Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/229

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REOPENING OF THE SIEGE-GUNS. 199


after scarce more than three-quarters of an hour chap. the batteries it assailed were all but silenced. _ Yet, to mark the ascendant thus swifty obtained by our gunners was under one aspect distressing ; for how could our people help thinking of what might have been the result, if, the right order of operations — the order which placed bombardment first, and next, assaults by our infantry — had not been reversed in the way we observed by the exi- gencies of what we called ' policy ' ? These two onsets against the Redan cost our Losses , resulting people not only the lives of the two commanders from the ~ assaults on who led them— Colonel Yea and General Sir John the Redan. Campbell — but also in killed and wounded G2 other officers, and more than 700 men.* XIV. The ascendant thus promptly obtained by the prospect „ . . , „ ,, , opened by guns of our siege-tram opened room tor the nope the success . , . « . , 7 of the fire that another attack with infantry might soon be from the . . siege-guns. launched against batteries no longer m that prime condition to which the enemy had restored them in the course of the night, but on the contrary crippled by artillery - fire ; and, having in hand the column — still fresh and untouched — that had been formed for an attack on the salient of the Eedan, Lord Raglan proposed to unleash it, if the measure should seem to harmonise with the state of Pelissier's operations on the other side of the

  • Viz., 717, a number including 52 (out of only 120) sailors.

The ' 62 ' includes six naval officers.