged the assistance of the corporal. The ingredients used as food, extending to twenty-three substances, having been subjected by the professor to analysis, required to be classified into a simple and consistent arrangement. This the corporal effected by means of an ingenious diagram in colours. Dr. Playfair was well pleased with the illustration, and when at a meeting of the Royal Society, to which the corporal had the honour of being invited, the professor announced his intention of publishing it for the use of schools, the promise was received with applause. True to his intention, Professor Playfair afterwards produced the plan in colours on a very large scale, and gave it a distribution as wide as the United Kingdom. On the 8th June, 1853, the diagram was exhibited at the Mansion-house, and attracted much attention. A reduced plan of the illustration was also made for the Dean of Hereford, which forms the frontispiece to the sixth edition of his work on ‘Secular Education.’ Corporal Mack constructed another elementary diagram, commencing with the diet of an agricultural labourer and ascending to that of a convict. Singular to add, by this scale it appears that good diet is increased in the same ratio as crime; and the industrious husbandman fares worse than the felon!

Corporal Gardner, with an assistant sapper, had charge of the decorative furniture of cabinetry, silk tapestry, and drawings, exhibited at Gore House. He received the various specimens, assisted to arrange them, and was intrusted with the responsible duty of securing their safety. On his removal to the royal mint, to receive instructions in the process of coining, he was succeeded by second-corporal John Pendered, who retained the charge of the cabinetry until the close of the exhibition in September, 1853. He also had the care of Gore House estate and the adjoining grounds, purchased by the Royal Commissioners. Second-corporal Frederick Key, the foreman of carpenters at Marlborough and Gore Houses, superintended the construction of the fitments for the exhibition of cabinetry, and the necessary repairs to the interior of Gore House. The working pay of the party, in addition to their regimental allowances, was 2_s._ each a-day, but corporal Pendered was allowed 3_s._ a-day, in consideration of the extra charge confided to him in the care of Gore House estate.

On the 15th February was commenced the sanitary survey of Woolwich for the Local Board of Health by corporal James Macdonald, having under him a small variable party of sappers and civil assistants. The survey comprised that part of Woolwich lying south of the river Thames, and was finished in October, the work having been delayed for a few months by the withdrawal of the party for the military survey of Chobham. Corporal Macdonald was provided with outline tracings from the 5-feet initial plan of the metropolitan survey, enlarged to ten feet to a mile. These he carefully corrected, and filled in the details, embodying such other minutiæ as were necessary to assist the local authorities in effecting improvements in the drainage, &c. The whole work, so creditable to corporal Macdonald, mapped on about twenty full sheets, was done at the expense of the Woolwich Board of Health for 450_l._

Under the authority of a royal warrant dated 24th February, a detachment of one sergeant, two corporals, and twelve privates was raised for the survey of Van Diemen’s Land, which brought the establishment of the corps to a force of 2,200 officers and men. In anticipation of this sanction, the party had been organized and sent to Hobart Town in 1852.

On the 1st April two Quartermasters were added to the corps by the Master-General—Lord Raglan. One was attached to the royal engineer establishment at Chatham, and the other to the companies employed on the ordnance survey. Major Walpole originated the former, Lieutenant-Colonel Hall the latter, and Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of fortifications, ably supported the suggestions by his recommendation. These commissions were bestowed to reward merit, and to place the corps on an equal footing of advantage with the royal artillery, which regiment, taking its published force at the time as a datum, gave one commission from the ranks for every 700 men.

The eleventh company was removed from Alderney to Woolwich on the 2nd June, owing to the diminished strength of the corps there and at Chatham, rendering the withdrawal expedient. For twelve months it had been stationed on the island, and during that period its services were confined principally to the construction of the Longy lines and to scarping the rock in front of them, with the view of making the place less accessible to invasion. The masons always had full employment, but the greater part of the company, failing work at their own trades, took service in the quarries, and furnished the stones for the fortifications. Private Simon Williams was noticed as the best and most successful cutter and builder. On the removal of the company, a small party was left for special duties as foremen and clerks.

An incident occurred in July which from its novelty is deserving of record. Private William Calder committed forgery and theft, and deserted from the corps. His movements being traced and his assumed name discovered, second-corporal James S. Taylor, fully acquainted with his delinquencies, was sent to the United States, provided with a warrant from the Foreign Secretary, to demand, under the Convention, the apprehension and extradition of the culprit. He had embarked at a Scottish port on board the ‘Dirigo,’ and as she was sailing up to New York, corporal Taylor, who had arrived in a steamer before her, boarded the trader, captured the thief, and found in his possession all the property he had stolen from his comrades and the Ordnance. The case was taken before Judge Edmonds—notable for his eccentric decisions—and, contrary to the clearest evidence, he discharged the offender, and insinuated, from some extraordinary reasoning he employed, that the corporal himself had committed the forgery. Protesting against the inference, with soldier-like forbearance and respect, he induced the judge to make a promise to cancel his unjust remarks, but his Honour, regardless of his word, afterwards published them without modification. The unmerited accusation, however, did not discourage the corporal from following up his duty; and he made two other attempts to secure the person of the deserter, by asking a remand until direct evidence could be adduced from England, but the partisan judge, proof against proof, ordered the unconditional dismissal of the thief, and thus afforded an asylum to a fugitive, whose character is a reflection on the verdict that shielded him from justice. The exemplary conduct of second-corporal Taylor, eulogized by Sir John Burgoyne and Lord Raglan, gained for him promotion to the rank of corporal. ‘The Albion,’ a New York Paper, of 3rd September, 1853, gave a spirited leader in vindication of the “soldierly honour” of the corporal; and added, that he “gave his testimony with an air and tone manly, direct, and irreproachable.” On the other hand, the forensic turpitude of Judge Edmonds was strongly condemned, for treating the prisoner as the victim of government persecution instead of a renegade charged with heinous and multiplied crime. The prompt measures taken in the case were intended not merely to punish the offender but to deter others of the corps intrusted with responsibility, money, and property, from the commission of similar offences; and though it failed to secure the delinquent, it opened up for future guidance a sure line of proceeding, which it is hoped there may never be occasion to resort to.

Soon after the close of the Kaffir war the ninth company was withdrawn from the Cape, and landed at Woolwich the 19th September. During its service in the colony, its casualties in action were ten men killed and eleven wounded.

On the representation of Lieutenant-Colonel Waters, commanding royal engineer at the Mauritius, a company was detached from head-quarters in May, which disembarked there on the 25th September. On landing, the fine appearance of the men, their size and soldierlike bearing, attracted the attention of the staff officers and officers of the garrison. In the afternoon they were entertained with a substantial repast, furnished by the spontaneous generosity of the company of royal artillery there. On the following day they were inspected by Major-General Sutherland, who complimented Colonel Waters by observing, “that they were the finest company of soldiers he had for a long time seen.” A testimony like this from the Major-General, who is known not to be satisfied with even mediocrity, was certainly flattering.

A party of three men embarked under Captain A. P. G. Ross, R.E., for the colony of Victoria, landed at Melbourne on the 14th October. Selected as they were with reference to their qualifications as mechanics and general intelligence, they had been appointed to oversee the skill and labour employed in the construction of works for the defence of the harbour, and the rapidly-increasing towns in its vicinity. The defence of the bay by the contemplated fortifications was reported by the Captain to be impracticable, and the party awaited for a time the decision of the provisional government on the point. Meanwhile the sappers were efficiently employed in carrying out some subordinate details connected with the Melbourne Exhibition. It was also proposed by the Harbour commission that works should at once be commenced for the extension of the wharfage on the river Yarra, to give importance and vitality to the shipping and commercial aspects of the colony. Tenders were even called for to carry out the work, but, difficult to satisfy the antagonistic views of a capricious legislature, the suggestion was indefinitely postponed. Thereupon the Captain and his three sappers returned to England, arriving at Woolwich in the summer of 1855.[118]

The yellow fever, so frequently the scourge of the Bermuda islands was prevalent at St. George’s from August to November, and carried off its victims in greater numbers than in the fatal epidemics of 1819 and 1843. It commenced among the convicts in the ‘Thames’ hulk, and spread with frightful rapidity, first to the military and civil establishments, and then to the residences of the native population. The first soldier who died was a sapper, and before the sickness had ceased, no less than twenty-five men of the corps, out of a detachment of forty-seven of all ranks, became its victims. Three women and one child of the party also died. Colonel Phillpotts, the commanding royal engineer, and Lieutenant Greatorex, R.E., were among the dead, as also the wife of Lieutenant Whitmore, R.E. All the men of the detachment except three were attacked with the fever, and many suffered relapses. To relieve them as much as possible from the influence of infection, they were early removed from their quarters to an encampment on the north side of the island, near the naval tanks, and finally to Prospect Hill and Port’s Island. “Those who were able,” reports Captain White, R.E., “showed themselves to great advantage by the cheerful way in which they attended to the sick. Their exertions were above all praise.” Several opinions have been ventured relative to the exciting cause of the epidemic, but the general belief was, that from some disturbance in the position of the hulk by the pressure of strong winds and agitated tides, the atmosphere became impregnated with mephitic gases emitted from the accumulation of impurities around her bottom. Ireland Island, where a half company of sappers was stationed, was not visited by the calamity.

A warrant dated 15th of August, sanctioned the formation of a detachment of one sergeant, one corporal, three second-corporals and eleven privates, for service in the mint at New South Wales, which increased the corps to a total of 2,218 of all ranks. To fit them for the duty, they were quartered for several months within the royal mint, near the Tower, where the departments of the establishment were thrown open for their instruction. From a desire to monopolize the craft of the mintage to themselves and their families, the moneyers viewed the employment of the sappers in this confidential work with jealousy and opposition, and just imparted to their military pupils as much knowledge of the art as they cared to divulge. The party, however, made up by attention and observation for what was withheld from them, and promptly acquired full information with respect to the working of the machinery, and the various processes used in coining. Two or three of the smiths were also initiated in the method of adjusting weights and scales, and in the construction of balances and patent locks and safes. Instruction in these mechanical expedients was given them by Mr. Hobbs, celebrated for his exploits in picking locks before considered invulnerable. The first instalment of the detachment, consisting of sergeant Archibald Gardner and nine rank and file, embarked at the London Docks on board the ‘Maid of Judah,’ on the 3rd of December, 1853, and landed at Sydney in March, 1854.

The grey greatcoat, which for nearly half a century had been worn by the corps without improvement, was in November of this year superseded by a blue cloth greatcoat of the same cut and fashion as its predecessor, except that the cuffs for all ranks were abolished, the capes diminished, and the sergeants’ collars were of scarlet, instead of blue cloth.

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Footnote 118:

The sappers were very popular with the good people of Melbourne. Wherever their red-coats were seen, all sorts of inconvenient invitations followed. He must have been more than Bacchus to have accepted a tithe of their overflowing attentions. Luckily the men were impregnably temperate. To escape from the extravagant compliments of the citizens, Captain Ross, on the representation of corporal Goodear, permitted his sappers to appear in plain clothes. They were thus lost among the people, and saved from the friendly annoyances to which their bright uniform had honourably exposed them.

1853. CHOBHAM CAMP.

In common with the army, the royal sappers and miners furnished detachments for the camp at Chobham about four miles from Chertsey. The common where the encampment was formed was an extensive tract of waste, varied with hill and dale. The amplitude of the district, its freedom from enclosures, from wood or bush, or from barriers or hedges to mark the boundaries of individual or corporate properties, and its succession of swelling heights, well adapted it for the purposes of an instructional encampment, and for the campaigning evolutions of a concentrated force, assembled less for military parade and display than to realize in degree some of the chequered difficulties and vicissitudes which fill up the hard and comfortless career of an army engaged in the active operations of war.

The camp was established on the concave edge of the ridge. Each end was advanced, while the centre with a sweep receded, giving to the position a curved line approaching the segment of a circle. The detachment of sappers was tented south of the ‘Magnet,’ the name given to the hill where the head-quarters were established, and next to the left of the Coldstream guards, close to the road leading across the common to Bagshot. The line regiments which succeeded, fell back from the detachment. To be regimentally correct, the sappers should have been on the right of the Grenadier guards, but the position was chosen for the corps because it was central, prominent, and easily accessible to the troops requiring the use of entrenching tools and field implements. The division, consisting of a due proportion of cavalry, artillery and infantry, was under the orders of Lieutenant-General Lord Seaton, G.C.B. The sappers were among the first troops on the ground. As soon as it was determined to form the camp, the party at Sandhurst—one sergeant and twelve rank and file—was directed to suspend its services at the college, and remove to the encamping district. It commenced work on the 21st of April and ceased on the 7th of May, when it returned to the royal military college to carry out the concluding operations of the term. Lieut. Drake, R.E., commanded this party.

To make a hurried survey of the ground one sergeant and eighteen rank and file were detached from Southampton between the 27th of April and the first of May, who, as the service permitted, returned in sections to the ordnance survey. A small party detained at Windlesham for special purposes, in connexion with the military survey, did not quit the district till late in July. Lieutenant Stotherd, R.E., directed the detachment.

Colour-sergeant Henry Brown and twenty rank and file from Chatham, reached the encamping ground on the 9th of May. On the 13th following, this detachment was increased to a company (numbered the 2nd) of three sergeants and eighty-seven rank and file from the royal engineer establishment, under the command of Captain Lovell, R.E. Lieutenant and Adjutant Somerset from Woolwich, joined the company on the 14th of June. The whole were under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Vicars, R.E.

To diversify the operations, a pontoon train was ordered to be attached to the division; and on the 20th of June, the sappers appointed for this duty commenced to move in detachments. The force consisted of drafts from the first, fifth, and eleventh companies detached from Chatham, and reached a total of

1 quartermaster—George Allan, 1 sergeant-major—William Read, 12 sergeants, 16 corporals, 3 buglers, and 156 privates. —- 189 Total ===

under the command of Colonel Harry D. Jones, assisted by Captains H. St. George Ord, G. Ross, and W. M. Inglis, and ten subalterns of the royal engineers. The great bulk of the men arrived at Wellington camp on the 22nd of June, on which date the totals of the combined force of sappers counted 297 of all ranks.

A day or two after the pontoon operations at Virginia Water were concluded, the first company, with a detachment of the eleventh, quitted Wellington camp, and returned to Chatham the same day.

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 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.

Marking out the encampment was done by the sappers under Colonel Torrens, assistant quartermaster-general, by driving pickets into the ground in the places selected to mark the salient points of the boundaries, to be occupied by the several regiments.

The springs and watercourses were sought for and collected into small reservoirs or basins, at sites as convenient for access as practicable. In some places small trenches were excavated, to afford easy channels for conveying the water to the terraces. These tanks were for domestic uses. Attached to them were larger ones for washing purposes, which were filled by the surplus water from the drinking reservoirs through the agency of small troughs, fixed near the top of the partitional embankments.

From the dipping and trawling of so many utensils of different kinds into the tanks, and the constant washing of the water against the sides of the embankments, it became very dirty and disagreeable. To obviate this, pumps were fixed in the tanks, large wooden troughs being added to them to convey the water to the recipients, and sentries being posted over the reservoirs to compel all parties to take the water from the approved contrivances instead of resorting to the objectionable mode which had been attended with so much discomfort.

Where springs could not be found in sufficient number, wells were sunk to afford water for the troops. Some of these answered excellently, and yielded a good supply. In several instances the men were interrupted in the service by the presence of moving quicksand, which prevented them digging to the depth they otherwise would have done. These wells, nevertheless, were ultimately made available for use. To keep the ground from being undermined by the sand, rough sap rollers were at first constructed and sunk, but as these were found inadequate to meet the difficulty, on account of the sand oozing through the interstices of the brushwood, some barrels were securely fixed at the bottom, which at once offered an effectual resistance to any encroachment, and secured a serviceable quantity of good clean water. Into several of the wells two or three bushels of pebbles and shells were thrown to purify the water in its infiltration. Wells cased or lined with fir poles—an expedient first resorted to—were found not to answer, as the water collected in them tasted disagreeably of an impregnation of turpentine. Many failures in seeking for water occurred. Three or four in elevated parts of the field were sunk through a stratum of sand and clay to the depth of thirty-five feet without success. Two artesian wells were also bored late in July, one to a depth of sixty feet and the other to thirty-five feet, without any beneficial result.

Tradition or experience was of little avail in selecting places to sink the wells with anything like certainty of finding water. Nor were any men present who possessed the occult and mysterious faculty of using the divining rod to discover it. Several ingenious suggestions were made and acted on with no better result. All depended upon chance; and to make up for the deficiency from this source, greater attention was paid to gathering the nests of springs, and opening up courses and channels for their unfettered issue into reservoirs. Commonly, depths beyond thirty feet were obtained without the use of the windlass, or the application of materials to support the sides. Many of the sappers in these experiments turned out expert well-diggers, and executed the heavy duty with energy and coolness.

The formation of lakes was effected by damming up some small brooks and rivulets, in the valleys which emptied themselves into Virginia Water. The dams were raised on piles formed from the ends of fir poles, which, to make a firm foundation, were driven into the ground about ten or fifteen feet wider at the base than the road was at the top. The sides were built with good sods, and filled in with the best soil that could be gathered on the spot. Where the bog was unstable, it was replaced by stiff clay, which was puddled. In this way two or three fine expansive sheets of water were formed, which were extremely useful for the cavalry horses; and a safe and ready passage was also afforded for the troops across some valleys and morasses over the roadway of the dam. One sheet was behind the cavalry stabling on Egham Common, and the others, named “The Great Arm” and “The Little Arm,” were at the base of Black-hill and of Sheep’s-hill.

The stables were constructed of a uniform width, but the length varied according to circumstances. For a stable of six horses, the dimensions were twenty-seven feet by thirteen feet six inches. The uprights or stanchions were nine feet long, three feet of which were driven into the ground and well rammed. A wall-plate was then fixed to the stanchions at the height of six feet from the ground. The rafters were made of rough poles, secured by a collar-beam four feet from the top, and then nailed firmly down on the wall-plates, every alternate one being strapped with hoop-iron. The centre was supported by a king-post rammed three feet into the ground, and besides being nailed to the collar-beam, was tied for steadiness and stability at the top with rope-yarn. Poles were also fixed and secured on either side and at the ends, which, with the doors, were thatched or wickered with fir branches, compactly intertwined. The whole was roofed with canvas, and stayed by guy-ropes. The canvas was made under contract, in pieces to cover a stable for six horses, but after a few days’ rain the pieces shrunk about sixteen inches, and caused throughout the period of the camp much inconvenience to the horses. The stabling was made to accommodate 1,800 horses at an expense of nearly 1,000_l._ An experimental stable of the above form was run up in two hours and a quarter by twelve men, under sergeant George Pringle, directed by Lieutenant Drake, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief—Viscount Hardinge—who expressed his satisfaction both with the exertions of the men and the suitability of the construction.

The camp-kitchen for the sappers was built six feet wide and ten feet long, and was approached by a ramp. The flues were ten feet long and one foot wide, with a space intervening through the entire length of twenty inches, which was six inches deep in front and lessened to nothing as it neared the neck of the chimney, for the purpose of facilitating the action of the air and producing a rapid draught. Its sides were built up with sods to the height of fourteen inches, and the top was covered over with the blades of broken shovels. Intervals of nine inches were left to receive the camp-kettles. A trench was dug round the kitchen from which at one end rose, to the height of above six feet, a mud stack containing two distinct chimneys shaped into ornamental pots. At the other end, the two fires were lighted. The flues were kept independently of each other, and, with the chimney-stack, were plastered both inside and out with clay. This expedient gave to the kitchen a neat appearance, and sufficient durability to stand the wear and tear of constant use. Sometimes it was converted into an oven by removing the kettles, and temporarily closing the open spaces with sods. The kitchen cooked for 100 men. Though somewhat troublesome to inexperienced men to construct, compared with the old Peninsular range adopted by some regiments in camp, it was a decided improvement both in form and utility, inasmuch as it economised fuel, received with readiness the few appliances used in military cooking, and enabled the culinary art to be carried on with more alacrity and on a larger scale.

An oven was also constructed after the model of the kitchen with one flue and chimney only. It was built with bricks made on the spot, from clay in the vicinity of the camp. Amid so much rusticity and so many rude campaigning inventions, this oven, from its neatness and success, was much admired. Sergeant Timothy Sillifant, an ingenious mechanic, designed both the kitchen and the oven, and superintended their construction.

Some incidental services executed by the sappers were of a character which it may not be considered inappropriate to notice. So various were their duties and so frequent the calls for their assistance, that the encomiums passed upon them after a full test of their usefulness were not extravagant when it was said “that in all their capacities, from the driving of a nail to the marking out of a fortification, they seemed to be equally as au fait as if each service was their special and sole vocation.”[122] They repaired and adapted the poor-house at Burrow Hill for a general hospital; erected a flag-staff for displaying the royal standard; enclosed a large area of ground with a canvas wall seven feet high, within which were pitched marquees and different tented conveniences for the use of the Queen and Her Majesty’s Consort and guests; and watched and managed the tent-ropes of the royal pavilion, &c., within the compound. Here likewise they erected a cookhouse of brick, after the form of their own kitchen, and cut a road about two miles long, from Colonel Challoner’s plantation to the “Magnet,” as a carriage drive for Her Majesty. The road led across one of the artificial sheets of water, and at either side of this causeway was fixed a temporary railing, which gave it an appearance of strength and completeness. Contrivances were also adopted for permitting the water to run freely through the embankment so as to insure the stream rising to the same level at both sides of the bridge. The road was, moreover, a useful one, for in manœuvring the troops it was sometimes employed to accelerate their movements, and the passage across it formed a grand feature in the reviews. It was called the “Queen’s Road,” and the dam across the sheet of water was dignified with the name of the “Queen’s Bridge.” The sappers also attended to the pitching and adjusting of the marquees of some of the staff officers; drained the camp ground; taught soldiers of the line the readiest methods of effecting these duties, and built several sentry-boxes. One was erected under the superintendence of a French captain, of rough poles driven into the ground in a circle, after the manner of the initial gabion. In front, one stake was omitted for the entrance. The box was built to the usual height, was covered in with a conical top, and the whole was thatched with, straw in courses, which gave it in the distance, when the sun was shining upon it, the semblance of a richly-flounced dress. Another box of this kind revolved on a pivot at pleasure, to screen the sentry from wind or rain; and after the camp was broken up, it was given a place in the grounds of Colonel Challoner. A third was run up by private James Queen,[123] which, from its mechanical pretensions, was applauded as a work of taste, but could never be successfully imitated unless by talented workmen accustomed to build with neatness and exactness. The structure was of a mural character and defensible, having loopholes in its sides and rear. An heroic bust, made of clay by the private, who had shown some aptitude as a sculptor, was to have surmounted the box, but it was unfortunately destroyed by some of his comrades, during an excited criticism upon its merits.

“Much as we admired,” wrote a London daily journal, “the universal utility of the corps, we thought we had seen the extent of their capacities, but when looking a little more into the variety of their employment we found them in a new sphere, and discovered that corporal Richard J. Letton had been, under Mr. Smith, discharging the details connected with the Post-office with the usual off-hand success which seems to pertain to the corps.”[124] The receiving-office at the “Magnet,” was a sub one to the post at Chertsey. The number of letters sent to and from the camp, as detailed below, from the first day of opening the office to the day of closing it on the removal of the troops, shows that it transacted a fair amount of business.

First division—from 13th June to 13th July. Inwards 33,783 Outwards 29,614 ——— 63,397

Second division—from 14th July to 20th August. Inwards 42,105 Outwards 37,500 ——— 79,605 ——— Total 143,002 ———

Of these the number of registered letters were 257, and the postage-stamps sold realized the sum of 123_l._ 17_s._ 3_d._ The number of letters to the camp showed but little variation through the course of the month, but those despatched from it were much affected by the field days, and on one occasion they fell from 1,526 to 601. The management of the postal arrangements was highly satisfactory, and reflected great credit upon Mr. Smith and the corporal.[125] The latter, in a testimonial from his chief, was eulogized for having performed his duty with the greatest zeal, integrity, and attention.

To give an additional warlike feature to the evolutions of the division, some temporary field-works were thrown up. These consisted of three redoubts, two irregular, with faces of very unequal length, on Oystershell and Catton hills, and one regular, on Sheep’s-hill. The one on Oystershell-hill was revetted on one of its faces with brushwood and fir-branches woven upon pickets, while its remaining sides were cased with sods. The other redoubts were revetted wholly with sods. Sheep’s-hill redoubt was a square work, with two platforms for one field-piece each, and its sides in the interior were each sixty feet long. Four shafts of six feet deep were sunk under its right face, and the charges, in boxes containing each 100 lbs. of gunpowder, were laid and tamped ready for explosion on the 6th August. The Queen was present on that day and witnessed the manœuvres, which were closed by blowing up the redoubt. At the appointed time, the wires were applied to the voltaic battery, but from some mismanagement, supposed from the communication becoming disconnected, the mines did not go off. Two sappers immediately repaired to the spot where the charges were chambered, and after removing the earth which covered them, and affixing in the ordinary way the powder-hose to form the train, Captain Inglis fired it with portfire, and a successful explosion was the result. The whole face was blown up. The field-works were completed early in August, and were only on three or four occasions used in the general operations. Contingents of men from the guards and the line threw them up. Some of the sappers acted as overseers, and others took part in the trenches. The shafts for the mines were dug and the powder placed in them in the night-time.

A series of seven or eight sub-aqueous mines, fired by voltaic electricity, were made in Virginia Water, to show the effect of such expedients if the service rendered recourse to them desirable. The largest charge fired contained 35 lbs. of powder. The charges were fixed in tin cans of sizes to suit the bulk of the powder, and fired from the shore. Sergeant Entwistle and one private had the preparation of the charges, &c., and Captain Inglis, R.E., invariably fired them. One on the 12th July was exploded in the presence of the Prince of Wales, and was successful, a column of water being thrown into the air to a considerable height.

As soon as the pontoon train and equipment arrived, the corps commenced and continued for several days to carry out such instructional practice as was considered essential to render the contemplated bridging perfect. The train consisted of—

30 cylindrical pontoons, 4 india-rubber ditto, 1 demi india-rubber ditto, 6 carriages,

and the requisite stores, forge, &c., and all were packed on the margin of Virginia Water on the 25th June, 1853.

In accordance with appointed arrangements, a military display took place on the 5th July, in the presence of Prince Albert and Her Majesty. Early in the morning about 8,000 troops were marched to the Water, on the north side of which an enemy was supposed to have established himself, represented by the second company of sappers and detachments of the Grenadier guards and 23rd fusiliers. While a sharp and prolonged attack was being made upon the brigade of Sir De Lacy Evans at Blacknest Bridge, a body of sappers 125 strong, directed by a captain and five subalterns of royal engineers, began to form the pontoon bridge, and to carry out other subsidiary means for effecting the passage of the lake. The six carriages of the train, packed with twelve pontoons and their superstructure, were horsed by the royal artillery, and moved down to the water’s edge, where they were unloaded. The remaining pontoons, eighteen in number, had already been stored on the margin of the lake in readiness for the service. The moment the order was given, the sappers in fatigue-dress launched the pontoons, and with the greatest silence, precision, and diligence, formed in forty-five minutes a bridge of thirty cylinders with two bays across an arm of the lake 324 feet broad. The pontoons were lashed in intermediate intervals of eight feet apart, which is considered to be the proper adjustment of buoyancy for the transport of the varied weights of artillery. While the bridge was booming out, Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert, with their illustrious guests, embarked in a royally-decorated barge, drew near the bridge and watched with evident interest the movements and exertions of the men.

During the operation a party of twenty-one non-commissioned officers and men, under three subalterns of the royal engineers, formed two rafts and one demi-raft of the India-rubber pontoons, and rapidly ferried across the lake four companies of the rifle brigade, who took shelter in the woods close to the edge of the water. This service was executed in exactly the same time that was occupied in forming the bridge.

About noon, the cannonade on the left at Blacknest Bridge ceased, and the supposed enemy, having discovered Lord Seaton’s real intention, advanced to dispute his passage over the pontoons. Not a moment was now lost on either side. One wing of the rifles was thrown across, and forming line on the opposite bank, opened a spirited fire on their opponents. The batteries also boomed from the south side of the water, and under cover of the cannonade—for the whole woodland for some minutes was shrouded in the smoke it occasioned—a battalion of the Grenadier guards defiled over the bridge. Scarcely had they concealed themselves in the embowering woods when the sappers, who had left the pontoons for an interstitial duty, suddenly returned with bundles of fern and brake, which they strewed over the superstructure to render the passage as secure as practicable for the batteries and the cavalry. Now followed two 6-pounder batteries and a 9-pounder battery of 6 guns each, the 6th Dragoon guards, and a battalion of the Coldstream guards and of the 42nd Highlanders, with all the staff.

The remainder of Major-General Fane’s brigade of cavalry proceeded by the iron gate to the high ground on the north side of the lake, whilst the brigade of Sir De Lacy Evans, now unopposed by the enemy, marched by Blacknest Bridge to Smith’s lawn, where the troops were reviewed by Her Majesty. The second company only of the corps was present at the review; the other companies being necessarily detained with the pontoons.

To provide as much as possible for the safety of the horses in crossing, the sappers, with an oar extended from man to man, lined the bridge at each side, by which a kind of railing or balustrade was formed from one end of the bridge to the other. The plan had unquestionable advantages in encouraging the horses and retaining them in their places, but it was somewhat dangerous to the men. As the second battery approached the middle of the stream, the floating motion of the bridge caused some of the horses to become restive, and in the efforts made to control their progress, five of the sappers were thrown into the lake. No casualty, however, happened, and the men, after a little swimming, resumed their stations on the bridge.

In testimony of the services of the corps on this occasion, Lord Seaton published the following order from Her Majesty:—

“Horse Guards, 5th July, 1853.

“GENERAL VISCOUNT HARDINGE has received the Queen’s commands to express Her Majesty’s satisfaction in having witnessed this day the laying down of the cylindrical pontoon bridge, which was completed in less than one hour, for the passage of the artillery, cavalry, and infantry.

“Her Majesty did not fail to remark the order, the silence, and the perfect acquaintance with every detail, which prevailed throughout all ranks of the sappers and miners.

“Her Majesty highly appreciates the service of this portion of her army.

“From the date of its original formation this corps has been remarkable in the annals of the British army for the scientific attainments of its officers and the practical knowledge of its men, and has justly acquired the confidence and esteem of the army by its skilful arrangements, and by being at all times foremost in the perilous duties of war. In peace upholding its high reputation by the useful labours which it so cheerfully performs.

“Viscount Hardinge requests Lord Seaton will convey to Colonel Jones, of the Royal Engineers, who directed the pontoon train, and to Colonel Vicars, in charge of the engineer duties in the camp, and to the officers and men of all ranks of the Royal Sappers and Miners, the Queen’s approbation of their state of discipline and conduct.

“By command of General Viscount Hardinge.

“(Signed) G. BROWN, A. G.”

The 11th July was another day of field manœuvring appointed expressly to experimentalize with the pontoons. Before the arrival of the troops at the lake, a bridge was quickly formed with twenty-four pontoons, on the same site as that occupied on the 5th instant, and by the same detachment. At eleven o’clock a part of the division under Major-General His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge passed over it in the order of movement detailed below:—

4 companies of the 93rd Highlanders, 13th Light Dragoons, 6 companies of the 93rd, 38th regiment, 17th Lancers, 1st Life Guards, 1 troop of Royal Horse Artillery—six guns, 2 nine-pounder guns; and 4 small ammunition waggons.

The time occupied in the passage of the troops was fifty minutes, and on its completion, the bridge was speedily broken up into rafts. These, with the assistance of the India-rubber rafts, manned by the same detachment as on the 5th July, were afterwards employed in ferrying back the 38th and 93rd regiments at a spot 150 yards wide, below where the bridge had been constructed. This duty was also completed in fifty minutes. In all the operations, there appears to have been a remarkable coincidence of duration, which, had the facts not been carefully ascertained and recorded, would seem to be the errors of carelessness or inexperience.

In crossing the bridge, many of the horses of the Life Guards became unmanageable. Not a few of them got into a gallop and started off, sometimes as many as three abreast. Several of the artillery horses also were restive. Among so much violence and disorder, the sappers, who lined the bridge as before, had to bear their full share of accident and danger, and before the passage was effected, as many as twenty-five sergeants and rank and file were thrust overboard. All fortunately could swim, and soon made good their places on their respective rafts.

This day’s bridging closed the operations on Virginia Water. With the exception of seven rafts and the six carriages, the remainder of the pontoons and stores were packed up and removed to their original stations at Woolwich and Chatham. The seven rafts, &c., were soon afterwards conveyed to Staines, in readiness for ulterior service over the Thames.

On the 27th July another pontoon bridge was thrown, this time across the Thames, at Runnymede, celebrated alike for its historic claims and attractions, and for the beauty of the surrounding landscape. The point chosen was an angle of the river about a mile from the town of Egham, opposite Ankerwycke House. The operation bore some resemblance to that which took place on Virginia Lake on the 5th July. The sappers commenced their march at eight o’clock in the morning, and, proceeding with the pontoons along the Windsor and Staines roads, halted on the banks of the river at Runnymede at a quarter to eleven. At once the men set to work, and under the more natural circumstances of steep banks and a strong tidal current, unfelt at Virginia Water, threw in thirty-five minutes a bridge consisting of six rafts of twelve cylindrical pontoons in open order, twelve feet apart, and two half bays. To allow the operation to be conducted without interruption, a mimic battle was fiercely carried on some distance higher up the river, and to afford protection to the bridge as it approached the Ankerwycke shore, parties of the 79th Highlanders were rapidly rowed across in punts, which at the time were lying unemployed and captured for the occasion. Soon the combat was removed to the pontoons, and a heavy fusillade was for a long time kept up. Under cover of the guns of the horse artillery, fired from a commanding position, the troops poured over the bridge in a continuous stream, and followed the retreating enemy, with all the impetuosity of enthusiastic pursuit into Magna Charta Island. There the fight was hotly maintained, and ultimately won by the little band of mixed troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Vicars.

The troops that crossed the bridge were a battalion of the Guards, 4th Light Dragoons, the other battalion of Guards, 79th Highlanders, the Horse Guards Blue, and some batteries of horse and foot artillery.

An accident took place just as the last battery was crossing the bridge. The vertical motion of the rafts was such as to startle the horses, and some, from the dull reverberating noise produced by their tramp, coupled with the booming roll of the heavy wheels on the superstructure, became ungovernable, and six horses tumbled into the stream dragging with them a gun with its carriage and limber. As usual, the sappers lined the bridge with extended oars, and in the struggling of the horses, four of the men were swept into the current. Three of them were injured—two severely. These were privates John Piper and William Swann,[126] who were also nearly drowned. The latter was entangled with the horses in the water, and it was with great difficulty he succeeded in getting on the back of one of them, when he was picked up by the crew of a boat quickly manned for the purpose. Four of the horses were cleverly rescued by colour-sergeant William Jamieson and private Henry Collins, who dexterously cut the traces; but the two wheel-horses, borne down by the carriage, could not be saved. Privates Daniel Port, Henry Collins,[127] and Elias Garratt conducted themselves with intrepidity on the occasion by plunging from the bridge into the river to rescue the men and save the horses.

After the operation the sappers bivouacked on the ground, and dined on the day’s ration taken with them from the camp. The bridge was afterwards dismantled, packed on the waggons, and then accompanied the troops to Staines. The company belonging to the Chobham force did not reach its tents till eight o’clock in the evening.

On field days the sappers, together with a company of the Guards, on several occasions under Captain the Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, and a company of the 23rd fusiliers, represented the enemy under the command of Colonel Vicars, R.E. All acted as skirmishers; and when pressed by charges of the troops, formed squares, or resorted to such other simple manœuvres as were best adapted to their position and circumstances. On these days the expenditure of ammunition by the company was enormous; 100 rounds per man at least were consumed. On the first day of the pontooning at Virginia Water, the sappers, who were posted to prevent the passage of the troops by Blacknest Bridge, fired in an hour and a-quarter about 120 rounds a man. The firing of the main body of the division was always comparatively trifling. From the hard nature of the duties that devolved upon the enemy, the men composing it gained in camp the familiar designation of “The Kaffirs.” The last field day at Chobham was one of labour and fatigue to the men. They fired more than an average quantity of ammunition, and at its close the sappers marched at the head of the line in review, before the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Seaton. Their blackened faces, dingy accoutrements, and well-worn apparel afforded a striking contrast to the clean appearance, unsoiled appointments, and bright uniform of the passing squadrons and battalions; and it was no inappropriate commendation to say on this, their last camp inspection, that in their endurance, their hardihood, their wearied but dauntless aspect, they looked like “Polish patriots—few, but undismayed.”

On the 21st June and 5th July the Queen inspected the second company in common with the rest of the troops at the camp. The Prince Albert and Lord Hardinge accompanied Her Majesty. The King and Queen of Hanover were present on the first day. The fifth company and a detachment of the eleventh were also reviewed by the Queen and the Prince Consort on the 4th and 6th August. On the latter date Her Majesty did not personally inspect the troops. On all occasions of the royal presence at the camp, the sappers were in full notice of Her Majesty, for they possessed the advantage of occupying a position close to the Bagshot road, and next to one of the special entrances, which led the Queen and the royal cortege immediately past their tents to the “Magnet.”

After the breaking up of the camp, the sappers remained for four days to dismantle the stables and collect the stores. All the canvas was stripped off the stables, and packed in two days and a half, throughout which time the men were exposed to a ceaseless rain, which fell in torrents. The pontoons and carriages were conveyed to Chertsey, and embarked for Chatham. After completing these duties, the fifth company and the detachment of the eleventh, under Captain W. M. Inglis and Lieutenant W. C. Anderson, R.E., arrived respectively at Chatham and Woolwich on the 24th August. On that day Lord Seaton finally gave up his command. A party of one sergeant and eight privates—the last troops at the camp—detained for the closing duties of clearing the ground, and collecting and packing the Ordnance and Commissariat stores, joined at head-quarters on the 27th August. Novel and memorable was the reappearance of these companies with the corps, for both officers and men had doffed their plumes, and substituted for them bunches of blooming heather, gathered from the ridges and valleys of the now famous Chobham. On their route to Chertsey they were met by Colonel Vicars, who complimented them for their excellent conduct and exertions during the period of their encampment, and expressed to them the satisfaction of Lord Seaton for their alacrity and readiness at all times to meet the wants of the service. This testimony was afterwards corroborated in a letter dated Hyam’s, 25th August, 1853, to Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, in which his lordship, after alluding to the active assistance of the officers of royal engineers, and the detachment of the corps of sappers under the command of Colonel Vicars, added “that their conduct and exertions on all occasions have been most satisfactory.”

-----

Footnote 119:

‘Morning Chronicle,’ June 27, 1853.

Footnote 120:

‘The Times,’ June 15, 1853.

Footnote 121:

Sergeant Brown has served twice in Gibraltar and also a campaign in Syria. He was present at the capture of Tyre, Sidon, and Beirout, and the defensive occupation of D’Junie and Jaffa. Has since gained credit for his services at the capture and destruction of Bomarsund and the siege of Sebastopol. Removed in a dangerous state of illness from the trenches, he was sent to the hospital at Smyrna, from which, being invalided, he arrived at Woolwich in July, 1855, and is now quartermaster-sergeant at Chatham.

Sergeant Sillifant distinguished himself at Gibraltar as a first-class artificer and foreman of works. Has since served at Bermuda, and returned to England on the recall of his company.

Footnote 122:

‘Morning Herald,’ July 19, 1853.

Footnote 123:

Killed in the trenches before Sebastopol by a rifle-bullet, April 18, 1855.

Footnote 124:

‘Morning Herald,’ July 19, 1853.

Footnote 125:

‘Morning Herald,’ July 19, 1853. It is not a little strange that among the unclaimed letters was one addressed to “His Eminence Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary to His Holiness the Pope.” The correct epithets of distinction in the superscription, made it evident that the missive was written by a well-informed person. As however the Cardinal had not pitched his tent among our troops, the letter which was directed “to be left till called for,” formed one of the spoils of the camp.

Footnote 126:

Served in Turkey, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and the Crimea. Was promoted for his gallantry at the battle of Giurgevo, and died of wounds received in the trenches before Sebastopol, in May, 1855.

Footnote 127:

An accident occurred to this soldier at Virginia Lake, which but for his presence of mind was likely to have terminated fatally. The waggons were parked on the slopes of the water, and it being desired to pack the stores on them, private Collins with three other privates rushed to the spot, and put a waggon in motion. Collins laid hold of the shafts,—the others pushed in the rear. By some mistake the men in rear quitted their hold, and the waggon thus left to itself rolled with great velocity down the slope, forcing Collins on with it. His situation was now very critical; but seeing at once the danger and the way to escape, he plunged from between the shafts, in an oblique direction into the lake, and saved himself by swimming, while the waggon with its own impetus dashed onwards, until its speed was spent by the resistance of the water. Had he not thus extricated himself, he would have been tumbled over by the waggon, and most likely drowned under its body. Served afterwards in Turkey, Circassia, Bulgaria, and the Crimea. Was present at the bombardment of Odessa, capture of Redoubt Kaleh, and at the siege of Sebastopol, and bore the character of being a good sapper and a first-rate man in bridge-making and boat services. By his comrades he was respected for his wit and spirit. His constitution giving way in the trenches, he died at Kululee on the 2nd April, 1855.

1854-1856.

Major Walpole, on his promotion to be lieutenant-colonel, was removed from the appointment of brigade-major to the corps, and succeeded by Captain Frederick A. Yorke, R.E., on the 17th February. Lieutenant-Colonel Walpole had been commissioned to the office from the Cape of Good Hope, where he had served for many years in command of the tenth company, and been twice dangerously wounded in action with the Kaffirs at Fort Peddie. During the six years he had held the appointment he carried out in all respects its requirements with a diligence, consideration, and success, that were of great advantage to the corps, and enhanced in public estimation its services and merits.

In Major Yorke, now Lieutenant-Colonel, the corps has the good fortune to have for its chief executive an officer who, for the greater part of his military career, has been much employed with it both at home and abroad. Under Major-General Matson, when brigade-major, he was the acting-adjutant at head-quarters, and thus early became acquainted with the organization, character, services, and resources of the royal sappers and miners.

On the 3rd March one sergeant and five rank and file sailed from Southampton for Melbourne to reinforce the civil staff employed in the survey of the waste districts of the Crown, and landed on the 24th July. This addition was made to the colonial establishment, as applications for land by the emigrants were increasing and urgent, and could not be met by any resources to be engaged in the colony.

In April a party, hutted on the bleak heath of Aldershot, commenced a series of surveys, having reference to the use of the moor as a military camp for periodical evolution and exercise. The detachment mustered at one time as many as twenty-four non-commissioned officers and men, and dwindled down to an initial party of a few choice hands to finish the operation. Captain Cameron, R.E., had the direction of the service; and corporal James Macdonald, now sergeant, a non-commissioned officer of tried ability and indefatigable activity, was its local superintendent. In ten months the detachment, after being instructed by the corporal, completed a survey of a selected district of about 800 acres for the Commander-in-Chief; another of some 1,500 acres for the professional use of Major-General Sir Frederic Smith; and a general one for the Ordnance, including the ground specially surveyed, extending over an area of 13,000 acres. Each survey provided its contours to suit particular requirements; and the whole range of duties for providing data for the plans, usually performed by different parties, with qualifications adapted to each particular service, were wholly carried out by corporal Macdonald[128] and his party. The work has since been engraved on the 6-inch scale.

Six rank and file to complete the mint detachment at Sydney, embarked in two parties on the 8th April and 19th June, taking with them the portable houses, shops, machinery, and stores necessary for the formation of the establishment. The men had all been instructed prior to leaving the royal mint in London in the art of coining, and were taught by Messrs. Walker, of Millwall, the method of fitting together the iron roofing, cisterns, girders, &c., to form the mint buildings. One man had also been instructed by Messrs. Whitworth and Co. at Manchester, in the manipulation and action of the several lathes to be used in the coining processes. They respectively reached Sydney on the 10th July and 24th October.

Three men were withdrawn from the department of science and art in the summer for service in the East, viz., two for employment as photographers, and one—corporal Dickson—as conductor of the pontoon equipment and stores. One of the photographers—corporal Pendered—had, while in that department the care of the students’ drawings sent from the various local schools of art, in competition for prizes offered by the commissioners. Corporal Dickson, who until his removal had acted as a clerk at Marlborough House, received from the Board of Trade a gratuity of 5_l._ in recognition of his usefulness. The non-commissioned officers who remained under Captain Owen, R.E., were corporals Frederic Key and James Mack; the former, stated to be full of invention and intelligence, continued throughout the year to act as overseer of the civil carpenters employed at Gore and Marlborough Houses; and the latter, remarkable for his good information and acquirements, was found a most useful clerk and draughtsman. It should also be noted that one or other of these non-commissioned officers travelled during the autumn to several provincial towns in England and Scotland, such as Nottingham, Coventry, Sheffield, Warrington, York, &c., and exhibited to local institutions in connection with the central school of design at Somerset House, a collection of students’ drawings for which prizes had been awarded at the spring examination at Gore House. The exhibition was so arranged as to be packed and conveyed from town to town with readiness and facility, and wherever they itinerated with their charge, were treated with attention and courtesy.

As a reward for undoubted merit two staff ranks—sergeant-major and quartermaster-sergeant—were given to the survey companies on the 28th July by Sir Hew Ross, Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. Similar appointments had been held by the companies for many years with only modified advantages, but now they were constituted permanent ranks and carried with them all the benefits prescribed by the rules of the service.

This year the moustache, under certain restrictions, was permitted to be worn; and the Kilmarnock bonnet, discarded in 1837, was revived. Its dimensions, however, were of a more reasonable measurement than in olden times, and suitable for campaigning. A yellow band was added, also a plain yellow ornament on the crown, and the scanty peak worn for nearly forty years, was replaced by one familiarly termed the war peak, sufficiently large to offer an efficient shade to the face from the sun.

Leaving the great events which occurred about this period, to be treated without interruption in subsequent chapters, the more ordinary incidents of the corps will first be disposed of.

Unable to obtain British troops to furnish contingents of sufficient magnitude for the East, parliament voted the formation of regiments of foreigners to meet the pressure. Depôts for their enrolment were fixed at different places, but the principal station was at Heligoland, a small rocky island in the North Sea. As however the embodiment could not take place without the means of sheltering the force, the island itself having only accommodation for the native population, Lieutenant A. R. Lempriere of the engineers, with three sapper carpenters, were sent there in March, in the steamer ‘Hamburg.’ Towards the end of the month the party landed, and with the assistance of some broad-backed women—the men being too indolent to work—the huts brought out were carried up the stairs—a stupendous flight exceeding 200 steps formed in the face of the steep cliff—to the position where the cantonment was to be established. Hopeless to complete them within the time required, twelve other sappers, mostly carpenters, under sergeant Goodear, sailed from Woolwich on the 28th July. In a few days they were deep in the work. Rows of huts covered with Croggan’s asphalted felt, built in streets, were always ready by the time the troops arrived to occupy them. It took one hundred and four of these portable houses to accommodate the legion. Tanks were also built to supply water in case of fire, and an apparatus was erected for distilling sea-water so that it might be used for domestic purposes by the troops. When all these services were completed, the sappers no longer needed in Heligoland were shipped for England, landing at Folkestone on the 29th December. Lieutenant Lempriere remained, as did also sergeant Goodear, to oversee the native workmen in the formation of roads and in executing repairs to the huts. At the conclusion of the war they returned home. The efficiency and usefulness of the party were warmly acknowledged by Colonel Steinbach, commanding the legion.

At the instance of the Royal Society, a sergeant and three rank and file were sent to Paris in April to exhibit, at the Palais de l’Industrie, several specimen maps and some of the chief instruments used in the trigonometrical surveys of the United Kingdom. The two non-commissioned officers employed under the Board of Trade at the department of Practical Science and Art also accompanied Captain Fowke and Mr. Henry Cole, to assist in the British section of the Exhibition. The sappers were—

● Sergeant—William Jenkins. ● Corporals—Frederick Key and James Mack. ● Second-corporal—Nicholas Clabby. ● Privates—Ludovico Hart and James Kelly.

Besides arranging spaces for the exhibitors, opening the cases as they arrived, and arranging the articles for exhibition, the sappers turned their hands to a hundred different duties, making themselves generally useful and sustaining the character which the corps had received for its services at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The British department was surveyed by them and corporals Mack[129] and Clabby drew the plans. Key was the overseer of skilled labour and likewise superintended the hanging of the paintings at the Palace des Beaux Arts. The remainder had the care of the professional instruments. Of these Hart was instructed at Paris in the process of photography by Mr. Thurston Thompson, and the proficiency he attained there in the art, has introduced him to a similar duty at Southampton, in which the progress he has made promises to be a great saving to the public by reducing plans photographically, and thus superseding the hand-labour of draughtsmen.[130]

The Emperor in one of his visits to the Palace examined the maps and instruments, and sergeant Jenkins had the singular distinction of explaining their nature to His Imperial Majesty.[131] This was the first party of English soldiers that had been in Paris since the army of occupation quitted the suburbs of the French metropolis in 1815. Appearing invariably in the uniform of the corps they were regarded with peculiar interest, and from all quarters were received with a friendliness more than ordinarily debonair and cordial. For their assistance in extinguishing a fire at the Manutention du Commerce, the press of Paris handsomely acknowledged their services.[132] Individuals left for England at different times, and on the return of the last two in January, 1856, the Board of Trade honoured the whole party with presents. Sergeant Jenkins received a silver watch with the most approved compensation arrangements for use in connexion with astronomical observation; Key a gold one; Mack an expensive photographic apparatus; and the other three each a case of beautifully finished mathematical instruments. The gifts bore an inscription to the effect that they were given “for services at the Paris Exhibition, 1855.” The French Commissioners also gave them bronze medals.

An agitation which for more than a quarter of a century had exposed the inappropriateness of the old costume, at last succeeded in effecting its abandonment. Involved in the change the royal sappers and miners adopted an uniform under royal sanction, which has the credit of being the neatest in the service.

Late in the summer the coatee with its double breast, short body, garish trimmings, and narrow skirts gave place to a scarlet single-breasted tunic with facings and edgings of dark blue plush. Falling back with a curve, the collar is bound all round with yellow cord while the pointed cuffs are embellished with an Austrian knot of yellow cord which, stretching over the plush rises with a flowing involution more than seven inches up the sleeve. Plain skirts measuring about twelve inches long, lined with white shalloon, are broken in their plainness by two upright pocket slashes with plush edgings having three points and as many buttons. Double cords take the place of the huge epaulettes of former days, and the buttons unaltered in shape and device, are sewn two inches asunder down the breast as low as the waist, and two smaller ones add to the ornamentation of the cuff. All ranks wear the same description of tunic. That for the drivers is shorter in the skirts for riding.

Corresponding with their grades the sergeants and staff-sergeants have finer cloth and wear royal gold cord on those parts where the rank and file display yellow worsted cord only. Rank is shown by chevrons of gold lace worn above the elbow, but the badges to denote the staff-sergeants occur just above the sleeve knot with the points upward. Lance-corporals have one stripe on the right arm; other ranks have the marks on both arms. Second corporals one on each arm; corporals two; sergeants three and an embroidered crown; colour-sergeants an equal number of chevrons surmounted by an open banner and based by a couple of crossed swords; and the staff-sergeants four badges of broader lace and an embroidered crown. The last, in addition, have facings of garter blue silk velvet, shoulder knots of treble twisted gold cord with blue eyes bearing silver embroidered grenades; sleeve knots traced in and out with Russia gold braid and the skirts lined with white kerseymere. The bugle-major’s rank, in addition to the chevrons and crown, is indicated by a musical device with banners, which must have puzzled the professors of embroidery to make it sufficiently characteristic, elaborated with cross trumpets, rams’ horns, tambourines, and other insignia, around a lyre and grenade.

The artificers of the driver troop—farriers, shoeing smiths, wheelers, and collar-makers—are distinguished by the usual devices, worn above the elbow.

The buglers wear worsted embroidered cross trumpets on both arms, and the good conduct men are distinguished by badges of narrow gold lace on the right arm just above the knot.

No better colour for trowsers than dark Oxford mixture cloth could be introduced. They have therefore been retained, as also the red stripes down the outer seams. The working trowsers are of the same colour, and similarly striped, but a few shades coarser in texture. The driver troop wear strapped trowsers of the regimental quality, of which each man receives two pairs annually.

In the midst of a variety of conflicting ideas as to what constitutes the best head-dress, the uncomfortable chaco still holds its unsightly place as a component of sapper uniform. Top-heavy for the drivers in riding, the chaco forms no part of their uniform, and so the forage-cap is made to do double duty.

The fatigue jacket is of red cloth. Loose and suitable for working it descends as low as the hips, but is militarized by blue cloth pointed cuffs, single twisted shoulder-cords of yellow worsted, and a blue cloth rounded collar. As before, the buttons are small and convex, bearing the garter device, and worn about an inch apart, evincing less coxcombry than in the defunct days of close buttons. All the non-commissioned officers wear gold chevrons and gold single twisted shoulder-cords.

Scarlet jackets, after the fashion of the fatigue ones, are worn by all ranks on drill parades and in walking. In addition to their chevrons the sergeants and colour-sergeants wear embroidered crowns, the latter rank being distinguished from the former by a fourth chevron. Besides the plain single-breasted blue surtout, modernized with a rounded collar, the staff-sergeants appear, on parade occasions, in scarlet jackets with the badge of their rank, gold studs down the front, and dark blue silk velvet cuffs and collar, both trimmed with Russia gold braid, and finished with what the tailors, in the poetry of their trade, term crowsfeet. There are no buttons on the jacket, except two on each cuff and two to sustain the double shoulder-cord. The fronts are closed by hooks and eyes.

The cloth forage-cap—a delicate institution of peaceable times—was set aside by the adoption of a small Kilmarnock bonnet and chin-strap, well suited for the rough usages of war. Worn with a dragoonish air in the day, it offers itself as a substitute for a pillow at night without the fear of spoiling its shape. It is of dark blue wool banded with a yellow stripe manufactured in the web and decorated with a brass boss in the centre of the crown. The buglers wear the distinction of a pair of crossed trumpets on the front of the cap, while the sergeants and staff-sergeants have small dark-blue cloth caps with large projecting peaks, trimmed with scarlet piping and gold lace bands. The crown of the cap, à la cavalry, is formed of eight pieces—a curious fancy—radiating from the centre and covered at the point of union with a gold netted convex boss. The band of the staff-sergeants is wider and richer than that of the sergeants.

That important article of dress, “the ammunition boot,” has been much improved in these late days. Before railways were invented the laced-up boot was a favourite among soldiers, particularly those who could boast of having performed long marches in the Peninsula and France; but when travelling by rail began to be the fashion of the service, it was discovered that the laced-up boot was not only odious in regimentals and uncomfortable, but not water-tight. So by degrees the Blucher boot was introduced in the army, and the sappers, the last troops, perhaps, to adopt it, received Bluchers this year for the first time. The troop of drivers wear half Wellingtons.

The carbine introduced in 1843 being discarded, the Lancaster percussion-musket was given to the corps late in the year. Bored elliptically without groove, and carrying an elongated bullet, its range exceeds 1,000 yards: that of the carbine, even in extravagant instances of flight, scarcely ever struck a mark at 300 yards and was uncertain at 200. After a few rounds had been fired it was inefficient, and impromptu expedients had to be resorted to, when the bore fouled with the powder, to ram the cartridge home. Many a man broke the ranks to find a brickbat or other rude assistance to hammer the ramrod into the barrel. These primitive severities are now at an end. The bayonet can be used in the double capacity of a sword or bayonet. With a hilt partly of black skin cross-pressed, and partly brass, with a transverse brass bar guard, it is fixed to the musket by a suture and spring. The blade, about two feet long, has a rounded back and runs on with a spine to the point, from whence a return stretches with a slight swell up its back, and then loses itself in the spine about ten inches from the tip. Thus the sword for a certain distance is two-edged, and when fixed, the length of the musket, prepared for a charge, is shorter by one inch than the abandoned carbine and sword bayonet.

The accoutrements remain as formerly; but the appointments of the staff-sergeants, now of white patent buff, consist of a waist-belt with slings and gilt waist-plate bearing the royal arms, and a pouch-belt, both plain and two inches broad. To the latter is attached a black leather pouch carried by gilt rings and mountings, having on the flap the device of the royal arms and supporters with the corps motto. Swords hilted like those of the quartermasters, but of a peculiar metal, sheathed in steel scabbards and tasselled with gold acorns, complete the improvements of this period.

The drivers have no rifles or muskets, but are armed with light Prussian swords having half basket-hilts and buff leather tassels. The gripe is partly of black japanned wood, ridged; all else, with the scabbard, are steel. The narrow buff waist-belt, with slings which suspend the sword, have a plain brass waist-plate. In addition, the non-commissioned officers have a buff pouch-belt carrying a small plain black leather pouch. The former bears a brass slide at the breast as a substitute for a buckle. All ranks wear swan-necked spurs with spiked rowels.

Of the dress of the quartermasters nothing has yet been recorded in these pages. Their costume is similar to that of the subalterns of engineers, with the exception of the appointments. The tunic harmonizes with that of the staff-sergeants, except that the sleeves bear no device beyond the Austrian knot, and the gold cord is larger.

The jacket is also similar to the staff-sergeants, deviating only by the addition of gold Russian braid down the fronts and round the girth, finished at the centre of the waist and collar seam with crowsfeet.

A waistcoat is also worn of scarlet cloth, single-breasted, with gilt studs crowded down the front. Hooks and eyes serve the place of buttons. Collar, pockets, and edges are trimmed with gold braid and graced with crowsfeet at the centre of the collar, and at each end and centre of the pockets.

A surtout is permitted as a lounging appendage to the costume, but it would require the professional assistance of a Buckmaster to describe without fault the man-millinery of this military frock. It is of dark-blue cloth, single-breasted, opening five inches down the breast to show the waistcoat, up to which from the waist the fronts are closed by hooks and eyes. Eight loops of braid nearly two inches broad, with two rows of netted barrels or olives on each side—two on each loop—descend from the shoulders in lessening lines to the waist. The ends of the loops inwards have flys three inches long which fall down like tags, covering the inner row of barrels. The front edges, rolling collar, and pointed cuffs, hind arm and back seams are trimmed with braid seven-eighths of an inch broad traced in and out and finished on the cuffs and centre of collar with crowsfeet. From the back seams flow two streamers eight inches long on each skirt of the same width of braid as that which covers the seams; and the tracing on both edges terminates in two crowsfeet. All the trimming and traceries are of mohair braid.

The trowsers are the same as the uniform of the corps, but with gold lace stripes one inch and three-quarters wide for dress occasions. The cloak is of blue cloth, riding length, with sleeves. Lined with scarlet shalloon, and amassed with a cape, make it waterproof in a storm. An upright collar of scarlet cloth with gilt fuming grenades, chains, hooks, and buttons, make up the sum of its ornaments.

Every non-commissioned officer, as he ascends the weary ladder of preferment, keeps his eye steadily on the cocked-hat. It would therefore be unpardonable to omit the description of a badge which has given rise to more ambition in the ordnance corps than can possibly be satisfied. It is the only commission open to them, and the struggle to gain it is far more difficult than for born gentlemen to attain the rank of General. If life be spared this comes as a matter of course, but only one in thousands can hope to be invested with the latter. The cocked-hat then is a small one compared with the Kelvenhuller, and though as confined in its dimensions as the Ramilies, is very unlike it. It seems to be a sort of compromise between the two. The right leaf stands six inches and three-quarters high, while the fan, its fellow leaf, tops it by nearly an inch. The former bears a cockade of black watered ribbon and a gold-laced loop two inches broad, which is stayed by a regimental button. The corners or shoots are nearly five inches long and two and a half broad, bearing tassels of small gold and crimson bullion affixed to gold netted pads which lie snugly in the recesses formed by the overlapping of the fan. The ribbon worn on the sides of the left leaf is of plain black silk. Surmounting all is the plume, five inches and a half long, made of cock-tail feathers, which fall over the crown of the hat in the shape of a mushroom.

The forage-cap is assimilated to that worn by the staff-sergeants; the gold-laced band being broader and richer.

Coming to the appointments, they consist of waist and pouch belts of white patent leather, respectively one inch and a half and two inches wide, the former having narrow slings, gilt buckles, rings, and waist-plate with the corps’ device in silver, and the latter a gilt engraved buckle and mountings to correspond with the hilt of the sword. These ornaments are worn on a fly of the belt just above the pouch, which is small, of black patent leather, bearing the regimental badge of the royal arms and supporters with the corps’ motto, and attached to the belt by rings issuing from gilt leaves. The sword is thirty-two inches and a half long by one inch and a half wide. Its gripe, of black fish-skin, is ribbed with treble gold wire, sustained by a plain gilt back, the lower half grated to assist the grasp. The hilt is of the half-basket kind, formed of rolled gilt metal, scrolled, pierced, and engine-turned, embellished with a gold acorn attached to a length of royal gold cord, which after ramifying the perforations, evolves in a tassel. To complete the details, let it be added, that the scabbard which sheathes the blade—proof against any amount of hard work and figured with military insignia—is of burnished steel.

Some important augmentations had been made to the corps, which will be found among the services out of which they in great part arose. Other desirable additions followed, which, belonging more to the incidents of home, will follow in this chapter. A number of sergeants usually employed as clerks, drill-masters, and instructors in the schools, always kept the companies to which they belonged more or less impoverished; so to end a system that could not be avoided, but which operated injuriously, Lord Panmure gave authority, on the 9th October, for the removal of fourteen specially employed sergeants from the companies, bearing them on the rolls of the corps as supernumeraries. Two of the number were appointed staff-sergeants.

Widening daily into unwieldy dimensions, with a meagre controlling staff, gave rise to other essential appointments in the corps. On the 17th December, an Adjutant (Captain F. E. Cox, R.E.) and a Quartermaster (Michael Bradford, from the rank of sergeant-major) were commissioned.[133] The appointment of Brigade-Major, long felt to be an inadequate staff rank, was changed to that of Assistant Adjutant-General. Heretofore the chief executive of the royal sappers and miners held no higher regimental rank than that of Captain, with the staff commission of Brigade-Major. Under the same authority a sergeant-major and a quartermaster-sergeant were added to the corps.

There was an Exhibition at Fort George, Mauritius, in December, 1855, of a collection of productions indigenous to the island, and subjects of a constructive nature, to represent the industrial habits of the community in that distant region. Indebted for the idea to its great prototype in London, the Exhibition originated with the 22nd company of the corps stationed there, and most of the articles—such as models of inventions and objects of mechanical interest in the island—were contributed by non-commissioned officers and privates of the company, of whom sergeant Frederick Hibling was the chief exhibitor. The exposition was open for a week. Each day had its appointed charge varying from 3_d._ to 2_s._, and the surplus receipts were applied to charitable purposes.

From Bermuda the 21st company arrived on the 22nd December, leaving a small detachment of invalids to carry on the works. Its removal was accompanied by a representation which told of the loss the colony would sustain by the step; but the urgency of affairs in the East admitted of no consideration interfering with the resolve of sending the company to the Crimea, constituted as it was of climatized men and competent artificers. At the time of their landing, however, there were strong indications of diplomatic negociations putting an end to existing differences; but to prepare the company for the worst, it was forwarded to Aldershot on the 8th January, 1856, under the command of Lieutenant J. H. Wilson, to be trained in camp to the discipline and usages of war.

Another of the changes which resulted from the incorporation of the ordnance service with the army was the removal of the head-quarters from Woolwich to Chatham. Successive Directors of the establishment at Chatham had shown the benefits probably to accrue to the corps by the measure, but forty years’ representation were insufficient to dispose of the counter-advantages which were considered to be the effect of instruction carried out at two stations—one for forming the soldier, the other for working up the soldier into a sapper. At a time when the country was expecting changes, and those changes promised a return to the State more beneficial than an adherence to old systems was likely to yield, nothing was permitted to stand in the way of making the trial. Accordingly the fiat was issued by Lord Panmure; and Chatham from the 10th January became the head-quarters of the corps. On that day, Lieutenant-Colonel Yorke, Assistant Adjutant-General, marched into Brompton Barracks at the head of the sappers, leaving for the works at Woolwich a strong company quartered in temporary huts erected in Mill Hill road.

A detachment had been sent to Van Diemen’s Land in 1852 at the request of the Colonial Legislature to carry on the surveys of the settlement, but it had barely entered on its duties when a feeling of hostility was shown to its employment. Whenever a chance offered of presenting it in an unfavourable aspect, the Legislative Council greedily accepted it, and gave the imperial party the full weight of its opposition. In August, 1855, the Governor-General sent a message to the Council recommending Captain Hawkins who commanded the surveyors, for the appointment of Surveyor-General, but between a select committee nominated to inquire into its necessity and the Legislative Council, the office was never conferred. Matters went on coldly enough; the Council had grown stubborn in its sentiments; and to show that the colony had a will of its own, notwithstanding a royal warrant had been issued to form the detachment in accordance with the warm wishes of those who had authority to represent the wants of the province, the colonial secretary coolly intimated to Captain Hawkins, on the 16th October following, that himself and detachment were at the disposal of the Governor of New South Wales! The men composing the party were volunteers, had made sacrifices to emigrate, had purchased land in the vicinity of their labours, and were collecting about them members of their families, who, by ones and twos, had struggled to leave their English homes and were on their way to distant Tasmania. In revoking the service, the conduct of the rulers was as heartless and supercilious as absolute; and in beguiling men, by fair promises, to volunteer to serve them; then discountenancing their efficient exertions, and finally, without consulting their wishes, arranging for their transfer to any colony which might be in need of such a detachment, was a feature in colonial management strongly savouring of exceptional faith. The end of all was, that a few of the party, sooner than break up their new homes, took their discharges, and the remainder leaving Hobart Town on the 9th February, arrived in five days after at Sydney, to renew in that colony, under the auspices of Sir William Denison, those services so little appreciated by the censors of Van Diemen’s Land. Captain Hawkins, still in command of the detachment, fixed his head-quarters at Paramatta.

Under the authority of Lord Hardinge, the Commander-in-Chief, dated 2nd April, several increases and alterations took place in the corps. The 23rd company being composed of drivers was thrown out of the numeral roll of the companies and designated the A troop of the royal engineer field equipment. Its constitution and pay was fixed as under:—

s. d. 1 troop sergeant-major 3 9 a-day. 1 troop quartermaster-sergeant 3 9 ” 4 sergeants each 2 10 ” 6 corporals ” 2 4 ” 6 second-corporals ” 2 2 ” 1 farrier 3 4 ” 4 shoeing smiths each 2 0 ” 2 collar-makers ” 2 0 ” 2 wheelers ” 2 0 ” 100 drivers ” 1 9 ” 2 buglers ” 1 9 ”

To fill up the gap occasioned by its withdrawal, another company, numbered the 23rd, was formed in April. The Corfu company which held a distinct organization, had its establishment risen from 82 to 120, so that it might take its place among the general service companies. A Band was also formed, consisting of one sergeant, one corporal, one second corporal, and thirty private musicians. The detachments raised by special royal warrants for service in Van Diemen’s Land and Sydney were absorbed in the 20th company. The result of all was that the corps gained a clear augmentation of 169 non-commissioned officers and men, and its organization was established according to the following detail:—

Colour Ser- Ser- Cor- 2nd Pri- General geant. geants. porals. Corp. Bugl. vates. Total. Total. 22 general service companies, 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 2640 each 1 survey company 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 120 3 survey companies, each 1 7 8 8 2 99 125 = 375 3135 The band 1 1 1 33 33 —— Sergt. Q.-mast.- 2nd Artif- Major. Sergt. Sergts. Corpls. Corpls. icers. Bugl. Drivers. Total. Driver troop 1 1 4 6 6 9 2 100 129 = 129

Staff—Supernumerary sergeants with the rank of colour-sergeant 12 4 sergeant-majors; 4 quartermaster-sergeants; 1 bugle-major, and 2 11 staff-sergeants 1 assistant adjutant-general; 2 adjutants to corps, 1 adjutant of field 8 equipment, and 4 quartermasters —— General Total 3328

This establishment was far greater than had been allowed even during the oppressive years of the Peninsular war, and the number of companies, long in its teens, had swept on by successive augmentations to 27—one being a driver troop.

Without any increase of pay from state sources, the band is supported by an annual subscription from the officers of engineers managed by a committee, of which the assistant adjutant-general is president. Though never recognised, a brass band had been in existence for many years, but when the new order of things was sanctioned, a reed band was established as more in keeping with the refinements of a distinguished corps. The accomplished features of an operatic orchestra were also introduced combined with the sacred musical accessories of the church; and the bald services of a garrison chapel which, until the arrival of the head-quarters at Chatham, was conducted without singing, has recently been varied and made additionally grateful by the use of chants, glorias, psalms, &c.[134]

The costume of the band, approved by Prince Albert, is perhaps the handsomest in the service though the contrasts are extreme. A black bear-skin head-dress, scarlet cloth trousers, and white cloth tunic constitute the uniform. The first is free of embellishment and without feather or plume, but has a gilt curb chain for the chin. The trousers have a stripe of gold lace five-eighths of an inch broad down the outer seams, a distinction never before, it is believed, conferred on any band in the service. After the Hungarian fashion, but less picturesque, the tunic is tastefully trimmed with gold lace, gold traceries, and gold square untwisted cords for the shoulders. All the lacing is half an inch wide and the tracing is worked with Russian braid. Cut on the model of the corps’ tunic, except that the skirts have no slashes and the fronts are curved, its facings and edgings, of silk plush, are of a bright blue, and agreeably harmonize with the white cloth, giving it an appearance of ultra delicacy. Let but a storm soak it, and its elegance departs. The collar is laced all round and traced on the inner edges, enlivened by eyes in the angles, and a crowsfoot at the centre. The cuffs are similarly laced, and traced on both edges with a series of eyes and finished with crowsfeet. Down the front edges and back seams to the bottoms of the skirts both in front and rear, the lace again occurs traced in and out and figured at the terminations with a play of artistic fancy developed into highly florid crowsfeet. Simpler configurations crown the lacing of the back seams, which is relieved at the waist by ornithological devices resembling, with greater truth, a sprig of shamrock than the object to which the tailors have so strangely likened them. Down each breast are five bars compressed in length as they reach the waist, traced on both edges, having eyes at the corners and terminating at the points, with the ever-present crowsfeet. Except the two shoulder buttons, the tunic possesses no adornment of this kind, the fronts being closed by hooks and eyes.

The waist-belt is of white patent leather; the plate the same as that worn by the staff sergeants, the sword has for its hilt an ornamental Maltese cross bearing the device of a buglehorn, and sheathed in a black leather scabbard with brasses ornamentally shaped. It is shorter than the one worn by the buglers. The forage cap is similar to the sergeants; but the jacket and trousers are like the drill dress of the privates with an addition to the jacket of twisted gold shoulder cords, blue cloth edgings, and blue cloth piping down the hind arms and back seams terminating with blue cloth cushions as substitutes for buttons.

A very pleasing uniform has been adopted for the bandmaster, of scarlet cloth without breast bars. In all other essential particulars it is laced, traced, and figured like the tunics of the musicians. The facings and edgings are of garter blue silk velvet. The collar is traced with a series of eyes on the inner edges of the lace; and the shoulder-cords trebly twisted are ornamented with embroidered grenades. The trousers, for bandmaster and bugle-major, are of dark Oxford mixture with a stripe of rich gold lace, one inch and three quarters wide, down each outer seam. In undress is worn a dark-blue cloth surtout, single-breasted, hooked up to the neck, with upright rounded collar, and five loops two inches wide of mohair braid down the front, which are further ornamented by the addition of a row of netted barrels, and flys. All the rest of the trimming is similar to that on the surtout of the quartermasters. The forage cap and trousers are also similar, but the accoutrements of the bandmaster with one exception correspond with those of the staff sergeants.

Instead of a sword he wears an elegant scimitar, short and light, in a brass scabbard, the hilt being composed of masks and foliage of the “cinque-cento” period. The curve of the gripe issues in a lion’s head, with ring attached, bearing a flowing treble twisted fretwork chain united to a ring at the guard.

Considered advisable to add to the system of instruction at Chatham the art of photography, four non-commissioned officers were sent to Kensington Palace on the 6th March to learn the process; and after being taught at Gore House by Mr. Thurston Thompson, returned to Chatham on the 5th May; since which date photography has formed an interesting item in the instructional proceedings of the establishment.

Akin with this is the system introduced by Captain Du Cane on his return from the Crimea for teaching non-commissioned officers and men the method of using the electric telegraph for military purposes. So successfully had the schooling of the men in this department of field usefulness been conducted, that in June a small force of sapper telegraphists was sent to Aldershot to establish the field telegraph. Three stations were soon in action, one at each of the camps, and one at Farnborough close to the electric telegraph company’s office. Double needle instruments were used at each of the stations and double wires connected with them stretched over the roofs of the huts and borne over the open spaces by poles rising between twenty and thirty feet high. A non-commissioned officer or more acted at each station and two always at Farnborough. Line orderlies attended the sappers to carry the messages.

Purfleet, attached from time immemorial to the Woolwich district, was, under the new order of things, combined with the created district of Waltham, and the small party of six sappers, which for many years had been employed in the Ordnance repairs at the station, was removed to Woolwich in May.

To add to the military efficiency of the corps, one sergeant and eight rank and file, commanded by Lieutenant G. R. Lempriere, were sent to Hythe in May to learn under Colonel Hay the approved method of rifle practice and judging distances. Their success was looked upon as very satisfactory. Though less time at drill than other detachments they stood well in the comparison, and one of their number, lance-corporal John Yelland, bore away the prize pen and certificate awarded by Colonel Hay. He was the best shot out of 164 men of different regiments who had for some months been contending for the honour. The sappers returned to Chatham on the 5th August, and the information obtained at Hythe has become one of the leading features of instruction at the royal engineer establishment. Lieutenant Lempriere is the instructor; and some of the men who have passed through his hands have proved themselves better shots and better in judging distances than the Hythe prizeman.

-----

Footnote 128:

Under an officer, he has charge of the preparation of the 10·56 feet plans of Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, and of the office for the examination of plans and documents antecedent to the engraving of the work.

Footnote 129:

He also assisted Captain Fowke, R.E., in testing the comparative qualities of various woods, products of New South Wales, British Guiana, and Jamaica, which had been exhibited at the Palais de l’Industrie. “In conducting and registering these experiments,” wrote Captain Fowke, “I was assisted by corporal James Mack, of the royal sappers and miners, who displayed the greatest zeal, intelligence, and ability throughout.”—‘Reports on the Paris Universal Exhibition.’ Part i. 1856, p. 407.

Footnote 130:

Of the connection of the sappers with a service so interesting, the following anecdote is an illustration. A “foreigner of distinction” paid a visit to the Palais de l’Industrie. With Captain Fowke he rambled over the courts, and while the Captain was explaining to him, among other matters, his experiments on the strength of woods, they reached the spot where corporal Mack, in the Captain’s temporary absence, was carrying them on with all the intelligence of a scientific man. A little further on was another sapper. This was sergeant Jenkins, who, for the visitor’s information, cleverly expatiated on some philosophical apparatus in his charge. A red-coat in the building was an object of decided attraction, and the foreigner looked with no little satisfaction at corporal Clabby, who was then making a minute and accurate survey of the position of the cases and objects in the Exhibition. He had scarcely withdrawn his attention from the draughtsman, when a fourth sapper in the person of corporal Key, the indefatigable overseer, came in for a share of the foreigner’s approbation, and he expressed to Captain Fowke his amazement that so many difficult and important duties could, with such efficient results, be intrusted to them. But the measure of his astonishment was not yet full. There was a magnificent organ, built by Bevington and Son, of Greek-street, Soho, in the Palais, which had gained the first-class prize, on which, while the distinguished foreigner was taking his tour, an amateur with a small body and a young and pleasing countenance was performing. Drawn by the power and grandeur of its tones, the Captain and his friend repaired to the compartment where it had a locâle, but on turning the corner, instead of finding, as was expected, a “Maestro,” or “un professeur anglais,” seated before the instrument disporting himself with the hauteur of a musical genius, the foreigner was struck by seeing another sapper, complacently playing with the proficiency and grace of a modest professional. “Mon Dieu!” he cried, as if the varied employments of the British sappers were too exuberant to merit a less startling exclamation, “Encore un sapeur du genie!” And the foreigner went away with a most excited opinion of the talents and attainments of the corps, of which the men above named were the creditable representatives. The military Mozart on this occasion, who strangely enough was named after that “divine composer,” was Ludovico Amedius Woolfgang Hart!—a name due less to his English than his German extraction. As young Hart had opportunity, he applied himself to the great organ with its three rows of keys, pedals, and accessory movements, containing also eighteen hundred and eleven pipes and forty-two stops. His performances comprised selections from Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, and other oratorios. Once when Her Majesty was passing through the English department he took his place at the instrument, and made the Palais swell with “God save the Queen;” and on another eventful day, when the Emperor of the French was visiting the Exposition, he struck up the national anthem of France—“Partant pour le Syrie.”

Footnote 131:

The first time the Emperor visited the portion of the gallery allotted to Great Britain, he condescended to scan the survey contributions. As he approached the compartment, sergeant Jenkins saluted him. In return the Emperor took off his hat and bowed; and, as if to make the sergeant feel perfectly at home in his presence, smiled and seemed in delightful humour. After glancing at the six-inch map of Edinburgh, over which was written in conspicuous letters, “Ordnance survey of Scotland,” His Majesty exclaimed, “Ordnance survey of Scotland! but where is the map of England?” Jenkins explained that he had several specimens of the one-inch map of England, and invited the illustrious Monarch to inspect them. “O! certainly;” and His Majesty graciously accompanied the sergeant to the interior of the little court taken up by the survey specimens, where, in a measure, His Majesty was isolated from the crowd, which, with straining curiosity and awe, followed the imperial footsteps. When examining the one-inch map of North Wales, the Emperor traced his finger over the neighbourhood of Snowdon, and observed, “the shading of the hills is beautifully executed.” The sergeant then directed the Emperor’s attention to the plan of St. Andrews on the five-feet scale—a map very much commended for its finish by all the eminent engineers who had examined it. His Majesty appeared highly pleased with it, and then succeeded a string of questions which the sergeant—a stranger to the parasitical language of the courtier—answered with the honest pertinence and refinement of a man of good common sense. Among the interrogatories was one in which the Emperor enquired,—“Has the whole of England been surveyed on the six-inch scale?” In looking at the great theodolite, the Emperor evinced unequivocal interest; more so, when the sergeant informed him it had been in use above sixty years, and had operated on the summits of the highest mountains and most of the important trigonometrical stations in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Of its action, adjustment, and peculiarities the Emperor asked several questions, and called a scientific attendant, to whom His Majesty explained, in French, what the sergeant had communicated to him. The Emperor then examined the models of Arthur’s seat and the Merrick hills, and also that of the zenith sector, with all of which His Majesty was well satisfied. Surrounded by a vast assembly, with heads uncovered and in breathless admiration of the magnanimity of the incident, thus was passed an interview of about a quarter of an hour, between the Emperor of the French and a British soldier!

Footnote 132:

Of the party, Clabby, Hart, and Kelly only were at the fire. They attached themselves to the engine nearest the building; so close was it, that Kelly was struck on the shoulder with a piece of burning timber. At one time the pipe burst, spirting the water over the workmen. One of the Zouaves was up to his knees in water trying to mend the fracture, when corporal Clabby went to his assistance, and taking the handkerchief from his neck bound it round the pipe, and partially removed the annoyance. This little act, so gracefully and promptly performed, met with a shout of applause from the multitude, and before the ringing of the acclamations had subsided, an officer from the Marshal of the “Garde de Paris” made a note of their names; with what object, perhaps, the future may tell.

Footnote 133:

The ancestry of the Bradfords can be traced, traditionally, to a very remote period. It commenced, as far as the family information extends, with Ranulph de Broade Forde—since contracted into Bradford—who in 1191 served under Richard I. in the Holy War, and fought at the siege of Ascalon in the third crusade. Apparently, the patronymic of the Broade Fordes was derived from a fortress held by Ranulph as the heir of his race, which defended a ford at the confluence of two streams important in border warfare on the marches of Wales.

Without attempting to renew the links in the broken chain of genealogical succession, it seems that in the direct line from Ranulph sprang John Bradford, who was born at Manchester about 1522. At an early age, under Sir John Harington, Knight of Exton in Rutland, “treasurer of the King’s camps and buildings,” and chief engineer at Boulogne, he served as paymaster at the siege of Montreuil in 1544. Three years later he was a student of common law at the Inner Temple, where he became a convert to Protestantism; and relinquishing, in 1548, his secular intentions, became a student at Cambridge, and soon after a Fellow of Pembroke College. Ridley, Bishop of London, ordained him deacon in 1550, and next year he was installed as a prebendary of St. Paul’s, and appointed one of the six chaplains of Edward VI. to preach in the distant parts of the kingdom. In 1553, a month after the king’s death, and the accession of Queen Mary, Bradford was a State prisoner. The truthfulness of his preaching, his great popularity as a minister, and Christian firmness in promoting the reformed doctrines, did not suit the religious régime which, under the bigoted intolerance of the Queen, had commenced to disturb the fabric of the reformation. On a trumped-up charge of sedition and heresy he suffered two years incarceration in the Tower and King’s Bench, and, at length, refusing to retract his pious convictions, was martyred, by burning, at Smithfield, 1st July, 1555.

From a brother of this “champion of the faith” lineally descended the Rev. Edward Bradford, rector of Buckland Filleigh.

John, a son of the rector, married Gertrude Coham, of Coham. Considerable landed property was held by the family from the Earl of Oxford and his successors, the Lords Clinton; but the estates having been placed in chancery, leases without the possibility of renewing them, and an extensive fire having consumed a great part of the market-town of Sheepwash, laid the foundation of a series of calamities from which the family have never recovered.

Among the offspring of John, were John, William, and Michael. The two first were surgeons in the royal navy, William perished in the foundering of the “Royal George” at Spithead, June, 1782. Michael was likely to have retrieved the fortunes of the family by his success as a surgeon, but he died young, leaving, among other children—

Michael, an orphan of four years of age. There was enough for the son when he arrived at man’s estate to pass comfortably through life, and he married well. His wife was Mary Tamlyn, daughter of Bamfylde Tamlyn, by Mary, second daughter of Richard Somers, Esq., of Northtawton, Devon, and sister of the wife of Robert Harrington, Esq., of Worden. The father of Bamfylde Tamlyn, was the Rev. Gregory Tamlyn, rector of Bradford. In the Will of John Bamfylde of Arlington, the relationship of Rector Tamlyn with the family is acknowledged in a passage which affectionately styles him “my beloved cousin.” The pedigree of the Bamfyldes is of undoubted antiquity, and this branch of it is a shoot from the stem to which cling the Baronets and Lords of Poltimore. Young Michael, who had increased by his marriage, his pecuniary competence and standing in society, was not remarkable for the economy of his pursuits. He was fond of sporting in all its phases, and indulged in other expensive habits, which ended in his ruin.

From this marriage sprang five sons and a daughter. Michael the quartermaster is the second son. He is thus a collateral descendant of Bradford the martyr, and a “poor relation” of a few families of repute and distinction at the present day.

Footnote 134:

Mr. William G. Collins was appointed master 1st August, 1856. He joined the royal artillery band at ten years of age. When he had established his name as a performer, he turned his attention to composition, and was instructed as a theoretical musician by James Harris, Esq. Mus. Bac. of Oxon. When quite a young man he was promoted to be master of the band on the recommendation of Sir Henry Bishop and the President of the Royal Academy of Music—Cipriani Potter. Subsequently he held a similar situation in the Royal Bucks Militia Band, which, from his peculiar fitness and attainments, became one of the best bands among the regular troops or militia in the kingdom. On the disembodiment of the regiment, his engagement with Lord Carington having ceased, his well-known reputation led to his instant appointment as master of the Royal Engineer Band.

1854. BOMARSUND—TURKEY—BULGARIA—WALLACHIA.

To obtain a religious protectorate in Turkey, Russia menaced the independence of the Sultan, which led to a long diplomatic negotiation between the Western powers and the Czar; but as the Emperor Nicholas persisted in interfering with the rule of the Sultan, and attempted to enforce his pretensions by occupying with a belligerent army the Danubian principalities, Great Britain and France declared war against Russia. Measures were instantly taken to give effect to the declaration by despatching powerful expeditions to the East and the Baltic.

To the Baltic fleet were attached, on the 9th March, one sergeant and nineteen rank and file of the second company, under the command of Lieutenant Nugent of the engineers, which embarked at Portsmouth on board the ‘Duke of Wellington,’ flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and accompanied it in its reconnaissance of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland as far up as Cronstadt. The object of sending the party with the fleet was, that it might take the lead of the seamen and marines in any escalading operations ashore; but the nature of the service was such that no occasion offered for resorting to the expedient. During the time that the cholera was rife in the fleet, several of the detachment were seized with the malady, and three died.

When it was resolved to make a descent upon the Aland Islands, a division of the French army was despatched from Calais to carry out the enterprise. The second company, of eighty strong, under Captain F. W. King, royal engineers, was added to the force, and sailing from Deptford in the ‘Julia’ transport on the 15th July, with every conceivable engineering requirement, arrived at Calais on the 17th, and took on board 225 officers, non-commissioned officers, and rank and file of the 51st infantry of the line. The sappers were the only troops that accompanied the French contingent.

Before daylight on the 8th August, the second company, 600 of the royal marines, and 2000 French troops landed at a small cove a few miles N.E. of Bomarsund, and taking a winding route by the village of Monkstetta, encamped about 1,200 yards from Fort Tzee, sheltered by a hill on which the breaching battery was afterwards constructed. The advance of the van was formed by the sappers from the flag-ship, carrying besides their carbines an assortment of bill-hooks, hand-saws, axes, and hatchets, and the column was closed in rear by the second company under Captain King.

The British operations were wholly carried out under the direction of Brigadier-General Jones, R.E., an officer of matured judgment and experience, gained by hard service in the Peninsular War, and by some forty years of after study and experiment. He was assisted by Captain H. St. George Ord, and four other officers of the corps.

Nearly five days were employed in collecting the tools and stores, cutting roads, effecting preliminary reconnaissances, preparing an hospital, and in providing domiciles for the temporary accommodation of the company, by making huts of the branches of fir trees; while a strong party, about 400 yards from the hill, worked with unflagging industry in making fascines and filling sand-bags, which, when finished, were carried by the seamen and marines to the depôt near the site of the intended battery.

Meanwhile two or three attempts had been made by some officers of the corps, attended by a few intrepid sappers, to trace the battery; but the enemy opened so heavy a fire upon the parties, that a suspension of their exertions necessarily followed. Determination and tact, however, got over the difficulty. No trace was used, but a simple alignment struck, from which, on the 13th August, under shade of the evening, sergeant John Jones and twenty-four rank and file, began to construct the battery, under the orders of Captain Ord. Without the chance of digging a shovel-full of earth to give solidity and strength to the cover, the battery was built on the bare rock entirely of fascines and sand-bags. The sappers reared it unassisted, except that the royal marines carried the material from the engineer’s park to the hill. Sergeant John Jones had the honour of laying the first sand-bag. In ten hours, the detachment, unrelieved, nearly completed the battery, which would soon have opened upon Fort Tzee; but the French having forestalled the arrangement by obtaining the surrender of its commandant, the battery was free for other employment, and its direction was consequently changed against Fort Nottich. Speedily the epaulement which flanked the battery was prolonged, the platforms promptly laid, and three 32-pounders having been placed in position, the embrasures were unmasked by some daring sappers, and the firing, which lasted about nine hours, ended at the fall of the day in the capture of the garrison. It was surrendered to Captain Ord, R.E., who had with him to receive the formal capitulation, a force of 100 of the royal marines and five rank and file of the sappers.

The added work was partly constructed in the day, under fire, as was also the laying of the platforms. Corporal Peter Leitch,[135] a first-class carpenter with some handy men of the company, attended to this service. The working party was relieved every four hours day and night, until the battery was completed, and also during the siege, to throw fatigue and danger equally upon all. The guns fired by the seamen and marine artillery were first drawn by them to the battery on sledges of a novel construction, over steep and rugged ascents. When they reached the camp, however, their labours were considerably diminished, as a road to assist them had been cut by the sappers, up the hill to the breaching battery, under the orders of Captain King. Corporal George Luke acted as overseer in this duty. Two of the men were allotted to each of the guns to keep the embrasures in good order. This they usually attended to while the gun was loading, and not a few displayed a stoical coolness and intrepidity in repairing the damaged merlons, and clearing away the debris occasioned by the enemy’s cannonade. Though the fire upon the battery was warm at times, the casualties only embraced two killed, of whom one was the Hon. Lieutenant Cameron Wrottesley, R.E., and one wounded. None of the sappers were even touched; and this good fortune, as well for them as the seamen and marines, was attributed to the prudence of Brigadier-General Jones, who had men appointed to look out and warn the battery when the enemy’s guns were fired. These “look-out” men were sappers—alert spirits with quick eyes and stout hearts—who gave the alarm the instant a flash was seen at the fort. The better to enable them to give the intimation they took ground in advance of the battery in some chasms of the rock, where, although partially screened by the natural cover of their hiding places, it was a wonder that they escaped unhurt. Privates James Moncur[136] and Thomas Ross[137] were most conspicuous in this hazardous duty.

When the French had captured Fort Tzee the Brigadier-General gave an order for sergeant John Jones to make a plan of it. He had a note to the officer commanding the garrison requesting the service to be permitted. Taking with him privates John S. Rowley and George Peters to assist, he started on the morning of the 15th, but contrary to expectation found the French had abandoned the work and taken shelter in an advanced trench. Presenting the request to the French Commandant, the sergeant awaited authority to proceed. The fort was on fire, having been shelled by the Russians the previous evening. The Commandant and several French officers advised Jones not to venture into the place, but with soldier-like firmness he persevered in urging the performance of the duty; and permission being granted, he and his assistants went on. Going through one of the embrasures, which was on fire, and the gun-carriage burning, they pushed into the tower. Loose powder, broken cartridges, and five shells were lying about; the flames had nearly spread to the principal magazine, the remainder of the building had more or less fire in every casemate, and the smoke in thick columns was streaming from the crackling apertures. With difficulty they gained the first floor, and then, finding the stairs, penetrated to the roof, not without being almost suffocated, and losing, for a time, private Rowley in the smoke. From floor to floor and embrasure to embrasure they moved, in hopes of stealing the barest chance of taking even a few measurements, but their efforts were unavailing; and so, compelled to quit the tower, they had scarcely reached their own camp, about 1,200 yards away, when the flames having communicated with the magazine, it exploded, and the fort blew up.

Without attempting to chronicle the different incidents of the campaign, in which the fleet and the French troops so gallantly participated, it will be sufficient to note that Bomarsund, the principal fort of the Aland Islands, capitulated without material opposition, and the Russians were marched out prisoners of war. The sappers and miners and royal marines formed in line, faced by a force of the French infantry; and through their divided ranks, the Russians moved pensively away to the point arranged for their departure.

No sooner were the forts in possession of the allies than measures were taken to disable the guns and dismantle the works. The sappers only were employed in carrying out the mining operations under the direction of their officers. In this duty they worked with so much energy, that their exertions were scarcely checked by the fatigues to which they were necessarily subjected. Forts Prasto, Nottich, and Bomarsund all fell in turn—blown up by mines skilfully laid and fired. The magazines also were exploded, the shot and shell removed, and stores of timber, prepared for use in the contemplated fortifications, were burnt. The work of destruction extended even to the garrison chapel; it was sacked and then destroyed, and all the unfinished forts and buildings, rising from foundations which marked the extent of a stupendous engineering design, were torn up by mines and thrown down. The stone landing-pier was likewise demolished, and not a slab of granite which promised to be of service in future works was left unbroken. But a few weeks, and what a change! This proud maritime position—this formidable outport of the yet impregnable Cronstadt, studded with forts and bristling with ordnance, was one widespread area of ruin and desolation!

Brigadier-General Jones and the officers of the corps were well pleased with the military bearing and exertions of the company, and commended the “cheerful and willing manner in which they performed the laborious duties” assigned to them. Besides the non-commissioned officers and men named above, there were others noted for their services. Privates John Williams,[138] John Veitch,[139] and Francis Enright, for their boldness, resolution, and zeal. Corporal George Luke,[140] for his ability and usefulness as a miner in the demolition of Bomarsund. Sergeant John Jones,[141] for his assistance as a draughtsman; and sergeant Richard P. Jones,[142] for his general diligence and intelligence, as well in the general operations as in the special one of diving. The ‘Penelope’ having run ashore on an unknown rock off Bomarsund, was compelled to throw fifteen of her guns overboard to float and save her. Several naval divers attached to the fleet were afterwards employed to bring them up; but as some submarine difficulties prevented as speedy an accomplishment of the undertaking as was desired, the co-operation of sergeant Richard Jones was found to be an acquisition, inasmuch as he recovered five 8-inch guns and one 10-inch.

There was much sickness among the sappers during the brief campaign, and on one day no less than forty-seven men out of a company not a hundred strong, were on the sick-list with choleraic symptoms; but owing to the attention of the naval surgeons, only two died. Quitting the Baltic Sea in the ‘Cumberland,’ the company rejoined the corps at Woolwich on the 16th October, and before two months had intervened, was despatched in all haste to Turkey.

It is now time to turn to the East, to trace the movements and services of the corps in that interesting quarter. The van of the army sent thither under the command of Lord Raglan, was a small party of six rank and file of the sappers and miners under Captain Chapman of the engineers. They belonged to the fourth company, at Malta, whence they sailed in the ‘Banshee’ on the 25th January, and having arrived four days after in Beicos Bay, were the first British soldiers landed on the Ottoman shores.

To meet the calls for its services in the coming struggle, the corps, by order of Lord Raglan under date the 23rd February, was augmented from an establishment of 2,218 of all ranks to 2,658 officers and men, by enlarging the organization of each of the twenty-two companies with one sergeant, one corporal, one second-corporal, and seventeen privates. The corps was now fixed according to the following details:—

Colour Ser- Cor- 2nd Pri- General Sergeant. geants. porals. Corp. Bugl. vates. Total. Total. 17 general service 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 2040 companies, each 1 company for Corfu 1 3 4 4 2 68 82 = 82 3 survey companies, 1 7 8 8 2 99 125 = 375 each 1 survey company 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 120 Sydney mint . 1 1 3 . 11 16 = 16 detachment Van Diemen’s Land . 1 2 . . 12 15 = 15 detachment -—— 2648 Staff—1 brigade-major, 1 adjutant, 3 quartermasters, 2 sergeant-majors, 2 10 quartermaster-sergeants, and 1 bugle-major —— Total 2658 ====

To concentrate the available force for active duty, the seventh company, employed in services of a secondary character only, was withdrawn from Hurst Castle, and removed to Woolwich. While at the castle the company had assisted in strengthening the place by constructing two batteries for ten and twelve guns respectively, and also three loopholed caponniers, built of brick and cement in the moat of the castle. Quartered as it was upon an exposed shore, in a spot that was isolated and dreary, the conduct of the company was anything but satisfactory, and in the short space of eighteen months, out of a strength that scarcely exceeded ninety non-commissioned officers and men, no fewer than twenty-three privates deserted.

On the 24th February the eleventh company, under Captain Hassard, embarked at Southampton for Turkey on board the ‘Himalaya’ steamer, in which was shipped a store of intrenching tools for field operations. At Malta they landed on the 8th March, and were temporarily quartered at Floriana. The seventh company—Captain Gibb’s—joined them on the 27th March, and brought with them a further supply of tools and implements. Two days later both companies embarked in the ‘Golden Fleece,’ and steamed off with the rifle brigade to Gallipoli, where they landed with Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown on the 8th April. About forty non-commissioned officers and men of the corps were left at Gallipoli, and the remainder, marching nearly nine miles, took up a position not far from the village of Boulair, from which the camp derived its name.

On the 17th April twelve rank and file of the eleventh company, detached to Constantinople, joined the ‘Fury’ steamer for service in the Black Sea, and were present at the bombardment of Odessa. The squadron was hotly engaged when the ‘Fury’ arrived, and after firing a few rounds, was signalled from the action by the Admiral. On the 23rd April she was again in the fight for two hours, but her presence in the action is not noticed in the official despatches.

Meanwhile the six men with Captain Chapman, R.E., who in the course of a few months had been in six different vessels, were, during the intervals, employed under their officers, surveying Fort St. Nicholas, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and the country from thence as far as the gulf of Saros. A few weeks later they assisted in a similar service at Boulair and Gallipoli, and then sailing again up the Bosphorus to Beicos Bay, landed at Therapia, from whence seven days after they removed to Constantinople, pushing out a party of four men under Lieutenant De Vere to survey Buyuk Tchekmedjie, a district some twenty miles from the port.

When Sir John Burgoyne was in the country prior to the arrival of the troops, private James Cray was his orderly, and accompanied him to Varna and Shumla. Majors Dickson and Wellesley, with Lieutenants Burke and the Honourable George Wrottesley and lady, were of the party. From rough roads and inclement weather the journey was not without its trials; and at night the little expedition rested by the road-side in any nook or hovel where they could find shelter.

Subsequently private Cray was orderly to the heroic Lieutenant Burke, R.E. With him he passed a few days at Silistria, and then took horse to a small town on the banks of the Danube nine miles from Rustchuk. Major Wellesley had given him a sword, but this was not considered sufficient for his defence, and he was provided from the Turkish armoury with a Minié rifle and revolver. Thus armed, he joined the Ottoman forces in an action against the Russians, who under cover of a fusillade from a strong body of riflemen, were endeavouring to cross the river. Met by a fire it was impossible to stand against, they faced about and retreated in their boats to land. Cray was thus the first soldier of the British army engaged in the common cause, and for his conduct on the occasion was presented by Lieutenant Burke to Omar Pacha. His next ride was to Sistova. At the time the party entered the town an engagement was going on, and the Turks were again victorious. Journeying onwards they crossed to an island, where Lieutenant Burke and his orderly at imminent risk laid out new works, and traced batteries to complete the defences of the place. On that occasion private Cray exchanged between twenty and thirty shots with the enemy, who kept up a sharp fire upon the party from the opposite bank. In all his tours of inspection and survey, from the Danube, across the Balkan chain to Adrianople, and back again by another route to Constantinople, private Cray accompanied Lieutenant Burke, and for his usefulness and spirited conduct was made lance-corporal and afterwards attached as orderly to the Brigade-Major.

The detachment at Gallipoli erected piers at the port, for landing stores, guns, &c., and prepared hospitals for the sick. The companies at Boulair assisted to form the lines on the left of the position allotted to the British troops to execute. About 1,500 men of the infantry were daily distributed for some months to the trenches and roads, and performed their tasks with ardour and cheerfulness. One man detached to Ibridgi, about fifty miles distant on the north side of the gulf of Saros, superintended the Greeks in felling and collecting brushwood and timber, for the construction of magazines, platforms, log-huts, &c. A fluctuating party, numbering at one time nine men under a corporal, was afterwards detached on this duty.

When Sir George Brown, who commanded the division, took his departure for the frontier, he communicated in orders of the 6th May “his entire approbation of the general conduct, zeal, and industry of the royal sappers and miners on the works, both at Gallipoli and the camp at Boulair.”

Two other companies were quickly reorganised to reinforce the corps in the East. These were the tenth under Captain Bent, to form the pontoon train, and the eighth from Gibraltar, under Captain Bourchier. The former embarked at Woolwich in the ‘City of London’ steamer, on board of which was Lieutenant-General Sir De Lacy Evans and staff, and the staff of the Duke of Cambridge. Sir De Lacy Evans was well pleased with the conduct and services of the company on board, for they had much to attend to in strengthening the horse-boxes. Landing at Constantinople on the 24th April, the company was quartered in Scutari barracks, as was also the eighth on debarking from the ‘Albatross,’ on the 9th May. The pontoons sent out in the ‘Melbourne’ in charge of corporal William Dickson, an able and intelligent non-commissioned officer, reached Constantinople on the 13th May.

The sappers attached to Her Majesty’s ship ‘Fury’ being transshipped to the ‘Agamemnon,’ bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Lyons, served with the squadron in a obsolete’ on the coasts of Circassia, Georgia, and Anatolia, and were present on the 19th May in the reduction of Redout Kaleh.

Next morning the party landed, and were employed for two days as overseers in the defensive occupation of the place, under the orders of Lieutenant H. Cox and H. B. Roberts, of the royal marine artillery. Parties from all the ships were ashore at the works. The Turks, utterly unacquainted with the mode of protecting themselves by intrenchments, were instructed by the sappers. A Russian barrack was speedily loopholed, a stone building in a commanding situation was converted by massive planks into a block-house as an outwork, and a parapet was formed, flanked by a deep marsh. Houses, too, that could not aid in the defence were thrown down, whilst others, well sited, were turned into points of security and resistance. The old fort on the land side was also strengthened with additional works. When these services were sufficiently advanced, the Turks with two sappers were left to complete the defences, and the Anglo-French working parties, with the remainder of the sappers, returned to their ships.

Renewing its cruise, the squadron anchored off Bardan. Landing Captain Brock, R.N., Captain Stanton, R.E., a doctor, and four sappers, they started, guided by an escort of Circassians commanded by Ismail Bey, over the mountains, to communicate with the prophet-warrior Schamyl.

Late in May, Lord Raglan ordered the sappers, when employed as artificers “in repairing tools, constructing wharves, and the like,” to receive working pay; the non-commissioned officers at the rate of 1_s._ a-day, and the privates 6_d._ to 1_s._ a-day each, according to conduct and ability. The non-commissioned officers appointed conductors of stores, photographers, electricians, &c., were granted 2_s._ a-day each.

To form a connexion between the sappers and miners and the army, the four companies with the expedition were attached to the divisions as follows:—

1st division. 11th company Captain Hassard. 2nd ” 8th ” Captain Bourchier. 3rd ” 7th ” Captain Gibb. Light ” 10th ” Captain Bent.

Four men employed for a few weeks with Captain Chapman, R.E., in the survey of Buyuk Tchekmedjie, were recalled to Constantinople late in May, as the intention of forming that district into an encampment had been abandoned, owing to the altered character of events.

While the carpenters of the companies at Scutari were fitting up horse-boxes for the cavalry on board the transports, a forward movement was commenced by a detachment of one sergeant—John F. Read—and twenty-seven rank and file of the tenth company, commanded by Lieutenants E. C. A. Gordon and Pratt, which landed at Varna from the ‘Caradoc’ on the 22nd of May. Precedence was given to this party for the purpose of erecting jetties to land the troops, horses, and ordnance, on the arrival of the army.

On the 26th of May, the remainder of the company under Captain Bent, disembarked at Varna with the pontoons, from the ‘Cyclops’ steamer. The removal of the company was an expeditious operation, for in less than ten hours from the time of receiving orders, the pontoons, stores, horses, and all the miscellaneous gear attending a war company of sappers, were stowed into one vessel, and then transshipped into another when subsequent orders rendered such an arrangement imperative. In allusion to the company’s departure, the corps was spoken of in the ‘Times,’ as a “most indefatigable and invaluable body of men.”[143]

Simultaneously with this movement, Captain Hassard’s company sailed from Gallipoli, when their exertions elicited the following complimentary order from the officer of Royal Engineers in command.

“On board the ‘Emu,’ 25th May, 1854.

“Captain Gordon thanks the eleventh company for the zealous and willing manner with which they worked during the whole of last night, and till six o’clock this morning, embarking intrenching tools and stores, immediately after their march in from the camp at Boulahar. This exertion, so cheerfully performed, as to enable the company to proceed without loss of time on active service, will be brought to the notice of the Brigadier-General.” It was so and received his hearty acknowledgments.

The company disembarked at Varna on the 27th, and the scene at the quay was strikingly interesting and animated. About 250 French sappers had also landed from the ‘Cacique,’ and working as they did some twenty yards from the British sappers, a good opportunity was afforded for contrasting the temperament and military habits of the two nations. The French, gay, volatile, and impulsive, stirred about with elated spirits and elastic activity, that gave a cheerful, though an impetuous aspect to their exertions; whilst the English sappers, grave, impassible, and taciturn, wheeled off scaling ladders and stores so devoid of bustle and joyousness, and with so much attention to order and composure, that an air of stern and serious necessity was impressed on their labours. Nevertheless, the work was done with a business-like energy and earnestness that seemed more than adequate for any task or enterprise.[144]

Varna for a few months was the principal frontier station and depot for engineer stores and pontoons, from whence parties were thrown out to Devno, Aladyn, Monister, Rustchuk, &c. At Varna the companies built a stone pier of some pretensions, and a wooden one at the south side of the bay, run out into deep water 140 feet from the beach. They also banked up the shore, deepened the little harbour, and improved the almost trackless roads beyond and within the vicinity of Aladyn, making them passable for heavy wheeled conveyances. Much of the work was carried on in bog and water, which, however, was ultimately discontinued, as it was found that some of the men who were so employed, died from cholera, traceable to their exertions and exposure.

About seventy men of the tenth company marched to Devno on the 29th May, who repaired the roads, removed the accumulations of years from deserted fountains, rendering them again useful for thirsty wayfarers, built ovens for baking bread, raised dams to collect water for the troops, and constructed a bridge across the lake. From a lonely burial-ground, filled with blocks of unhewn and unsculptured granite, marking nevertheless the sites of numerous graves, the sappers took the largest stones, and used them in erecting a bridge over one of the narrow channels which joined the lakes of Aladyn and Devno. The men worked very hard, at times up to their breasts in water. The correspondent of the ‘Times,’ in speaking of this work—June 29th—termed the sappers “a most utilitarian corps while Captain Gordon, in a letter to a brother officer, remarked with respect to its general services, “that the men work well and behave well. To be with them is a pleasure.”

A party of twelve men with sergeant Thomas Dumvill, under Lieutenant Creyke of the engineers, was employed for three days at Carra-Houssan; and having placed the several wells in order, and rendered the neglected fountains available for use, it returned to Devno. It was expected that the light division would march through the village of Shumla, but the intention was afterwards abandoned. The sappers therefore were the only British troops at this advanced frontier station.

At Aladyn, the sappers were encamped in a valley covered with the thickest foliage, and its many rural accessories of creepers, clematis, wild vines, &c., made the scene as picturesque as grateful.[145] At Varna, the companies were tented as nearly as possible to their work, while a detachment was quartered for a time, close by the city walls, to be ready for any emergency:[146] but when the cholera had to some extent decimated the camp, the sappers were removed, to improve their sanitary condition, to a healthier location on the south side of the bay.

The seventh company at Gallipoli and Boulair, in addition to their duties on the lines, constructed a number of log-huts, stores, and stables for the cantonment of a regiment, in the event of the army being compelled to fall back to the isthmus, as to another Torres Vedras, for succour and safety.

The eighth company from Scutari landed at Varna on the 19th of June from the ‘Golden Fleece’ steamer, and joined the frontier companies.

Lance-corporal William Swann and private Andrew Anderson accompanied Captain Bent and Lieutenant Burke to the beleaguered fortress of Silistria, starting on the 17th of June. Arriving too late to share in its defence, they shortly afterwards repaired to Rustchuk, where a hazardous attack upon the Russians holding the opposite bank of the Danube, was undertaken on the 7th of July by Hassan Haki Pacha, the commander of the Turkish force at that fortress. The attack was made on three points, Captain Bent leading one of the divisions. Lieutenant Burke also led a detached party of Turkish troops across the river in boats. The two sappers were attached to him, and it is of their conduct particularly, and not the general incidents of the battle, that the following record will give an account. Gaining the island, the party of Turks jumped on shore, and forming in line, gallantly pushed on, and were met by superior numbers. A fierce hand to hand struggle ensued, and Lieutenant Burke, with desperate valour, slew with his own strong arm six of his opponents, falling early on the strand covered with frightful wounds. The sappers stood by their officer, and fought “well and bravely.” In the midst of the conflict, private Anderson, a stalwart soldier, tried to save the heroic young man whose spirit inspired all with courage; but though the attempt unhappily failed, he dealt out slaughter among the Russians with incredible effect. It was not long before the little band of Turks, overpowered by numbers, retreated to the boats. Mindful of the sacred duty that devolved upon him, Anderson, with daring devotion, three times threw himself into the ranks of the enemy, and at last rescued the bleeding body of his officer. Though encumbered with his carbine and other arms, he endeavoured to bear it away on his back, but such was its weight—for the lieutenant was a powerful man, and of robust stature—and such the heaviness of the fire upon him, he was obliged to relinquish his purpose, leaving the body concealed in some long grass. Taking the dead man’s sword to save it from falling as a trophy into the hands of the enemy, he made good his retreat to the river. Scrambling down its sedgy bank, which varied from three to six feet in height, the party renewed the conflict, and improved their cover by a hasty entrenchment, in the formation of which the Turks used their hands and bayonets, and the sappers their swords. Corporal Swann was here soon disabled; and, wounded in the head by a blow from the butt end of a musket, he was falling, when, a second blow across the shoulder-blade, threw him into the water. There for four hours he lay insensible, and was providentially saved from drowning by a thick woollen shirt he wore.[147] Anderson, now the only British soldier with the little batch, acted as became his manly character, and encouraging the Turks by his prowess and endurance, the brave detachment maintained the unequal contest with veteran firmness, and only recrossed the Danube when the necessity for their services had ceased. In that hard-contested battle, private Anderson killed no less than fourteen Russians, himself escaping miraculously without wound or hurt. Next morning, though it was uncertain whether the enemy was in ambush or not, he pushed over to the island again, and recovered the body of his officer, but what a sad spectacle did it present! It was headless; thirty wounds from bullet, sabre, and bayonet, riddled his remains, and his fingers had been chopped off to secure the rings he wore! The battle of Giurgevo ended in a victory for the Turks. Ten hours the fight lasted, and the loss on both sides was considerable. For their gallantry Swann was promoted to be second corporal,[148] and private Anderson decorated, by Omar Pacha, with the order of the Medjidie. His highness himself placed the star on the brave man’s breast, and then, in friendship, warmly shook his hand. In the ‘London Gazette’ of January 12, 1855, appeared the following gratifying announcement. “The Queen has been pleased to grant unto private Andrew Anderson of the Sappers and Miners, her royal license and permission that he may accept and wear the order of the Medjidie, which the Sultan has been pleased to confer upon him, in approbation of his distinguished bravery and good conduct at the passage of the Danube on the 7th of July last, and subsequently in rescuing the body of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Burke, after he had fallen; and that he may enjoy all the rights and privileges thereunto annexed.”—“And also to command that Her Majesty’s said concession and especial mark of her royal favour be registered, together with the relative documents, in Her Majesty’s College of Arms.”

The four sappers landed from the ‘Agamemnon’ in May, were for six weeks in Circassia with Captain Brock, R.N. In returning to the ship, they, with six other men of the detachment on board of her, accompanied the fleet in its subsequent cruises along the coast, and in the Black Sea. No longer required for service afloat, the party landed at Baltschik, and marching to Varna, rejoined their companies on the 16th and 18th July.

Early in July, Lieutenant Lempriere left Varna for Circassia in the French steamer ‘Vauban’ with orders to place in a state of defence, some of the towns along the coast, which, having been wrested from the Russians were now being menaced by them. Sergeant Marshall and private Richards accompanied him. On the 11th the party landed at Churuksu, the Turkish head-quarters on that frontier, and soon completed a survey of the place and its vicinity. Obliged to remain there a few days, three or four officers of the ‘Vauban’ and Lieutenant Lempriere visited some of the Turkish outposts and detached forts. With the party were some French sailors and private Richards. When about to return, two of the sailors and the sapper were missing. Nothing could be heard of them, and it was concluded they had strayed into the hands of the Russians. Skirmishers were sent out to scour the country. Wood, wild, and mountain were threaded in quest of the wanderers, and all hope of tracking them had wellnigh been given up, when a quick eye observed them in the bush—apparently unconscious of the concern they had created or of the chances there were of the enemy capturing them—coolly stuffing themselves with blackberries! Stocked with a good supply of the fruit, they were guided back to the party, who, no longer uneasy about the safety of their attendants, shared with the wayfarers the contents of their wallets and enjoyed an agreeable dessert.

At Redoubt Kaleh a small body of Russian cavalry closely approached the Turkish works to reconnoitre the position, but a few rounds from the batteries quickly dispersed them. Information had reached the enemy of the arrival of some English troops, which, in all probability, was more than corroborated, by the glimpse they must have caught of one of the four red-coated sappers constituting, at that time, the entire British contingent on the coast of Circassia. Whether this was or was not enough to excite the fears of the Russians, certain it is, that a considerable body of them in anticipation of an attack, threw up some earthworks on the banks of the river about five miles away.

Cruising along the coast, now in the ‘Vauban,’ now in the ‘Wasp,’ Lieutenant Lempriere and his men landed for short intervals at Pitsunda, Soukum Kaleh, Redoubt Kaleh, Anacrea, Churuksu, Batoum, and lastly, all went up to Trebizonde. The two Kalehs were the fortresses at which the services of the sappers were chiefly given. At Redoubt Kaleh two men who had been left by Captain Stanton as overseers to the Turks joined Lieutenant Lempriere’s little force. In addition to instructing the Ottoman soldiers in the mode of forming fieldworks, the sappers superintended the restoration of some old batteries and revetments, the construction of various new defences, and assisted Lieutenant Lempriere in the surveys be found it necessary to make for professional purposes. While they were thus busy, the Crimean Expedition had been determined on, and as every sapper was wanted for the enterprise, the party was recalled and rejoined the corps just as the siege was about to open.

Corporal John Pendered and lance-corporal John Hammond arrived at Varna on the 24th July, and were attached as photographers, under Captain Hackett, 77th regiment, to the head-quarters of the army. Previously to leaving London they had been instructed in the art by Mr. Thompson, and had practically tested their efficiency at Chatham, where patches of broken ground, and military scenes and fortifications, gave them a variety of subjects to portray. Many of their photographic sketches, taken under circumstances of difficulty and disadvantage, were exhibited at Gore House during the summer months; but without having the chance of proving their usefulness and skill, these two young men, promising and enterprising, perished in a storm.

At the request of Omar Pacha a detachment of the corps, under Captain Gage, R.A. and Lieutenant Pratt, R.E., started from Aladyn for Rustchuk on the 8th July, to form a bridge over the Danube for the passage of the Ottoman troops. It consisted of sergeant John F. Read, one bugler, and thirty-two rank and file, accompanied by fifteen French pontoneers, and thirty-five English seamen from the fleet, under Lieutenant Glynn and Prince Leiningen, R.N., twenty of whom led the way, and fifteen covered the rear. With characteristic pride, the seamen gave importance to the honour accorded them by carrying unfurled, both in front and rear, a large union jack. All were on horseback. Next to the advance sailors were the sappers, unskilled in equitation, in every conceivable attitude, mounted on young horses. Each led a second horse loaded with intrenching tools, &c. Behind them followed about 150 horses ridden by native grooms and guides, bearing tools, baggage, and forage; and then came the party of French pontoneers. The expedition went from twenty to thirty miles in twelve hours, killing three horses in the first two days. Many of the animals, unaccustomed to the rattling of picks and shovels against their flanks, were difficult to manage, and in their fright and restiveness, frequently dashed away from the cavalcade. Considerable delay occurred in recovering and restraining them, and what with unavoidable halts at Schumla and Rasgradt, the party did not reach Rustchuk until the 13th July, though the distance travelled was only 120 miles. This novel equestrian journey was accomplished without any material mishap, except a few almost harmless falls, and the occasional diversion of a horse and his rider rolling together on the road. Hard riding, however, on ill-formed and broken tracks, made the men so sore and stiff, that when the time for rest arrived, they found it preferable to sleep standing!

On the 15th, the sappers were sent over to Giurgevo, and for a few days assisted to intrench the position of the Turks; when, on the 19th, at the desire of Omar Pacha, they moved up to Slobedsie, and under the superintendence of Captain Bent and Lieutenant Pratt constructed, in a very creditable manner, a trestle bridge over the Slobedsie Creek, which was 450 feet across, to a small island in the Danube. Notwithstanding that several of the men, as many as fifteen in one day, had been ill during the operation, the work was finished on the 25th.

Next day the sappers joined the French pontoneers and English sailors, in throwing a bridge of boats across the main stream, at a place some 890 yards wide. A few boats had been laid when the sappers commenced. The pontoneers worked from one shore, the sappers from the other; whilst the sailors rowed up the boats and assisted to secure them in position. The boats, fixed with a clear bay of twenty feet between, gave for each of the series about forty feet of bridge. The breadth for the roadway was eighteen feet six inches. Wood was scarce at the spot, and the timbers for the superstructure in great part were obtained from Sistova and Widdin. Intended for heavy service the bridge was made of massive baulks and stout oak planking, strongly bolted, cramped, and racked. Much “difficulty was experienced in securing some of the boats in the more rapid part of the stream, but by mooring them with four anchors each, and the aid of heavy ordnance sunk above the boats and securely fastened to them,” they stood against wind and surge, firm and unbroken.[149] “It was completed on the 4th August, and on the 5th received some damage from the first Austrian steamer that passed during the war. This was soon repaired,”[150] and to obviate a similar casualty, an opening was contrived to permit the navigation to continue, which, when not required, was closed up again by a moveable raft to make good the bridge. In appearance it was as artistic and elegant as useful. The longest boats occupied the centre, from which the smaller craft gradually fell away to the two shores. Like ancient galleys they were shaped with stems and prows curving gracefully upwards from the water.[151] The bridge was no unworthy rival of the celebrated one formed by Xerxes, in his passage of the Hellespont at Abydos. “On the 10th, Omar Pacha opened it in person, and complimented the officers and men for the zeal and ability they had shown in its construction. Captain Bent was in command of the sappers.”[152] For the ceremony two triumphal arches of evergreens were run up, one at each end of the bridge, and above them proudly waved the allied banners of England, France, and Turkey. To crown the service, both French and English met in unmixed cordiality and friendship, at a costly repast provided by Omar Pacha.

No longer required for service with the force of his highness, eighteen of the detachment returned, on horseback, to Varna, under Lieutenant Pratt, R.E., passing through Turtukai and Silistria, where joining the English seamen, they quitted it again on the 15th August. At night, after a march of twenty miles, the party halted at Kinarjik. On the next day a further march of thirty miles found them encamped at Karapelt; another thirty took them to Karayal, where a sapper who had died on the route was buried. A beautiful spot was selected for the encampment, and at sunset the deceased was interred in a hastily-excavated grave, beneath the sombre shade of a wild pear-tree.[153] All the officers and men were present, and from the absence of all display, and the fatigued, rusty, and travel-stained aspect of the men, the ceremony was impressive and mournful. On the 18th August, travelling fifteen miles that morning, the sappers reached head-quarters, and rejoined the tenth company. Corporal Swann, who had been appointed by Lord Raglan provost-sergeant to the mule-drivers at Rustchuk with a salary of 4_s._ 6_d._ a-day, returned to Varna with the party.

Not without mortification it is necessary to introduce in this place a record relative to the misconduct of the Rustchuk detachment. Honoured as they were by being the only British soldiers selected for an advanced frontier duty, much was expected from their conduct and exertions; but their extreme irregularity and drunkenness, with few exceptions,[154] offered a striking contrast to the behaviour of the party of sailors and the Turkish garrison. To mark therefore the displeasure of Brigadier-General Tylden, he subjected the detachment to a course of severe discipline, and stopped the promotion of some of the non-commissioned officers. Several men of the seventh company also, who had commenced a career of intemperance at Hurst Castle, behaved with equal discredit, and disgusted their officers. It is a pity in a corps possessing the advantages of education, skill, and mechanical attainments, that there should exist anything to tarnish the fame the well-intentioned are striving to brighten.

As a set-off against this censure, it is well there is occasion to give place to an instance of individual good conduct, as honourable as meritorious. Varna was set on fire by some Greek incendiaries, instigated by Russian agents, and was only extinguished after much of the city had been laid waste, and considerable munitions destroyed. Brigadier-General Tylden directed the operations for saving the town. The companies of sappers, being on the south side of the bay, were not present, but lance-corporal James Cray, whose services under Lieutenant Burke have been already noticed, acting as the Brigadier’s orderly, lent material aid by his intrepidity in arresting the flames. “When the danger was greatest,” says the official report, “and the spreading flames threatened to reach the large Turkish powder-magazine, corporal Cray laboured voluntarily and incessantly, by mounting scaling-ladders and closing the openings with blankets, thus not only largely contributing to the safety of the magazine, but setting an example to the sailors and others assisting, which was of the greatest service.” He was promoted to be second-corporal for his conduct.

Captain Bent, with fifteen non-commissioned officers and men left at Rustchuk under Omar Pacha, accompanied the Ottoman troops into the Wallachian principality, entering the capital on the 22nd August. Corporal Harding, a zealous and able sapper and pontoneer, died that day from cholera on the line of march, and was buried in the graveyard of a small country Greek church. His remains, covered with a union jack, were attended to their final resting-place by all the Englishmen in Bucharest, and the service was read by Mr. Meyer, a missionary clergyman. A private was attacked by the grave of his comrade, and returning to his tent, soon afterwards died. He was buried in the Lutheran churchyard. Several other choleraic seizures occurred in the detachment, which were ascribed to the intemperance of the men, and their imprudent use of fruits. No British soldiers, save this small party, served during the campaign in the Wallachian capital.

The occupation of Bucharest by the Austrians was followed by many ungracious acts which it was never anticipated a chivalric nation would impose on a defenceless people. These were chiefly felt in the forcible possession of the houses of the citizens without the courtesy of seeing whether they could be accommodated. No excuse could be offered for such ungallant proceedings, as the police had provided the Austrian troops with suitable billets. The same inconsiderate demeanour was paraded before the few British sappers quartered in the capital, who, to prevent the possibility of a pretext for collision, were all pent up with their Captain-Bent-in one domicile.[155] In their activity to find comfortable stabling, some Austrians, commanded by a sergeant, ordered the horses belonging to Captain Bent to be taken out to make room for three lively steeds which the pirating party had brought with them. It was not to be borne that they should attempt to encroach upon premises already too limited for the reasonable wants of the Captain and his sappers; and private Andrew Anderson, who happened to be on the spot at the time, met their demands with courageous sternness. This unexpected resistance caused the sergeant valorously to motion with his sabre, and to threaten, among other desperate penalties, to hang the Englishman; but Anderson, indisposed to yield his trust—though the odds were against him—made so imposing a demonstration of physical determination, that the dragoons, taken somewhat aback at his boldness, quickly decamped, and abandoned the intention of quartering themselves or their horses in the British billets.

The fourth company from Malta, under Captain Craigie, reinforced the corps at Varna on the 14th August, and a detachment of the third company at Corfu was also sent thither, arriving at the head-quarters on the 25th August. They were ordered from their respective stations to the seat of war by Lord Raglan.[156]

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Footnote 135:

Promoted to be sergeant. Was the principal non-commissioned officer in charge of the huts sent from this country to the Crimea; and was wounded severely in the assault on the Redan on the 8th September, 1855.

Footnote 136:

A man of unsteady propensities from a long residence at the Cape of Good Hope, where liquor is cheap. He is, however, a first-rate soldier and sapper, and his intrepid bearing in the trenches before Sebastopol, gained him a special medal “for distinguished service in the field,” and a gratuity of five pounds. Such notice accorded to him as one of sixteen out of a fighting force of about 900 men, may well excite his pride; and if there be a tide in the affairs of men, surely this proud incident will cause that turn, and so fashion his future career that it will be as remarkable in peace for temperance and good behaviour, as in battle for heroism.

Footnote 137:

Died in camp before Sebastopol, in January, 1855.

Footnote 138:

Sent to the Crimea as a submarine diver, and died in camp before Sebastopol, April, 1855.

Footnote 139:

Died in December, 1854, before Sebastopol of cholera.

Footnote 140:

Killed in the trenches at the siege of Sebastopol, July 17, 1855.

Footnote 141:

Now second sergeant-major of the corps at the Royal Engineer Establishment, Brompton.

Footnote 142:

Has been frequently noticed in these pages for his labours in the demolition of the ‘Royal George’ and ‘Edgar’ at Spithead.

Footnote 143:

June 12, 1854.

Footnote 144:

‘United Service Gazette,’ June 17, 1854.

Footnote 145:

The ‘Times,’ June 29, 1854.

Footnote 146:

Ibid.

Footnote 147:

‘Illustrated London News,’ August 5, 1854.

Footnote 148:

Soon after was advanced to the rank of corporal for his conduct at the siege of Sebastopol, and died of wounds received in the trenches, in May, 1855. One of his legs was amputated, from which, though he bore up for a few days, his exhausted strength did not permit him to rally.

Footnote 149:

The ‘Times,’ Sept. 15, 1854.

Footnote 150:

Ibid.

Footnote 151:

Ibid.

Footnote 152:

The ‘Times,’ Sept. 15, 1854.

Footnote 153:

Ibid.

Footnote 154:

Sergeant John F. Read, corporals William Harding, William Swann, and privates Robert M. Rylatt, Michael Westacott, and John Piper.

Footnote 155:

The ‘Times,’ Oct. 26, 1854, by the Author of ‘The Russian Empire.’

Footnote 156:

A few weeks before the Central Association commenced its humane operations, a fund was raised by Captain and Adjutant Somerset to aid the wives and children of men of the corps ordered to the East. The Central Association took its rise from a letter which appeared in the ‘Times’ on the 22nd February, 1854, on which date, singularly enough, Captain Somerset received the first subscriptions for his fund. As the working of this regimental charity could not but be limited, Captain Somerset did his best to lessen the chances of its being too soon exhausted. He therefore personally advised every married man before embarking, as to the course he ought to pursue during his absence from England, and obtained from him an agreement to make a monthly remittance, suitable to his means, for the support of his wife and family. This was not a difficult interference, for the men were only too anxious to make the utmost provision it was in their power to arrange. Of this regimental fund Captain Somerset had the entire charge. By his exertions it reached the sum of 240_l._; of which 72_l._ were subscribed by the four survey companies. The rest was added by officers of the corps at home, a few companies of sappers, and the personal friends of the Adjutant. Its plan was to make advances—obtaining repayment of them by remittances from the seat of war; also to award donations, and to provide, in unforeseen circumstances, domestic troubles, sickness and death, such relief as the several cases needed, and which could only be met in this way. “The Somerset Fund,” so quiet and unpretending in its exercise, was of great benefit to the corps; and of about sixty women and nearly one hundred children who, by loans and grants, drew support from its means, not one ever had occasion to seek the cold shelter of a workhouse. With one or two exceptions, the wives of the sappers behaved with virtuous propriety during the absence of their husbands, and were a credit both to them and the corps.

The Central Association was a national undertaking, in which the wives and families of the corps, equally with those of the rest of the army, shared to the full extent of its numbers. It properly does not belong to this history to notice the gigantic operations of the Association, and the extraordinary good it achieved; but it may nevertheless be permitted to say, that the royal sappers and miners will ever retain a warm recollection of its beneficence, and cherish the name of Major the Hon. Henry Littleton Powys—the untiring advocate of protection to the soldier’s wife and family, and the gratuitous Honorary Secretary of the Association—with feelings of lasting gratitude.

1854. CRIMEA. September—18th October.

Preliminary to active operations in the Crimea, the companies of the corps at Varna superintended contingents of the line in preparing a park of gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms for siege purposes. Each sapper at the duty had charge of fifteen men of the line, divided into three squads of five in a squad. The troops were also practised in the hasty formation of field-works; and these instructional services were not without profit to the men of the corps, who, as overseers, superintended their execution.

Early in September the allied forces embarked for the Crimea, and the naval arrangements for the occasion, though vast and complicated, were comprehensive and perfect. To each of the British divisions was attached a body of sappers and miners, bearing with them intrenching tools. Up to this time there had landed in Turkey six companies of the corps, mustering a force of 513 non-commissioned officers and men, which had been reduced to 492 men by the decease of 21 non-commissioned officers and privates, chiefly from cholera and exposure. Leaving the seventh company at Gallipoli, also detachments at Varna, Redout Kaleh, and Bucharest, and the sick on board the transports and at Scutari, the force of sappers and miners that landed near Lake Tuzla in Kalamita Bay on the 14th and 16th September counted a total of 308 of all ranks.

Under a teeming rain, two of the companies debarked, and without tents or covering, took up a miserable bivouac with their divisions. In the night they lay huddled together for warmth, while the storm beat ceaselessly upon them, and turned their selected resting-places into pools and quagmires. The returning day found them drenched, stiff, and comfortless; but in none, except those poor enfeebled fellows still suffering from the pest that had proved so fatal to the troops at Varna, was there wanting a cheerfulness to work, a spirit to master hardship, and a determination to endure. Unsheltered as they were, that fearful weather brought on many aggravated cases of cholera.

Water, the first want felt after landing at Lake Tuzla, caused several wells to be sunk by the sappers on the strip of land which stretched between the lake and the Black Sea. The supply thus obtained was too brackish for human use, and the duty of furnishing the troops, therefore, depended on the fleet.

At noon on the 15th, a detachment of the fourth company commenced to erect a temporary pier for landing the horses, with timbers furnished by the fleet. For a considerable distance to seaward, the water was shallow, but it swelled to the beach, and broke there with great violence. Trestles fixed and braced were held for a time in their places by sturdy men, but the driving breakers rushed to the shore with so resistless a force it was impracticable to proceed; and men and timbers borne away in the surge, only escaped by grasping at ropes which were laid conveniently to the site in anticipation of such accidents.

When the army was put in motion, and the Bulganak stream was reached, its bed was found to be too muddy for the passage of the artillery with the 4th division. Early in the morning of the 20th a portion of the fourth company was told off to make a track through the water for the guns. Collecting the reeds which grew there in abundance, the sappers tied them faggot fashion into long bundles, and placing them in the bed of the stream from bank to bank, the artillery, in twenty-two minutes from the time of commencing, was crossing the river with clean wheels in comparative ease.

On the 20th was fought the battle of the Alma, which was gained in three hours by the allies, with a loss to the British exceeding 2,000 killed and wounded; whilst the carnage amongst the Russians was even greater. The sappers and miners during the action were thus distributed:—

No. Head-quarters. 3rd company 36 Light division, 10th ” 62 1st ” 11th ” 62 2nd ” 8th ” 77 3rd ” 4th ” 34 4th ” 4th ” 35

The fourth division was not engaged, being in reserve; but the sappers with the other divisions, though not called upon to participate to an extent that placed them in much danger, were under fire. The companies were held back, ready with their intrenching tools, to perform any service for which they might suddenly be required; but the daring advance and overpowering prowess of the British rendered a resort to field-works as a means of defence wholly unnecessary. The tenth company crossed the river by the ford and bridge while the battle raged. The eighth company, attached for the moment to one of the field-batteries, assisted in dragging through the river some field-carriages belonging to the royal artillery, one of which, having become disabled, capsized in the stream.

The eleventh company, under the direction of Captain Montagu of the engineers, rapidly repaired the broken timber bridge of Buliack, part of the sheeting of which had been removed by the Russians, leaving the end on the side of the British untouched. Had this artful contrivance not been discovered, the troops would doubtless have suffered fearfully in their attempt to pass over the bridge. Its restoration was of great service, as it enabled the whole of the baggage to be up with the army the same evening. For six hours there was an uninterrupted stream of well-laden carts and other vehicles crossing it, which tested to the utmost the efficiency of its renewal, and corroborated in part the encomium of Captain Montagu that it was “done right well and very quickly.” The fourth company was stationed about a quarter of a mile away from the Alma, and the third was with the baggage in rear.

On the night of the 20th the companies bivouacked on the site of the battle, where one of the privates, worn out by disease and fatigue, covered himself with his blanket and died. Resuming the march, the allies passed the Katscha on the 23rd September, on which day the third company, attached to the head-quarters of the army, was reinforced by the arrival from Woolwich of 66 non-commissioned officers and men under Captain W. M. Inglis of the royal engineers. Two days later the march was continued across the Belbec, and on the 26th to Balaklava by a bold flank movement through a difficult and thickly-wooded country. Sir John Burgoyne passed a night in bivouac with the company, and all that could be got for him to rest upon was an old door. Upon that the aged warrior stretched himself with a composure and satisfaction that showed how well he had braced himself to the vicissitudes and hardships of war. On the way the baggage of a Russian division, spreading over a vast extent of road, fell a prize to the British army. The third company was hurried to the front with artillery to remove it, and tumbling the waggons over the hill they broke in fragments in the valley. When the army pushed forward, the third company remained, blew up a magazine of thirteen barrels of gunpowder which was found with the train of baggage, and then hastened to Balaklava. All the companies arrived there on the 27th September, and were at once disposed of in making roads, sinking wells, and repairing shattered waggons, while the third company made good a rough pier at Balaklava, at which were landed the heavy ordnance, ammunition, and siege stores.

The royal engineers formed their encampment on the S.S.E. of the harbour of Balaklava, whither the siege material was conveyed. With great promptitude, guns and ammunition, gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and tools of all descriptions, unsurpassed in magnitude, were collected, and then despatched to the depôt about four miles nearer to the scene of operations.

By the 30th September a strong force of sappers moved to the ground, and soon commenced those services which the public, too enthusiastic in its anticipations, expected would reduce a fortress of unexampled strength in a few days. Full twenty days the company were without tents, their camp equipage having been left in the ships which conveyed the sappers from the shores of Bulgaria; and, exposed as they were in bivouac to the damp and chills of night, many robust and able men fell a prey to cholera at Balaklava, or predisposed, by these early trials and rigours, to disease, were struck down by suffering and exhaustion in the camp before Sebastopol.

Next night some sappers, pushed forward under their officers, assisted to examine the ground in front of the fortress towards Chersonese Bay; and although at times within rifle-range of the walls, were unmolested by the Russians. It was at first intended that the English troops should occupy this position, but in consequence of the tools of our allies being too light to carry out the heavy intrenchments assigned to them on the right, the disposition of the forces was altered to adapt them to the situations for which their material seemed to render them adequate. This change in the arrangements was followed by the preliminary duty of tracing the sites of the required trenches and batteries inland, in which some sappers were permitted to participate.

Among those who first left the camp to reconnoitre were lance-corporal McKimm and private Jenkins, in whose resolution and discipline reliance could be placed. They were apt men and sufficiently acute in comprehending orders not to worry their officers with strings of fatiguing questions about small details; and such was their stamp and bearing, they were not likely, in danger, to leave their officer unshielded. To Captain Montagu’s party of six sappers they were attached. In the darkness of the morning of the 1st October, the whole moved on in advance of the outlying pickets for nearly a mile and a-half, and quietly and in whispers, wandered over a country guarded by pickets in ambuscades as yet unknown. On their way they passed some posts which were alive with Cossacks, one of which they unwittingly approached so closely, that a couple of shots were fired at them. This was simply tendered as a warning to depart, for the Cossacks made no attempt to follow the explorers, and so continuing to give the points of ground and intersections to the Captain to enable him to form his sketch of the position of the left attack, the delineation was, in three or four hours, finished. With a careful pace yielding no perceptible sound, and a sharp look out, the party in returning crossed hill and ravine and passed pickets and sentries, reaching the camp safely at six o’clock in the morning.

It being necessary to despatch the mail from the first division at Balaklava to that of General Cathcart’s on the heights S.W. of Sebastopol, corporal John McQueen and private James Brennan volunteered for the duty. Cheerfully they jogged along the lonely road, and having delivered the letters at the camp commenced to return with that easy abandon so becoming soldiers. McQueen had been out on a coasting expedition, and prided himself with the belief that because he knew Sebastopol from the sea, he must as a consequence know every step of the road to Balaklava. He, however, soon found out his mistake. Losing their way, the letter-carriers struck on a road which took them into the Picket House ravine, up which they strode at a steady pace, straining their eyes through the darkness to discover a clue which should enlighten them as to their situation. Presently they were hounded by some dogs led on by a horseman with a glimmering lamp attached to his girdle. Luckily a cavern was near, and the sappers bounding into it, the dogs and the Cossack passed on. Allowing sufficient time to elapse to confuse the rider and his canine attendants, the comrades emerged from the cave, and regaining the road, turned in the direction of Sebastopol, impressed with the conviction that they had taken the correct route for the port. Allured by a fire which was burning on the hill to the left of the ravine, they began to ascend the slope to join the picket—supposed to be a Turkish one—who, grouped around the blazing sticks, were enjoying their pipes—an enviable pastime in which McQueen was anxious to participate. The night was still black; nothing could be seen, especially in the valley, for the picket-fire spread its capricious illumination over so small an area, that beyond the guard, the faint outline of objects only could be traced, and a little further on the dimness thickened into impenetrable darkness. So, suddenly coming on a pair of sentries concealed under some overhanging rocks, the sappers as suddenly stopped without losing their coolness. “Give me light, Turco?” said McQueen, placing a pipe between his teeth and pressing its bowl near the sentry’s chibouk. The sentry shrunk back: he was a Russian; and without word or challenge, in a moment the bayonet flashed, and the next it was plunged through the corporal’s body, while the companion sentry stabbed Brennan in the left shoulder. At the instant McQueen shot up in the air, then fell; but deadly wounded as he was, his entrails bursting through the puncture, he started from the ground, and, accompanied by Brennan, both ran at a furious speed pursued by the swift-footed sentinels. A wide ditch interrupted their course, into which McQueen and Brennan tumbled, but the cowardly Russians—for such they were to attack two unarmed men—gave up the pursuit.

McQueen moved not from the spot where he fell, for the shock he had received had doubled him up, and though his agonies were deep, he retained his consciousness. Brennan, suffering himself, set to work to alleviate, if possible, those mortal pains which at times made the corporal writhe and groan. His hand came on a well of blood, which told him, if the flow were not immediately stopped, the closing scene would soon be over. His plan of action in this extremity was quickly fixed, and taking off his shirt he tore it in strips, and tying them into one length bound it round his comrade. This, however, was not enough, for the blood still oozed through the bandage, and tearing away as much as he could of the corporal’s shirt without increasing his pangs, he knotted this also, as he added shred to shred, and plied it over the wound. This was the most he could do, except to encourage his spirit to bear the trial with the manliness his comrades would expect to hear he had exercised. “My head feels cold,” said he faintly. Both had lost their caps in the violent run they made to the ditch. Brennan instantly took off his coatee and turbaned it round the poor fellow’s head. “Here is a little bag with fourteen shillings in it,” said the corporal, as he released it from his neck. “Give it to my wife. It will never be my happiness to see her or the children.” This he said with an affectionate but choked utterance. “Tell her,” he added in a stronger voice, “I’m sorry I shall not see Sebastopol fall.”

“Why not? there’s plenty of skill in the camp to cure you,” returned Brennan in a tone of mingled sympathy and confidence.

But McQueen had become absorbed in his thoughts, and his agonies giving him but little disposition and energy to hear with attention anything that Brennan might say, the latter proposed to reconnoitre in the hope of discovering some means of bringing in succour or of escaping. The corporal assented, and Brennan stole away bare to the waist with a streaming wound bitten by the cold of a raw night. The battery above them was an earthen one well armed, but no gunners were in it. From its ditch he proceeded by a sort of ramp towards the Garden batteries, and came upon a strong structure built, as it seemed, out of a ship’s side. It was near the Flag-staff battery, and mounted many guns, forty-five of which he counted—some of very large calibre. Clear it was that he was in the heart of the Russian outworks. In that direction there was no escape, and as every step towards the creek bore the aspect of seeking danger when there was still a chance of evading it, he returned to the ditch, and threw himself by the side of the corporal. Time wore on sluggishly; moments were minutes, minutes hours. At length the morning broke; still he waited till it had sufficiently opened, to guide himself, to the best of his reason, aright; when, gathering up the wounded man, he bore him in his arms to a broken wall in front of a wine-press where had lived a Scotchman for more than twenty years before the war had driven him from his chosen homestead. Here Brennan, overpowered, laid down his comrade, for he was a massive man and deadly heavy. Concealing him in a secure place, and binding up his head with a handkerchief, Brennan dressed himself again in his worn coatee, and darted off for assistance, keeping well under the rocks which, overgrown with broom and wild vegetation, helped to cover him from observation. At last he made the bend of the ravine, and climbing up the steep, gained the top, where, crawling onwards among the heather and scrub he saw at the back of the hill the red points of six English tents—distant about fifty yards. It was a grateful sight, but he had not time fully to enjoy it; and so dashing up to the encampment, breathlessly demanded help for his suffering comrade. A few words to explain the nature of the painful adventure which had occasioned his unexpected appearance was more than enough for the officer of the 60th rifles in command. With two men of his regiment bearing a stretcher they hastened along the ravine guided by Brennan, now running, now walking to recover breath. It was a bright morning; hazard was in every step, but the errand was one of humanity, and they pushed on. At length they made the broken wall, from whence they carried the corporal for more than two miles to the tents of the rifle guard. In a few minutes medical aid was doing its best for the sufferer, but though his wounds were laved and dressed, the air had caught his torn bowels and gangrene was irretrievably at work. He was now borne to the camp at Balaklava, where, gradually sinking, he was the first of the siege army to die by the hand of the enemy before Sebastopol.

Meanwhile a party of twelve armed sappers, with sergeant James H. Drew, directed by Lieutenant Ravenhill of the royal engineers, repaired to the Inkermann ravine, and cut off the main aqueduct which supplied the docks in the Karabelnaia with water. This was known as Upton’s aqueduct. It was situated in a hollow of the plain which stretched onwards, and at its extremity were some well-appointed horsemen or Cossacks watching for chances to display their prowess. When they retired, the sappers, concealed by some bushes which clothed the slopes of the valley, crept from the underwood and stole on to the reservoir, advancing two sentries to look out from among some trees to give warning of impending peril. The sluice of the aqueduct was arched with stone. All the machinery by which it was manipulated was destroyed; the gate driven into the channel to stop the supply, and coping-stones, key-bricks, and earth jammed into the well and against the now useless gate. Without opposition the demolition was effected, and the little party returned to camp after being out seven hours in this preliminary adventure.

Charged with the right attack, the British held the position which approached the Tchernaya valley, while the French spread in a curve to the left, as far almost as Chersonese Bay. The ground was a sterile waste, wild, rocky, and undulated; bleak in winter, burning in summer. Sir John Burgoyne conducted the British portion of the siege, supported by Colonel Alexander, Major J. W. Gordon, and many officers of the corps. Colonel Alexander, from overwork and anxiety, soon died, and the executive direction of the works devolved on Major Gordon. In time the veteran engineer Sir John Burgoyne, recalled to England to discharge the responsible duties of his home appointment, was succeeded by Major-General Jones, who had received honour and promotion for his distinguished services in the capture and destruction of Bomarsund. Major, now Colonel, Gordon commanded the companies in the Crimea as a regiment; Captain, now Major, C. B. Ewart filled the appointment of adjutant, and Lieutenant A. Leahy that of quartermaster, afterwards that of Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General.

The British force was divided into two attacks, called “right”[157] and “left,”[158] their contiguity being broken by a deep ravine through which passed the Woronzoff road. The right abutted on the heights overlooking the middle ravine, and the left leaned away to the position of the allies, but separated from it by the precipitous sides of the Picket House ravine, which debouched on the head of the inner harbour. No longer attached to divisions, the fourth, eighth, and tenth companies of sappers were appointed to the right, and the third and eleventh companies to the left. The united strength of the companies amounted to a force of about 386 non-commissioned officers and men, 32 of whom were sick and 21 at Balaklava. On the high road leading from Sebastopol, and near the windmill, was stationed the engineer depôt for the right attack; while that for the left occupied an area in rear of the third division, on a plateau adjacent to the artillery depôt. At both the parks, the carpenters, sawyers, and blacksmiths of the companies carried on the mechanical requirements of the operation unprotected from the weather, or at best in scanty sheds of the most primitive character. In order that the sappers might be easily distinguished in the trenches, they were ordered to wear a band of white tracing tape round the forage-cap.

The strength of the brigades of sappers altogether depended upon the exigencies of the duty, and the numbers available for work. As a general rule, however, each brigade of sappers comprised a non-commissioned officer and eight privates; and each brigade of carpenters a non-commissioned officer and three privates. Whatever may have been the changes in the distribution of the men, there were seldom less at work, on the right, than three brigades of sappers and two of carpenters by day; and two of sappers and one of carpenters by night; while on the left, where a diminished force was employed, the arrangements only permitted for the daily routine two brigades of sappers and one of carpenters; and, for the night duty, one brigade of each.

Usually, the brigade remained twelve hours in the trenches, being relieved at daybreak and soon after dusk; but this period of duty, on many occasions, was necessarily prolonged, when any pressure required particular works to be completed in haste. Some of the most reliable men were on duty in the front eight nights out of nine. Fatigue and sickness caused very inconvenient fluctuations in the numbers disposable for the operation; but when less vigour was demanded in the formation of the lines, the men were relieved from duty in the trenches for three or four days at a time—the interval being filled up with labours in the camp, and in the performance of a variety of services subsidiary to the siege.

At nightfall, on the 8th October, ground was broken before Sebastopol. It commenced at the Greenhill battery left attack; and on the right attack at the 5-gun battery in front of Victoria hill, and at the picket-house for the right Lancaster-gun. By order of Lord Raglan, the working-parties, after receiving the necessary tools and instructions, were marched from the park, guided by engineer officers and sappers, to the trenches. This proceeding was followed throughout the siege; and it was also a practice to send both sappers and operatives into the batteries unarmed, to prevent the paramount work of the lines being neglected for the more natural one of resorting, on any slight instance of alarm, to measures of personal defence.

Acting as overseers, it was the province of the sappers and miners to instruct the line and the Turks in forming the trenches and batteries, attending themselves to the more constructive portions of the works requiring art and skill;—such as laying the gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms; erecting the splinter-proof magazines, and sloping and lining the embrasures. Formidable obstacles occasionally offered serious impediments to the progress of the excavations, for the soil was rocky: to overcome the difficulties, the sappers led the way with an earnestness and zeal that stimulated the workmen to activity and exertion; but such was the sacrifice of useful energy, that many a brave fellow, already enfeebled by overwork, scanty rations, and hard weather, faltered from the trenches never more to return.

Singular as it may appear, the sappers at first were somewhat at a loss in carrying out their more ordinary duties. The details were easy enough in peaceful practice; but in a siege where every effort required the utmost care and caution to make the work strong and durable and to avoid danger, it was much more difficult. A little earnest experience however in actual conflict, taught them the secrets of their art, gave them confidence and cunning, and rendered them, as far as their numbers permitted, quite equal to the emergencies of the enterprise.

Everywhere the lines continued to be prosecuted with commendable rapidity, and to claim even the fastidious attention of the sappers with regard to the smoothness and accuracy of the slopes of the interior revetments and the sharpness of the angles. The Madras platforms, to which a high reputation was attached, were quickly laid for the general siege-pieces, and common ones were fixed for the naval guns. There were times, however, when, from the guiding sappers missing their way to the appointed hill, the works were somewhat retarded in their execution. An instance of this kind occurred on the 10th October, when some sappers, sent to throw up a battery in front of the right of the light division, could not discover the position. The night was densely dark, foggy, and close. For more than two hours they endeavoured to find the points marked previously by Major Gordon, but finally seeing the fruitlessness of their efforts, they quitted the front and returned to camp. The working parties were retained in rear under cover; the only men exposed on the hill-top that night were two captains of engineers, and sergeant Coppin and lance-corporals Stupple and Kerr.

A more serious mistake occurred, the next night. Ground had been broken at eight o’clock by a working party of 400 men on the brow of a hill to the left of the light division. Sergeant Joseph Morant, who had received instructions as to the direction he was to take to reach the work, started at midnight with seventeen sappers to relieve the men of the corps whose tour of night-duty had expired. Marching along the Woronzoff ravine, he passed a huge boulder on which was carved a cross, and shortly after reached a large shell which had stuck in the middle of the road. These, for want of better indications, were two of the points on which he relied for the accuracy of his course. Having still to press on for another half-mile and more, and the night being dark, he missed the hollow up which he was to move to the site of the parallel. On he went with his men, when, seeing at length on either height a picquet, he hesitated under an impression he had gone too far; but private George Harvey, apparently priding himself upon his knowledge of the locality, persisted in saying that the picquets were British. Unable to trust to his own sight, for his vision was defective, the sergeant, thus assured, pushed forward steadily with the party, till he observed a few yards in his front, an outpost drawn up across the road. The sappers now halted, and the two parties strained their eyes in surprise at this unexpected proximity. Morant, who was intently looking about him, struck against a wooden pillar of some altitude, streaked with painted bands of alternate black and white-supposed to be a milestone. By this his conviction was settled that the Russians were facing him. Alarmed at the visit, the enemy’s picquet fell back on the main body, and Morant just then gave orders for his men, who were unarmed, to retire stealthily. This was done for a short distance, when turning about, the whole batch, as if winged for the occasion, run the gauntlet for their lives between the two hill picquets, relieving themselves as they fled of such encumbrances as were likely to impede their haste. In this way their greatcoats and wooden canteens, in part, were left behind; and as the distance between the parties was inconsiderable, and the fire from the different picquets sharp upon the sappers, it is somewhat extraordinary, that not a man was wounded so as to draw blood, Several had their greatcoats, trousers and jackets perforated or torn by bullets, and a few were grazed on the legs and arms, while the sergeant had a choice lock of his hair clipped off, and a slight touch in the cartilage of the left ear.[159]

This mishap was not without advantage, for it frustrated the execution of a sortie which was then preparing. From the flashes of the Russian fire, strong battalions of infantry could be seen moving towards our works, to repel which the second and light divisions at once turned out; the riflemen too, always ready, poured a destructive fusillade into the advancing battalions, and the artillery, never from their posts, saluted them with volleys of shot and shell. For nearly an hour the combat lasted, when the enemy, flying before the rush and cheer of the 88th, took shelter under the walls of the fortress, keeping up, however, for the rest of the night, a desultory fire upon the works. The loss in the trenches was trifling, and our batteries, which were much exposed, remained intact.

Notwithstanding this attack, the new battery was considerably advanced in its construction before the morning, for no less than 840 gabions had been laid in it during the night by lance-corporal George H. Collins.

A few nights after the mishap stated above, the non-commissioned officer just named was selected to conduct a working party to the 21-gun battery. It was exceedingly dark, and the men moved on cautiously. The “valley of the shadow of death” had been crossed; the picket-house passed; indeed the greater part of the journey had been marched when the field-officer in charge expressed his doubts that the proper track had been taken. To remove the officer’s misgivings and to prove the correctness of his own conduct, the corporal offered to go alone to the battery, which, regarded as the wiser course, was at once approved of. Off started the guide, and having reassured himself by a visit to the work, that his direction was right, returned to the officer within a quarter of an hour. To regain the party was more difficult than he anticipated. He knew not the relative position of the point where the halt was called, and on coming back bore away to the right about 200 yards. He judged by the time he was absent that he must be near the workmen, and so hailing them by whistling signals, which were recognized and answered, he was extricated from a dilemma it would probably have taken the night to solve. Satisfied with the integrity of his guide, the field-officer now readily moved on the column as Collins led, and soon reached the battery. The work was afterwards known by the name of the “Gordon Battery.”

By the 16th October the vigilance of the working parties had placed the lines in so forward a state that, on the following evening, orders were issued to the troops respecting the bombardment. No exertions were spared throughout the night to complete the works in every detail, and the sappers, being told off into storming parties of twenty men each under an officer of the corps, were attached to the several divisions of the army to lead the way in any enterprise in which their professional services might be demanded. For this purpose they were furnished with picks and shovels to form lodgments; crowbars, felling-axes, and sledge-hammers to remove impediments; bags of gunpowder for blowing in gates; and scaling ladders with which to storm walls and towers.

Eight or more distinct works had been erected, mounting above sixty guns, including Lancasters, which, during the siege, were increased or diminished according to circumstances. They were connected with a line of excavations exceeding a mile in length on the right, and 1,200 yards on the left, including deviations offered for acceptance by the undulations of the hills. The chief batteries—named after the officers of engineers who superintended their construction, held a position on the heights at a distance exceeding 1,350 yards from the Russian lines, while the French, working in easy soil, pushed up much nearer to the fortress by the usual process of sapping and mining. On the part of the English the plan of attack was necessarily a departure from recognized rules, owing to the rocky character of the ground and the deep glens which separated the works.

On the morning of the 17th, there were, including the sick, 351 non-commissioned officers and men in camp and in the trenches. As many as could possibly be collected were sent to the batteries to share in the first day’s bombardment. Under cover of the darkness, the embrasures of the batteries, blinded with gabions, were quickly unmasked by the sappers, and before the dawn had fairly opened, sixty-three guns belched their fire upon the fortress. By a preconcerted signal the French, hurling destruction from fifty-six pieces of ordnance, commenced the siege simultaneously with the English, and the allied navies took part in the contest. This was the first day’s firing on the part of the besiegers; and although the garrison kept up a warm cannonade upon the allies from the moment that any show was made in the construction of the trenches, the Anglo-French never once attempted, by the discharge of a single piece of ordnance, to lessen the interference of the enemy, or to interrupt the progress of their defences.

From both sides the cannonade was continued with more or less vigour according to the nature of events, and the result evidenced only too plainly the devastating effect of the firing. Our batteries were much damaged; those of the allies were scattered, whilst two of their magazines blew up with mournful results. The works of the enemy were in some places almost demolished: their firing varied as they found cover to stand to the guns; but the day’s fury was at length terminated by the terrific explosion of a magazine behind an earthen redoubt, which threw a feeling of awe even among the besiegers. There was much skill, however, in the Russian engineers, and before morning, by extraordinary exertion, the works were restored and replaced with guns. No less energetic were the English sappers in strengthening the lines and repairing the batteries; for although erected with admirable solidity, the shells from the fortress ploughed up the works and tore down the embrasures. In all such cases, if the restoration could not be deferred till night, the sappers, with a daring equal to their usefulness, would spring into the openings, and while exposed to the hottest of the fire, make good the breaches. One of the bravest and best in this exposed service was corporal John Paul. Fortunately, in the early stages of the siege, repairs in open day were seldom imperative. The damages done in the day by the cannonading of 155 guns were expeditiously made good at night; and so efficiently, that each morning the batteries stood up as compact and bold as they did before the firing opened on the 17th October.

After the first day’s firing, Sir John Burgoyne thus wrote to the Commander-in-chief. “I would call Lord Raglan’s attention to the great and successful exertions of the royal engineers and sappers under very trying circumstances. The very rocky soil presents the extreme of difficulties to the establishment of trenches and batteries; the very act of obtaining cover in one night in such soil, which was done on every occasion, requires a great effort, and to construct in it substantial batteries, still more.

“The proportion of good platforms and stuff for magazines embarked, was too insignificant to be worthy of notice: these objects had to be prepared (and for a very heavy description of ordnance) from the irregular masses of timber and plank that could be procured from buildings pulled down. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the work has been pushed on with rapidity, the substantial nature of the parapet has been proved by the few casualties incurred, and the embrasures and platforms have required, during the very heavy cannonade of yesterday, less repairs and adjustment than I have ever been witness to on similar occasions; and no accident has occurred to any magazine, although some shells have been observed to explode on them, all proving the substantial goodness of the works performed.”

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Footnote 157:

Familiarly and indiscriminately called “Gordon’s battery or parallel,” “21-gun battery,” or “Frenchman’s Hill.”

Footnote 158:

Called “Chapman’s battery or parallel,” or “Green-hill.”

Footnote 159:

On the 18th October a 15-inch shell, termed “Whistling Dick,” struck the roof of a magazine in the 21-gun battery, and, in exploding, knocked down sergeant Morant and corporal George Pearson, burying them under a heap of sand-bags. The corporal soon struggled to his feet, but the sergeant, more severely stunned, was pulled from the mass by Lieutenant Murray of the engineers.

1854. SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL. 18th October-31st December.

Next day the bombardment continued to rage, and Colonel Hood of the Grenadier Guards, the field-officer of the trenches on the right attack, was killed. He was succeeded by Colonel Walker of the Scots’ Fusilier Guards. Corporal George H. Collins, chosen as a sure guide, went off with the colonel, passing from the engineer park by the sailor’s camp into the ravine. They then took the Woronzoff road at a run for nearly half-a-mile, and arrived at the foot of a rocky watercourse leading to the hill on which was situated the 21-gun battery, where the colonel dismissed the corporal, and dashed on alone into the work. In going, shot and shell fell furiously into the valley, requiring a sharp look-out to keep clear of splinters. It was even worse in returning; for as the corporal’s back was turned to the fire, he barely allowed himself time to see what were his chances of life and death. Considering that his risks increased by delay, he bounded along the tortuous and broken road, stopping now and then to take breath and cover under some low rocks which jutted from the hill side; and then, pushing up the other slope of the ravine, marched into the camp unhurt. One might have thought that a service of this nature would have excused the corporal from a tour in the trenches; but such was the pressure for sappers, it could not be. At night he was on duty in the Gordon parallel, and four days later was grazed in the back by a shot, which, after striking the earth, rushed past him, and knocked him senseless.[160] He was superintending at the time a party working in the right Lancaster battery, clearing away the rock for a platform.

Lance-corporal Rinhy, a ready and spirited sapper, was in No. 3 battery of the left attack on the 19th. Well had he worked that day in the embrasures; and at dusk, as the order was given to cease the cannonade, he went up to No. 6 gun to see the last shot fired. The sailors manned the gun, loading it with a Russian 26-pounder ball, which had hopped among the shot piled in rear of the parapet. The ball stuck in the muzzle, and while Rinhy and the seamen were vainly trying to withdraw it, another shot whisked through the embrasure, cut the man-o’-war’s man in two, and striking the trunnion from the gun, the 24-pounder fell and smashed the sailor underneath it. The same shot passed so close to Rinhy, that it rasped a button from his jacket, and the ferocity of its wind knocked him against a traverse some five yards away. In the same battery, two or three days later, he repaired an embrasure no less than twenty-one times during his tour of duty, and kept the cheeks in such serviceable order, that the 68-pounder which fired there, discharged before nightfall as many as 198 shells and 84 shot into the Russian works, dismounting, according to nautical calculation, no less than six guns in the Redan.

Private William Denham was killed this day, while repairing a platform in the 21-gun battery. A shot carried away the back of his head.

Among the instances of well employed zeal that occurred in this bombardment, was one in which privates Jenkins and John Wallace signalized themselves under the eye of Major Biddulph, of the artillery, assistant engineer. They were stationed on the 22nd in No. 3 battery left attack, against which the fire of several guns was concentrated with so ruinous an effect, that about fourteen feet of the parapet was broken down before ten o’clock in the morning. To venture into so exposed a gap in broad day, under a frightful fire, needed a courage which few men could prevail on themselves to exercise; but with a willing promptitude which spoke of their resolution and daring, these two stern sappers passed into the breach, each working for a quarter of an hour at a spell, with the strength of a giant. In seven hours the damage was mended, during which the battery continued in action, though a mortar or two was necessarily silent until sufficient cover was obtained to shield the seamen fighting there.

Everywhere the soil was scanty, and the materials for gaining cover scarce. The few houses that existed in the vicinity of the camp had early been demolished, and the old timbers borne away for fuel. Brushwood and young trees, wherever they could be found, were also taken away; and when the cold became extreme, and the ration wood reduced to a few sticks, the ground was turned over in every direction, by perishing men, to collect the roots for firing. Earth was brought from the rear, in baskets, to fill the gabions; and sand-bags, ready for use, were also brought from the park, or wherever the earth could readily be obtained. As they frequently caught fire and burst on the explosion of the guns, a substitute was found for a time by making the bags from the skins of sheep and from bullocks’ hides, which stood remarkably well, but they could not be procured in sufficient quantity for the work. The inner necks of the embrasures were revetted with sand-bags and the cheeks lined with fascines. The basis of all the works was the gabion. In places not opposed by artillery, stones were used for lining the trenches, which gave them the appearance of ancient walls. The traverses were revetted with old gabions, discarded casks, worn biscuit-bags from the fleet, and ammunition cases. Indeed every material was pressed into the siege that could be turned by ingenuity to any useful purpose. On all sides the works exhibited a curious employment of rude expedients and adaptations to meet the straits and difficulties of an unexampled attack.

With all these shifts, from the inadequacy of material resources to carry on the works, such was the recklessness of the soldiers in seeking means to afford them a modicum of comfort, that the sand-bags were constantly abstracted from the trenches to line their trousers and gaiter their legs; and when wood could not be readily procured, they made no scruple in frosty weather, of purloining fascines and gabions to light their fires. Mandates against such practices were disregarded, and vigilance was no match for men driven by cold to such extremities.

On the 24th October, a battery for three guns and a 10-inch mortar was opened on the left above the picket-house to destroy a two-decker lying snugly in the inner harbour. A few red-hot shot being sent into her, she hastily moved off, and the battery was quickly turned to swell the general armament against the enemy’s land works.

The same night two privates were out in some advanced works tracing a battery under Major Gordon. When returning by a whistle-signal from the Major, they were mistaken for Russians, and fired upon by a party of the 79th Highlanders. The result was that private James Bland, a good sapper, was struck down by a rifle-shot which passed through both his thighs.

It was not long before the Madras traversing platform, considered to be the specific for a great siege, was shown to be a failure. From the hard and uneven bottom of the trench the platforms were, to save them from injury and secure their efficiency, laid upon sand-bags well tamped, but the violent and sudden action of the guns in their recoil shivered the platforms to pieces. A rude substitute was expeditiously furnished by tearing down some dilapidated wooden houses in the neighbourhood of the camp; and resorting to the old expedient of sleepers and floors, the platforms, so prepared by the sapper carpenters, were found to be far less liable to derangement than the engineering-exotic from Madras.

While the Russians and our allies experienced very heavy losses in the destruction of their magazines, no accident whatever occurred to the English powder-magazines, “although more than once exposed to the test of the fall and explosion of a 12-inch shell.”[161] Offering, as the record does, a tribute of credit to the efficiency of the contrivance, it is no less a testimonial to the skill of the sappers, who, in consequence of the special nature of the service, constructed the magazines themselves. The magazines on the left were constructed on the established model, in places assigned to them by the old engineers, but on the right the ammunition was dispersed in sheltered spots in small receptacles attached to the parapets of the different batteries. The large depôts of ammunition were formed in the caves of the neighbouring ravine; and all the magazines were well protected by sand-bags.

On the 25th October was fought the memorable cavalry combat at Balaklava. Sergeant Joseph Morant and six privates, having in charge thirty Turkish arabas drawn by sixty bullocks, had nearly passed the valley with the train when the fight commenced. The escort was moving to the port for stores, and several of the waggons still within the boundary of the battlefield, were swept and pierced by shots from the Russian artillery. As this was no place for a cumbersome train of conveyances, Morant and his men goaded and whooped on the oxen to Balaklava; and speedily loading the arabas, returned, after the action, to the engineer park in front of Sebastopol. These seven sappers and eleven others who were in the vicinity of the battle, were honoured with the distinction of the Balaklava clasp.

There was only one sapper actually engaged in the battle. Sir Colin Campbell, anticipating an attack, ordered an able sapper to be sent to the Turkish redoubts to superintend any repairs that might be needed. Sergeant Dickson despatched private James Lancaster for the duty. At five o’clock on the evening of the 24th, he arrived at No. 4 redoubt, situated close under the hills of the plateau where the corps d’observation of General Bosquet was encamped. All night Lancaster worked with the Turks in strengthening the faces of the redoubt; and in the morning stretched himself in a shallow trench to take a little sleep. He had not long covered himself with a tarpaulin—a cold substitute for a blanket—when the Russians attacked No. 1 redoubt, which was a considerable distance from No. 4. Instantly awakened by some Turks, who seemingly wanted an Englishman to keep alive in them the little valour they possessed, he was quickly among them. There was also a British artilleryman in the redoubt, with whom the sapper, sharing the kin of country, behaved as became their national prestige. While the cannonading was doing its work on No. 1, a Russian battery pushed up to a height opposite No. 4, and opened its guns on No. 3. The attack was sharp, but the Turks wanting spirit and firmness, made a weak defence, and flew from the fort. In time Nos. 1, 2, and 3 were taken. When the guns in No. 3 were silenced, the Russian battery increased its fire on No. 4, which answering with an energy probably emboldened by the nearness of supports, checked the enemy in his career of success; and though No. 4 might easily have been captured, it escaped the fate which sealed the others. It is due to the gallantry of the Turks in No. 4 to acknowledge that while many of the infantry vaulted in alarm over the parapet at the first blush of the fight, and ran from the opportunity to cover themselves with honour, there were not wanting stanch artillerists, firm and courageous, to stand to the guns; and, as instructed by the British gunner, to work them manfully. The Pasha in command was an old but a brave officer, and his worst trouble was to beat back the flying Turks to join in the defence. The enemy now commenced another movement by collecting on the heights overlooking the plain between the redoubts, the whole strength of his cavalry—a solid menacing body, which in its heaviness threatened that day to strike a decisive blow. Meanwhile the Turks in No. 4, regarding any display of courage on their part as useless, and their position untenable, withdrew the two guns to the rear, halting them on the crest of a slope; and after spiking the ordnance and breaking the spokes of the wheels and the shafts of the carriages, tumbled them into the valley. The garrison then retired to the position where the Highlanders were drawn up. The artilleryman and sapper stood by the Turks to the last, but in the retreat each took a different direction. While sitting in the valley a short distance from the redoubt, Lords Lucan and Cardigan with their staff galloped up to the sapper, and grouped round him. Learning the cause of his presence there, he was asked what he knew of the attack. Lancaster answered to the effect that two of the forts had already been taken, and the others, having been abandoned, would, he feared, soon follow. Away rode the commanders and the staff; the trumpets sounded, and removing the cavalry behind a mound, soon after occurred those cavalry dispositions, and that extraordinary conflict, which prevented the Russians from pouring into Balaklava, and capturing the great base of the allied operations. Private Lancaster succeeded in making good his retreat, under a heavy fire, without mischance.

Neglecting to erect earth-works to defend the right of the position towards Inkermann led to an attack by the Russians, which was met and repulsed with vigour on the 26th October, by the division under the command of Sir De Lacy Evans. The sappers turned out and marched to Victoria Hill, in readiness, if required, to take part in the action. A portion of them was posted behind a rubble wall in “Water” Valley, which was loopholed during the fight; and four men were in the 5-gun battery. The usual parties were also distributed to the trenches, working away in the different batteries as if the combat were at a distance. The fire on the 21-gun battery was very sharp, but under its fierceness a brigade of carpenters, directed by corporal Kester Knight, repaired a platform no less than five times in the course of two hours. It was broken each time by the heavy recoil of the gun. Once, while mending it, a shot plunged through the embrasure and shattered a wheel of the carriage; but looking upon the incident almost as one of the civilities of the siege, the carpenters continued to work vigorously till they had obtained something like the desired solidity.

Another attack followed on the 5th November, in which the English and French, numbering about 14,000 bayonets, were opposed by an army of nearly 60,000 fighting men. For upwards of ten hours the conflict lasted, and ended in a victory to the allies, while the Russians, driven from the hills at all points, took refuge in flight. The losses in the Anglo-French ranks were very severe, but those of the enemy, incredible as it may seem, far exceeded the total force of the allies engaged. This splendid achievement, in which the soldiers stood against overwhelming odds with unconquerable firmness and bravery, will ever rank in the annals of war as one of the most remarkable struggles of modern times. Occupied in the trenches, and forming a guard over the engineer park, the sappers and miners did not fire a shot in either of the engagements. They were, however, drawn up while the fight at Inkermann was raging, prepared to defend the siege depôt had the Russians penetrated to the engineer plateau. Being in position during the battle, the sappers and miners have been considered entitled to the Inkermann decoration, and 341 non-commissioned officers and men of the corps present on the occasion had the honour of receiving the clasp.

Though the night was thick and foggy, the Russian columns were seen surging towards Inkermann from the Mamelon. None of our siege guns could be brought to bear on them; and as it was considered an object of the first moment to rake the masses, orders were given to alter the embrasure of a gun in the old right Lancaster battery, beyond the right of the first parallel. Lance-corporal Trimble, a young and agile soldier, had charge of the two embrasures in the battery, and had with him four men of the 47th regiment to assist in the repairs. No sooner was the decision communicated to the corporal, than he leaped into the opening, followed by his party. Gabions, barrels, fascines, and sand-bags, quickly disappeared; all were thrown or pushed into the ditch in front of the battery, as the readiest means of performing a service from which so much was expected. Then commenced the reformation of the splay by cutting away full half of the merlon on the right cheek, which separated the 24-pounder from the Lancaster gun. When finished, the embrasure had a skew form, with a widened mouth; but as the service was pressing, and the artillerymen impatient—for twice did they stop the work to try the effect of a few rounds—it could not be revetted, and the parapet was necessarily left without a gabion to bank up the earth. The 47th men took a bold and active part in the service, and within an hour, under a fire that would have made many a head reel, the corporal and his men completed the alteration. Barely had they jumped from the opening, when the gunners recommenced a cannonade from the Lancaster which made deadly gaps in the Russian battalions, as in winding round the Mamelon they retreated to their own lines. For their assistance in this hurried duty, one or two of the linesmen were made corporals and decorated with medals; and Trimble, though his rewards were deferred, was promoted to be second-corporal, and honoured with a special gratuity of ten pounds and medal for gallant conduct.

From the stern grandeur of the battle, it was not improbable the attack would be repeated, when, in some degree, the Russians had recovered from the shock. To render an approach less likely to succeed, Lieutenant Ravenhill and a party of sappers repaired to the heights to destroy the road winding from the head of Sebastopol harbour up the ravine to Inkermann. This was simply as a first defensive resource, to be followed by regularly planned works. The hill-top and its slopes were covered with killed and wounded, among whom perhaps the sappers might have performed any amount of duty without accident; but possessing a settled distrust of the honour of the Russians, they first collected all the arms they could see within sixty yards of their work, and broke them in pieces. Thus relieved from a temptation to which the vanquished in their hatred have been known treacherously to yield, the sappers moved to the site of their work, and in eight hours dug a trench across the road eight feet deep and twelve broad.

A few nights later, privates Charles Harris and Nicholas Garrett revetted an embrasure in the 21-gun battery, which had been torn to pieces in the early part of the morning. Shot and shell frequently fell into the work, but the sappers swerved not from the peril it seemed impossible to escape. Lieutenant Murray stood himself in the aperture to relieve the men of the necessity for watching, and warned the two gallant fellows when projectiles were approaching. In such instances, to lessen the chances of risk, all three threw themselves on the sole of the work, and, when the danger passed, resumed the revetment, quitting it only when the embrasure was finished.

When the Russians learnt that a descent was to be made on the Crimean coast, they sank several of their large war vessels and blocked up the passage into the harbour of Sebastopol. Since nautical skill and manœuvring were confessedly unequal to master the difficulty, submarine blasting was proposed as the readiest and most effectual method, and four sapper divers, selected from volunteers at Chatham, accompanied by the necessary apparatus and stores, sailed in the ‘Prince’ on the 27th October, and arrived in the harbour of Balaklava on the 7th November. Several other sappers, then before Sebastopol, who had been practically trained in the art by actual service in the demolition of the wreck of the ‘Royal George,’ were to have been engaged in the perilous duty.

On the 11th November was commenced the second parallel on the left attack, 360 yards in advance of Chapman’s battery. The ground presented a surface of interminable rock, which caused the soil, as before, to be brought from a distance to form the parapets. The labours of the sappers were confined chiefly to mining the hill and blasting the rock, and also placing the gabions in position. Some 350 yards in front of the new parallel a row of Russian riflemen was established, who picked off the guard of the trenches with fatal rapidity. A dash was made for the pits on the 20th, which, after a smart little combat, were captured and occupied by our light troops. The holes were afterwards connected by boyaux to the second parallel. On the right attack a place of arms was formed to shelter the troops when drawn up for assault. A long boyau was run out half way to the intended spot, and the centre portion of the parallel was thrown up by flying sap. Communications being also effected with the rear by means of a double set of approaches, guns and cohorns were mounted in the batteries to defend the stormers and play on the works. This new formation afterwards took its place in the series of trenches for the second parallel.

For two or three weeks the weather had been unpropitious. Snow was upon the ground, and sometimes rain, sleet, and hail varied the inclemency, while frost intervening, nipped the men with its cold grasp, and added to their sufferings. The prevailing aspect of the clouds was gloomy and lowering, but there was nothing to indicate the approach of that memorable storm, which on the 14th November, swept over the Black Sea and the Crimea. Early in the morning the hurricane began its portentous howling, and it was not long before it committed terrific havoc at sea. Ingenuity and precaution did much to save the ships from disaster, but many of the transports, too soon becoming unmanageable, were engulfed as by a spell in the raging surf, or broken to pieces on the shore. Among these was the ‘Prince,’ a magnificent steamer of heavy tonnage, freighted with winter clothing for the army and the diving machinery. For two hours she stood bravely against the storm, but at length driven against the rocks at Balaklava, her timbers were rent in every direction, and she went down. The four sapper divers on board of her, sergeant William Carne, and privates Samuel Lewis, Thomas Price, and Thomas Toohey, sank in the wreck, as also Captain W. M. Inglis, who had been observed on a spar struggling to gain the shore, when a wave of foam broke over him, and he was seen no more.

A like fate attended the ‘Rip Van Winkle;’ and the two sapper photographers—corporal John Pendered, and lance-corporal John Hammond—well educated and trained at great expense in the art, perished in the foundered vessel. The knapsacks and kits of the eighth company were also lost.

On shore the hurricane was not so calamitous, but the tents were all torn up and blown to a distance. Only one solitary marquee remained to mark the site of the encampment. In common with the army the sappers and miners felt the shock of the storm, and were left shivering on the heights, unclad and comfortless. Those in the trenches experienced equal misery, but their zeal in the prosecution of the works was only checked by the fury of the raging wind and the deluging rain. The road to Balaklava soon became one long morass, and both man and horse, in travelling to the port, had to wade the distance up to their knees in mud. From this time the suffering and privations of the troops considerably increased in extent and severity; but, borne with uncomplaining endurance and fortitude, earned for them the abiding admiration and sympathies of their countrymen.

Two days after the conflict at Inkermann, parties of the corps were allotted for the duty of raising appropriate field-works to protect the right, which, shortly after, were increased by the fourth company encamped on the heights. Ill able to spare the men from the general works, the seventh company under Captain Gibb was removed from Gallipoli to take part in the operation. Arriving at Balaklava on the 28th November, the company reinforced the camp before Sebastopol on the 2nd December. Until the 17th, it was employed in the work of the trenches forming the ‘right attack,’ but on the following day it moved to the heights of Inkermann to complete the approaches against the town, and to erect batteries to oppose those of the enemy on the side of the Tchernaya. The fourth company being relieved, was returned to the operations of the right attack. At these lines the sappers, whose numbers varied between 58 and 31, worked only by day, except in a few special instances when the firing of the enemy was too hot and accurate to admit of day labour being carried on with any chance of success. The chief of their work was performed in the parallel, Redoubte du 5me Novembre, and the Mortar and St. Laurent’s batteries. They also laid the platforms, formed the embrasures and traverses, and restored them when injured. Two magazines in the St. Laurent’s battery, constructed by the French of indifferent rubble, were so damaged by shells that both were rebuilt by the English sappers in a serviceable style, with a roof of sand-bags and fascines, covered with a thick substratum of well-tamped earth. Relieved from duty one afternoon, the party was thrown into the trenches at night to level the top of the parapet. Though few in number, they worked with so much energy, that the object of their employment was fully accomplished in the darkness. Another night they crept down into the glen on the right, and tearing down some Russian houses, the timber brought away with them was afterwards turned to account for platforms, &c. In the general business of the trenches they were much impeded by the severity of the weather. The depth of the snow almost baffled them; but by removing it day after day from the interior of the lines, they made commendable progress in the batteries. Blasting rock was one of their ordinary duties; and after the 21st January, when the line troops were wholly withdrawn, the sappers were the only British soldiers working in concert with the allies. A 24 lb. shot struck one of the tents of the seventh company on the 4th February, and, singularly enough, glanced off the canvas without occasioning any casualty. After completing the Mortar battery and perfecting the details of the St. Laurent, the company, on the 7th, quitted the heights, leaving the works solely to the French.

As the siege wore on, it was found advantageous to make each relief commence its allotted labour at the most advanced point, and work backwards. The infantry parties usually opened ground as far as practicable, using straw baskets to gather earth for cover in places where it was insufficient. Wherever the pick was used it struck upon rock, which offered an unfailing obstruction to the progress of the lines. The sappers invariably followed these surface pioneers, and blasted or removed the stony portions. “In this service,” it is recorded, “these men’s exertions have been altogether invaluable, and such as could not be supplied from any other part of the army.”

On the 1st December the strength of the corps in the East was as follows:—

No. Present at the siege and effective 401 Sick in field hospitals 40 Balaklava 23 Bucharest 14 Varna 17 Gallipoli 11 Constantinople and Scutari 18 ——— Total 524 ———

A feeble force compared with the extreme exigencies of the period.

Two sappers in charge of the field electric telegraph for service in the Crimea, arrived at Balaklava on the 7th December, and repaired to the camp on the 19th, taking with them the instruments, batteries, insulated wire, and appliances, packed in two waggons. Twenty-four coils of wire, each a mile long, were packed in them, as also a subsoil plough, appropriate tools, and boats. The apparatus, only available for short distances, was worked by six or eight men. To establish a communication between any two points, the wire, which uncoiled from a drum, revolving horizontally in a carriage drawn in advance, was laid in a shallow trough made by the plough, which served the double purpose of cutting the furrow and depositing the line. The trough was just deep enough to protect the wire from ordinary accidents. Equally effective was the apparatus for communicating with vessels at sea. The two sappers were specially instructed in the electric telegraph establishment at Lothbury in the mode of working the instruments, laying the wire, and in the ingenious manipulation required to give effect to the process. Such, however, was the state of the weather from snow storms, hard frosts, and heavy rains, it was some weeks before the telegraph could be employed. Meanwhile, as the instrument was regarded as an important appendage to the army, sergeants James Anderson[162] and Montgomery, with several non-commissioned officers and privates, were educated in the art by corporal Peter Fraser; so that when the time arrived for using it, there was an adequate staff of operators to attend to its scientific details and requirements.

Up to this period, in addition to the casualties already mentioned, the following men were put hors de combat:—

Private James Dilling—killed, by the bursting of a gun.

The wounded were—

Private John McLean—slightly, in the head, by the bursting of a shell.

” James Wheeler—severely, in back of head and right shoulder, by splinters of shells.

” William Haines—severely, in back, by a spent 32 lb. shot rolling over the parapet on him.

” John Hutton—slightly, in the head.

” John Giles—severely, in left clavicle, and collar-bone broken, by grape-shot. After returning to England had a severe attack of small-pox, from which he recovered, but lost his right eye.

” Robert McFarlane—dangerously, in the thigh, by splinter of shell.

Sergeant James H. Drew—dangerously, in the left shoulder and collar-bone, by a shot.[163]

Private Samuel Coles—killed by a round shot, which struck his left shoulder, and carried away his arm.

Lance-corporal William Eastley—severely, in left leg, by splinter of shell.

The second company of 113 strong, under Captain King, reinforced the corps in the Crimea on the 20th December. As the weather was severe and the road to the camp almost impassable, the company was attached to the invalid battalion at the port. Considerations for its convenience did not, however, long prevail, for the want of sappers at the siege brought an order from Lord Raglan to remove the company on Christmas-day with its camp equipage and stores to the right attack. To assist the men on the march his lordship sent 150 Turks to meet them at the French barrier near Kadikoi, guided by sergeant Ramsay and another sapper who had reached the rendezvous before the company. The arrival of the new sappers elicited no concern from the stolid Turks, who, seated on the ground, smoking their fuming chibouks, declined to attend to any orders which should impose on them the labour of carrying the stores. Captain King did his best to beguile their obedience, but without effect. It so happened that colour-sergeant Brown of the company, who had been in Syria, had picked up a smattering of Arabic and knew something of the native idiosyncracy. Permitted by his captain, he tried to win the acquiescence of the Turks by appealing gestures and the stammering out of a few imperfect words, which must have grated on their ears as so much jargon; but his best arts, either to force or delude them, failed to dissipate their obstinacy. In the meantime he told off the officers and men to their duties. Brown wore on his breast three medals, one of which he had received from the Sultan for services in Syria. On its reverse was an Ottoman inscription, similar to the standard impression on the Turkish money. Curious to know the history of the medals, a young officer of the detachment stepped up to the sergeant, and handling the decorations, was surprised to find that one of them was the gift of the Sultan. Naming the fact to a group of his brother-officers, it quickly spread among the men, who, thinking that Brown was invested with authority from his Majesty, bounded to their feet, loaded themselves like mules with the equipage, and paced away with their burdens at a warm and earnest rate, stopping not, though fatigued, till their arrival at the sapper camp before Sebastopol. What was more remarkable in the affair, was the refusal of the Turks, though indisposed to give their labour without adequate compensation, to take tickets for working pay. Lieutenant Ewart, at a loss to conjecture the reason, whether to ascribe it to disaffection or disinterestedness, was not a little tickled when informed, that the demonstration arose from the Turks regarding the sergeant as a pacha.

In the early part of the siege, from the afflictions of a hard campaign, great difficulty was found in procuring a sufficiently strong party from the line for trench duty; and to make up for the deficiency a regiment of Turks, quartered at Balaklava, was appointed to the front. From their idle habits and indulgences, seldom could more than 400 men be brought together for work, which number was still further frittered away by disease and death to about 200. From the lack of land transport this force was usually absorbed in the carriage of stores to the batteries. To stimulate them to exertion, the sappers who superintended them were empowered to give such of their parties as deserved it, a ticket for pay, or even two, if their zeal were conspicuous; but to withhold the recognition, if from indolence they did but little to further the service. A sergeant of sappers—who was cashier and paymaster—always gave a day’s pay for every authorized ticket presented to him; and this system, acting like the prick of a spur on the sides of a sulky hack, moved them to the exercise of an amount of effort which it would have been next to impossible to have wrung from them by any other scheme.

Reduced when hostilities commenced to the minimum of peace requirement, the sappers, whose duty it was to execute any description of work which war or the elements might originate, were unable to spare a man from the trenches for the pressing services of the rear. The troops of the line, decimated and exhausted, were utterly inadequate to meet any extra contingency; and thus arose a crisis in the affairs of the campaign which led to the gravest considerations and misgivings at home. So terrible had been the weather, so destructive the storms, so complete the disruption of the communication between Balaklava and the camp—in consequence of the road having become a swamp—that no resource was left to the War Minister but to seek for remedies by the employment of novel establishments. At his call a corps of hardy navvies sprung up in a day, and controlled by civil superintendents, untrammelled by the rigours and nice exactions of military discipline, the Balaklava railway was commenced and carried through with so much despatch, that no one regretted the temporary creation of a force which in its wonderful zeal relieved the overworked and perishing troops of one of the most appalling miseries of the campaign.

So obvious were the benefits evolved from this experiment, that when the engagement of the navvies had ceased, the idea of perpetuating the existence of so useful a body in an altered character assumed a permanent form. Though ready, the navvies were rough and undisciplined, bearing no connection with the great military expedition of which they formed a part. This gave rise to the Army Works Corps, for the execution of all extra services not properly belonging to the battle-field, the trenches, or the operations of an army. It was arranged, it would seem, that their duties should embrace the construction of roads and drains, preparation of sites for encampment, erection of huts, &c. The pecuniary advantages offered to candidates were of such a high standard that an enthusiastic recruitment was the consequence. A few weeks were more than enough to embody the corps, which consisted principally of navigators, and about a fifth of mechanics of various crafts. Overseers were engaged to superintend the gangs, with designations suitable to their avocations, and a civil engineer commanded the whole, with the relative rank of colonel. Later the force formed an important branch of the army. Fostered and shielded by the ministry, it was equipped with gear and working accessories of the most perfect and costly kind; and before the close of the war, it had grown into an authorized body of 3,470 officers and men, requiring for its sustenance in strength and efficiency no less a sum for one year than 408,595_l._

In time, the formation of this working force was much commented on in the House of Commons. While it was regarded—with insufficient reason perhaps—as a reflection on the efficiency of the royal sappers and miners, there were not wanting advocates—and none more earnest than members of the ministry, particularly Mr. Monsell—to vindicate the character of the corps, and to compliment it, in terms full of appreciation and praise for its usefulness at the siege, and its capability, with augmented numbers, of performing any amount of work which the terrible exigencies of storm or war might render indispensable.[164]

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Footnote 160:

This corporal completed the tombstone placed over the remains of Colonel Hood and Captain Rowley; the latter was killed on the 16th. It consisted of a flat slab, which enclosed both graves; and a monumental cross at the head bore a well-cut inscription, which told of the melancholy fate of these noble officers.

Footnote 161:

‘Quarterly Review,’ vol. xcv., p. 239.

Footnote 162:

This non-commissioned officer wrote some graphic and interesting letters about the siege, in one of which he says,—“After setting my working party to their task in the trenches, I went to the front to show corporal Kirkwood—a new arrival—the extent of our works, and to give him an introduction to Sebastopol. The trench in some places not being deep enough to cover us, we sometimes had to run along the top, and whenever we did so, the enemy peppered us well with grape and rifle bullets at about 300 yards. So I borrowed a Minié rifle from the 38th, and returned the compliment. This was the first time I had ever fired at a human being. Two 38th men loaded for me as fast as I could fire, and we soon cleared the embrasures of the Russian gunners; but they shot my comrade—a sergeant of the 38th—at my side. I bound up his wound with my handkerchief, and fired away again with his rifle. I have had many narrow escapes and much hard work, but I feel truly thankful to the Almighty for having brought me through all without a scratch. I hope soon to write to you from the imperial barracks inside Sebastopol. I hope,” says he, again, “we shall soon be allowed to storm. I could lead a party in by a short cut that I know of, and I think it would soon be over and the place ours.” The letters from which these extracts are taken were kindly lent for my perusal by an officer of the corps.

Footnote 163:

Was a well-educated and an active non-commissioned officer. For many years he was the confidential clerk of Sir Frederic Smith at Chatham, where, associating himself with a temperance society, he became an able advocate of its principles, and received from its members a silver medallion in testimony of his talented lectures on the subject. After serving a few years at Malta, he was sent to the Crimea; and in the trenches before Sebastopol, earned the good opinion of his officers for fearlessness, ability, and success as an overseer. At that time he was considered the ablest and readiest sergeant of sappers in the front. On the 10th of November he was wounded at the siege by a shot striking his shoulder, and breaking his collar-bone. The wound was an eccentric one. It did not draw blood, but made an insignificant contusion on the shoulder, from which it was expected that the injury was slight. It turned out otherwise. Removed on board the ‘Avon,’ he was much shaken in the storm of the 14th, and died of his wounds on the 22nd of November, off Scutari.

Footnote 164:

See Debates of 3rd March and 8th April, 1855. Also leaders in the ‘Times’ of 2nd and 23rd June, 1855. The leading article of the 23rd, while it vindicated the formation of the Army Works Corps as the readiest and best expedient under the circumstances of the pressure, and afforded reasons for assuming its superiority as a working force to the sappers, nevertheless made admissions which were highly commendatory to the latter.

1855. 1st January-8th April. SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Sanitary state of companies—Warm clothing—Collecting detachments in England to forward to the siege—Services of party with Omar Pasha’s army—Granted medals by the Sultan—Mishap on the Tchernaya—Destruction of the village of Inkermann—Exertions of sappers in the trenches during snow storms—Anecdote, Corrigan’s charcoal—Obstructions to the trenches by mud—Arrival of first company—Hut stables for the cavalry horses—French build No. 9 battery; right attack—Conduct of corporal Lendrim—Sappers share of the work—The parallels-Huts—French sappers entertained at Southampton—Casualties—Reforming works to counteract enfilade fire—Nos. 7 and 8 batteries, left attack—Moving guns to the front—International parallel; zeal of non-commissioned officers—Destroying a rifle screen—Completion of the parallel—Death of captain Craigie—Sir John Burgoyne’s farewell address—Sorties—Bearing in a wounded Russian—Augmentation to corps—Driver troop—Efforts to obtain recruits; militia men—Sergeant Docherty captured on suspicion of being a Russian spy—Countermine under cave magazine—Casualties—Zigzag from right rifle pit in advance of second parallel; wound sustained by a singular agent—Death of Lieutenant Bainbrigge—Third parallel, right attack—Progress of the works—Faultless energy of sappers in building a two-gun battery in the third parallel, left attack—Two corporals singularly escape from a shell which destroyed the magazine they were erecting—Embrasures of No. 7 battery opened—Preparations for a bombardment—The weather.

From the laborious nature of the duties in the trenches, the sappers were absolutely ragged, and as the frost had set in, late in December, with unusual rigour, it is surprising they possessed stamina and spirit enough to bear up against the exposure to which they were subjected. Nevertheless the sickness was trifling compared with the appalling details of casualties reported in other corps; for on the 1st January, out of a strength of 639 non-commissioned officers and men, only ninety-two were in the field hospitals and at Scutari. Diarrhœa, fever, and frostbite were, however, very prevalent during the month, and the increase in the sick was considerable. In that period no less a number than 273 had been under treatment, exclusive of the invalids sent to the hospitals on the Bosphorus. The number available for the siege, including the sick present, was 519. The remainder were detached to Balaklava, the Monastery of St. George, Gallipoli, Scutari, Constantinople, and Bucharest.

As soon as it was determined to provide the troops with winter clothing, an ample supply was furnished for the sappers and miners at an expense of 4,260_l._, which enabled the following articles to be issued to each man:—

2 pairs of worsted stockings. 2 pairs of woollen drawers. 2 pairs of woollen mitts. 2 woollen guernseys. 1 woollen neck-comforter. 1 blanket-cover. 1 railway-wrapper. 1 fur cap. 1 overcoat. 1 pair of long boots.

All the articles were excellent in quality, strong, warm, and adapted to the Crimean climate. Previous to the supply arriving, the sappers, to a certain extent, were furnished with buffalo skins for beds, heavy Turkish gregos with hoods for trench duty, rugs, Jerseys, &c.

Driven for men to send to the war, some of the stations by degrees were either wholly denuded of their forces or considerably reduced. The half company at Hong Kong was first removed, landing at Woolwich on the 3rd January. During its service in China its character was so uniformly exemplary that Sir John Burgoyne complimented the men in a general order. On embarking for England Captain Whittingham, the commanding royal engineer, made a flattering report of their conduct. “The proofs,” he wrote, “are patent in the few deaths, in the few cases of intermittent or other climatal diseases, and in the absolute cessation of courts-martial, although the ratio of exposure to a tropical sun—the engendering cause of disease and drunkenness—has been far greater than those of other troops and has almost exhausted the stamina of the men.” “Their extreme good conduct” was also the subject of a report from Lieutenant and Adjutant Lloyd, 59th regiment, who commanded the troops on board. A few years ago three privates superintended under the colonial clerk of works the erection of the Government offices. From December, 1852, three other men were employed under Mr. Cleverley, the surveyor-general, as overseers in building the Government-house; and on quitting the island, he testified to the very great benefit that had been derived from their supervision of the works. For more than eleven years a small force of the corps had served in China, the first party having landed in October, 1843. The total number which had been sent there amounted to 113, of whom 33 died, 27 were invalided, 1 was discharged in the colony and died, 7 deserted, 23 returned to England by reliefs, and 22 reached home on the final removal of the detachment from Hong Kong.

The small party at Spike Island was withdrawn the same month. Four months later the Melbourne detachment returned to England; then followed the seventeenth company from the Cape in July; and gradually Gibraltar, Corfu, and Bermuda were left with only invalid nuclei unfitted for the stern vicissitudes of campaigning but able for the works of the stations. A detachment of unmarried men was also ordered from the remote settlement of the Swan River, but arrived too late to share in the glories of the siege. This shearing, however, furnished but a unit of accessible sappers—for it brought to this country a number of men who required to be physically renewed before sending them on a hard service, where the trials of weather alone were likely to break them up without subjecting them to the severities of the trenches.

Two sapper divers landed at Balaklava from the ‘Robert Lowe,’ on the 4th January, under the command of Captain De Moleyns, having in charge Mr. Rendel’s loaded cylinders to be applied for blasting the sunken ships at the mouth of the harbour.[165]

The small detachment under Major Bent, of the engineers, joined at the camp about this time from Bucharest, marching with the Turkish army; and the following dispatch from his Highness Omar Pasha, so complimentary to its efficiency, was communicated by Lord Raglan to the Minister of War:—

“Varna, January 8, 1855.

“MY LORD

“His Highness Omar Pasha has requested me to write to your Lordship, to return his best thanks for the services rendered to his army by Major Bent, of the royal engineers, and the detachment of sappers under his command.

“His Highness desires me to express his regret at the losses which have been sustained by this small detachment, who, under the direction of Major Bent, have well sustained the character of the British army.

“His Highness has already expressed to your Lordship his regret at the loss of Lieutenant Burke, of the royal engineers, whom His Highness considers to have been an officer of much merit.

“His Highness desires me to inform your Lordship, that he has done himself the honour to write to the Turkish Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s expressing the desire of His Majesty the Sultan that private Andrew Anderson, of the royal sappers and miners, may receive and wear the decoration of the fourth class of the order of Medjidie, in commemoration of his gallantry in recovering the body of Lieutenant Burke, after he was killed at the passing of the Danube on the 7th of July last. In the meantime he has presented private Anderson with the decoration, and trusts your Lordship will allow him to wear it until the commands of Her Majesty may be received.[166]

“His Highness further desires me to express to your Lordship his entire approbation of the manner in which Major Bent has conducted his duties.

“He desires me to inform your Lordship that this officer showed great energy in his endeavours to enter Silistria before the siege was raised; that he subsequently showed great gallantry at the passage of the Danube, when he was the first to land on the left bank, and covered the landing of the Turkish troops with a detachment of riflemen, who maintained their ground under a heavy fire until the disembarkation of the supports was effected.

“Major Bent and his sappers were subsequently of great service in throwing up the tête de pont at Giurgevo, and in the construction of the bridge across the Danube.

“His Highness desires to take this opportunity of expressing to your Lordship his high sense of the services rendered by Lieutenant Glyn, R.N., and H. S. H. Prince Ernest of Saxe Leiningen, with the detachment of sailors of Her Majesty’s fleet under their command, in the construction of the bridge across the Danube.

“His Highness considers that the success of the construction of this bridge is in great measure attributable to their well-planned dispositions, which, although executed with limited means, proved fully effective to resist the storms and strong currents of the Danube.[167]

“He desires me to say that he is fully satisfied with the zeal and energy of this detachment of Her Majesty’s fleet under the able direction of Lieutenant Glyn, whom he considers a very promising officer, and entirely worthy of the confidence of your Lordship.

“His Highness desires me to add, that it would be very gratifying to him if Her Majesty could in any way reward these officers for the able services they have rendered to the Ottoman army and the common cause.

“I am, &c. (Signed) “J. L. A. SIMMONS, “Field-Marshal Lord Raglan, G.C.B., &c. Lieut.-Colonel.”

This encomiastic testimonial was apparently insufficient to mark the appreciation of their military services, and decorations were added to commemorate the campaign. In the brigade orders of the 23rd July, 1855, the Sultan’s gift was thus alluded to:—“The Turkish government having awarded a certain number of medals to the officers of royal engineers and the royal sappers and miners who were engaged in the campaign of 1854 on the Danube, the Major-General commanding has much pleasure in publishing the following extract from a letter addressed by his Highness Omar Pasha to Lieut.-Colonel Simmons, Her Majesty’s Commissioner with the Turkish forces.”

“I beg you will distribute these medals amongst the officers and men according to the accompanying list, as a mark of the great satisfaction my Sovereign has always experienced from the manner in which they conducted themselves whilst sharing the dangers and fatigues of the campaign of 1854 against our common enemy.”

The non-commissioned officers and men who received the medals were—

Colour-sergeant John F. Read. Corporal James Curgenven. ” James Cray. ” Joseph J. Stanton. 2nd corporal Robert M. Rylatt. Lance-corporal Michael Westacott. Private John Boyles. ” John Bramley. ” John Doran. ” William Henderson. ” Alexander McCaughey. ” William Morrison. ” George Scown. ” William Allen. ” James Bland. ” John Piper.

These sixteen sappers were the only British soldiers honoured with the distinction.

There existed an intention for a time of attacking the enemy across the Tchernaya; but as the bridge which spanned it, stript of its planking, was impassable, it was necessary, before providing an expedient for the passage of the troops, to ascertain the characteristics of the river and take its soundings. A portion of the seventh company had constructed a raft of four common sized beer barrels, lashed together in pairs and overlaid with an ordinary superstructure of balks and chesses. Early in January, in the dusk of the evening, twelve sappers under Lieutenant Drake, R.E., left the Inkermann camp with the small float, carried shoulder high by four men at a spell. Though the moon had risen, it was heavily beclouded, and the party was covered from Russian observation by the hills which, on either side of the winding road, rose sometimes sloping, sometimes abruptly, to their summits. The stream was nearly two miles away, and the carriage of the raft, over a broken country, where every step was fraught with danger and the supports distant, was no light enterprise. At length the bank was reached. It was then dark; but an occasional gleam of the moon, lit up the men and threw a pale streak across the water, which though it assisted to add a pleasing feature to the picture, was altogether unsuited to the secrecy of the service. Another long black cloud now spread itself over the meek orb, and no sooner was the little raft launched, than Lieutenant Drake, followed by corporal Ramsay, leaped upon it, and booming out took the required soundings and measured the breadth of the river. This done Lieutenant Drake landed on the opposite side and went forward to reconnoitre. Not long had he been away when one of the leaky barrels, becoming filled with water, drew the head of the float under the stream. Feeling that in all probability the whole raft would sink, Ramsay called lustily for Lieutenant Drake to return. If he came instantly there was a chance of recrossing in safety. Ramsay’s voice was powerful; and ringing among the hills and over the quiet stream, it was loud enough to collect a swarm of Russians at the spot, but none fortunately were seen. Lieutenant Drake, hearing the summons, quickly reappeared, and bounding from the bank to the sinking raft it capsized, pitching both into the river among the piles of the old bridge. It was excessively cold, snow was on the ground, and the water—though not iced over—was freezing. The officer swam ashore, but Ramsay, entangled among the guys of the raft could not strike out. On gaining the bank Lieutenant Drake asked whether his partner in adversity wanted help, and was about to re-enter the river to afford it, when the party hauled on the ropes, and Ramsay holding on with a benumbed grip to the raft, was pulled to land. Theirs was a miserable march to camp, but cold and frozen as they were, their unfailing spirits sustained them, and the corporal was more than compensated for his mishap by the reception he met with from a subaltern of the corps, who throwing aside the conventionalities which separate the soldier from the officer, gave him a place in his tent and entertained him hospitably. Three months after, this non-commissioned officer was killed at the Inkermann light-house battery.

A few nights later, the seventh company quitted the heights under an assistant engineer—Mr. Newsome, who afterwards got a commission in the corps—to collect timber to be used for magazines and platforms in the mortar battery at Inkermann. Reaching the village unperceived, several of the men ascended the housetops, and throwing down the tiles, dislodged the beams and sheeting, whilst others ript up the floors and removed everything capable of serving the wants of an insatiable siege. Bearing loads far greater than under ordinary circumstances would have been allotted for carriage, the sappers turned their backs upon that desolate homestead; and, as if driven into the earth, bent under the pressure of their burdens. It was a severe night, and the nipping air so braced up the men that their power to bear was redoubled, but their progress with such weights was necessarily slow. Soon they reached a steep hill up which they clambered with a lagging tread and hard breath, retaining with difficulty their footing, for the slope was slippery. Nevertheless they gradually pushed up, till a heavy shot made them drop their loads, to seek, by prostration, a possible escape. Every one was down in an instant, and the hissing projectile plunged into the hill side two or three feet above the head of private A. Grant. Another such a shot was aimed at them before they reached the summit of the hill, but it soared far too high to do any injury. Quickened by the danger of their situation, and thus feeling less the heaviness of their burdens, the party jogged on at a greatly accelerated pace, and reached the camp unharmed. This was the only instance, it is said, of the Russians firing at night while the Inkermann works were in progress, and was no doubt due to the noise occasioned by the rattling of tiles and timbers in devastating the village.

For some period in the new year, the weather continued so inclement that very little progress was made in the works. On several occasions the line parties could not be employed, for necessity more than commiseration returned them freezing to their tents. Directed by their officers, the sappers, only, held their posts and laboured as best they could against the stinging storms and winds which swept over the frosted hills. Many were frostbitten, several acutely; a few lost their limbs, and one man fell never to rise more. Yet amid all this severity they blasted the rock in many places to obtain cover, made loop-holes, erected gabion revetment, and where the drift had piled the snow in the more important excavations, removed it with almost impossible energy.[168]

On the 16th January, there were furnished for the right attack a minimum party of twenty-eight linesmen and two brigades of sappers under Captain Craigie and Lieutenant De Vere of the engineers. Bitter weeks of hard weather had already been experienced, but it required no uncommon spirit and fortitude to bear up against the trials of this day. By employing only a few men and constantly relieving them, it was hoped that the batteries might be kept clear. The men could scarcely feel their tools; their clothes in a few minutes became frozen; and a mass of ice covering those hirsute arrangements to which the dire necessities of war had given rise, all that could be seen of the countenance was a couple of patches of cadaverous skin drawn tightly over protruding bones. With the line the attempt to make way against the elements was given up; but the sappers stood boldly to their work though the drift fell in quite as fast as they shovelled it out, and the snow in heavy flakes beat against them. At length, however, they abandoned, not before they were ordered, a task in which no amount of human exertion could succeed. Hobbling home benumbed in every limb with curdled blood and almost lifeless hearts, they appeared at the tents covered from head to heel in a panoply of ice. What misery followed their return few can imagine. From their great coats they shook the snow in cakes, and tore it from their beards and moustaches; then throwing themselves on their wretched pallets undressed and unbooted, sought repose in a rest that was as cold as comfortless.

Equal suffering was felt on the same day by 56 sappers and 104 men of the infantry dispersed in the trenches on the Inkermann ridge. The latter attended in chief to the removal of the snow, which heaped up in pyramids to the crests of the works, choked every angle of the batteries. The former tore down the walls of a damaged magazine, revetted embrasures, and heightened the parapets. In these services their exertions were much impeded by the storm, and when withdrawn, after six hours’ exposure and labour, they waded to the camp like so many icebergs.

The night of the 25th opened very mildly. Lieutenant De Vere was the officer of engineers on duty on the right attack. He had under him a sergeant and four sappers who superintended forty-eight Turks, as also forty men of the line during the first relief, and thirty the second. The former relief worked five hours; the latter four; the sappers and Turks were on duty the whole period. Sturdy attempts were made to improve some of the slopes in the second parallel, but with a return altogether incommensurate with the labour bestowed, for the frost had so firm a hold of the ground that the pickaxes flew from it as from a rock. Beyond bringing up some hurters for platforms and clearing the drains in the 21-gun battery and boyau leading to the work in advance, very little was effected. By degrees the night fell peculiarly dark, increasing in blackness, till, at one time, it was suffocatingly dense. A man could scarcely discern his uplifted hand. While this phenomenon brooded over the trenches, the cold was intense; it nipt deeply, and the feeling was quite as painful as if the skin were peeling from the face. Work was out of the question. It was as much as the men could do to save themselves from frostbite and numbness, by chafing the face and hands and briskly exercising the lower limbs. In this way the party continued until relieved at four o’clock in the morning, at which hour all were fatigued and worn by their exertions to keep the vital stream within them from curdling.

Up to the 3rd February, the staple work in the trenches was the removal of snow, and then followed an interval during which the men were mid-leg in mud. To remove this obstruction the draining was improved and otherwise facilitated by making additional openings in the parapets to carry off the water and convey it by natural channels down the slopes of the hills into the ravines. These impediments, though they greatly interfered with the general progress, did not slacken the exertions of the sappers, who were everywhere seen building magazines, making traverses, blasting rock, and fulfilling the multifarious details essential to constitute the batteries and their field appurtenances, efficient and complete. So far it was found impracticable to do more than keep the current constructions in tolerable repair. To advance was out of the question. Some French officers of engineers who had observed, from the beginning, the firm and laborious activity of the sappers, spoke of them with admiration. “Des braves soldats, et des bon sapeurs et travailleurs,” was their constant commendation.[169]

The first company, 101 strong, under the command of Captain J. M. F. Browne of the engineers, landed at Balaklava on the 7th, where it was retained for engineer services, chiefly in the removal and erection of the huts which had already arrived in great numbers. Its employment at that port was considered sufficient for its wants, and the detachments hitherto cantoned there were recalled to their companies at the siege. Such however was the demand for sappers in front, that the company itself was soon moved to the camp for trench duty.

Corporal James Hawes and private William Pettit had been sent to Lord Lucan’s division to build stabling for the horses. It was intended that Lieut. Lennox should superintend the service, but such was the pressure in front for engineer officers he was removed the next day, and Major Hall of the Bengal engineers, was made responsible for its execution. The sappers commenced work on the 9th December, 1854, and finished on the 11th February following.[170] Daily the corporal had under him eighteen troopers—carpenters, masons, and bricklayers, and a force of Turks, for a fortnight, sometimes as many as 200, digging foundations and bringing up stones from an old wall which enclosed a large building—a well—to-do farm-house and grounds—known as Lord Lucan’s depôt. Anxious for its speedy erection Lord Lucan was constantly moving among the workmen, and encouraging the corporal in his exertions and supervision. Wood for a time was with difficulty procured, but when ready, it was brought from Balaklava by the ablest of the cavalry horses, the timbers and planks being slung on both sides of their saddles with the ends trailing through the mud and snow. The first stable constructed was that for the depôt near Kadikoi. It was completed about the 20th December; the stabling then swept in a curve round the slope of the hill, the foot of which run into the basin where the famous battle of Balaklava was fought, and terminated at the road leading towards the Sebastopol camp. The length of stabling and the number of horses hutted when the work was finished were as follows:—

Length of Stabling Number of occupied by Horses each Regiment. accommodated. Feet. Lord Lucan’s depôt 430 106 6th Inniskillings 330 92 2nd Greys 455 130 5th Dragoon Guards 270 78 1st Royal Dragoons 390 108 11th Hussars 90 26 4th Light Dragoons 120 28 13th Light Dragoons 153 34 8th Hussars 129 26 4th Dragoon Guards 488 122 ——— ——— 2855 750 ——— ———

This quantity of stabling was about 150 yards less than half-a-mile long. The regiments were brigaded in the above order; the depôt being on the right; the 4th Dragoon Guards on the left. The stabling was not turned out of hand in this consecutive manner; but after the depôt for the sick horses was finished, the hutting for the cavalry was commenced simultaneously for each regiment in proportion to the number of artificers each could furnish. As the work progressed—not waiting for the actual completion of each hut—horses were daily added to the general number accommodated, protected at night by loosely boarding up the open ends to screen the animals from the frost and snow drift. In this way sometimes eleven, sometimes twelve horses were every day picketed under cover. Considering the small force of mechanics employed, the extreme cold of the season, and the dread frost which pinched the men as they laboured, the construction of the stabling was really a masterpiece of rapidity; and Lord Lucan who had just then been recalled, was so well satisfied of the thorough zeal and exertions of corporal Hawes, that one of his Lordship’s last acts before leaving the Crimea, was to send for him on shipboard, and present him, in writing, a testimonial which spoke of the corporal’s qualities and his Lordship’s admiration of them.

On the 13th February, an 8-gun battery, No. 9, was commenced in rear of the right advanced parallel. This was occasioned by the intended occupation of the Mamelon as an emplacement for a battery to be used by the French against the Malakoff. Scarce in linesmen, and Turkish co-operation having dwindled to a few files, the allies undertook to rear the work. Guided by the sappers to the site, 200 Zouaves broke ground, and the cover obtained by them in the night was excellent. Their recklessness of toil displayed a strong contrast to the conduct of the English working party who, disregarding the orders of the officer in charge, did little, on relieving the French, to add to the extension of the works. The duty of the latter simply included the carrying of gabions, which, “chiefly by the exertions of the sappers,” were lodged in front of the battery as a temporary screen to the men shovelling in front of the parapet. Without this screen the workmen could not have stood their ground in the day-time.

Next morning, lance-corporal William J. Lendrim was selected as the sapper superintendent of the battery by Lieutenant Anderson, R.E., who directed the service. One hundred and fifty chasseurs were told off to it. A vigorous firing on the work for more than an hour knocked over several of the gabions, and to fill up the breaches was a species of forlorn hope, as two of the Frenchmen were killed and four others wounded in the trench. Corporal Lendrim, an intrepid and skilful man, accustomed to lead, zealously pushed on from gap to gap, and by his exertions every gabion was firmly replaced. The French officer in charge of the chasseurs witnessed with admiration the corporal’s “coolness and good example,” and applauded them to the British engineer.

There were other obstacles to contend with in the construction of this battery from the presence of rock, the stubborness of which required the aid of sappers to blast it; and on the 15th it is recorded, “that considering the darkness of the night, they worked very satisfactorily in mining.” On the 19th the initial part of the battery being completed, the French were withdrawn, taking with them an enviable character for their well-directed efforts and good behaviour. For the sappers were reserved the dress and finish of the battery, the formation of the embrasures, the construction of the magazines, and the general drainage; and as time wore on, when fitted up with its armament, it played an active part in the subsequent siege.

Already the right attack had finished its second line of trenches. The approaches and cuttings between the parallels, bore, in their ensemble, the appearance of a leaning tower with a battlemented crown. The left attack broke ground, on the 14th of February, for its third parallel. Approached by regular zigzags, the works exhibited none of that intricacy which, on the right was unavoidable, from the ever changing enfilade of the enemy’s constructions.

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History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Formation of the Corps in March 1712 to the date when its designation was changed to that of Royal Engineers (part 1 of 4)

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