Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars, Ninety-Seventh Regiment of The British Army.; Abridged
New York, N.Y. American Tract Society. Hardcover. These charming Memorials of Vicars, it is understood, were written by Miss Marsh of Breckenham, England. Gilt edged. Decorative front cover. Corners of several pages gone. Front board has some weakness. Writing on fep. The book contains 136, [2] pages. There are 11 chapters, including Boyhood; The Awakening; Conversion; Diary; Home; Friendship; The War; The Hospital; Winter before Sebastopol; The Day-star Rises; and The Victory. While primarily a religious tract, this volume contains several chapters about the Crimean War, including one on the Hospital. Catherine Marsh or Miss C. M. Marsh (15 September 1818 – 12 December 1912) was an English philanthropist and author writing about soldiers and navies during the 1850s. Marsh was born in Colchester at the vicarage for St Peters church in 1818. In 1850 she was concerned about the soldiers bound for the Crimean War. She decided to write about the short life of a Christian soldier and Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars was published in 1855. It was well read and 78,000 copies were sold in the first twelve months. Two years later she published a similar work English Hearts and English Hands which sympathetically described the navies life having witnessed the workers who had been re-building the Crystal Palace. Marsh published The Life of Arthur Vandeleur, Major, Royal Artillery in 1862. The following year she published a biography of her father who had died in 1864. Five years after her death in 1917, The Life and Friendships of Catherine Marsh by Lucy Elizabeth Marshall O'Rorke was published. Hedley Shafto Johnstone Vicars (7 December 1826 – 22 March 1855) was a British Army officer and evangelical who was killed in action during the Crimean War. Vicars was born in Mauritius on 7 December 1826, where his father, Captain Richard John Vicars, (d. 1839), a captain in the Royal Engineers, was then stationed. After passing his examinations at Woolwich on 22 December 1843 he received a commission in the 97th Foot, and in the following year proceeded to Corfu. On 6 November 1846 he obtained his lieutenancy. In 1848 his regiment was removed to Jamaica, and in 1851 to Canada. In November of that year his mind took a serious turn, and henceforward his character was changed. He associated with Dr. Twining, the garrison chaplain at Halifax, became a Sunday-school teacher, visited the sick, and took every opportunity of reading the scriptures and praying with the men of his company. In 1852 he became adjutant of his regiment. In May 1853 the regiment returned to England. Before his regiment left England for the Crimea, early in 1854, it was reported that "since Mr. Vicars became so good, he has steadied about four hundred men in the regiment." On 3 November 1854 he was promoted to the rank of captain. On 20 November 1854 he landed in the Crimea, and, with his regiment, took part in the Siege of Sebastopol.
On the night of 22 March 1855, while he was in the trenches, the Russians made a sortie in force from Sebastopol, and, taking the English by surprise, drove them out of their trenches. Vicars, keeping his men in hand, fired a volley into the enemy at twenty paces, and then 'charging' with the 97th he drove the Russians back and regained possession of the trenches. He was killed in a sortie by the Russians from Sebastopol, 22 March 1855. He cut down two men with his own hand before he fell, bayoneted and shot through the right shoulder. He was buried on the following day on the Woronzoff road, close to the milestone. In his despatch on 6 April, Lord Raglan made special mention of Vicars' gallantry. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: British Army, Crimean War, Ninety-Seventh Regiment, Evangelical, Sebastopol, Lord Raglan, Siege, Trench Warfare, Religious Conversion, Military Medicine, Combat Operations, Bravery, Heroism, Gallantry, Catherine Marsh
[Book #82015]
Price: $100.00