Hell Riders
The Truth About the Charge of the Light Brigade
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
On 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War, the Light Brigade of the British Cavalry Division made the most magnificent and most brutal charge in military history. Almost 700 men armed with sabre and lance, charged straight at the muzzles of Russian cannons. This vivid and extraordinarily detailed account of the charge and the bloody mêlée that followed, by an author with unique access to regimental archives, is told largely in the words of the survivors themselves. Terry Brighton takes the reader closer than ever before to the experience of charging down the Valley of Death.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Even for the British, knowledge of the Charge of the Light Brigade begins and ends with Tennyson's poem and it's debatable how many Americans could even tell you which war the battle took place in. Brighton, a curator at the British museum devoted to the regiment that led the charge, deftly explains the circumstances leading to the 1854 1856 Crimean War and the Light Brigade's misbegotten confrontation with Russian artillery at Balaklava, outlining the difficulties the soldiers faced in the weeks leading up to the fateful battle. A minute-by-minute account dealing with the battle itself builds tension through effective crosscutting of passages from eyewitness accounts by several survivors along with the author's own thoughtful analysis. Later sections address nagging controversies, such as whether the brigade's commander abandoned his troops mid-fight, while Brighton does his best to pin down just how many soldiers rode into the valley of death and concludes that, despite the heavy losses, the brigade did not lose at Balaklava. His story is an example to all popular historians of how to combine a gripping yarn with deep insight into the social and cultural forces driving the action.
