Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1885 — A BATTLE PICTURE. [ARTICLE]

A BATTLE PICTURE.

The Gallant Charge at Balaklara —An Eye Witness Describes the Scene and Effect of a Great Military Error. On Oct. 25, 1854, our eyes turned to the heights of Balaklava, on the possession of which depended the very existence of the allied forces. On that day the Russians made a desperate attack on our lines, to be as desperately repulsed. Word was sent to headquarters that the enemy, under cover of a heavy fire from the forts, had left Sebastopol in force and was massing himself so as to threaten the safety of the heights. I was at once sent with an order for the cavalry and horse artillery to move and be ready to assume the offensive. They had not to wait long. The Turkish lines were swept as by a whilwind, and with our Mohammedan allies the word was sauve qui pent. The heavy cavalry on the right and the light brigade on the left were advanced, with the artillery in the center playing a game at long bowls. Meanwhile a Russian battery was ostentatiously moved forward, whose wellserved guns promised to be embarrassing-

Lord Raglan, who uid not know the full strength of the foe, saw that this obstacle must be removed; but whether or not he also foresaw the necessity of first looking before the leap was taken must be forever a mystery. The commanders of the cavalry brigades, Lords Lucan and Cardigan, brothers-in-law, between whom no love was lost, were waiting the word to engage, Lord Lucan being the senior officer. To them sped Capt. Nolan, a dashing hussar. Saluting the General' he said he bore an order—unwritten—from Lord Raglan that the battery must be silenced and the guns captured. Lord Lucan, a man so cautious as to have earned the nickname “Lord Look-on,” fearing to expose his small force to any ambushed dangers, asked for more definite orders. With a slightly contemptuous turn of his handsome lip, the aid-de-camp pointed in the direction of the battery and said: “You see your enemy, my lord.” Even the Earl of Cardigan, impetuous as he was, generally speaking, looked at his commander in doubt as to the words. But, owing to the unhappy enmity existing between them, neither would speak his thoughts, and once more Nolan, impatiently waving his sword, which he had fiercely drawn from its scabbard, and, pointing it to the artillery, cried: “Take the guns; these are your orders.” The crisis has arrived. No recourse is left but to do as he bids. A cold nod of assent from Lord Lucan. A profound bow follows from Lord Cardigan. “Lightdivision, forward, charge!” breaks from his lips. An echoing cheer is the reply from 607 throats, as with clang of scabbard and rattle of bridle and bit,'and the braying of the trumpet, and the ringing cheer of the “Heavies,” the fourth and Thirteenth Lights, the Eighth and Eleventh Hussars, the latter Lord Cardigan’s own corps, conspicuous in their cherry-colored trousers. and the Seventeenth Lancers, with ranks closed up and squadrons dressed as evenly as if at a march past, trot forward down the slight declivity. At their head rides the gallant Nolan and the dauntless Cardigan—even in this supreme moment with a reckless laugh upon his face, as he argues some point of war with his brother hussar.

The unmasked batteries are already belching forth shot and shell. The trot breaks into a gallop, the gallop into a furious, headlong charge. Already Nolan has fallen, cut down by grapeshot, the secret of the fatal day dying with him. • The serried ranks show frequent gaps as saddle after saddle is emptied. “Close up! Close up! Charge I” is the unceasing cry, and in a shorter time than it takes to tell the opening ranks of the foe disclosed to the doomed but indomitable few, cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them—and now cannon behind them. On through the Russian line pressed the noble army of martyrs, their oriflamme, their brave leader’s flashing saber, their support.

With a wild cheer and a wilder leap, the cherry-clad heroes fly over the guns as lightly as they would over a fivebarred gate on the hunting field, sabering the gunners as they leap. A beardless boy, not yet 17, holds fast to the colors he has sworn to carry to death or victory, and falls with the cry, “My mother will hear of this!” on his dying lips, still grasping that banner in his hand.

Far away, clear in front, with his aide-de-camp and a few choice spirits on his right hand and on his 16ft —none ahead of him, raging like a lion, fights, with a forlorn hope, the leader and commander of the Light Brigade. He bears a charmed life, and his brawny arm is endowed with the power of slaughter that grows mightier every moment from the meat it feeds on. Further and further he dashes on, cleaving his way with his blood-staified sword till he reaches the last of the guns. ♦

Here, when he sees the end is not yet, but that rank upon rank of cavalry and infantry, with heavy artillery in their rear, stretches out back of the city’s utmost bastion, he recognizes how useless it will be further to tempt the fates and fight one against a thousand. Coolly and calmly, as if in Hyde Park, he takes in the situation at a glance, and gives the word to the trumpeter to sound first the “assembly,” then the “retreat.” A bullet crashes through the boy’s hand as he raises his trumpet to his mouth, but, stoic like, he makes no sign. Clear rings out the summons. A dozen only answer the call. Notone save Lord Cardigan but is wounded more or less severely, and his clothing shows where lance or saber or ball had plowed their way over his unscathed flesh. Bight about the little band terns, leaving the boy trumpeter dead Htehe ground behind them. r j<he enemy, paralyzed by the shock of the charge, and fancying that the whole British army supports the hatadnil of braves, pauses in his murderous work to cheer the 108 survivors who returned slowly and sadly to the place from which they came, having, from a military standpoint, achieved nothing, y?t covered with a deathless, fadeless Wfeath of glory. “It was magnificent, ” said Gen. Bosquet, “but it was not war."— Pittsburgh Dispatch.