In the Cavalry Camp at Devna (Young Cornet) "I say Charley, do you think now that in the event of our being sent to Sebastopol, the Infantry will be required to accompany us?"

Pen and ink and watercolour by Second Lieutenant William Thomas Markham (1830-1886), 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, 1854 (c).

This watercolour is a satire on the self-sufficient young cavalry officer who imagines that the mounted arm can accomplish everything by itself. By the late summer of 1854, after 'The Times' had editorialised on the need to extirpate Russian naval power in the Black Sea by attacking Sevastopol, it was generally understood in the Army that the port would be its objective.

From an album of watercolour paintings and sketches by Colonel William Markham and Second Lieutenant William Thomas Markham, 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade.

Purchased with the assistance of the Society of Friends of the National Army Museum.