CHAPTER VI.

1848-1854.

THE SECOND WAR WITH BURMA.

When the XVIIIth Royal Irish regiment arrived in India the Sikh War appeared to be over, and all chance of winning fresh laurels seemed relegated to the distant future. Further troubles, however, broke out in the Punjab, and for a time the regiment had every hope of again seeing active service under Sir Hugh Gough, as it was ordered up country and incorporated in the “Army of Reserve” on its arrival at Umballa in March, 1849. But Gough’s victory at Goozerat[145] had finally crushed the power of our gallant foes; the “Army of Reserve” was not called upon to take the field, and the Royal Irish remained at Umballa till the end of 1849, when they marched to Meerut, where a draft of two hundred and twenty recruits from home awaited them. The two flank companies did not accompany headquarters, as in November they had been sent on an important and interesting duty: they formed the European portion of the escort selected to guard the Marquis of Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, in his progress from Rurki to Lahore, the capital of the great province just added to the British dominions. This detachment of the XVIIIth was commanded by Captain C. A. Edwards, who in a statement prepared for this history mentions that as it was feared fanatics would attempt to murder the Governor-General in his sleep, four picked men of the Royal Irish at night patrolled the space between the inner and outer walls of Lord Dalhousie’s tent. These sentries appear to have been abnormally ceremonious in their manners, for the Governor-General, while warmly praising their incessant vigilance, said that he had only one fault to find with them--they _would_ salute him when he was in his dressing-gown! It is not clear whether Edwards’ party were present at the historic scene of Dhuleep Singh’s deposition at Lahore, but they acted nominally as guard of honour, but virtually as escort to this important prisoner on his journey to Meerut. In the cold weather of 1850 the regiment was ordered back to Calcutta; from Allahabad the journey was by river, in flats towed by small steamers. On its arrival it was quartered in Fort William, where, when all outlying detachments had been collected, Colonel Reignolds had under his command a magnificent regiment of eleven hundred and five officers and men. As it was generally understood that the Royal Irish would be ordered home in a few months, many officers obtained leave of absence and started for England under the firm impression that for some time there would be no more fighting in the East.[146] But the truth of the saying “You never know your luck” has seldom been better illustrated than in the case of the XVIIIth at the beginning of 1852, when the regiment found itself hurried off to take part in an expedition to Burma.

The causes of this war, the second which the Burmese had forced upon us in the course of thirty years, were almost identical with those which had brought about the conflict with China, described in the preceding chapter. Persistent disregard of treaties and systematic oppression of European traders had culminated in maltreatment of British subjects so flagrant that our Government was compelled to seek redress by arms; and in each theatre of war the prestige of Britain was re-established by the combined efforts of both branches of the Service. The dissensions between England and the King of Ava, as the ruler of Burma was officially described, were brought to a climax by the misconduct of one of his lieutenants, the governor of Rangoon, who wantonly imprisoned the master of a British ship, and exposed him in the stocks to the gibes and insults of an Eastern rabble. When a squadron demanded reparation for this outrage the Burmese temporised, but soon so clearly showed they did not mean to mend their ways that the commodore seized a Burmese ship-of-war and blockaded the port of Rangoon. The truculent governor retaliated by confiscating the property of all British subjects within his reach; and the sailors thereupon towed their prize to sea under a heavy fire from the stockades on the banks of the Rangoon river. When this news reached Calcutta the Indian Government at once ordered a combined naval and military expedition[147] to rendezvous at the mouth of the branch of the Irrawaddy on which Rangoon stands, and on January 19, 1852, Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds with the headquarters and right wing of the regiment (444 all told) embarked at Calcutta, followed in a few weeks by Lieutenant-Colonel C. J. Coote with the left wing, 518 strong.[148] This was not the first time that the sails of a great British expedition had whitened Burmese waters. In 1824, the King of Ava had invaded the territories of the East India Company, an act of unprovoked aggression punished by the capture of Rangoon, and followed by a long series of operations, in which a very large number of the British troops perished of disease before the Burmese sued for peace, and ceded to us the provinces of Aracan and Tenasserim, long narrow strips of territory washed respectively by the waters of the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. Rangoon was restored to the King of Ava, and with it two hundred miles of coast-line that lay like a wedge between our new dominions.[149]

In the first phase of the campaign of 1852-53, the operations were chiefly confined to the capture of important towns near the mouths of the great rivers which, rising in the Himalayas, flow through the swamps and forests of Burma on their way to the Indian Ocean. The war-steamers forced their way up the streams and engaged the stockades and other defences on the banks; while the soldiers landed, stormed these works, and then, pushing forward into the jungle, carried the towns by assault. While the operations were confined to the immediate neighbourhood of rivers and navigable creeks no question of land transport arose, but when it became necessary to send columns of troops deep into the interior of the country, the innumerable difficulties of fighting in a pathless and tropical jungle at once made themselves felt. The ships could indeed bring stores to the point on the river from which the column struck inland; they could hold a base upon which the troops could fall back in case of need; but there the power of the navy ceased. The wants of the soldiers could only be supplied by bullock-carts or elephants, and the long lines of transport animals had to wind their way through a densely wooded country, admirably suited to the guerilla tactics of surprises and ambuscades. Like the Chinese, the Burmans though brave as individuals were undisciplined as soldiers, and as a rule preferred to fight behind ramparts to meeting their enemy in the field. In China the garrisons of the cities waited our attack behind high stone walls; in Burma the defenders of the towns manned huge timber stockades, in the building of which they were very skilful. A nation of woodsmen, with their sharp square-pointed swords they could hew down forest trees and run up timber barricades with extreme rapidity, and when time was allowed them they could produce really formidable fortifications, such as those awaiting the British at Rangoon. These consisted of a substantial rampart, fourteen or fifteen feet high, about twelve feet wide on the top, and revetted within and without by great teak logs placed vertically, with the lower ends sunk in the ground. The intervening space was filled with well-rammed earth. The logs of the outer revetment stretched up some six feet or more above the level of the parapet, every fourth or fifth log being cut some three feet shorter than the others to form loopholes and embrasures. There were many flanking towers; traverses protected the gates; the ditches were deep, often flooded with water, and protected by thick abattis. Guns, varying in calibre from 32-prs. to wall pieces and gingals, were mounted on the parapets. The infantry were armed with flint-lock muskets, many of them old weapons, worn out and sold as scrap iron by the British military authorities.

When the ships containing the Bengal contingent reached the mouth of the Rangoon river on April 2, 1852, Major-General H. Godwin, who was in command of the troops, sent a vessel under a flag of truce to inquire whether any answer had been received from the King of Ava to the letter containing the British demands for redress. The Burmese replied by firing on the flag of truce, and Godwin, not feeling strong enough to attack Rangoon until the Madras contingent had joined him, sailed for the capital of Tenasserim, Moulmein, at that time threatened by the garrison of the neighbouring Burmese city of Martaban. On the morning of the 5th of April the fleet opened fire upon Martaban, and under cover of the bombardment the right wing of the XVIIIth and part of the 80th landed; a storming party, led by the grenadier companies of these two regiments, scaled the wall, and in a short time the place was in our hands. Thanks to the diary of the late Colonel G. A. Elliot, then a subaltern in the Royal Irish, interesting particulars have been preserved of this little fight, in which the younger men in the regiment were in action for the first time. Under a heavy but badly directed fire the grenadiers dashed across the twenty yards of ground between the water’s edge and the main defence of the city, a thick wall fifteen feet high and about eight hundred yards in length. Here the enemy’s bullets began to take effect among the Royal Irish. Colonel Elliot writes that--

“Private Fergusson received three in his left arm, and died of his wounds,[150] John Donovan two in his left hand, Coleman one through his left arm. We ran up and got close under the wall in extended order; the General was seen to take off his hat and give a cheer, which our men returned and then quickly sprung up the wall, (which was overgrown with shrubs) and rushed upon the Burmese, who quickly retired to some jungle, whence they fired, though without much effect. While surmounting the wall one of our officers noticed a man in the regiment get on to the top and look intently into a large bush below him. Still gazing intently, he loosed a brick, flung it down into the bush, raised his musket and shot a Burmese who had been hiding there in cover. We then advanced, and joining part of the 80th, and one of our own companies, skirmished up one of the hills enclosed by the wall, driving the Burmese before us, and charging them whenever they appeared in numbers. The hill was very steep, and obstacles existed in the shape of felled trees with branches pointing downwards. At the top was a Pagoda, surrounded by a wall mounted with gingals, but as there was no resistance, the men rested here for an hour in the shade. We then moved down a lane which led towards the next hill; after advancing about two hundred yards we came to an open space where the bullets began to fly over our heads from the hill in front. The men halted, and Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds, XVIIIth, who was acting Brigadier, halted for reinforcements: ... but as soon as the Burmese saw that we had stopped, they began shouting and challenging us to come on, and after a while they poured down the hill towards us. Colonel Reignolds now allowed the men to charge, and with a cheer they dashed forward. The enemy ran back to a wall on the top of the hill and began a badly aimed fire; Glesson, Grenadier Company was struck in the mouth. The enemy evacuated the hill.”

After clearing a third hill the detachment whose fortunes Elliot has described joined the main body, and as the enemy were completely routed all marched back to the beach. The casualties in this affair were eight wounded, seven of whom were men of the Royal Irish; but many soldiers were struck down by the sun, a warning, unhappily disregarded, against the folly of wearing in the tropics the same uniform as that in use in the United Kingdom. In the despatch describing the capture of Martaban the following officers of the regiment were mentioned, viz., Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds; Captain A. N. Campbell, on whom devolved the command of the wing when Reignolds was ordered to act as Brigadier; and Captain A. Gillespie, grenadier company, who was the first man over the enemy’s fortifications.

Godwin had now secured the safety of Moulmein; and leaving a small garrison in Martaban, he returned with the greater part of his force to the Rangoon river, where the Madras contingent and reinforcements from Bengal awaited him. Among the latter was the left wing of the Royal Irish, who since its arrival had been employed with the Navy in destroying the stockades at the mouth of the river. On the 10th of April the fleet began to move up-stream, and next morning the steamers were in their appointed positions, ready to bombard the works which defended the landing-places giving access to Rangoon. The Burmese opened fire; the sailors replied with energy, and the cannonade continued till late in the day, when landing parties, among whom were detachments of the XVIIIth, stormed the stockades; and driving away the enemy, cleared the way for the disembarkation of the main body. Though General Godwin had served in the first expedition to Burma, his recollections of the topography of Rangoon would have been misleading had they not been supplemented by information supplied by a British trader, from whom he learned that since the war of 1824-26 part of the town had been abandoned and lay in ruins; a new quarter had sprung up, and the fortifications had been remodelled to meet the fresh conditions. Rangoon was now built in a rough square, with sides about three-quarters of a mile in length, surrounded by deep ditches, and walls sixteen feet high and eight feet thick. In the works was included the Shwe Dagon, turned into a citadel by the mounting of cannon upon the three tiers of huge terraces which support the foundations of this great pagoda. From the landing-places on the river to the gate in the southern wall is about a mile and a quarter; and the Burmese, remembering that in the first war we had marched by that road, concluded that the tactics of 1826 would be repeated in 1852, and concentrated the greater part of their artillery and about ten thousand troops on the southern section of the defences. Godwin, however, completely upset this scheme of defence by declining to attack where he was so obviously expected.

Early on the 12th of April the right column--composed of the XVIIIth, 51st, the 40th Bengal Native Infantry, two guns of the Madras Artillery, and a detachment of the Madras Sappers and Miners--landed, with a day’s cooked rations and sixty rounds of ammunition on their persons; by 7 A.M. they were advancing on an outwork, known as the “White House stockade,” which obstructed their path through the jungle. The field-guns, escorted by the grenadier and Light companies of the XVIIIth, shelled it till the 51st were ordered to the assault; the other companies of the regiment were following in support, when they were suddenly ordered to halt, and to crowd into the jungle to clear the track for the Madras Sappers and the parties of bluejackets and European soldiers who carried the scaling ladders, then urgently required at the front. Some of the Royal Irish had been detailed for this duty, which proved a dangerous one, as out of the four men of the regiment told off to the first ladder three were wounded. This delay threw the Royal Irish “out of the hunt,” and by the time they reached the stockade the 51st had stormed and occupied it. At this point General Godwin was forced to call a halt: five of the senior officers had been struck down by solar apoplexy, two of them fatally; many of the men lay on the ground senseless from sunstroke; all ranks were worn out by the overpowering heat, and he was forced to bivouac on the ground he had gained. From papers left by Colonel, then Lieutenant, C. Woodwright, XVIIIth, it appears that during the afternoon, while the Royal Irish were slaking their thirst at wells discovered in the jungle, a number of Burmese stalked the covering parties, surprised them by a heavy fire, and occupied a pagoda, from which they directed an annoying fusilade on the watering-place. While other portions of the regiment drove back the enemy’s skirmishers, Woodwright’s company was ordered to seize the pagoda: this was accomplished successfully, though with the loss of Colour-Sergeant Kelly and several men seriously wounded. Twice in the night the Burmese attempted to rush the bivouac of the Royal Irish, but were driven back by a few rounds of canister from light field-guns.

For more than forty hours General Godwin was unable to advance. His commissariat officers were very slow in issuing rations to replace the one-day’s supply carried by the troops; the gunners were equally slow in landing and transporting to the front the four 8-in. howitzers, on which he relied to make a breach in the defences of Rangoon; and it was not until 5 A.M. on the 14th that the column was again in motion. The XVIIIth and the 40th Bengal Native Infantry led, followed by the 51st and the 35th Madras Native Infantry; the 80th were in charge of the guns, and a Madras Native Infantry regiment kept up communication with the ships in the river. Working slowly through jungle so thick that paths had to be cut for the passage of the guns, Godwin avoided the enemy’s main stockades; but as his leading troops came within sight of the great pagoda, the guns on its terraces opened fire. Opposite the gate in the eastern wall, by which he proposed to force his way into Rangoon, the ground was so difficult that there was barely room for the XVIIIth and the 80th to form up in quarter columns, while they halted till the guns had made a practicable breach. The Burmese artillery played upon the easy target offered to them, and their skirmishers became so bold that five hundred muskets were required to keep them at a respectful distance from the main body of the infantry. The situation was becoming impossible when it was discovered that the gate had been opened, presumably to afford a safe retreat to the Burmese soldiers who were harassing our flanks. Godwin determined to assault forthwith, and placed Lieutenant-Colonel Coote in command of a storming party, composed of two companies of the Royal Irish, the wing of the 80th, and part of the 40th B.N.I. Under a galling fire, the column moved with great steadiness across a shallow valley, half a mile in width, and swept like a tidal wave over terrace after terrace until the Shwe Dagon was won. Then the Burmese broke and fled in panic, losing heavily in their retreat, especially at a point where part of the grenadier company of the Royal Irish fell upon them in flank with the bayonet, and in a short time Rangoon was in our hands. In the British land forces the casualties between the 11th and the 14th of April were a hundred and forty-five--two officers were killed and fourteen wounded; fifteen of the other ranks were killed, and a hundred and fourteen wounded. Nearly a third of these losses fell upon the Royal Irish: Lieutenant and Adjutant R. Doran, pierced by four bullets, fell mortally wounded at the foot of the pagoda;[151] Lieutenant-Colonel Coote, Captain W. T. Bruce, and Lieutenant G. A. Elliot were wounded; a sergeant and two privates were killed, a sergeant, a drummer, and thirty-seven privates wounded.[152] In his despatch General Godwin mentions four officers of the Royal Irish--Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds, who was in temporary command of a brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Coote, Captain G. F. S. Call (Brigade Major), and Captain J. J. Wood, who brought the regiment out of action.

For the next few months the XVIIIth lay sweltering at Rangoon, where General Godwin was obliged to await the arrival of reinforcements before undertaking further operations on a large scale. During this period of enforced inaction life was by no means agreeable: the heat was intense, the labour of hut-building severe, the duties heavy, and there was much sickness among the troops. Two small expeditions pushed out north and west--the first occupied the town of Pegu; the second captured the city of Bassein, important as commanding one of the three navigable mouths of the Irrawaddy. In neither of these enterprises did the Royal Irish play any part. Their only “outing” at this time seems to have been a two-days’ hunt after a Burmese official whom the General was anxious to take prisoner. After hard marching they had their quarry almost within their grasp, when he disappeared into the jungle, leaving in their hands a string of carts laden with his numerous wives. In August it became known that the King of Ava, by no means disheartened by the loss of Rangoon and the other towns we had wrested from him, was gathering large forces near Prome, two hundred miles up the Irrawaddy. After a flotilla of gunboats had destroyed the stockades on the banks of the river near that town, Godwin determined to occupy it, to serve as an advanced base in the movement upon Ava, which he awaited the permission of Government to begin. When the long-expected reinforcements began to arrive, the Royal Irish found themselves in a division commanded by Sir John Cheape. The first brigade was under Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds, and consisted of the XVIIIth, and the 40th and 67th Native Infantry regiments. Two officers of the Royal Irish were on the staff: Captain G. F. S. Call was Brigade Major to Reignolds’ brigade, Captain W. T. Bruce was Assistant Adjutant-General to the first division. This organisation, however, appears to have been merely one on paper, for in September Godwin announced to the troops that he was about to resume active operations, and warned the XVIIIth, the 80th, and the 35th Madras Native Infantry to hold themselves in readiness to embark under command of Brigadier-General Reignolds. These regiments, with some Artillery and Sappers and Miners, disembarked with slight opposition at Prome on the 9th of October, and on marching a short way inland found that the Burmese had disappeared. In the landing there were a few casualties, none of them among the Royal Irish; but that night the young soldiers of the regiment had a stern lesson in outpost duty--one of their comrades, who allowed himself to be surprised on sentry, was killed, and his head sent as a trophy to the King of Ava. While troops were being gradually passed up the river to Prome, the Burmese attacked our garrison in Pegu, and a considerable force had to be sent to the rescue, but the XVIIIth was not employed either in the relief of Pegu, or in the operations of a column sent to clear the jungles round Martaban.

For many months it continued to form part of the garrison of Prome, which was invested by the Burmese, who surrounded the place with stockades, thrown up in the jungle, a mile or two beyond our outposts. In November three companies helped to destroy one of these works, whose defenders had been active in intercepting supplies brought in by friendly natives. Later in the month two companies under Brevet-Major Edwards were sent on a much longer expedition; they formed the British contingent in a small column sent to rid the districts of Khangheim and Padaung of the enemy. Crossing to the right bank they worked up-stream, and at first met with little opposition, though they were “sniped at” by night. “On one occasion the watering-place was surrounded by a small party, and several sepoys who had gone there to fill their drinking-vessels were killed or wounded. The column passed the spot where a few days before the Captain of a native regiment with a small body of his men was surprised by the Burmese, and the place where they were beheaded was still plainly discernible by the blood-stains on the stones. The heads of the Captain and two men had been sent to Ava; their bodies were left on the banks of the river till buried by the English.”[153] The senior officer of the column broke down in health; Edwards succeeded to the command; and from the Digest of Service it appears that after several successful skirmishes he drove the Burmese into a place called Tomah, where he hemmed them in until March, 1853, when reinforcements of all arms enabled him to storm their stockade, and capture their guns, stores, and bullock-carts. During a lull in these operations Major Edwards was sent on a difficult, but interesting piece of work--to lead a small column to the top of the Tonghoo pass over the Yo-Ma range of mountains between Burma and Aracan, and there take charge of a hundred and forty-eight elephants, sent from India by the Governor-General to reinforce the transport of the army. Edwards’ command was composed of a hundred of the XVIIIth under Major Borrow, the same number of the 80th, two hundred Sikhs, and a few Madras Sappers and Miners, with three thousand coolies to carry the supplies and drive the slaughter cattle. All went well till the column began to ascend the foothills of the main range, when the coolies, frightened at the steep, jungle-covered slopes, flung down their loads and deserted in a body. As the European troops could carry but a portion of the stores, they soon ran out of tea, biscuit, and spirits, and had to fall back upon beef-on-the-hoof, and for many days had nothing to eat but meat; to the Sikhs, whose religion debared them from animal food, a small quantity of grain was supplied. A day or two after this breakdown of the transport the guides confessed that they had lost their way, so Edwards decided to work upwards, along the course of the streams that furrowed the mountain-side. Slowly but sturdily the troops breasted the hills; by day they hacked paths through the jungle; by night they slept in clothing soaked in many fords and torrents. Yet such was the stamina of the Europeans that during the expedition not one fell ill, and they outmarched the Sikhs, who broke down and had to be left behind. After nineteen days of this tremendous strain Edwards reached the rendezvous; the elephants had not yet come up, but a large supply of rice had already arrived, and his troops, eager for vegetable food, pounced on it with delight. In a few days the elephants lumbered up the pass, loaded with commissariat stores of every kind, on which the men feasted, while the animals rested after their climb. Then the long column of men and beasts crashed downwards through the forest and reached Padaung, on the Irrawaddy, in less than a quarter of the time occupied in the upward march. Official thanks were given to all ranks when the convoy of elephants was handed over to the transport department, and a month’s extra batta was granted to those who had taken part in the expedition.

The account of the doings of the XVIIIth at the front must now be broken by Lord Wolseley’s description of his first meeting with the regiment of which he is now the honoured Colonel-in-Chief. As a callow subaltern in the 80th, quite new to the practical side of war, he found himself at Rangoon in charge of a piquet, composed in part of very young soldiers of the XVIIIth, who had been left at the base under command of Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Grattan. These youngsters were not yet disciplined; they had been greatly amused at the young officer’s attempts to march his detachment to its post, and three of them, carried away by their high spirits, took liberties and refused to number off in the way he ordered. Wolseley promptly made prisoners of the culprits, and next morning

“had to appear at the Orderly Room of the Royal Irish detachment. It was a little room in a small teak-built hut, and there Colonel Grattan, C.B., of that historic regiment, daily dispensed justice to his young recruits. He was an old and amusing Irishman, full of quaint stories, and a very pleasant companion. Taken prisoner in the China War, he had been carried about in a cage as a show for the amusement of millions who had never before seen a European. His smiling face and grotesque grimaces always obtained for him a favourable reception. He greeted me pleasantly when I entered the orderly room, where--I may explain for Civilian readers--the Commanding Officer of every regiment and battalion in the Army holds a daily court to administer justice all round. Three prisoners from Tipperary were marched in bare-headed, and were drawn up facing the Colonel, who sat, pen in hand, behind a little table which separated them from him. A Corporal and a file of the guard, with drawn bayonets, stood beside the culprits, an acting Sergeant-Major, standing as all the others were, at ‘Attention’, made up the stage. A solemn silence that somewhat awed me pervaded the scene, and my shyness became greater when the funny-looking colonel addressing me, asked me sternly what complaint I had to make against the prisoners. I told my story as best I could, being extremely impressed by what I believed to be the gravity of the offence. My military reading and study of the Mutiny Act and Articles of War had led me to believe that, next to striking an officer or running away in battle, these prisoners had committed the most heinous offence in absolutely refusing to obey a lawful command when on outpost duty before the enemy. I expected they would be at once sent to trial before a general court martial, and either sentenced to death, or if their lives were spared in consideration of their youth and entire ignorance of a soldier’s duty, they would at least be transported.

“When I had finished my awful indictment, the Colonel with his funny little grey eyes, frowned from under his long grey eyebrows, first at me and then in sternness at the boy prisoners before him. There was an awful pause; you could have heard a pin drop if any one there had had such an evidence of civilization ready for the occasion. I held my breath, not knowing what was coming. I looked at the Sergeant-Major; his face was wooden and devoid of all expression as he stolidly looked straight before him into nothing. In a moment a volley of oaths from the Colonel removed the atmospheric pressure. He called the prisoners ‘limbs of Satan,’ and choking, partly at least I should say because his vituperative vocabulary had come to an end, he jumped to his feet, upsetting the table, with its ink bottle, papers, etc., and rushed upon the prisoners, kicking hard at the nearest, and crying aloud: ‘Get out, ye blackguards; never let me see you again.’ Whether it was that the prisoners were accustomed to this mode of justice and, being frightened, were anxious to avoid the toes of their Colonel’s boots as he lashed out at them or not, they turned round and ran for their lives, the Sergeant-Major after them, with their caps, which he had been holding--according to regulation--whilst this strangely scenic trial was being enacted.

“I was in dismay, and for a moment thought of running too, but seeing the old Colonel burst out laughing, I tried to smile, but it was an unhealthy attempt at hilarity on my part. However, being assured the men would never forget the scene or misbehave again, I went away feeling rather that I had been the culprit, and had only escaped condign punishment through consideration of my youth and complete ignorance of all military customs and laws. I don’t know whether these three boys from Tipperary retained a lasting remembrance--as I did--of the curious mode of administering justice, but I am sure their Colonel’s conduct was far more in consonance with their views of propriety, and far better suited to the case, than any sentence of imprisonment and trial by court martial would have been. I laugh now as I think of the whole scene, and as I do so, I feel all the more how necessary it is that Irish soldiers should have Irish officers over them, who understand their curiously Eastern character, and who are consequently better able to deal with them than strangers can.”[154]

Until the middle of February, 1853, the headquarter companies at Prome had a weary time. Sickness was rampant; in a letter written at the end of November, 1852, an officer of the XVIIIth mentions that the regiment could only turn out 350 men fit to take the field. Ninety men had been buried at Rangoon, where cholera broke out a few hours after the capture of the great Pagoda; for a month the Royal Irish had been dying at the rate of almost one a day; 137 were in hospital; large numbers had broken down and been invalided out of the country. The other regiments were equally unhealthy, and out of the whole garrison of Prome the General could only count on some 900 effectives, whose numbers were daily reduced by the ravages of climate and by the strain of the guards and piquets, which, though cut down as low as safety permitted, told severely upon the troops who remained at duty. The only break in this harassing and monotonous existence was afforded by occasional reconnaissances and night attacks, in which the enemy showed themselves more anxious to murder and decapitate individual men than to close with any formed body of soldiers. Suddenly four companies of the Royal Irish were warned for an expedition to clear the line of communication, which was harassed by Myat Toon, a robber chieftain, who from his lair near Donobyu attacked the native boats in our employ on their way up the Irrawaddy with provisions for the front. The village of Donobyu was about fifty miles above Rangoon; it was connected with the Irrawaddy by a network of creeks, and surrounded by dense jungle, almost impassable from deep nullahs full of water, which cut up the ground in every direction. In this jungle Myat Toon had fortified many positions, formidable in themselves, and most difficult of access to Europeans. The sailors had made several spirited attempts to penetrate into this labyrinth, but their boats were unable to pass the barricades of logs and forest trees with which the waterways had been obstructed; and a combined force of bluejackets and soldiers, acting on land under a post-captain in the navy, was surprised and defeated with the loss of two guns. The army was now to take in hand the punishment of the seven or eight thousand guerillas who followed the fortunes of Myat Toon, and General Godwin selected Sir John Cheape to lead the avenging force, composed of a small body of Irregular Native cavalry, detachments of Madras Sappers and Madras and Bengal Artillery with one 24-pr. howitzer and a 9-pr. field-gun, two hundred of the XVIIIth under Captain A. W. F. S. Armstrong,[155] two hundred of the 51st, two hundred Sikhs, and the 67th Bengal Native Infantry regiment. Major F. Wigston, XVIIIth, was in charge of the right wing of the column, with Lieutenant F. Eteson, XVIIIth, as his staff-officer. Descending the river to within thirty-five miles of Donobyu, Cheape disembarked at Henzada, a village where a number of country bullock-carts awaited him. As he was led to believe that three or four days’ march would bring him to Myat Toon’s stockades, he decided to fill up his transport with seven or eight days’ rations, dash on his enemy, defeat him, and then hasten back to the steamers. Leaving behind him the sick, who, though it was barely a week since he left Prome, were already numerous, he plunged into an unknown country, where his guides proved useless, his information defective and misleading. He could not find the main body of Myat Toon’s men, though skirmishing dacoits hung on his flanks, and in four days he was obliged to fall back to the river for supplies. He now transferred his base to Donobyu, which was known to have been evacuated by the enemy, and sending his empty carts there by land under escort of a party of the XVIIIth, he re-embarked with the remainder of his troops for Donobyu, where he remained till the 7th of March, when the native regiment joined him, and with it a draft of recruits for the 80th and a large supply of commissariat stores. After providing for the safety of his base and of another batch of sick men, General Cheape started on his second hunt for Myat Toon, whose entrenchments he was again assured could be reached in three days. Now began a campaign, short in duration, but harassing beyond measure to the troops engaged in it. The soldiers had to feel their way along narrow paths, often obstructed by trees cut down across the track by foes, who rarely showed themselves by day, though they disturbed the bivouac by sniping shots at night. To bridge the nullahs took much time and labour; the burden of guarding the transport carts was heavy; the heat was steamy, exhausting, and depressing; fog hung over the face of the land until several hours after sunrise; the water was tainted, and cholera broke out among the men. Then rations began to run short, and the column was obliged to halt four days in this pestilential forest while a convoy brought up fresh supplies from Donobyu. After forming an advance base for his spare stores and the sick and wounded, Cheape once more pushed forward, and on the 17th the right wing came upon traces of the enemy, who had blocked the track with a series of abattis and recently felled trees. The Royal Irish were leading, for Wigston, remembering that it was St Patrick’s Day and anxious to do honour to the occasion, had detailed them as advance-guard to give them every chance of a fight, if the Burmese would so far oblige them. After they had turned these obstacles, or cut their way through them, they ran against a stockade held by Myat Toon’s followers, and with a wild yell dashed at the work, which with the help of the Sikhs they carried “most gallantly” at the point of the bayonet.[156] The defenders did not wait for the cold steel, but after firing up to the last moment bolted into the jungle. One man, however, lingered too long over his parting shot, and was pursued by two subalterns, Hewitt and Eteson, who gave chase down the bed of a dry watercourse. Hewitt slipped and fell; Eteson succeeded in running his quarry down, and was rewarded by obtaining from his prisoner much useful information about the enemy’s main position. In this little affair Lieutenant Woodwright and five rank and file were wounded. Next day there was sharp skirmishing before the approach of darkness forced Cheape to halt on a narrow path, leading towards the village reported to be the headquarters of Myat Toon. Very soon after the piquets had been posted and the bivouac formed, the fog fell so heavily as to render reconnaissance very difficult, but when the outposts reported that the enemy was busy felling trees and completing the defences of his position, Lieutenant Eteson, three officers of the Sikhs, and three Sepoys stole forward, ascertained where the enemy was at work, and then returning to the General, described the place with sufficient accuracy to enable the gunners to fire rockets at it with some effect.

At the first glimmer of dawn on the 19th of March, our scouts began to grope their way down a wet nullah close to the bivouac, and followed it to its junction with a large creek, where the sound of voices warned them that the Burmese were at hand. Creeping from tree to tree, the reconnoitrers reached the edge of the creek, and peering through the gloom dimly discerned Myat Toon’s works on the farther bank. The position was a strong one: the creek served as a moat to a line of cleverly built breastworks, well loopholed, and protected by abattis; the left rested on an impassable swamp; the right ended in a dense thicket. As far as the scouts could see, the enemy’s front was about a quarter of a mile long; but its prolongations into the jungle really gave it a length of twelve hundred yards. Cheape would gladly have turned the enemy’s right by a flank march; but to do so he would have had to cut a road through thick jungle, and the condition of the troops precluded his imposing so heavy a task upon them, for though their spirit was high, their bodies were enfeebled by the effect of scanty food and bad water, while their numbers had been much reduced by the ravages of dysentery and cholera. There was nothing for it but a frontal attack; slowly and in silence he moved towards the creek, and then under cover of the fog marched along its bank within a hundred yards of the Burmese stockades. For a time this processional movement was not discovered, for Myat Toon, convinced that the British would not leave their bivouac till the sun had dispelled the fog, had taken no precautions against surprise; then suddenly a rolling fire burst from the whole face of the works; to meet it, the Sikhs were extended along our bank of the nullah, while the remainder of the troops fell back into the jungle to form for battle. Thus began an engagement as confused as the ground on which it was fought. At first a musketry duel raged across the creek; then scouting parties, or, as we should now call them, battle patrols, ascertained that opposite the enemy’s right of the line of stockades the creek ran dry, and was crossed by a track, which proved to have been prepared for defence: large forest trees had been felled across it; it was swept with grape from the two guns captured from the navy, flanked by a detached work, and pitted with _trous-de-loup_. A storming party was hastily organised; and the detachment of the 80th attempted to force its way across to the other side of the creek, but being inadequately supported, failed in its object. Then the Royal Irish and the Sikhs tried to push through the dense belt of jungle on the right of the Burmese line, but could not pass the abattis and detached breastworks hidden in its thickets. Finally, the General decided that at all costs the track must be won and the stockades near it carried at the point of the bayonet. The troops, as may well be imagined, were by this time greatly scattered, and while the buglers were rallying the infantry, the Bengal artillerymen, with the help of stragglers from the British detachments, dragged their 24-pr. howitzer into action only twenty-five yards from the enemy, and covered the concentration of the foot soldiers by a destructive storm of canister. In this episode Private ---- Connors, Royal Irish, greatly distinguished himself. Early in the fight a Burmese bullet had broken his left arm; he made his way to the doctor, had the broken limb temporarily bound up, and then under heavy fire helped to run the howitzer up to the front, tugging at the spokes of a wheel with his right arm. At length a number of men from the XVIIIth, 51st, and 80th were collected, and, guided by Ensign Wolseley, charged down the track yelling at their enemies, who manned the parapets and shouted defiantly, “Come on, Come on!” to them in Burmese. This is not the place to describe how Wolseley led his mixed command, nor how he was struck down, hard hit, at the moment of victory; his personal adventures in this charge, the second he led during the engagement, are narrated in the first volume of his Autobiography. It is enough to say that the troops advanced with determination, swept over the works, and killed and wounded large numbers of the four thousand men opposed to them. Those of the Royal Irish who took part in the final rush were well to the front: Lieutenant W. P. Cockburn fell desperately wounded as he scaled a stockade; Lieutenant Eteson was one of the first into the main work; and a party, led by Lieutenant Woodwright, recaptured the two naval guns, and marked the number of the regiment upon them with a rusty nail.

Cheape’s success would have been complete if he had been able to secure Myat Toon; but the Chief escaped with his life, though with little else, for he was compelled to abandon all his supplies and munitions of war. To follow him farther into the jungle was impossible, for the health of the column was so bad that the General was obliged to return to Donobyu, and thence to Prome where his steamers anchored on April 2. The operations against Myat Toon had been costly; the losses in action were one hundred and thirty, while cholera alone caused more than a hundred deaths. Most of the casualties occurred on the 19th of March, when eleven men were killed and eighty-four officers and men wounded. In the Royal Irish regiment Lieutenant W. F. Cockburn died of his injuries; Major F. Wigston was severely wounded; a corporal and eight men were killed; a sergeant and twenty-six men wounded; three colour-sergeants and eleven men died of cholera;[157] and the health of the whole detachment was so much affected that on landing at Prome only twenty-two officers and men remained fit for duty. Major F. Wigston, Captain A. W. F. S. Armstrong, and Captain W. T. Bruce were mentioned in despatches.

The regiment was not again in action during the Burmese war, as negotiations for peace put a stop to all further operations in the field. The province of Pegu was annexed to England, and as soon as the new territory settled down, the XVIIIth was ordered to Calcutta, arrived there at the end of November 1853, and a few weeks later embarked for home.

In recognition of their services Majors F. Wigston and C. A. Edwards were awarded brevet-lieutenant-colonelcies, and Captains A. N. Campbell and W. T. Bruce brevet majorities. A medal and clasp was issued to all ranks, and the word “Pegu” was added to the battle honours of the regiment. The losses of the Royal Irish in this campaign were enormous. When they returned to India their roll had been reduced by three hundred and sixty-five officers and men, of whom but few had been killed in action or died of wounds; the remainder had fallen victims to the diseases which rendered the swamps and jungles of Burma fatal to Europeans.[158] The names of the officers who perished in Burma are recorded on the memorial at St Patrick’s Cathedral.