No Failure for the North

21 and Commander-in-Chief.” With equal discrimination, Sir James Simpson was created Field-Marshal! The remainder of the campaign gave General Codrington no further opportunity of displaying his qualities for command. No other important action occurred before the termination of hostilities. Great credit is certainly due to Mr. Russell for fearlessly exposing the errors and incompetency of the three officers successively at the head of the English army, in spite of “ much obloquy, vituperation, and injustice,” and for bearing his invariable and eloquent testimony to the bravery, endurance, and patience of the British private soldier. In this brief recital of English blunders during the Crimean war, we have made no mention of the desperate and disastrous “ charge of the light brigade,” the gross and culpable inefficiency of the Baltic fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and other instances of military incapacity no less monstrous. Enough, however, has been told to more than justify the very mild summing-up of Mr. Russell, that the “ war had exposed the weakness of our military organization in the grave emergencies of a winter campaign, and the canker qf a long peace was unmistakably manifested in our desolated camps and decimated battalions.” Why should we add to this dismal recital the appalling suf fering of the soldiers—helpless victims to bad management at home and shameful neglect in the field—-the long, freezing nights of trench-work under a driving rain, “ without ^arm or water-proof clothing—the trenches two and three feet deep with mud, snow, and half-frozen slush, so that many, when they took off their shoes, were unable to get their swollen feet into them again, and might be seen barefooted about the camp, the snow half a foot deep on the ground,” creeping for shelter into “ miserable tents pitched as it were at the bottom of a marsh, where twelve or fourteen unhappy creatures lay soaking without change of clothing,” until they were called out again to their worse than slave labor—disease, brought on by exhaustion, exposure, overwork, and deficient food, sweeping the men off" by thousands, and yet no sufficient supply of medical stores and no adequate number ot medical attendants, not a soul seeming to cure tor their comfort or even for their lives—so neglected

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