Soldiers of the RegimentPrivate Hugh
Evans
Account of Indian Mutiny.
Private Hugh Evans, of the King's Own Royal Regiment, wrote a letter
to the local newspaper in 1858. He detailed what he was doing during the
Indian Mutiny. We know that later on he was present at the Crimea
and Indian Mutiny Veterans meeting at Shrewsbury on 5th November 1895.
He was awarded Crimean Medals and the Indian Mutiny Medal.
3rd November 1858
The following extract is copied from a letter received from Private Hugh
Evans, of the 4th (King’s Own) Regiment of foot, who is connected with
the parish of Selattyn, near Oswestry. The writer has been in the army
four years, and during the short period has seen a great deal of
service:-
Baroda, 27th August 1858
“I am now in Baroda. There are five regiments here now. There were three
regiments of Sepoys in Allambrad, going to break out, and they would
have done so if the 89th had not come that day. This regiment had
marched thirty miles that day, through the hot sun. Our General got the
men to pitch their tents, for the Sepoys to think that there were
soldiers to come in that day. Four companies of our regiment, and one
company of the 51st marched in the next day, and disarmed the Sepoys,
and shot and hung a great many of them. I expect a good many of them
will get the same. I expect to get three medals; one for the Crimea, and
two for India. I have seen quite as much service during the four years I
have been a soldier as many who have been in the army twenty or thirty
years. There was been a great many of our men dying here with the
foreign ague. They go in hospital today, and buried tomorrow. We had a
man here who has been in the service nineteen years, and was going to
get a medal for long service, but we was taken to the hospital, and died
in a few hours. This place is not like home. We have had four or five
men struck dead with the sun; it is so hot, but it is seldom that
soldiers march in the day; they march in the night and pitch their tents
before the sun is up.
God bless you all. Amen”
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