Letter of Major-General James Estcourt, January 1855

Major-General James Bucknall Bucknall Estcourt had first been commissioned into the Army in 1820 to the 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot and later to the 43rd (Monnmouthshire) Regiment of Foot. He served in Canada and went onto half pay as a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1843, sitting as Member of Parliament for Devizes between 1848 and 1852. In 1854 he was appointed Adjutant-General of the Army of the East. Estcourt served as Adjutant General throughout the Crimean Campaign (1854-1856) and took part in the battles of Alma, Balaklava and Inkerman where he was severely wounded.

On 8 January 1855, during the worst of the winter, he wrote a long letter to the Adjutant-General in England, Major-General George Wetherall blaming Lord Lucan and the Commissary-General William Filder for the Army's difficulties. He had good things to say about Florence Nightingale and her nurses ('of great comfort to the sick men') but was critical of officers who had returned home on flimsy pretexts ('Neither Bentinck nor Paget can return and fill exactly the places they had in the estimation of the Army'). He added in his postscript: 'I have written too fully to admit of your showing my letter to any one. I have been uncharitable in it, and I might appear to be a croaker, and to be desponding. I am not these however I hope.'