The first battalion of the Thirty-sixth regiment, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Charles Ashmore, embarked at Gosport in Her Majesty’s troop ship “Resistance” for the Ionian Islands, on the 6th of January 1847; the reserve battalion, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Charles Trollope, who had been promoted to that rank on the augmentation of the regiment, also embarked at Gosport for the Mediterranean, on the 2d of that month, in the “Vengeance” ship of war.
The head-quarters and three companies of the first battalion disembarked at Argostoli, in the island of Cephalonia, on the 8th of February. Two companies were detached to the island of Zante, and one to Ithaca.
The reserve battalion disembarked at Corfu on the 31st of January.
The depôt of the Thirty-sixth regiment formed part of the depôt battalion at the Isle of Wight, on the embarkation of the two battalions for foreign service.
1848.
The detachment of the first battalion at Zante proceeded from thence on the 6th of May 1848, leaving one field officer, one captain, two subalterns, four serjeants, and ninety-six rank and file with the head-quarters at Cephalonia, the remainder proceeding to Corfu. The detachment at Cerigo was moved from thence to Corfu on the 13th of May 1848. The head-quarters and five companies of the first battalion proceeded from Cephalonia to Corfu on the 3d of August.
One company of the reserve battalion was detached at Vido from the 24th of March to the 19th of July 1848, and one company at Ithaca from the 15th of July to the 5th of October 1848. The reserve battalion proceeded from Corfu to Cephalonia on the 2d of August 1848. On the 26th of September an attack was made on the town of Argostoli by several hundred armed Villani, which was repelled by Serjeant Luke Dunn and twelve men of the battalion, the resident’s guard on that morning, with the loss of two killed and two wounded. Privates Daniel McNamara and William Elsom killed; privates Thomas Fox and James Lidwell wounded; several others received shots through their caps, clothing, &c.
On the same day a detachment of fifty men, under Major Lorenzo Rothe, Captain James Nugent, and Lieutenant Rickard Lloyd, succeeded in saving the public records at Lixuri, as they were on the point of being destroyed by a party of insurgents, who fired on, and slightly wounded, two soldiers; the detachment returned the fire, wounded some of the insurgents, and drove them from the town.
The reserve battalion was engaged for ten or twelve days and nights in guarding the towns of Argostoli and Lixuri, during which period the sentries and guards were repeatedly fired upon and otherwise annoyed by the insurgents. A party under Ensign Bernard Robert Shaw succeeded in capturing Cappoletto, one of the principal rebels, for whose arrest a reward of fifteen hundred dollars had been offered. Detachments of fifty men, each under Captain Alexander McGeachy Alleyne and Ensign George Massy Robins, and Lieutenant Cecil Rivers and Ensign John Edmund Harvey, were sent to the southern part of the island to scour the district of Scala.
1849.