Sir John Burgoyne had the chief command of the Engineers.
These details derive a melancholy interest from the changes which time, sickness, and death, have worked in the relative position of the gallant men to whom England, in her hour of need, looked for their services, and did not look in vain. The last of the original Generals of Division returned home the other day. The protracted struggle he had waged, with hardship, exposure, and mental harass, at length overcame him as it had done his colleagues, and compelled him to seek rest and re-invigor'ation from his native air. The graves on Cathcart's Hill tell a sadder tale, and render a bitterer account of many of the names just enumerated; and it fearfully realises the terrible nature of the War, to reflect how short an interval of time has sufficed to transfer those names from the muster-rolls of the Army to the eternal scroll of Fame.
No gloomy forebodings, however, of this nature damped the ardour with which all ranks, from the General to the recruit, set foot for the first time ou Russian soil. The landing had been effected with a success the most sanguine could scarcely have looked for. Sebastopol was before
N THE CRIMEA. 1 1
them, and a dreary period of weariness and inaction was about to be replaced by the chequered incidents and ever novel excitements of a campaign. The spot selected for disembarkation was a narrow strip of beach or causeway between the sea and one of those salt-water lakes so common in the Crimea:
" On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water."
To the south of this causeway rose, at a gentle elevation, a plateau conducting into the interior of the country, and it was here that our army passed their first night in an enemy's land. The day, independent of its own overwhelming interest, had not been uneventful in incidents of a more dramatic nature. In the morning, a Russian Officer, well mounted, and attended by three Cossacks, was seen coolly taking notes in his memorandum-book, as he rode along the cliff, of the number and disposition of the fleet, of which he was also observed to make a sketch. He was within rifle range, but was permitted to obtain whatever information he required unmolested: nor was this forbearance without its share of policy, since the substance of his observations could scarcely have been of an inspiriting nature to the Russians.
Later in the day. Sir George Brown, in pushing a reconnaissance too far without a sufficient escort, narrowly escaped being cut off by a party of Cossacks, who had been hidden from his view by an intervening eminence. He was only saved from capture by the timely fire of a piquet of Fusiliers and Riflemen, who put the Cossacks to flight, and drew the first blood of the campaign, by wounding a poor arabajee, who unfortunately happened to be in their line of fire.
During the disembarkation, a Russian camp, which had been discovered about eight miles to the south of the landing-place, was shelled by the Sampson, the Fury, and the Vesuvius, and by three French steamers, with great success. The practice of the Sampson was excellent, and her shells fell with such accuracy into the centre of the camp, that it was speedily destroyed, and the soldiers compelled to seek shelter in the interior of the country.
Such were the events of the Allies' first day in the Crimea, and if they were, as all will allow, of an encouraging character, it must be equally confessed, that the trials of their first night's experience of the hostile soil were such as might well have damped any ai'dour less unqualified than theirs.
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In order to be enabled to dispose of as many effective men as possible, Lord Raglan had decided that all tents and officers' baggage should be left behind j and the men were landed with nothing but a small kit, their arms and ammunition, and the officers with their great-coats, haversacks, and revolvers; all carrying three days' rations, consisting of salt meat and biscuit. The day had been showery, and towards night the sky became completely overcast, and heavy rain began to fall. In spite of this, officers and men had fallen busily to work, and had prepared for their first bivouac, by collecting heaps of weeds, and of the fragrant shrubs with which the soil was covered and the air scented.