Tennyson has given to the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava the power of his name and genius, but that fight has been a terribly exaggerated affair, so far as massacre was concerned. Only one third was killed, with nearly one half the horses. In our civil war, where a million men were killed, at the cost of a billion dollars, from the firing into Sumter to Appomattox, on both sides, there were many charges where the slaughter was proportionately greater than that. Take Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, where a whole division was mowed down--or Custer's command (with Sitting Bull, in the Black Hills), all massacred, with the exception of one man. CHAPTER XVII HOME ONCE MORE AND THEN A RETURN TO EUROPE 1856 From the Crimea I returned to England and thence to America. Wilson, of the White Star Line, wished to construct the largest clipper ever built in England. It was to be called the George Francis Train, as I had had in my consignment or in my charge the fastest four clippers in the world--Flying Cloud, eighty-six days from New York to San Francisco; Sovereign of the Seas, which stood in my name at the custom-house (2,200 tons), which made three hundred and seventy-four miles under sail in one day, a thing never known before by a sailing ship; the Red Jacket, built at Rockland, Maine; and the Lightning, built by Donald Mackay at East Boston, which sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in sixty-three days; but I declined the White Star honors. The day after my arrival in New York, in July, '56--I had been away since February, '53--the Herald had sixteen columns, about three pages, from me in one issue, an amount of space I think that no correspondent before or since has had--either from India, China, or Japan. I had arrived ahead of my own mail. The members of the present staff of the Herald have no idea that the man whom they have looked upon as a lunatic was sufficiently sane to make a big sensation in their paper in July, '56. The present James Gordon Bennett was then only fifteen years old. Frederick Hudson had entire charge of the paper under the elder Bennett. Mr. Bennett, wishing to put his son ahead, pensioned Mr. Hudson, who went into the country to live, and, in crossing a railway track, was killed. Mr. Bennett gave me a very kind reception. He asked if I desired to go to Congress. "No," I said. "Don't you want to publish books?" "Yes, but I am going abroad now, as I am not through with my business in Australia."