CRIMEA.
lances and the cacolefcs (or mule litters) came in sight along the Woronzoff Road filled with wounded. Every ten minutes added to their numbers, and we could see that every effort was made to hurry them down to the front as soon as they were ready for a fresh load. The litter-bearers now added to the length of the melancholy train. We heard that the temporary hospitals in front were full, and that the surgeons were beginning to get anxious about the extent of their accommodation for the wounded.
Another bad sign was, that the enemy never ceased throwing up shell to the front, many of which burst high in the air, over our heads, while the pieces flew with a most unpleasant whir around us. These shells were intended for our reserves; and, although the fusees did not burn long enough for such a range, and they all burst at a considerable elevation, they caused some little injury and annoyance to the troops in the rear, and hit some of our men. The rapidly increasing swarms of wounded men, some of whom had left their arms behind them, at last gave rise to suspicions of the truth; but their answers to many eager questioners were not very decisive or intelligible, and some of them did not even know what they had been attacking. One poor young fellow, who was stumping stiffly up with a broken arm and a ball through his shoulder, carried off his firelock with him, but he made a na'ice confession that he had " never fired it off, for he could not." The piece turned out to be in excellent order. It struck one that such men as these, however brave, were scarcely a fit match for the well-drilled soldiers of Russia; and yet we were trusting the honour, reputation, and glory of Great Britain to undisciplined lads from the plough, or the lanes of our towns and villages! As one example of the sort of recruits we received, I may mention that there was a considerable number of men in draughts, which came out to regiments in the Fourth Division, who had only been enlisted a few days, and who had never fired a rifle in their lives!
As I wrote at the time — " It must not be imagined that such rawness can be corrected and turned into military efficiency out here; for the fact is, that this siege has been about the worst possible school for developing the courage and manly self-reliance of a soldier; neither does it teach him the value of discipline and of united action. When he goes into the trenches he learns to dodge behind gabions, and to take pot shots from behind stones and parapets, and at the same time he has no opportunity of testing the value of his comrades, or of proving himself against the enemy in the open field. The natural result follows. Nor can it be considered as aus^ht but ominous of evil that there have been two Courts of Inquiry recently held concerning two most distinguished regiments — one, indeed, belonging to the highest rank of our infantry; and the other a well-tried and gallant regiment, which was engaged in this very attack — in consequence of the alleged misconduct of their young soldiers during night affairs in the trenches."
The difficulty of obtaining accurate information of the progress of an action cannot be better exemplified than by this fact, that at three o'clock one of our Generals of Division did not know whether we had taken the Redan or not. Towards dusk, the Guards, who had been placed in reserve behind our Right Attack, were marched off to their camp, and a portion of the Highlanders were likewise taken off the ground. The Guards had only arrived from the trenches the very same morning; but, to their great credit be it said, they turned out again without a murmur after a rest of a couple of hours for breakfast, although they had been " on " for forty-eight hours previously. The Third Division and a portion of the Highlanders were sent down to do the trench duties in the evening and night.
From the following statement of the loss sustained by the Light Division, it will be seen that this gallant body, which behaved so well at the Alma, and maintained its reputation at Inkerman, suffered as severely as it did in gaining the former great victory; and an examination of the return will, we fear, show that the winter, the trenches, and careless recruiting did their work, and that the officers furnished a noble example of devotion and gallantry. In the Light Division there were 73 officers and 964 men wounded —total, 1,037.
The loss of this division was 1,001 in killed and wounded at the Alma.