CHAPTER XII

THE CRIMEA, 1854–1856

[Sidenote: 1854]

On receiving the order to prepare for active service the regiment was formed into four service and two depôt troops of the following strength:--

+-------------------+---------+--------+-------+ | | Service | Depôt | Total | +-------------------+---------+--------+-------+ | Field Officers. | 2 | | 2 | | Captains. | 4 | 1 | 5 | | Subalterns. | 8 | 4 | 12 | | Staff. | 6 | | 6 | | Sergeants. | 18 | 7 | 25 | | Trumpeters. | 5 | 2 | 7 | | Farriers. | 4 | 2 | 6 | | Corporals. | 13 | 5 | 18 | | Privates. | 254 | 51 | 305 | +-------------------+---------+--------+-------+ | HORSES. Officers. | 48 | 8 | 56 | | R. & F. | 249 | 34 | 283 | +-------------------+---------+--------+-------+

[Sidenote: April]

After the whole had been inspected by the Duke of Cambridge, the depôt troops marched to Brighton on the 10th May, where they formed part of the consolidated cavalry depôt under Colonel Bonham.

Headquarters and the service troops embarked at Portsmouth on the 18th, 23rd, 24th, and 25th April in five sailing ships, thus:--

Headquarters, under Colonel Lawrenson, in the ship _Eveline_. One troop, under Major Willett, in the _Pride of the Ocean_. One troop in the _Ganges_. One troop in the _Blundell_. Remainder in the _Edmundsbury_.

[Illustration:

_G. Salisbury, 1832_

OFFICERS, 1829]

[Sidenote: 1854. May.]

After passages varying from twenty-three days to five weeks, the whole arrived at Constantinople toward the end of May. Men and officers were all well, but twenty-six horses had perished on the voyage. The regiment was disembarked at Kulali, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, and on the 30th of May was inspected by the Sultan in person at Scutari.

On the 2nd June the regiment re-embarked on the same vessel, and sailed to Varna, where, on disembarkation, [Sidenote: 4th June.] it was made part of the Light Brigade under the command of Lord Cardigan. Leaving Varna on the 8th it marched to Devna, some eighteen miles to the north-west, and remained encamped at a short distance from the village until the 28th July, [Sidenote: 28th July.]on which day it marched for Yeni-bazar, halting at Kutlubi, Yasytepe, and Sazego on the way, and finally encamped at Yeni-bazar on the 1st August. So far the army had done nothing, but had been condemned to inactivity, losing many men by cholera meanwhile. The retreat of the Russians from the Danube after their failure before Silistria, and defeat at Giurgevo in July, had virtually secured the only object of the expedition, namely, that Russia should abandon the invasion of Turkey. But at the end of June the British Government decided to direct the expedition against Sebastopol, and to destroy Russia’s great stronghold in the Black Sea. [Sidenote: 25th Aug.] Accordingly, on the 25th of August the Seventeenth started to march back from Yeni-bazar to Varna. Cholera had been at work with them, as with the rest of the army, in August, and they left twelve men buried at Yeni-bazar. [Sidenote: 28th Aug.] Arriving at Varna on the 28th, the regiment embarked once more on four transports on 2nd and 3rd September, and sailed for the Crimea. [Sidenote: 17th Sept.] A fortnight later the headquarters, under Colonel Lawrenson, landed at Kalamita Bay, the spot chosen by Lord Raglan for the disembarkation of the army. The Seventeenth lost two more men by cholera in the passage, and showed a serious falling-off in strength on landing.

[Sidenote: 1854.]

+-------------------+---------+ | Field Officers. | 2 | | Captains. | 4 | | Subalterns. | 7 | | Staff. | 6 | | Sergeants. | 16 | | Trumpeters. | 5 | | Farriers. | 4 | | Corporals. | 11 | | Privates. | 192 | | Totals--All ranks | 247 | +-------------------+---------+ | HORSES. Officers. | 21 | | Troops | 216 | +-------------------+---------+

[Sidenote: 19th Sept.]

Two days later the army began its advance; the infantry divisions massed in close column, and the cavalry on its skirts--the Seventeenth being in rear of the left flank of the infantry. Early in the afternoon the four squadrons of the advanced guard came upon 2000 of the enemy’s cavalry, a little way on the other side of the Bulganak River. Both

## parties threw out skirmishers, who fired some ineffectual carbine

shots without dismounting, as was the fashion of the day; and then the Seventeenth and 8th Hussars were ordered up in haste to reinforce the advanced squadrons. The Russians, although in overwhelming force, did not attack, and the advanced squadrons then retired by alternate wings. A few artillery shots were exchanged, and with that the first encounter with the Russians was over. The troops bivouacked that night in order of battle, [Sidenote: 20th Sept.] and on the following day attacked and carried the Russian entrenched position on the heights of the Alma.

Details of the action of the Alma, wherein the cavalry, from the nature of the case, was little if at all engaged, would be out of place here. It is, however, worth while to remark that the first infantry division and the cavalry division, which occupied the left of the English line, were both under the command of former colonels of the Seventeenth, the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Lucan. During the infantry attack the cavalry, which was on the extreme left, remained perforce inactive; but when the Highland Brigade, which was next to the cavalry, had carried the heights before them, one squadron of the Seventeenth, which was presently joined by the other, moved off without orders from any general officer, and began to ascend the heights. [Sidenote: 1854.] On their way they contrived in some way to cross part of the front of the Highlanders, and were soundly rated by Sir Colin Campbell for their pains. When, finally, on reaching the summit they began to capture Russian prisoners, the pursuit was checked by Lord Raglan’s order; and in consequence little was done. Shortly after the action Colonel Lawrenson went home invalided, leaving to Major Willett the command of the regiment.

For two days after the battle of the Alma the army remained halted, [Sidenote: 23rd Sept.] and then on the 23rd slowly resumed the march on Sebastopol. Lord Raglan’s wish had been to push on immediately after the victory, but to this the French commander would not consent. On the 24th the cavalry, under Lord Lucan, was sent on to the river Belbec, a day’s march ahead of the main army, but encountered no opposition. Next day, Lord Raglan having been obliged, in deference to the French, to abandon his plan of attacking Sebastopol from the north, the army executed the flank march which brought it round from the north to the south side of the city. The march lay through difficult wooded ground; and the cavalry, which had been pushed forward to cover the advance, was misguided by a staff-officer. The result was that Lord Raglan and his escort were the first to come upon the rear-guard of the Russian army, which was likewise, though unknown to the English, executing a flank march across the British front. The cavalry soon came up, and captured some waggons as well as a few prisoners. After this trifling and rather ludicrous affair with the Russian rear-guard at Mackenzie’s Farm, the march was continued, and the army bivouacked that night on the Tchernaya River. [Sidenote: 29th Sept.] On the following day Balaclava was taken; and after three nights more bivouac on the Balaclava plains, the Seventeenth received some tents. They, like the rest of the army, had landed without tents or kits.

The main business of the cavalry now consisted in patrolling east and northward towards the Tchemaya, where, as early as the 5th October, it began to encounter Russian patrols. In a sense the cavalry was isolated from the rest of the army. [Sidenote: 1854.] The plain of Balaclava lies about a mile from Sebastopol, and extends on an average to a length of about three miles from east to west, and a breadth of two miles from north to south. It is enclosed on all sides by heights: on the north by the Fedioukine Hills, on the south by the Kamara Hills, on the east by Mount Hasport, and on the west by the Chersonese, where the bulk of the army was encamped. The plain is cut in two from east to west by a line of hills called the Causeway heights, which run almost to the Chersonese; and it was at the foot of these hills, on the south side of them, that the camp of the Light Brigade was situated. Just about due south of the camp, at a distance of about a mile, stands the village of Kadikoi, at the entrance to the gorge that leads down to Balaclava harbour.

Balaclava was now the British base of operations. Its defence was entrusted to Sir Colin Campbell, with the 93rd Highlanders, some marines, and a certain number of Turks; the cavalry being at hand to help him in the plain. But the better to secure the base with so small a force, an inner line of field-works was constructed from Kadikoi on the north, along the heights on the east of Balaclava to the sea, and an outer line of six redoubts on the Causeway heights. It has already been said that the English and Russian patrols had clashed on the Tchernaya; and as General Liprandi, with a Russian army, had fixed his headquarters at Tchorgoun, less than a mile beyond the Tchernaya to the north-east, this was hardly surprising. Shortly after the middle of October Captain White of the Seventeenth, while on outlying picquet on the Kamara Hills, had observed a large force of Russian cavalry and duly reported it. Knowing the Russians to be in considerable force, neither Sir Colin Campbell nor Lord Lucan were at their ease as to the safety of Balaclava, from the weakness of their defending force and its isolation from the rest of the army.

On the 23rd October Major Willett died, and the command of the regiment once more changed hands. The senior officer, Captain Morris, was employed on the staff; and it became a question whether he would remain where he was, leaving the command to Captain White, or whether he would return to the regiment. [Sidenote: 1854.]On the 24th Lord Lucan received intelligence that Balaclava would be attacked on the morrow by a Russian force of 25,000 men. He at once despatched an aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan, who said “Very well.” That evening Captain Morris decided that he would take command of the Seventeenth.

[Sidenote: 25th Oct.]

Next day the cavalry turned out as usual an hour before daybreak, and were standing to their horses, when Lord Lucan rode off slowly to the easternmost redoubt on the Causeway heights. The coming of the dawn showed him a signal on the flagstaff of the redoubt, which told him that his information was correct, and that the Russians were advancing in force. Lord George Paget of the 4th Light Dragoons at once galloped back and ordered the Light Brigade to mount. The men were just about to be dismissed to their breakfasts when they were moved off toward the threatened quarter.

Meanwhile the Russians, with 11,000 men and 38 guns, attacked the easternmost redoubt; and in spite of a gallant resistance from the five or six hundred Turks that held it, carried it by storm. The Turks then abandoned the three next redoubts; and thus the line of the Causeway heights fell into the hands of the Russians. Simultaneously two more Russian columns had advanced and occupied the Fedioukine heights, and filled the valley between the Fedioukine and Causeway heights with 3500 cavalry and a battery of twelve guns. Lord Lucan, seeing that his 1500 men of the Light and Heavy Cavalry Brigades could not check the advance of 11,000 Russians, fell back to a position on the southern slopes of the Causeway heights, which would enable him to fall on the flank of any force that might cross the South Valley towards Balaclava. From this position he was ordered by Lord Raglan to retire. The result was that the Russians immediately detached four squadrons to attack the weak force of infantry that held the mouth of the gorge leading to Balaclava. So serious did Sir Colin Campbell judge this attack to be that he warned the 93rd, as the Russian cavalry came down on them, that they must die where they stood. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Fortunately the Russian attack was not pushed home, and the four squadrons were utterly defeated by the unshaken firmness of the 93rd. Convinced as to the soundness of his dispositions, Lord Lucan shortly after moved the Light Brigade forward to its original station; while, in obedience to Raglan’s order, he despatched the Heavy Brigade across the valley to reinforce the defending troops at Kadikoi.

Just as the Heavy Brigade was moving off, the Russian cavalry came up in great force over the Causeway heights, full on the flank of the Heavies, but lending their own flank to the Light Brigade. Brigadier Scarlett thereupon wheeled the Heavies into line, and delivered the brilliant attack known as the charge of the Heavy Brigade. Every one, including Lord Lucan, expected to see the Light Brigade fall down on the Russian flank, and smash it completely. But Lord Cardigan judged that his instructions forbade him to attack, and refused to move. Every man in the Brigade was waiting for the order to charge, and Lord Cardigan himself cursed loudly at his own inaction. Captain Morris, doing duty with his regiment for the first time since it had landed in the Crimea, begged and prayed his Brigadier to let loose, if not the whole Brigade, at any rate the Seventeenth Lancers; but Lord Cardigan would not hear of it. Thus for the second time the Seventeenth (and for that matter the Light Brigade), was baulked of the successful attack which its old Colonel had prepared for it.

Then came an order from Lord Raglan to Lord Lucan to “advance and recover the heights,” _i.e._ the Causeway heights; presently supplemented by a further order--“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front and recover the guns,” meaning the guns captured by the Russians in the redoubts on the Causeway heights. This last order was brought by Captain Nolan, an excitable man, and at that

## particular moment in a highly excited state. “Guns,” said Lord Lucan

to him, “what guns?” Nolan waved his hand vaguely, it would seem, in the direction of the Russian battery at the head of the North Valley and said, by no means too respectfully: “There, my Lord, is your enemy, there are your guns.” [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Lord Lucan was a quick-tempered man, and probably not in his most amiable mood at that instant. He was one of those officers, rare enough in those days, who had taken particular pains to study his profession, and was on all hands acknowledged to possess more than ordinary ability. His warnings of the previous day had been neglected at headquarters; his perfectly correct dispositions, carefully concerted with Sir Colin Campbell, had been twice upset by superior order, with results that must almost certainly have been fatal, if the Russian cavalry had known its work; and now had come a fresh staff-officer with an order which, not in itself too clear, had been further obscured by that staff-officer’s excitability. Over hastily he accepted what he believed to be the true meaning of the order, and directed Lord Cardigan to attack the Russian battery at the head of the North Valley with the Light Brigade.

That Brigade, after its various movements, had been finally drawn up facing directly up the South Valley, and had stood dismounted there for more than three-quarters of an hour, when Lord Cardigan gave the order which showed that its time had come. In the Seventeenth that morning there were 139 men in the ranks, increased at the last moment by the arrival of Private Veigh, the regimental butcher, who, hearing that the regiment was about to be engaged, rode up fresh from the shambles to join it. He was dressed in a blood-stained canvas smock, over which he had buckled the belt and accoutrements of one of the Heavy Dragoons who had been killed in the charge; and, having accommodated himself also with the dead dragoon’s horse, he now rode up with his poleaxe[12] at the slope. The rest of the regiment was in marching order--full-dress jackets and lance-caps cased--with the exception of Captain Morris, the commanding officer, who wore a forage cap. The first squadron was led by Captain White, the troop leaders being Captain Hon. Godfrey Morgan and Lieutenant Thomson; [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] the second squadron was led by Captain Winter, with Captain Webb in command of the right, and Lieutenant Sir William Gordon in command of the left troop. Lieutenant Hartopp, Lieutenant Chadwick (the Adjutant) and Cornet Cleveland were the other officers with the regiment, Cornet Wombwell being with Lord Cardigan as aide-de-camp. The two squadrons of the Seventeenth formed the centre of the first line of the Brigade, having the 11th Hussars to their left, and the 13th Hussars to their right; while the 4th and 8th Hussars composed the second line.

In this formation the Light Brigade moved off to the attack; its duty being to advance over a mile and a half of ground, flanked by Russian batteries and riflemen on the Fedioukine heights to the right, Russian batteries and riflemen on the Causeway heights to the left, and fall upon a battery of twelve guns to their front, which guns were backed by the mass of the Russian Cavalry. The first line began the advance at a trot, and was presently reduced to the Seventeenth and 13th only; the 11th being ordered back to the second line by Lord Lucan. The formation of the Brigade was thus altered from two lines to three. The Seventeenth was now therefore on the left of the first line, though Captain White’s squadron still remained the squadron of direction.

Presently, without sound of trumpet, but conforming to the pace of the Brigadier, the first line broke into the gallop. It had barely started when Captain Nolan rode across the front from left to right, shouting and waving his sword. “No, no, Nolan,” shouted Captain Morris, “that won’t do, we have a long way to go and must be steady.” As he spoke a fragment of a shell struck Nolan to the heart. His horse swerved and trotted back through the squadron interval with his rider still firm in the saddle, and then with an unearthly cry the body of Nolan dropped to the ground. This was the first shell that fell into the Light Brigade.

Meanwhile the handful of squadrons, with the Seventeenth and 13th at their head, rode on with perfect steadiness, and in beautiful order, into the ring of the Russian fire. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Then men and horses began to drop fast in the first line. The survivors closed up and rode on. The trumpet sounded no charge; the officers uttered no stirring word; the men gave no cheer; for this was no headlong rush of reckless cavaliers, but an orderly advance of disciplined men. Throughout this ride down the valley there was but one word continually repeated, “Close up”; and the men closed in to their centre, and with an ever-diminishing front rode on. Those who watched the advance from the heights a mile away saw the line expand as the stricken men and horses floundered down, and contract once more like some perfect machinery as the survivors took up their dressing and rode on. But at last the gaps became so frequent and so wide that men could close up no more; and then the whole of the first line sat down and raced for the guns. The Russians were ready for them and met them at about eighty yards distance with a simultaneous discharge of every gun in the front battery. How many men fell under this salvo we shall never know. By this time two-thirds of the first line must have fallen: the remaining third rode on. In a few seconds they had plunged into the smoke and were among the Russian guns.

On the extreme left a handful of the Seventeenth had outflanked the battery, and of these--all that he could see of his regiment--Captain Morris, who was still unharmed, retained command. Pressing on past the battery through the smoke, he was aware of a large body of Russian cavalry, part of an overwhelming force, that stood halted before him in rear of the guns. Steadying his men for a moment, he led them without thought of hesitation straight at the Russians, and drove his sword to the hilt through the body of their leader. His men were hard at his heels. They broke through the Russian Hussars, they swept all that were covered by their narrow front before them, and galloped on in pursuit. Meanwhile Captain Morris had fallen. Unable to withdraw his sword from the body of the Russian officer, he was tethered by his sword-arm to the corpse, and while thus disabled received two sabre cuts and a lance wound. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Utterly defenceless against the lances of the Cossacks, who had closed like water upon the small gap made by the Seventeenth, he was forced to surrender. Lieutenant Chadwick, who was wounded by a lance thrust in the neck, was also made prisoner at the same time.

Another fragment of the first line, backed by men of various regiments, was rallied by Corporal Morley, and by him led back through the Russian cavalry to the North Valley.

Yet another little remnant of the Seventeenth, to the right of Morris, had entered the battery, where Sergeant O’Hara took command of them, and directed their efforts against the Russian gunners, who were attempting to carry off their guns. These were presently rallied by Lord Cardigan’s Brigade-Major, Major Mayow; but a portion of them having missed him in the smoke went on with O’Hara to their left, where they met their comrades, the survivors of Captain Morris’s party. These last, after chasing the Russian Hussars back upon their supports, had been forced back by immensely superior numbers, and were now menaced in their turn both in flank and rear. The two little parties joined together, and fighting their way back through the Russians made good their retreat down the valley.

Meanwhile Major Mayow, with about a dozen men of the Seventeenth, like Captain Morris, charged a body of Russian horse, which was halted in rear of the battery, drove it back, and pursued it for some distance upon the main body. Then Mayow halted, and seeing the remains of a squadron of the 8th Hussars approaching to his right rear, he formed his handful of Lancers on the left flank of the 8th. The Russian cavalry in rear of the guns was now panic-stricken, and in full retreat; but there still remained some Russian squadrons which had been left on the Causeway heights; and of these three now menaced Colonel Shewell’s rear. Shewell gave his mixed squadron the word “Right about wheel,” and charged them. As usual the Russians received the charge at the halt and were utterly routed. Then, seeing no troops coming to his support, Colonel Shewell retreated. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Once more the British came under the fire of the guns on the Causeway heights. The French had silenced those on the Fedioukine side, the Light Brigade had silenced those in the valley, but those on the Causeway heights still remained untaken. Fortunately some Russian Lancers still hovered about the retreating English, and the Russian gunners ceased to fire lest they should kill their own men. Thus the Seventeenth and the rest of the Brigade returned in small knots well-nigh to the spot from which they had started but five-and-twenty minutes before. Six hundred and seventy-eight of all ranks had started; one hundred and ninety-five came back.

Of the Seventeenth Lancers Captain Winter, Lieutenant Thomson, twenty-two men, and ninety-nine horses were killed. Captain Morris, desperately wounded, finding himself deserted by the Russian officer to whom he had surrendered and left to the tender mercies of the Cossacks, contrived to catch a loose horse, and, when this had been killed under him, made shift to stagger back to the place where Captain Nolan had fallen. There he dropped, but was tended under fire by Surgeon Mouat and by Sergeant Wooden of the Seventeenth, both of whom received the Victoria Cross for the service. Captain Robert White was badly wounded before reaching the battery, and Captain Webb wounded to the death. Sir William Gordon, who had passed through the battery unharmed, came back from pursuing the Russian cavalry with five sabre wounds in the head. So terribly had he been hacked that the doctors said that on the 25th October he was “their only patient with his head off.” Hardly able to keep himself in the saddle he lay on his horse’s neck, trying to keep the blood out of his eyes, and rode back down the valley at a walk. Being intercepted by a body of Russian cavalry he made for the squadron interval, followed by two or three men, and when the Russians, in their endeavour to bar his passage, left an opening in the squadron, he managed to canter through it and in spite of pursuit to finally complete his escape. His horse, which was shot through the shoulders, managed to carry him out of action, but died, poor gallant beast, very soon after. [Sidenote: 1854--25th Oct.] Thirty-three men and almost every surviving horse were also wounded; Trumpeter Brittain, who had acted as Lord Cardigan’s trumpeter on that day, dying of his hurts in hospital. Lieutenant Chadwick, and thirteen more men, all of them wounded, were taken prisoners. Lieutenant Wombwell, being like Captain Morris abandoned by his captors to the Cossacks, escaped, after having two horses killed under him.

So ended the work of the Seventeenth on the 25th October 1854. It is customary to look upon the attack of the Light Brigade as a mere desperate ride into the Russian battery. It was far more than this. The advance down the valley through the murderous fire from front and both flanks was but the prelude to a brilliant attack. Discipline never failed even among the scattered fragments of the first line. Where their own officers were still alive with them, the men of the Seventeenth, however trifling in numbers, rallied, as under Captain Morris, and followed them to the attack on the Russian cavalry. Where an officer of another corps rallied them, they followed him with the same devotion and intrepidity. The little knot with Major Mayow, under his leadership attacked ten or fifteen times their number of Russians, defeated them, pursued them, halted, rallied on the 8th Hussars, attacked with them successfully once more, and stood ready to renew the attack yet again if supports should come. Where, again, no officer was present, the non-commissioned officers, true to regimental tradition, readily took command; and Sergeant O’Hara and Corporal Morley proved themselves worthy successors of Tucker and Stephenson.

Had the attack of the Light Brigade been supported there is reason to suppose that it would have been brilliantly successful; for the Russian cavalry had been thoroughly scared, and even the infantry had been formed into squares to resist the onslaught of the few score of men who had passed the battery. Lord Lucan had indeed every intention of supporting it with the Heavy Brigade, and actually brought that brigade within destructive fire; [Sidenote: 1854.] but seeing from his advanced position up the valley the frightful losses of the Light Brigade, he could not bring himself to sacrifice the Heavies also. Pulling up under the cross-fire of the batteries, his horse wounded in two places, and his own thigh injured by a musket ball, he took his resolution and ordered the Heavy Brigade to retire. What his feelings may have been when he saw the wreck of his old regiment return to him we can only guess. Yet this was not the first occasion on which the Seventeenth had charged ten times their number of cavalry; they had done it once before at Cowpens against a far more dangerous and resolute enemy.

After Balaclava the Seventeenth, like the other four regiments of the Light Brigade, had almost ceased to exist in the Crimea, from the extent of its loss both in men and horses. A supply of remounts was, however, obtained by the capture of about 100 Russian troop-horses which stampeded into the British camp on the night of the 26th October.

[Sidenote: 5th Nov.]

The next great action of the war was the battle of Inkermann on the 5th November. In this engagement the brunt of the work fell, from the nature of the case, upon the infantry. The Light Brigade was, however, brought under fire late in the day in support of some French reinforcements; Lord George Paget, who was in command that day, having received instructions, and also a particularly urgent request from the Commander-in-Chief of the French, to keep his men, a bare 200 all told, within supporting distance of the French cavalry. The losses of the Light Brigade amounted to an officer and five men killed, and five men wounded, of whom the officer and another of the killed and one of the wounded belonged to the Seventeenth. Cornet Cleveland, who had escaped at Balaclava where so many fell, was the only English cavalry officer who was touched at Inkermann. His death reduced the number of unwounded officers of the regiment to three.

[Sidenote: 25th Nov.]

Three weeks later the establishment of the Seventeenth was raised to eight troops--a curious reflection for the handful of men who represented it in the Crimea. [Sidenote: 1854.]Some months were yet to pass before the Seventeenth at Sebastopol could make any show as a regiment, and those months were those of the Crimean winter. So much has been written of that terrible time that it would be out of place to say much of it here. Suffice it that between bad luck and bad management both men and horses suffered very severely. Probably there never was a time excepting the winter of 1854 when the troop-horses of a British cavalry division were almost without exception hog-maned and rat-tailed, the poor creatures having eaten each other’s hair in the extremity of hunger. As to the men of the Seventeenth, it is enough to say that they shared the misery and hardship which was borne by the rest of the army, which was cruel enough. But hard as was the Crimean winter, it must not be treated, simply because a British war-correspondent was present and a British Parliament was busy, as an unique trial of endurance. A regiment which had fought through the Carolina campaigns and the deadly war in the West Indies had little new to learn of misery, sickness, and death.

[Sidenote: 1855.]

In the months of April and June of the following year the regiment received large drafts from England, and by the 21st July was enabled to detach a squadron of 100 men and horses, under the command of Captain Learmonth, to join a force of British cavalry which was employed in collecting forage and supporting the French in the Baidar Valley. This squadron rejoined headquarters on the 19th August, in time to be present together with the rest of the regiment at the battle of the Tchernaya. [Sidenote: 20th Aug.] [Sidenote: 8th Sept.] Three weeks later Sebastopol was evacuated, and the war was practically over.

[Illustration:

_G. Salisbury._ PRIVATE, Review Order. OFFICER, Marching Order. PRIVATE, Marching Order.

1829–1832.]

About the middle of November the regiment embarked at Balaclava for Ismid, where it landed on the 15th. Its strength on embarkation was 15 officers and 291 non-commissioned officers and men, with 224 horses; and the whole of it was carried in two transports, the _Candia_ and _Etna_. A corporal and five men were left behind to do orderly work in the Crimea. [Sidenote: 1856.] At Ismid the Seventeenth was brigaded with the 8th and 10th Hussars, under Brigadier Shewell, [Sidenote: 30th Mar.] and there remained until after the proclamation of peace.

On the 27th of April a sergeant’s party of seventeen men and sixteen horses was embarked in the transport _Oneida_, and two days later the bulk of the regiment, 18 officers and 442 men, with 171 horses, embarked in the _Candia_, homeward bound. The whole arrived at Queenstown on the 14th May, having suffered no casualty but the loss of a single horse on the passage.

On landing, the regiment was quartered at Cahir barracks (where it was joined by the depôt squadron from Brighton), with detachments at Clogheen, Clonmel, Fethard, and Limerick. It had not been at home two months before it was employed at Nenagh in aid of the civil power. [Sidenote: 12th Sept.] In September the regiment was moved up to Portobello Barracks in Dublin, [Sidenote: 10th Nov.] and two months later was reduced to six troops once more, with an establishment of 28 officers, 442 non-commissioned officers and men, with 300 troop-horses. [Sidenote: 1857. 7th Mar.] Early in the following year it moved to Island Bridge Barracks, where all the elaborate arrangements for quarters and reduction of establishment were upset by the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny.

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