Note 229 — Chapter VII · THE INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.

The following extract of a letter written by General Codrington, on September 27th, will be read with interest: “We were borne back, and when I saw we could not long bear up in these groups (from which I could not get them), I sent young Campbell [now Lt.-Col. Hon. H. Campbell, late Coldstream Guards] to the rear to the Battalion of Guards which I saw, to beg them to hurry their advance, otherwise we must lose all we had gained.... I saw the line of Guards coming up, though they were further off than I wished, and than they ought to have been in such a crisis; it was the Fusiliers in my rear to whom I sent, and I tried hard to keep our position, though in our irregular order, till they came; but I could not, the fire was heavy, the men collected in instinctive heaps and were borne back on the advance of the left wing of the Fusiliers, carrying, in fact, three or four companies back with them down the slope to the rocky shelter.... When the two or three companies of the Fusiliers were borne back with us, the right wing went on gallantly.” The losses of this Battalion were very heavy, and amounted to 11 Officers and 170 men during the day. Among the many acts of bravery performed by Officers and men during the crisis, Lieutenant R. Lindsay (now Lord Wantage) gained the Victoria Cross for his intrepid conduct.