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222 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, can reckon and say how much an insulting apos- l _i trophe may have tended to disturb the judgment of the Lieutenant-General upon whom at that moment the fate of our cavalry was depending ; but when this has been freely acknowledged, it is hard to see any other or heavier share of the blame that can justly be charged against Nolan's memory. The notion of his not understanding the order he brought, the notion of his mistaking a mile and a quarter of unoccupied valley for those occupied heights which our cavalry was to try to recover, the notion of his seeking to annul Lord Raglan's order in regard to the captured guns, the notion of his intending (by a taunt and an outpointed hand) to send our troops down the North Valley — all these, it would seem, for reasons already disclosed, are too grossly improbable to be worthy of acceptance ; and unless error lurks in fair in- ference, he was in the very act of striving to bend the advance of our squadrons, and bring them to the true point of attack, when death came and ended his yearnings for the glory of the cavalry arm. The shell which slew Nolan was the first, I believe, of the missiles which our horsemen, then advancing, encountered ; and the gunners on the Fedioukine Hills were still only awakening — awakening almost incredulously — to the singular occasion which their foe seemed coming to offei them, when — unknown at the time to our people —a movement was made by the Russians, which