to Duke of Newcastle, Sec. for War.
My Lord Duke,
I regret to be under the necessity of forwarding to your Grace the
copy of a letter which has been addressed to me by Lieutenant General
the Earl of Lucan.
When I received it I placed it in the hands of Brigadier-General
Airey, the Quartermaster-General, and requested him to suggest to his
lordship to withdraw the communication, considering that it would not
lead to his advantage in the slightest degree; but Lord Lucan having
declined to take the step recommended, I have but one course to
pursue—that of laying the letter before Your Grace and submitting to
you such observations upon it as I am bound, in justice to myself, to
put you in possession of.
Lieutenant General the Earl of Lucan complains that in my dispatch to
Your Grace of the 28th of October, I stated that, “from some
misconception of the instruction to advance, the Lieutenant General
considered that he was bound to attack at all hazards.” His Lordship
conceives this statement to be a grave charge and an imputation
reflecting seriously on his professional character, and he deems it
incumbent upon him to state those facts which he cannot doubt must
clear him from what he respectfully submits as altogether unmerited.
I have referred to my dispatch and far from being willing to recall
one word of it, I am prepared to declare, that not only did the
Lieutenant General misconceive the written instruction that was sent
him, but that there was nothing in that instruction which called upon
him to attack at all hazards, or to undertake the operation which led
to such a brilliant display of gallantry on the part of the Light
Brigade, and unhappily, at the same time occasioned such lamentable
casualties in every regiment composing it.
In his lordship’s letter he is wholly silent with respect to a
previous order which had been sent him. He merely says that the
cavalry was formed to support an intended movement of the infantry.
This previous order was in the following words:—“The cavalry to
advance and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the heights.
They will be supported by infantry which has been ordered to advance
on two fronts.”
This order did not seem to me to have been attended to, and therefore
it was that the instruction by Captain Nolan was forwarded to him.
Lord Lucan must have read the first order with very little attention
for he now states that the cavalry was formed to support the
infantry, whereas he was told by Brigadier General Airey, “that the
cavalry was to advance and take advantage of any opportunity to
recover the heights, and that they would be supported by infantry.”
Not that they were to support the infantry; and so little had he
sought to do as he had been directed, that he had no men in advance
of his main body, made no attempt to regain the heights, and was so
little informed of the position of the enemy, that he ask Captain
Nolan, “where and what he was to attack, as neither enemy nor guns
were in sight?”
This, Your Grace will observe, is the Lieutenant General’s own
admission. The result of his inattention to the first order was,
that it never occurred to him that the second was connected with, and
a repetition of the first. He viewed it only as a positive order to
attack at all hazards (the word “attack” be it observed was not made
use of in General Airy’s note). An unseen enemy, whose position,
numbers and composition he was wholly unacquainted with, and whom, in
consequence of a previous order, he had taken no steps whatever to
watch.
I undoubtedly had no intention that he should make such an
attack—there was nothing in the instructions to require it; and
therefore I conceive I was fully justified in stating to Your Grace
what was the exact truth, that the charge arose from the
misconception of the order for the advance which Lord Lucan
considered obliged him to attack at all hazards.
I wish I could say with his lordship that, having decided against his
conviction to make the movement, he did all he could to render it as
little perilous as possible. This, indeed, is far from being the
case in my judgment. He was told that the Horse Artillery might
accompany the cavalry. He did not bring it up. He was informed that
the French cavalry was on the left. He did not invite their
co-operation. He had the whole of the heavy cavalry at his disposal.
He mentions having brought up only two regiments in support, and he
omits all other precautions, either from want of due consideration,
or from the supposition that the unseen enemy was not in such great
force as he apprehended, notwithstanding that he was warned of it by
Lord Cardigan, after the latter had received the order to attack. I
am much concerned, My Lord Duke, to have to submit these observations
to Your Grace. I entertain no wish to disparage the Earl of Lucan in
your opinion, or to cast a slur upon professional reputation; but
having been accused by his lordship of having stated of him what was
unmentioned in my dispatch, I have felt obliged to enter into the
subject, and trouble Your Grace at more length than I could have
wished, in vindication of a report of Your Grace in which I had
strictly confined myself to that which I knew to be true and had
indulged in no observations whatever, or in any expression which
could be viewed either as harsh or in any way grating to the feelings
of his lordship.