Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry

The outstanding Indian Mutiny V.C. group of six awarded to Private Patrick Donohoe, 9th Lancers, who at the Battle of Bolondshuhur on 28 September 1857, went to the aid of his severely wounded officer, Lieutenant Robert Blair V.C., bringing him out alive through a mass of enemy cavalry ‘under that rogue Nana’. Donohoe was among a select group, unique to his unit, to be present at all three great military episodes of the rebellion - the Siege of Delhi, the Relief of Lucknow and the final capture of that city. Indeed, the 9th Lancers - ‘the beau ideal of all that British Cavalry ought to be in Oriental countries’, or to the mutineers simply the ‘Delhi Spearmen’ - was rewarded with thirteen V.C.s during the mutiny - a record for a single Victorian Campaign, such was the degree of action witnessed. Following his heroics outside Delhi, Donohoe was himself wounded during the double V.C. action at the Musa Bagh, Lucknow on 19 March 1858 but recovered to undertake the passage home with the Regiment in 1859, by now among a mere handful of comrades to have survived the entirety of its 17 hard years in India - a feat reflected in his ‘grand slam’ of medals and clasps to the ’ninth’ for the period Victoria Cross, reverse of suspension bar engraved ‘Private P Donohoe 9th Lancers’, reverse of Cross engraved ‘28 Sep 1857’; Punniar Star 1843 (Private Patk. Donohoe H.M. 9th or Queen’s Royal Lancers) reverse hook replaced with contemporary silver ring and cast copy ‘V.C.’ suspension bar; Sutlej 1845-46, for Sobraon 1846, no clasp (Patrick Donohoe 9th Lancers); Punjab 1848-49, 2 clasps, Chilianwala, Goojerat (P. Donohoe, 9th Lancers.); Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 3 clasps, Delhi, Relief of Lucknow, Lucknow (Patk. Donohoe, 9th Lancers); Army L.S. & G.C., V.R., 3rd issue, small letter reverse (1170 Patk. Donohoe, V.C. 9th Lancers) the earlier medals with edge bruising and contact marks, therefore generally about nearly very fine (6) £140,000-£180,000 --- Provenance: Glendining’s 23 May 1919 [The property of J. Galwey Foley, Esq., J.P., Balintoher House, Nenagh, County Tipperary.] V.C. London Gazette 24 December 1858: ‘For having, at Bolundshahur, on the 28th of September 1857, gone to the support of Lieutenant Blair, who had been severely wounded, and, with a few other men, brought that officer in safety through a large body of the enemy’s cavalry. (Despatch from Major-General Sir James Hope Grant K.C.B., dated 8th April 1858). Patrick Donohoe was born at Nenagh, County Tipperary, Ireland in 1820 and attested for the 17th Lancers at Dublin on 12 June 1839, giving his trade as ‘coachmaker’. On 1 April 1842, he transferred to the 9th Lancers, then authorized for India where, ‘it was to see, in the short space of seventeen years, more and fiercer fighting, and with more honour and glory, than in the whole of its previous century and a quarter of chequered service.’ (The 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers 1715-1936 by Reynard refers). Disembarking at Calcutta in the late summer of 1842, the regiment was immediately put under orders to march up country to the notoriously undesirable station of Cawnpore; within a month of their arrival on the sub-continent, over eighty of the establishment of 746 all ranks had already died of cholera. In June 1843, of the remaining 597 other ranks in the regiment, half this number were in hospital and such was the severity of heat apoplexy that there were often eight bodies in the mortuary per day. The spell was broken however when war broke out at the end of 1843 against the Mahratta state of Gwalior. Donohoe saw his first action in this campaign, being present at the battle of Punniar on 29 December 1843, and would go on to participate in all the campaigns of the period in which his regiment was represented: in 1845-46, he served in the Sutlej Campaign and was present at Sobroan on 10 February 1846; in the Second Sikh War he was present at the passage of the Chenab at Ramnuggur, and at the battles of Chilianwala and Goojerat. Between the conclusion of the Punjab Wars and the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, Hope Grant, perhaps the most celebrated and distinguished of all the famous officers who served in the 9th Lancers, rose to effective command, bringing the regiment through his own personal zeal and uprightness to a readiness which was admired by none other than Commander on Chief Napier and which would also soon be tried in the acid test of war. And so in the burning summer of 1857, as the disaffected soldiery of the Bengal Army first mutinied at Meerut, the four squadrons of the 9th Lancers were divided between the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the Delhi Field Force, which, having effected a junction with Brigadier Archdale Wilson’s Meerut Brigade, marched from Ambala toward Delhi under Yule and routed the mutineers at Badli-ki-Serai before immediately advancing to and seizing the Ridge on the 8th June. Of this action General Sir Hope Grant later noted: ‘The 9th Lancers behaved gallantly, charged into the midst of the enemy, captured a 9-pounder which the mutineers were endeavouring to withdraw, turned the gun upon a village where the enemy had taken refuge, and dislodged them from it.’ V.C. Action at Bolunshuhur After three months gruelling service on the Ridge culminating in the Fall of Delhi, the 9th Lancers, now reduced from 500 to 320 men, were detailed to join the Moveable Column under Colonel Edward Geathed which on the 23 September moved out from Delhi to scour the area between the Ganges and the Jumna for mutineers fleeing into Oudh. Early on the morning of the 28 September, the forward elements of the Column arrived at a crossroads, leading in one direction to Boolundshuhur, and in the other to Maolghur. At dawn, gunfire was exchanged between Greathed’s vedettes and rebel skirmishers, and it was soon confirmed that a strong body of the enemy intended to make a stand at Boolundshuhur. The full scale battle which now occurred here was in effect the last major resistance by the Delhi rebels and the 9th Lancers were to win no less than five Victoria Crosses. At the advance of the column, the enemy’s artillery opened fire and the rebel cavalry fell back. The 75th Regiment pushed forward, capturing two 9-pounder guns, and drove off the enemy holding a strong position in the gaol and a walled serai in front of the town. Greathed’s cavalry, comprising the 9th Lancers and Punjab Cavalry detachments under Lieutenants Probyn, Watson and Younghusband, captured a third gun, and then took up the pursuit through the narrow streets of Boolundshuhur. Regarding the 9th Lancers specifically, the Regimental History gives the following account of the Bolundshuhur action: ‘On the 28th, Lieutenant-Colonel Ouvry, riding well ahead of the main body with his cavalry, encountered a rebel brigade strongly entrenched in the village of Bulandshahr. The horse artillery opened fire on the hostile guns, but our infantry showed unusual timidity. "They could not be got,” says Anson, "to look round a corner or to advance in any way.” Ouvry therefore decided to rush the position with his cavalry alone, and, ”forming the 9th Lancers into threes,” he says in his journal, “I ordered them to charge through the main street. I went through with them myself. We passed through a shower of musketry from both sides of the houses. We met with no loss till we got to the other side of the city. There the enemy made a stand for the moment, but the head squadron charging, the rebels took to flight. We had no business to charge into the town, but I know that unless we did so they would have ...