The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-15 00:00:00

THE WAR IN THE PUr iJAUB.

TO THE EDITOR. OF THE TINE! 3.
Sir,—When an angry sense of di aster in war gets
possession of the public mind the army engaged is
judged in mass, and condemned as a defeate d body, par-
ticular instances of virtue being disregarded in the gene-
ral feeling of mortification. This is not go od. Heroism
comes out clearer when fortune bears hard) y than when
she is favourable; it is then of a sublimer i nature, more
chastened and purified for immortality. Permit me,
then, through your journal to give the w prld a state-
ment of the touching circumstances at :ending the
deaths of those intrepid soldiers, Brigadier Pennycuick
and his self-devoted heroic Lon, in the rec, ant battle on
the Jhelum, introducing it by a rapid 51 retch of the
General's previous services.
He entered the army iu 1807. His firs t campaign
was in Java in 1811; and he was wound, ad severely,
having fought so well as to draw forth tl se public ap-
probation of Sir Samuel Auchmuty and tl le celebrated
Colonel Gillespie.
Lt 1811 he was at the storming of Djokjo Berta.
In 1813, having command of a small det schment, ho
displayed such skill and courage, defeating an immense
body of insurgents, that he obtained the a tau ks of the
Commander-ii.-Chief and the Government of aJava, and
the public approbation of the Governor-Gemisal of India,
Lord Hastings—no mean judge of military Is it.
He fought again, with distinction, in 1.81. 4, at the
assault of Boni, in the Celebes ; and during. '1825 and
1826 he served against the Burmese.
In 1839 he fought under Sir J. Keane and. :Brigadier
Wiltshire, at the storming of Gluiznee and -off Kbelat,
and was the foremost man to enter the ast-named
fortress.
In 1841 he marched out of Aden at the 'head of 600
men, and gave a signal overthrow to the Ara be.
In 1846 he served under Sir Charles Napier.- 'in Sindc,
and gained the esteem of that General.
In 1848, he commanded a brigade in the. Punjaub,
under Lord Gough, and on the 13th of January, 1849,
he died in battle, thus closing a career full or honour,
with a soldier's death; and upon his yet walla body fell
his young son, a boy worthy of such a fathe r.
Let the moving, the painful, but glorious -story be
simply told.
The 24th Regiment marched on the 13th ( if January
against the Seikh army; it was unsupported, exposed to
the full sweep of Seikh batteries, and to the 0 Deadly play
of their destructive musketry. More than or to-ball the
regiment went down in ten minutes ; the rernainder,
still stricken by the artillery, assailed by th ou:iands of
infantry, and menaced by swarms of cavalry, could no
longer keep their ground. The elder Penn} Tcuick had
fallen, and two soldiers attempted to carry n off while
still breathing, but the Seikhs pressed them so closely
that, unable to contend, they dropped their 1 totiourable
burden and drew back. The gallant boy, the sem of the
noble dead, only seventeen years old, now first aware
of his misfortune, sprang forward, sword in Mind, be-
strode his father's body for a moment, and -then fell
across it, a corpse !
Such, Sir, is the simple tale of the deaths of that bravo
old man and his boy ; and if it is not suffici ernt to ob-
tain for them the honest fame for which they fought so
well and died so well—if it does not swell the hea its and
moisten the eyes of their countrymen, I know not
why generous impulses arc component parts rd, human
nature.
And the grief-stricken widow—the bereaved, •mother !
Is she single in her sorrows ? Alas ! no. 11. he widow
of the brave Cureton, she also has lost her son as well as
her husband on those fatal fields of the Punjaub. Con-
solation to them must come from God; but the: glory of
a nation's gratitude and praise should illumine -th e graves
of their husbands and children.
March, 1849.

W. N.