This brilliant advance of the Guards was indeed the turning point, and the decisive moment of the battle. The Light Division, after gaining the redoubt, thinned in numbers, and, exhausted by the toilsome ascent of the heights, received a withering volley from a mass of Russians posted above it, and who had been mistaken for French, and were compelled to abandon their hard-won conquest. As they retired down the hill, they met the advancing Guards, who were compelled to reserve their fire, to avoid destx'oying their own comrades, and, one of the broken regiments falling back upon the Fusilier Guards, threw that corps into considerable confusion, during which it sustained a terrific loss both in officers and men. Li spite of these disadvantages, however, the rest of the brigade continued its ascent of the now blood-stained heights, amidst sights and sounds of the most appalling description, in such steady order, and with such cool determination, as gave to the storming of a fearfully strong position all the aspect of a perfect parade movement. The enthusiasm of the men was indescribable. " Unless I had seen it," says an Officer of the Guards in writing home, " I could not have believed the indomitable pluck of our wounded and dying. As we advanced, we passed a poor fellow with both his legs shot offi He threw a handful of dust in the air, and said ' God bless you. Guards; give it to them, my boys.* And our surgeon told me, that not a single wounded man complained, and that only one man required brandy to sustain the operation."
Another account takes up the story at this point: " Not a shot did they (the Guards) fire till within from 150 to 200 yards of the intrenchments. A battery of eighteen and twenty-four pounders was in our front, and a swarm of riflemen behind it. Fortunately the enemy's fire was much too high, passing close over our heads; the men who were here killed being all hit on the crown of the head. When we got about fifty yards from the intrenchment the enemy turned tail, leaving us masters of the battery and the day."