| Officers. | Sergeants. | Buglers. | Corporals. | Privates. |
| 34 | 49 | 17 | 40 | 801[342] |
On October 7, 1876, His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, who had served upwards of four years in the 1st Battalion as Lieutenant and as Captain, and had left it in April 1874, took command of that Battalion at the Royal barracks, Dublin, as Lieutenant-Colonel.
On October 31 it was notified that Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to permit the word ‘Ashantee’ to be borne on the plates of the pouch-belts.
I have thus inadequately recorded the services of the Regiment, which as the Rifle Corps, as the 95th, and as the Rifle Brigade, has, in the seventy-five years of its existence, served in the field in Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Russia; in South and Western Africa; in North and South America; and in Asia. In these services it has been engaged in 22 General Actions, 30 Lesser Combats, 11 Sieges or Assaults of fortified places, and in skirmishes and affairs of posts too many to enumerate. In them it has won the commendation of all those commanders under whom it has served. Nor have its discipline and conduct in quarters in more peaceful times less elicited the approbation of Generals who have commanded the stations it has occupied. And if I have not always recorded this, it is because I have been unwilling to load my pages with what no Rifleman can doubt, and what can scarcely interest any other reader.
Of the tone and prestige of its officers I need not speak. One honourable fact I must record: No officer of this Regiment has ever been brought to a Court-Martial.
Whatever future services it may be called to, whatever changes regiments or the army may undergo, I am confident that as long as the number 95 or the name Rifle Brigade exist in English Military History, the same love of the green jacket and the same esprit-de-corps which have animated its past, and animate its present, will still animate its future members—officers, non-commissioned officers, and private Riflemen.
FOOTNOTES:
[327] The ‘Red River Expedition,’ London, 1871.
[328] The funeral of Captain Huyshe is the subject of a water-colour picture by M. Norie (from a drawing I believe by Colonel Colley). I am assured by those who were present that it is a faithful representation of the scene and of the surroundings.
[329] This was in every case the position of all these companies of Riflemen acting more or less independently in this fight: a section at least being held in reserve while the greater part extended in skirmishing order.