2-913-578 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Siege Operations at Chatham - Springing a Mine, 1854. Military exercises in Kent, attended by Prince Albert. 'A column of the 34th then advanced from Gillingham Tower under a heavy fire from the 32 pounders in the battery. The Artillery and Marines occupying the battery ultimately retired after destroying it by mines, which exploded most effectually, blowing some guns off their carriages, and covering others with the earth thrown up. A stockade and several mines were then blown up by a voltaic battery. The defence of ditches of a fortified place against an assault by rockets, forgasses, hand-grenades, live shells, musketry, and pierriers, was the last operation, followed by the mode of throwing a body of troops with artillery across a river, upon raits of cylindrical and india-rubber pontoons. The proximity of the river Medway rendered this experiment peculiarly interesting'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.