In the spring of the year 1832, Lieut.-Colonel Cassidy returned to England in ill health, after having commanded the regiment seven years. He was succeeded by Major Eagar, who died in December following, when for nearly three years the command of the regiment devolved upon the two senior Captains alternately.
1834
On the 10th of October, 1834, Lieut.-General Sir Edward Barnes, G.C.B., was appointed from the seventy-eighth regiment to the Colonelcy of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, in succession to General Sir Henry Warde, G.C.B., deceased.
1835
In December, 1834, Major Bolton joined the regiment, and was promoted, in November of the following year, to the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, by purchase, Colonel Cassidy having been removed to the charge of a recruiting district.
1836
On the 20th of January, 1836, the regiment left Kurnaul on its march to Dinapore, and, halting a day near Delhi, crossed the Jumna below the city; thence, continuing through the Doab (land between two rivers), to Allahabad, crossed the Ganges by a bridge of boats above the fort. Having halted at Benares and Ghazeepore, it recrossed the Ganges at Buxar, and arriving on the 26th of March at Dinapore, again took up its quarters in the barracks it had occupied ten years before;—although the weather was very hot, and the regiment had marched without a day’s halt from Cawnpore (thirty-one marches), there were only fifteen sick. From Kurnaul to Dinapore the change of climate is very great, while the confinement of the latter place, with the close and crowded state of the barracks, after the open scene, the comfortable thatched buildings, and the cold bracing winter air of the former station, were severely felt. In Kurnaul the hospital list never exceeded seventy, while it occasionally continued, during the hot weather, so low as thirty, and in the cold season eight or nine, for months together.
1837
During the summer of the year 1837, the thermometer remained at 115 degrees in the barracks for several days, and many deaths occurred from apoplexy, produced by the great heat.
1838