Of all British military engagements during the nineteenth century, the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (1854–1856) remains the most notorious. One of the most spectacular of military disasters, surrounded by controversy as to its cause, the tragic charge of the British light cavalry regiments, the 'gallant 600', along the 'valley of death' under murderous fire from the Russian guns was genuinely heroic. Contemporary pictures of the Charge are few and they convey little more than a distant view of the action. It was left to the most dramatic exponent of military art in the late-Victorian era, Richard Caton Woodville, to capture the supreme moment of the Charge, when the depleted British troopers finally arrived at the far end of the valley to cross swords with the enemy.