The English attacked the Redan with two divisions. The struggle that took place was desperate and bloody. The soldiers, taken at every disadvantage, met the enemy with the bayonet, and isolated combats took place, in which the brave fellows who stood their ground had to defend themselves against three or four adversaries at once. In this _mêlée_ the officers, armed only with their swords, had little chance: nor had those who carried pistols much opportunity of using them in such a rapid contest. They fell like heroes, and many a gallant soldier with them. The bodies of English and Russians inside the Redan, locked in an embrace which death could not relax, but had rather cemented all the closer, lay next day inside the Redan as evidences of the terrible animosity of the struggle. But the solid weight of the advancing mass, urged on and fed each moment from the rear, by company after company, and battalion after battalion, prevailed at last against the isolated and disjointed band, who had abandoned the protection of unanimity of courage and had lost the advantage of discipline and obedience. As though some giant rock had advanced into the sea and forced back the waters that had buffeted it, so did the Russian columns press down against the spray of soldiery which fretted their edge with fire and steel, and contended in vain against their weight. The struggling band was forced back by the enemy, who moved on, crushing friend and foe beneath their solid tramp, and, bleeding, panting and exhausted, the Englishmen lay in heaps in the ditch beneath the parapet, sheltered themselves behind stones and in bomb-craters in the slope of the work, or tried to pass back to the advanced parallel and sap, and had to run the gauntlet of a tremendous fire. Many of them lost their lives, or were seriously wounded in the attempt. Upon the final establishment of General Bosquet’s division of the French army in the Malakoff, Prince Gortschakoff instantly proceeded to execute a preärranged plan for the destruction and evacuation of the town. All that night the harbor was illuminated by the lurid glare of burning ships, and from time to time the explosion of vast magazines rent asunder enormous piles of masonry, while an all-devouring conflagration swept like the scourge of Heaven over the devastated city. Sebastopol perished, like Moscow, by the hands of her defenders, while her successful assailants witnessed the awful spectacle unscathed. Means of retreat had been secured by a long bridge of rafts across the great harbor, and for many hours large masses of troops were removed by this passage to the northern side of the town; but at eight o’clock in the morning of the 9th, this communication was stopped--the whole of the works and town had been evacuated. The loss of life was fearful, upwards of 30,000 men being killed or wounded. Four thousand cannon, fifty thousand balls, and immense stores of gunpowder were taken possession of by the allies. FOOTNOTES: