'The New Works at the Siege of Sebastopol on the Right Attack, from the Mortar Battery on the right of Gordon's Battery'

Coloured tinted lithograph by J Needham, from 'The Seat of War in the East - First Series' after William Simpson, published by Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, 24 May 1855.

In the spring of 1855 the British brought up to the batteries before Sevastopol a number of 13-inch mortars. With their high trajectory they seemed ideal for lobbing bombs at buildings within the town. Major-General William Codrington, who commanded a brigade of the Light Division throughout the Crimean War (1854-1856), in a letter written home on 19 April, seems to be unconvinced about the usefulness of these mortars: 'These big mortars have not been of half the power which was anticipated - the weight and recoil is so heavy that the platforms are very much shaken, and thus destroy the correctness of fire; and the buildings are so large that even a hole made by a shell is like a pin in appearance. It is better to send them at the Works.'