Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan, 1841-2 (Cambridge Library Collection - Naval and Military History)

Lady Sale (née Florentia Wynch, 1790-1853) became an instant heroine when her journal of the disastrous events in Afghanistan in 1841-2 was published in 1843. The wife of Sir Robert Sale, second-in-command of the British forces, she was taken hostage, along with her daughter and baby grand-daughter, after the massacre of over 4,500 British troops at Kabul, while her husband commanded a besieged garrison at Jalalabad. The small group of hostages was moved from place to place, with only the clothes they stood up in, to evade attempts at rescue over a period of nine months. Eventually, they were able to bribe a tribal leader to release them, and they met up with a British rescue party just before Afghani pursuers overtook them. Lady Sale's diary, carried in a cloth bag at her waist, was published almost unedited, and is an extraordinary account of her ordeal.