The Afghan war of 1879-80 : being a complete narrative of the capture of Cabul, the siege of Sherpur, the battle of Ahmed Khel, the brilliant March to Candahar, and the defeat of Ayur Khan, with the operations on the Helmaund, and the settlement with Abdur Rahman Khan / by Howard Hensman.

“With maps”—title page.

“The Afghan War of 1879–80 is a detailed account of the final phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), consisting of a reprinting in book form of letters originally written from the field and published in an Indian newspaper. The author, Howard Hensman, was a special correspondent of the Allallabad Pioneer. He was the only journalist to accompany the Anglo-Indian Kurram Valley Field Force that marched from Ali Kheyl, Afghanistan, to Kabul in the fall of 1879 following the uprising of Afghan forces in Kabul in September of that year and the massacre of the British envoy, Sir Louis Cavagnari, and other British officials in the city. The first letter is dated September 28, 1879, the last September 20, 1880. Brief explanatory texts are used to introduce some of the letters and provide context. Each letter runs to several pages, and collectively they offer a vivid first-hand account of the war as seen from a British perspective. Hensman describes, for example, the courageous charge by Afghan Ghazis at the Battle of Ahmed Khel (April 19, 1880) and the desperate, hand-to-hand fighting with British, Sikh, and Gurkha troops that ensued; the Battle of Maiwand (July 27, 1880), in which a force of 2,500 British and Indian troops was routed by a much larger Afghan force; and many other engagements. The book contains ten detailed foldout maps of the major military operations and battles of the war. A short appendix provides information about the heights above sea level of places in Afghanistan, distances by road between key points, and transportation in the Indian army”—copied from website.

The Library of Congress donated copies of the digitized material (along with extensive bibliographic records) containing more than 163,000 pages of documents to ACKU, the collections that include thousands of historical, cultural, and scholarly materials dating from the early 1300s to the 1990s includes books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, newspapers and periodicals related to Afghanistan in Pushto, Dari, as well as in English, French, German, Russian and other European languages ACKU has a PDF copy of the item.

English