The total losses of the Gordons at Waterloo were 119 officers and men killed and wounded, and what remained of the regiment went on to occupy Paris, returning to Edinburgh in 1816. In the Crimean campaign the Gordons had bad luck, as they did not land till after Sevastopol had fallen. They had their turn in the Mutiny, however, for they fought their way from Ambala to Delhi, and sat on the "Ridge" under great John Nicholson from June to September, taking part in the final assault and storming the Kashmir gate. Later, they marched to the relief of Lucknow, and then saw general service in the many engagements that took place in the North-west Provinces before the Mutiny was finally quelled.
Then came twenty years of peace for the regiment, after which it was again called to action in Afghanistan, and took part in the ever-memorable march from Kabul to Kandahar. In the Egyptian campaign of 1882, the regiment was included in the Highland Brigade that fought at Tel-el-Kebir, and then went up with the expeditionary force to the relief of Khartoum and General Gordon--a fruitless errand. From that time onward to the end of the century, the Gordons saw frontier fighting in India. "Chitral" is one of the names emblazoned on the regimental colours, and in the Tirah campaign the Gordons won undying fame at the storming of the Dargai heights--which, however, was but one incident in seven months of strenuous fighting.
In the South African war, the Gordons shared in the privations of the siege of Ladysmith, and in the fierce attack made by the Boers on the Ladysmith defences, on the 6th of January, 1900, the Gordons sustained some of the fiercest of the fighting. Thus one battalion upheld the credit of the regiment, while the other, in Smith-Dorrien's nineteenth brigade, placed the name "Paardeberg" on the regimental colours. "During the four months and a half of its existence the nineteenth brigade had marched 620 miles, often on half rations, seldom on full. It had taken part in the capture of ten towns, had fought in ten general engagements, and on twenty-seven other times, and was never beaten." Up to the end of the war the Gordons were doing brilliant work. By the end of 1902 the regiment had thirteen Victoria Crosses to its credit.