Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/242

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198 THE J5ATTL1': OV INKEKMAN. CHAP. VI. 2d Period from the 4Ui D'vision. The waste (if power caused by drawing these succours to the Kitspur. then nunaiucd willi him on the Kn<^li,sli Heights comprised less than 400 men.* From those troops of the 4th Division which ah-eady had reached Mount Inkerman, there was drawn for the fight on the Kitspur one wing of the 1st Rifle battalion under Colonel Horsford, followed soon by one wing of the 20th Regiment under Colonel Crofton. So, altogether, three wings were severed from three weak battalions to sustain the fight on the Kitspur. No help that such succours might bring to that outlying part of the field could at all countervail the harm done by thus maiming three organised bodies, and drawing away half of each from what was the true field of action. The 95th was a regiment of such mettle as to be in its entirety a force of great worth, though numbering scarce more than 400 ; t the Rifles, counting only 270, were still a famous battalion, and one on which Cathcart relied with an almost enthusiastic trustfulness ; I the 20th Regiment, with its strength of only 340, and armed with the smooth-bore musket, was yet of so high a quality that it had justly been looked to as a force which might govern the crisis in any fight undertaken for the defence

  • See Appendix, Note VII. It was not till a later moment

that the right wing of the 21st and the 63d Regiment took post on tliis ground, and that the four companies of the 77th were brought from the left to strengthen the defence of the Home Ridge. t 443. X He presented the battalion to Pennefatber as one which could ' do anything. '