CAMP NEAR BALAKLAVA
11th June 1854

Dear Father and Mother,
I write these few lines to you hoping they will find you in good health as thanks to Almighty God this leaves me since I last wrote you.
There have been some tremendoes hot work going on between the Allied armies and the Russians.
The first an army of 60,000 of the allies marched and took possession of the whole of Balakalava plain to the black river or Thernaetea and drove the enemy more round to the north side. In this oppertuinity our people took 2 batteries with very trifling losses so that now we have an army in the field as well as the siege army, the Sardinean troops take the right, Turks the centre and the french the left of the army whilst our marines and a few others keep the fortified hills.
In addition to this Sir Geo Brown went out with a force 15,000 which force qwith a portion of the allied fleet took possession of Kertch without loss, a very important place which gives our fleet ingress to sea of Azoff, they took their 100 guns and caused a large powder manufacturing to be destroyed, since then in the sea od Azoff they have taken a destroyed 4 war steamers, 252 other vessals, several forts etc stores etc etc, to amount of £150,000 and they have destroyed provisions destined for the Russian army that would have supplied the Russians with grub for 4 months.
Our division of Artillery (the 1st) now under the command of Lt.Col Taylor have marched from before Sebastopol to near Kamara to join the army in the field, we are fully equiped with men and horses etc but I am sorry to add that Cholera has broken out among us and has carried off nine of our Battery, most of them young men only just arrived from England, the other Battery was more unfortunate than us and a company just come out with a ball cartridge brigade attached to our division was completly disabled, the sickness was dreadfull among then and I am sorry to add took a great number of them off, we marched again to near Balaklava where I am happy to say the sicknes has abated, yesterday one of our men was killed in the trenches at sebastopol, poor fellow he was one of my best numbers when in action at the different engagements we have been in, he was blown to pieces by the explosion of a canistor of powder with which he was serving his gun out of, another man of our Company also very severly wounded beside four others by the same explosion. The siege I must tell you opened again the latter end of last week with more that ordinary fury, the firing was kept up at a tremendoes rate until saturday when the infantry moved to front once more and after a desperate action kept possession of the Mamelon a large fortified hill on the right of the malakoff a position of the greatest importance to us all as it has been to the Russians, in addition to this at the same time the struggle was going on in the Mamelon another force took possession of the Quarantine Battery and the remainder of the rifle pits, so now we have the whole of the rifle pits in our possession so that Gunners can work their Guns with much more safety as they cant so easily be picked off by the Russian rifles.
I am sorry to say this affair has cost some valuable lives for the lists of killed and wounded are very great, the Russians hoisted a flag of truce for permission to bury their numerous dead which was awful according to the accounts I hear, I leave you guess when Lord Raglan gave them 5 hours and they had thousands of men at work at it during this last affair, they still remainas very active operations are going on, the firing has nearly ceased for 3 days to enable the French to throw up Batteries on the Mamelon etc, they open again on the 13th when Russian will catch it much worse than ever.
The town during the last operation is near shattered to atoms, I really think Lord raglan means taking the the place now if he has to do it inch by inch, which the Russians seem determined to defend by the same rules.

my Love to all
Your affectionate Son
Tom (Sgt)
A Field Battery, 1st Division, Royal Artillery, Camp near Balaklava, Crimea

PS I hope you received and forwarded the letter I sent for my brother in New Zealand.