BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

The 95th Charge Home

Preface

Mr. Herbert Strang has asked me to write a few words explanatory of the title he has chosen for this book.

"The Light Brigade" was the name given to the first British Brigade of Light Infantry, consisting of the 43rd Light Infantry, 52nd Light Infantry, and the 95th Rifles, which were trained together as a war-brigade at Shorncliffe Camp in the years 1803-1805, just a century ago, by General Sir John Moore, the Hero of Corunna.

These regiments subsequently saw much service together in various quarters of the globe; they were engaged in the Expedition to Denmark in 1807, the Campaign in Portugal in 1808 under Sir Arthur Wellesley, including the Battle of Vimeiro, and the famous Corunna Campaign under Sir John Moore.

In July, 1809, The Light Brigade, consisting of the same three corps, was re-formed under the gallant Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd (afterwards slain at their head at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812), at Vallada, in Portugal, and it was in the same month that it made the forced march, famous in all history as "the March of the Light Division", of some fifty miles in twenty-four hours to the battle-field of Talavera. In June, 1810, when at Almeida, in Spain, "The Light Brigade" was expanded into "The Light Division" by the addition of Ross's "Chestnut Troop" of Horse Artillery,[#] the 14th Light Dragoons,[#] the 1st King's German Hussars, and two regiments of Portuguese Caçadores.

[#] The present "A" Battery, R.H.A., which bears its proud title of "The Chestnut Troop" in the army lists to this day.

[#] The present 14th (King's) Hussars. Charles Lever, the novelist, recounts some of their gallant deeds in Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon.

It was as "The Light Division", throughout the long and bloody struggle in the Peninsula, and up to the Battle of Toulouse, fought in April, 1814, that the regiments of the old "Light Brigade" maintained their proud position, so well described by Sir John Kincaid (who was adjutant of the 1st Battalion at the Battle of Waterloo) in his delightful book, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade. He writes of the 95th Rifles in the Peninsula as follows:—

"We were the Light Regiment of the Light Division, and fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and skirmish in which the army was engaged during the war.

"In stating the foregoing, however, with regard to regiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant associates, the Forty-third and Fifty-second, as a part of ourselves, for they bore their share in everything, and I love them as I hope to do my better half (when I come to be divided); wherever we were, they were; and although the nature of our arm[#] generally gave us more employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a degree of confidence almost equal to our hopes in heaven; nor were we ever disappointed. There never was a corps of Riflemen in the hands of such supporters!"

[#] The Baker rifle, a short weapon with a flat-bladed sword-bayonet known as a "sword", very like the present so-called "bayonet", only longer. Hence the Rifleman's command, "Fix swords!" The three battalions of the 95th were (with the exception of the 5th battalion of the 60th Regiment) the only corps in the British army armed with rifles at the period of the Peninsular War, all others carrying long smooth-bore muskets, known as "Brown Bess", with long three-sided bayonets. The Baker rifle fired with precision up to 300 yards, whereas "Brown Bess" could not be depended upon to hit a mark at one-third that range.

Such was the "Light Brigade" which gives its title to this book.

The story deals with a period full of interest to Englishmen. Napoleon, having overrun Spain with some 250,000 men, swept away and defeated all the Spanish armies, and occupied Madrid, had set his hosts in motion to re-occupy Portugal and