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Auction: 11011 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals & Militaria
Lot: 92

The First Burma War and Capture of Ghuznee Pair to Major-General B. Bygrave, Paymaster of the Kabul Army, One of the Few Survivors of the Massacre in the Jugdulluck Pass During the Retreat From Kabul Who, After Days Walking Through the Mountains Suffering From Frostbite, Became the Last European Prisoner of Akbar Khan Army of India 1799-1826, short hyphen reverse die type, one clasp, Ava (Lieut. B. Bygrave, Pionrs.), officially engraved in serif capitals, India; Ghuznee 1839 (Captain B. Bygrave, 5th Regt. N.I.), reverse engraved in running script, very fine or better (2) Estimate £ 5,000-6,000 Major-General Bulstrode Bygrave, was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, in October 1802, the son of George Augustus Bygrave, Barrack Master on the Isle of Wight, and was commissioned Ensign in the Bengal Infantry with the 3rd Native infantry in June 1821. Promoted Lieutenant in 1823, he was posted to the 1/2nd Native Infantry, and served in the First Burma War as Adjutant of the Native Pioneers, being present during operations on the Sylhet Frontier and in the Arakan. In July 1828 he was appointed Paymaster to the Native Pensioners and Adjutant of the Native Invalids at Allahabad. In late 1838 Bygrave was appointed Paymaster to the Army of the Indus and was subsequently present at the storming of Ghuznee, 23.7.1839, taking a share in the Ghuznee Prize, and receiving the Order of the Dooranee Empire, 3rd Class. After nearly two years´ service as Paymaster General at Kabul, he volunteered to rejoin his regiment and took part in Colonel Oliver´s punitive expedition to Zurmat in September and October 1841. Returning to Kabul in late 1841, Bygrave was present during the final, fateful months of the British occupation under the command of Major-General W. Elphinstone. During the period of insurrection following the murder of the British Envoy Sir William MacNaghten, Bygrave was appointed to the command of the South East Bastion and angle of the Kabul cantonment and ´never slept away from his post (the battery near his house) for a single night and took his full share of fatigue without adverting to his staff appointment...the clothes never off his back, out in all weathers with his men and at all hours night and day.´ (Journal of an Afghanistan Prisoner, by Lieutenant V. Eyre refers). Retreat from Kabul On the 6th January 1842 General Elphinstone, with Bygrave in close attendance, led the British garrison out from the cantonment to begin its disorderly and disastrous retreat to India. The Kabul Army, comprising 690 British infantry, 2840 native infantry, 970 native cavalry, and approximately 10,000 camp followers, was attacked as soon as it left the cantonment, the Afghans closing in on the rear-guard and killing more than fifty men. That night the column, having travelled barely five miles from the city, camped without the benefit of shelter. ´All scraped away the snow as best they might to make a place to lie down on´ wrote Lady Sale, ´... there was no food for man or beast procurable ... At daylight we found several men frozen to death ... numbers of men, women and children are left on the roadside to perish.´ Next day, the Afghans continued to harass the struggling column, charging their horses into the throng, slaying and plundering indiscriminately. On the morning of the 8th, the 5th Native Infantry were thrown into confusion by a surging mass of camp followers at Boodhak. Bygrave, however, extricated the regiment and despite being under enemy fire managed to restore order and bring the sepoys to face the Afghan skirmishers. For his presence of mind on this occasion he received the thanks of ´every company officer´. Periodically Akbar Khan rode into Elphinstone´s camp to offer advice and encouragement, bringing with him a momentary respite from the perpetual sniping. ´Numbers of unfortunates´ recorded Lady Sale, ´have dropped, benumbed with the cold; to be massacred by the enemy: yet so bigoted are our rulers that we are still told that ... Akbar Khan is our friend!´ By the end of the third day, Major Eldred Pottinger, the Hero of Herat and now MacNaughten´s successor as Political Agent, and two other officers had been handed over to Akbar as hostages, and the British wives and children had been placed under his ´protection´. The menfolk struggled on and, having lost five of seven guns in a rear-guard action in the Khoord-Kabul Pass, suffered severe casualties from the Afghan tribesmen ranged on the mountains above them. Soon only seventy men of the 44th Regiment, a hundred sowars, and one detachment of horse artillery were left. After the destruction of the native corps on the 10th January, Bygrave attached himself to the 44th Foot and bivouacked with the remnants of the half-starved column in the ruins of Jugdulluck on the following afternoon. A lull in the constant fusillade then heralded the arrival of Akbar who took Elphinstone and his second-in-command, Brigadier Shelton, hostage, and gave his assurance that the column would now be allowed to proceed unmolested to the Indian frontier. No sooner than he had departed, the Afghans redoubled their fire. Collecting 16 or 18 men of the 44th, Bygrave placed himself at their head and led a sally which was completely successful in temporarily driving off the enemy. But the little party was soon recalled to the main body, which again retired behind the ruined walls; and again the enemy returned to pour upon them a destructive fire of their jezails. On the morning of the 12th January, Bygrave led another sally with a small party of the 44th who by his own account ´did their work well, readily and most cheerfully´, and dislodged the enemy. At nightfall ´... we gave three hearty cheers, one for our country, one for our Queen and one for Her Majesty´s 44th Foot [who] went to the rear, at this period the post of danger, and [I] told the men that I would stay with them to the last if only they would keep together and obey orders. This last, I had ever found them willing to do, but alas, the poor fellows foot-sore, tired and starved were at length unable to turn about and defend themselves, the Afghans having completed their work of blood and blunder at the Barriers [of holly-oak blocking the pass] began to dot the road in our rear, three came up close to me. I shot one, on which the other two fell back when I ordered the rear rank to face about and fire, but I now saw to my sorrow that these brave fellows could scarcely get one leg before another, much more turn to resist an attack, or to defend themselves.´ At this point, Bygrave, foreseeing the inevitable destruction of the force, decided to strike out on his own and reach Jalalabad by way of the mountains. He was joined in this hazardous trek by an enterprising Delhi merchant named Baness who had been caught up in the misfortunes of the British at Kabul, and who was equally anxious to put some distance between himself and the pursuing Ghilzai tribesmen. Surviving on a diet of dried coffee grains which Baness brought with him, supplemented by the occasional piece of wild liquorice root, they travelled by night and hid by day in the long rushes of the mountain streams or under the thick evergreen shrubs that dotted the snow-capped peaks. Steering a course in the dark soon proved extremely difficult and at one turn they found themselves on a high mountain road where they came upon the freshly despatched and mangled corpse of a European soldier, forcing them to laboriously retrace their steps for many miles. After four tortuous days and nights, Bygrave ´with frost bitten feet, and worn-out shoes´ collapsed, telling Baness that he could go no further. He suggested that they should find the nearest village and throw themselves on the mercy of the local chief, but Baness, thinking this a reckless course, declared that ´for the sake of his large family´ he must go on alone to Jalalabad. Shortly after setting out on his own, Baness was assailed by pangs of guilt and twice returned desperate to urge Bygrave on. His efforts were in vain, and ultimately he reached Jalalabad alone, only to collapse himself and expire. Prisoner Awaking from a ´prolonged slumber´, Bygrave summoned sufficient strength to reach the village of Kutch Soorkab on the night of the 18th, the second since Baness left him. At daybreak he gave himself up and was taken to the local chief, Nizam Khan, who ultimately handed him over on 15 February to Akbar then encamped at Charbagh and preparing to join the Afghan forces besieging Sir Robert Sale´s garrison at Jalalabad. In an ´extremely weak and debilitated state´, Bygrave joined Akbar´s other European prisoners held in the fort at Buddeeabad on the 23rd and at last received some rudimentary treatment for his frost-bitten toes from Surgeon McGrath of the 37th, who himself had been wounded in the Khoord-Kabul Pass. McGrath afterwards reported: ´On first seeing him mortification had separated the three centre toes of the left foot, and the other two were in such a state that I immediately removed the first joint of the great toe, and the entire of the little one - the foot was very much swollen and inflamed and his sufferings were intense. During his entire stay at Buddehabad - or from the 10th April - Captain Bygrave was totally unable to move from his couch without assistance. After the 10th April the foot became less painful and the sores [began] to heal gradually, and with the aid of a stick which he is still obliged to use he was enabled to move about a little - Captain Bygrave is of course lame and will continue so through his life.´ From the 11th April, a few days after Sale´s garrison broke out from Jalalabad, the prisoners were obliged to follow Akbar in his movements, and it occurred to the Khan that Bygrave might be of use to him in the inevitable negotiation of terms. Accordingly Bygrave exchanged places as a potential hostage with Major Pottinger, who was allowed to rejoin the other prisoners on 25th August. On the evening of 11th September he was duly summoned with Captain Troup of H.M´s 44th to an ´earnest consultation´ with Akbar. The British officers assured their captor that his defeat was certain, to which the Khan replied ´ ´I know that I have everything to lose; but it is too late to recede.´ He declared that he was indifferent as to the result. The issue of the contest was in the hands of God, and it little mattered to him who was the victor.´ By the 15th September, General Pollock had established a camp on the Kabul race course and within a week all of the European prisoners, save Bygrave, had been released. The Afghan chiefs were now desperate to sue for peace and Akbar ´perceiving that the further detention of his sole prisoner served no good purpose restored him to his liberty´. Akbar ´would no longer make war upon a single man, and upon one, too, whom he personally respected and esteemed with the respect and esteem due to a man of such fine qualities as Bygrave. So he sent the last remaining prisoner safely into Pollock´s camp; and with him sent a letter of conciliation and an agent commissioned to treat for him´. Bygrave finally reached safety on the morning of the 27th, and having endured, what Elphinstone termed ´trials and difficulties almost unprecedented´, he was ordered to proceed to Calcutta to settle the accounts of troops employed in Afghanistan. In 1843 Bygrave was granted a special pension equal to that awarded for the loss of a limb, receiving £80 per annum back dated to the fateful 6th of January 1842. He continued as Paymaster until 1853 when he transferred from the list of the 5th Native Infantry to the newly raised 3rd Bengal European Regiment. Promoted Major in July 1848, and Brevet Colonel in November 1854, he attained the rank of Major-General on his retirement in December 1861, and returned to London, where he died in October 1873. Provenance: Whitaker Collection, 1890 Ritchie Collection, March 2005.

Sold for
£8,500