Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, 1 clasp, Delhi (Thos. Sawyer, 6th. Dragn. Gds.) very fine £300-£400

Thomas Sawyer is recorded as having served during the Indian Mutiny at Meerut and at the Battles of Hindun River, Alipore, Delhi, Lucknow and Bareilly. The latter was the site of fierce rebel resistance, led by Khan Bahadur Khan against the British East India Company Regiments and mounted cavalrymen of the 6th Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers). On 5 May 1858, Sir Colin Campbell’s forces joined battle with Khan’s army at Bareilly, and after fierce fighting succeeded in taking the city. The battle was witnessed by William Simpson, correspondent for The Times newspaper, who described the mayhem in his diary:
‘It was a veritable stampede of men and animals. Elephants were trumpeting shrilly (sic) as they thundered over the fields, camels slung along at the utmost of their jogging stride, horse and tats (ponies), women, and children were all pouring in a stream, which converged and tossed in heaps of white and black as it neared the road - an awful panic!’

Sawyer is later recorded as having died at the military barracks, Poonee, on 10 April 1867, in consequence of a ‘fatty degeneration of the heart’.

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