2-969-997 - /Heritage Images

Crimean Heroes and Trophies, at Woolwich - from a photograph by J. Cundall and R. Howlett, 1856. '...Company Sergeant Christy (sitting), and Sergeant Samuel McGifford, both of the 4th Battalion, served throughout the siege of Sebastopol, and...luckily escaped without injury. The pictures, which they have converted into banners, were taken by these worthies from one of the churches of Sebastopol, where they decorated the wall. One picture is of St. Michael, the other of St. George and the Dragon. They are painted in a thoroughly Byzantine style, and in parts are illuminated with gold....The lad, William Lang, was barely thirteen years old when he first heard the whistling of cannon-balls on the banks of the Alma...He sounded his trumpet at Balaclava, at lnkerman, and during the whole siege of Sebastopol...This boy, now fifteen years old, returns...decorated...the youngest but not the least gallant hero of the war'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.