Christmas in the Crimea: George Waller

Camp before Sebastopol, January 6th 1855

Sketch of two mules; "means of transport in the Crimea", February 1855.
Warwickshire County Record Office reference CR0341/324/12A .

My dear Father

 I received your letter of the 21st November. I hope that you all spent a happy Christmas. I have no doubt you did, I suppose that you had a good snowy cheerful day. We had a beautiful cold frosty day and as I came off the trenches in the morning I had all day and night following in camp which was very jolly.

We had great fun making our Christmas dinner. We got a lot of flour, suet and raisins at Balaklava the day before as well as a turkey and as we happened to get a bit of fresh beef served out to us for rations we got on very well. You cannot think what a splendid Plum Pudding we made. It was worthy of any English cook and the turkey was most exemplary, stuffed not with chestnuts but with biscuit and almond. On the whole we had a very jolly evening.

You will no doubt be surprised at my talking so much about our dinner but here it is the great treat of the day for some times we cannot get up a fire, in fact almost all our comfort depends on the weather.

Last night we had a very heavy fall of snow and it is very cold today. I shall have to spend the night in the trenches. However, I daresay I shall get into some Magazine or other. We had great fun the other day at one of the batteries. There were some Russian about 850 or 900 yards off behind a lot of stones and about half a dozen of us got rifles and peppered away at these Russians.

Give my love to Mama, Adolphus and sisters and

Believe me to remain Your Ever Affectionate Son

G H Waller

Warwickshire County Record Office reference CR341/324/8

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