Chapter VIII: Part 8

Without any increase of pay from state sources, the band is supported by an annual subscription from the officers of engineers managed by a committee, of which the assistant adjutant-general is president. Though never recognised, a brass band had been in existence for many years, but when the new order of things was sanctioned, a reed band was established as more in keeping with the refinements of a distinguished corps. The accomplished features of an operatic orchestra were also introduced combined with the sacred musical accessories of the church; and the bald services of a garrison chapel which, until the arrival of the head-quarters at Chatham, was conducted without singing, has recently been varied and made additionally grateful by the use of chants, glorias, psalms, &c.[134]

The costume of the band, approved by Prince Albert, is perhaps the handsomest in the service though the contrasts are extreme. A black bear-skin head-dress, scarlet cloth trousers, and white cloth tunic constitute the uniform. The first is free of embellishment and without feather or plume, but has a gilt curb chain for the chin. The trousers have a stripe of gold lace five-eighths of an inch broad down the outer seams, a distinction never before, it is believed, conferred on any band in the service. After the Hungarian fashion, but less picturesque, the tunic is tastefully trimmed with gold lace, gold traceries, and gold square untwisted cords for the shoulders. All the lacing is half an inch wide and the tracing is worked with Russian braid. Cut on the model of the corps’ tunic, except that the skirts have no slashes and the fronts are curved, its facings and edgings, of silk plush, are of a bright blue, and agreeably harmonize with the white cloth, giving it an appearance of ultra delicacy. Let but a storm soak it, and its elegance departs. The collar is laced all round and traced on the inner edges, enlivened by eyes in the angles, and a crowsfoot at the centre. The cuffs are similarly laced, and traced on both edges with a series of eyes and finished with crowsfeet. Down the front edges and back seams to the bottoms of the skirts both in front and rear, the lace again occurs traced in and out and figured at the terminations with a play of artistic fancy developed into highly florid crowsfeet. Simpler configurations crown the lacing of the back seams, which is relieved at the waist by ornithological devices resembling, with greater truth, a sprig of shamrock than the object to which the tailors have so strangely likened them. Down each breast are five bars compressed in length as they reach the waist, traced on both edges, having eyes at the corners and terminating at the points, with the ever-present crowsfeet. Except the two shoulder buttons, the tunic possesses no adornment of this kind, the fronts being closed by hooks and eyes.

The waist-belt is of white patent leather; the plate the same as that worn by the staff sergeants, the sword has for its hilt an ornamental Maltese cross bearing the device of a buglehorn, and sheathed in a black leather scabbard with brasses ornamentally shaped. It is shorter than the one worn by the buglers. The forage cap is similar to the sergeants; but the jacket and trousers are like the drill dress of the privates with an addition to the jacket of twisted gold shoulder cords, blue cloth edgings, and blue cloth piping down the hind arms and back seams terminating with blue cloth cushions as substitutes for buttons.

A very pleasing uniform has been adopted for the bandmaster, of scarlet cloth without breast bars. In all other essential particulars it is laced, traced, and figured like the tunics of the musicians. The facings and edgings are of garter blue silk velvet. The collar is traced with a series of eyes on the inner edges of the lace; and the shoulder-cords trebly twisted are ornamented with embroidered grenades. The trousers, for bandmaster and bugle-major, are of dark Oxford mixture with a stripe of rich gold lace, one inch and three quarters wide, down each outer seam. In undress is worn a dark-blue cloth surtout, single-breasted, hooked up to the neck, with upright rounded collar, and five loops two inches wide of mohair braid down the front, which are further ornamented by the addition of a row of netted barrels, and flys. All the rest of the trimming is similar to that on the surtout of the quartermasters. The forage cap and trousers are also similar, but the accoutrements of the bandmaster with one exception correspond with those of the staff sergeants.

Instead of a sword he wears an elegant scimitar, short and light, in a brass scabbard, the hilt being composed of masks and foliage of the “cinque-cento” period. The curve of the gripe issues in a lion’s head, with ring attached, bearing a flowing treble twisted fretwork chain united to a ring at the guard.

Considered advisable to add to the system of instruction at Chatham the art of photography, four non-commissioned officers were sent to Kensington Palace on the 6th March to learn the process; and after being taught at Gore House by Mr. Thurston Thompson, returned to Chatham on the 5th May; since which date photography has formed an interesting item in the instructional proceedings of the establishment.

Akin with this is the system introduced by Captain Du Cane on his return from the Crimea for teaching non-commissioned officers and men the method of using the electric telegraph for military purposes. So successfully had the schooling of the men in this department of field usefulness been conducted, that in June a small force of sapper telegraphists was sent to Aldershot to establish the field telegraph. Three stations were soon in action, one at each of the camps, and one at Farnborough close to the electric telegraph company’s office. Double needle instruments were used at each of the stations and double wires connected with them stretched over the roofs of the huts and borne over the open spaces by poles rising between twenty and thirty feet high. A non-commissioned officer or more acted at each station and two always at Farnborough. Line orderlies attended the sappers to carry the messages.

Purfleet, attached from time immemorial to the Woolwich district, was, under the new order of things, combined with the created district of Waltham, and the small party of six sappers, which for many years had been employed in the Ordnance repairs at the station, was removed to Woolwich in May.

To add to the military efficiency of the corps, one sergeant and eight rank and file, commanded by Lieutenant G. R. Lempriere, were sent to Hythe in May to learn under Colonel Hay the approved method of rifle practice and judging distances. Their success was looked upon as very satisfactory. Though less time at drill than other detachments they stood well in the comparison, and one of their number, lance-corporal John Yelland, bore away the prize pen and certificate awarded by Colonel Hay. He was the best shot out of 164 men of different regiments who had for some months been contending for the honour. The sappers returned to Chatham on the 5th August, and the information obtained at Hythe has become one of the leading features of instruction at the royal engineer establishment. Lieutenant Lempriere is the instructor; and some of the men who have passed through his hands have proved themselves better shots and better in judging distances than the Hythe prizeman.

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Footnote 128:

Under an officer, he has charge of the preparation of the 10·56 feet
plans of Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, and of the office for
the examination of plans and documents antecedent to the engraving of
the work.

Footnote 129:

He also assisted Captain Fowke, R.E., in testing the comparative
qualities of various woods, products of New South Wales, British
Guiana, and Jamaica, which had been exhibited at the Palais de
l’Industrie. “In conducting and registering these experiments,” wrote
Captain Fowke, “I was assisted by corporal James Mack, of the royal
sappers and miners, who displayed the greatest zeal, intelligence, and
ability throughout.”—‘Reports on the Paris Universal Exhibition.’ Part
i. 1856, p. 407.

Footnote 130:

Of the connection of the sappers with a service so interesting, the
following anecdote is an illustration. A “foreigner of distinction”
paid a visit to the Palais de l’Industrie. With Captain Fowke he
rambled over the courts, and while the Captain was explaining to him,
among other matters, his experiments on the strength of woods, they
reached the spot where corporal Mack, in the Captain’s temporary
absence, was carrying them on with all the intelligence of a
scientific man. A little further on was another sapper. This was
sergeant Jenkins, who, for the visitor’s information, cleverly
expatiated on some philosophical apparatus in his charge. A red-coat
in the building was an object of decided attraction, and the foreigner
looked with no little satisfaction at corporal Clabby, who was then
making a minute and accurate survey of the position of the cases and
objects in the Exhibition. He had scarcely withdrawn his attention
from the draughtsman, when a fourth sapper in the person of corporal
Key, the indefatigable overseer, came in for a share of the
foreigner’s approbation, and he expressed to Captain Fowke his
amazement that so many difficult and important duties could, with such
efficient results, be intrusted to them. But the measure of his
astonishment was not yet full. There was a magnificent organ, built by
Bevington and Son, of Greek-street, Soho, in the Palais, which had
gained the first-class prize, on which, while the distinguished
foreigner was taking his tour, an amateur with a small body and a
young and pleasing countenance was performing. Drawn by the power and
grandeur of its tones, the Captain and his friend repaired to the
compartment where it had a locâle, but on turning the corner, instead
of finding, as was expected, a “Maestro,” or “un professeur anglais,”
seated before the instrument disporting himself with the hauteur of a
musical genius, the foreigner was struck by seeing another sapper,
complacently playing with the proficiency and grace of a modest
professional. “Mon Dieu!” he cried, as if the varied employments of
the British sappers were too exuberant to merit a less startling
exclamation, “Encore un sapeur du genie!” And the foreigner went away
with a most excited opinion of the talents and attainments of the
corps, of which the men above named were the creditable
representatives. The military Mozart on this occasion, who strangely
enough was named after that “divine composer,” was Ludovico Amedius
Woolfgang Hart!—a name due less to his English than his German
extraction. As young Hart had opportunity, he applied himself to the
great organ with its three rows of keys, pedals, and accessory
movements, containing also eighteen hundred and eleven pipes and
forty-two stops. His performances comprised selections from Handel’s
Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, and other oratorios. Once when Her Majesty
was passing through the English department he took his place at the
instrument, and made the Palais swell with “God save the Queen;” and
on another eventful day, when the Emperor of the French was visiting
the Exposition, he struck up the national anthem of France—“Partant
pour le Syrie.”

Footnote 131:

The first time the Emperor visited the portion of the gallery allotted
to Great Britain, he condescended to scan the survey contributions. As
he approached the compartment, sergeant Jenkins saluted him. In return
the Emperor took off his hat and bowed; and, as if to make the
sergeant feel perfectly at home in his presence, smiled and seemed in
delightful humour. After glancing at the six-inch map of Edinburgh,
over which was written in conspicuous letters, “Ordnance survey of
Scotland,” His Majesty exclaimed, “Ordnance survey of Scotland! but
where is the map of England?” Jenkins explained that he had several
specimens of the one-inch map of England, and invited the illustrious
Monarch to inspect them. “O! certainly;” and His Majesty graciously
accompanied the sergeant to the interior of the little court taken up
by the survey specimens, where, in a measure, His Majesty was isolated
from the crowd, which, with straining curiosity and awe, followed the
imperial footsteps. When examining the one-inch map of North Wales,
the Emperor traced his finger over the neighbourhood of Snowdon, and
observed, “the shading of the hills is beautifully executed.” The
sergeant then directed the Emperor’s attention to the plan of St.
Andrews on the five-feet scale—a map very much commended for its
finish by all the eminent engineers who had examined it. His Majesty
appeared highly pleased with it, and then succeeded a string of
questions which the sergeant—a stranger to the parasitical language of
the courtier—answered with the honest pertinence and refinement of a
man of good common sense. Among the interrogatories was one in which
the Emperor enquired,—“Has the whole of England been surveyed on the
six-inch scale?” In looking at the great theodolite, the Emperor
evinced unequivocal interest; more so, when the sergeant informed him
it had been in use above sixty years, and had operated on the summits
of the highest mountains and most of the important trigonometrical
stations in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Of its action, adjustment,
and peculiarities the Emperor asked several questions, and called a
scientific attendant, to whom His Majesty explained, in French, what
the sergeant had communicated to him. The Emperor then examined the
models of Arthur’s seat and the Merrick hills, and also that of the
zenith sector, with all of which His Majesty was well satisfied.
Surrounded by a vast assembly, with heads uncovered and in breathless
admiration of the magnanimity of the incident, thus was passed an
interview of about a quarter of an hour, between the Emperor of the
French and a British soldier!

Footnote 132:

Of the party, Clabby, Hart, and Kelly only were at the fire. They
attached themselves to the engine nearest the building; so close was
it, that Kelly was struck on the shoulder with a piece of burning
timber. At one time the pipe burst, spirting the water over the
workmen. One of the Zouaves was up to his knees in water trying to
mend the fracture, when corporal Clabby went to his assistance, and
taking the handkerchief from his neck bound it round the pipe, and
partially removed the annoyance. This little act, so gracefully and
promptly performed, met with a shout of applause from the multitude,
and before the ringing of the acclamations had subsided, an officer
from the Marshal of the “Garde de Paris” made a note of their names;
with what object, perhaps, the future may tell.

Footnote 133:

The ancestry of the Bradfords can be traced, traditionally, to a very
remote period. It commenced, as far as the family information extends,
with Ranulph de Broade Forde—since contracted into Bradford—who in
1191 served under Richard I. in the Holy War, and fought at the siege
of Ascalon in the third crusade. Apparently, the patronymic of the
Broade Fordes was derived from a fortress held by Ranulph as the heir
of his race, which defended a ford at the confluence of two streams
important in border warfare on the marches of Wales.

Without attempting to renew the links in the broken chain of
genealogical succession, it seems that in the direct line from Ranulph
sprang John Bradford, who was born at Manchester about 1522. At an
early age, under Sir John Harington, Knight of Exton in Rutland,
“treasurer of the King’s camps and buildings,” and chief engineer at
Boulogne, he served as paymaster at the siege of Montreuil in 1544.
Three years later he was a student of common law at the Inner Temple,
where he became a convert to Protestantism; and relinquishing, in
1548, his secular intentions, became a student at Cambridge, and soon
after a Fellow of Pembroke College. Ridley, Bishop of London, ordained
him deacon in 1550, and next year he was installed as a prebendary of
St. Paul’s, and appointed one of the six chaplains of Edward VI. to
preach in the distant parts of the kingdom. In 1553, a month after the
king’s death, and the accession of Queen Mary, Bradford was a State
prisoner. The truthfulness of his preaching, his great popularity as a
minister, and Christian firmness in promoting the reformed doctrines,
did not suit the religious régime which, under the bigoted intolerance
of the Queen, had commenced to disturb the fabric of the reformation.
On a trumped-up charge of sedition and heresy he suffered two years
incarceration in the Tower and King’s Bench, and, at length, refusing
to retract his pious convictions, was martyred, by burning, at
Smithfield, 1st July, 1555.

From a brother of this “champion of the faith” lineally descended the
Rev. Edward Bradford, rector of Buckland Filleigh.

John, a son of the rector, married Gertrude Coham, of Coham.
Considerable landed property was held by the family from the Earl of
Oxford and his successors, the Lords Clinton; but the estates having
been placed in chancery, leases without the possibility of renewing
them, and an extensive fire having consumed a great part of the
market-town of Sheepwash, laid the foundation of a series of
calamities from which the family have never recovered.

Among the offspring of John, were John, William, and Michael. The two
first were surgeons in the royal navy, William perished in the
foundering of the “Royal George” at Spithead, June, 1782. Michael was
likely to have retrieved the fortunes of the family by his success as
a surgeon, but he died young, leaving, among other children—

Michael, an orphan of four years of age. There was enough for the son
when he arrived at man’s estate to pass comfortably through life, and
he married well. His wife was Mary Tamlyn, daughter of Bamfylde
Tamlyn, by Mary, second daughter of Richard Somers, Esq., of
Northtawton, Devon, and sister of the wife of Robert Harrington, Esq.,
of Worden. The father of Bamfylde Tamlyn, was the Rev. Gregory Tamlyn,
rector of Bradford. In the Will of John Bamfylde of Arlington, the
relationship of Rector Tamlyn with the family is acknowledged in a
passage which affectionately styles him “my beloved cousin.” The
pedigree of the Bamfyldes is of undoubted antiquity, and this branch
of it is a shoot from the stem to which cling the Baronets and Lords
of Poltimore. Young Michael, who had increased by his marriage, his
pecuniary competence and standing in society, was not remarkable for
the economy of his pursuits. He was fond of sporting in all its
phases, and indulged in other expensive habits, which ended in his
ruin.

From this marriage sprang five sons and a daughter. Michael the
quartermaster is the second son. He is thus a collateral descendant of
Bradford the martyr, and a “poor relation” of a few families of repute
and distinction at the present day.

Footnote 134:

Mr. William G. Collins was appointed master 1st August, 1856. He
joined the royal artillery band at ten years of age. When he had
established his name as a performer, he turned his attention to
composition, and was instructed as a theoretical musician by James
Harris, Esq. Mus. Bac. of Oxon. When quite a young man he was promoted
to be master of the band on the recommendation of Sir Henry Bishop and
the President of the Royal Academy of Music—Cipriani Potter.
Subsequently he held a similar situation in the Royal Bucks Militia
Band, which, from his peculiar fitness and attainments, became one of
the best bands among the regular troops or militia in the kingdom. On
the disembodiment of the regiment, his engagement with Lord Carington
having ceased, his well-known reputation led to his instant
appointment as master of the Royal Engineer Band.

1854.
BOMARSUND—TURKEY—BULGARIA—WALLACHIA.

War with Russia—Detachment attached to Baltic fleet—Second company to
the Aland Islands—Landing—Brigadier—General Jones—Preliminary
services—Operations—Fort Nottich attacked—Adventure at Fort Tzee and
escape from it—Bomarsund captured—Destruction of the forts—Conduct of
the company—Sickness; it returns to England—Detachment to
Turkey—Augmentation to the corps—Seventh company withdrawn from Hurst
Castle—Eleventh and seventh companies to Turkey—Odessa—Services of the
first detachment in Turkey—Corporal Cray—Gallipoli; Boulair;
Ibridgi—Commendation by Sir George Brown—Tenth and eighth companies to
Scutari—Redoubt Kaleh—Works there—Circassia—Working-pay—Companies
attached to divisions of the army—Buyuk Tchekmedjie—First
detachment to Varna—Followed by the tenth company—Also by the
eleventh—Complimentary order for services of the latter—Contrast
between the French and English sappers—Works at Varna—Also at
Devno—Encampments at Aladyn and Varna—Works at Gallipoli and
Boulair—Eighth company to Varna—Gallantry of corporal Swann and
private Anderson—Sappers join at Varna from the fleet—Coast of
Circassia—Photographers—Detachment to Rustchuk—Trestle bridge at
Slobedzie—Bridge of boats over the Danube—Return to Varna of a portion
of the sappers from Rustchuk—Misconduct of the detachment; also of the
seventh company—Spirited conduct of corporal Cray—Major Bent and party
of sappers to Bucharest—Private Anderson and the Austrian
Dragoons—Fourth company to Varna—The Somerset Fund—The Central
Association.

To obtain a religious protectorate in Turkey, Russia menaced the independence of the Sultan, which led to a long diplomatic negotiation between the Western powers and the Czar; but as the Emperor Nicholas persisted in interfering with the rule of the Sultan, and attempted to enforce his pretensions by occupying with a belligerent army the Danubian principalities, Great Britain and France declared war against Russia. Measures were instantly taken to give effect to the declaration by despatching powerful expeditions to the East and the Baltic.

To the Baltic fleet were attached, on the 9th March, one sergeant and nineteen rank and file of the second company, under the command of Lieutenant Nugent of the engineers, which embarked at Portsmouth on board the ‘Duke of Wellington,’ flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and accompanied it in its reconnaissance of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland as far up as Cronstadt. The object of sending the party with the fleet was, that it might take the lead of the seamen and marines in any escalading operations ashore; but the nature of the service was such that no occasion offered for resorting to the expedient. During the time that the cholera was rife in the fleet, several of the detachment were seized with the malady, and three died.

When it was resolved to make a descent upon the Aland Islands, a division of the French army was despatched from Calais to carry out the enterprise. The second company, of eighty strong, under Captain F. W. King, royal engineers, was added to the force, and sailing from Deptford in the ‘Julia’ transport on the 15th July, with every conceivable engineering requirement, arrived at Calais on the 17th, and took on board 225 officers, non-commissioned officers, and rank and file of the 51st infantry of the line. The sappers were the only troops that accompanied the French contingent.

Before daylight on the 8th August, the second company, 600 of the royal marines, and 2000 French troops landed at a small cove a few miles N.E. of Bomarsund, and taking a winding route by the village of Monkstetta, encamped about 1,200 yards from Fort Tzee, sheltered by a hill on which the breaching battery was afterwards constructed. The advance of the van was formed by the sappers from the flag-ship, carrying besides their carbines an assortment of bill-hooks, hand-saws, axes, and hatchets, and the column was closed in rear by the second company under Captain King.

The British operations were wholly carried out under the direction of Brigadier-General Jones, R.E., an officer of matured judgment and experience, gained by hard service in the Peninsular War, and by some forty years of after study and experiment. He was assisted by Captain H. St. George Ord, and four other officers of the corps.

Nearly five days were employed in collecting the tools and stores, cutting roads, effecting preliminary reconnaissances, preparing an hospital, and in providing domiciles for the temporary accommodation of the company, by making huts of the branches of fir trees; while a strong party, about 400 yards from the hill, worked with unflagging industry in making fascines and filling sand-bags, which, when finished, were carried by the seamen and marines to the depôt near the site of the intended battery.

Meanwhile two or three attempts had been made by some officers of the corps, attended by a few intrepid sappers, to trace the battery; but the enemy opened so heavy a fire upon the parties, that a suspension of their exertions necessarily followed. Determination and tact, however, got over the difficulty. No trace was used, but a simple alignment struck, from which, on the 13th August, under shade of the evening, sergeant John Jones and twenty-four rank and file, began to construct the battery, under the orders of Captain Ord. Without the chance of digging a shovel-full of earth to give solidity and strength to the cover, the battery was built on the bare rock entirely of fascines and sand-bags. The sappers reared it unassisted, except that the royal marines carried the material from the engineer’s park to the hill. Sergeant John Jones had the honour of laying the first sand-bag. In ten hours, the detachment, unrelieved, nearly completed the battery, which would soon have opened upon Fort Tzee; but the French having forestalled the arrangement by obtaining the surrender of its commandant, the battery was free for other employment, and its direction was consequently changed against Fort Nottich. Speedily the epaulement which flanked the battery was prolonged, the platforms promptly laid, and three 32-pounders having been placed in position, the embrasures were unmasked by some daring sappers, and the firing, which lasted about nine hours, ended at the fall of the day in the capture of the garrison. It was surrendered to Captain Ord, R.E., who had with him to receive the formal capitulation, a force of 100 of the royal marines and five rank and file of the sappers.

The added work was partly constructed in the day, under fire, as was also the laying of the platforms. Corporal Peter Leitch,[135] a first-class carpenter with some handy men of the company, attended to this service. The working party was relieved every four hours day and night, until the battery was completed, and also during the siege, to throw fatigue and danger equally upon all. The guns fired by the seamen and marine artillery were first drawn by them to the battery on sledges of a novel construction, over steep and rugged ascents. When they reached the camp, however, their labours were considerably diminished, as a road to assist them had been cut by the sappers, up the hill to the breaching battery, under the orders of Captain King. Corporal George Luke acted as overseer in this duty. Two of the men were allotted to each of the guns to keep the embrasures in good order. This they usually attended to while the gun was loading, and not a few displayed a stoical coolness and intrepidity in repairing the damaged merlons, and clearing away the debris occasioned by the enemy’s cannonade. Though the fire upon the battery was warm at times, the casualties only embraced two killed, of whom one was the Hon. Lieutenant Cameron Wrottesley, R.E., and one wounded. None of the sappers were even touched; and this good fortune, as well for them as the seamen and marines, was attributed to the prudence of Brigadier-General Jones, who had men appointed to look out and warn the battery when the enemy’s guns were fired. These “look-out” men were sappers—alert spirits with quick eyes and stout hearts—who gave the alarm the instant a flash was seen at the fort. The better to enable them to give the intimation they took ground in advance of the battery in some chasms of the rock, where, although partially screened by the natural cover of their hiding places, it was a wonder that they escaped unhurt. Privates James Moncur[136] and Thomas Ross[137] were most conspicuous in this hazardous duty.

When the French had captured Fort Tzee the Brigadier-General gave an order for sergeant John Jones to make a plan of it. He had a note to the officer commanding the garrison requesting the service to be permitted. Taking with him privates John S. Rowley and George Peters to assist, he started on the morning of the 15th, but contrary to expectation found the French had abandoned the work and taken shelter in an advanced trench. Presenting the request to the French Commandant, the sergeant awaited authority to proceed. The fort was on fire, having been shelled by the Russians the previous evening. The Commandant and several French officers advised Jones not to venture into the place, but with soldier-like firmness he persevered in urging the performance of the duty; and permission being granted, he and his assistants went on. Going through one of the embrasures, which was on fire, and the gun-carriage burning, they pushed into the tower. Loose powder, broken cartridges, and five shells were lying about; the flames had nearly spread to the principal magazine, the remainder of the building had more or less fire in every casemate, and the smoke in thick columns was streaming from the crackling apertures. With difficulty they gained the first floor, and then, finding the stairs, penetrated to the roof, not without being almost suffocated, and losing, for a time, private Rowley in the smoke. From floor to floor and embrasure to embrasure they moved, in hopes of stealing the barest chance of taking even a few measurements, but their efforts were unavailing; and so, compelled to quit the tower, they had scarcely reached their own camp, about 1,200 yards away, when the flames having communicated with the magazine, it exploded, and the fort blew up.

Without attempting to chronicle the different incidents of the campaign, in which the fleet and the French troops so gallantly participated, it will be sufficient to note that Bomarsund, the principal fort of the Aland Islands, capitulated without material opposition, and the Russians were marched out prisoners of war. The sappers and miners and royal marines formed in line, faced by a force of the French infantry; and through their divided ranks, the Russians moved pensively away to the point arranged for their departure.

No sooner were the forts in possession of the allies than measures were taken to disable the guns and dismantle the works. The sappers only were employed in carrying out the mining operations under the direction of their officers. In this duty they worked with so much energy, that their exertions were scarcely checked by the fatigues to which they were necessarily subjected. Forts Prasto, Nottich, and Bomarsund all fell in turn—blown up by mines skilfully laid and fired. The magazines also were exploded, the shot and shell removed, and stores of timber, prepared for use in the contemplated fortifications, were burnt. The work of destruction extended even to the garrison chapel; it was sacked and then destroyed, and all the unfinished forts and buildings, rising from foundations which marked the extent of a stupendous engineering design, were torn up by mines and thrown down. The stone landing-pier was likewise demolished, and not a slab of granite which promised to be of service in future works was left unbroken. But a few weeks, and what a change! This proud maritime position—this formidable outport of the yet impregnable Cronstadt, studded with forts and bristling with ordnance, was one widespread area of ruin and desolation!

Brigadier-General Jones and the officers of the corps were well pleased with the military bearing and exertions of the company, and commended the “cheerful and willing manner in which they performed the laborious duties” assigned to them. Besides the non-commissioned officers and men named above, there were others noted for their services. Privates John Williams,[138] John Veitch,[139] and Francis Enright, for their boldness, resolution, and zeal. Corporal George Luke,[140] for his ability and usefulness as a miner in the demolition of Bomarsund. Sergeant John Jones,[141] for his assistance as a draughtsman; and sergeant Richard P. Jones,[142] for his general diligence and intelligence, as well in the general operations as in the special one of diving. The ‘Penelope’ having run ashore on an unknown rock off Bomarsund, was compelled to throw fifteen of her guns overboard to float and save her. Several naval divers attached to the fleet were afterwards employed to bring them up; but as some submarine difficulties prevented as speedy an accomplishment of the undertaking as was desired, the co-operation of sergeant Richard Jones was found to be an acquisition, inasmuch as he recovered five 8-inch guns and one 10-inch.

There was much sickness among the sappers during the brief campaign, and on one day no less than forty-seven men out of a company not a hundred strong, were on the sick-list with choleraic symptoms; but owing to the attention of the naval surgeons, only two died. Quitting the Baltic Sea in the ‘Cumberland,’ the company rejoined the corps at Woolwich on the 16th October, and before two months had intervened, was despatched in all haste to Turkey.

It is now time to turn to the East, to trace the movements and services of the corps in that interesting quarter. The van of the army sent thither under the command of Lord Raglan, was a small party of six rank and file of the sappers and miners under Captain Chapman of the engineers. They belonged to the fourth company, at Malta, whence they sailed in the ‘Banshee’ on the 25th January, and having arrived four days after in Beicos Bay, were the first British soldiers landed on the Ottoman shores.

To meet the calls for its services in the coming struggle, the corps, by order of Lord Raglan under date the 23rd February, was augmented from an establishment of 2,218 of all ranks to 2,658 officers and men, by enlarging the organization of each of the twenty-two companies with one sergeant, one corporal, one second-corporal, and seventeen privates. The corps was now fixed according to the following details:—

Colour Ser- Cor- 2nd Pri- General
Sergeant. geants. porals. Corp. Bugl. vates. Total. Total.
17 general service 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 2040
companies, each
1 company for Corfu 1 3 4 4 2 68 82 = 82
3 survey companies, 1 7 8 8 2 99 125 = 375
each
1 survey company 1 5 6 6 2 100 120 = 120
Sydney mint . 1 1 3 . 11 16 = 16
detachment
Van Diemen’s Land . 1 2 . . 12 15 = 15
detachment
-——
2648
Staff—1 brigade-major, 1 adjutant, 3 quartermasters, 2 sergeant-majors, 2 10
quartermaster-sergeants, and 1 bugle-major
——
Total 2658
====

To concentrate the available force for active duty, the seventh company, employed in services of a secondary character only, was withdrawn from Hurst Castle, and removed to Woolwich. While at the castle the company had assisted in strengthening the place by constructing two batteries for ten and twelve guns respectively, and also three loopholed caponniers, built of brick and cement in the moat of the castle. Quartered as it was upon an exposed shore, in a spot that was isolated and dreary, the conduct of the company was anything but satisfactory, and in the short space of eighteen months, out of a strength that scarcely exceeded ninety non-commissioned officers and men, no fewer than twenty-three privates deserted.

On the 24th February the eleventh company, under Captain Hassard, embarked at Southampton for Turkey on board the ‘Himalaya’ steamer, in which was shipped a store of intrenching tools for field operations. At Malta they landed on the 8th March, and were temporarily quartered at Floriana. The seventh company—Captain Gibb’s—joined them on the 27th March, and brought with them a further supply of tools and implements. Two days later both companies embarked in the ‘Golden Fleece,’ and steamed off with the rifle brigade to Gallipoli, where they landed with Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown on the 8th April. About forty non-commissioned officers and men of the corps were left at Gallipoli, and the remainder, marching nearly nine miles, took up a position not far from the village of Boulair, from which the camp derived its name.

On the 17th April twelve rank and file of the eleventh company, detached to Constantinople, joined the ‘Fury’ steamer for service in the Black Sea, and were present at the bombardment of Odessa. The squadron was hotly engaged when the ‘Fury’ arrived, and after firing a few rounds, was signalled from the action by the Admiral. On the 23rd April she was again in the fight for two hours, but her presence in the action is not noticed in the official despatches.

Meanwhile the six men with Captain Chapman, R.E., who in the course of a few months had been in six different vessels, were, during the intervals, employed under their officers, surveying Fort St. Nicholas, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and the country from thence as far as the gulf of Saros. A few weeks later they assisted in a similar service at Boulair and Gallipoli, and then sailing again up the Bosphorus to Beicos Bay, landed at Therapia, from whence seven days after they removed to Constantinople, pushing out a party of four men under Lieutenant De Vere to survey Buyuk Tchekmedjie, a district some twenty miles from the port.

When Sir John Burgoyne was in the country prior to the arrival of the troops, private James Cray was his orderly, and accompanied him to Varna and Shumla. Majors Dickson and Wellesley, with Lieutenants Burke and the Honourable George Wrottesley and lady, were of the party. From rough roads and inclement weather the journey was not without its trials; and at night the little expedition rested by the road-side in any nook or hovel where they could find shelter.

Subsequently private Cray was orderly to the heroic Lieutenant Burke, R.E. With him he passed a few days at Silistria, and then took horse to a small town on the banks of the Danube nine miles from Rustchuk. Major Wellesley had given him a sword, but this was not considered sufficient for his defence, and he was provided from the Turkish armoury with a Minié rifle and revolver. Thus armed, he joined the Ottoman forces in an action against the Russians, who under cover of a fusillade from a strong body of riflemen, were endeavouring to cross the river. Met by a fire it was impossible to stand against, they faced about and retreated in their boats to land. Cray was thus the first soldier of the British army engaged in the common cause, and for his conduct on the occasion was presented by Lieutenant Burke to Omar Pacha. His next ride was to Sistova. At the time the party entered the town an engagement was going on, and the Turks were again victorious. Journeying onwards they crossed to an island, where Lieutenant Burke and his orderly at imminent risk laid out new works, and traced batteries to complete the defences of the place. On that occasion private Cray exchanged between twenty and thirty shots with the enemy, who kept up a sharp fire upon the party from the opposite bank. In all his tours of inspection and survey, from the Danube, across the Balkan chain to Adrianople, and back again by another route to Constantinople, private Cray accompanied Lieutenant Burke, and for his usefulness and spirited conduct was made lance-corporal and afterwards attached as orderly to the Brigade-Major.

The detachment at Gallipoli erected piers at the port, for landing stores, guns, &c., and prepared hospitals for the sick. The companies at Boulair assisted to form the lines on the left of the position allotted to the British troops to execute. About 1,500 men of the infantry were daily distributed for some months to the trenches and roads, and performed their tasks with ardour and cheerfulness. One man detached to Ibridgi, about fifty miles distant on the north side of the gulf of Saros, superintended the Greeks in felling and collecting brushwood and timber, for the construction of magazines, platforms, log-huts, &c. A fluctuating party, numbering at one time nine men under a corporal, was afterwards detached on this duty.

When Sir George Brown, who commanded the division, took his departure for the frontier, he communicated in orders of the 6th May “his entire approbation of the general conduct, zeal, and industry of the royal sappers and miners on the works, both at Gallipoli and the camp at Boulair.”

Two other companies were quickly reorganised to reinforce the corps in the East. These were the tenth under Captain Bent, to form the pontoon train, and the eighth from Gibraltar, under Captain Bourchier. The former embarked at Woolwich in the ‘City of London’ steamer, on board of which was Lieutenant-General Sir De Lacy Evans and staff, and the staff of the Duke of Cambridge. Sir De Lacy Evans was well pleased with the conduct and services of the company on board, for they had much to attend to in strengthening the horse-boxes. Landing at Constantinople on the 24th April, the company was quartered in Scutari barracks, as was also the eighth on debarking from the ‘Albatross,’ on the 9th May. The pontoons sent out in the ‘Melbourne’ in charge of corporal William Dickson, an able and intelligent non-commissioned officer, reached Constantinople on the 13th May.

The sappers attached to Her Majesty’s ship ‘Fury’ being transshipped to the ‘Agamemnon,’ bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Lyons, served with the squadron in a obsolete’ on the coasts of Circassia, Georgia, and Anatolia, and were present on the 19th May in the reduction of Redout Kaleh.

Next morning the party landed, and were employed for two days as overseers in the defensive occupation of the place, under the orders of Lieutenant H. Cox and H. B. Roberts, of the royal marine artillery. Parties from all the ships were ashore at the works. The Turks, utterly unacquainted with the mode of protecting themselves by intrenchments, were instructed by the sappers. A Russian barrack was speedily loopholed, a stone building in a commanding situation was converted by massive planks into a block-house as an outwork, and a parapet was formed, flanked by a deep marsh. Houses, too, that could not aid in the defence were thrown down, whilst others, well sited, were turned into points of security and resistance. The old fort on the land side was also strengthened with additional works. When these services were sufficiently advanced, the Turks with two sappers were left to complete the defences, and the Anglo-French working parties, with the remainder of the sappers, returned to their ships.

Renewing its cruise, the squadron anchored off Bardan. Landing Captain Brock, R.N., Captain Stanton, R.E., a doctor, and four sappers, they started, guided by an escort of Circassians commanded by Ismail Bey, over the mountains, to communicate with the prophet-warrior Schamyl.

Late in May, Lord Raglan ordered the sappers, when employed as artificers “in repairing tools, constructing wharves, and the like,” to receive working pay; the non-commissioned officers at the rate of 1_s._ a-day, and the privates 6_d._ to 1_s._ a-day each, according to conduct and ability. The non-commissioned officers appointed conductors of stores, photographers, electricians, &c., were granted 2_s._ a-day each.

To form a connexion between the sappers and miners and the army, the four companies with the expedition were attached to the divisions as follows:—

1st division. 11th company Captain Hassard.
2nd ” 8th ” Captain Bourchier.
3rd ” 7th ” Captain Gibb.
Light ” 10th ” Captain Bent.

Four men employed for a few weeks with Captain Chapman, R.E., in the survey of Buyuk Tchekmedjie, were recalled to Constantinople late in May, as the intention of forming that district into an encampment had been abandoned, owing to the altered character of events.

While the carpenters of the companies at Scutari were fitting up horse-boxes for the cavalry on board the transports, a forward movement was commenced by a detachment of one sergeant—John F. Read—and twenty-seven rank and file of the tenth company, commanded by Lieutenants E. C. A. Gordon and Pratt, which landed at Varna from the ‘Caradoc’ on the 22nd of May. Precedence was given to this party for the purpose of erecting jetties to land the troops, horses, and ordnance, on the arrival of the army.

On the 26th of May, the remainder of the company under Captain Bent, disembarked at Varna with the pontoons, from the ‘Cyclops’ steamer. The removal of the company was an expeditious operation, for in less than ten hours from the time of receiving orders, the pontoons, stores, horses, and all the miscellaneous gear attending a war company of sappers, were stowed into one vessel, and then transshipped into another when subsequent orders rendered such an arrangement imperative. In allusion to the company’s departure, the corps was spoken of in the ‘Times,’ as a “most indefatigable and invaluable body of men.”[143]

Simultaneously with this movement, Captain Hassard’s company sailed from Gallipoli, when their exertions elicited the following complimentary order from the officer of Royal Engineers in command.

“_On board the ‘Emu,’ 25th May, 1854._

“Captain Gordon thanks the eleventh company for the zealous and willing manner with which they worked during the whole of last night, and till six o’clock this morning, embarking intrenching tools and stores, immediately after their march in from the camp at Boulahar. This exertion, so cheerfully performed, as to enable the company to proceed without loss of time on active service, will be brought to the notice of the Brigadier-General.” It was so and received his hearty acknowledgments.

The company disembarked at Varna on the 27th, and the scene at the quay was strikingly interesting and animated. About 250 French sappers had also landed from the ‘Cacique,’ and working as they did some twenty yards from the British sappers, a good opportunity was afforded for contrasting the temperament and military habits of the two nations. The French, gay, volatile, and impulsive, stirred about with elated spirits and elastic activity, that gave a cheerful, though an impetuous aspect to their exertions; whilst the English sappers, grave, impassible, and taciturn, wheeled off scaling ladders and stores so devoid of bustle and joyousness, and with so much attention to order and composure, that an air of stern and serious necessity was impressed on their labours. Nevertheless, the work was done with a business-like energy and earnestness that seemed more than adequate for any task or enterprise.[144]

Varna for a few months was the principal frontier station and depot for engineer stores and pontoons, from whence parties were thrown out to Devno, Aladyn, Monister, Rustchuk, &c. At Varna the companies built a stone pier of some pretensions, and a wooden one at the south side of the bay, run out into deep water 140 feet from the beach. They also banked up the shore, deepened the little harbour, and improved the almost trackless roads beyond and within the vicinity of Aladyn, making them passable for heavy wheeled conveyances. Much of the work was carried on in bog and water, which, however, was ultimately discontinued, as it was found that some of the men who were so employed, died from cholera, traceable to their exertions and exposure.

About seventy men of the tenth company marched to Devno on the 29th May, who repaired the roads, removed the accumulations of years from deserted fountains, rendering them again useful for thirsty wayfarers, built ovens for baking bread, raised dams to collect water for the troops, and constructed a bridge across the lake. From a lonely burial-ground, filled with blocks of unhewn and unsculptured granite, marking nevertheless the sites of numerous graves, the sappers took the largest stones, and used them in erecting a bridge over one of the narrow channels which joined the lakes of Aladyn and Devno. The men worked very hard, at times up to their breasts in water. The correspondent of the ‘Times,’ in speaking of this work—June 29th—termed the sappers “a most utilitarian corps while Captain Gordon, in a letter to a brother officer, remarked with respect to its general services, “that the men work well and behave well. To be with them is a pleasure.”

A party of twelve men with sergeant Thomas Dumvill, under Lieutenant Creyke of the engineers, was employed for three days at Carra-Houssan; and having placed the several wells in order, and rendered the neglected fountains available for use, it returned to Devno. It was expected that the light division would march through the village of Shumla, but the intention was afterwards abandoned. The sappers therefore were the only British troops at this advanced frontier station.

At Aladyn, the sappers were encamped in a valley covered with the thickest foliage, and its many rural accessories of creepers, clematis, wild vines, &c., made the scene as picturesque as grateful.[145] At Varna, the companies were tented as nearly as possible to their work, while a detachment was quartered for a time, close by the city walls, to be ready for any emergency:[146] but when the cholera had to some extent decimated the camp, the sappers were removed, to improve their sanitary condition, to a healthier location on the south side of the bay.

The seventh company at Gallipoli and Boulair, in addition to their duties on the lines, constructed a number of log-huts, stores, and stables for the cantonment of a regiment, in the event of the army being compelled to fall back to the isthmus, as to another Torres Vedras, for succour and safety.

The eighth company from Scutari landed at Varna on the 19th of June from the ‘Golden Fleece’ steamer, and joined the frontier companies.