Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The rare Army of India and Peninsula war pair awarded to Private James Edmunds, 94th Foot

Army of India 1799-1826, 3 clasps, Asseerghur, Argaum, Gawilghur (J. Edmunds, 94th Foot.) short hyphen reverse, officially impressed naming; Military General Service 1793-1814, 9 clasps, Fuentes D’Onor, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, Toulouse (James Edmunds, 94th Foot.) lower clasp carriage a little bent on the second, light edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise very fine (2) £8,000-£12,000

Provenance: McKenzie Collection 1873; Dalrymple White Collection 1946; J. B. Hayward, April 1972.

Approximately 150 Army of India medals issued to Europeans with three clasps, including 38 with this combination, of which 33 went to the 94th Foot. A total of only 52 clasps were issued for Asseerghur to European recipients in the British or East India Company armies.

Of the 94th Foot recipients of this medal, one officer and fifteen men also received the M.G.S. medal, Edmunds being the only recipient of nine clasps, whilst one man got the maximum ten clasps.

Of the important part played by the 94th (Scotch Brigade) at Gawilghur, Mountstuart Elphinstone wrote: "The advance of the 94th was silent, deliberate and even solemn. Everybody expected the place to be well defended. As we got near we saw a number of people running on the rampart, near the breach. I was amazed they did not fire: our cannon fired over our heads. We got to the breach where we halted, and let the forlorn-hope, a sergeant's party, run up: then we followed, ran along and dashed up the second breach and huzzaed. Perhaps the enemy fired a little from some huts by the second breach: I did not see them do that. I saw some of them bayoneted there. We kept to the right after entering the second breach and soon after the troops poured in, so that there was no distinguishing forlorn-hope or anything. We huzzaed and dashed up the second breach and leaped down into the place. Such of the enemy as stood were put to the bayonet, but most of them ran off to the right and down a narrow valley which led to a gate. Here they met Colonel Chalmers coming on with half the 78th.

The 94th pressed behind, firing from above and a terrible slaughter took place. After this we endeavoured to push on, when to our astonishment we discovered that we had only gained a separate hill, and that the fort lay behind a deep valley, beyond which appeared a double wall and strong gates. I thought we should have to entrench ourselves and wait till guns could be brought up to breach the inner walls. The 94th followed the road down and crowded around the gate. The first wall was joined to a steep hill and the 94th began slowly and with difficulty to climb up one by one. Beyond the first wall was a narrow rocky road, overtopped by a steep rock, and another wall and gate, over which those who climbed the first wall would have to go, which the steepness and height of the wall made impossible. While the 94th were climbing over, the enemy kept up a fire from their works: in the meantime our people poured in at the breach and covered the hill opposite to the enemy. They fired on the enemy and the valley was filled with such a roar of musketry as can hardly be conceived. The sight cannot be described. At last our men got over and opened the first gate. Scaling ladders were brought, got up the hill and applied to the second wall. The enemy fled from their works: we rushed over the wall, and the fort was ours."

Lieutenant Blakiston adds other details. Immediately after the storming of the first breach, which he says "was taken in two minutes with little resistance. A column of troops were seen to issue from the inner fort. This was immediately charged by the grenadiers of the Scotch Brigade and repulsed with great slaughter." Then, when the lower fort had been taken, "two sepoy battalions were drawn up on a height fronting the wall of the inner fort, on which they commenced such an incessant and well-directed fire that none of the enemy durst show their noses above the parapet. Under cover of this fire the light company of the Scotch Brigade placed their ladders against the wall and we were soon master of the last defences of the fort. Captain Campbell placed the first ladder and was the first man on the inner ramparts. The light company then charged forward to the gate of the inner fort, opened it and admitted the rest of the battalion and the foremost of the sepoys."

There was one final fight after that for the 94th inside Gawilghar, as Lieutenant Blakiston thus records. "Scarcely had the gate been opened to admit the remainder of the storming party, when a body, looking more like furies than men, having their long hair cast loose over their shoulders and brandishing their swords, came rushing from behind some buildings and fell furiously upon the 94th. These, however, received them with that coolness and determination for which undisciplined valour however desperate, can never be a match. The contest was nevertheless sanguinary to both sides, for these desperadoes sold their lives dearly. One fellow in particular, it was told, having got his back to a wall killed and wounded several Europeans before he could be despatched. Among this party was the Killedar: also the Commander-in-Chief of the Berar Rajah's infantry."

In his General Order of December 15th Wellesley, after recording that "the gallantry with which the attack was made by the detachment has never been surpassed," went on to add his "special thanks to Captain Campbell of the 94th who led the light infantry of the Scotch Brigade to the escalade of the inner fort by which the capture was finally assured." Wellesley wrote that he "had seen several places taken by storm, but never any in which so little irregularity was committed or so little plundering. In an hour after the storm," added Wellesley, "the troops marched out with as much regularity as if only passing through." The defeat at Argaum, followed by the startling surprise and storming of Gawilghar, a fortress that all India had believed to be absolutely impregnable, ended the war. It was a knock-down blow to the enemy, coming as it did, as the sequel to the rout of Scindia's northern army in November. Within two days of the capture of Gawilghar, the Bhonsla Rajah of Berar sued for peace and accepted the British terms: a fortnight later Scindia did the same.

In the two principal actions of the Khandeish campaign in October 1804 - the taking of Holkar's fortresses of Chandore and Galnah, the centres of Holkar's power in Khandeish - the 94th took the leading part. The Chandore stronghold, 85 miles west of Aurungabad, comprised a walled pettah, or outer town, and towering above it, 1,600 feet above the plain, the main fort on a steeply scarped rock with high embattled walls all round. The pettah was stormed on October 8th with little opposition by the pickets of the 94th and 74th and the fort was bombarded during the next day, to occupy the enemy's attention while a place to attempt an escalade up the rock was being searched for. A likely point was found, and at 3 a.m. on October 10th the storming party, the flank companies of the 94th, 150 of the pickets and 300 Madras sepoys, started to climb up and escalade. They reached the walls at dawn, planted their ladders silently, and taking the Mahratta garrison by surprise carried the fort at the point of the bayonet within a quarter of an hour. The 94th had one drummer and six rank and file wounded - no other casualties.

James Edmunds was born in Edinburgh and enlisted there for the 94th Foot on 7 June 1801, aged 22, a cordwainer by trade. He served for 17 years 191 days, including 5 years 301 days in the East Indies, and was discharged on 14 December 1818, upon disbandment of the Regiment. Unfortunately for Edmunds, in July 1829, he was found by the Board of Officers ‘constituted to investigate the services of certain soldiers’, to have claimed service from the date of his enlistment in June 1801 when, in fact, he was only fifteen years of age and not twenty-two as claimed, meaning that he was Under Age for three years of the period claimed and was advised until the error was explained to the satisfaction of the Board ‘no further issue of your Pension will be made’. In a lengthy defence attached to his discharge papers he states:

‘In respect of claiming service from the date of my enlistment on the 7th June 1801 although only fifteen years of age at the time I was perfectly unaware that any deduction for Under Age at that period was made. The service in my discharge from the 94th Foot, was inserted by order of the Commanding Officer on the express grounds that having enlisted in June 1801& landed in India on the 16th June 1802, and having taken the Field along with my Regiment in the beginning of 1803, under the command of Major-General Sir Arthur Wellington against the Mahrattas, during which campaign I was present with and in every action the Corps was engaged in.

In reference to the three years Under Age, I entirely throw myself on the mercy of the Military Board now assembled but most humbly entreats that my India service may not be taken off, having been the greater part of the time I was in India in the Field against the enemy, doing the Duty the same as any other Private in the Corps.

I further beg leave to state that after having been four years and two months in the Peninsula with the Regt., that at the reduction of the Corps in 1818, I was placed upon the Pension List at Four-pence per day & that in 1819 I attended the Call of the Veterans, and was taken to join the 6th Battalion, in which I served some time & was discharged from said Battalion and placed on one shilling per day.’

Sadly, history does not relate the outcome of his situation. Sold with copied discharge papers.