FIRST ANGLO-SIKH WAR - CLEVELAND, W., corporal H. M. 31st Regiment.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Extracts from a Journal kept on Board the Ship "Madagascar," on her Passage from Calcutta to England, First and only contemporary edition of this brief, but spirited and entirely unembroidered account, in the authentic voice of an enlisted man. The 31st were one of the most heavily engaged units of the conflict, seeing action at Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon. Scarce with just two locations traced, BL and Boston Public Library, unrecorded at auction.Vivid vignettes from the battle front are set within the context of a diary account of an uneventful voyage back from Calcutta to Gravesend. Cleveland opens on 23 October 1846, "weather continues fine and the wind steady", reminiscing of Moodkee, "the first battle in which I had even been engaged, I have often since endeavoured to imagine what my feelings were on that occasion but the hurry and confusion of that Action prevented the exercise of thought". One thing remains clear in his memory, "So confident were our Officers and men that the Sikh Army was composed of nothing but a rebel mob, that they did not believe they would hazard an engagement... this entire ignorance of the Sikh Army, it is wonderful that all were alike involved, even the Governor and Commander in Chief, each of whom, it should fairly be supposed, ought to have been possessed of correct information on so important a subject".Of Ferozeshah he recalls the "lurid flames" of the burning Sikh camp "gleaming through the darkness, diffusing sufficient light

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