Bøker av Greenhill Gardyne

This book is a collection of poems by Mrs. Greenhill Gardyne. It features a selection of verses, including the titular Hakon the Good. The pieces are inspired by Norse mythology and Scottish folklore.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This volume of the history (concerned only with the 92nd Foot) was first published in 1901 and the preface to that edition is incorporated in this 2nd edition. The author explains that it was his object, in matters of general history, merely to give the reason for the various expeditions in which the regiment was involved, and in describing the operations to confine himself to the part played by it. He has attached importance to the interior economy and discipline of a Highland regiment with many fascinating details on such subjects as nationality, dress, messing, and recruiting and other regimental matters. The regiment was raised by the Duke of Gordon, embodied in June 1794 in Aberdeen (which became the Regimental Depot), and on the first muster roll all the Highland Clans were represented, the greatest number being MacDonalds followed by Camerons. They didn't hang about in those days, on 5th September (less than three months after embodiment) they embarked for Gibraltar where they arrived on 26th - 25 officers781 rank and file. The names of the officers and their service records are given as well as the names of the sergeants and where they had come from. The Regiment began life as the 100th Foot, changed to 92nd in 1798. In 1799 it won its first Battle Honour at Egmont-op-Zee in Holland, fighting Napoleon's troops, and the chapter describing this action gives a list of those killed or died of wounds with their parish and county; the officers' list includes wounded. In 1802 a 2nd Battalion, 92nd Foot, was formed but eleven years later it was disbanded without going on active service. The original battalion saw plenty of active service in the Napoleonic wars - in Egypt, Denmark, the Peninsula, including the awful retreat to Corunna, and at Waterloo; descriptions of the fighting include casualty rolls. But the great strength of this history is in what might be called domestic details, the life of the regiment as it is aptly titled, which is a wonderful comment on the life of a soldier in a Highland regiment. For instance we are given details of the rank and file from the returns of March 1807: in a battalion total of 892 43 were 6ft and over, 529 were between 5ft 5 and 5ft 8 while there were 177 under 5ft 5, including two sergeants; one private was over 55 (he had got more than 30 years service in - QM's storeman?), but the majority (555) were aged between 20 and 30. 252 had between 12 and 14 years service and 229 between three and four years. One of the appendices list all the officers as at 1st January 1813 (some seventy in all) giving residence or family, county and career details as far as known. A fascinating regimental record!

The first part of this book takes the history of the 92nd from the year following Waterloo to 1882, when the results of the Cardwell Reforms had just come into effect, and the 92nd had linked with the 75th to form Gordon Highlanders, the 75th becoming the 1st Battalion of the new regiment, the 92nd the 2nd Battalion. The story then switches to the 75th Foot from its beginnings in 1787 and takes it through to 1881when it became 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders. The last few chapters deal with the history of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the new regiment from 1881 to the eve of the S African War in 1898. In 1818 the 92nd embarked for Jamaica. The West Indies was a most unhealthy station because of yellow fever which carried off thousands of British troops in the nineteenthy century; the Gordons themselves lost ten officers, 275 other ranks, 34 wives and 31 children in six months in 1819. They went on to see action in India during the Mutiny and on the NW Frontier in the 2nd Afghan War, 1878-80, where they were awarded the Battle Honours Kabul and Kandahar, emblazoned on the Colours.The regiment that in 1881 was to become the 1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders began life as the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot in 1787, known also as Abercromby's Highlanders after the man who raised them. With hardly any time to fall in they were off to India where they arrived in Bombay in August 1788 (700 strong) to take part in the campaign against Tippoo Sahib and gaining the Battle Honours Seringapatam and Mysore. In 1809, because the Highland population had become insufficient to supply recruits for the considerable number of Highland regiments then existing, the decision was taken to 'de-highlandise' several regiments including the 75th, and they handed in their kilts and sporrans and dropped the Highland designation. It wasn't until 1882 that the regiment, now 1st Gordon Highlanders, paraded in kilts once more. As 1st Gordons the battalion took part in the fighting in Egypt (Tel-el-Kebir), in the Sudan, in Chitral and the Tirah, When this history ends the 1st Battalion has arrived back in the UK and the 2nd Battalion is on its way to India. But again, the heart of this volume is the life of the Regiment, the social and economic changes over a hundred years, domestic details, in battle the numbers of casualties and identities, the arrival of drafts, promotions, discipline, physical descriptions, nationalities - in January 1890 out of a total 622 rank and file 470 were Scots, 137 English and 365 were 5ft 6 or under! What a marvellous military and sociological record.