Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macpherson, Herbert Taylor
MACPHERSON, Sir HERBERT TAYLOR (1827–1886), major-general Bengal staff corps, son of Lieutenant-colonel Duncan Macpherson, at one time of the 78th highlanders or Ross-shire buffs, was born in 1827, and in 1845 was appointed an ensign in his father's old regiment, in which he became lieutenant 13 July 1848. He served as adjutant of the regiment In the Persian expedition in 1867 (medal and clasp), and with the force under Sir Henry Havelock [q. v.] at the relief of the residency at Lucknow, 25 Sept. 1857, and in the subsequent defence, where he obtained the Victoria Cross for his conspicuously gallant conduct. He became captain in the regiment 5 Oct. 1857, and served under Outram at the defence of the Alumbagh, and as brigade-major during the operations ending in the final capture of Lucknow, in which he was very severely wounded (brevet of major, medal and clasp, and grant of a year's service). After the East India Company's forces passed under the crown, Macpherson was one of the first officers who obtained permission to transfer their services from the British to the Indian army. He was appointed major Bengal staff corps in 1865, became brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1867, lieutenant-colonel staff corps in 1871, and brevet-colonel in 1872. He served in the Hazara (Black Mountain) campaign of 1868 (medal and clasp), in the Looshai expedition in 1871-2 (medal and clasp), and in the Jowaki campaign of 1877, when he was present at the forcing of the Boripass. In 1878-9 he commanded the first brigade of the first division of the Khyber column in the Afghan war (medal and clasp and K.C.B.) In 1880 he was appointed to a brigade in Bengal, with the local rank of major-general. In 1882 he became a major-general, and commanded the division of Indian troops sent up the Red Sea to Egypt, and was present at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. His rapid march with the Indian troops to Zag-a-Zig, where on the night of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir he received a telegram from the commission of pashas at Cairo laying the submission of the army and the country at the feet of the Khedive, ended Arabi's rebellion (Maurice, p. 101). For some years the telegram was ignored and the credit claimed for the cavalry division of the British army. For his services he received at the time a medal and clasp and Khedive's star, the thanks of parliament, and the order of K.C.S.I. In August 1880, while still on the Bengal staff, he was appointed commander-in-chief at Madras, and, after the failure of the first expedition to Burmah to accomplish the pacification and settlement of the country, was ordered temporarily to transfer his headquarters to Burmah, and to remain there until the conclusion of operations in the cold season. The appointment was notified to the home government on 13 Aug. 1886. Macpherson arrived at Rangoon, full of energy and life, on 9 Sept., and assumed command of the expeditionary force, by that time amounting to thirty thousand men. He at once proceeded up the river Irrawaddy, taking with him a formidable flotilla of river-boats, carrying the reinforcements he had brought with him from India. He reached Yenangang on 14 Sept., and, after brief delays there and at Prome, arrived at Mandalay on 17 Sept. The inundations which occurred there soon afterwards were productive of much sickness among Europeans and natives. Macpherson himself fell ill, having, it was believed, contracted the seeds of fever at Mandalay. He abandoned his intention of proceeding to Bhamo, and returned on 12 Oct. to Thayet-mayo, and thence to Prome, where his illness, aggravated, no doubt, by the restless seal which marked his military career on all occasions of trying responsibility, became so severe as to require his removal to Rangoon. He died on board the steamer Irrawaddy, immediately after leaving Prome for Rangoon, 20 Oct. 1886. Macpherson married in 1859 Maria, daughter of Lieutenant-general James Eckford, C.B., Indian army.
[Hart's Army Lists; Lond. Gaz. (despatches under dates); Maurice's Campaign in Egypt, London, 1887; Broad Arrow, 23 Oct. 1886, pp. 574, 581, 587.]