'Plan of Jellalabad', 1842

Plan by Captain Hamlet Wade, 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot (Prince Albert's Light Infantry), associated with the lithograph series, 'The Defence of Jellalabad by Major Gen. Sir R H Sale GCB' 1841-1842. 24 lithographs by Hullmandel and Walton, 49 Great Marlborough Street, drawn by W L Walton, published by J Hogarth, H Graves and Company, Pall Mall, 1846 (c).

Inscribed, 'Shewing the Actions of the 14th November and 1st December 1841; and 7th April 1842. fought by the Troops under the command of Major General Sir Robert Sale K.C.B. By Hamlet Wade Capt H.M. 13th Lt Inftry Major of Brigade to the Force'.

At the start of the 1st Afghan War (1839-1842), Brevet-Colonel Sale commanded the 1st Bengal Brigade during the advance on Kandahar. He then took part in the march to Kabul and led one of the storming columns at Ghazni in July 1839. For his services Sale was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and received the local rank of major-general. In late 1841 Sale's brigade was sent back to India; but it encountered such hostility from the Ghilzai tribesmen of the Khoord-Kabul Pass, whose subsidies had been cut, that it had to seek refuge at Jellalabad fort on 12 November 1841.

Despite being ordered to return to Kabul following the murder of the British envoy, Sale decided to ignore these instructions. Resisting his personal desire to return to protect his wife and daughter who were in the Afghan capital, he at once set about preparing the half-ruined fortress for a siege. The ramparts were widened and parapets raised. In addition, cover outside the walls was removed by demolishing buildings and filling ditches. The garrison withstood a siege from mid-November 1841 until April 1842 when the besieging Afghans retired partly as a result of Sale's own sorties, including a brilliantly planned and successful attack on Akbar Khan's lines on 7 April, and partly upon the approach of Major-General George Pollock's Army of Retribution.