PACK, ARTHUR JOHN REYNELL (2 resultados)

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. Addressed, with red wax seal and postmark in red ink, on reverse of second leaf, to 'Captain Pack | Royal Fusiliers | Barbados'. The letter begins: 'My dear Captain Pack | I take the earliest opportunity of letting you that [sic] the Ship Herefordshire - a noble vessel - has been taken up to convey the 67 to Gibraltar, & the 66 & 72 from thence to the West Indies, proceeding afterwards with the Fusiliers & 19th Halifax'. Miller has 'not yet heard that [Pack's mother] Lady Elizabeth [Reynell] has returned to Avisford, but the application which I shall recommend her Ladyship to make to Lord FitzRoy [Somerset] about a Majority in a Colonial Cap[taincy], may as well precede the request I advise you making to The Commander in Chief [the Duke of Wellington] thro' His Lordship [Somerset] on that head stating your anxiety for promotion & [rest underlined] being prepared to join & serve with the Regt. The Exchange no doubt would be afterwards carried - The Herefordshire will proceed to Cork for the 67 on the 27 Inst.' Pack - a godson of the Duke of Wellington - was Lieut-Colonel of the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) and a Knight of the Legion of Honour. He was Wounded at Sebastopol, and was author of 'Sebastapol Trenches and Five Months in Them.'.

First edition of this decidedly uncommon, critical firsthand account of service in the Crimea by Colonel Reynell Pack (1817-1860), who was with the 7th Regiment of Foot, the Royal Fusiliers, during the period described. Loosely inserted is a fascinating group of letters addressing Pack's role in the failed attack on the Redan, one of the major actions of the Crimean War. The British suffered severe losses under a withering fire on the approach to the heavily fortified Russian position. Two letters (dated 16 July and 10 August 1855) are from Pack to "My dear General" asking that his role in the fighting be recognized. In response, the July letter is forwarded along with a hand-written note (dated 28 August 1855) from General Sir James Simpson asking that Pack's leadership be acknowledged ("If you can yourself aid him, or put him on the right way to do so - I will have great pleasure in bringing his case forward, as he seems to have been accidentally overlooked"). This note was forwarded to Sir William John Codrington (1804-1884), a brigade commander in the Crimea. On the verso of this note, Codrington has written a one-page letter dated 29 August 1855 attesting to Pack's leadership role in the battle. In an earlier letter (dated 1 August 1855) to an unnamed recipient, Codrington writes that "Major Pack of the 7th Fusiliers, was wounded in the attack on the Redan on the 18th June, & is gone to England - he has much felt the inadvertent omission of his name as commanding the 7th Fusiliers, which was part of the support of the attacking column on that day. I was not desired to make any report of the circumstances ; but I know that when the signal of attack was made, Major Pack left the trench with his men, passed over a great space of ground towards the Redan, under a heavy fire, and was wounded whilst gallantly doing his duty with the few men of his Regiment whom the severity of the fire had not prevented advancing". Armorial bookplate of Alfred Edward Codrington (1854-1945), the son of Sir William, to the front pastedown. Alfred served with the Coldstream Guards during the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, mentioned in despatches; commanded the 1st Battalion in the Second Anglo-Boer War, mentioned in despatches, brevet promotion as colonel, Queen's South Africa Medal, 3 clasps, King's South Africa Medal, 2 clasps; later military secretary to Lord Kitchener at the outbreak of World War I. Octavo. Original strong reddish brown cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt and black and with detailed pictorial stamps depicting the Sebastopol trenches, triple fillet panel and the publisher's device centrally in blind to the back, brilliant greenish yellow coated endpapers. Stub-mounted double-page chromolithograph frontispiece with gilt, printed by Hanhart on heavy stock, showing the author's medals and honours, two extensively folding lithograph panoramas of Careening Bay, "showing the White Forts, Mamelon, and Quarries, captured June 7", and a view "down the Ravine which divided the Right and Left Attacks". Just a touch rubbed at the extremities, half-title and last leaf a little browned, contents otherwise with the palest toning, inner hinges entirely sound, very good indeed, a superbly produced book wonderfully well preserved.