"[7] Canadian historian George T. Denison, in his book A History of Cavalry from the Earliest Times, With Lessons for the Future, wrote "... the Russian squadrons had no intention whatever of charging, but were simply at the time making demonstrations to oblige the allied troops to display their arrangements, and that when the 93rd showed their line upon the hill, the object was gained, and the cavalry withdrew.

[10] The battle is represented in Robert Gibb's 1881 oil painting The Thin Red Line, which is displayed in the Scottish National War Museum in Edinburgh Castle.

The phrase has also taken on the metaphorical meaning of the barrier which the relatively limited armed forces of a country present to potential attackers.

/ But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll," – "Tommy Atkins" being slang for a common British soldier.

In the 1968 film Carry On... Up the Khyber, a soldier played by Charles Hawtrey draws a thin red line on the ground with paint and brush, arguing that the enemy will not dare to cross it.

[citation needed] James Jones wrote a novel about American infantry soldiers fighting in Guadalcanal during World War II and titled it The Thin Red Line.