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Captain Oliver J Jones, Recollections of a Winter Campaign in India: in 1857-58, with drawings on Stone from the Author’s Designs, London: Saunders and Otley, 1859

xiv, [ii], 213, [1] pages; lithographed portrait frontispiece and 14 plates, 2 maps; leather bound with gilt text to the spine
24.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm

LIST OF PLATES
1. Portrait Of the Author to Face Title / 2. She Shipped Some Heavy Seas / 3. Hydrabad Malayapen, Alias Mailakoff - Syce Nunnoo / 4. Starting The Dak Garey / 5. Breaking Up the Encampment at Night / 6. Artillery Crossing the Nullah / 7. Plan Of the Battle of The Kaila Nuddee Before the Advance / 8. When The Third Shot Blew Up the Tumbril We Gave a Cheer, Etc. / 9. Bheestie Patchoolie / 10. Sketch Of the Position of The Foroes at The Commencement of The Action of Shumshabad / 11. A Musshach / 12. A Pig Hunt / 13. My Establishment / 14. Navai Brigade Races / 15. In The Skirmish I Got a Sabre Cut 0n My Right Hand from A Sepoy Whose Thick Skull I Had Just Laid Open / 16. Sir William Peel Bringing His Guns Up in Front of The Dilkooshah / 17. Changing Horses on The Grand Trunk Road

In 1856, Captain Oliver Jones demanded and was granted a year’s leave which he then occupied by taking part in some of the fiercest fighting of the Indian Mutiny. Oliver Jones joined the Royal Navy in 1826 at the tender age of 13 and was promoted to lieutenant in 1839. At a time when many naval officers spent the majority of their time on half-pay, he managed to remain actively employed almost continuously, but without seeing any fighting. Then, within the space of five years, he took part in three different wars or campaigns at opposite ends of the world. In 1854/5 he was the Commander of the brand new sail and steam wooden battleship HMS Hannibal both in the Baltic and the Black Sea Campaigns of the Crimean War. In 1860, he commanded the paddle-steamer HMS Furious during the Second China War. In between, he found time to observe the fighting in India and – in that innocent era before the Official Secrets Act - to publish a most vivid and detailed account of the operation and of the forces involved. Lucky for us that he did, for his Recollections of a Winter Campaign in India gives some fascinating insights into this most unhappy of Britain’s colonial wars.

Captain Jones was attached to the 53rd Regiment which meant that he had a front-seat view of the Relief of Lucknow by Sir Colin Campbell’s force and his reminiscences are a rich source of information about the conduct of the campaign, seen with a professional’s eye. His account of the assault on Lucknow itself is one of the best contemporary accounts we have of this confused battle. To the naval historian, the most useful passages of all are those which deal with the undoubted ‘stars’ of the Lucknow operation: Captain Sir William Peel and the sailors of the Naval Brigade. (Source: www.naval-military-press.com, online)

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