The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort's Own) Formerly the 95thCope, William Henry
History
The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort's Own) Formerly the 95th
Cope, William Henry
Great Britain. Army. Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own)
At night the enemy made a general attack on the English lines; but
were repulsed without any loss in the Regiment.
When parties were sent out to collect the dead on the 19th (a flag
of truce having come in at four P.M.) the body of Sir John Campbell,
who had led the attack of the 4th Division, was found inside the
_abattis_; and that of Private Flannery of the 1st Battalion was
found close to the ditch, and twenty yards in advance of where Sir
John lay.
At night the cemetery was occupied and a communication carried down
to it from the caves.[260]
On June 30 Lieutenant Woodford of the 2nd Battalion was wounded when
on duty in the trenches, and died on the same day.
On July 3 Captain Fyers was coming off picquet in the advanced works
with about 400 men. They were retiring by a zig-zag which by some
oversight of the Engineers was directly enfiladed by a Russian gun.
As soon as the men were well in the _boyau_ a round shot was fired,
which, bounding along, knocked down 13 men, of whom 8 were killed
or died of their wounds.[261] The wounded were removed by Fyers,
Colour-Sergeant Kemp, and some soldiers of another regiment who came
to their assistance. The rest of the men turned into another zig-zag
not exposed to this fire. The ball after this destructive course
ran along the _boyau_ and stopped against the bank of the parallel,
a dead ball.[262]
On July 3 the body of Lord Raglan, Commander-in-Chief, who died on
June 28, was conveyed on a gun-carriage to Kazatch bay, and was
embarked on board the ‘Caradoc’ and taken to England. A party of
100 men of each Battalion accompanied his remains to the place of
embarkation.
The siege continued during the months of July and August. The duties
in the trenches were constant, and the Riflemen were engaged either
in working parties or in covering them.[263] Almost nightly attacks
were made on these parties; and they were vigorously plied with shot
and shell.
On the evening of September 1 a party of the 2nd Battalion were
ordered to cover a sap which was in course of construction from the
fifth parallel towards the flank of the Redan.
At 7.30 Captain Balfour,[264] with one subaltern (Lieutenant Cary),
2 sergeants and 48 rank and file, left the camp for that duty. The
Russians had erected a screen of stones about 80 yards in front of
the head of the sap, as a protection to their sentries; and their
reserves occupied a pit behind this screen and also a ravine on
their left in which there was a cave. Captain Balfour detached Cary
with one sergeant and 23 men to proceed down the ravine and turn the
Russian left; while he himself with the remainder of the party made a
rush at the screen of stones behind which the Russian riflemen were
posted. After a short but sharp encounter the Russians abandoned the
screen of stones and the pit, and retired towards the ditch of the
Redan and to a small graveyard in the Karabelnaia ravine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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