Memoir of the Services of the Bengal Artillery / From the Formation of the Corps to the Present Time, with Some Account of Its Internal Organization

by E. Buckle

Some apology is due for the delay which has occurred in placing the Memoir before the public. This has been occasioned partly by the necessity of obtaining original information relative to the events of the Sikh campaign, and partly by the pressure of other literary engagements which have absorbed the editor’s time. In the record of the great victory of Goojrat, the history of the achievements of the Bengal Artillery has a fitting termination; and I can hardly regret the delay which has enabled me to chronicle, however inefficiently, the services of so many of my distinguished cotemporaries in the course of the last few memorable years.

J. W. K.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction—Artillery previous to 1756—Destruction of 1st Company in Black Hole—Recapture of Calcutta—Plassey—Re-formation of 1st Company; 2nd Company and 3rd Company raised—Campaigns of Colonel Calliaud, Major Adams, &c.—Massacre at Patna—4th Company raised—Major Munro’s Campaigns—Artillery attached to brigades—Artillery Companies formed into a Battalion—Board of Ordnance—Practice-ground near Dum-Dum—Three Companies of Artillery raised for Nawab of Oude—Transferred to the Establishment—Artillery formed into a Brigade, p. [1]–53.

CHAPTER II.

Reduction of Golundaz Battalion—Formation of Regiment into Two European Battalions with Ten Battalions of Lascars—Goddard’s Expedition—Popham’s Capture of Gwalior—Insurrection at Benares—Attacks on Pateeta, Luteefpoor, and Siege of Bidgegurh—Colonel Pearse’s Expedition to the Coast—Reduction of Golundaz Companies—Transport Train, Foundry, Powder-works—Reduction in Establishment—Pay—Artillery formed into One European Battalion of Ten Companies—Lascar Battalions abolished—Battalion Guns—Artillery formed into Three European Battalions, Lascars into Thirty Companies, p. [54]–106.

CHAPTER III.

Artillery, one of the brigades of the army—An Infantry Officer, Brigade-Major—Succeeded by an Artillery Officer—Dress—School orders—School—Inoculation—Companies numbered by seniority—Method of exploding mortar-shells on reaching the ground—Fire in the arsenal—Death of Colonel Pearse—Lieut.-Colonel G. Deare, Commandant—War in the Carnatic—Second Battalion of Artillery sent—Sattimungulum—Bangalore—Retreat from Seringapatam—Nundydroog—Savendroog—Attack on fortified camp at Seringapatam—Return to Bengal, p. [107]–162.

CHAPTER IV.