(India.) Major A.C. Yate: 'Lieutenant-Colonel John Haughton,...

Hammer

£60

(India.) Major A.C. Yate: 'Lieutenant-Colonel John Haughton, Commandant of the 36th Sikhs: A Hero of Tirah, A Memoir.', London, John Murray, 1900, 1st edition, lacks portrait frontis, else 25 b/w ills. from photographs + 4 folding maps as called for (Plan of Chareekar with small marginal loss just affecting edge of printed area), original deep red cloth gilt, tope edge gilt, others uncut. First and only contemporary edition of this interesting and engaging biography of "one of the most distinguished soldiers of the [Tirah] campaign" (Nevill, p. 303), described by Lord Methuen as "the best leader of men I ever saw". Increasingly uncommon on the market. John Haughton (1852-1898) was the son of Lt.-Col. John Colpoys Haughton, "the staunch defender of Charikar in 1841 [whose name] is known but to the few serious students of Indian Frontier warfare" (p. ix). In India, the younger Haughton commanded the 36th Sikhs during the 1897-1898 Tirah campaign to subdue part of the Indian frontier. In the last major battle of the campaign, Haughton was killed by sheer overwhelming numbers. A plaque in the chapel at Uppingham School commemorates Haughton's death, "while boldly defending a position to the last against overwhelming odds". The present work also contains a detailed description of the famous engagement at Saragarhi, where 21 members of Haughton's 36th Sikhs were involved in an heroic last stand against 10,000 Afghans.