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Another Account. The following extracts are from a second letter to his father from Thomas Brazier, a private in the 4th Regiment, serving in the Crimea, and which in point of date should here have taken precedence of Whyborn’s, it having been written while the battle was in progress. The extracts are thus:-
- “I write these few lines, hoping they will find you in good health, as I am myself at present, thank God for it, only that I hurt my leg last night in the trench by a stone that was struck by the enemy’s shot. It will soon be well as it is only a bruise. If it had not been for that I should not have had time to write to you; for, at this moment the regiment, and indeed, the whole army are engaged with the enemy within four hundred yards of where I am writing. We have the enemy in rear of us now as well as in front, there being a large army come from Odessa or somewhere else to the other’s assistance. But our army has received them manfully. Our own regiment is right under the walls of Sebastopol, where we have been fighting these twenty days. If you had been here this fifth of November you would have seen enough fireworks without squibs, for this has been the greatest day of all. The enemy came on the right division before daylight, and thought to surprise us, but it was no go. Our fellows were up and at them before they knew where they were. But, dear father, I must tell you with pain and sorrow that many a brave man who saw the sun rise this morning is now in death. Even while the sun is going down they are still fighting fiercely, and may God Almighty bless them! ... This is not so comfortable a place to be at as in a town at home, for it is dreadfully cold, and we have five nights out of six in the trench. We do not take off our belts, nor let our firelocks go out of our hands, for we never know when the enemy may come upon us. I must ask you to look at the newspaper, as they can tell you more than I can how things are going on. All I can say is that we have had three times as much fighting today as we had at the Alma, and we expect the same tommorow(sic).... Give my kindest love to mother, and may God ever bless her! Tell her that the fighting doesn’t frighten me, nor does it any soldier in the British army. All we wish the Russians to do is to come out from behind their stone walls and we will then soon settle them.... Thomas Brazier.
A Third Account. Copy of a second letter from W. J. Edwards, an artilleryman, to his father, a tradesman at St. Leonards.
- “Camp, near Sebastopol, Nov. 6, 1854. My dear father, I take this favourable op-
