Lieutenant-Colonel Steele, who had commanded the regiment in several engagements in the early part of the Mutiny, had been decorated by her Majesty with the insignia of a Companion of the Bath for his services.
The half-yearly inspection of the regiment was made by Brigadier Adams, C.B., commanding the southern Mahratta division on April 25th, 1861.
A frock of scarlet serge, and a wicker helmet covered with grey linen, with a turban round it, were ordered to be adopted by the regiments in India, in supersession of the shell jacket and chaco hitherto worn, and the regiment was provided with them accordingly about this time.
Intimation was received in August that the regiment was to embark for England in the approaching cold season. On the 18th November, his Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir William Mansfield, K.C.B., Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay presidency, having visited Belgaum on a tour of inspection, went through the barracks of the regiment, and afterwards reviewed the 83rd on a brigade field-day, at the conclusion of which he was pleased to make a speech to the regiment, in which he expressed his approbation of the state of the corps in the strongest terms; his Excellency used the words that “he never in the course of his service had seen a regiment in higher order, and that he should not fail to report accordingly to his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.”
Immediately afterwards the regiment was permitted by general order to give volunteers for further service in India to every regiment serving there, and a number of non-commissioned officers and men, as per margin,[19] having volunteered to other regiments, were struck off the strength of the 83rd from the 19th December, 1861.
1862.
The regiment commenced its march to the coast on the 22nd January, 1862, and reached Vingorla on the 29th of that month, where they were encamped till the 5th of February, on which day the regiment, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Steele, C.B., embarked in the hired transport King Lear; the ship sailed the same evening for Plymouth.
During the service of the regiment in India of 12½ years, it lost by deaths 18 officers, 30 sergeants, 417 rank and file; and 51 sergeants and 629 rank and file were invalided.
The King Lear anchored in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the morning of the 18th March, and having obtained supplies sailed again for Gravesend, where the regiment disembarked on the 21st May, 1862, and proceeded to Dover on the same day by rail, and was quartered in the citadel.
The regiment was soon afterwards inspected by Brigadier-General Garvock, commanding at Dover, and by Major-General Hon. A. A. Dalzell, commanding the division.