186 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1697 put out the white flag

Passages from the diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries : A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699"

186 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1697

put out the white flag. Though this seems to he a very extraordinary and uncommon method
of taking towns, yet here it proved very successful and safe, the loss of men during the siege
not amounting to above three hundred. According to General Gordon's plan, there were con-
stantly twelve thousand men at work, who threw the earth from hand to hand, like so many
steps of a stair. The greatest danger was at the top, the earth being so loose, especially as they
advanced nearer the town, that the enemy's small shot killed and wounded several; for which
cause, they were relieved every half hour, the uppermost rank falling down and becoming the
lowermost, and so on. There were strong guards kept on the right and left, as also in the
rear. About the twentieth of June, a body of ten thousand Turks and Tartars, by break of day,
endeavoured to pierce the lines and force their way into the town, but were repulsed with con-
siderable loss, and so closely pursued by the Russian cavalry, Cossacks and Calmucks, that
most of them were cut to pieces. The only officer of distinction the Czar lost during this siege
was one Colonel Stevenson, a Scots gentleman. He was shot in the mouth, being a little too
curious, and raising himself too high on the top of the loose earth to observe the enemy. He
died of hunger, the eleventh day after he received the wound, not being able to swallow any
kind of nourishment. He was a good officer, and much regretted by the Czar, who caused bury
him with all the honours of war. On the twenty-eighth of June, the Governor demanded to
capitulate. . . . They marched out of the town about six thousand persons, whereof three
thousand and six hundred were armed men.'*

The Muscovite army returned in triumph to Moscow on the ninth of October. Eewards were
bestowed on the victorious generals, and Gordon received a medal worth six ducats, a gold
cup, a costly robe of sables, and an estate with ninety serfs.

A.D. 1697.

It was in this year that the Czar set out on his travels through Western Europe, leaving
Gordon as second to the General-in-Chief, Schein, in the charge of the military affairs of the

• History of Peter the Great, vol. i., pp. one another's way, they shovelled the earth
107-110. Aberdeen, 1755. quite from the bottom on the outside, or off-
Gordon's engineering device is described side of the said fence, or bank, and kept
by an earlier writer: 'The garrison finding throwing it over at the top, to that side next
themselves wholly disappointed of their hopes the town, where it rolled and tumbled still
of relief, and the siege having been vigorously inwards; so that, by this method, in little
carried on, chiefly under the conduct of Gene- more than a fortnight's time, they advanced
ral Gordon, a worthy and ingenious North these banks or walls of eaith (which were
Briton, who, on this occasion, to facilitate his much higher than the enemies' bastions) within
approaches, had kept rolling forwards a great half musket-sliot of the walls of the town,
fence, or bank of earth, at several places, of until the cannon from the several batteries at
that height that the same looked into the town other places had continued playing, and made
over the fortifications ; so that no man could several breaches in the walls of the town,
stir in tlie day-time but they shot him down The enemy finding themselves thus every way
from behind the top of these banks ; which distressed by the most surprising and vigorous
they began first, and raised at some distance behaviour of the Czar and his arni\', and no
from the walls of the town, out of the reach of prospect of the relief which they had expected
the enemies' fire from their small-arms; and by their fleet, they were obliged to surrender.'
by great numbers of men, which the Kusses —(The State of Russia, under the present Czar,
relieved every four hours, and employed as by Captain John Perry, pp. 148, 149. Lond,
thick as they could stand, without being in 1716,)