3-021-455 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Crimea Revisited: Cathcart Hill, 1869. 'General Cathcart, who fell at Inkerman, gave his name to this spot...It is possible that this hill, with its commanding position, was an outlying work of the defences of ancient Cherson [Kherson], the city which preceded Sebastopol; and it may have been the chief point of some previous contest between the old Powers that waged war against each other in the Crimea. In the spring and summer of 1855, as the war went on, the graves on this hill were multiplied. It never was a strictly exclusive burial-ground, but it came to bear the character of a kind of Walhalla, or place of heroes. It was the central point of the camp of the Fourth Division; but Generals from other divisions were also buried here, and officers of the Guards were removed from Inkerman to this spot. Every visitor came to Cathcart Hill and looked upon the siege of Sebastopol from this point of view. Here lay, meantime, the illustrious dead; and before our army left the Crimea a good strong wall was put round the place, with a door to the north...there is a Maltese cross in copper on it. In the extreme distance may be seen the French cemetery; nearer are the ruins of the huts of the Fourth Division'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.