| Description | Notebook containing Sergeant-Major Grant's memoir of his life, beginning with his childhood on the Orton House estate on Speyside where his father was grieve, and describing in retrospect his early life and education until he ran off to sea in 1855, his experiences operating as a mesmerist in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1857, and his entry to the HEIC's military service as a sapper in 1858. He gives details of the organisation of the Bengal Sappers and their recruitment policies. Grant was a sergeant in the Company of Sappers in the Bhutan War, and describes actions at Buxa Fort and other events in that campaign in 1865. He then describes in some detail his experiences in the second Afghanistan War beginning in 1878, including the attack on the Ali Masjid fort in the Khyber Pass in November 1878, an account of the signing of the peace treaty between Amir Yakub Khan and Sir Louis Cavagnari in May 1879, and his own discharge on medical grounds in 1882.
The memoir seems to have been written after his discharge, but Grant includes transcriptions of letters and documents, and refers to copying material from notebooks he kept at the time. The last few pages are a diary kept after his return to Scotland, and the final entry is dated 25 June 1883.
Also enclosed are a letter writen by Grant from India to his daughter Aggy on 28 November 1881 discussing his illness, and a proof of a letter of 17 May 1879 to "My dear uncle", written from Sufaed Sung, Afghanistan, apparently by Grant, and presumably published in an unnamed newspaper. It describes the campaign from the fall of Ali Musjid fort to the arrival of Yakub Khan at Sufaed Sung. |