“The Government of India will, as a mark of its grateful sense of their distinguished merit, present to every general and other officer, and to every soldier engaged in the battles of Maharajpore and Punniar, an Indian Star of bronze, made out of the guns taken in these battles; and all officers and soldiers in the service of the Government of India will be permitted to wear the Star with their uniforms.
“A triumphal monument commemorative of the campaign of Gwalior will be erected at Calcutta, and inscribed with the names of all who fell in the two battles.”
Major Thomas Ryan, of Her Majesty’s Fiftieth regiment, was attached to the Thirty-ninth, and distinguished himself by his cool and gallant conduct at the battle of Maharajpore. Major Ryan and Lieut.-Colonel Wright had their horses shot under them.
1844.
The “Army of Gwalior” was broken up on the 28th of January 1844. The Thirty-ninth remained at Gwalior from the 29th of January until the 4th of March, when the right brigade, with the regiment, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Wright, returned to Agra, where it arrived on the 10th of that month.
In addition to the star manufactured from the ordnance captured at Maharajpore, a donation of six months’ batta was granted by the Governor-General in Council to the army employed during the campaign in Gwalior.
The regiment remained at Agra until the 20th of October, when it marched for Dinapore, and arrived at that station on the 13th of December following.
1845.
On the embarkation of the Thirteenth light infantry at Kurrachee for England, two hundred of the men volunteered to the Thirty-ninth regiment. These formed a portion of Major-General Sir Charles Napier’s force in his expedition against the mountain desert robbers of Beloochistan in the spring of 1845.