THE CRIMEA, 1854–1856
[Sidenote: 1854]
On receiving the order to prepare for active service the regiment
was formed into four service and two depôt troops of the following
strength:--
+-------------------+---------+--------+-------+
| | Service | Depôt | Total |
+-------------------+---------+--------+-------+
| Field Officers. | 2 | | 2 |
| Captains. | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| Subalterns. | 8 | 4 | 12 |
| Staff. | 6 | | 6 |
| Sergeants. | 18 | 7 | 25 |
| Trumpeters. | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| Farriers. | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| Corporals. | 13 | 5 | 18 |
| Privates. | 254 | 51 | 305 |
+-------------------+---------+--------+-------+
| HORSES. Officers. | 48 | 8 | 56 |
| R. & F. | 249 | 34 | 283 |
+-------------------+---------+--------+-------+
[Sidenote: April]
After the whole had been inspected by the Duke of Cambridge, the depôt
troops marched to Brighton on the 10th May, where they formed part of
the consolidated cavalry depôt under Colonel Bonham.
Headquarters and the service troops embarked at Portsmouth on the 18th,
23rd, 24th, and 25th April in five sailing ships, thus:--
Headquarters, under Colonel Lawrenson, in the ship _Eveline_.
One troop, under Major Willett, in the _Pride of the Ocean_.
One troop in the _Ganges_.
One troop in the _Blundell_.
Remainder in the _Edmundsbury_.
[Illustration:
_G. Salisbury, 1832_
OFFICERS, 1829]
[Sidenote: 1854. May.]
After passages varying from twenty-three days to five weeks, the whole
arrived at Constantinople toward the end of May. Men and officers
were all well, but twenty-six horses had perished on the voyage.
The regiment was disembarked at Kulali, on the Asiatic side of the
Bosporus, and on the 30th of May was inspected by the Sultan in person
at Scutari.
On the 2nd June the regiment re-embarked on the same vessel, and
sailed to Varna, where, on disembarkation, [Sidenote: 4th June.] it
was made part of the Light Brigade under the command of Lord Cardigan.
Leaving Varna on the 8th it marched to Devna, some eighteen miles to
the north-west, and remained encamped at a short distance from the
village until the 28th July, [Sidenote: 28th July.]on which day it
marched for Yeni-bazar, halting at Kutlubi, Yasytepe, and Sazego on the
way, and finally encamped at Yeni-bazar on the 1st August. So far the
army had done nothing, but had been condemned to inactivity, losing
many men by cholera meanwhile. The retreat of the Russians from the
Danube after their failure before Silistria, and defeat at Giurgevo
in July, had virtually secured the only object of the expedition,
namely, that Russia should abandon the invasion of Turkey. But at the
end of June the British Government decided to direct the expedition
against Sebastopol, and to destroy Russia’s great stronghold in the
Black Sea. [Sidenote: 25th Aug.] Accordingly, on the 25th of August the
Seventeenth started to march back from Yeni-bazar to Varna. Cholera
had been at work with them, as with the rest of the army, in August,
and they left twelve men buried at Yeni-bazar. [Sidenote: 28th Aug.]
Arriving at Varna on the 28th, the regiment embarked once more on
four transports on 2nd and 3rd September, and sailed for the Crimea.
[Sidenote: 17th Sept.] A fortnight later the headquarters, under
Colonel Lawrenson, landed at Kalamita Bay, the spot chosen by Lord
Raglan for the disembarkation of the army. The Seventeenth lost two
more men by cholera in the passage, and showed a serious falling-off in
strength on landing.
[Sidenote: 1854.]
+-------------------+---------+
| Field Officers. | 2 |
| Captains. | 4 |
| Subalterns. | 7 |
| Staff. | 6 |
| Sergeants. | 16 |
| Trumpeters. | 5 |
| Farriers. | 4 |
| Corporals. | 11 |
| Privates. | 192 |
| Totals--All ranks | 247 |
+-------------------+---------+
| HORSES. Officers. | 21 |
| Troops | 216 |
+-------------------+---------+
[Sidenote: 19th Sept.]
Two days later the army began its advance; the infantry divisions
massed in close column, and the cavalry on its skirts--the Seventeenth
being in rear of the left flank of the infantry. Early in the afternoon
the four squadrons of the advanced guard came upon 2000 of the enemy’s
cavalry, a little way on the other side of the Bulganak River. Both
parties threw out skirmishers, who fired some ineffectual carbine
shots without dismounting, as was the fashion of the day; and then the
Seventeenth and 8th Hussars were ordered up in haste to reinforce the
advanced squadrons. The Russians, although in overwhelming force, did
not attack, and the advanced squadrons then retired by alternate wings.
A few artillery shots were exchanged, and with that the first encounter
with the Russians was over. The troops bivouacked that night in order
of battle, [Sidenote: 20th Sept.] and on the following day attacked and
carried the Russian entrenched position on the heights of the Alma.
Details of the action of the Alma, wherein the cavalry, from the nature
of the case, was little if at all engaged, would be out of place here.
It is, however, worth while to remark that the first infantry division
and the cavalry division, which occupied the left of the English line,
were both under the command of former colonels of the Seventeenth,
the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Lucan. During the infantry attack the
cavalry, which was on the extreme left, remained perforce inactive;
but when the Highland Brigade, which was next to the cavalry, had
carried the heights before them, one squadron of the Seventeenth, which
was presently joined by the other, moved off without orders from any
general officer, and began to ascend the heights. [Sidenote: 1854.] On
their way they contrived in some way to cross part of the front of the
Highlanders, and were soundly rated by Sir Colin Campbell for their
pains. When, finally, on reaching the summit they began to capture
Russian prisoners, the pursuit was checked by Lord Raglan’s order;
and in consequence little was done. Shortly after the action Colonel
Lawrenson went home invalided, leaving to Major Willett the command of
the regiment.
For two days after the battle of the Alma the army remained halted,
[Sidenote: 23rd Sept.] and then on the 23rd slowly resumed the march on
Sebastopol. Lord Raglan’s wish had been to push on immediately after
the victory, but to this the French commander would not consent. On the
24th the cavalry, under Lord Lucan, was sent on to the river Belbec,
a day’s march ahead of the main army, but encountered no opposition.
Next day, Lord Raglan having been obliged, in deference to the French,
to abandon his plan of attacking Sebastopol from the north, the army
executed the flank march which brought it round from the north to
the south side of the city. The march lay through difficult wooded
ground; and the cavalry, which had been pushed forward to cover the
advance, was misguided by a staff-officer. The result was that Lord
Raglan and his escort were the first to come upon the rear-guard of
the Russian army, which was likewise, though unknown to the English,
executing a flank march across the British front. The cavalry soon came
up, and captured some waggons as well as a few prisoners. After this
trifling and rather ludicrous affair with the Russian rear-guard at
Mackenzie’s Farm, the march was continued, and the army bivouacked that
night on the Tchernaya River. [Sidenote: 29th Sept.] On the following
day Balaclava was taken; and after three nights more bivouac on the
Balaclava plains, the Seventeenth received some tents. They, like the
rest of the army, had landed without tents or kits.
The main business of the cavalry now consisted in patrolling east and
northward towards the Tchemaya, where, as early as the 5th October, it
began to encounter Russian patrols. In a sense the cavalry was isolated
from the rest of the army. [Sidenote: 1854.] The plain of Balaclava
lies about a mile from Sebastopol, and extends on an average to a
length of about three miles from east to west, and a breadth of two
miles from north to south. It is enclosed on all sides by heights: on
the north by the Fedioukine Hills, on the south by the Kamara Hills,
on the east by Mount Hasport, and on the west by the Chersonese, where
the bulk of the army was encamped. The plain is cut in two from east to
west by a line of hills called the Causeway heights, which run almost
to the Chersonese; and it was at the foot of these hills, on the south
side of them, that the camp of the Light Brigade was situated. Just
about due south of the camp, at a distance of about a mile, stands the
village of Kadikoi, at the entrance to the gorge that leads down to
Balaclava harbour.
Balaclava was now the British base of operations. Its defence was
entrusted to Sir Colin Campbell, with the 93rd Highlanders, some
marines, and a certain number of Turks; the cavalry being at hand to
help him in the plain. But the better to secure the base with so small
a force, an inner line of field-works was constructed from Kadikoi on
the north, along the heights on the east of Balaclava to the sea, and
an outer line of six redoubts on the Causeway heights. It has already
been said that the English and Russian patrols had clashed on the
Tchernaya; and as General Liprandi, with a Russian army, had fixed his
headquarters at Tchorgoun, less than a mile beyond the Tchernaya to
the north-east, this was hardly surprising. Shortly after the middle
of October Captain White of the Seventeenth, while on outlying picquet
on the Kamara Hills, had observed a large force of Russian cavalry and
duly reported it. Knowing the Russians to be in considerable force,
neither Sir Colin Campbell nor Lord Lucan were at their ease as to the
safety of Balaclava, from the weakness of their defending force and its
isolation from the rest of the army.
On the 23rd October Major Willett died, and the command of the regiment
once more changed hands. The senior officer, Captain Morris, was
employed on the staff; and it became a question whether he would remain
where he was, leaving the command to Captain White, or whether he
would return to the regiment. [Sidenote: 1854.]On the 24th Lord Lucan
received intelligence that Balaclava would be attacked on the morrow by
a Russian force of 25,000 men. He at once despatched an aide-de-camp to
Lord Raglan, who said “Very well.” That evening Captain Morris decided
that he would take command of the Seventeenth.
[Sidenote: 25th Oct.]
Next day the cavalry turned out as usual an hour before daybreak, and
were standing to their horses, when Lord Lucan rode off slowly to the
easternmost redoubt on the Causeway heights. The coming of the dawn
showed him a signal on the flagstaff of the redoubt, which told him
that his information was correct, and that the Russians were advancing
in force. Lord George Paget of the 4th Light Dragoons at once galloped
back and ordered the Light Brigade to mount. The men were just about to
be dismissed to their breakfasts when they were moved off toward the
threatened quarter.
Meanwhile the Russians, with 11,000 men and 38 guns, attacked the
easternmost redoubt; and in spite of a gallant resistance from the five
or six hundred Turks that held it, carried it by storm. The Turks then
abandoned the three next redoubts; and thus the line of the Causeway
heights fell into the hands of the Russians. Simultaneously two more
Russian columns had advanced and occupied the Fedioukine heights,
and filled the valley between the Fedioukine and Causeway heights
with 3500 cavalry and a battery of twelve guns. Lord Lucan, seeing
that his 1500 men of the Light and Heavy Cavalry Brigades could not
check the advance of 11,000 Russians, fell back to a position on the
southern slopes of the Causeway heights, which would enable him to fall
on the flank of any force that might cross the South Valley towards
Balaclava. From this position he was ordered by Lord Raglan to retire.
The result was that the Russians immediately detached four squadrons
to attack the weak force of infantry that held the mouth of the gorge
leading to Balaclava. So serious did Sir Colin Campbell judge this
attack to be that he warned the 93rd, as the Russian cavalry came down
on them, that they must die where they stood. [Sidenote: 1854--25th
Oct.] Fortunately the Russian attack was not pushed home, and the four
squadrons were utterly defeated by the unshaken firmness of the 93rd.
Convinced as to the soundness of his dispositions, Lord Lucan shortly
after moved the Light Brigade forward to its original station; while,
in obedience to Raglan’s order, he despatched the Heavy Brigade across
the valley to reinforce the defending troops at Kadikoi.
Just as the Heavy Brigade was moving off, the Russian cavalry came up
in great force over the Causeway heights, full on the flank of the
Heavies, but lending their own flank to the Light Brigade. Brigadier
Scarlett thereupon wheeled the Heavies into line, and delivered the
brilliant attack known as the charge of the Heavy Brigade. Every one,
including Lord Lucan, expected to see the Light Brigade fall down on
the Russian flank, and smash it completely. But Lord Cardigan judged
that his instructions forbade him to attack, and refused to move.
Every man in the Brigade was waiting for the order to charge, and Lord
Cardigan himself cursed loudly at his own inaction. Captain Morris,
doing duty with his regiment for the first time since it had landed in
the Crimea, begged and prayed his Brigadier to let loose, if not the
whole Brigade, at any rate the Seventeenth Lancers; but Lord Cardigan
would not hear of it. Thus for the second time the Seventeenth (and for
that matter the Light Brigade), was baulked of the successful attack
which its old Colonel had prepared for it.
Then came an order from Lord Raglan to Lord Lucan to “advance and
recover the heights,” _i.e._ the Causeway heights; presently
supplemented by a further order--“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to
advance rapidly to the front and recover the guns,” meaning the guns
captured by the Russians in the redoubts on the Causeway heights. This
last order was brought by Captain Nolan, an excitable man, and at that
particular moment in a highly excited state. “Guns,” said Lord Lucan
to him, “what guns?” Nolan waved his hand vaguely, it would seem, in
the direction of the Russian battery at the head of the North Valley
and said, by no means too respectfully: “There, my Lord, is your enemy,
there are your guns.” [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Lord Lucan was a
quick-tempered man, and probably not in his most amiable mood at that
instant. He was one of those officers, rare enough in those days, who
had taken particular pains to study his profession, and was on all
hands acknowledged to possess more than ordinary ability. His warnings
of the previous day had been neglected at headquarters; his perfectly
correct dispositions, carefully concerted with Sir Colin Campbell,
had been twice upset by superior order, with results that must almost
certainly have been fatal, if the Russian cavalry had known its work;
and now had come a fresh staff-officer with an order which, not in
itself too clear, had been further obscured by that staff-officer’s
excitability. Over hastily he accepted what he believed to be the true
meaning of the order, and directed Lord Cardigan to attack the Russian
battery at the head of the North Valley with the Light Brigade.
That Brigade, after its various movements, had been finally drawn up
facing directly up the South Valley, and had stood dismounted there for
more than three-quarters of an hour, when Lord Cardigan gave the order
which showed that its time had come. In the Seventeenth that morning
there were 139 men in the ranks, increased at the last moment by the
arrival of Private Veigh, the regimental butcher, who, hearing that the
regiment was about to be engaged, rode up fresh from the shambles to
join it. He was dressed in a blood-stained canvas smock, over which he
had buckled the belt and accoutrements of one of the Heavy Dragoons who
had been killed in the charge; and, having accommodated himself also
with the dead dragoon’s horse, he now rode up with his poleaxe[12] at
the slope. The rest of the regiment was in marching order--full-dress
jackets and lance-caps cased--with the exception of Captain Morris,
the commanding officer, who wore a forage cap. The first squadron was
led by Captain White, the troop leaders being Captain Hon. Godfrey
Morgan and Lieutenant Thomson; [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] the second
squadron was led by Captain Winter, with Captain Webb in command of the
right, and Lieutenant Sir William Gordon in command of the left troop.
Lieutenant Hartopp, Lieutenant Chadwick (the Adjutant) and Cornet
Cleveland were the other officers with the regiment, Cornet Wombwell
being with Lord Cardigan as aide-de-camp. The two squadrons of the
Seventeenth formed the centre of the first line of the Brigade, having
the 11th Hussars to their left, and the 13th Hussars to their right;
while the 4th and 8th Hussars composed the second line.
In this formation the Light Brigade moved off to the attack; its duty
being to advance over a mile and a half of ground, flanked by Russian
batteries and riflemen on the Fedioukine heights to the right, Russian
batteries and riflemen on the Causeway heights to the left, and fall
upon a battery of twelve guns to their front, which guns were backed
by the mass of the Russian Cavalry. The first line began the advance
at a trot, and was presently reduced to the Seventeenth and 13th only;
the 11th being ordered back to the second line by Lord Lucan. The
formation of the Brigade was thus altered from two lines to three. The
Seventeenth was now therefore on the left of the first line, though
Captain White’s squadron still remained the squadron of direction.
Presently, without sound of trumpet, but conforming to the pace of the
Brigadier, the first line broke into the gallop. It had barely started
when Captain Nolan rode across the front from left to right, shouting
and waving his sword. “No, no, Nolan,” shouted Captain Morris, “that
won’t do, we have a long way to go and must be steady.” As he spoke a
fragment of a shell struck Nolan to the heart. His horse swerved and
trotted back through the squadron interval with his rider still firm in
the saddle, and then with an unearthly cry the body of Nolan dropped to
the ground. This was the first shell that fell into the Light Brigade.
Meanwhile the handful of squadrons, with the Seventeenth and 13th at
their head, rode on with perfect steadiness, and in beautiful order,
into the ring of the Russian fire. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Then men
and horses began to drop fast in the first line. The survivors closed
up and rode on. The trumpet sounded no charge; the officers uttered no
stirring word; the men gave no cheer; for this was no headlong rush
of reckless cavaliers, but an orderly advance of disciplined men.
Throughout this ride down the valley there was but one word continually
repeated, “Close up”; and the men closed in to their centre, and with
an ever-diminishing front rode on. Those who watched the advance
from the heights a mile away saw the line expand as the stricken men
and horses floundered down, and contract once more like some perfect
machinery as the survivors took up their dressing and rode on. But at
last the gaps became so frequent and so wide that men could close up
no more; and then the whole of the first line sat down and raced for
the guns. The Russians were ready for them and met them at about eighty
yards distance with a simultaneous discharge of every gun in the front
battery. How many men fell under this salvo we shall never know. By
this time two-thirds of the first line must have fallen: the remaining
third rode on. In a few seconds they had plunged into the smoke and
were among the Russian guns.
On the extreme left a handful of the Seventeenth had outflanked the
battery, and of these--all that he could see of his regiment--Captain
Morris, who was still unharmed, retained command. Pressing on past the
battery through the smoke, he was aware of a large body of Russian
cavalry, part of an overwhelming force, that stood halted before him in
rear of the guns. Steadying his men for a moment, he led them without
thought of hesitation straight at the Russians, and drove his sword to
the hilt through the body of their leader. His men were hard at his
heels. They broke through the Russian Hussars, they swept all that were
covered by their narrow front before them, and galloped on in pursuit.
Meanwhile Captain Morris had fallen. Unable to withdraw his sword from
the body of the Russian officer, he was tethered by his sword-arm to
the corpse, and while thus disabled received two sabre cuts and a
lance wound. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Utterly defenceless against
the lances of the Cossacks, who had closed like water upon the small
gap made by the Seventeenth, he was forced to surrender. Lieutenant
Chadwick, who was wounded by a lance thrust in the neck, was also made
prisoner at the same time.
Another fragment of the first line, backed by men of various regiments,
was rallied by Corporal Morley, and by him led back through the Russian
cavalry to the North Valley.
Yet another little remnant of the Seventeenth, to the right of Morris,
had entered the battery, where Sergeant O’Hara took command of them,
and directed their efforts against the Russian gunners, who were
attempting to carry off their guns. These were presently rallied by
Lord Cardigan’s Brigade-Major, Major Mayow; but a portion of them
having missed him in the smoke went on with O’Hara to their left, where
they met their comrades, the survivors of Captain Morris’s party. These
last, after chasing the Russian Hussars back upon their supports, had
been forced back by immensely superior numbers, and were now menaced
in their turn both in flank and rear. The two little parties joined
together, and fighting their way back through the Russians made good
their retreat down the valley.
Meanwhile Major Mayow, with about a dozen men of the Seventeenth, like
Captain Morris, charged a body of Russian horse, which was halted in
rear of the battery, drove it back, and pursued it for some distance
upon the main body. Then Mayow halted, and seeing the remains of a
squadron of the 8th Hussars approaching to his right rear, he formed
his handful of Lancers on the left flank of the 8th. The Russian
cavalry in rear of the guns was now panic-stricken, and in full
retreat; but there still remained some Russian squadrons which had been
left on the Causeway heights; and of these three now menaced Colonel
Shewell’s rear. Shewell gave his mixed squadron the word “Right about
wheel,” and charged them. As usual the Russians received the charge
at the halt and were utterly routed. Then, seeing no troops coming to
his support, Colonel Shewell retreated. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.]
Once more the British came under the fire of the guns on the Causeway
heights. The French had silenced those on the Fedioukine side, the
Light Brigade had silenced those in the valley, but those on the
Causeway heights still remained untaken. Fortunately some Russian
Lancers still hovered about the retreating English, and the Russian
gunners ceased to fire lest they should kill their own men. Thus
the Seventeenth and the rest of the Brigade returned in small knots
well-nigh to the spot from which they had started but five-and-twenty
minutes before. Six hundred and seventy-eight of all ranks had started;
one hundred and ninety-five came back.
Of the Seventeenth Lancers Captain Winter, Lieutenant Thomson,
twenty-two men, and ninety-nine horses were killed. Captain Morris,
desperately wounded, finding himself deserted by the Russian officer to
whom he had surrendered and left to the tender mercies of the Cossacks,
contrived to catch a loose horse, and, when this had been killed under
him, made shift to stagger back to the place where Captain Nolan had
fallen. There he dropped, but was tended under fire by Surgeon Mouat
and by Sergeant Wooden of the Seventeenth, both of whom received the
Victoria Cross for the service. Captain Robert White was badly wounded
before reaching the battery, and Captain Webb wounded to the death.
Sir William Gordon, who had passed through the battery unharmed, came
back from pursuing the Russian cavalry with five sabre wounds in the
head. So terribly had he been hacked that the doctors said that on the
25th October he was “their only patient with his head off.” Hardly
able to keep himself in the saddle he lay on his horse’s neck, trying
to keep the blood out of his eyes, and rode back down the valley at a
walk. Being intercepted by a body of Russian cavalry he made for the
squadron interval, followed by two or three men, and when the Russians,
in their endeavour to bar his passage, left an opening in the squadron,
he managed to canter through it and in spite of pursuit to finally
complete his escape. His horse, which was shot through the shoulders,
managed to carry him out of action, but died, poor gallant beast, very
soon after. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Thirty-three men and almost
every surviving horse were also wounded; Trumpeter Brittain, who had
acted as Lord Cardigan’s trumpeter on that day, dying of his hurts
in hospital. Lieutenant Chadwick, and thirteen more men, all of them
wounded, were taken prisoners. Lieutenant Wombwell, being like Captain
Morris abandoned by his captors to the Cossacks, escaped, after having
two horses killed under him.
So ended the work of the Seventeenth on the 25th October 1854. It
is customary to look upon the attack of the Light Brigade as a mere
desperate ride into the Russian battery. It was far more than this.
The advance down the valley through the murderous fire from front and
both flanks was but the prelude to a brilliant attack. Discipline
never failed even among the scattered fragments of the first line.
Where their own officers were still alive with them, the men of the
Seventeenth, however trifling in numbers, rallied, as under Captain
Morris, and followed them to the attack on the Russian cavalry. Where
an officer of another corps rallied them, they followed him with the
same devotion and intrepidity. The little knot with Major Mayow, under
his leadership attacked ten or fifteen times their number of Russians,
defeated them, pursued them, halted, rallied on the 8th Hussars,
attacked with them successfully once more, and stood ready to renew the
attack yet again if supports should come. Where, again, no officer was
present, the non-commissioned officers, true to regimental tradition,
readily took command; and Sergeant O’Hara and Corporal Morley proved
themselves worthy successors of Tucker and Stephenson.
Had the attack of the Light Brigade been supported there is reason
to suppose that it would have been brilliantly successful; for the
Russian cavalry had been thoroughly scared, and even the infantry had
been formed into squares to resist the onslaught of the few score of
men who had passed the battery. Lord Lucan had indeed every intention
of supporting it with the Heavy Brigade, and actually brought that
brigade within destructive fire; [Sidenote: 1854.] but seeing from
his advanced position up the valley the frightful losses of the Light
Brigade, he could not bring himself to sacrifice the Heavies also.
Pulling up under the cross-fire of the batteries, his horse wounded in
two places, and his own thigh injured by a musket ball, he took his
resolution and ordered the Heavy Brigade to retire. What his feelings
may have been when he saw the wreck of his old regiment return to
him we can only guess. Yet this was not the first occasion on which
the Seventeenth had charged ten times their number of cavalry; they
had done it once before at Cowpens against a far more dangerous and
resolute enemy.
After Balaclava the Seventeenth, like the other four regiments of the
Light Brigade, had almost ceased to exist in the Crimea, from the
extent of its loss both in men and horses. A supply of remounts was,
however, obtained by the capture of about 100 Russian troop-horses
which stampeded into the British camp on the night of the 26th October.
[Sidenote: 5th Nov.]
The next great action of the war was the battle of Inkermann on the
5th November. In this engagement the brunt of the work fell, from
the nature of the case, upon the infantry. The Light Brigade was,
however, brought under fire late in the day in support of some French
reinforcements; Lord George Paget, who was in command that day, having
received instructions, and also a particularly urgent request from the
Commander-in-Chief of the French, to keep his men, a bare 200 all told,
within supporting distance of the French cavalry. The losses of the
Light Brigade amounted to an officer and five men killed, and five men
wounded, of whom the officer and another of the killed and one of the
wounded belonged to the Seventeenth. Cornet Cleveland, who had escaped
at Balaclava where so many fell, was the only English cavalry officer
who was touched at Inkermann. His death reduced the number of unwounded
officers of the regiment to three.
[Sidenote: 25th Nov.]
Three weeks later the establishment of the Seventeenth was raised
to eight troops--a curious reflection for the handful of men who
represented it in the Crimea. [Sidenote: 1854.]Some months were yet
to pass before the Seventeenth at Sebastopol could make any show as
a regiment, and those months were those of the Crimean winter. So
much has been written of that terrible time that it would be out of
place to say much of it here. Suffice it that between bad luck and bad
management both men and horses suffered very severely. Probably there
never was a time excepting the winter of 1854 when the troop-horses
of a British cavalry division were almost without exception hog-maned
and rat-tailed, the poor creatures having eaten each other’s hair
in the extremity of hunger. As to the men of the Seventeenth, it is
enough to say that they shared the misery and hardship which was borne
by the rest of the army, which was cruel enough. But hard as was the
Crimean winter, it must not be treated, simply because a British
war-correspondent was present and a British Parliament was busy, as
an unique trial of endurance. A regiment which had fought through the
Carolina campaigns and the deadly war in the West Indies had little new
to learn of misery, sickness, and death.
[Sidenote: 1855.]
In the months of April and June of the following year the regiment
received large drafts from England, and by the 21st July was enabled to
detach a squadron of 100 men and horses, under the command of Captain
Learmonth, to join a force of British cavalry which was employed in
collecting forage and supporting the French in the Baidar Valley.
This squadron rejoined headquarters on the 19th August, in time to be
present together with the rest of the regiment at the battle of the
Tchernaya. [Sidenote: 20th Aug.] [Sidenote: 8th Sept.] Three weeks
later Sebastopol was evacuated, and the war was practically over.
[Illustration:
_G. Salisbury._ PRIVATE, Review Order.
OFFICER, Marching Order. PRIVATE, Marching Order.
1829–1832.]
About the middle of November the regiment embarked at Balaclava for
Ismid, where it landed on the 15th. Its strength on embarkation was 15
officers and 291 non-commissioned officers and men, with 224 horses;
and the whole of it was carried in two transports, the _Candia_
and _Etna_. A corporal and five men were left behind to do orderly
work in the Crimea. [Sidenote: 1856.] At Ismid the Seventeenth
was brigaded with the 8th and 10th Hussars, under Brigadier Shewell,
[Sidenote: 30th Mar.] and there remained until after the proclamation
of peace.
On the 27th of April a sergeant’s party of seventeen men and sixteen
horses was embarked in the transport _Oneida_, and two days later
the bulk of the regiment, 18 officers and 442 men, with 171 horses,
embarked in the _Candia_, homeward bound. The whole arrived at
Queenstown on the 14th May, having suffered no casualty but the loss of
a single horse on the passage.
On landing, the regiment was quartered at Cahir barracks (where it
was joined by the depôt squadron from Brighton), with detachments at
Clogheen, Clonmel, Fethard, and Limerick. It had not been at home two
months before it was employed at Nenagh in aid of the civil power.
[Sidenote: 12th Sept.] In September the regiment was moved up to
Portobello Barracks in Dublin, [Sidenote: 10th Nov.] and two months
later was reduced to six troops once more, with an establishment of 28
officers, 442 non-commissioned officers and men, with 300 troop-horses.
[Sidenote: 1857. 7th Mar.] Early in the following year it moved to
Island Bridge Barracks, where all the elaborate arrangements for
quarters and reduction of establishment were upset by the outbreak of
the Indian Mutiny.