Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A pair of outer pages of Crimea War letters from Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bunbury, 23rd Foot:

The first being the third - outer - page of a letter sent to his wife in January 1855, ink, single sheet of folded white paper, with address panel to ‘Mrs. Henry Bunbury, No. 6 South Buildings, Clapham Common, Nr. London’, with his red wax seal, 2d stamp and endorsed ‘Crimea, 5th Jany. 1855’, in which the author despairs at the loss of a passage home:

‘Now I must be wounded or very sick before I can venture to show myself. I have written my darling a very selfish grumbling nasty letter, but I hope she will excuse it considering the cold and deep snow and the misery I am suffering just now ... ’

The second also a third - outer - page of a letter sent to his wife in March 1856, ink, single sheet of pale blue folded paper, with address panel to ‘Mrs. Henry Bunbury’ at a property in North Wales, with remnants of his black wax seal, two 1d. stamps cancelled by an Inland Branch, and as sent via the ‘General’s bag’, in which the author speaks of a pending Armistice between the Allies and the Russians:

‘Yesterday some of our men were down on the Tchernaya, fraternizing with the Russian, exchanging pipes and such small civilities. This is very wrong and I have threatened them with summary and severe punishment for doing so, but it shows that hostilities are over for the present ... ’

tears and traces of repair, contents otherwise good £100-150

Henry William St. Pierre Bunbury was born at Brompton, London in September 1812 and was originally appointed an Ensign in the 43rd Foot in June 1830. Prior to his part in the Crimea War, he served as A.D.C. to Sir Charles Napier in the expedition through the Kohat Pass in 1850. A Major in the 23rd Foot at the commencement of the Eastern Campaign, he was present at the battle of Inkermann and the siege of Sebastopol (Medal & 2 clasps), and gained the Brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel for distinguished service in the Field in December 1854; so, too, the C.B., Legion of Honour and Turkish Medjidie and Medal. Placed on the Retired List in July 1858, he died at Marchfield House, Bracknell in September 1875.