Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1881 — Charge of the Light Brigade. [ARTICLE]

Charge of the Light Brigade.

After we had mounted for the famous charge, and just before commencing our advance, Col. Shewell, commanding the English Hussars, happened rest his eyes on one of his men with a pipe in his mouth, which so excited his military ire, that he hallooed to him he was d sgracing his regiment by smoking in the presence of the enemy, a grave view of the question which certainly I (his commanding officer) did not, or at least up to that time, reciprocate, inasmuch as I at this very moment was enjoying a remarkably good cigar. The question thin rose in my mind, “Am I to set this bad example? (in the Colonel’s opinion) or should I throw away a cigar?”—no such common article in those days, be it remembered. Well, the cigar carried the day, and it lasted mo till we got to the guns. With shame do I say it. There was one, I believe, who, when he started on this advance, was insensible to the desperate undertaking in which he was about to be engaged. So we went on. “Right flank, keep up. Close in to your center. ” The smoke, the noise, the cheers, the groans, the “ ping, ping,” whizzing past one’s head, the whirr of the fragments of shells, the well-known “ slush ” of that unwelcome intruder on one’s ears—what a sublime confusion it was ! One incident struck me forcibly about this time—the bearing of riderless horses in such circumstances. I was, of course, riding by myself, and clear of the line, and for that reason was a marked object for the poor dumo brutes. They consequently made dashes at me, some advancing with me a considerable distance ; at one time as many as five on my right and two on my left cringing on me, and positively squeezing me as the round shot came bounding by them. I remarked their eyes, betokening as keen a sense of the perils around them as we human beings experienced (and that is saying a good deal). The bearing of the horse I was riding, in contrast to these, was remarkable. He had been struck, but showed no signs of fear, thus evincing the confidence of duimb animals in the superior being.— Jxu'd Gc<rrg< Paget.