#LIGHT BRIGADE FULL#

They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them, and to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns.

With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns which enveloped them, where there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in modern warfare of civilized nations. The other regiments turned and engaged in a desperate encounter. Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, saw the danger and rode his men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying towards us told the sad tale - demigods could not have done what they had failed to do.Īt the very moment when they were about to retreat, a regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. The blaze of their steel, like an officer standing near me said, 'was like the turn of a shoal of mackerel.' We saw them riding through the guns, as I have said to our delight, we saw them returning, after breaking through a column of Russian infantry and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabers flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a direct fire of musketry. With diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries but ere they were lost from view, the plain was strewed with their bodies and with the carcasses of horses. The first line was broken - it was joined by the second, they never halted or checked their speed an instant. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, the dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. At the distance of 1200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame through which hissed the deadly balls. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without the power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of sudden death. They advanced in two lines, quickening the pace as they closed towards the enemy. Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position? Alas! It was but too true - their desperate valour knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part - discretion. We could hardly believe the evidence of our senses.

They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war. The Russians opened on them with guns from the redoubts on the right, with volleys of musketry and rifles.

Īt 11:00 our Light Cavalry Brigade rushed to the front. I shall proceed to describe, to the best of my power, what occurred under my own eyes, and to state the facts which I have heard from men whose veracity is unimpeachible, reserving to myself the right of private judgement in making public and in surpressing the details of what occurred on this memorable day …

#LIGHT BRIGADE FULL#

HEIGHTS BEFORE SEBASTOPOL, OCTOBER 25 - If the exhibition of the most brilliant valour, of the excess of courage, and of a daring which would have reflected luster on the best days of chivalry can afford full consolation for the disaster of today, we can have no reason to regret the melancholy loss which we sustained in a contest with a savage and barbarian enemy. 78777 The Charge of the Light Brigade William Howard Russell

Light brigade