THE ASHANTI EXPEDITION, 1864.

The head-quarters and four companies of the 1st West India Regiment had been removed from Nassau to Barbados in the hired transport Avon, before that vessel sailed for West Africa, and on the 3rd of March, 1861, the six companies of the regiment embarked in her at the Gambia for the West Indies. During the four years’ tour of service which they had just completed, five officers had fallen victims to the fatal West African climate, Lieutenant Kenrick having died at Sierra Leone, in August, 1857; Lieutenant Leggatt, in February, 1859; Brevet-Major Pratt, in July, 1859; and Captain Owens, in July, 1860; while Lieutenant E. Smith had died at the Gambia, in September, 1859.

On the arrival of the wing from West Africa, the regiment was distributed in the West Indies as follows: The head-quarters, with Nos. 5, 7, and 8, the Grenadier and Light Companies at Barbados; Nos. 1 and 2 at St. Lucia; N at Trinidad; and Nos. 4 and 6 at Demerara. Towards the close of the year the practice of selecting men for flank companies was forbidden by Horse Guards General Order, and the grenadier and light companies became Nos. 9 and 10.

The regiment remained thus stationed until December, 1862, when the three existing West India Regiments were called upon to furnish two companies each for the formation of a new 4th West India Regiment, and Nos. 9 and 10 Companies of the 1st West India Regiment were transferred. In the same month, N Company rejoined head-quarters from St. Lucia. The establishment of the regiment was now eight instead of ten companies as formerly.

On the 23rd of December, 1862, a detachment of three companies (Nos. 5, 7, and 8) embarked in the troopship Adventure, under Lieutenant-Colonel Macauley, and proceeded to Honduras, arriving there on January 3rd, 1863. A war of reprisals between the Santa Cruz and Ycaiche Indians was then raging on the frontier, and the greatest vigilance was necessary to prevent violation of British territory, the detachments of the regiment at the outposts of Orange Walk and Corosal being continually employed.

In March, 1863, the whole of the southern side of Belize was destroyed by fire, and the detachment of the 1st West India Regiment there stationed received the thanks of the Legislative Assembly for the assistance it had rendered in preventing the conflagration spreading, a sum of $200 being voted for the men, “as an acknowledgment of the valuable services rendered by them.” In this, or the preceding year, companies were designated alphabetically instead of numerically; N becoming “A,” N, “B,” and so on.

On the 31st of October, 1863, A Company, with the head-quarters, embarked at Barbados on board the troopship Megaera, which had arrived the day before from Demerara with D and F Companies. The vessel then proceeded to St. Lucia, where B Company was embarked, and all four went to Nassau. The distribution of the regiment was then: 4 companies at Nassau, 3 in Honduras, and 1 in Trinidad.

In 1863 occurred what is usually called the Second Ashanti War. It was caused, as almost every Ashanti war or threat of invasion has been caused, by the refusal of the Governor of the Gold Coast to surrender to the Ashanti King fugitives who had sought British protection. In revenge for this refusal an Ashanti force made a raid into the Protectorate, and reinforcements were at once asked for by the Colonial Government. In December, 1863, B Company, 1st West India Regiment, under Captain Bravo, embarked at Nassau in H.M.S. Barracouta for Jamaica, and proceeded, towards the end of February, 1864, to Honduras, in the troopship Tamar. There E and G Companies embarked, and all three, under the command of Major Anton, sailed for Cape Coast Castle on the 2nd of March, arriving there on the 9th of April. The officers of the regiment serving with these companies were Major Anton, Captains Bravo and Hopewell Smith, Lieutenants J.A. Smith, Gavin, Roberts, Smithwick, Lowry, Barlow, Allinson, and Ensign Alt.

On the arrival of the detachment of the 1st West India Regiment at Cape Coast Castle, the strength of the expeditionary force was as follows:

The rainy season the most unhealthy period of the year on the Gold Coast was then commencing, and the Government appear to have had some idea of making an advance upon Coomassie at its close about the month of June or July. In order to have everything in readiness for the forward movement, depots of stores and munitions of war had been established at Mansu and Prahsu, and at Swaidroo in Akim, detachments of troops being stationed at these places for their protection. These detachments the Colonel commanding the troops on the Gold Coast determined to maintain during the rainy season, and it fell to the lot of B and G Companies of the 1st West India Regiment to be detailed for the fatal duty of relieving the detachment then encamped at Prahsu.

Towards the end of the month of April these two companies, under Captains Bravo and Hopewell Smith, started amidst continuous torrents of rain on their march of seventy-four miles to the Prah. They had, since their arrival, been encamped with E Company on the open space to the west of the town known as the parade ground, there being no accommodation for them in the Castle; and owing to the unsanitary condition of the site and the want of proper shelter, had already begun to suffer from the effects of the climate.

On arriving at the Prah they encamped at the ford of Prahsu, at a point where the river, making a sudden bend, enclosed the encampment on three sides. Here in the midst of a primeval forest, on the banks of a pestilential stream, without proper shelter or proper food, they remained for nearly three months. The sickness that ensued was almost unparalleled. Before they had been a month encamped, four officers and 102 men were sick out of seven officers and 214 men who had marched out of Cape Coast; and the hospital accommodation was so bad that the men had to lie on the wet ground with pools of water under them. The rains were unusually severe, the camp speedily became a swamp, the troops had worse food than usual, and, above all, were compelled to remain inactive. The small force had no means of communication with the coast, and no expectation of a reinforcement; and, had the enemy made an appearance, the troops were hardly in a fit state to defend themselves. Day after day torrents of rain fell; it was impossible to light fires for cooking purposes except under flimsy sheds of palm branches; and night after night officers and men turned into their wretched and dripping tents hungry and drenched to the skin. Neither was there any occupation for the mind or body, and universal gloom and despondency set in. It was no unusual thing for two funerals to take place in one day, and the unfortunate soldiers saw their small force diminishing day by day, apparently forgotten and neglected by the rest of the world.

By a general order published at Cape Coast Castle, on the 30th of May, 1864, the garrison at Prahsu was, on account of the sickness there prevailing, reduced to 100 men; and on the 6th of June, G Company, under Captain Hopewell Smith, marched from the Prah and proceeded to Anamaboe, a village on the sea-coast some thirteen miles to the east of Cape Coast Castle. B Company still continued to suffer severely, and on the 18th of June, 57 men were in hospital out of a total strength of 100.

At last the Imperial Government resolved to put a stop to the waste of life that was taking place, and sent out instructions to the Colonial Government that all operations against the Ashantis were to cease, and the troops to be withdrawn. The welcome intelligence reached Prahsu on the 26th of June, but the work of burying the guns and destroying the stores and ammunition, which had been collected there at such great labour and expense that the Government did not care to incur it again in their removal, occupied several days, and it was not until the 12th of July that the detachment marched out of the deadly camp on the Prah.

On the 27th of July, the hired transport Wambojeez arrived at Cape Coast Castle, to remove the detachments of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments to the West Indies, and on the 30th they embarked. The day before their embarkation the following general order was issued:

“(General Order, N.)

“BRIGADE OFFICE, CAPE COAST CASTLE,
“28th July, 1864.

“Paragraph 3. The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding feels great pleasure in publishing, for the information of the officers and soldiers of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments about to embark for the West Indies, the following handsome testimony of their soldierlike conduct while employed on the late expedition, by His Excellency Governor Pine, in which feelings and kind sentiments the Lieutenant-Colonel fully concurs, adding his own thanks to Major Anton and Captain Reece for the ready and cheerful manner in which they co-operated with him in carrying out the duties of the command, and to the officers and men under their respective orders.

“It is a pleasing duty to the Lieutenant-Colonel to have to announce to these corps that, from the day they took the field until this hour, not a complaint has been brought by an inhabitant against any of the men, so excellent has the conduct of all been.

“It is also gratifying to Lieutenant-Colonel Conran to see so few
men on the sick list when about to embark, considering the large
numbers that were reported sick on their return from the front.”

“GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CAPE COAST,
“27th July, 1864.

“SIR,

“On the eve of the departure of the detachments of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments, which have been annexed to your command on my requisition since April last, I request that you will be pleased to permit me, through you, to record my thanks as Governor of these settlements for the services they have performed conjointly with yourself and regiment.

“I feel that I have been the means of imposing upon Her Majesty’s troops a laborious, ungracious, and apparently thankless duty; but my intentions and motives have been so fully, and I trust, satisfactorily discussed throughout Great Britain, that I dare hope that the officers and men will believe that I invited them to participate in a constitutional measure, which I felt convinced would add to their military reputation and honour.

“To the decision of Her Majesty’s Government as to its altered policy we are all compelled to bow, and it only remains for me to express my regret to every officer and man of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments, for the natural and laudable disappointment which they have experienced in not being engaged in more active military operations, and to tender my heartfelt thanks for the prompt and ready obedience with which they responded to my call on behalf of our Royal Mistress, and for their patience and endurance under extraordinary trial.

“Major Anton I have served with, and marked with admiration his display of fortitude, moral courage, and disinterested kindness during the fearful epidemic of 1859 in the Gambia. Captain Bravo, as second in command in the Gambia, was my esteemed friend, and enjoyed the respect of all who knew him.

“This hasty and imperfect notice I trust you will not deem unworthy of being communicated to the highest military authority, and I shall esteem myself fortunate indeed if I shall be instrumental in the remotest degree in their advancement.

“I have, etc.,
(Signed) “RICHARD PINE,
“Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Gold Coast.

“The Hon. Colonel CONRAN,
“Commanding the troops on the Gold Coast.”

The Wambojeez arrived at Barbados on the 3rd of September; there the detachment of the 1st West India Regiment embarked by companies in H.M.S. Pylades, Greyhound, and Styx, for Jamaica, and disembarked at Port Royal on the 15th of September. H and C Companies rejoining at Jamaica soon after from Honduras and Trinidad, the distribution of the regiment was as follows: head-quarters and three companies at Nassau, five companies in Jamaica.