Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Punjab medal awarded to Brevet Major Edward Christie, Bengal Horse Artillery, mortally wounded at the battle of Chilianwala

Punjab 1848-49, 1 clasp, Chilianwala (Bt. Major E. Christie, Commg. 3rd Troop 2nd Bde. H. Art) light edge bruising and nicks, therefore very fine £4000-5000

Edward Christie entered the Bengal Army in 1826 and arrived in India in June 1827, where he was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the Bengal Horse Artillery, and was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in November 1833. He was made Brevet Captain in September 1842, and Captain in July 1845. Following the battle of Sobraon, in which he was present at Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General of Artillery, he was promoted to Brevet Major (Medal). In August 1847 he was removed to the command of his old troop of Horse Artillery, the 3rd of the 2nd Brigade, which he joined at Ambala, and with which he served for the rest of his life. On the outbreak of the second Sikh War the troop was detailed to form part of the Army of the Punjab, and he commanded it at the passage of the Chenab, the action of Sadoolapore and the battle of Chilianwala. On this last occasion his guns were ridden through by a body of our cavalry in retreat and by the Sikh horse in pursuit, and in the mêlée he was cut down and speared and so desperately wounded that he survived only two days. He died in camp at Chilianwala on the 15th January 1849, and, at the earnest request of his men, his remains were interred with those of his troop who had fallen on the same occasion.

The following details of the affair at Chilianwala, and the death of Major Christie, of the Bengal Horse Artillery, have been extracted from a letter furnished by Doctor George Craigie, Surgeon Horse Artillery, and Staff Surgeon Cavalry Division, in reply to a communication addressed by a near relative of the late Major Christie to the Adjutant General of the army of the Punjab:-

‘Camp, Army of the Punjaub,
26th February, 1848.

My dear Sir, - The Adjutant-General has handed me your letter to his address, of the 2nd instant, with a request that I would reply to it, which I have a melancholy pleasure in doing on the instant.

My lamented friend, your brother, was advancing with four of his guns, and six of Captain Huish’s troop, (the detachment being commanded by Colonel Grant, H.A.) on the right of the line, as we went into action with the enemy at Chillianwallah on the 13th January; being protected by a brigade of Dragoons, Lancers, and Native Cavalry on their right flank.

The ground was broken, and covered with a tree jungle, which increased in density as we approached the enemy’s position. These obstructions rendered the advance irregular, and threw the cavalry sometimes too close upon the guns, sometimes in their rear, and at others, as in the end, directly in front of the detachment H.A. When in this awkward and unusual relative position, and when a number of this bushes intervened between the support and the battery, and I fancy shut out of sight of the guns from the cavalry in their immediate front, a party of Goorhas or Sikh horsemen suddenly appeared in front of the leading columns of dragoons, who fired a volley at the latter with their matchlocks, set up a yell, and came down at the charge.

The word was given “Threes about,” by whom given will never now be known, but that it was given all concurrent testimony confirms as a fact. The consequence was that a simultaneous rush of the cavalry to the rear, and a general panic, that carried the whole body right amongst the guns, with which they got wedged together into one mass, which was attacked sword in hand by the Sikhs, and many cut down on the instant.

Your brother was on the right of the detachment, and was singled out by a horseman, who seemed from his dress of some rank. He first received a deep flesh wound from a sabre on the right arm, half way above the elbow, which caused him to drop his sword. The second wound was an extensive deep cut across the back, running from the top of the right shoulder to the lower part of the blade bone of the left. A fearful gash from a sabre followed on the back of his head where it joins the neck, cutting clean through his turban, and the leathers helmet which it covered, dividing all the muscles of the neck, and cleaving the skull. The last wound that he received was a thrust from a spear in the belly, from behind, just below the navel.

A fresh assailant now attempted to cut him down, when he was rescued by some of his men, who slew the two Sikhs who were endeavouring to destroy him, and carried him with three of Huish’s guns, and the mêlée of horsemen to the rear, when Colonel Grant, taking advantage of the first open space, halted the guns, and gave the pursuing Sikhs a volley of grape which sent them to the right about.

Wounded as he was, your brother kept his saddle until Dr. Rumley, one of my assistants, reached him with a doolie, in which he brought him to me at the field hospital, a short distance, where I was engaged in operating. Your brother expressed no apprehensions of any of his wounds, though he himself fancied the skull had escaped injury. He had lost much blood, and was very faint, but after his wounds were dressed, and he had swallowed some wine, he rallied wonderfully, and even became jocular, remarking with his well remembered smile, that the Goorhas had paid him off for the way he had served them at Joodoolapore, on the 3rd December, in General Thackwell’s action at that place - when your brother dealt destruction with his guns amongst their ranks, and mainly contributed to prevent the right flanks of our line being turned by the enemy.

It was not long after we had made your brother as comfortable as we could, when a second panic from our left took place. Elephants, camels, horses, and a crowd of camel followers came right through our field hospital, and we all imagined that the Sikhs had got into our rear, and were coming down upon us.

Under the alarm, your brother managed to get out of his doolie, and ran a distance of from 400 to 500 yards towards our heavy guns, on one of which I found him seated, when, the alarm being subsided, I went in search of him with another doolie, and brought him a second time to the Field Hospital. This alarm and exertion did him great harm. It set his wounds bleeding afresh, and put him in a flurry from which he was long in recovering. The wretched night which followed, he spent in his doolie under a tent, attended by Dr. Rumley, and his servants... who supplied him with refreshments.

The night, the most ???? of my life, at length passed away, and soon after day-break I conveyed your poor brother in his doolie to his own tents, which were pitched with his troop in the extreme right of the line. The distance was great, and the fatigue completely exhausted him. However, he rallied during the day, and after his wounds were again dressed, he professed himself easy, and fell asleep.

In the evening he was very cheerful, but towards midnight he became restless, and anxious about himself, calling me every few minutes, and not yet knowing, as it were, what he wished or wanted. I sat up with him the whole night, and soon after day-break, I was sensible of some incoherence in his remarks, which increased. A sense of numbness succeeded, which alarmed him much, and this gradually extended to the upper extremities, one of which I could perceive became paralytic before eight o’clock on the 15th. Sickness of the stomach now came on, and great oppression of breathing, and after a brief struggle your gallant brother breathed his last about half after nine o’clock on that morning.

The last words he addressed to me were “I hope, Craigie, that they do not blame me for the loss of that gun.” This soldier-like sentiment pervaded his mind at the hour of his death.

On the evening of his death, his brother officers and many of his friends followed his remains to the grave, where he has his last resting place by the side of no fewer than 12 officers of one regiment, H.M. 24th Foot, on a mound, on a line with, and to the right of the village of Chillianwallah, as you front the right of the river Jhelum.

In the whole regiment of artillery, to which I myself have belonged now upwards of a quarter of a century, there was not an officer more universally popular than Ned Christie. To a strong masculine understanding, and a sagacity which was generally acknowledged, he united a bonhomie and joyousness of disposition and manners of the most pleasing description. He had a truly generous heart, too much so, poor fellow, for his means, and was in the highest degree hospitable. As an officer he ranked in his regiment very high; and had he been spared, might have aspired to the highest command in it.

Enclosed I have the satisfaction of conveying to you a lock of his hair, which curled over his forehead. I am also in the possession of the pouch belt which he wore when wounded, and which was cut through all but a strip by the sabre which laid open his back. If opportunity should ever offer, I shall be happy to make over this to any relative, as a small memorial of a brave man, who died in the endeavour to extricate the battery under his command from a position of unparalleled peril.’