Note 277 — Chapter I

These brigades consisted of the 3rd Buffs, the 2nd, 27th, 5th, 20th, and 53rd Regiments of Native Infantry. Captain Havelock and other military authorities have condemned this decision by lot. It is said that the principle of selection should have been adhered to on the reduction, as well as on the formation of the force. “Sir Henry Fane,” says Captain Havelock, “need not thus have distrusted or paid so poor a compliment to his own sagacity and impartiality; the one had seldom been at fault in India or in Europe, the other was above suspicion. Sortilege, after all, did little for the army in one instance; for it sent forward to the labours of the campaign, the 13th Light Infantry, then as ever zealous, indeed, and full of alacrity, but even at Ferozepore shattered by disease; the spirit of its soldiers willing, but unequal to the task; whilst it doomed to inactivity the Buffs, one of the most effective European corps in India.” This is the impartial testimony of an officer of the 13th Light Infantry. It was written immediately after the first campaign of the Army of the Indus. No writer would now regret the chance which sent Sale and Dennie into Afghanistan, and associated the name of the 13th Light Infantry with some of the most illustrious incidents of the war.