Campaign of the Indus In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division — Reading Notes

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Authors: Holdsworth, T. W. E., Holdsworth, A. H. (Arthur Howe), 1781?-1860 [Editor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Afghan Wars Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 56,414

Reading time 246 min

Text sections 6

This digital edition of Campaign of the Indus In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division — Reading Notes is described by source-level measurements including 56,414 words, 4 hr 6 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 29.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Afghan Wars,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #12863

A firsthand account of the British campaign in Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War, told through letters from an officer of the Bombay Division. The editor's introduction frames the narrative as a family record, emphasizing the soldiers' endurance through extreme climates and terrain, while the letters themselves offer vivid, unpolished descriptions of combat and daily hardships.

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Sutlej was alike the boundary of Alexander's conquests to the east, as of those of England towards the west.

Alexander having prepared his army for this expedition, moved towards the Indus, taking many strong places on his march. Having crossed that river, the king of the country offered no resistance, but became the ally of Alexander, who expected to have found Porus, whose kingdom was on the other side of the Hydaspes, equally ready to submit. But it required the utmost skill of Alexander to cross the river, which he effected, and conquered Porus, after a most severe struggle, with the loss of his renowned charger, Bucephalus, and he was so pleased at the magnanimity of Porus that he not only gave him back his kingdom, but added several small states to it, making him a sincere ally. Alexander then continued his march towards the east, conquering all who opposed him, until he reached the banks of the Hyphasis (Sutlej), which he was about to cross, when his progress was arrested by murmurs and tumults in his camp. His soldiers declared their determination not to extend his conquests, and entreated him to return. He then marched back to the Acesines, gave the whole country as far as the Hyphasis to Porus, and thus made him ruler of the Punjab. Alexander encamped near the Acesines until the month of October, when the fleet which he built, consisting of 800 galleys and boats, being ready, he embarked his army and proceeded towards the Indus; but before he reached that river he came to two countries possessed by warriors who united their armies to oppose his progress. After beating them in many engagements, Alexander attacked the city of the Oxydracæ, into which the greater part of those armies had retired. Here his rash valour had nearly terminated his career: he was severely wounded in the side by an arrow, from the effects of which he was with difficulty restored to health. He then descended the river, a portion of his army marching on its banks, conquering every nation that opposed him. About the month of July he reached Patala (Tatta), where he built a citadel and formed a port for his shipping. He then proceeded, with part of his fleet, by the western branch of the river, to discover the ocean. This he accomplished at great hazard, when he sacrificed to the gods (particularly to Neptune), and besought them not to suffer any mortal after him to exceed the bounds of his expedition. He then returned to join the rest of his fleet and army at Patala, and to make arrangements for his march to Babylon. He appointed Nearchus admiral of his fleet, and having given him orders to ascend the Persian Gulf to the Euphrates, he commenced his march through Beloochistan, leaving Nearchus to follow him as soon as the season would permit. Alexander was more than sixty days in reaching the frontiers of Persia, during which time his army sufficed such dreadful privations from want of food, that the soldiers were obliged to eat their own war-horses, and from the sickness consequent upon such a state of distress, his army was reduced to less than one-half of the number which left Patala. It is not necessary to follow him to Babylon, or to describe the voyage of Nearchus, who, having sailed up the Persian Gulf, united his forces to those of his royal master in the river Pasi-Tigris, near Susa. Enough, however, may be learned from this history to convince us that if such an army could be conducted 2000 years ago from the Hellespont to the Jaxartes and Indus, the march from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea to Cabool would require comparatively but very slight exertion, if those who have the means should have the desire also to accomplish it.

I can say little of my own knowledge of the political causes which gave rise to the war, as I am unacquainted with the affairs of India and the motives which actuated its governors; but a brief outline may be collected from a book lately published by the Hon. Capt. Osborne, military secretary to the Governor-General, to which I shall refer, after making some observations upon the countries through which the operations of the army were conducted, and particularly on the situation of Afghanistan, in reference to those persons who had before been, is well as those who were, its rulers, when Shah Shooja was restored by the British Government to its throne. These observations I have chiefly collected from the valuable work of that enterprising officer Lieut. Burnes, which he published after visiting those countries in 1831, 1832, and 1833.

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The editor, A. H. Holdsworth, introduces these letters as a private family record, printed only at the suggestion of friends. He explicitly states that the letters were written by his son, an officer in the Bombay Division, “without an idea of their being printed.” This framing shapes the entire work: the narrative is presented as unvarnished, familiar correspondence rather than a formal military history. The editor draws a parallel between the British army’s penetration into Central Asia and Alexander the Great’s march to the Indus, a comparison that recurs in the letters themselves. Yet the son’s voice is markedly different—colloquial, immediate, and filled with sensory details of “arid sands or rocky passes, under a burning sun” and “the most severe frosts.”

A Colloquial Voice Amidst Formal Framing

The letters contrast sharply with the editor’s formal introduction. Where the editor speaks of “patience” and “gallantry,” the officer describes a night assault with a tone that is almost conversational: “as pretty a little row as one would wish to hear.” He notes the “whizzing of their cannon balls and ours,” adding wryly that the British shot “went much nearer our heads than the enemy's.” The writing is full of personal asides—he hears a soldier say, “Oh! there is poor Mr. Holdsworth: he's down!”—and matter-of-fact details about a breastplate that saved a man’s life. This blend of danger and offhand humor gives the letters a distinctive, unpolished quality.

Sensory Overload and Tactical Confusion

The officer’s descriptions emphasize chaos and sensory overload. In the assault on the gate, he lists “the roar of their big guns, the sharp cracking of the matchlocks, the whizzing of their cannon balls … the singing of the bullets, and the whizzing of their arrows.” The darkness is absolute: “it was as dark as pitch.” The narrative captures the confusion of battle—the gate is blown down but still blocked, men are exposed to crossfire, and the enemy drops “earth, beams of wood, stones” from a hole in the roof. The officer himself is knocked down by a beam but gets up immediately. The sequence is not a clean victory but a series of checks and improvisations.

The Enemy’s Perspective and the Unheroic Aftermath

Throughout the letters, the Afghan defenders are not faceless foes. The officer notes that the enemy “took every company for the last, and therefore made a desperate attempt to escape.” The British flag is raised on the citadel not through a final assault but because the enemy “never thought of retiring to the citadel at all.” The scene after the battle is almost absurd: the 17th and 13th “quietly marched up and took possession.” The officer’s account undercuts any simple heroic narrative. He records the enemy’s tactics—their use of matchlocks and arrows—and their determination, even as he describes the British soldiers’ own resilience. The result is a more complex picture of the campaign than the editor’s framing suggests.

Readers should approach these letters as a personal document, not a comprehensive history. The editor’s introduction provides context, but the officer’s voice dominates—with its digressions, dry humor, and vivid detail. Pay attention to the gaps: what the officer omits (strategic overviews, political context) is as telling as what he includes. The letters offer a ground-level view of the First Anglo-Afghan War, filtered through one man’s experience of heat, cold, dust, and sudden violence.

There’s something about that officer’s letters, the way endurance just becomes the quiet habit of daily life. I kept turning it over after closing the book. It made me think of Woman's Endurance — Key Ideas to Explore, and how some strengths are only ever spoken of in passing, if at all. We inherit their silences more than their stories.