Burned in Memory: Historical Photos

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Roger Fenton becomes the first war photographer.

Roger Fenton’s “Valley of the Shadow of Death.” (Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons Images)

“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. — Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson wrote that poem some six weeks after the “Light Brigade” made its famous, unsuccessful charge at the battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War in October 1854.

English photographer Roger Fenton, often cited as the first “war photographer,” arrived the next year to photograph allied troops in the war.

Fenton’s most famous image of the expedition was that of the Valley of Death, the draw through which the Light Brigade charged to defeat under the guns of the Russian Army.

Except Fenton got the wrong valley.

And he staged the scene.

The Charge

On October 25, the British Light Brigade of cavalry (unarmored soldiers on small, fast horses) received orders to stop the movement of some batteries of Russian artillery. Orders, however, became snared, and the brigade charged into the mouth of well-fixed, heavy artillery…