In November 1854 Louisa Shore, like many others in England, was shocked to learn of the disastrous cavalry charge near Balaclava in the Crimea. Descriptions of the terrible losses suffered by the Light Cavalry regiments first reached England on 11 November, and the newspapers were filled for weeks with discussions of the mistakes in leadership that resulted in the aristocratic, dandified cavalry regiments attacking the Russian gunners with sabers. Shore included a poem about the tragedy in a letter to her older sister Arabella, who gave it the title "War Music" and sent it, without Louisa's knowledge, to The Spectator, where it was published on 25 November. Louisa Shore's poem thus preceded by a fortnight the publication on 9 December in The Examiner of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's more celebrated response to the battle, "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Louisa and Arabella each contributed a few more poems about the war to...