The Charge of the Light Brigade: who blundered in the Valley of Death?

I have often wondered about those who went into battle in massed formations. What sort of mental state did they have to march shoulder to shoulder. The Charge of the Light Brigade. Pickett's Charge. So many others. I suppose hope carried them forward until a sword, spear, arrow, bullet or shell stopped them. And how did those who survive feel? We who were taught to fight a different kind of war, from rifle pits and foxholes, from airplanes and armored ships, have some glimmer of hope that our defenses will help us survive. Those earlier warriors had nothing but either hope or fatalism to armor them.