Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Drummer T, E, Nams 28th Regiment N.I.) impressed naming, good very fine £260-300

Most likely Bombay Native Infantry but it is worth observing that the 28th Bengal Native Infantry mutinied at Shahjehanpur on Sunday 31 May 1857. The European officers, men, women and children made their escape with a supposedly loyal bodyguard of 100 men, mostly Sikhs, but, on 5 June near Aurangabad, they were deserted by their escort and the entire party was massacred, with the exception of Captain Patrick Orr, Assistant Commissioner, and, according to Orr’s letter to his brother three days later, ‘the drummer boy’. In Volume III of Kaye & Malleson can be found a copy of Orr’s letter in full. Of even greater interest is Malleson’s final footnote to the awful affair, which intriguingly says, ‘Of the drummer, who was not European, I can find no further mention.’