| Description | 'I have been on board the Agamemnon now for nearly a week, thanks to a kind friend who took me on board, having found me sitting in an exhausted state on a log of wood on the pier at Balaklava perfectly helpless. The truth is that I have been very ill for the last 3 weeks with dysentery, wasted away to nothing in fact, so I was shoved into an Ambulance packed off to Balaklava to get on board ship anywhere I could. I am now getting better owing to change of air & good living but I have had a hard time of it. We have had another dreadful battle worse by far in the number of killed & wounded than Alma. [Note: This refers to the Battle of Inkerman, 5 Nov 1854, in which Russian losses totalled 12,000, English 2,600 & French 188]. I myself was not much engaged in it, but as the whole thing took place within a quarter of a mile of me. I of course saw everything. These affairs are beginning to be sickening now from their frequency & from the very small results obtained, we always gain the day & kill many more than they do of ours, but we can as ill afford to lose one man as they can fifty. Our poor regiment is reduced to its lowest ebb, there are only now 5 of us in it, the others are either dead or wounded". Mentions a fellow officer, Troubridge, loosing both his legs below the knee from a cannon shot. "He was then the whole day with his legs raised in the air on a powder box to prevent them from bleeding & his feet laying beside him". Couldn't be carried away because of enemy fire. Just as he was being carried on board ship he said to me "This is what is called glory" pointing to his bleeding stumps." Russian dead number 15,000, of which "we buried 5,000 the other day, our own loss is about 2,000". Russians all fresh troops commanded by the Grand Dukes of Michael & Nicholas - "they laugh at the idea of our taking Sebastopol and I do not really think we shall without many more men ... Frank y [his brother] would like Hales 24 pound rockets. The Russians cannot bear them, the noise frightens them so. We have numbers of Turks out here now, but they are of no use as they cannot fight a bit. Remember me to Ben Wyatt & tell him I have got a Russian firelock & Bayonet & Flask full of ammunition which he shall have when I come home; it is one of my Trophies, I took them myself and made the Russian a prisoner. The Russians have got into a shocking habit of bayonetting our wounded. Lord Raglan has sent into Sebastopol to know from Prince Menschikoff on what footing the war is to be carried on & if quarter is to be given saying that till the other day he always fancied he was fighting with a civilised nation. This would make them very angry as their great object is to show that they are not barbarians.' |