28 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER 



afford, as he is a brave old soldier with the energy and courage 

 of a lion. General Strangways, of the Artillery, is also a great 

 loss. On the whole, the "butcher's bill" is more heavy than 

 that at Alma, though the battle will be productive of very little 

 effect, as we were merely maintaining a position, and, I am 

 afraid, will bring us no nearer the end of our woes, viz. the 

 taking of Sebastopol. The loss of our Colonel is greatly felt in 

 the regiment, the more so as his successor is very unpopular, 

 being a great martinet, and having only lately come into the 

 regiment. He had the great bad taste, if it should not be called 

 by a worse name, to assemble the men the morning after the 

 battle where they had fought so bravely, and before the late 

 Colonel was buried, to tell them that they were a most undis- 

 ciplined, disorderly set, but that now he had the honour to com- 

 mand them he was going to make all sorts of reforms, etc., etc. 

 . . . However deficient the medical arrangements might have 

 been at Alma (and they were undoubtedly so), things were done 

 here admirably, and I think that, considering the circumstances, 

 no one can find fault. The ambulance waggons (which had not 

 arrived in time for Alma) were most useful, and it is almost 

 unprecedented that before night the whole of the wounded 

 (nearly 600 in this division alone) were removed from the field, 

 deposited in their respective hospitals, and (I can answer for all 

 those in our own regiment at least) their wounds attended to. 



We had great work ; in fact, I have not had a minute to 

 spare since, and am now obliged to write in a great hurry. I 

 am sanguinary-minded enough rather to have enjoyed this last 

 two days, especially as I got the opportunity of performing 

 several amputations which, I am happy to say, went off with 

 great eclat and complete success. At all events, wounds are 

 more satisfactory to treat than sickness, where so little can be 

 done with many lying in tents without proper warmth or diet 

 or anything requisite for their recovery ; under such circum- 

 stances medicines can be of very little good. We shall be 

 relieved of the greater part of this sudden influx of work 

 to-morrow, as the wounded are going down to Balaclava on 

 their way to Scutari. . . . 



The heads of the medical departments do not seem to have 



