Sir E. Stanton in his dispatches home, making special reference to our hero, says--"Young Gordon has attracted the notice of his superiors out here, not only by his activity, but by his special aptitude for war, developing itself amid the trenches before Sebastopol, in a personal knowledge of the enemy's movements, such as no officer has displayed. We have sent him frequently right up to the Russian entrenchments to find out what new moves they are making." Amid all the excitement of war and its dangers he never omitted writing to his mother; an example I hope my readers, if boys, or girls, will studiously copy. He loved his mother with the passion of his great loving heart. Soldier lads often forget their mother's influence, their mother's prayers, and their mother's God. Writing home to his mother he says "We are giving the Redan shells day and night, in order to prevent the Russians from repairing it and they repay us by sending amongst us awful missiles of death and destruction, and it requires one to be very nimble to keep out of their way. I have now been thirty-four times, twenty-four hours in the trenches; that is more than a month without any relief whatever, and I assure you it gets very tedious. Still one does not mind if any advance is being made." An eye witness of this bloody work in the trenches and the storming of the Malakof and the Redan, writes:-- "On that terrible 8th of September, every gun and mortar that our people and our noble allies, the French, could bring to bear upon the enemy's work, was raining death and destruction upon them. The stormers had all got into their places. They consisted of about 1,000 men of the Old Light and 2nd Division; the supports were formed up as closely as possible to them, and all appeared in readiness. History may well say, 'the storming of a fortress is an awful task.' There we stood not a word being spoken; every one seemed to be full of thought; many a courageous heart, that was destined to be still in death in one short hour, was now beating high."