[Illustration:
Yours faithfully,
Thomas Faughnan.]
STIRRING INCIDENTS
IN THE LIFE OF
A BRITISH SOLDIER.
An Autobiography.
BY
THOMAS FAUGHNAN,
_Late Colour-Sergeant, 2nd Battalion, 6th Royal Regiment_.
"Faithful unto Death."
THIRD EDITION.
TORONTO:
HUNTER, ROSE AND COMPANY.
1881.
Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine, by THOMAS FAUGHNAN, in the
office of the Minister of Agriculture.
PRINTED AND BOUND BY
HUNTER, ROSE & CO.,
TORONTO.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY
The Right Honourable the Marquis of Lorne,
K.T., G.C.M.G.,
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA,
THIS STORY
Of a British Soldier's Life
IS, BY SPECIAL PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY HIS HUMBLE AND OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THOMAS FAUGHNAN.
PREFACE.
In laying the history of my life and travels before the public, I deem
it right to state that I am past the middle age; this I feel compelled
to mention, because it is my opinion that no man should write a history
of himself until he has set foot upon the border land where the past and
the future begin to blend. When the past has receded so far that he can
behold it as in a picture, and his share in it as the history of a
soldier who has fought for his Queen and country, and had many narrow
escapes of death. But, thank God, I have been spared thus far to confess
my faults, and my good deeds look miserably poor in my own eyes; indeed,
I would no more claim a reward for them than expect a captain's
commission.
The countries and incidents described in this work will be found I
trust, interesting to all classes of persons. The history of a soldier's
life and travels is always an entertaining and instructive one. Many
books on the lives of officers have been written by learned men
containing much information, and highly useful to the scholar, but they
do not interest the mass of common readers. Others, again, pass so
rapidly from place to place, and are so general in their description,
the reader gets but very imperfect ideas from reading them. These
extremes the writer has endeavoured to avoid. It has been my object to
select the most important events of my life, and to describe them in a
plain and familiar style. I have not indulged in learned dissertations,
my common, old-fashioned Irish school education being too limited to
give that classical finish to the work which a learned writer would have
done. Indeed, it has not been my intention to write a book for the
learned or critical, but to give to the public a volume written in a
homely style, by a non-commissioned officer, to instruct and interest
the family and the common reader, as well as my comrades. If, while
dilating on the exploits of my comrades in arms, I have omitted to pay
proper respect to gallant foes, it is because I know that history will
supply the deficiency. Time will gild with glory a Trojan defence, fitly
closed by a successful retreat across a burning bridge, under a heavy
fire. But come along, dear reader, and try whether in my first chapter I
cannot be a boy again, in such a way that my reader will gladly linger a
little in the meadows of childhood, ere we pass to riper years and
stirring battle-fields.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Education—My Schoolmaster—School House—My Father, Mother,
Sisters—Our House 17