Note 138 — Chapter XLIII
Reading edition
Colonel T. Bunbury writes of the battle of Ferozeshah: “Everybody was so famished with hunger that Sir H. Smith, hearing that (one of our officers had secured a lamb), sent to beg of us a mutton chop. But he was too late. The sheep had been slaughtered, cooked, and devoured.” (Reminiscences of a Veteran, iii. p. 289).
The same story is told in a letter of a private soldier, dated “January 5th, 1846” (printed in the Cambridge Chronicle, 25th April, 1846): “The Governor-General, the Commander-in-Chief, the General of Division, the A.D.C., and the whole of the staff—with this one exception, they rode and we marched—fared the same as ourselves—without food, without water.” The same writer relates, “General Smith has command of the 1st Division. He exposed himself very much, too much in fact, for when the whole of the men were lying down to escape the shower of shot, the gallant General remained on his horse in front of the line, exhorting the men to lie still as they could not get up and live, and when they charged the guns, he led them in truly gallant style. His escape was truly miraculous.” “The gallant General Smith has just passed—he looks somewhat thinner, and no wonder, for he has a very busy time of it. I hope to God he will come off unscathed, and may he receive the reward of his services from his sovereign.”