Soundly our grand army slept that night on the cold ground, and thousands awakened only to march forth to certain death up the heights of the Alma. Passing over the events that occurred on the morning of the day on which the battle of Alma was fought, which was spent by our generals in arranging the army in the order of battle to meet the enemy, and beard him in his own earthworks, I now bring my readers to the banks of the river Alma, called a river, but in reality only a brook, which most of our horses could have cleared at a jump, even in its widest part. Our brigade was held in reserve, as, if the infantry should suffer a reverse and be obliged to retire from the hill over the brook on to the plain, we were ready to play our part on that ground. Onwards the army advanced in a vast extended line, so as to prevent the enemy from descending the heights in front and outflanking us. The French were disposed so as to march on our extreme right, in order to attack the enemy's left, who occupied a position which, from its steepness, was difficult to approach; but to our army was assigned the hardest fighting--namely, the forcing of the enemy's centre and right. The whole face of the hill as far as the eye could reach was swarming with squares of infantry intermixed with earthworks thrown up on the slopes, over which peeped the muzzles of muskets ready to deal death and destruction to our dauntless infantry. As we neared the banks of the stream, towards the right of the Russian position, we noticed myriads of Cossacks, supported by a large force of dragoons wearing helmets, who, when they observed us, descended the hills and boldly crossed the stream. This time we quite expected to meet them, but we were again disappointed, as a battery of our artillery was at once pushed forward and placed between us and glory. A clump of houses and haystacks had been set on fire some distance to our left, the smoke of which was intended to hide the enemy's cavalry from the view of our generals, and so enable them to charge upon the left flank and rear of our infantry, just at the moment the latter forded the river. But the artillery, before mentioned, with our brigade ready to dash among them, effectually kept them at bay. During this time the enemy had opened fire on our right, and very soon it extended over the whole length of our line. The infantry were ordered to lie down, and while our artillery replied well to the enemy's fire, we sat on our horses passive observers of all that occurred. An occasional shot dropped in the midst of us, and many rolled harmlessly among our horses' legs. Not a hundred yards from where we formed up was Lord Raglan and staff: the commander-in-chief was evidently getting very anxious, as he continually interrogated an aide-de-camp as to something that was passing on the extreme left of the enemy's position.