Captain Thomas Alexander Souter (11 December 1796 – 10 June 1848) was the sole surviving officer of the last stand of the British Army, composed mostly of men from the 44th (East Essex) Regiment of Foot, near Gandamak, Afghanistan, at the close of the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1842.

According to Souter's account in a five-page letter to his wife written in captivity, only he, a mess sergeant, and seven men were spared while the rest were slaughtered after a day's fighting: "In the conflict my posteen flew open and exposed the colour: thinking I was some great man from looking so flash, I was seized by two fellows who.

[6] The regiment's colour endured a complicated fate: It was returned to Souter by one of his original captors, though stripped of its tinsel and tassels,[3] then was in the individual possession of various men and officers of the 44th.

[8] In the first episode of season two of the BBC series Victoria, the Queen is told of the massacre of the British army in Afghanistan.

Their daughter Emma married Colonel Edward Penfold Arthur, the son of Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet, and had a daughter, Isabella Fanny, who married William James Wemyss Muir, the oldest son of Sir William Muir and Elizabeth Huntly Wemyss.