NEILL, John Martin Bladen.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Recollections of Four Years' Service in the East with H. M. Fortieth Regiment: First edition, scarce. Neill gives an excellent eyewitness account of the First Anglo-Afghan War, with interesting descriptions of many important places he passed through during the campaign, including Karachi, Kandahar, and Kabul. A second edition was published the following year.Neill (1814-1859), born in Ayrshire, joined the 40th Foot as an ensign in 1833. The 40th was part of General William Nott's force, a constituent of Pollocks "Army of Retribution", conducting a punitive expedition following the disastrous retreat from Kabul. Having released the Kabul prisoners, the army effected a fighting withdrawal through the Khurd Kabul and Khyber passes, "where the evidence of the earlier disaster was only too apparent" (Lancashire Infantry Museum). Neall gives a graphic picture of the Khurd Kabul pass "literally strewed with the horrid remains of men … In some places the slain lay in heaps, probably marking the place where they had made a gallant, but ineffectual stand" (p. 273).Inscribed on the half-title "F. G. Delamain, from Ella, Feby. 1910". Frank Gunn Delamain (1858-1939) served with XI Bengal Lancers; Ella was his sister. Their father, Colonel Charles Henry Delamain (1796-1870) fought with the 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry, leading a combined artillery-cavalry column on the march to Kabul, and is mentioned several times in Neill's book. He was made a CB in 1843.

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