1862 MILITARY COMMISSION LT COL BURTON CRIMEAN WAR HERO BATTLE OF BALACLAVA

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1862 MILITARY COMMISSION LT COL BURTON CRIMEAN WAR HERO BATTLE OF BALACLAVA :
$127.40

This military commission signed by Prince George Duke of Cambridge granted the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Army to one Adolphus William Desart Burton Esq from the 1st June 1862.

Aldophus Burton had taken part in some of the most decisive action of the Crimean War and had the distinction of being the subject of some of the first war photographs ever taken when he was pictured in the field by the pioneering photographer Roger Fenton.

The 5th Regiment of Dragoon Guards under the then Major Adolphus Burton, was a unit of the Heavy Brigade commanded by General Sir James York Scarlett. At the Battle of Balaclava on 25th October 1854 the Brigade made a gallant uphill charge to defeat a superior force of onrushing Russian cavalry, an amazing instance of the triumph of the individual skill of the Victorian British soldier, as well as of British discipline and unit cohesion causing the Russians to retreat in disorder.

A British Dragoon later described the action from his own perspective – \"They were so superior in numbers, they outflanked us, and we were in the middle of them … I hope God will forgive me, for I felt more like a devil than a man\"

The commission is folio, part printed with original manuscript inserts including the signature of Prince George to the lower right, it is complete with the Royal wafer seal and duty stamp and is housed in its original War Office OMHS envelope which is addressed to Lt Col Burton. For interest I have also included a 21 cm x 20 cm modern photographic re-print of one of Roger Fenton\'s famous images of Aldophus Burton taken at Balaclava.

Roger Fenton (1819 – 1869) is famed as one of the very first war photographers. Fenton was urged to go the Crimea to record the events there, landing at Balaclava on 8th March 1854. Because of the long exposures needed at the time Fenton produced mostly posed pictures such as the study of Major Burton presented here. However he also photographed the landscape, including an area near to where the Charge of the Light Brigade took place.