The poem was written after the Light Cavalry Brigade suffered great casualties in the Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson wrote the poem based on two articles published in "The Times": the first, published on 13 November 1854, contained the sentence "The British soldier will do his duty, even to certain death, and is not paralyzed by the feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder," the last three words of which provided the inspiration for his phrase "Some one had blunder'd." The poem was written in a few minutes on 2 December of the same year, based on a recollection of "The Times"'s account; Tennyson wrote other similar poems, like "Riflemen Form!", in a very similar manner.