[The Russians] dashed on towards that thin red line tipped with steel.

The British Expedition to the Crimea, rev. ed. (1877), p. 187. Also in his Letters to the London Times, 25 October 1854. Speaking of the 93rd Highlanders at Balaclava. Credit for authorship of "the thin red line" claimed by Russell in a letter printed in Notes and Queries, ser. 8, vol. 7 (9 March 1895), p. 191. Reported in Hoyt's (1922), p. 191

Cf. Alexander William Kinglake