Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... but the chiefs having stated that their escort would not be 1842 ready until the day after, the departure was postponed. During the last fortnight the ground had been covered with snow, the thermometer being as low as zero. The force on leaving Cabul consisted of about four thousand five hundred fighting men, and the camp followers, women and children amounted to about three times that number: the strength of the 44th was nineteen officers and four hundred and thirty-eight fighting men, in which numbers were included Brigadier Shelton, twelve boys, and thirty-four sick. At nine o'clock in the morning of the 6th of January, 6 Jan. the advance, under Brigadier Anquetil, consisting of the 44th, with some Sappers and Miners, one squadron of Irregular Horse, and three mountain train guns, moved off. The main column was commanded by Brigadier Shelton, and the rear-guard by Colonel Chambers. It was after midnight before the rear-guard reached Bygram, only five miles from Cabul; here the camp, if it could be so called, a few tents only being pitched, presented a sad picture of desolation, the face of the country being one uninterrupted scene of snow. Even Brigadier Shelton had no tent, and for six days and six nights was exposed on a bed of snow, with no other shelter than the canopy of heaven; a fire was out of the question, there being no wood to make one with. If such were the privations of officers high in command, it is not difficult to imagine those of others. The road, from the very gates of the cantonments, was strewed with the dead bodies of camp followers--men, women, and children, who, at this early stage in the retreat, fell victims to the frost and snow;--such was the intensity of the cold. Daylight the next morning presented a...
