The Afghan War, 1838-1842
from the Journal and Correspondence of the late Major-General Augustus Abbott, C.B. Royal (Bengal) Artillery
edited by Charles Rathbone Low, I.N., F.R.G.S.
London, Richard Bentley and Son, 1879.
INTRODUCTION
Major-General Augustus Abbott is the eldest of five brothers who have “done the State some service” in India and the East. The second, General Sir Frederick Abbott, C.B., was educated at Addiscombe, and entered the Bengal Engineers, which has been a prolific Alma Mater of eminent men. When a very young officer, he earned distinction by his professional skill in the first Burmese war of 1824-26, and was wounded whilst leading Major Gulley’s column near Prome, on the 2nd of December, 1825. He served as Chief-Engineer of the army, which, under the late Field-Marshal Sir George Pollock, retrieved our laurels in Afghanistan. Captain Abbott was present at the forcing of the Khyber Pass on the 5th of April, 1842, and at the actions of Mammoo Khail, Jugdulluck, and Tezeen, in the following September. Again, when in 1845, war broke out with the Sikhs, he was second in command of the Engineers and gained the thanks of Lords Hardinge and Gough by the rapid and skilful manner in which, after the battle of Sobraon, in February, 1846, he bridged the Sutlej, in a few hours, with boats, over which the army, with its guns and stores, marched through the Punjaub to Lahore. Lord Hardinge - clarum et venerabile nomen - wrote of his services on this occassion: “Two days before the battle of Sabraon, I consulted with you and Colonel Harry Lawrence as to the best means of overcoming some difficulties which had arisen, relating to the employement of the heavy artillery in the attack of the Sikh entrenched camp, and I sent you to the Commander-in-Chief, confidentially to communicate with his Excellency; the result being a ready concurrence of Lord Gough, and the decision taken to storm the enemy’s camp after the defences should have been shaken by the fire of thirty-five pieces of heavy artillery. The instant that great victory was achieved you returned to the ghaut, and, without repose night and day, directed all your energies and talents in laying down bridges of boats, by which the army, its siege train, and its enormous baggage, was able in a few hours to enter the Punjaub, and march to Lahore.” In September, 1847, Colonel Abbott relinquished the office of Superintending Engineer of the North-Western Provinces, and returned to England. On the retirement of Sir Ephraim Stannus, from the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Addiscombe, in 1850, the Court of Directors conferred upon Colonel Abbott the appointment, which he held until the abolition of that famous military seminary in 1861. In 1859 he was nominated one of the Commissioners for the National Defences.
The third brother, General James Abbott, C.B., was educated at Blackheath, where had among his schoolfellows, no less a personage than Lord Beaconsfield, whom he described as being a leader amongst boys. From Blackheath he proceeded to Addiscombe, when he went to India as an Artillery Cadet on the Bengal Establishment. Lieutenant Abbott was engaged in the siege of the great Jât fortress of Bhurtpore in 1826, and in the Afghan war, but, soon after our army reached Candahar, he was attached to the mission of Major D’Arcy Todd, our envoy at Herat, who despatched him to Khiva, to effect the release of Russian prisoners detained by the Khan of that State. From Khiva he proceeded, on his own responsibility, to St. Petersburgh, with terms of accomodation from the Khan to the Government of the Czar.
How he fulfilled his mission, its dangers, hardships, and difficulties, and how he was cut down in a night attack on the shores of the Caspian, and narrowly escaped with his life, are narrated in his work on Khiva, of which a Times’ reviewer says, “that it still affords the best materials we have for forming an idea of the country and people.”
...
The fourth of the brothers is Major-General Saunders A. Abbott, who proceeded from Addiscombe to India in June 1828, served in the Shekewattee campaign, and in the Revenue Survey from 1836 to 1842, when from financial considerations, it was broken up, and he was nominated aide-de-camp to Lord Ellenborough. In the latter part of 1843 he was appointed Assistant to the Governor General’ Agent on the North-West Frontier, and served on the staff of Lord Harding in the sanguinary field of Ferozeshah, where the fate of India hung in the balance. Of thirteen officers of the staff of the “the hero of Albuera”, eleven were either killed or wounded, among the latter being Saunders Abbott, who was dangerously wounded, and was laid in a tent by the side of the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, and Sir Frederick Paul Haines, the present Commander-in-Chief in India.
...
The youngest brother of this family was the late Mr. Keith Abbott, who, for many years, filled with conspicuous success, the post of British Consul-General at Tabriz, and latterly at Odessa, where he died, much lamented by the European inhabitants. During his lenghtened service in Persia, he furnished to the Government most full and valuable reports on the resources and geography of that country, with every portion of which he was familiar.
It is of the services of the eldest of these brothers that we have to deal with in the ensuing pages.
Augustus Abbott was born in London on the 7th January, 1804, soon after the return from Calcutta of his father, a mechant of good family and position in the “City of Palaces”. He was first educated under Dr. Faithfull at Warfield, in Berkshire, and afterwards as gentleman-commoner at Winchester College. In his childhood he was remarkable for his courage, his high spirit, and his generosity...
At the age of fourteen, Augustus Abbott entered Addiscombe, and, in April, 1819, when only fifteen years of age, he went out to India as an Artillery Cadet, having passed through Addiscombe in one year, which was partly owing to an extra demand for cadets that season.
from the Journal and Correspondence of the late Major-General Augustus Abbott, C.B. Royal (Bengal) Artillery
edited by Charles Rathbone Low, I.N., F.R.G.S.
London, Richard Bentley and Son, 1879.
INTRODUCTION
Major-General Augustus Abbott is the eldest of five brothers who have “done the State some service” in India and the East. The second, General Sir Frederick Abbott, C.B., was educated at Addiscombe, and entered the Bengal Engineers, which has been a prolific Alma Mater of eminent men. When a very young officer, he earned distinction by his professional skill in the first Burmese war of 1824-26, and was wounded whilst leading Major Gulley’s column near Prome, on the 2nd of December, 1825. He served as Chief-Engineer of the army, which, under the late Field-Marshal Sir George Pollock, retrieved our laurels in Afghanistan. Captain Abbott was present at the forcing of the Khyber Pass on the 5th of April, 1842, and at the actions of Mammoo Khail, Jugdulluck, and Tezeen, in the following September. Again, when in 1845, war broke out with the Sikhs, he was second in command of the Engineers and gained the thanks of Lords Hardinge and Gough by the rapid and skilful manner in which, after the battle of Sobraon, in February, 1846, he bridged the Sutlej, in a few hours, with boats, over which the army, with its guns and stores, marched through the Punjaub to Lahore. Lord Hardinge - clarum et venerabile nomen - wrote of his services on this occassion: “Two days before the battle of Sabraon, I consulted with you and Colonel Harry Lawrence as to the best means of overcoming some difficulties which had arisen, relating to the employement of the heavy artillery in the attack of the Sikh entrenched camp, and I sent you to the Commander-in-Chief, confidentially to communicate with his Excellency; the result being a ready concurrence of Lord Gough, and the decision taken to storm the enemy’s camp after the defences should have been shaken by the fire of thirty-five pieces of heavy artillery. The instant that great victory was achieved you returned to the ghaut, and, without repose night and day, directed all your energies and talents in laying down bridges of boats, by which the army, its siege train, and its enormous baggage, was able in a few hours to enter the Punjaub, and march to Lahore.” In September, 1847, Colonel Abbott relinquished the office of Superintending Engineer of the North-Western Provinces, and returned to England. On the retirement of Sir Ephraim Stannus, from the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Addiscombe, in 1850, the Court of Directors conferred upon Colonel Abbott the appointment, which he held until the abolition of that famous military seminary in 1861. In 1859 he was nominated one of the Commissioners for the National Defences.
The third brother, General James Abbott, C.B., was educated at Blackheath, where had among his schoolfellows, no less a personage than Lord Beaconsfield, whom he described as being a leader amongst boys. From Blackheath he proceeded to Addiscombe, when he went to India as an Artillery Cadet on the Bengal Establishment. Lieutenant Abbott was engaged in the siege of the great Jât fortress of Bhurtpore in 1826, and in the Afghan war, but, soon after our army reached Candahar, he was attached to the mission of Major D’Arcy Todd, our envoy at Herat, who despatched him to Khiva, to effect the release of Russian prisoners detained by the Khan of that State. From Khiva he proceeded, on his own responsibility, to St. Petersburgh, with terms of accomodation from the Khan to the Government of the Czar.
How he fulfilled his mission, its dangers, hardships, and difficulties, and how he was cut down in a night attack on the shores of the Caspian, and narrowly escaped with his life, are narrated in his work on Khiva, of which a Times’ reviewer says, “that it still affords the best materials we have for forming an idea of the country and people.”
...
The fourth of the brothers is Major-General Saunders A. Abbott, who proceeded from Addiscombe to India in June 1828, served in the Shekewattee campaign, and in the Revenue Survey from 1836 to 1842, when from financial considerations, it was broken up, and he was nominated aide-de-camp to Lord Ellenborough. In the latter part of 1843 he was appointed Assistant to the Governor General’ Agent on the North-West Frontier, and served on the staff of Lord Harding in the sanguinary field of Ferozeshah, where the fate of India hung in the balance. Of thirteen officers of the staff of the “the hero of Albuera”, eleven were either killed or wounded, among the latter being Saunders Abbott, who was dangerously wounded, and was laid in a tent by the side of the late Sir Herbert Edwardes, and Sir Frederick Paul Haines, the present Commander-in-Chief in India.
...
The youngest brother of this family was the late Mr. Keith Abbott, who, for many years, filled with conspicuous success, the post of British Consul-General at Tabriz, and latterly at Odessa, where he died, much lamented by the European inhabitants. During his lenghtened service in Persia, he furnished to the Government most full and valuable reports on the resources and geography of that country, with every portion of which he was familiar.
It is of the services of the eldest of these brothers that we have to deal with in the ensuing pages.
Augustus Abbott was born in London on the 7th January, 1804, soon after the return from Calcutta of his father, a mechant of good family and position in the “City of Palaces”. He was first educated under Dr. Faithfull at Warfield, in Berkshire, and afterwards as gentleman-commoner at Winchester College. In his childhood he was remarkable for his courage, his high spirit, and his generosity...
At the age of fourteen, Augustus Abbott entered Addiscombe, and, in April, 1819, when only fifteen years of age, he went out to India as an Artillery Cadet, having passed through Addiscombe in one year, which was partly owing to an extra demand for cadets that season.