FIERCE FIGHTING ON THE BORDER

 

DEADLY STRUGGLE FOR SHALPH RIDGE 

An illustrated eye witness report! 

Desperate defense of a wood behind our left flank by Oberhilse riflemen against Voltigeurs and veteran militia light infantry. It was afternoon before our lads were able to push forward.

Our attack was widely discussed as being planned as a surprise dawn attack and we were expecting to seize the hill and march our army through the woods via the woods road and deploy to fight the enemy in the open. Rumour had it that their forces on this front were quite weak, as ours had been before the two battalions of volunteer Fusiliers had been recalled to active service. 

However, our talk may have been overheard by the wrong people and the information passed on.

We were not expecting any enemy reinforcements to arrive before noon but they must have marched all night, as an observer in the Newport News hot air balloon, dropped a message: "They are here". 

Archive photo fm 2010 post 

They were there right enough, by the time our troops had stormed the hills, a second line had formed. Worse than that, the enemy Volunteers in the centre had managed to hold the Veteran Royal Fusiliers until the Lafayette Volunteers arrived to support them.  The fighting raged for hours until the roar of musketry, canon fire and the wooosh-BOOM of our rockets made it hard to think.  

The Royal Fusiliers being led by their Brigadier in a charge which would have swept the hill if the Grey's Brigadier hadn't risked his life to steady them..

Ed note: Fighting is still ongoing but our correspondent had to send this dispatch or he would have missed the evening paper.  Which ever way the battle goes, we will have the news tonight and the results for you in tomorrow's edition.  

( PS: Don't forget to 'click' once on the pictures to see a larger view of the pictures or twice to get an even larger one.)