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Auction: 14035 - Postal History, Autographs and Historical Documents
Lot: 3067

Historical Documents
Charge of the Light Brigade
1857 (28 January) A.L.S. without year date, written from Hartrow Manor in Somerset.
"My dear Mr Hankey,
Enclosed is a letter from Colonel Douglas which I received this morning in which he states that unless I 'pay the sums demanded I must immediately return to Canterbury'. To return now would be very inconvenient and entails some expense. I fancy that what is required of me, will turn out correct, though at present I cannot see it quite clear but if you would kindly advance me the requisite sum ... making a total of £95.5.9½d of which I hope to refund the greater part, and as soon as I do, I will give you both a clear account of the whole matter, and also the money received. I intend leaving Hartrow on the 10th of the month when I will go down to Canterbury ... and as soon as I return I will call upon you in Mincing Lane after this I intend paying Sir Walter Trevelyan a visit at Wallington, & Remain about a week or ten days, and then return to Hartrow to the end of my leave". Filing pin hole, fresh. Photo

Colonel Harrington Astley Trevelyan (1835-1900)

Colonel Trevelyan was the last but one survivor of this famous charge. He was 19 years old when he took part in the famous battle of Balaklava. He was then a lieutenant in the Eleventh Hussars. When Lord Raglan, commander-in-chief of the British army, gave the order to the Six Hundred to charge and endeavour to retake the guns that had been captured by the Russians, there were 20,000 of the enemy posted at the end of the narrow valley, with mountains back of them and batteries of guns in their front. But the Six Hundred, since immortalized by Tennyson's thrilling lyric, boldly rode "Into the Jaws of death, into the mouth of hell," the Lancers shaking their weapons in the air, the young Earl of Cadogan at the front as cool and Intrepid as if going to a hunt with the hounds.

Colonel Trevelyan, whenever he spoke of the "charge of the Six Hundred," modestly referred very little to himself. In his opinion had the Seventeenth Lancers and the Eleventh Hussars been ordered to advance when a disorganized force of Russian cavalry crossed the plain to reach the shelter of their forts, the Russians would have been routed and the disaster that befell the British arms would have been averted.

"At the opportune moment," so related Colonel Trevelyan a few years before his death, "the officer in command of the Seventeenth Lancers, said to ihe young Earl of Cadogan, 'There, my Lord, Is an opportunity never likely to return.'

When Captain Nolan came from Lord Raglan with the order to charge there were no Russians in sight. But off we went around the end of the valley and charged half a league straight through the batteries of guns in front, with guns on both flanks and riflemen lining the hills. Captain Nolan, who brought the order to charge, had not gone far when he gave a fearful yell and dropped dead. The grapeshot was tearing holes in us. One of our seniors was literally blown up, and we found no trace of him afterward."

This is the substance of Colonel Trevelyan's version. When the survivors rode back Colonel Trevelyan was congratulating himself upon not being dead, when a bullet struck his headdress. That night he went to the hospital with a bullet wound in the calf of his left leg, a sword cut on his right wrist and several minor cuts and wounds to attest to the fierceness of the fray.

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Estimate
£250 to £300