Sii' De Lacy Evans, whose skilful handling of his division on this occasion elicited from Lord Eaglan the warmest expressions of admiration, had been suffering from indisposition for some days before the battle, and a severe fall from his horse shortly after caused a relapse, which compelled him to seek repose on board ship. The battle of Inkermann roused him for a moment from a bed of sickness, and while actually under medical treatment, to witness the severe struggle; the old chivalric spirit was too strong to allow him to remain inactive while such a momentous question was being decided; but, though he remained on the field until the close of the battle, he felt too ill to take the command out of the hands of General Pennefather, whose judicious arrangements and steady intrepidity made the loss of his immediate superior less severely felt. Sir De Lacy Evans soon afterwards resigned his appointment on the Staff of the Army, and returned home invalided. He received the thanks of the House of Commons for services, which, even among the most distinguished, are eminent, and is now, we trust, recruiting that health which had been so greatly impaired by his zealous service in his country's cause, and which was too much shattered to enable him to hope to return, and share in active operations again.
The object of the attack on the 26th October, which was, in fact, as we have already intimated, merely a reconnaissance en force, was not long in being made apparent. It had been remarked that for some time the enemy's force in the valley of the Tchernaya had been receiving constant augmentations, and on the 4th November it was discovered that a still further addition had been made to their numbers by the arrival of large masses of troops from the northward. These troops consisted of the 4th Corps d'Armee, and in order to expedite their progress, every device that Eussian ingenuity could contrive had been adopted. The extraordinary expedient of conveying the men in carts, collected from every quarter whence they could be procured, and of leaving behind all the impedimenta of the army, other than such as might have been supplied to a small body of men destined for a brief special service, demonstrates the importance that was attached to a rapid concentration of every available element of strength, for an attack of such gigantic proportions as could leave, even to the most timid, no possible doubt of the result. The Kussian troops were animated by the presence and encouragement of two of the sons of the late Emperor, by the consciousness of their own overpowering numbers, and by other stimulants, which, if of a coarser character, had no less power to urge their recipients to rush, with drunken valour and with blind and incredible fury, once and again into the jaws of certain destruction.
Religious ceremonies of the most imposing character, performed during the night previous to the 5th of November by the most exalted functionaries of the church, contributed to lash their usual fanaticism into phrenzy, while Nature herself seemed to conspire against their foes by wrapping the Russian movements in an impenetrable veil of fog, and thus adding to the sacred enterprise those elements of stratagem and surprise, so dear to the Muscovite of every grade, unless all history speak false.
The point selected for the attack was the extreme right of the British position, which was, as we have before stated, defended by the Second Division, who were encamped on the edge of the plateau occupied by the Allies, which, at the distance of a few hundred yards from the camp, falls in a very steep descent to the banks of the Tchernaya. Favoured by darkness and fog, and by the incessant rain, which, softening the ground, had rendered the sound of wheels all but inaudible at a short distance, the Russians had been enabled, during the night, to drag up nearly sixty-three pieces of artillery to the heights which commanded the left and front of the Second Division, into the very tents of which they subsequently threw quantities of shot and shell. During the sortie of the 26th the enemy had satisfied themselves of the weakness of this important post, which, owing to the extreme diminution in the numbers of the British at this period, the harassing and constant employment of every available man in the trenches, and the various exigencies to be provided for at other points, it had been found impossible, in spite of the urgent representations of Sir De Lacy Evans, to take any steps to strengthen. Shortly after daylight strong columns of the enemy advanced in this direction, and were not perceived till they were close upon our advance pickets, who received them with the utmost steadiness, firing as they fell back, contesting every inch of ground, and by their coolness and courage, giving time to General Pennefather to get his Division under arms, and place it in
THE EAST.