brigade returned to camp at dark, and through some
mismanagement of high authorities they were forced to
relinquish the positions they had so gallantly taken after
suffering severe losses, and behaving most creditably
under a galling fire. Colonel Borton, commanding
officer of the regiment, and who was foremost in the
action, told the men when they assembled on parade
next morning, that he never saw heavier firing (he having
been through the Cabul and Sutlej campaigns in
India), and felt proud of his regiment, and could place
dependence on them, no matter where they went to.
My comrade sergeant was sergeant to the 9th regiment,
forlorn hope, and he gave me a fine description of what
he saw. He and a number of men under his command
were in one of the most advanced houses, within a few
yards of another house occupied by Russian soldiers,
and one of the Russians fired out of a window at our
fellows, and after he fired he said (for he could speak
English) 'Take that, you d——English!' and one of the
9th, a wild young Irish fellow, immediately fired out of
the window at him in return, saying, 'Take that, you
d——Russian.' This interchange of compliments
continued for some time until the Russian was winged.
Colonel Borton showed great bravery. When the
regiment was going to advance he ran out in front and
roared out, after casting his eye along the line, and
waving his sword, 'Up, up, 9th! come along, my lads!'
'Yes, Sir,' they replied, 'we will follow you wherever
you go!' Johnny told me this, for he was along with
the colonel. The colonel is one of the most handsome
men I ever saw. John also told me that he saw four
men carrying a wounded officer on a stretcher to the
rear, and they had to pass through all the heavy fire;
for, as soon as the dastardly Russians saw the brave
fellows employed on their charitable mission (for they
left a comparatively secure cover for the purpose of
having their wounded officer medically attended to), they
poured all their fire on them; but God in His mercy
protected them, as only one of them was wounded, although
shot, shell, and grape ploughed the earth around them.
When Colonel Borton saw them, he exclaimed, 'Ah,
they are truly British soldiers!' What a meaning is
conveyed in that one sentence'—volumes expressed."

The terrible fire—the storm of "iron hail," which the
English troops had to encounter in rushing on to the
attack of the Redan, is dwelt upon in all the accounts.
The space to be passed over from our most advanced
trenches to the Redan was somewhere about seven
hundred yards, and from the first moment of their
rushing over the parapet towards the point of attack
our men were met by the same awful and annihilating
storm of canister and grape. Many fell within the first
dozen yards, and thence on to some broken ground
about midway, in which the remainder sought cover, the
field was strewn with the slain and wounded. Few of
them ever reached the abattis in front of the work—
none of them ever saw the deep ditch which protects its
approaches. As the 34th Regiment advanced, the
supports, by some means or another, got mixed together
with them, and some confusion arose in consequence.
On crossing the trench our men, instead of coming upon
the open in a firm body, were broken into twos and
threes. This arose from the want of a temporary step
above the berm, which would have enabled the troops
to cross the parapet with regularity; instead of which
they had to scramble over it as well as they could; and
as the top of the trench is of unequal height and form,
their line was quite broken. The moment they came
out from the trench the enemy began to direct on their
whole front a deliberate and well-aimed mitraille, which
increased the want of order and unsteadiness caused by
the mode of their advance. Poor Colonel Yea saw the
consequences too clearly. Having in vain tried to
obviate the evil caused by the broken formation and
confusion of his men, who were falling fast around him, he
exclaimed "This will never do! Where's the bugler
to call them back?" But, alas! at that critical moment
no bugler was to be found. The gallant old soldier, by
voice and gesture, tried to form and compose his men,
but the thunder of the enemy's guns close at hand and
the gloom of early dawn frustrated his efforts; and as
he rushed along the troubled mass of troops which were
herding together under the rush of grape, and
endeavoured to get them into order for a rush at the batteries,
which was better than standing still, or retreating in a
panic, a charge of the deadly missile passed, and the
noble soldier fell dead in advance of his men, struck at
once in head and stomach by grape shot.

The Naval Brigade suffered severely. When the
men retreated overwhelmed by the storm from the
enemy's battery, several officers and men were left
behind wounded, and endured fearful agonies for
hours, without a cup of water or a cheering voice
to comfort them. Lieut. Urmston lay for five hours
under the abattis of the Redan, and was reported
dead, but he watched his opportunity and got away
with only a contusion of the knee. Mr. Kennedy, senior
mate of the London, and of the Naval Brigade, was also
left behind close to the abattis, and after several hours
of painful concealment he rolled himself over and over
like a ball down the declivity, and managed to get into
the trench. Lieut. Kidd came in all safe, and was
receiving the congratulations of a brother officer, when
he saw a wounded soldier lying out in the open. He at
once exclaimed—"We must go and save him!" and
leaped over the parapet in order to do so. He had
scarcely gone a yard when he was shot through the
breast and died an hour after. Only three officers came
out of action untouched. Lieut. Dalyell, of the Leander,
was struck in the left arm by a grapeshot, and underwent
amputation. Lieut. Cave and Mr. Wood,
midshipmen, were also wounded. Capt. Peel, who
commanded the detachment, was shot through the arm.
Lord Raglan visited the wounded in hospital, and made
inquiries about them. The Naval Brigade in action
consisted of four parties of sixty men each. Fourteen
men were killed and forty-seven men were wounded.

On the morning of the 19th, the day after the battle,
the English demanded an armistice, but the Russians
delayed granting it until the afternoon. The Times
correspondent says: "It was agonising to see the
wounded men who were lying there under a broiling
sun parched with excruciating thirst, racked with
fever, and agonised with pain—to behold them waving
their caps faintly or making signals towards our lines,
over which they could see the white flag waving, and
not be able to help them. They lay where they fell, or
had scrambled into the holes formed by shells; and
there they had been for thirty hours—oh! how Iong?
and how dreadful in their weariness! An officer told
me that one soldier who was close to the abattis when
he saw a few men come out of an embrasure raised
himself on his elbow, and fearing he should be
unnoticed and passed by, raised his cap on a stick and
waved it till he fell back exhausted. Again he rose
and managed to tear off his shirt, which he agitated in
the air till his strength failed him. His face could be
seen through a glass, and my friend said he never
could forget the expression of resignation and despair
with which the poor fellow at last abandoned his
useless efforts, and folded his shirt under his head
to await the mercy of heaven. Colonel Yea's body was
found near the abattis on the right of the Redan; his
boots and epaulettes were gone, but otherwise his
clothing was untouched. His head was greatly
swollen, and his features, and a fine manly face it had
been, were nearly undistinguishable. Colonel
Shadforth's remains were discovered in a similar state.
The shattered frame of Sir John Campbell lay close up
to the abattis. His sword and boots were taken, but
the former is said to be in the Light Division Camp.
It is likely he was carried away from the spot where he
fell, up to the ditch of the abattis, for the facility of
searching the body, as he could not have got so far in
advance as the place where he lay. Already his
remains were decomposing fast, and his face was much
disfigured. Captain Hume, his attached aide-de-camp,
had the body removed, and this evening it was interred
on Cathcart's-hill—his favorite resort, where everyone
was sure of a kind word and a cheerful saying from the
gallant brigadier. It was but the very evening before
his death that I saw him standing within a few feet of
his own grave. He had come to the ground in order to
attend the funeral of Captain Vaughan, an officer in
his own regiment (the 38th), who died of wounds
received two days previously in the trenches, and