[#] The present 14th (King’s) Hussars. Charles Lever, the novelist, recounts some of their gallant deeds in _Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon_. It was as "_The_ Light Division", throughout the long and bloody struggle in the Peninsula, and up to the Battle of Toulouse, fought in April, 1814, that the regiments of the old "Light Brigade" maintained their proud position, so well described by Sir John Kincaid (who was adjutant of the 1st Battalion at the Battle of Waterloo) in his delightful book, _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_. He writes of the 95th Rifles in the Peninsula as follows:— "We were the Light Regiment of the Light Division, and fired the first and last shot in almost every battle, siege, and skirmish in which the army was engaged during the war. "In stating the foregoing, however, with regard to regiments, I beg to be understood as identifying our old and gallant associates, the Forty-third and Fifty-second, as a part of ourselves, for they bore their share in everything, and I love them as I hope to do my better half (when I come to be divided); wherever we were, _they_ were; and although the nature of our arm[#] generally gave us more employment in the way of skirmishing, yet, whenever it came to a pinch, independent of a suitable mixture of them among us, we had only to look behind to see a line, in which we might place a _degree of confidence almost equal to our hopes in heaven_; nor were we ever disappointed. There never was a corps of Riflemen in the hands of such supporters!" [#] The Baker rifle, a short weapon with a flat-bladed sword-bayonet known as a "sword", very like the present so-called "bayonet", only longer. Hence the Rifleman’s command, "Fix swords!" The three battalions of the 95th were (with the exception of the 5th battalion of the 60th Regiment) the only corps in the British army armed with rifles at the period of the Peninsular War, all others carrying long smooth-bore muskets, known as "Brown Bess", with long three-sided bayonets. The Baker rifle fired with precision up to 300 yards, whereas "Brown Bess" could not be depended upon to hit a mark at one-third that range. Such was the "Light Brigade" which gives its title to this book.