Under these trying and- arduous circumstances the conduct of the troops was exemplary; their only desire was to be permitted to storm the town, the order for which they expected at every moment, ignorant as they were of the grave results which had taken place on their right: wearied but undaunted, they maintained themselves in this position of unexampled difficulty through the long hours of the sultry day, and until the close of evening permitted them to be relieved. Their success, which under more favourable circumstances might have been turned to the greatest advantage, was not even thus entirely barren, as the cemetery remained definitely in our hands.
The loss on all sides in these attacks was most severe: the Eussians suffered terribly from the fire which still continued to be poured into their densely crowded works after the assault was abandoned; the French loss was estimated at upwards of 8,000 men and officers killed and wounded: and the English amounted to 1,535 men and officers hors de combat.
THE EAST.
On the morning after the assault Lord Eaglan and General Pelissier asked for a suspension of hostilities to bury their dead.
The armistice took place at four o'clock in the afternoon, and it was evening before the dead were buried and the wounded brought in from the spots where they lay in front of the Eedan and Malakoff. "It was agonising," says Mr. Eussell, speaking of the interval which elapsed before our flag of truce was answered by the Eussians, "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 to be able to help them. They lay where they fell, or had scrambled into the holes formed by shells; and there thej^ had been for thirty hours; oh! how long and how dreadful in their weariness.... The redcoats lay sadly thick over the broken ground in front of the abattis of the Eedan, and blue and grey coats were scattered about or lay in piles in the raincourses before the Malakoff." On a picture so painful as this it is better not to dwell; but, alas! the losses of the army were not destined to end here. On the 24th Adjutant- General Estcourt, who was sincerely loved and respected by the troops, fell a victim to cholera after three days' illness; and a more irreparable loss was sustained shortly after in the death of Lord Eaglan on the 29th. This melancholy event was thus feelingly announced to the French army in a general order of General Pelissier.
" Death has just surprised in his command Field Marshal Lord Eaglan, and has plunged the English army in grief. We share the regrets of our brave Allies. Those who knew Lord Eaglan, who were acquainted with the history of his noble life, so pure, so rich in services rendered to his country — those who witnessed his bravery on the fields of Alma and Likermann, who remember the calm and stoic grandeur of his character during this severe and memorable campaign — all men of heart, in fact, must deplore the loss of such a man.
" The sentiments which the Commander-in-Chief expresses are those of the whole army. He himself severely feels this unforeseen blow. The public sorrow falls more heavily on him, as he has the additional regret of being for ever separated from a companion in arms whose cordial spirit he loved, whose virtues he admired, and in whom he always found loyal and hearty co-operation."
Such was the epitaph of Lord Eaglan — the touching lament of a great soldier for no unworthy colleague, and more eloquent in its noble manliness and simplicity than the choicest phrases ever conned by adulation to engrave upon a tomb.
The command of the army, in the absence of Sir George Brown, the next
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in seniority, who had been compelled by sickness to quit the Crimea on the very day of Lord Eaglan's death, now devolved in due course on General Simpson, late chief of the staff, and was speedily confirmed by a telegraphic message from England.