Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/165

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 143 halted.* Lord Lucan did not give any other chap. directions to the squadrons constituting his ' second line. Becoming apparently impatient to push on to the front, he ultimately rode up by our right to the (proper) left flank of the Eus- sian column. We knew that from the first, three squadronsf me order ■n ■ i i i i • i of narration of the Heavy Brigade had been preparing to second the onslaught of Scarlett's ' three hundred ; ' but at the moment of Scarlett's attack two more of his regiments were approaching the scene of the fight ; and in speaking successively, as I am now going appealed to was the 1st Dragoons, the regiment we call the Royals. The statements suhmitted to my consideration oblige me to believe him mistaken ; but he was the commander of the division to which the Eoyals belonged, and he manfully gave effect to his impression by acts of a decisive kind — by acts of which one, at the least, was public. These are circumstances which make it right for me to acknowledge beforehand that what I shall by-and-by say of the final advance of the Eoyals is unsanctioned by Lord Lucan's despatch, and diametrically opposed to the impression which his mind has received. With the exception of the Greys, there was nothing in the uniforms of our Heavy Dragoon regiments, as worn on this day, which would enable a spectator at a distance of many paces to distin- guish one from another. I at first felt embarrassed by the prospect of being compelled by evidence to reject the firm - persuasion of the Divisional General, who was present in person and an actor in the scene ; but I ultimately ascertained that he was mistaken in regard to the identity of the force which stood on his right after Scarlett's final advance, and that the correc- tion of this error would so dislocate his account of what he saw in the direction of his left rear as to remove a main part of the difficulty that I had felt. t Hunt's squadron of the Inniskillings and the two squadrons of the 5th Dragoon Guards.
 * With equal confidence he declares that the regiment thus