Sergeant Major Samuel Cole, Royal Sappers & Miners later Captain Quarter Master, RE (QM Lt. 23 April 1873 and QM Capt. 23 April 1883[1] As a Private in the 2nd Company of the Royal Sappers and Miner he was present in the Baltic at the Capture of Bomarsund (medal). With the 2nd Company of the Royal Sappers and Miners he also served in the Crimea at the Siege and Capture of Sebastolpol (medal and clasp) where he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the 5th Class of the Legion of Honour. He was commissioned Quarter Master Lieutenant 23 April 1873 and retired a Quartermaster Captain from the Royal Engineers.

In the photograph he is in the uniform of a Sergeant Major of the Royal Engineers c. 1872. The tunic is scarlet with blue velvet facing and gold lace. The trousers are blue. His shoulder boards are gold lace RE officers pattern. His forage cap is with gold lace and is on the table by his right hand. The six medals from left to right, are the Baltic Medal, the 5th Class of the French Legion of Honour, the Crimea Medal with the clasp Sebastopol, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the Turkish Crimea Medal, and the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

RECORD OF SERVICES OF QUARTERMASTER S. COLE, DCM, R.E. [2]

Service.—Upwards of 33 years. April 1850, to July, 1854, at home. July, 1854, to October, 1854, Baltic Campaign. October, 1854, to August, 1856, Crimean Campaign. August, 1856, to November, 1858, Gibraltar November, 1858, to August, 1863, at home. August, 1863, to July, 1866, Hong Kong. July, 1866, to January, 1868, Mauritius. January, 1868, to July, 1868, Cape of Good Hope. July, 1868, home.

Campaigns, &c.—Baltic Campaign; Siege and capture of Bomarsund, and other forts, 1854—6. Crimean Campaign; Siege and capture of Sebastopol, 1854—6. Wounded slightly twice, but not recorded.

Mentioned in General and Brigade Orders 8th June, 1855. Awarded gratuities twice. Promoted Corporal 10th June, 1855; Serjeant 29th November, 1855, for distinguished services in the field. Specially mentioned in despatches 6th December, 1855. Received the Baltic, Crimean, and Turkish medals and clasps for Sebastopol; Distinguished Conduct in the Field medal; the Order of the Legion of Honour; and the Long Service and Good Conduct medal.

Extract from the History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, page 442:— “A few cases occurred in which the rank of serjeant was attained by a junior non-commissioned officer within eighteen months. Samuel Cole is an instance. He went to the Crimea a young second corporal, but so conspicuous was his conduct in the trenches, and so sustained his usefulness and gallantry that beside the grant of pecuniary rewards, a special medal for distinguished service, and the Order of the Legion of Honour, he was promoted successively to the ranks of corporal and serjeant. Of him Colonel Gordon wrote on the 6th December, 1855, that he was one of the “most distinguished in the corps for bravery and had just received a step of rank”—that of serjeant— “for very distinguished service in the field.”

There would appear to be a mis-statement in the History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, re Quartermaster Cole. On page 173, Vol. II., it says that attempts had been made by Officers with a party of N.C.O. and Sappers to trace a battery without success. That is correct, but it goes on to state that no trace was used, but a simple alignment struck from the battery was constructed on the 13th August (1854). As a matter of fact, Capt. Cole (then a young 2nd Corpl.), with two Sappers (selected men), Moncua (sic) and Gould, were sent by Capt. King, on the night of 13th, to trace the battery. They were accompanied by Lieut. Nugent, R.E., who kept a look-out for the enemy while the N.C.O. and men were at work. Assisted by the two Sappers, who carried the sandbags to him, Corpl. Cole laid the whole interior base line of revetment while waiting for the working party under Serjt. Jones, who arrived about midnight. The same paragraph states that Serjt. Jones had the honour of laying the first sandbag, whereas that honour belongs to Capt. Cole, who, while revetting the epaulment under a fir tree, received a cut on the ear by a splinter from it, cut by a bullet from the enemy. This error was to have been rectified in a subsequent volume of the History, which was then being prepared, but, unfortunately, the third volume was never printed.

His group of medals were auctioned by Spink in December, 1997, and comprised: DCM, Baltic, Crimea (Sebastopol), LS & GC, Turkish Crimea and a French Legion d’Honneur. Also with the group was a Royal Commission ‘Medal in Silver, for services at the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’. Samuel Cole was born at North Love, Devon on 5 June, 1832, and enlisted into the Royal Sappers & Miners on 6 April, 1850, aged 18. He was promoted Second Corporal 1 October, 1854. Cole’s gallantry was further noted as follows: “though in many cases it would be imprudent, Corporal Cole left his post at the Sandbank Battery without orders and pitched into the thick of the fight” and on another occasion “when he was repairing the embrasures with two others, under heavy fire, they behaved with such confidence and daring that their names were brought to the notice of Lord Raglan. These were Corporal J. Stanton, Second Corporal Samuel Cole and Private McCaughey, to whom were presented, by his Lordship’s orders, a donation of £2 in acknowledgment of their gallantry. Subsequently, each was honoured for distinguished service in the field with a Badge and a Silver Medal accompanied by Gratuities of £10 each to the former and £5 to the last.”

Cole’s obituary was published in the North Devon Journal of 5 June, 1913, and gave further details of his Crimean gallantry: “Captain Cole, with the modesty which is characteristic of the true soldier, could not often be prevailed upon to speak of the terrible experiences of the British soldiers in the Crimea, but when he could be drawn he was always interesting. To an interviewer, some time ago, Captain Cole remarked that after he had been awarded the French Decoration, the Victoria Cross was created, and those who had been unsuccessfully recommended for the French Order were among the first recommended for the Victoria Cross. Captain Cole was questioned as to his action which had been so highly praised, “Well in front of Sebastopol I saved the magazine of the Gordon Battery. One shell dropped on the crown and exploded, and a second one, a short time afterwards dropped within inches of the same spot, but I had filled up the cavity with sandbags and so prevented the magazine going up.” But, ‘Perhaps the most exciting occurrences from a soldier’s point of view’, continued his obituarist, ‘was at the time when the enemy was storming the trenches in hand to hand conflict, a method of warfare admirably suited to Captain Cole, for he was a tall, powerful built man. A Russian Officer picked up a lump of burning wood to fire a magazine when Capt. Cole rushed at him, pinned him in a corner with his bayonet and fired at him.”

Despite Cole’s service record stating he was “wounded slightly twice” his obituarist commented that this was “only the baldest way of stating the injuries which Capt. Cole received”. As a result of one violent explosion he was terribly lacerated in the chest and he bore these marks through his life... “Captain Cole was also shot in the ear, a portion of the charge entering his head. Some of the shot was never removed. The shot travelled all over his body, and only a short time ago some small shot showed first in his hand and then in his neck.” He was apparently advised to have the shot removed, but notwithstanding the benefits of 20th century medicine steadfastly refused, perhaps still clinging to a mental image of the Surgeons at work in the Field Hospital to which he was once ordered to report. On that occasion, “the sight of the dead and dying in the Hospital held greater terrors for him than the battlefield” and he “prevailed upon the Hospital Surgeon to certify that he was not unfit for active service, and returned to the field of battle...”

In May, 1856, Cole’s career suffered a setback when he was reduced to the rank of Private and “Confined before and after District Court Martial” for an offence of which he was evidently innocent, as he received a “free pardon” in December, of that year, by order of the Commander-in-Chief. At the time of his reinstatement as Sergeant, he was serving in Gibraltar and had again sufficiently impressed someone in authority because on 1 November, 1856, he had been re-appointed Second Corporal. Cole was commissioned Quartermaster in April, 1873, when he received a Sword of Honour from the Colonel of the Corps. He retired in 1883, and settled at Bamstaple and died there on 2 June, 1913, and was interred in Barnstaple Cemetery.

[1] Harts Annual List 1888, p. 697 & p. 700 Note #19.

[2] The following account is from: McInnes, Ian, The Annuity Meritorious Service Medal 1847-1953 First Supplement, p. 309-10. Details of this note were originally published in The Sapper of May, 1896 p. 188-190. Other note details as sourced within the note.