| Sikh Pioneers - The Sikh Pioneers at Delhi | | |
| | | NOTE TO CHAPTER II | | The Casualties of the Pioneers at Delhi | | The following is the official return: | | Extract from the official return of the Killed, Wounded and Missing of the Delhi Field Force from the 30th May to the capture of the City on 20th Sept. | | ......................... | | Punjab Sappers. | | Effective strength of all ranks on 11th September | = | 600 | | Killed | European Officers | | | Lieut. Home (at Malagarh) | = | 1 | | Wounded | European Officers | | | Lieut. Hovedon | | | | En. Gustavinski | | | | En. Anderson | = | 3 | | Killed | Native Officers | = | 4 | | | Rank and File | = | 28 | | Wounded | Native Officers | = | 1 | | | Rank and File | = | 48 | | Missing | | = | 9 | | | | |
| | | | Total | 94 | | | | |
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In other words, nearly 16% or a sixth of the regiment became non-effective. | | But reference has already been made to the difficulties of accuracy in the case of the Mazhbi. It would, indeed, seem that the successor took over something more than a name on the roll. Captain Morgan, Commandant of the Regiment in 1860, writing in that year, says :" I am assured by Lieut. Chalmers, Second in Command of the Regiment, who has served with it from the commencement that..In those times, detachments had so little communication with Headquarters that a report of a man wounded was seldom, if ever, received, and with regard to those killed, it appears that at first on account of the officers not being fully acquainted with the men, and the urgent necessity of keeping the ranks filled up, more than half the men killed in action were, according to an old Sikh practice, immediately replaced by brothers and relatives, who took their names, arms and places in the regiment, together with their widows and families if they had any." |
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