Suffering from a lack of preparation and problems from the onset, the attack was a costly mistake that decisively ended Lee's invasion of the north and forced a retreat back to Virginia. Confederate troops made a frontal assault toward the center of Union lines, ultimately being repulsed with heavy casualties. Meade's Union positions on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania during the Civil War. If so, Nolan bears the chief responsibility for what followed.Pickett's Charge (July 3, 1863), also known as the Pickett–Pettigrew–Trimble Charge, was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate General Robert E. "It seems, moreover, that he used the word 'attack' when Raglan had intended a mere show of force. "So contemptuous was he of Lucan's ability, so desperate for the cavalry to show its worth, that he failed in the one essential task of a staff galloper: to provide the officer in receipt of the message with the necessary clarification," he writes in the latest edition of BBC History Magazine. Professor David, who teaches military history at the Buckinghamshire University, said all three key figures bore some responsibility but posterity would reserve its sternest judgment for Captain Nolan. "All the cavalry lay this disastrous charge on his soldiers & say that he left no option to Lord L to whom they say his tone was almost taunting on delivering the message – if he was to blame he has paid the penalty." A second staff officer, Nigel Kingscote, confirmed the view that Captain Nolan was to blame for the disaster, later telling Raglan's son that he "would no doubt have been broke by court martial" had he lived. "He was always very indignant at the little they had done in this campaign & bitter against Lord L," he wrote. Lieutenant Maxse wrote: "On looking to the left, saw poor Nolan lying dead who 10 minutes before I had seen eager & full of life, galloping down to Lord Lucan, anxious & determined to make him do something with the cavalry (of which he is a member)." He records Captain Nolan's apparent resentment at the behaviour of the cavalry until then. However, Prof Saul David, who has studied Lieutenant Maxse's account, says Captain Nolan – who had served in India and saw himself as a military tactician – over-egged Lord Raglan's orders.Īddressing Lord Lucan, Captain Nolan gestured towards the Russian forces and said: "There, my lord, is your enemy! There are your guns!" Captain Nolan demanded to be allowed to join the charge being led by Lord Cardigan on October 25, 1854, but was one of the first to fall when shrapnel from an exploding shell pierced his chest as he galloped to the front of the Light Brigade's assault. The letter written by Lieutenant Frederick Maxse, who was serving on Lord Raglan's staff, said the widespread feeling among the surviving men was that a 36-year-old officer called Captain Louis Nolan was to blame.Ĭaptain Nolan was the messenger who conveyed Lord Raglan's written orders to Lord Lucan, instructing him to "follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns". When the brigade charged into the valley it found itself surrounded on three sides by the Russian guns, with devastating results. However, the cavalry was sent on a suicidal frontal assault against a different artillery battery. Lord Raglan had intended to send the Light Brigade to prevent the Russians removing the captured guns. The British were fighting the Russians in the Crimean War and the Light Cavalry made a mistaken assault resulting in many deaths and injuries. The Charge of the Light Brigade by Caton Woodville. The document has shed light on one of the British Empire's worst military defeats, in which 107 men out of 676 were killed, 187 wounded, 50 captured, and 400 horses slaughtered. Most of the blame has been aimed at Lord Raglan, who ordered his men to prevent the Russian army seizing the British guns, and Lord Lucan, the officer who carried out his instructions.īut, more than 160 years on, a letter found among documents at the British Library written by one of the soldiers at Balaclava says the cavalry's rank and file blamed a more junior officer. When Alfred, Lord Tennyson penned the searing words about the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade, "Not though the soldiers knew / Some one had blundered", he was – like the poet laureate's angry readers – demanding answers to one of the most pressing questions of the day: what led to the slaughter?
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