strewed with the fallen. For the most part the attacks, made on the part of the French with, in all, 25,000 men, resolved themselves into an exchange of rifle fire between the assailants spread out around the works, and the defenders aiming from the parapets, and aided by the field-guns as well as by the regular armament.
Lord Raglan, though it was seen that the attacks were thus far failures, felt bound to take his part in the enterprise. He was himself under a very hot cross-fire, especially of that now obsolete projectile called grape. It was formed of bullets the size of small apples, piled symmetrically, and tied round an iron spindle rising from the centre of a wooden disc of a size to fit the bore of the gun. With the discharge the tie was broken, the bullets flew together with a noise like that of a covey of partridges, while in rear the spindle, retarded by the pressure of air on the disc, came on separately with a whistling sound of its own. But round shot also dashed plentifully in, and one, after killing a sapper, left a gunner lying headless, as if guillotined, in the trench, and knocked off the arm of an officer. The grape, besides other damage, prostrated the commanding engineer with a wound on the forehead, and many officers, arriving with intelligence or seeking orders, were killed or wounded. It was from this place that the order had been given to our troops to attack. Upon them, as on the French, a tremendous fire of all kinds was poured. The several columns that moved out were almost annihilated, and the parts of them that still went on were held fast by a belt of abattis in front of the ditch. General Campbell and Colonel Yea, who each led a column, were killed ; the ladder party of twenty volunteers lost eleven; of 120 sailors, fifty-two fell ; and the stormers generally in equal proportion. Nothing that could be called an assault, of a kind that even faintly promised success, took place anywhere ; and after a conference between Pelissier and Lord Raglan in the Victoria Redoubt, they considered what they had seen and learned to be so discouraging that, between seven and eight o'clock, all the attacking troops were recalled to the trenches.
Meanwhile a partial success had been achieved on our left. General Eyre, with a brigade of 2000 men, descending the Picket House ravine, had driven the Russians out of buildings and a cemetery at the foot of Green Hill. Here they were immediately under the Garden Batteries, which all day poured on them a destructive fire ; and an infantry force descending from thence, and lining a breastwork in the valley, exchanged volleys with our troops, who forced them to regain the shelter of their works. Eyre, himself wounded, and his troops held their ground till nightfall, with the loss of 600 men and officers, and the cemetery was then fortified by our engineers, who afterwards handed it over to the French.
The losses in the actual assault, during which the besieging batteries ceased firing, were heavily against the Allies ; but, taken in conjunction with those caused by the cannonade of the I7th and i8th, the French lost 3500 men ; the English, 1 500 ; the Russians, 5400. Of the six generals and commanders, French and English, who led the six attacks, four were killed and one disabled.
The spirit of resistance shown by the Russians was such as their nation may well be proud to recall. But it was only rendered possible by the reliefs of fresh unharassed troops always available from the army outside. When, however, at the moment which the Russians were giving to exultation and thanksgiving, the cannonade recommenced in all its terrors, the spirit of the soldiery gave way, and many of them made for the harbour, fighting with their own people there for the boats and rafts with which to escape the iron storm that searched the crannies of the south side. And they soon had other cause for discouragement. Slightly wounded on the 1 8th, their sagacious, unresting, resourceful, and indomitable engineer, Todleben, was disabled on the 2oth by a shot through the leg, and was carried from the fortress, not to return during the siege.