The Charge of the Light Brigade

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” was written by Englishman Alfred, Lord Tennyson when he was poet laureate of the United Kingdom under Queen Victoria. Tennyson wrote the poem after reading newspaper accounts of the Battle of Balaclava, which occurred during the Crimean War. On October 25, 1854, a miscommunication sent a group of British soldiers normally dispersed for duties of light reconnaissance and patrol into heavy artillery fire. This event is considered one of the biggest military mistakes ever made. Of the approximate 670 British soldiers in the brigade, 271 were killed, wounded, or captured. The poem, written to honor them, was first published on December 9, 1854, in London in The Examiner.

According to scholars Edgar Shannon and Christopher Ricks (See: Further Reading & Resources), Tennyson altered the poem at least 20 times, once even taking out one of its most famous lines—“someone had blundered” (Line 12)—when it was included in Maud and Other Poems (1855). Tennyson immediately regretted this change and reinstated the line for the second printing (1856). Tennyson sent a thousand copies of a single-sheet version of the poem to be distributed among soldiers in the Crimea after hearing how much they appreciated the poem. This is the version considered authoritative.