Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/199

GENERAL CAMPBELL'S ATTACK. 169 Fifty soldiers carrying wool-bags;* chap. Sixty soldiers and sixty sailors bearing, all of 1_ them, ladders ; The ' main column ' or ' storming party ' with a strength of 400 men drawn from the 57th Eegi- ment. Thus, besides its attendant Engineers and bear- ers of wool-bags and ladders, the force comprised 500 bayonets. The 'reserve,' under Colonel Lord West, drew its men from the 21st Fusiliers and the 17th Regiment, and had a strength of 800. The commander, General Sir John Campbell, placed himself at the head of his ' main column,' or ' storming party/ and directed that the so- called reserve should follow in close support. The Engineer officer trusted to pilot the column was Lieutenant Murray, and the one at the head of the ' ladder-party ' was he of whose growing fame we spoke in an earlier page — the then young lieutenant, now General Sir Gerald Graham. Supposing the Great Eedan and its neighbour- No means ,.. . ... . . ii-i enabling "the mg baueries to be still m the crushed, silenced column to state to which our great guns had reduced them chosen point i • • 7 i ii * -i i of attack. on the previous evening, the bulk of the column thus organised might perhaps have been able to traverse the interval of 470 yards which divided it from the object of attack without ceasing at the end of the march to be a highly fit instrument for carrying the western flank of the Great Redan
 * For fiHine the ditch.