NAM.1964-12-151-6-9

Photograph: Brigadier General McPherson and Officers of the 4th Division. Photograph by Roger Fenton (1819-1869), 1855. Captain Arthur Maxwell Earle, 57th (West Middlesex) Regiment of Foot is second from right. Casualties among general officers were so heavy at the Battle of Inkerman that a man like Philip McPherson, who - through seniority alone - had risen to the command of a battalion at an advanced age, was given leadership of a brigade. The verdict on McPherson’s capabilities delivered by his Brigade Major, Maxwell Earle, pictured here reading a dispatch (McPherson is the white-bearded figure standing to his left), was damning: 'Had I but a Goldie for a Brigadier instead of an old nonentity who, were I to put his own death warrant on his desk, he would sign it!' From photograph album of 52 photographs associated with the Crimean War (1854-1856).

Crimean War (1854-1856)