Enlisted at Dublin on the 27th of September 1848.
Age: 19.
Height: 5' 8"
Trade: None shown.
Received a bounty of £5/15/6d.
Imprisoned 25th December 1849 — 9th January 1850 and 1st June 1851 [?] — 28th July 1851.
"Absent", 19th of September 1852.
Tried by a District Court-martial at Brighton on the 18th of October 1852 for "being asleep on his post". Sentenced to 84 days' imprisonment, with hard labour.
Wounded in action and had his horse killed under him at Balaclava.
Sent to Scutari on the 26th of October 1854 and rejoined the regiment on the 10th of November.
Batman to Cornet Weymouth from July 1856 to April 1857.
Embarked for India from Cork aboard the S.S. "Great Britain" on the 8th of October 1857.
The musters for July-September of 1858 show him as being "On Field Service" during the whole of this period.
Served in the field at Raghur and Mungrowlee with Captain William Gordon.
Discharged in India, "time expired", by Authority of the C. in C.
In India: on the 13th of April 1861.
There is no indication if he remained in India or returned to England.
Served 12 years 26 days.
Conduct: "good".
In possession of one Good Conduct badge, awarded 1860.
Next of kin (in 1854): his father, James Rafferty.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, Sebastopol, and the Turkish medal.
Mutiny medal without clasp.
His name appears on the 1877 list of members of the Balaclava Commemoration Society, but not on the 1879 revised list.
As we know he rode in the Charge, he may perhaps have died between the publication of the two lists. (See copy of the 1877 list in the "Memoirs" file which formerly belonged to 1353 William Pearson of the 4th Light Dragoons and which has the words "Not known", in handwriting next to his name.)
EJB: A search of the Dublin Central Registry Office records between 1877 and 1879 shows only one Patrick Rafferty dying in Dublin. (There is a copy of his death certificate in the "Certificates" file.) But his age as shown (67) would seem to preclude them being one and the same man, unless a mistake was made. His given address was Neill's Court, and an old street directory of the time shows this to have been tenements off 68, Marrowbone Lane, just across the river Liffey from Montpelier Hill, his last known address.
RM: He is now known to have died 16th of March 1877 at a mining camp near Georgetown in New Mexico, USA, murdered by one Richard Remine. (See the article by David Cliff in The War Correspondent, January 2007, Vol 24, No 4.)
[PB: Must add this to the account.]
In the affidavits filed by Lord Cardigan in the law-suit between himself and Lieut. Colonel Calthorpe there were two letters by Rafferty confirming that Lord Cardigan reached the Russian guns. The letters were dated the 17th of September and the 4th of October 1864 and were written from Montpelier Hill, Dublin.
In his manuscript account of the Indian Mutiny, 1117 Wightman tells of an incident in which he was concerned:
"[W]hilst retiring, we came upon a rivulet and so eager was Rafferty's horse to get to the water that he bolted out of the ranks regardless of the aids supplied by the rider, jumped into the water and after drinking heavily he lay down and rolled about like a water buffalo, creating much laughter from us all.
One comrade said, 'How do you feel now, Pat?'
'Fine, my boy,' said Pat. 'Cooler than I have been all day.'"
(There is a copy in the "Memoirs" file.)