The record-union., 1898-03-05
CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA.
A PARTICIPANT IN THE BATTLE
DESCRIBES 1T.
He Was One Of the 1913 Survivors
Of It-They Simply Obeyed
Orders.

One of the mobile six hundred anu
only American survivor of the pano
who "came through the jaws OF DEATH
back from the mouth of hell, Nes
in Chicago, and last week won YER
dict of 81 900 from the city OF Chlcaso
for injuries due to a defective sue
walk.
jeremiah Ryan is the name or the
survivor of the Light Brigade, says the
.aTimes- Herald" While he himself Is
unknown, the exploits Of the six nun
dred are familiar TO everyone who has
been a schoolboy at any time during
the last FORTY wears Most of them re-
cited Tennyson's Charge of the Light
brigade" and everybody has certainly
heard If declaimed a dozen times. To
print if would be ridiculous, for nearly
everybody knows it by heart and can
tell how the little gallant band was led
to death through the mistake of a
leader who himself died while on his
fools errand.
-Four days before last Christmas Ry-
an celebrated his sixty-second birth
day. This would make him nineteen
years of age at the time when with
his comrades he charged the whole
IAuSSldll "A HAL uluSt NC bNNA-
ty-one before he can enlist in the Brit
ish army. But when the war in the
Crimea broke out, Ryan, like other
young Irishmen and Britishers, was
anxious to go to the front and do some
fighting.
A recruiting station was opened at
Limerick for the Fourth Light Dra-
goons, an English regiment, which, like
most of the others, included good
many Irishmen in its ranks. Ryan was
only nineteen, but he and some other
youths of his age declared that they
We're twenty -one, and SO We're allowed
to enlist.
RIGORS OF RUSSIAN WINTER.
When the regiment left for the Cri-
mean Peninsula all of the men thought
that they would have an easy time of
it, and that the Russians would be
easily beaten. But the Generals were
incompetent, and those in charge at
home had made no proper provision
for the health and comfort of the SOL
diers. The hardships endured We're
frightful. Cholera broke out, and
thousands of men died from the dis
ease. The men, unused to cold, We're
forced TO sleep in tents in the open air
during a Russian winter. Often the
wind would tear the tents from their
pegs and leave the soldiers without even
that much covering, and this in spite
of the fact that the intensity of the
cold was so great that no one might
dare to touch any metal substance in
the open air without the penalty of
leaving his skin behind him.
Many battles We're fought during that
time. Those that were won by the Eng
lish were not due to the generalship
of the officers, but to the pluck and
courage of the men. The battles were
fought without any really definite plan.
Those in command merely let the SOL
diers fight purposely whenever they
single battle.
The battle of Balaklava, fought Oc-
tober %, 1854, was one of this nature,
and it was in this that the most dis
astrous blunder of all, the charge of
the Light Brigade" was made
After the battle of Alma,'' said Ryan
1--WE marched to Balaklava and oc-
cupied the nights with ease. This was
south of Sebastopol, and had a port
that would enable us to keep a con-
stant communication between our
armies and fleets. We had a long and
hard march over the snow, which was
thick on the ground but as hard as a
rock, and not much worse on my
horses feet than would be the asphalt