104 THE ENEMY'S GREAT NIGHT ATTACK. chap, and — not confused by the darkness, not putting ! — a weak trust in cartridges — proved able to drive off the masses one after another by simply the use of the bayonet. To this wise appreciation of feats which, al- though, it is true, taking place in very small spheres of action, were not the less fraught with good proof of the quality of our officers and men, the Queen was pleased to respond in gracious words of approval.* Comments Still, of course, the great, dominant feature of on the . , great sortie the engagements which the enemy undertook on a-ainst the the night of the 22d of March was his attack French. ° delivered in darkness against the French ' ap- ' proaches ' with 5500 men. Tested simply by what it effected, or avowedly sought to effect, a night attack of this kind might be made to seem almost trivial. What, however, prevented the enterprise from ranging with those petty sorties which I do not undertake to record was the strangely great number of troops that the enemy engaged in his venture, and the car- nage his effort involved. Moving out into dark- ness with several thousands of men, he inflicted, it is true, on the French a loss of 600 in killed,
- Lord Raglan's means of informing himself on this subject
were impaired by losses of officers ; and with the materials before me, I have been prevented from adopting some of his conclusions. His reports are contained in despatches to the Secretary of State of the 24th and 27th March (published), and in a private letter of the 24th to Lord Pan mure. The Official Record of the combats by the Royal Engineers is in Part II. of the Journal, p. 94.
