Note 144 — Chapter XLV

A trooper in the 16th Lancers, named Eaton, writing on 2nd Feb., 1846, of the battle of Aliwal, says, “As soon as the Commander-in-Chief received the dispatches, which he did on horseback while reconnoitring, he leaped from his horse and gave three cheers, a salute of eighteen guns was fired, and the line gave three hearty cheers for us, their gallant comrades, as they called us.” The same writer gives a very characteristic picture of Sir Harry Smith: “The General told us that when our regiment was in Lahore in 1837, the King thought us all gentlemen, but had he seen us on that day, he would have proclaimed us all devils, ‘for you charged their ranks more like them than anything else.’ As he left us we saw tears in the poor old man’s eyes, and he said, ‘God bless you, my brave boys; I love you.’”—See Cambridge Independent Press, 4th April, 1846.

Of the above letter Professor Sedgwick wrote, “Excepting Harry Smith’s dispatch, which nothing can reach, it is one of the most soul-stirring letters that has come from India.”—Life of Sedgwick, ii. p. 102.