The 66th Regiment of Foot was an infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 regiment of the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, formed in 1758 and amalgamated into The Princess Charlotte of Wales's (Berkshire Regiment) in 1881.

It took part in the Battle of Maiwand

Battle of Maiwand

The Battle of Maiwand in 1880 was one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Under the leadership of Malalai Anaa, the legendary woman of Afghanistan, the Afghan followers of Ayub Khan defeated the British Army in one of the rare nineteenth-century victories of an Asian force...

 in 1880. The bravery of the English soldiers astounded the Afghans. The British had almost lost the battle and only 11 men were left. An Afghan officer described their end. "These men charged from the shelter of a garden and died with their faces to the enemy, fighting to the death. So fierce was their charge, and so brave their actions, no Afghan dared to approach to cut them down. So, standing in the open, back to back, firing steadily, every shot counting, surrounded by thousands, these British soldiers died. It was not until the last man was shot down that the Afghans dared to advance on them. The behaviour of those last eleven was the wonder of all who saw it"

Officiers who died in the last stand in the garden included: Captain Walter Roberts, Lieutenant Maurice Edward Rayner, Lieutenant Richard Trevor Chute, Second Lieutenant Walter Rice Olivey and Second Lieutenant Arthur Honywood.

William McGonagall wrote of the battle in his poem The Last Berkshire Eleven: The Heroes of Maiwand, which includes mention of Bobbie

Bobbie

Bobbie was the name of a British regimental mascot dog, a mongrel from Reading, who accompanied his regiment to Afghanistan and became involved in the disaster of Maiwand. He survived and upon his return to England was presented to Queen Victoria.-Life:...

, the Regimental pet dog, who survived the battle:

And they broke from the enclosure, and followed by the little dog,

And with excitement it was barking savagely, and leaping like a frog;

And from the field the last eleven refused to retire,

And with fixed bayonets they charged on the enemy in that sea of fire.

The regiment was raised by the redesignation of the 2nd Battalion, 19th Regiment of Foot in April 1758, ranked as the 66th Regiment of Foot. In 1782 they took a county title as the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot.