Accordingly, 700 marines and sailors were put ashore. The men looked forward to an easy victory, and hurriedly, in detached and straggling style, pressed forward to secure it. Alas! they had reckoned without their host—they were rushing heedlessly into the jaws of death. A number of bushes and small trees existed, and still exist, on the hill-sides surrounding this spot, and behind them were posted Cossack sharp-shooters, who fired into our men, and, either from skill or accident, picked off nearly every officer. The men, not seeing their enemy, and having lost their leaders, became panic-struck, and fell back in disorder. A retreat was sounded, but the men struggling in the bushes and underbrush (and, in truth, most of them being sailors, were out of their element on land) became much scattered, and it was generally believed that many were killed by the random shots of their companions. A number fled up a hill at the rear of the town; their foes pursued and pressed upon them, and many were killed by falling over the steep cliff in which the hill terminates. The inhabitants, astonished at their own prowess, and knowing that they could not hold the town against a more vigorous attack, were preparing to vacate it, when the fleet weighed anchor and set sail, and no more was seen of them that year! The sudden death of our admiral is always attributed to the events of that attack, as he was known not to have been killed by a ball from the enemy.(96) The writer has walked over the main battle-field, and saw cannon-balls unearthed when some men were digging gravel, which had laid there since the events of 1854. The last time he passed over it, in 1866, was when proceeding with some Russian and American friends to what might be termed an “international” pic-nic, for there were present European and Asiatic Russians, full and half-breed natives, Americans, including genuine “Yankee” New Englanders, New Yorkers, Southerners, and Californians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and one Italian. Chatting in a babel of tongues, the party climbed a path on the hill-side, leading to a beautiful grassy opening, overlooking the glorious bay below, which extended in all directions a dozen or fifteen miles, and on one side farther than the eye could reach. Several grand snow-covered volcanoes towered above, thirty to fifty miles off; one, of most beautiful outline, that of Vilutchinski, was on the opposite shore of Avatcha Bay.