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Synopsis
The new series of Spellmount Military Memoirs provides rare and sought-after texts for the collector of classic historical works, together with rigorously selected personal narratives never before in print – destined to become classics in their own right. Through the Indian Mutiny is one such text.
Having passed the examination for the Medical Service of the Honourable East India Company, as an Assistant Surgeon in the celebrated regiment of North West Frontier warriors, the 4th Punjab Native infantry, James Fairweather soon found himself at the centre of the Indian Mutiny. Often used as little more than cannon fodder, these brave men fought in all the major battles of the bloody campaign – including the Storming of Delhi, the Battle of Agra and Relief of Lucknow. Of the 1,000 men in the regiment, 900 would be lost to enemy action and disease. His extraordinarily honest and dramatic memoirs have been edited and annotated by author William Wright, former Chairman of the Victorian Military Society.
REVIEW IN MILITARY TIMES, NOVEMBER 2011 BY PATRICK MERCER
If you want high adventure set against the heat and dust of British India, then look no further than this splendid account of one of the bloodiest but most atmospheric episodes in the history of the Raj. But this is not fiction. It is better than that: the diaries of a regimental doctor who sees some of the nastiest and most decisive fighting in the whole of the Indian Mutiny.
Nothing like this has been published in the last 20 years, and it will serve not only to awaken interest in a campaign that is too often forgotten, but to focus modern eyes upon many of the problems which beset India then and continue to plague the Subcontinent today. Anyone with an interest in British or imperial history generally would be well advised to find room for Through the Indian Mutiny on their shelves.
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