The Thin Red Line is based on two bars of the Band of the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment's bugle call. The title and term originated in a journalist's description (a "thin red streak tipped with a line of steel") of the appearance of the red-coated Argylls (under their alternate name of the 93rd Highland Regiment) as they stood before, and repelled, a vastly superior force of Russian cavalry at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War.
