Preparations for the Assault — Last and decisive Cannonade — Day of the Assault — Plan of Attack — Position of Generals — French rush into the Malakoff — English charge the Redan— Mistakes — Desperate Struggle — Colonel Wimibam's Gallantry — Conflict at the Left Face of the lledan — Scene at the Salient — Want of Supports—Colonel Windham goes for Reinforcements — The Russians advance- Failure of the English Attack — Contest in the rear of the Malakotf - Additional Details — Cause of the Repulse — Duration of the Attack — Ominous Signs — Losses in the Assault.
The contest on which the eyes of Europe had been turned so long — the event on which the hopes of so many mighty empires depended, was all but determined. On the 9th September, Sebastopol was in flames! The fleet, the object of so much diplomatic controversy and of so many bloody struggles, had disappeared in the deep! One more great act of carnage was added to the tremendous but glorious tragedy, of which the whole world, from the most civilized nations down to the most barbarous hordes of the East, was the anxious and excited audience. Amid shouts of victory and cries of despair — in frantic rejoicing and passionate sorrow — a pall of black smoke, streaked by the fiery flashings of exploding fortresses, descended upon the stage, on which had been depicted so many varied traits of human misery and of human greatness, such high endurance and calm courage, such littleness and weakness — across which had stalked characters which history may hereafter develope as largely as the struggle in which they were engaged, and swell to gigantic proportions, or which she may •dwarf into pettiest dimensions, as unworthy of the parts they played. A dull, strange silence, broken at distant intervals by the crash of citadels and palaces as they were blown into dust, succeeded to the incessant dialogue of the cannon which had.spoken so loudly and so angrily throughout an entire year. Tired