They had defeated Afghan tribesmen at Ali Masjid, Peiwar Kotal, Kabul, and the Battle of Ahmed Khel, and they had occupied numerous cities and towns, including Kandahar, Dakka, and Jalalabad.

Burrows' brigade, some 2,500 strong with about 500 British troops including a battery of 9-pounder guns (4.1 kg), advanced to Helmand, opposite Gereshk, to oppose Ayub Khan, but was there deserted by the levies of Sher Ali, the British-appointed wali of Kandahar.

[4][page needed] On the afternoon of 26 July information was received that the Afghan force was making for the Maiwand Pass a few miles away (half-dozen km).

Maclaine was captured and held as a prisoner in Kandahar, where his body was found near Ayub Khan's tent during the British attack on 1 September, apparently murdered to prevent his liberation.

Henn and 14 of his men afterwards joined some remnants of the 66th Foot and Bombay Grenadiers in a small enclosure at a garden in a place called Khig where a determined last stand was made.

Though the Afghans shot them down one by one, they fired steadily until only eleven of their number (two officers and nine other ranks)[6] were left, and the survivors then charged out into the masses of the enemy and perished.

We was 'idin' under bedsteads more than 'arf a march away; We was lyin' up like rabbits all about the countryside; An' the major cursed 'is Maker 'cause 'e lived to see that day' An' the colonel broke 'is sword acrost, an' cried."

Frank Feller, a Swiss artist domiciled in England painted The Last Eleven at Maiwand in 1882 depicting a small group of men from the 66th Regiment making a last stand.

The events surrounding E/B Battery Royal Horse Artillery were portrayed by Godfrey Douglas Giles, Richard Caton Woodville and Stanley Wood.

The fictional Doctor Watson, companion of Sherlock Holmes, was wounded in the Battle of Maiwand (as described in the opening chapter of A Study in Scarlet).

The main character, Peter Goodcastle, had served in the Royal Horse Artillery there and had turned to burglary to avenge the shoddy treatment he had suffered on his return to Britain.

In the short story, he was arrested by none other than Dr. Watson, but later managed to escape suspicion by outsmarting Sherlock Holmes, so the two men may have already met earlier.