light division, consisting of the 7th, 23d, and 33d regiments, very gallantly led by General Codrington, advancing up the slope under a terrible fire of musketry, pressed into the epaulment before the guns were withdrawn, and Captain Bell of the 23d running up to a driver who was urging his horses out of the fight, the man dismounted and ran away, and the gun was taken. But the Russian battalions were as yet too numerous, and their fire from the breastwork and the slope behind it too close and heavy for the regiments assailing them, and the brigade, with a loss of six hundred killed and wounded, was compelled to retire down the slope, and re-form under cover of the attack of the first division, which had been led across the river by the Duke of Cambridge to support them. The Fusileer Guards, going up to the breastwork with a cheer, retook and kept possession of the gun; the 33d and 95th came to the support of the 7th; the 19th and 47th also advanced; and after a terrible slaughter the Russians were driven back. The 55th and 30th regiments coming up on the right of the 95th, drove back the enemy in their own front; and the three brigades, viz.,. Pennefather's of the second division, Codrington's of the light division, and the Guards, formed line on the ground they had won.

At this time Wodehouse's battery, which had been limbered up, and led across the river by Lieut.-Colonel Dacres when the Russian guns ceased firing, came up on the right of the 30th regiment. The slopes in front were still covered with the enemy's skirmishers, obstinately contesting the ground with our own, and giving way, if at all, very slowly. Over the heights, behind the contested battery, the helmets of a Russian column might be seen; and presently the solid mass, apparently about two thousand strong, marched over the hill, and began to descend toward the British line. A shell from a gun, laid by Colonel Dacres himself before the gun detachment came up, dropped

among the Russian skirmishers; the other guns, coming up in succession, opened their fire on the column, and struck it every time. Franklin's and Anderson's batteries, crossing the river, came up and opened on the left, and Paynter's followed; and the column, after marching about fifty yards down the hill, halted, turned about, and, disappearing over the crest, was seen no more. At this time some guns were brought to bear upon another còlumn which halted in a ravine on the right, quite close to where the French skirmishers were pressing along the heights, and apparently at a loss what to do, presented a somewhat puzzling aspect; insomuch that Sir De Lacy Evans twice stopped our fire, under the impression that the column was French, and sent a staff-officer to the nearest French regiment to inquire. But, it being presently apparent that a French column would not be in front of their own skirmishers, and some bullets from the troops in question beginning to drop into the battery, where they wounded a sergeant, the guns reopened and dispersed them; and there being none but fugitives now within sight, the batteries limbered up, and advanced in pursuit.

The battle, it will be seen, had thus rolled back to the right rear of the Russians. On the extreme right of their original position, at the top of the heights, was a battery behind an epaulment, with a flank for seven guns, thrown back to prevent the right being turned. The brigade of Highlanders being on the left of the British line, found themselves, when the first division crossed the river, directly in front of this battery, which, before it followed the other guns in their retreat, poured upon them, during their advance, a heavy but ill-directed fire, doing them but little damage. At the top of the hill they met some battalions of the enemy still showing a front, and compelled them to retreat with the loss of a good many men; and two troops of horse-artillery, which had crossed the river higher up, coming

into action, plunged into the retreating masses with great effect. Thus ended the battle of the Alma. The Russians might still be seen withdrawing in masses across the plain; but the troops, French and English, halted on the ground they had won; and the batteries, six in number, which, by advancing, had placed themselves at the apex of two irregular lines, found themselves with nothing between them and the enemy. Some withdrew behind the third division, which, together with part of the light, had been moved to the front, and others were covered by a detachment posted for the purpose on the plain.

In the advance, an officer of Wodehouse's battery, Lieutenant Richards, took prisoner a Russian general, whose horse had thrown him, and who was trying to hide himself. While he was seated on a gun-limber, Lord Raglan rode up and questioned him. In reply, he said that the number of the Russians was about fifty thousand; that they did not expect we should ever take the position; and added that they had come to fight men, and not devils, as our red-coats seemed to be. When taken on board ship, he complained that one of his captors had deprived him of his silver snuff-box. Inquiry was made, and the artilleryman who had it gave it up; but it certainly seems no more than reasonable to expect that, if people choose to take such articles into action, they should submit to lose them with a good grace.

Two guns were taken, but the principal trophy was Prince Menschikoff's carriage, with his papers. In one dispatch the general assures the Czar that the position selected on the Alma must detain the Allies at least three weeks, and that he confidently hoped it would be found altogether impregnable. It was taken in three hours.

But the Russian general did not overrate the strength of his position; his mistake was in his estimate of the troops who were to assail it. It would be difficult to find a position more defens

ible in itself, and almost impossible to select another equally strong, where the ground in front is so favorable to the artillery fire of the defenders, and so devoid of all shelter from it. However, one other position as strong, or even stronger, exists on the river Katcha, five miles distant from the Alma, on which we expected to find the Russians had fallen back.

Two men of literary celebrity witnessed the action-Mr. Layard, who saw it from the ships, and the author of Eothen, who rode with Lord Raglan's staff throughout the day.

CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE FIELD.

A WOUNDED RUSSIAN-THE DEAD AROUND THE SIGNAL-TOWER-THE RUSSIAN BREASTWORK AND ITS VICTIMS-HOSPITALS AND SURGEONS-LIEUT. COCKERELL-REMOVAL OF THE DEAD AND WOUNDED-MEMENTOES OF THE BATTLE-THE GENEROUS DRUMMER-MONUMENT ERECTED BY THE FRENCH IN COMMEMORATION OF THE BATTLE.

GOING out of our camp next morning, to see where our own division lay, I heard a moaning on my right, on the bank of one of the ravines we had fired up the preceding day. Proceeding toward the sound, I found it came from a wounded Russian, who had made a pillow of the corpse of a brother soldier which lay on its back, its breast pierced, and left arm broken by a round shot. Beside these lay two other soldiers, one alive, wounded in the head, and resting, like the other sufferer, on a comrade's corpse, which lay on its face. The first man, by signs and words, earnestly begged for water, which was brought him, and a surgeon coming up, examined his wounds. The flesh of both his thighs had been torn away; he was too badly injured to be moved, or even relieved otherwise than by trying to make him comfortable as he lay; and next morning it was a relief to hear that he had died in the night. On the knoll around were about a dozen wounded men, who had lain there all night in torment, and to whom our soldiers now afforded a temporary relief.

The sides of the ravine, or rather gully, were sprinkled all the