FOURTH LIGHT DRAGOONS

The published letters of Lord George Paget and Captain Robert Portal provide vivid details of the departure.

Portal recalled:

"The regiment had a splendid send-off. I never saw people so excited as the Devonshire people at our departure; in every town we passed through all the inhabitants turned out to see us, the ladies waving handkerchiefs and giving our men flowers &c, triumphal arches erected in all the villages and flags waving from almost all the houses."

Paget wrote to his wife:

"It was a most beautiful sight as the good ship Simla passed under Fort Wise in Plymouth roadstead on her way out to the Sound, the hills covered in thousands, all cheering as we slowly warped out."

But aboard the Simla, the inefficient administration of the British Government was soon apparent. The divisions between the horse-stalls was open for two feet at the bottom, with the result that when a horse fell and the ship was rolling badly it slid across to the adjoining box in its struggles and so kicked its neighbour, which in turn kicked out and struggled until it, too, fell.

Furthermore, the horse-stalls were all placed near the boilers, so that the poor animals suffered severely from the heat when the ship got into the Mediterranean. As a result, they developed what Paget called "a sort of staggers", only relieved by throwing buckets of water over their heads.

The horses had a bad voyage, and but for the attentions of the men many more than the four which did would have died by the time of the disembarkation at Varna on the 14th of August.

[PB: ADD LIST OF OFFICERS ETC]

Varna, Bulgaria

Soon after the Light Brigade arrived at Varna cholera broke out, and the Fourth were saved by the care of the officers, who, "everlastingly told the men to take it in time, which they were doing, and so recover" [whose quote?]. During the month spent at Varna only five men of the regiment were to die.

To Crimea

The regiment embarked for the Crimea proper on the 2nd of September, once more aboard the Simla, the convoy sailing on the 7th.

On the 16th a landing was made at Kalmatia [Kalamita] Bay, the enemy making no attempt to resist.

On the 19th of September the southward march began, the 4th Hussars, much to their disgust, marching with the 4th Division at the rear of the column.

At the Alma Lord Paget tried to get permission for the regiment to go forward with the Light Brigade, but this was refused. So they remained where they were, on a hill to the left rear, where they had a panoramic view of the whole enemy position.

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One small job was given them, the blowing up, after a brush with Cossack skirmishers, of a number of abandoned Russian ammunition wagons.

Balaclava

On reaching Balaclava, however, the 4th Division marched through the encamped army to positions overlooking Sebastopol, thus moving to the front. To the great delight of the 4th, Lord Lucan gave Paget an order to remain with the Light Brigade, but on being told they were under the orders of General Cathcart were allowed to remain with the 4th Division.

Lord George Augustus Frederick Paget in the Crimea, by Roger Fenton.

(Click on the image to enlarge.)

For several days following this the regiment was transferred to one division after another, much to the detriment of men and horses and their needs for rations and forage.

By the 18th of October a strong Russian force of twenty-five battalions of infantry, thirty of cavalry and seventy-eight guns stood ready to sweep down on to the plain at Balaclava.

Every day the cavalry stood-to at dawn, and from the 20th of October from half-past four in the afternoon until six the following morning.

The Charge

On the 24th a Turkish spy brought news that a full-scale attack was imminent, but after the false alarms of the previous days Lord Lucan decided to take no action.

On the 25th, the 4th were at less than half-strength, one troop having been detached for duty with the 2nd Division. The actual turn-out was 12 officers, 11 Sergeants and 104 rank-and-file.

The 4th were in the second line and with Lord George Paget commanding them and the 8th Hussars, kept at a slower pace until the proper distance of 200 yards between the lines was achieved.

Soon the 11th Hussars dropped back to the second line following on a pre-arranged signal, the 4th and the 8th now becoming the third line.

Robert Portal's memory of the charge:

"A most fearful fire opened up on us from the hills on both sides, grape, shells and minie-balls fell like hail around us, to say nothing of the 18lb shot which whistled through our ranks, dealing death and destruction to all around.

The plain was soon covered with dead and dying horses, dismounted men, dead officers, dead men, in short, never such a scene."

With the lead troops disappearing into the pall of smoke and dust the 4th came unexpectedly upon the Russian guns. Cut and thrust was the order of the day and on the right the 8th Hussars galloped into the thick of the Russian cavalry.

During the fighting at the guns some of the Russian gunners attempted to take their guns away by lasso harness and at once an officer of the 4th attempted with some men to hitch a gun to a horse, but he was told to "deal with the Russians first". By the time all had been killed or dispersed only something resembling more than a party of skirmishers than a regiment remained.

Joining up with the 11th Hussars, themselves only 20- or 30-strong, and returning from the pursuit of the Russian lancers with more than ten times their number of Cossacks following, Paget took command and faced the enemy, but 500 yards to their rear squadrons of Russian cavalry had formed in double column.

Giving the order, "Threes about!" and "Charge" the small party galloped at the Russian lancers.

The latter had started slowly to the advance, but suddenly they halted and swung into line.

Yet they stood fast and allowed the British line to gallop along their front, the men on the right parrying lance thrusts with their swords as they passed.

After the ride back up the valley, still harassed by the guns on the Causeway heights and the incessant fire of the Russian infantry, came the melancholy business of the roll-call.

Of the 127 men who had set out towards the guns, only 62 answered their name. Two officers and 25 other ranks had been killed, as well as 40 horses. Two officers, 25 other ranks and 19 horses were wounded and 16 other ranks taken as prisoners-of-war. Of the 19 wounded horses, 12 had later to be shot.

Six of the men taken prisoner had been wounded and five of them subsequently died in captivity. One of the captives was Paget's orderly, 635 Samuel Parkes, "a fine specimen of an Englishman, six feet two inches tall", who had saved the Colonel's trumpeter, 1295 Hugh Crawford, when he was attacked by two mounted Cossacks after Crawford's horse had fallen from exhaustion and he had lost his sword in the fall.

Inkerman

A week after Balaclava the Light Brigade were moved up to the plateau before Balaclava, the 4th being down to 130 of all ranks, and 40 of those were on the sick list. Here they took a part, albeit a passive one, in the battle of Inkerman.

As Paget wrote, halted, and under the brow of a hill:

"The fire was as heavy as we have ever been under. It was very trying, rendered doubly so by having to sit still under it."

Fortunately the hill to their front protected them and the regiment lost only two men killed. One was 1065 James Rickman, Paget's new orderly and the successor to Parkes.[And the other?]

1855

The winter of 1854-55 was, in common for all the troops in the Crimea, one of hardship and suffering, the regiment remaining at half-strength until remounts and reinforcements arrived from England.

By November of 1855 the regiment had been reinforced to a total of 500 men and 270 horses.

Unfortunately the hot summer of 1855 brought outbreaks of cholera, which struck down many of the men newly arrived from home, and including thirty of the original regiment.

There was no place for the cavalry in the final assault on Sebastopol, but in October 1855 it was decided to send an expeditionary force round to Eupatoria by sea, where it would harass the Russian lines of communication to the north. The 4th formed part of the 2nd Brigade, with a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery attached.

Eupatoria

Landing at Eupatoria on the 13th of October the expedition marched inland to the 21st in search of the enemy, but any forces they met with immediately withdrew.

The water shortage was serious, the column having to return to Eupatoria with considerable suffering for men and horses after two days on each occasion the force set out. The Russians were never brought into action and by the end of November the expedition was called off and the cavalry brigade embarked, sailing, to their great delight, not to Balaclava, but to Scutari.

Here the regiment moved into a well-hutted camp and spent the winter of 1855 in comparative comfort.

Roger Fenton photographs

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=4th%20light%20dragoons&co=ftncnw

(Click on image to enlarge)

The return home, May 1856

Embarking on the 4th and 5th of May 1856, the regiment sailed aboard the steamships "Assistance" and "Lindsay", bound for Portsmouth.

The total battle casualties had been extremely light. Two officers had been killed in action and two had been wounded, one only slightly. Of the other ranks, 17 had been killed, 2 had died of wounds and 16 had been seriously wounded. All the prisoners taken at Balaclava who were still alive had returned before the regiment left for home.

But sickness had taken a heavier toll; one officer and 102 men had died and 60 men had been invalided home and discharged.

In the British Isles, 1856-67

Reduced in numbers or increased, as the circumstances of the time dictated, the regiment passed the first five years in various camps in England before being one of the first to occupy the newly-built huts at Aldershot which were put up as a first step to making it a permanent camp.

Following five uneventful years in Ireland, 1865 saw them in Scotland until 1867, when in the spring of that year orders were received to prepare for service in India, for the second time in their history.

To India, 1867

The Depot went to Canterbury and the service troops to Exeter, from which place they embarked aboard the troop-ship "Serapia" on the 15th of October 1867 with 27 officers, 450 other ranks, 55 women and 71 children. They landed at Bombay on the 29th of November, a voyage of six weeks compared with the four-and-a-half months of forty years before.

A train journey to Doolali followed in order to become acclimatised and during the first week of January 1868, left on a two-month march to Meerut, having only two casualties, both of whom died of fever.

Links

• Wikipedia: 4th Queen's Own Hussars
• Shadows of Time: 4th Light Dragoons Databases (compiled by Wendy Leahy)
• Shadows of Time: 4th Light Dragoons Personal records (compiled by Wendy Leahy)