Gettysburg news circulated in camp, and Shaw was jealous that his former regiment, the Second Massachusetts Infantry, was in the thick of the pivotal battle.
Members of his former regiment who have been handed P45s will be sent from active service in Afghanistan to carry out Olympic security at tennis games before they are fired, says Conservative MP Patrick Mercer.
Middleton was now given command of his former regiment, the 47th.
He started his service in the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and won a place in the crack Special Air Service unit in 1975, but was granted a transfer back to his former regiment a year later.
In 1815, the former Reserve regiments, Legions, and Freikorps volunteer formations from the wars of 1813 1814 were in the process of being absorbed into the line, along with many Landwehr (militia) regiments.
The Stoke Sentinel has famously campaigned to save Port Vale Football Club and the 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Staffords) - the former Staffordshire regiment.
Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley Central and a former parachute regiment officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, said: "Our forces will be shocked that, while they are on the frontline risking life and limb, the secretary of state for defence is on a stag do on taxpayers' expense.
But the name of the former Staffordshire Regiment, now known as the 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Staffords), is to disappear as part of a re-organisation of the army.
It was formed on 10 February 1942 from two former Yugoslav gendarmerie regiments, Drinski and Dunavski, but the law formally creating the force was not issued by Nedić until 2 March 1942.
