Lot 122
Crimean War
Journal of a wounded officer and a collection of letters, 1855-56
£750
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 17 June 2020 at 11:00 BST
Description
A collection of items, including: Manuscript journal recording an injured British Lieutenant Colonel's (initialled (?)"AGB") return from the Crimea on the ship Thames, commencing with his departure on 24 November 1855, describing time spent in Constantinople and Malta, his thoughts on his own mortality and the progress of the war ("...The army will under God's blessing get on very well through the winter, but the drunkenness among the men is shocking..."), a visit to Renkioi Hospital in the Dardenelles ("...a fine well ordered hospital ... a covered passage leads between the rows of huts in each of which a nurse is to be found ... the Patients are not very numerous at present - they looked very comfortable in their white not blue dressing gowns. They are of course wounded & sick soldiers..."), reflections prompted by a visit to Troy comparing the Iliad with the Crimea ("...we agreed that Nestor had a close resemblance to Lord Raglan, whose opinion always had the greatest weight..."), details of other wounded officers with whom he shared quarters, and ending with his return to England and reception at Woolwich, 22 pages, folio with a final 8vo leaf, blue paper, roughly stitched but the final leaf loose, dated at the end, Belmount, Nightingale Vale, [Woolwich, London], 23 December 1855; [AND] A file of correspondence and papers relating to the Cavalry Division in the Crimea, including letters sent to the divisional headquarters, mostly by senior officers, copies of letters to others but about divisional affairs, and memoranda, on subjects including appointments, supplies, the provision of interpreters, winter quarters, veterinary appointments and reports on cavalry horses, and personnel matters including complaints from an officer about accusations of cowardice at the Battle of Balaclava and the theft of money from a French soldier whilst sleeping off drink in the guards tent of the 13th Light Dragoons, many with marginal comments and docketing, c.34 items, chiefly folio, c.50 pages, March 1855 to April 1856
