BUTLER, Colonel John (1728-1796)

A Sketch of the Services of the Madras European Regiment during the Burmese War

London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1839. 8vo. (8 7/8 x 5 1/2 inches). vii, [1], 104 pp.

Publisher's original cloth, upper board gilt-stamped

First edition of a first-hand regimental account of the First Anglo-Burmese War, written from within the Madras European Regiment and published thirteen years after the close of the conflict.

The narrative follows the regiment from Masulipatam across the Bay of Bengal to the Rangoon River, with detailed accounts of the landing at Rangoon, the attack on stockades, and the advance toward Prome. Butler writes with the immediacy of a participant, recording embarkation, river movement, jungle warfare, fire-rafts, sickness, fatigue, and the practical difficulties of campaigning in a landscape unfamiliar to most of the British and Company troops. After his own severe wound on December 5th, the narrative continues through accounts supplied by fellow officers, preserving a close regimental perspective on the later stages of the campaign. The First Anglo-Burmese War, fought between 1824 and 1826, ended with the Treaty of Yandabo and marked a major expansion of East India Company power into Burma, Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim. Butler's account is valuable as a focused Company-regiment narrative of that campaign, especially for its descriptions of stockade warfare, river operations, and the daily experience of European troops serving alongside Indian regiments. It remains an important contemporary source for the British-Indian conduct of the war and for the institutional memory of the Madras European Regiment.

Item #42692

Price: $1,200.00