In one year we stormed the heights cf the Alma, sustained the glorious disaster of Balaklava, fought the great fight of Inkerman, swept the sea of AzofF and its seaboard, wasted Kertch and seized upon Yenikale, witnessed the battle of the Tchernaya, opened seven bombardments upon Sebastopol, held in check every general and every soldier that Russia could spare; and, after the endurance of every ill that an enemy at home and abroad could inflict upon us — after passing through the summer's heat and winter's frost — after being purged in the fire of sickness and death, repulse and disaster, and, above all, in the glow of victory, the British standard floated over Sebastopol! But our army was not the same. Physiologists tell us that we undergo perpetual charge, and that not a bit of the John Smith of 1854 goes into the composition of the same respected individual in 18(34; but we had managed to work up tens of hundreds of atoms in our British army between 1854 and 1855, and there were few indeed to be found in the body corporate who landed in the Crimea a twelvemonth before. Some regiments had been thrice renewed, others had been changed twice over. The change was not for the better — the old stuff was better than the new. The old soldiers had disappeared; in some regiments there were not more than fifteen men, in others there were not so many, remaining out of those who moved in magnificent parade to their first bivouac. Those whom the war had swallowed up were not replaced by better men. The Light Division — those stead}'', noble soldiers of the Rifle Brigade; the gallant Fusileers; the 19th, the 23rd, the 33rd, the 77th, the 88th— the men who drew the teeth of that terrible Russian Battery on the bloody steeps of the Alma — how few of them were then left to think and wonder at the failure in the Redan! The Second Division, old companions of the Light in hard fighting and in hard work, were sadly reduced. The Third Division, though singularly freed from active participation in any of the great battles or sanguinary struggles of the war, had been heavily smitten by sickness, and had borne a large share of the exhausting and harassing duties of the trenches and of the siege, and its old soldiers had been used up, as those of the other corps. The Fourth Division earned for itself a high reputation. In the fierce contest of Inkerman it won imperishable laurels, which few of the winners were left to wear. As to the Guards — those majestic battalions which secured the fluttering wings of victory on the Alma, and with stubborn front withstood the surge of Muscovite infantry which rolled up the ravines of Inkerman — disease and battle had done their work but too surely, notwithstanding the respite from the trenches during our wintry spring-time, which was allowed perforce to their rapidly vanishing columns.
The silence in camp was almost alarming; were it not for a gun now and then between the town and the north side, and across the Tchernaya, it would have been appalling. The Naval Brigade was broken up and sent on board ship. Our batteries were disarmed; the Army Works Corps, assisted by soldiers, engaged in the formation" of a new road from Balaklava, parallel with the line of railway. Everything around us indicated an intention on the part of the chiefs of putting the army into winter quarters on the site of their encampment.
The Sappers and Miners sank mines, to destroy the docks that had cost Russia so much anxiety, money, and bloodshed; and, if it were not that they were intended to be, and had been, accessory to violence, one would have regretted that such splendid memorials of human skill should be shattered to atoms. But the fleet of Sinope sailed thence, in them it was repaired on its return; and these vessels were built, not to foster peace and commerce, but to smite and destroy them.
There was an armistice on Tuesday, Sept. 11th, to effect an interchange of letters, for the benefit of the prisoners, and to make inquiries respecting missing officers on both sides. The Russian officer who conducted it, and who was supposed to have been the commander of the Vladimir, exnressed the same opinion as the Russian Admiral did on Monday, Sept. 10th — " With this before us," pointing to the ruins of Sebastopcl, " peace is further off than ever." The Russians had very large parks of artillery on the north side of the harbour; and the piles of provisions, materiel, and coal which were visible, showed that they did not want the means of carrying on the war, as far as such things were concerned. Many b b 2
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
of the guns found here were cast at Carron, from the letters on their trunnion heads and breeches.