CHAPTER XIX.

THE BURIAL TRUCE.

RUSSIAN NIGHT-ATTACK OF MARCH 22D-BLOODY CONFLICT BETWEEN FRENCH AND RUSSIANS-THE BURIAL TRUCE-STRANGE SPECTACLETHE ALBANIAN LEADER-DESCRIPTION OF THE RIFLE-PITS-RUSSIAN OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS DESCRIBED NEAR VIEW OF SEBASTOPOL HOSTILITIES RESUMED-THE RAILWAY-AN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH ESTABLISHED RECAPITULATION-THE GREAT IF-DISHEARTENING PROS

PECTS OF THE RUSSIANS-EFFECTS OF THE CZAR'S DEATH.

THE advanced trenches of our right attack met the advanced parallel of the French in front of the Mammelon in the ravine, which at this point is broken by the numerous small quarries, or rather commencements of quarries. The ravine, passing on through the intrenchment, sweeps round to the left between our attacks and Malakoff, and runs into the great ravine of Sebastopol.

A night-attack in great force was made by the Russians on the 22d, caused, as was afterward reported, by the return of the Grand Duke Michael to the fortress. The principal body of the assailants advanced up the ravine aforesaid, and along the ground in front of the Mammelon, occupied during the day by their riflemen, while others, crossing the ravine, entered the advanced. trenches of our right and left attacks. An Albanian, who had frequently headed sorties from the garrison, led the enemy assailing our right. The night was extremely dark, with a strong southerly wind blowing toward the enemy, and assisting to con

ceal their approach. Leaping into the trench, they were at first taken for Frenchmen, and greeted as such; but the nearest man of ours being bayoneted, the working party occupying the trench perceived their error, and, seizing their arms, at once met the assailants. The Greek leader of the Russians shot Captain Browne, of the 7th Fusileers, with his pistol, and was immediately killed himself. Captain Vicars, 97th, forming his men, called on them to charge, and they leaped over the parapet, drove back the enemy, and pursued them down the slope, where Vicars fell mortally wounded. The Russians took with them our men's intrenching tools and fifteen prisoners, among whom were Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly, 34th, and Captain Montague, R.E. The latter was captured on our left attack, where also the enemy was repelled at once. Major Gordon, R.E., who had been charged throughout the siege with the conduct of the right attack, and who was always conspicuously careless in exposing himself to fire, received, while standing on the outside of the trench, two bullets, one in his hand, the other in his arm.

Meantime the attack on the French had been, after an obstinate resistance from a party of Zouaves, partially successful, and the guards of the trenches were driven out of the advanced parallels into one of the boyaux communicating with it, while the enemy occupied, and began to destroy, an advanced boyau which the French were pushing toward the most troublesome rifle-pits, as well as a part of the parapet of the parallel. The struggle, in which several thousand men were engaged on each side, was very close and desperate. Eventually the Russians retired, leaving a great number of dead, and having inflicted severe loss on their opponents, whose killed and wounded were reported to amount to four hundred and fifty.

A truce was agreed on for the purpose of burying the dead, to commence at half an hour after noon on the 24th. At that time

a number of officers had collected at different points commanding a view of the Russian works, awaiting the concerted signal of the pause in hostilities. At noon the firing had almost ceased, and, at the appointed hour, a white flag was elevated over the Mammelon, while one appeared simultaneously in each of the French and English works, when those who had been watching for it at once streamed down the hill to the scene of contest. The spectacle that followed was one of the strangest that had occurred during the campaign.

The

While we went down the slope to the ravine, the French burial-parties advanced from their trenches, and hundreds of Russians came out from behind the Mammelon, and approached our works, some of them bearing stretchers. Passing through the interval in our rearmost intrenchment where it crosses the ravine, we first saw a small heap of bodies, six Russians and two Frenchmen, lying on the side of the hill, having probably fallen within the French lines, and been collected there during the preceding night. At the point where the advanced trench meets ours, the ravine is, as I have before said, very rugged and broken, and those who had ridden down left their horses there. first object I saw there was the body of the Albanian leader, who had fallen in our trenches, borne by four of our men on a stretcher to the outside of the parapet, where it was received by Russian soldiers. It had been partially stripped, and covered again with his white kilt and other drapery, leaving his feet bare, as also his breast, on which, as on Count Lara's, appeared the scars of several old wounds. In a deep gully, below the verge of our slope of the hill, lay a Russian on his back. He had been wounded in the neck, and had lain there since the night before last, suffering and alone, on a bed of loose stones, with his head, which he had pillowed on his forage-cap, lower than his body. Judging from his aspect, his case was by no means desperate.

His comrades,

at the call of our men, who discovered him, flocked round and carried him off. I crossed the broken ground, which was sprinkled with dead, to the opposite side of the ravine, in front of the French parallel, where a crowd of Russian and French officers and soldiers were intermixed, with a good many English officers as spectators. The French had drawn all the Russian bodies outside their lines, where they were collected in one heap, in a spot between the French trenches and the Russian rifle-pits. Some of these latter were semicircular trenches, five or six yards in extent, with the earth thrown up in front, surmounted by a row of sand-bags, and capable of holding nine or ten men; some of them small screens of stone, or of a couple of gabions filled with earth, behind which a single rifleman was hid. The nearest French and Russian sharp-shooters were about seventy yards asunder. The French seemed to think it necessary to guard against surprise or breach of faith on the part of the Russians, and kept their trenches strongly manned, while armed parties were drawn up outside.

The Russian officers not employed in the burial duty, mixed with the French, chatting, and exchanging cigars. The soldiers of the enemy looked dirty and shabby, but healthy and well fed. Most of them were of larger frame than the French, while the English surpassed both in size and stature; the countenances of the Russians, short and broad, with thick projecting lips, pugnose, and small eyes, betokened a low order of intellect, cunning and obstinate. Many, both officers and men, wore orders and medals. Between these groups passed and repassed the burialparties, lifting each grim gory figure from its face or back, placing it on a stretcher, and bearing it, with the dead legs swinging and dragging, and the arms vibrating stiffly to the steps of the bearers, to be added to the dreadful assembly. Not one of those looking on could feel secure that in the next twenty-four hours

he would not be as one of these. About half-way between the Mammelon and the French lines was a large rifle-pit like a small field work, and near this lay another heap of bodies, probably collected by the Russians during the night. Behind, at four hundred and fifty yards distant from us, rose the Mammelon, its battery surmounted by the white flag, and the parapet lined with spectators. Next, on the left, as we looked, separated by a level space of five hundred yards across, stood the Malakoff hill, with its ruined tower, surrounded by earthen batteries; and to our left of that, between it and the Redan, appeared the best built portion of the city, jutting out into the harbor. These were seen so close that the main features of the streets and buildings were distinguishable-large barracks and other public buildings, with their long regular rows of windows, arched or square; the green cupola of a large church; and, on a high point, amid well-built houses, a handsome edifice surrounded by a colonnade like a Greek temple. In front of the large barrack was a dark line, seen through a glass to be a body of troops, and the telescope also revealed people walking about the streets, the arrangement of the gardens, and the effect of our fire upon the town, the roofs of the houses being broken through, and the walls thickly dotted with marks of shot. The masts of the inner line of ships sunk across the large harbor were plainly visible-one or two small boats were sailing about inside the obstacle.

Crossing the ravine to the front of our right attack, I found the Russian dead, to the number (as one of the men employed in conveying them told me) of about forty, already removed. Altogether, judging from those who had fallen in our lines, and the bodies I had seen in front of the French, the Russians must have had four hundred killed in this attack. As soon as the bodies were all conveyed within the Russian line of rifle-pits, cordons of sentries were drawn across the space between; nevertheless