XXIV. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN FEBRUARY
Impatient as the whole British nation was to hear of a brilliant and successful termination of the struggle in India, every telegram, every weekly mail, shewed that the time for this satisfaction was still far distant. The mutineers were beaten, but not crushed; the rebellious chieftains were checked, but not extinguished; their deluded followers were disappointed in the results obtained, but not deterred from making further efforts. England, with all her delays and waverings of opinion, had sent over a large, fine, and complete army; the Punjaub had supplied such a force of reliable troops as no one would have ventured beforehand to anticipate; generals had been brought into notice by the exigencies of public affairs who possessed those fine soldierly attributes which a nation is proud to recognise; the authorities, steady at their posts, never for a moment doubted that the British ‘raj’ would be established on a firmer basis than ever—and yet everything was in turmoil in India. Blood and treasure were being daily expended; but the time had not arrived when any adequate return was obtained for these losses. January having passed, men speculated whether Lucknow and Oude—to say nothing of other cities and provinces—would fall permanently into British hands during the month of February. What was the response to this much-mooted question, the present chapter will shew.
The gallant commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, being the chief actor in the busy military scenes of the period, it may be well to trace his movements during the month of February, before noticing the marchings and battles of other generals.
It will be remembered, from the details given in the last chapter, that Sir Colin, after the capture of Furruckabad and Futteghur early in January, remained during the greater part of that month encamped in that neighbourhood, organising the military arrangements necessary for an advance into Oude. These arrangements involved the arrival of siege-guns from Delhi and Agra, and the concentration at one point of different columns under his brigadiers. Among various subsidiary operations, Captain Taylor, of the Engineers, was sent to the Alum Bagh, to report as far as possible on the defensive works thrown up by the enemy in and near Lucknow, and to gather a strong engineer force to aid the commander-in-chief. Sir Colin remained nearly stationary during these preliminary proceedings, elaborating the details of his plan of strategy, in conjunction with his chief of the staff, General Mansfield. When his troops and his missiles, his personnel and matériel, were pretty well collected, he returned from Futteghur to Cawnpore on the 4th of February. Viscount Canning had shortly before gone up from Calcutta to Allahabad; and Sir Colin started off on the 8th to meet him. What these two representatives of British power agreed on during their interview, they of course kept to themselves; but every one felt the probability that some extensive scheme of policy, military and political, to be worked out by soldiers and civilians in unison, was discussed and mutually accepted. Returning again to Cawnpore, the commander-in-chief made the last arrangements for giving activity to the force which had been so slowly and with so much difficulty collected. Fain would many critics have censured the old general for delay; fain would they have urged that in two months he had only fought two battles—at Cawnpore and at Furruckabad—while the world was impatiently waiting to hear of the reconquest of Oude; but as he kept his own council with remarkable reticence, criticism gave way to a belief that there must have been good and sufficient cause for the caution which marked all his proceedings.
On or about the 11th of February, all the preparatory operations were completed, and an army, larger than any which had up to that time appeared against the rebels, began to cross the Ganges from Cawnpore into Oude. It had originally been intended to effect the crossing of a portion of the army at Futteghur; but Cawnpore was afterwards selected. The crossing was necessarily a slow and difficult one, on account of the vast impedimenta of an Indian army. To increase the facilities, a second bridge of boats was constructed. Even with this addition the passage across the Ganges lasted several days; for each bullock-cart carried but little. A small portion only of the ammunition, irrespective of all other equipage and baggage, required the services of fifteen hundred carts. The artillery was on an enormous scale; the siege-guns, the naval-brigade guns, the field-guns, and the horse-artillery guns, numbered not much less than two hundred in all. After crossing, the army distributed itself at certain places on the line of route from Cawnpore to Lucknow. For instance, on the 15th of the month, the head-quarters were still at Cawnpore; one portion of the army was encamped at Onao, one march from Cawnpore; another at Busherutgunje, a march and a half from Cawnpore; a third at Nawabgunge, two marches from Cawnpore; a fourth, under Outram, at the Alum Bagh; and a fifth at Sheorajpore, twenty miles from Cawnpore on the Allygurh road. Sir Colin himself still remained with head-quarters at Cawnpore—partly to provide for the safety of convoys of ladies and children passing down from Agra through Cawnpore to Allahabad; partly to await the entry into Oude, from the east, of the forces under Jung Bahadoor and Brigadier Franks; and partly to watch the proceedings of a large body of the enemy near Calpee, who were threatening again to overrun the Doab unless strongly held in check.
It may here usefully be stated that Sir Colin organised his Oudian army before any of the regiments began to cross into that province. As a permanent record of the component elements of that fine force, we give the details in a note at the end of the present chapter; but a summary may not be out of place here. The ‘army of Oude,’ as tabulated on the 10th of February, comprised such regiments and corps as were at that time under the more immediate command of Sir Colin Campbell; and took no account of the separate forces under Jung Bahadoor, Franks, Seaton, Macgregor, Windham, Inglis, Van Cortlandt, Rose, Stuart, Steuart, Orr, Whitlock, Greathed, Penny, M’Causland, Roberts, and other officers whose services were required elsewhere, or who had not reached the Oudian frontier at that date. The army of Oude, thus limited in its meaning, was systematically classified. There were three divisions of infantry, under Outram, Walpole, and a third general afterwards to be named. These were subdivided into six brigades, under Hamilton, Russell, Franklyn, Adrian Hope, Douglas, and Horsford—two brigades to each division. Each brigade was further divided into three regiments or battalions. The Queen’s regiments of infantry in the six brigades were the 5th, 23d, 34th, 38th, 42d, 53d, 78th, 79th, 84th, 90th, and 93d, and two battalions of the Rifle Brigade. The other infantry regiments were Company’s Europeans, Sikhs, and Punjaubees; the Goorkhas were in corps not yet incorporated in the army of Oude. A fourth division of infantry, under Franks, Wroughton, and Puhlwan Singh, was provided for, but did not at that time form a part of the army of Oude. The cavalry formed one division, under Hope Grant, and was separated into two brigades, under William Campbell and Little. The Queen’s cavalry regiments in this division were the 2d Dragoon Guards, the 7th Hussars, and the 9th Lancers; the other cavalry were Sikhs, Punjaubees, and a few volunteers and irregulars of miscellaneous origin. The artillery division, under Archdale Wilson (the conqueror of Delhi), comprised a field-artillery brigade under Wood, a siege-artillery brigade under Barker, a naval brigade under Peel, and an engineer brigade under Napier.
Not until the last day of February did the commander-in-chief cross over the Ganges, and take command of the army destined to besiege and finally capture the great city of Lucknow. Meanwhile Sir James Outram, at the Alum Bagh, had been daily in communication with the other officers, and had prepared detailed plans of everything relating to Lucknow and its defences, so far as he was acquainted with them. The engineers, too, had been busily engaged in preparing that vast store of siege-materials which is necessary for the attack of strongly defended fortifications.
What the army of Oude effected during the month of March, the next chapter will shew. Before quitting this part of the February operations, however, it may be well to notice episodically the remarkable connection between the newspaper press and the battle-field in recent times. In the great wars of former days, correspondents residing at the chief cities in foreign countries were wont to send such items of information as they could pick up to the editors of English newspapers; and military officers, cautiously and anonymously, sent occasional criticisms on the details of the battles in which they were engaged. It was left for the period of the Crimean war, however, to commence, or at least to perfect, a system by which a non-military writer is sent out at enormous expense, to join an army in the field or at a siege, to bear some danger and much privation, to see with his own eyes everything that can be seen, and to write such descriptions of the scenes as shall be intelligible to ordinary newspaper readers. Mr W. H. Russell, of the Times, gave an importance to such communications never before equalled, by the brilliant style in which he described the military operations in Bulgaria and the Crimea during the Russian war of 1854-5; and the system was ably carried out by special correspondents connected with the staff of some of the other London newspapers. When the Indian mutiny was half a year old, Mr Russell started from England, to do that for India which he had before done for the Crimea—mix in the turmoil of war, and describe battles in a graphic and vivid way. What he saw and what he did in February initiated him into many of the peculiarities of Indian life, when scenes of slaughter had not yet come under his notice. Leaving Calcutta on the 4th of February, he went like other travellers to Raneegunge by railway, and thence to Benares by gharry dâk—a four-wheeled, venetian-blinded, oblong vehicle, driven by a native with ‘mail post guard’ inscribed on his brass belt-plate, and drawn at the rate of seven miles an hour by a single horse, the horse being changed at post-houses at every few miles’ distance. On the way were troops going up with great regularity, travelling 35 miles per day in bullock-carts, and supplied with comfortable meals and sleeping-places at the dâk-bungalows. Travelling thus by way of Burdwan, Nimeaghat, Sheergotty, and Noubutpore, he arrived at Benares; this city, ‘long, straggling, and Turkish looking,’ was completely commanded by a new fort at Rajghat, built since the troubles of the preceding summer. Thence to Allahabad the fields were rich with corn, and the roads thronged by natives and trains of bullock-hackeries laden with cotton for the Benares and Mirzapore markets. Arrived at Allahabad, Mr Russell commenced his camp-life, messing generally with some of the officers, and sleeping under a tent. Viscount Canning and his suite were at that time living under canvas within the fort; while all around were evidences of military preparation for the English regiments sent up from Calcutta. Thence he travelled for fifty miles by the second portion of the great trunk-railway. The rebels in the preceding June had attacked the locomotives in an extraordinary way, if his account is to be taken as anything more than mere raillery: ‘They fired musketry at the engines for some time at a distance, as if they were living bodies; then advanced cautiously, and finding that the engines did not stir, began to belabour them with sticks, all the time calling them names and abusing them.’ By horse-dâk Mr Russell proceeded through Futtehpoor to Cawnpore, where he, like all others, was struck with astonishment that poor Sir Hugh Wheeler’s ‘intrenchment’ could ever have held out so long as it did. Sir Colin Campbell was then at Cawnpore, living in a small subaltern’s tent, working incessantly, and provided with an amount of personal ‘baggage’ so marvellously small as to shew how little the old soldier regarded luxuries. Mr Russell remained at Cawnpore till the 27th, when he joined the army in the march towards Lucknow. He had provided, in true Indian fashion, for the carriage of himself and baggage, a saddle-horse, a horse-gharry, and four camels. His account of the preparations for his march is not only amusing from the way in which it is told, but is instructive on matters relating to travelling in India.[137] The end of February found Mr Russell, a civilian immersed in all the bustle of an army, ready to see and hear whatever the month of March should present to his attention.
Leaving for the present the commander-in-chief and his army, we shall briefly trace the operations, so far as they occurred in the month of February, of such of his generals as were employed in duties away from his immediate control and supervision.
Sir James Outram at once presents claims for notice; for though appointed general of one of the divisions of the army of Oude, he held an independent command until the month had expired. During more than three months this distinguished officer had never seen Sir Colin Campbell; during more than five months he had never once been away from the vicinity of Lucknow and the Alum Bagh. He marched with Havelock and Neill from Cawnpore to the capital of Oude in September, and relieved or rather reinforced Inglis; he commanded the British Residency at Lucknow during October, with Havelock and Inglis as his subordinates; he aided Sir Colin to effect the ‘rescue’ in November; and then he commanded at the Alum Bagh throughout the whole of December, January, and February. What he did in the first two of these months, we have seen in former chapters; what were his military proceedings in February, a few lines will suffice to shew.
Whether the enemy supposed that, by another attack on the Alum Bagh, they might disturb the extensive plans of the British; whether they were influenced by a sudden impulse to achieve a limited success; or whether another motive existed, presently to be mentioned—they fought another battle with Sir James Outram, and received their usual defeat. On the morning of the 21st of February, no less than 20,000 of the enemy attacked the Alum Bagh. Having filled all the trenches with as many men as they could hold, and placed large masses of infantry in the topes as a support, they commenced a simultaneous movement round both flanks of Outram’s position—threatening at the same time the whole length of front, the northeast corner of the Alum Bagh, and the picket and fort at Jelalabad. Outram, perceiving at a glance the nature of the attack, strengthened the several endangered points. At the Alum Bagh and Jelalabad posts the enemy received a severe check, having come within range of the grape-shot which the British poured out upon them. He detached about 250 cavalry, and two field-pieces, under Captain Barrow, to the rear of Jelalabad; here Barrow came suddenly upon 2000 of the enemy’s cavalry, and 5000 infantry, whom he kept at bay so effectually with his two field-guns, that they were quite frustrated in their intended scheme of attack. The enemy’s attack on Outram’s left flank was made by no fewer than 5000 cavalry and 8000 infantry. To oppose these he sent only four field-guns and 120 men of the military train, under Major Robertson; but this mere handful of men, with the guns, drove away the enemy. A large convoy was at the time on the road from Cawnpore; and the escort for this convoy had taken away most of Outram’s cavalry. It is not surprising that the enemy should select such a time for attacking the Alum Bagh and endeavouring to intercept the convoy; but it is certainly a matter for wonder that such a large army should suffer itself to be beaten by a few hundred men. The casualty-list, too, was as surprising as anything else; for Outram had only 9 wounded and none killed; whereas the enemy’s loss was adverted to in the following terms: ‘The reports from the city state the enemy to have lost 60 killed and 200 wounded in their attack on the Alum Bagh, and about 80 or 90 killed in front of Jelalabad. This was exclusive of their loss on the left flank, and along our front, where our heavy artillery had constant opportunities of firing shell and shrapnel into the midst of their moving masses. I consider their loss to have been heavier than on any of their previous attacks.’ At this very time the bulk of Sir Colin’s army was approaching the Alum Bagh; the enemy well knew that fact, and had only been induced to hazard the attack on the 21st by the temporary absence of some of Outram’s troops. The attack having failed, they hastened back to strengthen their defensive arrangements at Lucknow.
It may now be well to notice what was doing eastward of Oude. The strong Goorkha force under Jung Bahadoor, and the effective column of miscellaneous troops under Brigadier Franks, had greatly improved the condition of that portion of country which lay between Oude and Lower Bengal, around the cities and stations of Patna, Dinapoor, Arrah, Buxar, Ghazeepore, Azimghur, Goruckpore, Jounpoor, Benares, and Mirzapore. Mutineers there were, and marauders connected with rebel chieftains; but their audacity, except in the immediate vicinity of Oude, was checked by the increasing power of the forces brought to bear against them.
Brigadier Franks, one of the most energetic and admired of the officers whom the wars of the mutiny brought forth, had since the month of December commanded a column called the Jounpoor Field-force, which had been employed in chastising and expelling bodies of rebels from the Azimghur, Allahabad, and Jounpoor districts. During these operations, he had defeated the enemy at many places. The time was now approaching when Franks was to join Sir Colin in the final operations against Lucknow; and when his Jounpoor field-force, losing its individuality, was to form the fourth division of infantry in the army of Oude, with Franks as its general of division. That change, however, was not likely to occur until the month of March had arrived. About the middle of February he was with his force at Budleepore, a town on the route from Jounpoor to Sultanpore in Oude. His force comprised H.M. 10th, 20th, and 97th regiments, six regiments of Goorkhas, and twenty guns. Colonel Puhlwan Singh commanded the Goorkhas, and Colonel Maberley the artillery. The force was a strong one, containing 2300 Europeans and 3200 Goorkhas, and an excellent park of guns. There was one month’s provisions collected; and Franks was awaiting the orders of Sir Colin for an advance into Oude. Colonel Wroughton was with him, having no distinct military command, but acting as a medium of communication between Franks and Puhlwan Singh; being familiar with the Goorkhas, his services were valuable in giving such instructions to the Nepaulese auxiliaries as would enable them to understand and obey the orders of the brigadier.
Although placed in an expectant attitude, until he could receive instructions from Sir Colin, and until he heard of Jung Bahadoor’s crossing of the frontier into Oude, Brigadier Franks was quite ripe for an encounter with the enemy whenever and wherever he could meet with them. They gave him an opportunity before the month was out, and he made ample use of it. He crossed the frontier into Oude near Singramow, on the 19th, and received speedy proof that a very large body of the enemy was before him—ordered, apparently, by the self-appointed authorities at Lucknow, to prevent him from approaching that city. Franks, however, cleverly deceiving the rebel leader, Nazim Mahomed Hossein, attacked his army in detail, first at Chandah and then at Humeerpoor. The section of the rebels at Chandah, under Bunda Hossein, comprised among other troops the mutinous sepoys of the 20th, 28th, 48th, and 71st Bengal native regiments. Franks attacked them in a strong position. They were in the fort and intrenchments, and crowning a long row of hillocks in front of the town; every neighbouring tope and village was full of them. Nevertheless he defeated them, and captured six of their guns. Giving his troops only a very brief rest, he marched on to Humeerpoor, two or three miles distant, on that same evening, and attacked a still larger force under the Nazim himself. The defeat was equally significant. ‘Our Enfield rifles did it all,’ wrote one of the English officers. The enemy retreated during the night, and Franks and his brave men bivouacked, after having, in the two engagements, inflicted a loss on their opponents of six guns and 800 men killed and wounded. The brigadier himself had been in the saddle fifteen hours on this severe day. After resting on the 20th, Franks and his opponent the Nazim, the one at Humeerpoor and the other at Warree, sought which should be the first to obtain possession of the pass, jungle, and fort of Badshaigunje. By a forced march, the English brigadier outmanœuvred the Nazim, gained the fort, and waited till reinforcements could reach him. The two forces came in sight of each other again on the 23d, by which time the Nazim and Bunda Hossein had swelled their motley army to no less than 25,000 men, comprising 5000 revolted sepoys, 1100 sowars, and the rest rabble; having with them 25 guns. The result of this encounter was a severe battle, fought near Sultanpore. The enemy had taken up a very wide position; their centre resting on the old cantonment and sepoy lines, thence extending through villages and topes, and screened in front by hillocks and nullahs. Franks turned the enemy’s right by a detour, drew them into a hot struggle, and won a complete victory. No less than 1800 insurgents were killed and wounded, including two or three rebel chieftains. The victors captured twenty pieces of artillery, and the whole of the enemy’s standing camp, baggage, ammunition, &c. The result of this battle was that the enemy were frustrated in the attempt to check the advance of Franks into Oude; he found the roads to Lucknow and Fyzabad entirely open to him. If he had had cavalry, he would have pursued and cut up the enemy in retreat; but 250 horse, long and anxiously expected from Allahabad, did not arrive at Sultanpore until the day after the battle. These three actions, two on the 19th and one on the 23d, were marked by that anomaly which the military operations in India so often exhibited—the disparity between the losses on the two sides. Nothing but a full trust in the truthfulness of a gallant officer would render credible the fact that, after conflicts in which 2600 of the enemy were killed and wounded, the conqueror could write as follows: ‘I am proud to announce that, through the glorious conduct of the officers and men of this force, European and Nepaulese, I have been enabled by manœuvring to achieve these brilliant results with the loss on our side, in all three actions, of only 2 men killed and 16 wounded’—and this, be it remembered, in contesting against four times his own numbers.
While this Jounpoor field-force was thus actively engaged, a small body of English sailors were slowly advancing by another route into Oude. Ever active to be up and doing, a band of about 250 tars, belonging to the steam-frigate Pearl, were delighted at being formed into a naval brigade, and offered a chance of meeting and well belabouring the ‘Pandies.’ Under Captain Sotheby, they were sent up the river Gogra in the Company’s steamer Jumna. They embarked near Dinapoor, and disembarked on the 20th at Nowraine, twenty miles short of Fyzabad. The enemy had two forts at that place, both of which were speedily taken, together with guns and ammunition, and the enemy driven away with great loss. Jung Bahadoor, with his Nepaulese contingent, was at the time not far distant; and Colonel Rowcroft, with 2000 Goorkhas, aided in the attack.
The proceedings of the Nepaulese leader must now be noticed. The English officers frequently, though cautiously, complained of the slowness of his movements; and Sir Colin Campbell was becoming impatient for his appearance near the great scene of conflict at Lucknow. He had been many weeks in the region around Goruckpore, with a fine army of 9000 Goorkhas; and though he had aided in putting down many bands of insurgents, it was now hoped that he would at once advance towards the centre of Oude. This he did, but not rapidly, during the month of February.
On the 26th, while Jung Bahadoor and Brigadier Macgregor were on the march from Mobarukhpoor to Ukberpoor, on the way to Fyzabad, they learned that a small body of rebels were in a fort at Berozepoor. A portion of the body-guard went to the place, and relied on a promise made by the rebels that they would evacuate the fort in forty minutes. Instead of departing, the enemy prepared for a defence; and a desperate fight ensued around a small fort distinguished by much novelty of construction. The fort was so completely surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of bamboos, that the besiegers were in much doubt concerning the nature of the defences within. At one place they were stopped by a ditch, at another by a high mud-wall and bastion, at another by a row of lofty bamboo-stakes. The place being very small, an attempt was made to storm it by assault; but so many were the obstacles, that a clearance by cannonade became necessary; and it was not until after much artillery firing, and much loss of life, that the fort was captured. So peculiar was the construction of the place, that Captain Holland was obliged to drag a 6-pounder gun through a bamboo-fence and an outer ditch, before he could breach a mud-wall which had until then been invisible. It was certainly no small achievement, in a military point of view, for the enemy to have constructed a fort entirely novel to the besiegers, and capable of being defended for several hours by less than forty men against many hundreds. When all was over, Brigadier Macgregor, wishing to know something more of the nature and construction of this little fort of Berozepoor, requested Lieutenant Sankey, of the Madras Engineers, to examine and report thereon—seeing that there might be like forts elsewhere, with which it would be well to be familiar. Near the village of Berozepoor, then, the fort was built. It was only sixty feet square, with circular bastions at the angles, and a banquette just within the parapet on which musketeers might stand. The mud-rampart was fifteen feet above the level of the ground, very thick at the bottom and loopholed for musketry at the top. It was surrounded by a ditch, this again by a belt of high bamboos, which was in turn encircled by another ditch ten or twelve feet deep. A row of newly planted bamboo slips, eight or ten feet high, was placed on the immediate lip of the counterscarp of the outer ditch. Lieutenant Sankey said in his report: ‘Viewed from the outside, nothing very suspicious or formidable was discoverable about the place. It had all the appearance of an ordinary clump of bamboos at the corner of a village; which latter, like all inhabited places in this part of the country, was very well screened in foliage.’ He found it, however, ‘a very hedgehog of fortification. Nothing could be more difficult of approach; every portion bristling with thorns, and intercepted by ditches and banks.’
A little must now be said concerning a few isolated operations, belonging to the month of February, near the Jumna and the Ganges, in which Seaton, Maxwell, and Hope Grant were concerned. Colonel Seaton, at the close of the month, was at Mahomedabad, a few miles distant from Futteghur. He had with him a detachment of the 82d foot, 300 of De Kantzow’s horse, 350 of De Kantzow’s foot, and 40 Sikh troopers. After waiting for the arrival of the 4th Punjaub infantry, the 3d Europeans, Alexander’s Horse, and nine guns, he was enabled to organise an efficient column for chastising the rebels in a number of villages around Futteghur. Those operations, however, scarcely commenced until the month of March.
Colonel Maxwell had the gratification of defeating a body of insurgents who had for a long time given much anxiety to the British officers—anxiety arising from a doubt concerning the plans and movements of the insurgents. The Gwalior mutineers are here alluded to. They did not allow the month to pass away wholly without giving signs of activity; though those signs were few and unimportant. Colonel Maxwell, commanding a detachment sent out from Cawnpore, suddenly found himself attacked on the 4th by the mutineers, who marched from Calpee to his camp at Bhogneepore. The broken nature of the ground, the cover of the crops, and the dimness of the light at five o’clock on a winter’s morning, prevented Maxwell from forming a correct estimate of numbers; but he had every reason for believing them to be in great strength. He could only bring against them five companies of H.M. 88th foot, 50 troopers, and 2 guns; yet with this small force he maintained a running-fight for four hours. The enemy disputed every inch of the ground, making a stand at Chowra, a place three or four miles distant from the camp. He pursued them until they retreated across a small river, keeping up the fire of their skirmishers to the very last. It is difficult to understand what could have been the nature of the enemy’s fire; for while, after the battle, the bodies of eighty rebels were found dead upon the field, Colonel Maxwell recorded only five wounded (none killed) in his own little force. Among the wounded was Lieutenant Thompson, one of the few who escaped alive from Cawnpore.
About the middle of February, it became known that bodies of the enemy were in motion near the fords or ghats on the left bank of the Ganges, between Futteghur and Cawnpore, ready for any mischief that might present itself. To clear away these rebels, a movable column was organised, consisting of H.M. 34th, 38th, and 53d regiments, squadrons of the 7th Hussars and 9th Lancers, squadrons of Hodson’s Horse and Watson’s Horse, a company of Sappers and Miners, and a few guns. This column was to start from the main Lucknow road at a point near Bunnee, and to proceed on a line inclining towards the Ganges at such an angle as to sweep the rebels towards the west, where, at present, they would be less mischievous than if near the banks of the river. Sir Hope Grant took command of this column, which consisted of 3246 men (2240 infantry, 636 cavalry, 326 artillery, and 44 native Sappers). One of his achievements with this column consisted in the storming and capture of the town of Meeangunje or Meagunje, on the 23d of February. In the course of his various marchings, he learned that a body of the enemy had taken up a strong position at Meeangunje, a town between Lucknow and Futteghur. They had 2000 infantry in the town, 300 cavalry outside, and five or six guns. Hope Grant’s force being stronger than theirs, a victory was naturally to be expected, although the position was a strong one. Meeangunje was surrounded by a stone wall fourteen feet high, and had three strong gates, opening into the Lucknow, Cawnpore, and Rohilcund roads respectively; there were also numerous bastions on all sides. At each of the gates the enemy placed guns behind strong breastworks, and the breastworks themselves were covered by trees. After a careful reconnoitring, Grant found a weak point on the fourth side of the town, where he could bring two heavy guns within three or four hundred yards of the wall, at a place where a postern-gate pierced it. Telling off part of his force to command the Lucknow road, another part to the Rohilcund road, and the rest to await behind a village the result of the cannonading, he opened fire. In less than an hour, the two heavy guns made a practicable breach in the wall. Grant at once ordered H.M. 53d to advance to the assault. The regiment separated into two wings, one of which, after entering the breach, proceeded under Colonel English through the left of the town; while the other, under Major Payne, penetrated to the right. This work was admirably done; the infantry advancing through a labyrinth of lanes, and driving the enemy before them at every yard. The town was captured, and with it six guns. The enemy, in endeavouring to escape by the several gates, were killed or captured to the number of nearly a thousand altogether. Here occurred another of those inexplicable anomalies already adverted to; Sir Hope Grant, in language too distinct to be misinterpreted, stated that his loss was only 2 killed and 19 wounded.
The Doab had undergone a wonderful improvement during the winter months. District after district was gradually falling out of the enemy’s hands, and into the power of the British. Nevertheless, there was much need for caution. The insurgents were cunning, and often appeared where little expected. The commander-in-chief’s operations, in February as in December, were influenced by the necessity of providing for the safety of non-combatants escaping from the scenes of strife. In the earlier month, as we have already seen, Sir Colin could not chastise the Gwalior mutineers until he had sent off the women, children, sick, and wounded from Lucknow to Cawnpore, Futtehpoor, and Allahabad; and now, in February, he had to secure the passage of a convoy from Agra, comprising a large number of ladies and 140 children. Protected by the 3d Bengal Europeans, some irregular horse, and two guns, these helpless persons left Agra on the 11th of February, and proceeded by way of Ferozabad and Minpooree to Cawnpore—thence to be forwarded to Allahabad. On the way, the convoy watched narrowly for any indications of the presence of Nena Sahib, who was reported to be in movement somewhere in that quarter.
Of Delhi, the chief matter here to be noticed, is the trial of the old imprisoned king, for complicity in the mutiny and its atrocities. Without formally limiting the account to the month of February, the general course of the investigation may briefly be traced.
The trial commenced on the 27th of January, in the celebrated imperial chamber of the Dewani Khas, the ‘Elysium’ where in former days Mogul power had been displayed in all its gorgeousness. The tribunal was a court-martial, all the members being military officers. The president was Colonel Dawes (in lieu of Brigadier Showers, who, though first appointed, had been obliged to leave for service elsewhere). The other members were Major Palmer, Major Redmond, Major Sawyers, and Captain Rothney. Major Harriott, deputy-judge-advocate-general, officiated as government prosecutor. The charges against the king were set forth under four headings.[138] It may be doubted whether the wearisome legal phraseology (’to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war’—‘treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with,’ &c.) was well fitted for the purpose; but this may depend on the mode in which the English was translated into Hindustani.
It was impossible for the spectators to regard without emotion the appearance of the aged monarch, the last representative of a long line of Indian potentates, thus brought as a culprit before a tribunal of English officers. Even those who considered him simply as a hoary-headed villain were interested by the proceedings. After being in attendance some time, sitting in a palanquin outside the court, under a guard of Rifles, he was summoned within at about noon. He appeared very infirm, and tottered into court supported on one side by his favourite son, Jumma Bukht, and on the other by a confidential servant. He sat coiled up on a cushion at the left of the president; and ‘presented such a picture of helpless imbecility as, under other circumstances, must have awakened pity.’ His son stood a few yards to the left, and the guard of Rifles beyond all.
After the members of the court, the prosecutor, and the interpreter, had taken the usual oaths, the prosecutor proceeded to read the charges against the prisoner. He next addressed the court in a concise and explanatory manner; and announced that, though the king would be tried to ascertain whether he were guilty or not guilty, no capital sentence could be passed upon him, in consequence of his life having been guaranteed to him by Sir Archdale Wilson, through Captain Hodson. When the king was asked, through the interpreter, whether he was guilty or innocent, he professed to be ignorant of the nature of the charges against him. This, however, was affected ignorance, for the charges had long before been presented to him, translated into his own language. After considerable delay, he pleaded ‘not guilty.’
During several sittings of the court, occupying many weeks, numerous witnesses were examined. Among them were Jutmull, Mukkhun Lall, Captain Forrest, Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, Hussun Uskeree, Bukhtawar, Kishen, Chunee, Golam, Essamoola Khan, and other persons, European, Eurasian or half-caste, and native. The evidence brought against the king was of very varied character, tending to shew that he both aided in inciting the mutiny, and in encouraging the atrocities of the mutineers. Some of the evidence proved that, so long ago as the summer of 1856, the King of Delhi had been in correspondence with the Shah of Persia, touching an overturning of the English ‘raj’ in India: in a manner and at a time corresponding with the advance of the Persians towards Herat. Other portions confirmed the fact that many of the massacres at Delhi, at the beginning of the Revolt, were sanctioned by the palace profligates, and even committed immediately under the king’s own apartments. Sir T. Metcalfe, in his evidence, stated it as his opinion, derived from an intimate acquaintance with Delhi and its inhabitants, that the Revolt was the legitimate fruit of a Mussulman conspiracy; that the courts of Delhi and Lucknow were concerned in this conspiracy; that the war with Persia helped to strengthen it; that the Hindoos were used as tools in the matter by the Mohammedans; and that the affair of the greased cartridges was regarded as a lucky opportunity for enlisting Hindoo prejudices.
During the trial the king displayed a mingled silliness and cunning that revealed much of his character. Sometimes, while the evidence was being taken, he would coil himself up on his cushion, and appear lost in the land of dreams. Except when anything particular struck him, he paid, or appeared to pay, no attention whatever to the proceedings. On one of the days he was aroused from sleep, to reply to a question put by the court. Sometimes he would rouse up, as if by some sudden impulse, and make an exclamation in denial of a witness’s statement. Once, when the intrigues of Persia were under notice, he asked whether the Persians and the Russians were the same people. On the twelfth day of the trial, the king was more animated than usual; he several times declared his innocence of everything; and amused himself by twisting and untwisting a scarf round his head.
Without tracing the incidents of the trial day by day, or quoting the evidence, it may suffice to say that the guilt of the aged sinner was sufficiently proved, on some if not all of the charges. The safety of his life being guaranteed, imprisonment became the only probable punishment. He was sentenced for the rest of his days to transportation—either to one of the Andaman Islands (a group in the eastern portion of the Bay of Bengal), or to some other place that might be selected. It may not be inappropriate to mention that some of the witnesses proved that Mr Colvin at Agra, and Sir Theophilus Metcalfe at Delhi, were told of a forthcoming Mohammedan conspiracy many weeks before the Meerut outbreak; so utterly, however, did these authorities disregard the rumour, that they did not even report it to the Calcutta government. There were only a few men in India, in the spring of 1857, who believed that the British ‘raj’ was ‘on the edge of a volcano.’
In connection with the fate of the old king, much attention was necessarily bestowed on the past conduct of his favourite young wife, the intriguing Sultana Zeenat Mahal, the ‘dark, fat, shrewd, but sensual-looking woman,’ whom Mrs Hodson visited in the prison,[139] in relation to the Revolt. Ever since the year 1853, a feud had existed in the royal family, arising out of the polygamic troubles so frequent in oriental countries. The king, instigated by Zeenat Mahal, wished to name the child of his old age, Mirza Jumma Bukht, heir to the throne of Akbar; but the British government insisted on recognising the superior claims of an elder son, Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen. Strife and contest immediately commenced, and never ceased until one obstacle was removed from the path. Mirza Fukhr-oo-deen died in 1856, as alleged, of cholera, but not without suspicion of foul play. From that time till the beginning of the mutiny in the following year, the imperial palace was a focus of intriguing. The sultana bent her whole energies towards obtaining the heirship to the throne of the Moguls for her own son. She was known to have declared that this object would be persistently and steadily pursued, and to have opened many communications thereon with the authorities at Calcutta. When, however, it was announced that a grandson of the king should, after him, possess all that remained of imperial power, her plans were at once dashed. It thenceforward became a question with her whether, by an overturn of the English ‘raj,’ she could obtain that which was denied to her by the government; and when other sources of revolt and rebellion appeared, there was an intelligible reason why she should encourage the insurgents. Nothing came out at the trial so clear as to fix guilt unquestionably upon her; but there remained on men’s minds a suspicion to which collateral circumstances afforded much probability.
Transferring attention from Delhi to Rohilcund and the Hills, it may at once be explained that little occurred during the month of February requiring detailed notice. The time had not yet arrived when Sir Colin Campbell could send strong columns to sweep away the rebels in that quarter. Bareilly was still the head-quarters of a rebel force, which ruled almost the whole of Rohilcund. Khan Bahadoor Khan, the self-appointed chief, had still around him a large body of revolted sepoys and insurgent retainers; and in the whole region between Oude on the one side, and Delhi and Meerut on the other, very little was under British control. The time, however, for making a demonstration in this quarter was approaching. Among other military arrangements planned about the middle of February, was the formation of a movable column at Meerut, to be held in readiness to march anywhere at a short notice. It was to consist of a squadron of Carabiniers, a wing of the 60th Rifles, a wing of the Belooch battalion, the 1st Punjaub infantry, the Moultanee horse, a field-battery, two 18-pounders, and one 8-inch howitzer. There was at the same time at Looksar, near Roorkee, a small force under Captain Brind, consisting of a squadron of Carabiniere, Hughes’s irregular cavalry, detachments of Coke’s Rifles, of the Nusseree battalion, and of the 3d Punjaub infantry, and a troop of horse-artillery. At Roorkee another corps was to be formed, under Major Coke, to consist of Punjaub regiments about to arrive. It was proposed that these three bodies—the movable column at Meerut, Brind’s corps at Looksar, and Coke’s corps at Roorkee—should ultimately form a Rohilcund field-force, under General Penny. What was effected by means of this force, will come for notice in a future page; little could be achieved until the commander-in-chief had broken the strength of the enemy in Oude, now the great centre of rebellion.
The hilly country in and around Kumaon, although too far removed from the Jumna regions to be frequently engaged in the horrors of war, was nevertheless occasionally made a battle-ground between hostile forces. Early in February, Colonel M’Causland, commanding in Kumaon, formed a camp at Huldwanee, to protect the Kumaon hills, and to clear the Barbur and Turale districts of rebels. He found two formidable bodies of the enemy threatening that region. One, under a leader named Fuzul Huq, consisting of 4000 men and 6 guns, was encamped at Sunda, in a strong position on the banks of the Sookhee river, about fifteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Peleebheet road. The other, under Khali Khan, consisting of 5000 men and 4 guns, was encamped at Churpurah, on the Paha Nuddee, sixteen miles from Huldwanee, on the Bareilly road. So far as could be judged, it appeared as if these 9000 men intended to make a combined attack on Huldwanee, and then to force the hill-passes. To encounter these enemies, M’Causland’s force was but small, consisting of 700 Goorkha infantry, 200 horse, and 2 field-guns; nevertheless he resolved to confront them boldly. On the 9th of February he commenced a movement intended to prevent the junction of the two hostile forces. In the dead of the night, leaving his tents to be guarded by a few men in a barricaded square called the Mundee, he marched out as quietly as possible to the place occupied by Khali Khan’s army. He came up to them at daybreak on the 10th, and found them encamped in a strong position; with their rear and left protected by the Paha Nuddee, a small village filled with infantry on their right flank, their front protected by rough ground intersected with nullahs and long jungle-grass, and the road commanded by four pieces of artillery. So completely did he surprise them, that when his cavalry first appeared, the rebels thought their allies under Fuzul Huq had arrived. Finding the enemy’s right flank the best to attack, the colonel sent most of his men to that point, covered by the fire of his two guns. The contest was sharp and severe. In about an hour the Goorkhas had captured the enemy’s guns, cut down every artilleryman serving them, and dislodged the enemy from the village. Meanwhile the few horse made a gallant charge, repulsing a superior body of the enemy’s cavalry, and taking a standard. The colonel’s two guns worked immense execution among the enemy’s cavalry, ‘into which’ (to use the professional language of the commander) ‘they poured shrapnel with beautiful precision and tremendous effect.’ The victory was complete. The enemy lost their guns, ammunition, standing-camp, baggage, 300 killed, and 600 wounded. The colonel, having thus defeated nearly six times his number, returned to Huldwanee—his gallant Goorkhas having marched thirty-four miles and fought a severe battle in thirteen hours. It was deemed necessary to return at once, lest their prolonged absence from Huldwanee should tempt Fuzul Huq, whose army was not far distant, to make a dash on the camp and station.
Nynee Tal was deeply interested in all these movements. During February it was hemmed in by the rebels on one side, and by the hill-snows on the other. The enemy, deterred by the gallant force at Huldwanee, hoped to penetrate to the little colony by a detour through the Kulleedongee Pass. This hope, however, was not worth much to them; for the pass was long and fatiguing; and near its top was a small body of Goorkhas, who, with a few guns, were determined to make a stout resistance if any attack were made.
The Punjaub and Sinde were nearly at peace. The few instances of turbulence, or of military operation, may pass without record here.
In that vast range of country which has in so many chapters required attention, comprising Rajpootana, Gujerat, Central India, the Mahratta States, Bundelcund, and the Saugor territories, the month of February exhibited the gradual strengthening of British columns sent up from Bombay and Madras, and the success of numerous small engagements in which the names of Rose, Roberts, Orr, Whitlock, Stuart, Steuart, and other officers are concerned. Being small in themselves, these engagements hardly need separate notice; but taken collectively, they tended to assist the commander-in-chief’s plans towards the general pacification of India.
The month of February witnessed the conclusion of a series of services rendered by a small force under somewhat remarkable circumstances. Mention has frequently been made of Captain Osborne, political agent at Rewah, almost the only Englishman within a turbulent district. Fortunately, the Rajahs of Rewah and Nagode remained faithful to the British; they, with the aid of Osborne, formed a corps of such of their native troops as they felt could be trusted; and this corps was placed under Colonel Hinde for active service. It was November when the corps was first organised; but, the troops being undisciplined, badly equipped, and badly armed, and the arrangements for marching and camping being very defective, it was the middle of December before the corps started from the town of Rewah. The duty to be performed was to keep open and safe the road from Rewah to Jubbulpoor (one of the great highways of India), and to capture such forts by the way as were in hostile hands. Imperfect as were the materials at his command, Colonel Hinde nevertheless, between the middle of December and the middle of February, captured six forts, forty guns, two mortars, and two standards; rendered the great road to the Deccan secure; re-established dâk and police bungalows; restored order in the Myhere territory; annexed the small territory of the rebellious chieftains of Bijeeragooghar; appointed tehsildars and police therein; and captured a large number of turbulent rebels. The six forts taken were Kunchunpore, Goonah, Myhere, Jokai, Khunwara, and Bijeeragooghar. These services having been rendered, Captain Osborne recalled the corps to Rewah; and the governor-general thanked both him and Colonel Hinde for what they had effected in a troubled region, with very limited means. It is pleasant—amid the treachery of so many ‘Pandies’ and ‘Singhs’—to read that Osborne and Hinde had a good word to say for Dinbund Pandy, Lullaie Singh, Sewgobind Pandy, Davy Singh, and Bisseshur Singh—Rewah and Nagode native officers, who were both faithful and brave in the hour of need.
Brigadier Whitlock, with a Madras column, was rendering service in the country between Nagpoor and Bundelcund. He had various skirmishes with bands of rebels at Jubbulpoor and Sleemanabad; and when he had restored something like order in that region, he moved off towards Cawnpore, there to take part if necessary in the operations of the army of Oude.
Few Europeans in India had better reason than those at Saugor to welcome the approach of some of their countrymen as deliverers. So far back as the month of June, the officers, their ladies, and the civilians, had been shut up in the fort by orders of Brigadier Sage, on account of the suspicious symptoms presented by the 31st, 42d, and other native regiments. There they remained throughout the whole of the autumn and part of the winter, too strong to be seriously molested, and too well supplied with food to suffer those privations which were so sadly experienced at Lucknow. Sir Hugh Rose arrived with his force at Saugor on the 3d of February, and liberated those who had so long been confined within the fort. No battle was needed to effect this; for though the garrison were almost entirely without reliable troops, they were not besieged by any considerable force of the enemy. Rose, who had collected a force with much difficulty from various quarters, prepared after the relief of Saugor to attack numerous bands of rebels in that part of India. He assaulted the strong fortress of Garra Kotah, at the confluence of the Sonah and the Guddarree; he captured it, pursued and cut up the enemy, and then marched towards Jhansi, where busy work awaited him in the following month.
General Roberts, towards the close of February, was collecting a force at and near Nuseerabad, for operations in that part of Rajpootana. He went with the head-quarters of H.M. 95th from Deesa to Beaur, and thence to Nuseerabad, where he arrived on the 22d. He was to be joined shortly afterwards by the 72d Highlanders from Deesa, and by 200 of the Sinde horse under Major Green; and when strengthened by other regiments, especially a good body of cavalry, he intended to march towards Kotah, a very strong fortress which had long been in the hands of a rebel chieftain.
The regions forming the central and southern portions of the Bombay presidency were a little disturbed by fanatical Mohammedans, who, though unable to bring any very large number of conspirators into their plan of action, did nevertheless make many attempts to raise the green flag, the symbol of Moslem supremacy. There were no mutinies of whole regiments, however, or even companies of regiments. Indeed the instigators of mischief were rather rioters than soldiers; and the authorities only regarded these outbreaks seriously as sparks that might possibly kindle inflammable materials elsewhere.
The Nizam’s country, generally peaceful on account of his fidelity to the English, became a field of temporary struggle owing to the insubordination of a minor chieftain, the Rajah of Shorapore. His small territory, bounded on one side by the river Kistnah, occupied an angle in the dominions of the Nizam. Wishing, perhaps, to rise from the rank of a petty chieftain to one of greater power, he had for some time displayed hostility towards the British. But his career now came to an end. A force left Belgaum at the end of January, to advance to Shorapore; another left Kulladghee for the same destination; while a third advanced from Madras. The Nizam, at the same time, acting in harmony with his prime minister and Colonel Davidson, issued a proclamation denouncing as rebels any of his subjects who should assist the chief of Shorapore. These various measures had the desired result; the insurgents were dispersed, Shorapore seized, and the chief made prisoner.
In reference to such occurrences as the one described in the last paragraph, it may be observed that many of the residents, or British representatives at the courts of native princes, exhibited a wisdom and intrepidity which claim for them a rank by the side of the military heroes whose names are much better known to the world. Such a one was Colonel Davidson, British resident at the Nizam’s court at Hyderabad in the Deccau. During many months, he, with a few hundred faithful troops, maintained English prestige amongst a fanatic Mussulman population of two or three hundred thousand men, who often threatened the handful of British in the city. ‘Disaffected persons,’ a well-informed authority has said, ‘thronged to the Nizam’s palace by day and by night, with imprecations upon their lips against Europeans. It was impossible to tell when mutiny might break out among the native soldiers; and it was certain that the rabble were only awaiting their opportunity to glut themselves with English blood. Yet amidst all this the British resident never faltered or wavered; and by mere force of character he preserved peace in the city and district, and succeeded in securing to our side the Nizam and his minister Salar Jung. This Salar Jung was a young and well-educated man, who for his friendship to the British was hated by the Mussulmans.’ The position of this minister was almost as dangerous as that of the resident; for if the attack of the 17th of July[140] had succeeded, he would have shared the common fate of the British. Colonel Davidson not only secured Hyderabad, but was subsequently enabled to send a considerable cavalry force for service elsewhere.
Among other political arrangements of the month, was the termination of a short governorship in the regions around Allahabad. On the 4th of August, in the preceding year, after the Northwest Provinces had been thrown into anarchy by the mutiny, a ‘lieutenant governorship of the Central Provinces’ was established, and placed in the hands of Mr John Peter Grant, one of the members of the Supreme Council at Calcutta. A few weeks afterwards, on the 19th of September, some of the other provinces in the Jumna regions were placed under a ‘chief-commissioner of the Northwest Provinces.’ Both of these offices were abolished by the governor-general in council, on the 9th of February; and Viscount Canning, then at Allahabad, took under his immediate authority and control the whole of the provinces lately placed under those officers. He became in fact, though not in name, and for a temporary period, governor of a presidency of which Allahabad was the capital. At or about the same time, Meerut and Delhi were handed over to the chief-commissioner of the Punjaub. Thus, all the political power between Calcutta and the Afghan frontier being in the hands of Canning and Lawrence, and all the military power in Sir Colin Campbell, it was hoped that greater energy and precision would be thrown into the combined operations.
Notes.
Sir Colin Campbell’s Army of Oude.—On the 10th of February, as stated in the text of this chapter, the commander-in-chief made a formal announcement of the component elements of the army with which he was about to enter Oude. These particulars we give here in a note, as a permanent record of an interesting matter in the military history of the Revolt. It must be clearly borne in mind, however, that this army of Oude comprised only such troops as were at that date under the immediate command of Sir Colin. Columns, corps, and field-forces, under Franks, Seaton, Jung Bahadoor, Macgregor, Windham, Van Cortlandt, Penny, M’Causland, Greathed, Roberts, Rose, Steuart, Stuart, Whitlock, and other officers, were rendering active or defensive services in various parts of India; and it depended on the course of circumstances whether any and which of these could assist in the grand operations against Lucknow.
‘Head-quarters, Camp Cawnpore, Feb. 10.
‘The troops now in Oude, and those advancing into that province, are formed into divisions and brigades, and staff-officers are attached us follows; the whole being under the personal command of his Excellency the Commander-in-chief.
‘Such appointments as now appear for the first time will take effect from this date.
Artillery Division.
‘Staff.—Major-general Sir A. Wilson, K.C.B., Bengal Artillery, commanding; Major E. B. Johnson, Bengal Artillery, Assistant Adjutant-general; Lieutenant R. Biddulph, Royal Artillery, Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general; Lieutenant-colonel C. Hogge, Bengal Artillery, Director of Artillery in the Ordnance Department; Captain C. H. Barchard, 20th Regiment Native Infantry, Aid-de-camp; Lieutenant H. G. Deedes, 60th Royal Rifles, Extra Aid-de-camp.
‘Brigade of Field-artillery.—Brigadier D. E. Wood, C.B., Royal Horse-artillery; Lieutenant J. S. Frith, Bengal Horse-artillery, Major of Brigade.—E troop Royal Horse-artillery; F Troop Royal Horse-artillery; 1st Troop 1st Brigade Bengal Artillery; 2d Troop 1st Brigade Bengal Artillery; 2d Troop 3d Brigade Bengal Artillery; 3d Troop 3d Brigade Bengal Artillery; 3d Company 14th Battalion Royal Artillery, and No. 20, Light Field-battery; 2d Company 3d Battalion Bengal Artillery, and No. 12 Light Field-battery.
‘Brigade of Siege-artillery.—Brigadier G. R. Barker, C.B., Royal Artillery; Lieutenant A. Bunny, Bengal Horse-artillery, Major of Brigade.—3d Company 8th Battalion Royal Artillery; 6th Company 11th Battalion Royal Artillery; 5th Company 12th Battalion Royal Artillery; 5th Company 13th Battalion Royal Artillery; 4th Company 1st Battalion Bengal Artillery; 1st Company 5th Battalion Bengal Artillery; 3d Company 5th Battalion Bengal Artillery; Detachment Bengal Artillery recruits.
‘The Naval Brigade will form part of the division under Sir Archdale Wilson, but will be under the immediate command of Captain W. Peel, C.B., Royal Navy, and independent of the Brigade of Siege-artillery.
‘Engineer Brigade.—Brigadier R. Napier, Bengal Engineers, Chief-engineer; Major of Brigade, Lieutenant H. Bingham, Veteran Establishment, Brigade Quartermaster; Lieutenant-colonel H. D. Harness, Royal Engineers, commanding Royal Engineers; Captain A. Taylor, Bengal Engineers, commanding Bengal Engineers.—4th Company Royal Engineers; 23d Company Royal Engineers; Head-quarters Bengal Sappers and Miners; Punjaub Sappers and Miners; corps of Pioneers.
Cavalry Division.
‘Brigadier-general J. H. Grant, C.B., commanding; Captain W. Hamilton, 9th Lancers, Deputy-assistant-adjutant-general; Lieutenant F. S. Roberts, Bengal Horse-artillery, Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general; Captain the Hon. A. H. A. Anson, her Majesty’s 84th Regiment, Aid-de-camp.
‘1st Brigade.—Brigadier A. Little, her Majesty’s 9th Lancers; Captain H. A. Sarel, her Majesty’s 17th Lancers, Major of Brigade.—Her Majesty’s 9th Lancers; 2d Battalion Military Train; 2d Punjaub Cavalry; Detachment 5th Punjaub Cavalry; Wale’s Horse.
‘2d Brigade.—Brigadier W. Campbell, her Majesty’s 2d Dragoon Guards; Captain H. Forbes, 1st Light Cavalry, Major of Brigade.—Her Majesty’s 2d Dragoon Guards; her Majesty’s 7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars; Volunteer Cavalry; Detachment 1st Punjaub Cavalry; Hodson’s Horse.
1st Infantry Division.
‘Major-general Sir J. Outram, G.C.B., Bombay Army, commanding; Captain D. S. Dodgson, 30th Native Infantry, Deputy-assistant-adjutant-general; Lieutenant W. R. Moorsom, her Majesty’s 52d Light Infantry, Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general; Lieutenant F. E. A. Chamier, 34th Native Infantry, Aid-de-camp; Lieutenant Hargood, 1st Madras Fusiliers, Extra Aid-de-camp.
‘1st Brigade.—Brigadier D. Russell, her Majesty’s 84th Regiment.—Her Majesty’s 5th Fusiliers; her Majesty’s 84th Regiment; 1st Madras Fusiliers.
‘2d Brigade.—Brigadier C. Franklyn, her Majesty’s 84th Regiment.—Her Majesty’s 78th Highlanders; her Majesty’s 90th Light Infantry; Regiment of Ferozpore.
2d Infantry Division.
‘Captain R. C. Stewart, her Majesty’s 35th Regiment, Deputy-assistant-adjutant-general; Captain D. C. Shute, Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general.
‘3d Brigade.—Brigadier W. Hamilton, her Majesty’s 78th Highlanders, commanding; Captain G. N. Fendall, her Majesty’s 53d Regiment, Major of Brigade.—Her Majesty’s 34th Regiment; her Majesty’s 38th Regiment; her Majesty’s 53d Regiment.
‘4th Brigade.—Brigadier the Hon. A. Hope, her Majesty’s 93d Highlanders; Captain J. H. Cox, her Majesty’s 75th Regiment, Major of Brigade.—Her Majesty’s 42d Highlanders; her Majesty’s 93d Highlanders; 4th Punjaub Rifles.
3d Infantry Division.
‘Brigadier-general R. Walpole, Rifle Brigade, commanding; Captain C. A. Beerwell, 71st Regiment Native Infantry, Deputy-assistant-adjutant-general; Captain T. A. Carey, 17th Regiment Native Infantry, Deputy-assistant-quarter-master-general.
‘5th Brigade.—Brigadier Douglas, her Majesty’s 79th Highlanders.—Her Majesty’s 23d Fusiliers; her Majesty’s 79th Highlanders; 1st Bengal Fusiliers.
‘6th Brigade.—Brigadier A. H. Horsford, Rifle Brigade.—2d Battalion Rifle Brigade; 3d Battalion Rifle Brigade; 2d Punjaub Infantry.
‘Captain C. C. Johnson, Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general, will be attached to army head-quarters. Deputy-judge Advocate-general to the Force.—Captain A. C. Robertson, Her Majesty’s 8th (the King’s) Regiment. Field Paymaster.—Captain F. C. Tombs, 18th Regiment Native Infantry. Baggage Master.—Lieutenant J. Morland, 1st Bengal Fusiliers. Provost Marshal.—Captain A. C. Warner, 7th Light Cavalry. Postmaster.—Major C. Apthorp, 41st Native Infantry. Superintending Surgeon.—J. C. Brown, M.B., Bengal Horse-artillery. Field Surgeon.—Surgeon Wilkie. Medical Storekeeper.—Assistant-surgeon Corbyn, M.D.
‘All staff appointments connected with Major-general Sir J. Outram’s force not specified above will hold good until the junction of that force with army head-quarters.
‘All appointments not filled up in the above order are to be temporarily provided for under the orders of officers commanding divisions and brigades.
* * * * *
‘The following is the General Staff of the army advancing into Oude:
‘Commander-in-chief.—His Excellency General Sir Colin Campbell, G.C.B., Her Majesty’s service.
‘Military Secretary to Commander-in-chief.—Major A. Alison, her Majesty’s service (wounded). Acting Secretary and Aid-de-camp.—Colonel A. C. Sterling, C.B., her Majesty’s service. Aid-de-camp.—Captain Sir D. Baird, 98th foot. Aid-de-camp.—Lieutenant F. M. Alison, 72d Highlanders. Aid-de-camp.—Captain W. T. Forster, 18th foot. Commandant at head-quarters, and interpreter.—Captain J. Metcalfe, Bengal infantry. Surgeon.—Staff-surgeon J. J. Clifford, M.D., her Majesty’s service. Chief of the Staff.—Major-general W. R. Mansfield, her Majesty’s service. Deputy-assistant Adjutant-general to the Chief of the Staff.—Captain R. J. Hope Johnstone, Bombay infantry. Aid-de-camp to the Chief of the Staff.—Captain C. Mansfield, 33d foot (wounded). Acting Aid-de-camp.—Lieutenant D. Murray, 64th foot. Deputy-adjutant-general of the Army.—Major H. W. Norman, Bengal infantry. Assistant Adjutant-general of the Army.—Captain D. M. Stewart, Bengal infantry. Deputy-adjutant-general, her Majesty’s troops.—Colonel the Hon. W. L. Pakenham, C.B. Assistant-quartermaster-general of the Army.—Captain G. Allgood, Bengal infantry. Deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general.—Captain C. C. Johnson, Bengal infantry. Acting quarter-master-general of her Majesty’s Forces.—Captain C. F. Seymour, 84th foot. Judge Advocate-general.—Lieutenant-Colonel K. Young, Bengal infantry. Deputy Judge Advocate-general.—Captain A. C. Robertson, 8th foot. Principal Commissariat Officer.—Captain C. M. Fitzgerald Bengal infantry. Commissary of Ordnance.—Captain W. T. Brown, Bengal artillery. Field Paymaster.—Captain F. C. Tombs, Bengal infantry. Provost Marshal.—Captain A. C. Warner, Bengal cavalry. Baggage Master.—Lieutenant J. Morland, Bengal infantry. Principal Medical Officer, Queen’s Troops.—Dr J. C. Tice. Superintending Surgeon.—Surgeon J. C. Brown, Bengal artillery.’
* * * * *
Mohammedan Rebel Leaders.—Whatever may have been the proximate causes of the Revolt, it is certain that the rebel leaders were found relatively more numerous among the Mohammedans than among the Hindoos. They talked more frequently and fiercely about fighting for the faith; and they dragged into the meshes of a net many Hindoos who would otherwise have remained free from treasonable entanglement. Several native proclamations have been noticed in earlier chapters of this work; and we now present another, illustrative of Mussulman intrigues. It purports to come from Prince Mirza Mahomed Feroze Shah, and was dated the 3d of Rujub 1274, corresponding to the 17th of February 1858:
‘Be it known to all the Hindoo and Mohammedan inhabitants of India that to rule over a country is one of the greatest blessings from Heaven, and it is denied to a tyrant or an oppressor. Within the last few years the British commenced to oppress the people in India under different pleas, and contrived to eradicate Hindooism and Mohammedanism, and to make all the people embrace Christianity. The Almighty Power observing this, diverted the hearts of the people to a different course, and now every one has turned to annihilate the English, and they have nearly done so. Through avarice and ambition, the British have shewn some resistance, though in vain. Through Divine mercy, that will in a short time be reduced to nothing. Let this also be known to all the Hindoos and Mussulmans, that the English bear the bitterest enmity towards them. Should they again become predominant in this country—which, God forbid—they will destroy religion, property, and even the life of every one. A brief sketch of the views and intentions of the Supreme Court and Parliament is hereby given, in order to warn the people that they should get rid of habits of negligence, and strive in unity to destroy the infidels. When the Indian troops mutinied to save their religion, and killed all infidels in several places, the wise men of England were of opinion that had the British authorities in India kept the following things in view, the mutiny would never have broken out: 1. They should have destroyed the race of the former kings and nobles. 2. They should have burnt all books of every other religion. 3. They should not have left even a biswa of ground to any of the native rulers. 4. They should have intermarried among the natives, so that after a short time all would have become one race. 5. They should not have taught the use of artillery to the natives. 6. They should not have left arms among the natives. 7. They should not have employed any native until he consented to eat and drink with Europeans. 8. The mosques and Hindoo temples should not have been allowed to stand. 9. Neither Moulvies nor Brahmins should have been allowed to preach. 10. The several cases brought into the courts should have been decided according to English laws. 11. English priests should have performed all nuptial ceremonies of the natives according to their English customs. 12. All prescriptions of the Hindoo and Mussulman physicians should have been prohibited, and English medicines furnished instead. 13. Neither Hindoo nor Mussulman fakeers should have been allowed to convert people without the permission of English missionaries. 14. European doctors only should have been allowed to assist native women in childbed.—But the authorities did not take means to introduce these measures. On the contrary, they encouraged the people: so much so, that they at last broke out. Had the authorities kept in view the maxims above alluded to, the natives would have remained quiet for thousands of years. These are now the real intentions of the English; but all of us must conjointly exert ourselves for the protection of our lives, property, and religion, and to root out the English from this country. Thus we shall, indeed, through Divine mercy, gain a great victory over them. I (the prince) now draw a brief sketch of my travels, and I hope the people will pay attention to what I say. Before the destruction of the English, I went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on my return I observed that the English were in a bad and hazardous position. I therefore offered thanks to God, because it is in my nature to follow the principles of my religion and to promulgate justice. I persuaded many at Delhi to raise a religious war; I then hastened towards Gwalior, where the majority of the military officers promised to kill the English and take up my cause. A small portion of the Gwalior army accompanied me. I had not the least intention to announce war before I had everything in order; but the army became very enthusiastic, and commenced fighting with the enemy (the English). Though our army was then but a handful, and that of the enemy very large in numbers, still we fought manfully; and, though apparently we were defeated, in reality we were victorious over our enemy, for we killed 1000 of them. Since then I have been collecting as well as exhorting the people. I have exerted myself in procuring ammunition up to this day, now four months since the commencement. Thank God, an army of 150,000 old and new men are now bound by a solemn oath to embrace my cause. I have collected considerable treasury and munitions of war in many places, and in a short time I shall clear the country of all infidels. Since the real purpose of this war is to save religion, let every Hindoo and Mussulman render assistance to the utmost. Those that are old should offer their prayers. The rich, but old, should assist our sacred warriors with money. Those in perfect health, as well as young, should attend in person. But all those who are in the service of either Mirza Birjish Kadur Bahadoor in Lucknow and of Khan Bahadoor Khan at Bareilly should not venture out to join us, for these rulers are themselves using their best endeavours to clear the country of all infidels. All who join us should do so solely with a view of promulgating their religion, not with that of worldly avarice. Thus victory will certainly smile upon us; then distinguished posts will be conferred on the people at large. The delay in defeating the English has been caused by people killing innocent children and women without any permission whatever from the leaders, whose commands were not obeyed. Let us all avoid such practices, and then proclaim a sacred war. Lastly, the great and small in this campaign will be equal, for we are waging a religious war. I (the prince) do now proclaim a sacred war, and exhort all, according to the tenets of their religion, to exert themselves. The rest I leave to God. We shall certainly conquer the English, consequently I invite the people again to my assistance.—Printed at Bareilly, by Shaick Nisar Ally, under the supervision of Moulvie Mahomed Kootoob Shah.’
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Footnote 137:
‘I have not as yet said one word of the two other camels which were appointed to carry my tent. Under the eaves of that tent had gathered a strange population—they came as sparrows come to a house, without the knowledge or consent of the owner; but the analogy fails in other respects except noise, because the natives require to be paid. There are two men who belong to the tent-post, as in England certain gentlemen belong to horses; then there is a man to carry water, who belongs to a large skin to contain that liquid; next there is a cleaner or sweeper; then there is a khitmutgar or servant, and there is his and my master, one Simon, “an assizes man” he says himself, but he only means that he is a follower of St Francisco d’Assisi; and then follow camel-keepers, and horse-keepers, and grass-cutters; so that I feel very much as Sancho did in his government of Barataria. On the morning of the 27th, soon after midnight, commenced a tumult in camp, the like of which I never heard before; first began a loud tapping of all the tent-pegs, as if an army of gigantic woodpeckers were attacking us. This was caused by the kélassies, or tent-men, loosening the tent-pegs, so that they might be drawn easily from the ground when the word to march was given. Then followed a most hideous grumbling, growling, roaring noise, as if many thousands of aldermen were choking all at once, only that it was kept up for hours; that was caused by the camels objecting to the placement of the smallest article on their backs, and continuing their opposition till they stalked off with their loads. Then came the trumpeting of elephants, the squeaking of bullock cart-wheels, the hum and buzz of thousands of voices, and at last the first bugle-call, which announced that the time for turning out had arrived. Daylight was still striving with the moonlight for mastery, and casting a sort of neutral tint over the camping-ground, on which blazed the flames of many watch-fires, when the heads of our columns began to cross the bridge of boats at Cawnpore. There was but a waste of baked earth where, at sunset, had been a camp—only a few tents belonging to the commander-in-chief and the head-quarters’ staff, were left behind; and for hours the bridge echoed to the tramp of men and horse, the rumble of artillery, and the tread of innumerable elephants, and camels, and oxen. The Ganges is at this season at its lowest, and the bridges are not, I should think, more than 300 yards long; one is used for the exit, the other for the entrance of Cawnpore. They lead to a level sandy plain, overflowed by the Ganges for several hundred yards in the rainy season, on which there were now moving, as far as the eye could reach, the strings of baggage animals and the commissariat carts of the army, with their fantastic followers.’
Footnote 138:
‘COPY OF CHARGES PREFERRED AGAINST MAHOMED BAHADOOR SHAH, EX-KING OF DELHI.
‘1. For that he, being a pensioner of the British government in India, did at Delhi, at various times between the 10th of May and 1st of October 1857, encourage, aid, and abet Mahomed Bukht Khan, Subadar of the regiment of artillery, and divers others, non-commissioned officers and soldiers, unknown, of the East India Company’s army, in the crimes of mutiny and rebellion against the state.
‘2. For having, at Delhi, at various times between the 10th of May and 1st of October 1857, encouraged, aided, and abetted Mirza Mogul, his own son, a subject of the British government in India, and divers other unknown inhabitants of Delhi and of the Northwest provinces of India, also subjects of the said British government, to rebel and wage war against the state.
‘3. For that he, being a subject of the British government in India, and not regarding the duty of his allegiance, did at Delhi, on the 11th of May 1857, or thereabouts, as a false traitor against the state, proclaim and declare himself the reigning king and sovereign of India, and did then and there traitorously seize and take unlawful possession of the city of Delhi; and did, moreover, at various times between the 10th of May and 1st of October 1857, as such false traitor aforesaid, treasonably conspire, consult, and agree with Mirza Mogul, his son, and with Mahomed Bukht Khan, subadar of the regiment of artillery, and divers other false traitors unknown, to raise, levy, and make insurrection, rebellion, and war against the state; and, further to fulfil and perfect his treasonable design of overthrowing and destroying the British government in India, did assemble armed forces at Delhi, and send them forth to fight and wage war against the said British government.
‘4. For that he, at Delhi, on the 16th of May 1857, or thereabouts, did, within the precincts of the palace at Delhi, feloniously cause and become accessory to the murder of 49 persons, chiefly women and children, of European and mixed European descent; and did, moreover, between the 10th of May and the 1st of October 1857, encourage and abet divers soldiers and others in murdering European officers and other English subjects, including women and children, both by giving and promising such murderers service, advancement, and distinction; and further, that he issued orders to different native rulers, having local authority in India, to slay and murder Christians and English people whenever and wherever found in their territories; the whole or any part of such conduct being a heinous offence under the provisions of Act 16, of 1857, of the Legislative Council of India.
‘FREDERICK J. HARRIOTT, MAJOR, ‘Deputy judge-advocate-general, Government Prosecutor.
‘Jan. 5, 1858.’
Footnote 139:
Chap. xx., p. 357.
Footnote 140:
See chap. xvii., p. 291.
XXV. FINAL CONQUEST OF LUCKNOW: MARCH
The month at length arrived which was to witness the great siege of Lucknow, the capture of that important city, and the commencement of a re-establishment of British influence in Oude. The city which, excepting a small portion near and around the Residency, had been wholly in the hands of the rebels since the beginning of July, was to revert to the Company’s possession in March, by a series of military operations which it is the purpose of this chapter to trace.
The extraordinary events in that city have been too frequently dwelt on in past chapters to render any lengthened notice here necessary. The reader will only have to bear in mind that Lawrence maintained the Residency intact until his death early in July; that Inglis continued the defence until September; that Outram and Havelock held the same position until November; and that from thence to March the city was wholly in the hands of the enemy—the Alum Bagh alone being held by Outram. Concerning the buildings and general arrangement of Lucknow, it may be useful here to freshen the recollection by a few descriptive details. The city lies on the right bank of the river Goomtee, which there runs nearly from northwest to southeast. All the buildings on the opposite or left bank of the river are merely suburban. After winding round the buildings called the Martinière and the Dil Koosha, the river changes its course towards the south. The southeastern extremity of the city is bounded by a canal, which enters the Goomtee near the Martinière. There is no defined boundary on the southwest, west, or northwest, the urban giving way to the rural in the same gradual way as in most English towns. Between the crowded or commercial part of the city, and the river, extends—or extended at the time of the Revolt (for it will be convenient to adopt the past tense in this description)—a long series of palaces and gardens, occupying collectively an immense area, and known by the several names of the Taree Kothee, Fureed Buksh, Pyne Bagh, Chuttur Munzil, Kaiser Bagh, Shah Munzil, Motee Mehal, Shah Nujeef, Secunder Bagh, &c. Still further in the same line, were the buildings once famous as the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, the great Emanbarra, and the Moosa Bagh. In short, for a distance of at least five miles, there was a string of royal or governmental buildings along the right bank of the river, forming a belt between it and the poorer or denser streets of the city. There was a stone bridge beyond the Muchee Bhowan, an iron bridge near the Residency, and—in peaceful times—a bridge of boats near the Motee Mehal. As to the general aspect of the city, when seen from a distance, writers have been at a loss for similes applicable to it, owing chiefly to the vast space over which the buildings are dotted. ‘If,’ in the quaint words of one writer, ‘Clapham were overrun by a Mohammedan conqueror, who stuck up domes, cupolas, and minarets on half the meeting-houses and mansions; and if that pleasant suburb, when all the trees are green, were spread for eighteen or twenty miles over a dead level surface—the aspect it would present might in some degree give one a notion of Lucknow.’
The city, in the interval between November and March, had been fortified by the rebels in great strength. Although not enclosed like Delhi by a fortified wall, its many square miles of area, full of narrow streets and high houses, and occupied by an enormous military force in addition to the ordinary population, constituted a formidable stronghold in itself. But the rebels did not neglect the usual precautions of defensive warfare. Rightly judging that the English commander would avoid a hand-to-hand contest in the streets, and would direct his attack towards the southeastern suburb, they spared no labour in strengthening that side of the city. In considering their plan of fortification, they treated the courts and buildings of the Kaiser Bagh as a sort of citadel, and interposed a triple series of obstacles between it and the besiegers. First, exterior of the three, was a line of defence extending from the river to a building known as Banks’s house, once occupied by Major Banks; the canal formed the wet ditch of this line, and within the canal was a rampart or elevated earthwork. The second defence consisted of an earthwork beginning at the river-side near the Motee Mehal, the Mess-house, and the Emanbarra. The third or interior defence was the principal rampart of the Kaiser Bagh itself. All these lines consisted of well-constructed earthen parapets or ridges, fronted by wide and deep ditches, and strengthened at intervals by bastions. Not relying wholly on these formidable lines, the enemy had loopholed and fortified almost every house and enclosure, constructed strong counter-guards in front of the gateways, and placed isolated bastions, stockades, and traverses across the principal streets. The three lines of defence all abutted at one end on the river Goomtee, and at the other on the great street or road called the Huzrutgunje; which street was among the principal of those loopholed and bastioned. It was estimated that the enemy defended their works with nearly 100 guns and mortars. The insurgent troops were variously computed at 40,000 to 80,000 in number; the estimate could not be a precise one, because it was impossible to determine how many peasants from the country or desperate characters from the city joined the regular sepoys. There is, however, reason to believe that, at the beginning of March, the city contained 30,000 revolted sepoys, 50,000 volunteers and armed retainers of chieftains, and an ordinary city population of no less than 300,000 souls. It was a terrible thought that a city should be bombarded containing so large a number of living beings; but, as one of the stern necessities of the war, it was imperative. The chieftains of Oude, and the revolted sepoys of the Company’s army, were there in great number; and until they were subdued, nothing could be effected towards the pacification of this part of India.
It may not be out of place here to notice a few of the individuals who, during the interregnum in Oude, assumed sovereign or governing power. The newly set up king was a boy of eight or ten years old, a son of the deposed king living at that time under surveillance at Calcutta. As a boy, he was a puppet in the hands of others. The prime mover in all the intrigues was his mother, the Begum Huzrut Mehal, who professed to be regent during his minority, and to be assisted by a council of state. She was a woman of much energy of character, and conducted public affairs in an apartment of the Kaiser Bagh. Morally she was tainted in full measure with oriental vices. Like Catherine of Russia she raised one of her paramours, Mummoo Khan, to the office of chief judge, and did not scruple openly to acknowledge her relations towards him. “While executing the Begum’s commands in all that related to the management of the newly formed government, he enriched himself at the expense of the people generally. The chief minister was one Shirreff-u-Dowlah, and the generalissimo Hissamut-u-Dowlah; but Mummoo Khan, held up by courtly favour, had sources of power superior to both. Another notability was a Moulvie or Mussulman fanatic who, though professing allegiance to the boy-king of Oude, was suspected of aiming at the throne himself. Most of the officers of the government purchased their places by large gifts to the Begum or her favourite, knowing that they would obtain an ample return during the anarchy of the period. The eunuchs of the royal palaces held, nominally if not really, military commands. The whole city of Lucknow, it is quite evident, was a hideous mass of intrigue, in which the various members of the royal family sought how best they could obtain power and wealth at the expense of the bulk of the people; while their ministers and officers were parasitical just so far as might be subservient to their own interests. The trading classes generally had very little reason to rejoice at the temporary cessation of the British ‘raj.’ The Begum and the Moulvie leader were regarded as the chief instruments in the opposition to the British. Every measure was resorted to that could raise the fanaticism of the native population. The English, and especially their Sikh allies, were represented as systematically murdering all who fell into their hands. On one occasion, shortly before the arrival of Sir Colin, the Begum rode through the streets of the city on an elephant, as one might imagine our Elizabeth appearing before her troops at Tilbury; and she used all her arts to induce the several chieftains to make her cause theirs.
These preliminaries settled, the narrative may be proceeded with. How the troops under the commander-in-chief approached Lucknow in February, and what were the components of the army of Oude, in generals and soldiers, the last chapter shewed.
When, on the 1st of March, Sir Colin Campbell was within a few miles of Lucknow, in his camp at Buntara, he fully considered all the information obtainable up to that time concerning the defences of the city. One result of the inquiry, was to convince him that a necessity would arise for operating from both sides of the Goomtee river, whenever the actual assault should take place.[141] This would be necessary, or at least desirable, because such a course would enable him to enfilade (that is, attack laterally or at the extremities) many of the enemy’s newly constructed works; and because he would thus be able to cut off the enemy from their external sources of supply. It is true that he could not hope wholly to surround a city which, with its fortified suburbs, had a circuit of little less than twenty miles; still he would make an important approach towards that condition by cannonading from both sides of the river. One of his earliest preparations, therefore, had relation to the means of crossing the river; and to this end his engineers were busily engaged in fitting casks so that they might be placed across the river as a floating-bridge. The former bridge of boats, opposite some of the palaces, had been removed by the insurgents; while the iron and stone bridges were well watched by them.
On the 2d, Sir Colin marched at daybreak from his camp at Buntara, diverged from the road to the Alum Bagh, and took that which went near the Jelalabad fort towards the eastern margin of the suburbs. With a portion only of his army, he advanced to the Dil Koosha, the palace and park at the easternmost extremity of the city. The chief officers with him at the time of this advance were Generals Lugard, Adrian Hope, Hope Grant, Little, and Archdale Wilson. His main object at first, with a force of five or six thousand men, was to march to such a spot, near the Dil Koosha, as would enable him to form a camp just beyond reach of the enemy’s guns; and to protect his enormous siege-train as it gradually arrived, until the time was come for commencing active operations. Not only the siege-train, but the countless appendages of an Indian army, would equally require protection during its passage from Buntara to the Dil Koosha. Mr Russell, who accompanied this expedition in person, says that no language can correctly convey an idea of the vastness in the number of elephants, camels, oxen, horses, camp-followers, and vehicles that daily demanded the commander-in-chief’s attention at this period. ‘Who really can bring before his mind’s eye a train of baggage-animals twenty-five miles long, a string of sixteen thousand camels, a siege-train park covering a space of four hundred by four hundred yards, with twelve thousand oxen attached to it, and a following of sixty thousand non-combatants?’ Even the doolies or litter-carriages for wounded men constituted a formidable item. To each company of a regiment there were ten doolies, and to each dooly were six coolies or native porters: thus there were nearly five hundred dooly-carriers for each average regiment; and even with this large supply, if the sick and wounded in any one regiment exceeded eighty men, there would be more than the coolies could properly attend to.
The force with which Sir Colin started from Buntara brought a few guns only. These were dragged along the centre of the line of route; the infantry were on either side of them, the cavalry and horse-artillery outside all, and the baggage in the rear. Each soldier took a small quantity of food with him. The march was through a flat well-cultivated country, past the Jelalabad fort, but a mile or so distant from the Alum Bagh. The skirmishers at the head of the column, as they approached the Dil Koosha, found a body of insurgent troopers watching their progress. When the column began to close on the advance-guard, the enemy opened fire with several guns which were in position in strong bastions along the line of canal—the outermost of the three lines of defence before adverted to. This fire was heavy and well sustained. It was not difficult to capture the Dil Koosha itself; but Sir Colin’s troops were much annoyed by the enemy’s fire over the open country, until they could secure the Dil Koosha and the Mahomed Bagh as advanced pickets, with heavy guns placed in battery to oppose the enemy’s artillery. This once effected, a secure base for further operations was obtained, with the right resting on the river. It was a good day’s work, not in conquest, but in the preparations for conquest.
When Sir Colin came to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, he found that the new lines of defence, constructed since November, were vast and well planned. He further saw that no immediate attack could be successfully made upon them by infantry, without such a sacrifice of life as he had determined if possible to avoid. To fight with artillery, before sending in his foot-soldiers to fight, was his plan; and he now at once sent back a messenger to the camp at Buntara, for the rest of the troops and heavy siege-artillery to advance without delay. All during the following night was the road from Buntara to the Dil Koosha filled with an apparently endless train of soldiers, guns, commissariat-carts, beasts of burden and of draught, and camp-followers—ready to swell the large number already at the last-named place. This train was protected on either side by cavalry and horse artillery, ready to dash out against any of the enemy that should threaten interruption.
During the whole day on the 3d, the operations consisted chiefly in this bringing forward of guns and bodies of troops to positions necessary to be occupied when the regular siege began. When the remainder of the siege-train had arrived, and also General Walpole’s division, Sir Colin’s position embraced all the open ground on the southeastern margin of the city, with his right flank resting on the Goomtee, and his left in the direction of the Alum Bagh. The Alum Bagh and the Jelalabad fort were both occupied by portions of his troops, and the country between them was controlled by Hodson’s Irregular Horse; while a strong brigade of cavalry, under Brigadier W. Campbell, swept the suburbs northwest of the Alum Bagh. By this arrangement, almost the entire southern half of the city was invested by his forces. The Dil Koosha was head-quarters, surrounded by the tents in which the soldiers took their few brief hours of repose. The palace, built in an Italian style, still retained much of the splendour belonging to it in more peaceful days, when it was the ‘Heart’s Delight’ of the sensual monarch; but now it was well guarded by 42d Highlanders, ready to grapple with princelings and sepoys at any moment. From the roof of this palace could be seen the chief buildings of the city, as well as the vast defensive preparations which the enemy had made. The sepoys in the Martinière maintained a rifle-fire against such of the British as made their appearance on the flat roof of the Dil Koosha; but the distance was too great to render the fire dangerous.
The operations of the 4th were a sequel to those of the 3d—not an actual commencement of the siege, but a furtherance of the arrangements necessary to render the siege successful. The camp was extended from the Dil Koosha to Bibiapore, a house and enclosure a little further down the right bank of the river. From the glimpses obtained by the skirmishers and pickets, and from the information brought in by spies, it was ascertained that many of the inhabitants, terrified at the formidable preparations for the siege, were fleeing from the city on the opposite side; and that the ‘authorities’ were endeavouring to check this flight, wishing the inhabitants to fight for their property and their lives within the city itself. There were intelligible reasons for this on both sides. The citizens, whether their love for their native royal family was great or small, had little inclination to sacrifice their own personal interests to that sentiment; while, on the other hand, the rebel leaders cared not how many townsmen were ruined, so long as the privileges and profits of government remained with themselves, rather than reverting to the British.
It was on the 5th that General Franks joined the commander-in-chief, with that corps which now became the fourth division of the army of Oude. He had fought his way half across the province, from the Jounpoor frontier, defeating many bodies of rebels on the way, and arriving at Lucknow precisely at the time which had been agreed on. Jung Bahadoor and his large Nepaulese army did not arrive at the time specified: a want of punctuality which disturbed both the plans and the equanimity of Sir Colin. The components of the army of Oude, as laid down by the commander-in-chief on the 10th of February, were enumerated in a note at the end of the last chapter. At present, on the 5th of March, when Franks had arrived, the army before Lucknow consisted approximately of the following numbers of troops—First division of infantry, under Outram, about 5000 strong; second, under Lugard, 5400; third, under Walpole, 4300; fourth, under Franks, 4800; cavalry, under Hope Grant and other commanders, distributed among the infantry divisions; artillery, including the naval brigade, 1100; and engineers, 1700. The army of Oude was often said to consist of 30,000 troops, of whom 18,000 were British and the rest native; but such an estimate was worth little unless the exact day be named to which it applied. The army varied both by arrivals and departures.
The portion of the siege-plan connected with the left bank of the river had never been lost sight of during the preparatory operations on the right. While the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and commissariat were busily engaged in camping near the Dil Koosha, the engineers were collecting the casks, fascines of fagots, ropes, and timbers, necessary for forming a bridge, or rather two bridges, across the Goomtee, at some point below where the enemy were in greatest force. The spot selected was near head-quarters at Bibiapore, where the river was about forty yards wide. The enemy, uneasy at the proceedings of the engineers, gradually assembled in considerable numbers on the opposite bank; but as the British brought up guns to oppose them, the engineering works proceeded without much molestation. These bridges exemplified some of the contrivances which military commanders are accustomed to adopt, in the course of their onerous duties. The groundwork of each was a collection of empty beer-casks, lashed by ropes to timber cross-pieces, and floated off one by one to their positions; a firm roadway of planking was afterwards fixed on the top of the whole range from end to end. Firm indeed must the construction necessarily have been; for troopers on their horses, heavy guns and mortars, ammunition-wagons, and commissariat carts, all would have to pass over these bridges, secure so far as possible from accident to man or beast.
To Sir James Outram was intrusted the command of that portion of the army which was to cross by these bridges of casks, and operate against the city from the left bank of the Goomtee. This gallant officer had been in and near the Alum Bagh for a period of just one hundred days, from November to March, defending himself successfully against numerous attacks made on him by the enemy, as narrated in former chapters. It was right that he should now have the most important command under Sir Colin. He took his departure from the Alum Bagh—leaving that important post, which he had so long and so well defended, to the care of Brigadier Franklyn and of the 5th and 78th Queen’s regiments of foot. The force intrusted to him consisted of Walpole’s division of infantry, together with regiments and detachments from other divisions.[142] Franks with his division took Walpole’s place near the Dil Koosha. The plan of attack agreed upon was, that Outram, after crossing the Goomtee, should advance up the left bank; while the troops in position at the Dil Koosha were to remain at rest until it should have become apparent that the first line of the enemy’s works, or the rampart running along the canal and abutting on the Goomtee, had been turned. Sir James, arriving at the Dil Koosha from the Alum Bagh, effected his crossing safely on the 6th, and pitched his camp for the night on the left bank of the river, near the race-course. It was a formidable burden for the bridges to bear, comprising, besides the infantry and cavalry, thirty guns, and a large train of baggage and ammunition animals; nevertheless the floating fabrics bore up well, and fully answered their intended purpose. English troops of the line, Highlanders, lancers, hussars, dragoons, artillery, engineers, commissariat, horses, oxen, camels, elephants—all passed safely over, and speedily fell into orderly array on the other side of the river. This was, of course, not done without a little fighting. The enemy could not be blind to the proceeding, nor to the consequences likely to result from it. There was skirmishing in front of the Chukkur Walla Kothee, or Yellow House, a circular building on the left bank of the river; and there was much prancing about of leading personages who hastily came out of the city; but nothing disturbed Sir James from securely encamping at night.
While Outram was thus crossing the river on the 6th, Sir Colin remained simply on the defensive near the Dil Koosha, deferring all active operations until the subsidiary force had got into fighting order on the left bank. The enemy maintained a continuous fire from the Martinière; but the gunnery was not good, and very little mischief was occasioned. One of the most striking circumstances connected with the position and proceedings of the commander-in-chief was that he carried the electric telegraph with him from camp to camp, from post to post. Chiefly through the energy of Lieutenant Patrick Stewart, poles were set up and wires extended wherever Sir Colin went. Calcutta, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Buntara, and the Alum Bagh, could all communicate instantly; and now a wire made its appearance through a drawing-room window at the Dil Koosha itself, being stretched over a row of poles along the line of route which the commander-in-chief and his troops had followed. Nay, the wires even followed Outram over the river, and made their appearance—for the first time in the history of Oude—on the left bank. No sooner did Sir Colin advance a few miles, than Stewart followed him with poles and wires, galvanic batteries and signalling apparatus—daring all dangers, conquering all difficulties, and setting up a talking-machine close to the very enemy themselves. It may almost literally be said that, wherever he lay down his head at night, Sir Colin could touch a handle, and converse with Lord Canning at Allahabad before he went to sleep. The value of the electric telegraph was quite beyond all estimate during these wars and movements: it was worth a large army in itself.
On the 7th, Sir James Outram, while making his arrangements on the opposite side of the river, was attacked in great force by the enemy. On the preceding day, he had baffled them in all their attempts, with a loss of only 2 killed and 10 wounded; and he was not now likely to be seriously affected even by four or five times his number. The enemy occupied the race-course stand with infantry, and bodies of cavalry galloped up to the same spot with the intention of disturbing Outram’s camp. He resisted all the attacks, chased them to a distance with his cavalry, and maintained his advantageous camping-ground.[143] The road from Fyzabad and from the cantonment passed near his camp; and as all that region had for many months been entirely in the hands of the rebels, there was a liability at any moment of some sudden onslaught being made on him. The commander-in-chief had foreseen this, when he placed at the disposal of Outram a division strong enough to form a compact little army in itself.
The result of a careful reconnaissance made on the 8th, by Sir Colin, resulted in instructions to Outram to arrange his batteries during the night, and on the following day to attack the enemy’s position, the key to which was the Chukkur Walla Kothee. On the morning of the 9th, accordingly, Sir James made the attack with excellent effect; the enemy being driven out at all points, and the Yellow House seized. He advanced his whole force for some distance through ground affording excellent cover for the enemy. He was by that means enabled to bring his right flank forward to occupy the Fyzabad road, which he crossed by a bridge over a nullah, and to plant his batteries for the purpose of enfilading the works upon the canal. During this day’s operations, much skirmishing took place between his Sikhs and Rifles and the enemy; but the most obstinate contest was maintained within the Yellow House itself, where a few fanatics, shutting themselves up, resisted for several hours all attempts to dislodge them. They were at length expelled, fighting desperately to the last. Outram was then enabled to take the villages of Jeamoor and Jijowly, and to advance to the Padishah Bagh or King’s Garden, opposite the Fureed Buksh palace, and to commence an enfilade fire on the lines of the Kaiser Bagh defences.
While Outram was engaged in these successful operations of the 9th on the left bank of the Goomtee, a very heavy fire was kept up against the Martinière, from mortars and guns placed in position on the Dil Koosha plateau. Sir Colin had purposely deferred this assault until Outram had captured the Yellow House, and commenced that flank attack which so embarrassed the enemy. The sailors of the naval brigade were joyously engaged on this day; for the thicker the fight, the better were they pleased. They commanded four great guns on the road near the Dil Koosha; and with these they battered away, not only against the Martinière, but also against a cluster of small houses near that building. Captain Sir William Peel managed to throw not only shot and shell, but also rockets, into enclosures which contained numerous insurgent musketeers—a visitation which necessarily prompted a hasty flight. It had well-nigh been a bad day for the British, however; for Peel received a musket-ball in the thigh while walking about fearlessly among his guns; the ball was extracted under the influence of chloroform; but the wound nearly proved fatal through the eagerness of the gallant man to return to the fray. He was, however, spared for the present. The enemy resisted this day’s attack with a good deal of resolution; for they fired shot right over the Martinière towards the Dil Koosha, from guns in their bastions on the canal line of defence. When the cannonading had proceeded to the desired extent, a storming of the Martinière took place, by troops under the command of Sir Edward Lugard and other able officers. The instructions given by the commander-in-chief for this enterprise were minute and complete,[144] and were carried out to the letter. The infantry marched forward from their camp behind the Dil Koosha, their bayonets glittering in the sun; and it was remarked that the sight of these terrible bayonets appeared to throw the enemy into more trepidation than all the guns and howitzers, mortars and rockets. A bayonet-charge by the British was more than any of the ‘Pandies’ could bear. Silently and swiftly the Highlanders and Punjaubees marched on, the former towards the Martinière, and the latter towards the trenches that flanked that building; while the other regiments of Lugard’s column followed closely in the rear. Distracted by Outram’s enfilade fire from the other side of the river, and by Lugard’s advance in front, the enemy made but a feeble resistance. The 42d Highlanders and the Punjaubee infantry climbed up the intrenchment abutting on the river, and rushed along the whole line of works, till they got to the neighbourhood of Banks’s house. Meanwhile, another body of infantry advanced to the Martinière, and captured the building and the whole of the enclosure surrounding it. All this was done with very little bloodshed on either side; for Lugard’s men, in obedience to orders, did not fire; while the enemy escaped from the walls and trenches without maintaining a hand-to-hand contest. This abandonment of the defence-works would not have taken place so speedily had not Outram’s flanking fire enfiladed the whole line; but the insurgent artillerymen found it impossible to withstand the ordeal to which they were now exposed. Sir Colin’s plan had been so carefully made, and so admirably carried out, that this capture of the enemy’s exterior line of defence was effected almost without loss.
On the 10th, while Outram was engaged in strengthening the position which he had taken up, he sent Hope Grant with the cavalry of the division to patrol over the whole of the country between the left bank of the Goomtee and the old cantonment. This was done with the view of preventing any surprise by the approach of bodies of the rebels in that quarter. An extensive system of patrolling or reconnaissance had formed from the first a part of Sir Colin’s plan for the tactics of the siege. Outram on this day brought his heavy guns into a position to rake the enemy’s lines, to annoy the Kaiser Bagh with a vertical and direct fire, to attack the suburbs in the vicinity of the iron and stone bridges, and to command the iron bridge from the left bank; all of which operations he carried out with great success. The enemy, however, still held the right end of the iron bridge so pertinaciously, that it was not until after a very heavy cannonading that the conquest was effected.
On the city side of the river, on this day, the operations consisted mainly in securing the conquests effected on the 9th. At a very early hour in the morning, while yet dusk, the rebel sepoys advanced in great strength to reoccupy the defence-line of the canal, apparently not knowing that the Highlanders and Punjaubees had maintained that position during the night; they were speedily undeceived by a volley of musketry which put them to flight. At sunrise a disposition of troops and heavy guns was made by Lugard for an attack on Banks’s house; and this house, captured about noon, was at once secured as a strong military post.
Thus did this remarkable siege go on day after day. Nothing was hurried, nothing unforeseen. All the movements were made as if the city and its environs formed a vast chess-board on which the commander-in-chief could see the position of all the pieces and pawns. Nay, so fully had he studied the matter, that he had some such command over the ground as is maintained by a chess-player who conducts and wins a game without seeing the board. Every force, every movement, was made conducive to one common end—the conquest of the city without the loss of much British blood, and without leaving any lurking-place in the hands of the enemy.
The conquest and fortifying of Banks’s house enabled Sir Colin to commence the second part of his operations. Having captured the enemy’s exterior line of defence, he had now to attack the second or middle line, which (as has been already shewn) began at the river-side near the Motee Mehal, the Mess-house, and the Emanbarra. The plan he formed was to use the great block of houses and palaces extending from Banks’s house to the Kaiser Bagh as an approach, instead of sapping up towards the second line of works. ‘The operation,’ as he said in his dispatch, ‘had now become one of an engineering character; and the most earnest endeavours were made to save the infantry from being hazarded before due preparation had been made.’ The chief engineer, Brigadier Napier, placed his batteries in such positions as to shell and breach a large block of the palaces known as the Begum Kothee. This bombardment, on the 11th, was long and severe; for the front of the palaces was screened by outhouses, earthworks, and parapets, which required to be well battered before the infantry could make the assault. The 8-inch guns of the naval brigade were the chief instruments in this formidable cannonade. At length, about four o’clock in the afternoon, Napier announced that the breaches were practicable, and Lugard at once made arrangements for storming the Begum Kothee. He had with him the 93d Highlanders, the 4th Punjaub Rifles, and 1000 Goorkhas, and was aided in the assault by Adrian Hope. His troops speedily secured the whole block of buildings, and inflicted a very heavy loss on the enemy. The attack was one of a desperate character, and was characterised by Sir Colin as ‘the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.’ From that point Napier pushed his engineering approaches with great judgment through the enclosures, by the aid of the sappers and the heavy guns; the troops immediately occupying the ground as he advanced, and the mortars being moved from one position to another as the ground was won on which they could be placed. Outram was not idle during these operations. He obtained possession of the iron bridge, leading over the river from the cantonment to the city, and swept away the enemy from every part of the left bank of the river between that bridge and the Padishah Bagh; thus leaving him in a position to enfilade the central and inner lines of defence established by the enemy among the palaces.
It was while these serious and important operations were in progress, on the 11th of March, that the commander-in-chief was called upon to attend to a ceremonial affair, from which he would doubtless have willingly been spared. The preceding chapters have shewn how Jung Bahadoor, descending from the Nepaulese mountains with an army of 9000 Goorkhas, rendered a little service in the Goruckpore and Jounpoor districts, and then advanced into Oude to assist in the operations against Lucknow. His movements had been dilatory; and Sir Colin was forced to arrange all the details of the siege as if no reliance could be placed in this ally. At length, however, on the afternoon of the 11th, Jung Bahadoor appeared at the Dil Koosha; he and Sir Colin met for the first time. The meeting was a curious one. The Nepaul chieftain, thoroughly Asiatic in everything, prepared for the interview as one on which he might lavish all his splendour of gold, satin, pearls, and diamonds; the old Highland officer, on the other hand, plain beyond the usual plainness of a soldier in all that concerned personal indulgences,[145] was somewhat tried even by the necessity for his full regimentals and decorative appendages. A continuous battle was going on, in which he thought of his soldiers’ lives, and of the tactics necessary to insure a victory; at such a time, and in such a climate, he would gladly have dispensed with the scarlet and the feathers of his rank, and of the oriental compliments in which truth takes little part. A tasteful canopy was prepared in front of Sir Colin’s mess-tent; and here were assembled the commander-in-chief, Archdale Wilson, Hope Grant, a glittering group of staff-officers and aids-de-camp, a Highland guard of honour, an escort of Lancers, bands, pipers, drums, flags, and all the paraphernalia for a military show. Sir Colin was punctual; Jung Bahadoor was not. Sir Colin, his thoughts all the while directed towards Lugard’s operations at the Begum Kothee, felt the approaching ceremony, and the delay in beginning it, as a sore interruption. At length the Nepaulese chieftain appeared. Jung Bahadoor had, as Nepaulese ambassador, made himself famous in London a few years before, by his gorgeous dress and lavish expenditure; and he now appeared in fully as great splendour. The presentations, the greetings, the compliments, the speeches, were all of the wonted kind; but when Captain Hope Johnstone, as one of the officers of the chief of the staff, entered to announce that ‘the Begum Kothee is taken,’ Sir Colin broke through all ceremony, expressed a soldier’s pleasure at the news, and brought the interview to a termination. Jung Bahadoor returned to his own camp; and the commander-in-chief instantly resumed his ordinary military duties. Sir Colin was evidently somewhat puzzled to know how best to employ his gorgeous colleague; although his courtesy would not allow him to shew it. The Goorkhas moved close to the canal on the 13th; and on the following day Sir Colin requested Jung Bahadoor to cross the canal, and attack the suburbs to the left of Banks’s house. As he was obliged, just at that critical time, to mass all the available strength of his British troops in the double attack along the banks of the Goomtee, the commander-in-chief had few to spare for his left wing; and he speaks of the troops of the Nepaulese leader as being ‘most advantageously employed for several days,’ in thus covering his left.
We return to the siege operations. So great had been the progress made on the 11th, that the development of the commander-in-chief’s strategy became every hour more and more clear. Outram’s heavy fire with guns and mortars produced great effect on the Kaiser Bagh; while the Begum Kothee became a post from which an attack could be made on the Emanbarra, a large building situated between the Begum Kothee and the Kaiser Bagh.[146] The Begum Kothee palace, when visited by the officers of the staff on the morning of the 12th, astonished them by the strength which the enemy had given to it. The walls were so loopholed for musketry, the bastions and cannon were so numerous, the ditch around it was so deep, and the earthen rampart so high, that all marvelled how it came to be so easily captured on the preceding day. The enemy might have held it against double of Lugard’s force, had they not been paralysed by the bayonet. It was a strange sight, on the following morning, to see Highlanders and Punjaubees roaming about gorgeous saloons and zenanas, still containing many articles of dress and personal ornaments which the ladies of the palace had not had time to carry away with them. Whither the inmates had fled, the conquerors at that time did not know, and in all probability did not care. It was a strange and unnatural sight; splendour and blood appeared to have struggled for mastery in the various courts and rooms of the palace, many contests having taken place with small numbers of the enemy.[147] From this building, we have said, Sir Colin determined that progress should be made towards the Emanbarra, not by open assault, but by sapping through a mass of intermediate buildings.
The 12th was the day when the sapping commenced; but so many and so intricate were the buildings, that three days were occupied in this series of operations; seeing that it was necessary to destroy or at least to render innoxious such houses as might have concealed large bodies of the enemy. Lugard’s troops having been hotly engaged on the 11th, they were now relieved by others under Franks. The work was of formidable character; for the flat roofs of many of the houses were covered with two or three feet of earth, baked in the sun, and loopholed for musketry. Every such house had to be well scrutinised, before a further advance was made. The sappers made passages, either actually underground, or through the lower portions of the walls and enclosures surrounding the buildings. On the 13th these approaches were so far completed that a large number of guns and mortars could be brought forward, and placed in position for bombarding the Emanbarra. On this day, too, Jung Bahadoor’s troops took possession of a mass of suburban houses southward of the city, between Sir Colin’s camp and the Alum Bagh; after which the commander-in-chief paid a return visit to the Nepaulese chieftain, who strove to display still more magnificence than at the former interview.
The 14th of March was one of the busy days of the siege. The sap was carried on so successfully that the Emanbarra could be bombarded by heavy guns and mortars, and then taken. Directly this was done, Brasyer’s Sikhs, pressing forward in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, entered the Kaiser Bagh—the third or inner line of defence having been turned without a single gun being fired from it. Supports were quickly thrown in, and the British troops found themselves speedily in a part of the city already well known to Campbell and Outram during their operations of November—surrounded by the Mess-house, the Taree Kothee, the Motee Mehal, and the Chuttur Munzil. All these buildings were near them, and all were occupied by them before night closed in. As fast as the infantry seized these several positions, so did the engineers proceed to secure the outposts towards the south and west. As in many other cases when it was the lot of the English in India to fight their greatest battles, or bear their greatest sufferings, on Sundays; so was it on a Sunday that these busy operations of the 14th took place. The front walls of the Kaiser Bagh and the Motee Mehal were extensively mined; insomuch that when the artillery had effected its dread work, the infantry could approach much more safely than if exposed to the sight of sharpshooters and matchlockmen. It is true that neither English nor Highlanders, neither Sikhs nor Goorkhas, would have hesitated to rush forward and storm these buildings without a sap; but as Sir Colin was well supplied with heavy guns, he acted steadily on the plan of employing them as much as possible before sending on his men—feeling that the loss of men would be more difficult to replace than that of guns and missiles, at such a time and in such a country. In his dispatch relating to the operations of the 14th of March, he said: ‘The day was one of continued exertion; and every one felt that, although much remained to be done before the final expulsion of the rebels, the most difficult part of the undertaking had been overcome. This is not the place for a description of the various buildings sapped into or stormed. Suffice it to say that they formed a range of massive palaces and walled courts of vast extent, equalled perhaps, but not surpassed, in any capital of Europe. Every outlet had been covered by a work, and on every side were prepared barricades and loopholed parapets. The extraordinary industry evinced by the enemy in this respect has been really unexampled. Hence the absolute necessity for holding the troops in hand, till at each successive move forward the engineers reported to me that all which could be effected by artillery and the sappers had been done, before the troops were led to the assault.’
A little must here be said concerning the share which Sir James Outram had in the operations of the 12th and two following days. All his tactics, on the left bank of the river, were especially intended to support those of the commander-in-chief on the right bank. On the 12th his heavy guns, at and near the Padishah Bagh, poured forth a torrent of shot, to dislodge the enemy from certain positions near the city. His head-quarters were established under a small tope of trees near a ruined mosque; and he, as well as Lugard and Walpole, lived as simply as possible under tents. The Padishah Bagh itself—a suburban palace with beautiful saloons, halls, terraces, orange-groves and fountains—was held by H.M. 23d. The left bank of the river being occupied as far up as the iron suspension bridge, Outram planted two or three guns to guard that position from any hostile attack from the north; while two or three regiments of his own infantry, in convenient spots near the bridge, kept up a musketry-fire against such of the enemy as were visible and within reach on the opposite or city side of the river. This musketry-fire was continued all day on the 13th, while the batteries of heavy guns were being brought further and further into position. On the 14th, the same operations were continued; but the conquest of the Kaiser Bagh was so sudden and unexpected on this day, that the proceedings on the left bank of the river were relatively unimportant.
When the morning of the 15th arrived, Sir Colin Campbell felt that he might call Lucknow his own; for although much remained to be done, the conquests achieved were vast and important. The Mahomed Bagh, the Dil Koosha, the Martinière, the Secunder Bagh, the Emanbarra, the Mess-house, the Shah Munzil, the Motee Mehal, the Begum Kothee, and the Kaiser Bagh, were all in his hands—constituting by far the strongest and most important of the palatial buildings along the banks of the river. Moreover, the natives were evidently dismayed; vast numbers were leaving the city on the Rohilcund side; and spies brought information that the rebel leaders encountered much difficulty in keeping the sepoys steadily at the defence-works. The progress made by the British had surprised and alarmed the insurgents, and tended to paralyse their exertions. Some of the British officers had entertained a belief that the Kaiser Bagh was the key to the enemy’s position, whereas others had looked rather to the Begum Kothee. The latter proved to be right. The enemy had greatly relied on the last-named building; insomuch that, when it was captured, they rushed in wild confusion to the Kaiser Bagh, intent rather upon flight than upon a stubborn resistance. The garrison of the Kaiser Bagh, disconcerted by this irruption of their brother insurgents, were rendered almost unable, even if willing, to make a manful resistance. The British were almost as much surprised by the speedy capture of the Kaiser Bagh, as the enemy were by the loss of the Begum Kothee. When the great palace changed hands, the smoke and blood and cries of war were strangely mingled with the magnificence of kiosks, mosques, corridors, courts, gardens, terraces, saloons, mirrors, gilding, chandeliers, tapestry, statues, pictures, and costly furniture, in this strange jumble of oriental and European splendour.
A soldier loses all his heroism when the hour for prize and plunder arrives. Those, whether officers or spectators, who have described the scene which was presented when these Lucknow palaces were conquered, tell plainly of a period of wild licence and absorbing greed. On the one hand there were palaces containing vast stores of oriental and European luxuries; on the other, there were bands of armed men, brave and faithful, but at the same time poor and unlettered, who suddenly found themselves masters of all these splendours, with very little check or supervision on the part of their officers. At first, in a spirit of triumphant revenge, costly articles were broken which were too large to be carried away; glass chandeliers were hurled to the ground, mirrors shattered into countless fragments, statues mutilated and overturned, pictures stabbed and torn, doors of costly wood torn from their hinges. But when this destruction had been wreaked, and when the troops had forced their way through courts and corridors strewn with sepoys’ brass lotas or drinking-vessels, charpoys, clothing, belts, ammunition, muskets, matchlocks, swords, pistols, chupatties, and other evidences of precipitate flight—when this had all occurred, then did the love of plunder seize hold of the men. The Kaiser Bagh had been so quickly conquered, that the subaltern officers had not yet received instructions how to control the movements of the troops in this matter. Sikhs, Highlanders, English, were soon busily engaged. In one splendid saloon might be seen a party of Sikhs melting down gold and silver lace for the sake of the precious metals; in another, a quantity of shawls, lace, pearls, and embroidery of gold and silver, was being divided equally among a group of soldiers. In a sort of treasure-room, apparently belonging to some high personage, a few men of two British regiments found caskets and boxes containing diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, opals, and other gems, made into necklaces, bracelets, earrings, girdles, &c.; together with gold-mounted pistols, jewel-hilted swords, saddle-cloths covered with gold and pearls, gold-handled riding-canes, jewelled cups of agate and jade, japanned boxes filled with crystal and jade vessels. And, as it appeared that every one felt himself permitted or at least enabled to retain whatever he could capture, the camp-followers rushed in and seized all that the soldiers had left. Coolies, syces, khitmutgars, dooly-bearers, and grass-cutters, were seen running hither and thither, laden with costly clothing, swords, firelocks, brass pots, and other articles larger in bulk than the actual soldiers could readily have disposed of. It was a saturnalia, during which it is believed that some of the troops appropriated enough treasure, if converted into its value in money, to render them independent of labour for the rest of their lives. But each man kept, in whole or in part, his own secret.
Let us on from this extraordinary scene. The 15th was chiefly employed in securing what had been captured, removing powder, destroying mines, and fixing mortars for the further bombardment of the positions still held by the enemy, on the right bank of the Goomtee, and in the heart of the city. As the infantry and artillery could fulfil this duty, without the aid of horse, two bodies of cavalry, under Walpole and Hope Grant, were sent out to prevent, if possible, the escape of the enemy on the sides of the city not subject to immediate attack. One of these generals proceeded towards the Sundeela road, and the other to that leading to Seetapoor. Whether this flight of the enemy disappointed or not the expectations of the commander-in-chief, was a question which he kept to himself. The city, for all practical military purposes, was twenty miles in circumference; and he could not have guarded all the outlets without a very much larger army than that which was at his disposal. Like as at Sebastopol, the siege was not aided by a complete investiture of the place besieged. It is possible that the capture of the Kaiser Bagh, and the consequent flight of the enemy, occurred too early for Sir Colin to be enabled to put in operation certain manœuvres on the other side of the city. Be this as it may, large numbers of rebel sepoys, and a still larger of the regular inhabitants of the city escaped during the 14th and 15th, mostly over the stone bridge—as if hopeful of safety in Rohilcund and Upper Oude.
On the 16th Sir James Outram, after ten days of active operation on the left bank of the Goomtee, crossed over by a bridge of casks opposite the Secunder Bagh; and he then advanced through the Chuttur Munzil towards the Residency. To lessen the chance of the enemy’s retreat as much as possible, he marched right through the city, not only to the iron bridge near the Residency, but to the stone bridge near the Muchee Bhowan. All this was an enterprise of remarkable boldness, for the buildings to be successively conquered and entered were very numerous. Outram shifted his own head-quarters to Banks’s house, on the city side of the river; and it was here that he received a letter from the Begum, or mother of the young boy-king, containing some sort of proposition for compromise or cessation of hostilities. Whatever it may have been, no successful result attended this missive: the progress and conquest went on as before. His troops, as they advanced to the Chuttur Munzil, the Pyne Bagh, the Fureed Buksh, and the Taree Kothee, found all these buildings abandoned by the enemy—who had been too much dismayed by the operations of the 16th to make a bold stand. At length he approached the Residency, the enclosed spot whose name will ever be imperishably associated with Inglis’s defence of the British garrison, and in which Outram himself had passed many anxious weeks between September and November. Hardly a building remained standing within the enclosure; all had been riddled and shattered during the long period from July to November, and most of them subsequently destroyed by the enemy. Up to this time Outram’s march of the 16th through the city had been almost unopposed; but he now ascertained that the houses and palaces between the iron and stone bridges were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Hard fighting at once commenced here, in which the 20th, 23d, and 79th regiments were actively engaged. They advanced at a rapid pace from the Residency towards the iron bridge. A 9-pounder, planted to command a road by the way, fired grape into them; but it was speedily captured. By that time the large guns were brought into position, to play upon the stone bridge, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, and other structures northwest of the iron bridge. At that time Grant and his troopers were near the stone bridge on the left side of the river, while Outram’s guns were firing on it from the right bank; as a consequence, no more escape was permitted by that channel; and the fugitives therefore ran along the right bank of the river, to a part of the open country northwest of Lucknow, not yet controlled by the English. Many of the rebel sepoys resolved to make a stand at the Moosa Bagh, a building at the extreme limits of the city in this direction; but the day was too far advanced to attack them at that spot; and the troops were glad to rest for the night in the splendid saloons and courts of the Emanbarra—one of the grandest among the many grand structures in Lucknow.
While Outram was engaged in these operations on the 16th, obtaining a mastery along almost the whole right bank of the river, the enemy very unexpectedly made an attack on the Alum Bagh, which was only held by a small English force under Brigadier Franklyn. Sir Colin Campbell immediately requested Jung Bahadoor to advance to his left up the canal, and take in reverse the post from which the enemy was making the attack. The Nepaulese chieftain performed this service successfully, capturing the post and the guns, and expelling the enemy.
When the morning of the 17th arrived, the commander-in-chief found himself so undoubtedly the master of Lucknow, that he was enabled to dispense with the services of some of his gallant artillery officers, whose aid was much wanted at Futteghur and elsewhere. Still, though the great conquest was mainly effected, the minor details had yet to be filled up. There were isolated buildings in which small knots of the enemy had fortified themselves; these it would be necessary to capture. It was also very desirable to check the camp-followers in their manifest tendency for plundering the shops and private houses of the city. Sir Colin did not wish the townsmen to regard him as an enemy; he encouraged them, so far as they had not been in complicity with the rebels, to return to their homes and occupations; and it was very essential that those homes should, in the meantime, be spared from reckless looting. In some of the streets, pickets of soldiers were placed, to compel the camp-followers to disgorge the plunder which they had appropriated; and thus was collected a strange medley of trinkets and utensils, which the temporary holders gave up with sore unwillingness. Here and there, where a soldier had a little leisure and opportunity, he would hold a kind of mock-auction, at which not only camp-followers but officers would buy treasures for a mere trifle; but these instances were few, for there was not much ready cash among the conquerors. Sir Colin found it necessary to issue an order concerning the plundering system.[148] Outram and Jung Bahadoor took part in a series of operations, on the 17th, intended to obtain control over the northwest section of the city. The one set forth from the river, the other from the vicinity of the Alum Bagh; and during the day they cleared out many nests of rebels. There was also an action on the margin of the city, in which the enemy managed to bring together a considerable force of horse, foot, and artillery; their guns were captured, however, and themselves put to flight.
Sir Colin, responsible for many places besides Lucknow, and for many troops besides those under his immediate command, now made daily changes in the duties of his officers. Major (now Lieutenant-colonel) Vincent Eyre and Major (now also Lieutenant-colonel) Turner, two of the most distinguished artillery officers, departed for Futteghur and Idrapore; and Franklyn went to Cawnpore. Inglis succeeded Franklyn at the Alum Bagh. Sir Archdale Wilson and Brigadier Russell took their departure on sick-leave.
A considerable force of the enemy still lingered around the Alum Bagh, irresolute as to any actual attacks, but loath to quit the neighbourhood until the last ray of hope was extinguished. With these rebels Jung Bahadoor had many smart contests. He had been instructed by Sir Colin to obtain secure possession of the suburbs of the city near the Char Bagh—the bridge that carried the Cawnpore road over the canal.
It was on this day, the 17th, and partly in consequence of the success attending the operations of the Goorkhas, that two English ladies, Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, were delivered from the hands of enemies who had long held them in bondage. It will be remembered that on the night of the 22d of November,[149] the insurgents in Lucknow, enraged at the safe evacuation of the Residency by the British, put to death certain English prisoners who had long been in confinement in the Kaiser Bagh. Among them were Mr Orr and Sir Mountstuart Jackson. So far as any authentic news could be obtained, it appeared that Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson had been spared; partly, as some said, through the intervention of the Begum. During the subsequent period of nearly four months, the fate of those unhappy ladies remained unknown to their English friends. On the day in question, however (the 17th of March), Captain M’Neil and Lieutenant Bogle, both attached to the Goorkha force, while exploring some of the deserted streets in the suburb, were accosted by a native who asked their protection for his house and property. The man sought to purchase this protection by a revelation concerning certain English ladies, who, he declared, were in confinement in a place known to him. Almost immediately another native brought a note from Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, begging earnestly for succour. M’Neil and Bogle instantly obtained a guard of fifty Goorkhas, and, guided by the natives, went on their errand of mercy. After walking through half a mile of narrow streets, doubtful of an ambush at every turning, they came to a house occupied by one Meer Wajeed Ali, who held, or had held, some office under the court. After a little parleying, M’Neil and Bogle were led to an obscure apartment, where were seated two ladies in oriental costume. These were the prisoners, who had so long been excluded from every one of their own country, and who were overwhelmed with tearful joy at this happy deliverance. It was not clearly known whether this Meer Wajeed Ali was endeavouring to buy off safety for himself by betraying a trust imposed in him; but the two English officers deemed it best to lose no time in securing their countrywomen’s safety, whether he were a double-dealer or not; they procured a palanquin, put the ladies into it, and marched off with their living treasure—proud enough with their afternoon’s work. When these poor ladies came to tell their sad tale of woe, with countenances on which marks of deep suffering were expressed, it became known that, though not exposed to any actual barbarities or atrocities, like so many of their countrywomen in other parts of India, their lives had been made very miserable by the unfeeling conduct of their jailers, who were permitted to use gross and insulting language in their presence, and to harrow them with recitals of what Europeans were and had been suffering. They had had food in moderate sufficiency, but of other sources of solace they were almost wholly bereft. It was fully believed that they would not have been restored alive, had the jailer obeyed the orders issued to him by the Moulvie.
After a day of comparative repose on the 18th, a combined movement against the Moosa Bagh was organised on the 19th. This was the last position held by the enemy on the line of the Goomtee, somewhat beyond the extreme northwest limit of the city. Outram moved forward directly against the place; Hope Grant cannonaded it from the left bank; while William Campbell, approaching on the remote side from the Alum Bagh, prevented retreat in that direction. Some said the Begum was there, some the Moulvie or fanatic chieftain; but on this point nothing was known. All that was certain was that several thousand insurgents, driven from other places, had congregated within the buildings and courts of the Moosa Bagh. Outram’s troops started from the Emanbarra on this expedition early in the morning; he himself joined them from Banks’s house, while Sir Colin rode over to see in person how the work was effected. Opposite the Moosa Bagh, which was a large structure surrounded by an enclosed court, was the residence of Ali Nuckee Khan, vizier or prime-minister to the deposed King of Oude; and in other parts of the vicinity were numerous mansions and mosques. If the rebels had held well together, they might have made a stout resistance here, for the buildings contained many elements of strength; but discord reigned; the Begum reproached the thalookdars, the thalookdars the sepoys; while the Moulvie was suspected of an intention to set up as King of Oude on his own account. Outram’s column was to make the direct attack; Hope Grant’s cavalry and horse-artillery were to command certain roads of approach and exit on the river-side; while William Campbell’s cavalry, aided by two or three infantry regiments, were to command the opposite side. The contest can hardly be called a battle or a siege; for as soon as the rebels clearly ascertained that the British were approaching, they abandoned court after court, house after house, and escaped towards the northwest, by the only avenue available. Although they did not fight, they escaped more successfully than Sir Colin had wished or intended. Whether the three movements were not timed in unison, or whether collateral objects engaged the attention of Brigadier Campbell, certain it is that few of the enemy were killed, and that many thousands safely marched or ran out. The open country, covered with enclosures and cornfields, enabled the sepoys better to escape than the British to pursue them. A regiment of Sikhs was sent to occupy the Moosa Bagh; and now was Lucknow still more fully than before in the hands of the commander-in-chief.
On the 20th, further measures were taken, by proclamation and otherwise, to induce the peaceful portion of the inhabitants to return to their homes. This was desirable in every sense. Until the ordinary relations of society were re-introduced, anything like civil government was simply impossible; while, so long as the houses, deserted by their proper inhabitants, served as hiding-places for fanatics and budmashes, the streets were never for an instant safe. Many officers and soldiers were shot by concealed antagonists, long after the great buildings of the city had been conquered. Moreover, the Sikhs and Goorkhas were becoming very unruly. The plunder had acted upon them as an intoxicating indulgence, shaking the steady obedience which they were wont to exhibit when actively engaged against the enemy. Even at a time when Sir Colin was planning which of his generals he could spare, for service elsewhere or for sick-leave, and which regiments should form new columns for active service in other districts—even at such a time it was discovered that bodies of the enemy were lurking in houses near Outram’s head-quarters, bent upon mischief or revenge; and there was much musketry-fire necessary before they could be dislodged. The ‘sick-leave,’ just adverted to, was becoming largely applied for. Many officers, so gallant and untiring as to be untouched by any suspicion of their willingness to shirk danger and hard work, gave in; they had become weakened in body and mind by laborious duties, and needed repose.
The Moulvie, who had held great power within Lucknow, and whose influence was even now not extinguished, commanded a stronghold in the very heart of the city. Sir Edward Lugard was requested to dislodge him on the 21st. This he did after a sharp contest; and Brigadier W. Campbell, with his cavalry, placed himself in such a position, that he was enabled to attack the enemy who were put to flight by Lugard, and to inflict heavy loss on them during a pursuit of six miles. The conquest of the Moulvie’s stronghold had this useful effect among others; that it enabled Sir Colin to expedite the arrangements for the return of such of the inhabitants as were not too deeply steeped in rebellion to render return expedient. Among those who fell on this occasion, on the side of the enemy, was Shirreff-u-Dowlah, the chief-minister of the rebel boy-king, or rather of his mother the Begum; this man had been in collision with the Moulvie, each envious of the other’s authority; and there were those who thought it was by a treacherous blow that he now fell. Even in this, the last contest within the city, the sappers had to be employed; for the Moulvie had so intrenched himself, with many hundred followers, that he could not be dislodged by the force at first sent against him; the engineers were forced to sap under and through some surrounding buildings, before the infantry could obtain command of that in which the Moulvie was lodged.
This was the last day of those complicated scenes of tactics and fighting which formed collectively the siege of Lucknow, and which had lasted from the 2d to the 21st of March. Concerning the cavalry expeditions, during the third week of this period, it is pretty evident that they had been fruitless in great results. Sir Hope Grant had cut up a few hundred fugitive rebels in one spot, and intercepted more in another; Brigadier William Campbell had rendered useful service both in and beyond the suburbs of the city; but the proofs were not to be doubted that the mutinied sepoys and rebel volunteers had safely escaped from the city, not merely by thousands, but by tens of thousands; and that they still retained a sufficiency of military organisation to render them annoying and even formidable. When this news reached England, it damped considerably the pleasure afforded by the conquest of Lucknow. The nation asked, but asked without the probability of receiving a reply, whether the enemy had in this particular foiled a part of the commander-in-chief’s plan; and whether the governor-general shared the opinions of the commander concerning the plan of strategy, and the consequences resulting from it?
The losses suffered by the British army during the operations at Lucknow, though necessarily considerable, were small in comparison with those which would have been borne if artillery had not been so largely used. Sir Colin from the first determined that shells and balls should do as much of the dread work as possible, clearing away or breaching the enemy’s defence-works before he sent in his infantry to close quarters. During the entire series of operations, from the 2d to the 21st of March, he had 19 officers killed and 48 wounded. The whole of the generals and brigadiers escaped untouched; and there were only two officers among the wounded so high in military rank as lieutenant-colonel. The killed and wounded among the troops generally were about 1100. The enemy’s loss could hardly have been less than 4000. One of the deaths most regretted during these operations was that of Major Hodson; who, as the commander of ‘Hodson’s Horse,’ and as the captor of the King of Delhi, had been prominently engaged in the Indian wars. It was on the day marked by the conquest of the Begum Kothee that he fell. Having no especial duty on that day, and hearing that Brigadier Napier was busily engaged in engineering operations connected with the attack on that palace, he rode over to him, and joined in that storming attack which Sir Colin characterised as ‘the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.’ Hodson, while assisting in clearing the court-yards and buildings near the palace of parties of the enemy lurking there, was shot by a sepoy. His orderly, a large powerful Sikh, carried him in his arms to a spot beyond the reach of shot, whence he was carried in a dooly to Banks’s house, where surgical aid could be obtained. Some of his own irregular troopers cried over him like children. The shot had passed through the liver, and he died after a night of great agony. A spot was chosen for his grave near a tope of bamboos behind the Martinière. Sir Colin and his staff attended the funeral, at which the old chief was much affected; he had highly valued Hodson, and did not allow many hours to elapse before he wrote a graceful and feeling letter to the widow of the deceased officer. As soon as possible a telegraphic message was sent to bring down Captain Daly, the commandant of the famous corps of Guides; he was every way fitted to command a similar body of irregular cavalry, ‘Hodson’s Horse.’
No sooner was the city of Lucknow clearly and unequivocally in the hands of Sir Colin Campbell, than he completely broke up the lately formidable ‘army of Oude.’ The troops had nothing more immediately to do at that spot; while their services were urgently needed elsewhere. With regret did the soldiers leave a place where such extraordinary gains had fallen to the lot of some among their number; or, more correctly, this regret endured only until the very stringent regulations put an effectual stop to all plundering. The regiments were reorganised into brigades and divisions; new brigadiers were appointed in lieu of those on ‘sick-leave;’ and a dispersion of the army commenced.
It is impossible to read Sir Colin Campbell’s mention of Jung Bahadoor without feeling that he estimated at a small price the value of the services yielded by the Nepaulese leader. Whether it was that the arrival of the Goorkha army was delayed beyond the date when the greatest services might have been rendered, or that Sir Colin found it embarrassing to issue orders to one who was little less than a king, it is plain that not much was effected by Jung Bahadoor during the operations at Lucknow. He came when the siege was half over; he departed a fortnight afterwards; and although the commander-in-chief said in a courteous dispatch: ‘I found the utmost willingness on his part to accede to any desire of mine during the progress of the siege; and from the first his Highness was pleased to justify his words that he was happy to be serving under my command’—although these were the words used, there was an absence of any reference to special deeds of conquest. It was a pretty general opinion among the officers that the nine thousand soldiers of the Nepaulese army were far inferior in military qualities to those Goorkhas who had for many years formed two or three regiments in the Bengal army. When the looting in the city began, Jung Bahadoor’s Goorkhas could scarcely be held in any control; like the Sikhs, they were wild with oriental excitement, and Sir Colin was more anxious concerning them than his own European troops. Viscount Canning, who was in intimate correspondence with the commander-in-chief through the medium of the electric telegraph, exchanged opinions with him in terms known only to themselves; but the announcement made public was to the effect that the governor-general solicited the aid of the Goorkha troops in the neighbourhood of Allahabad, and invited Jung Bahadoor to a personal conference with him at that city. It was during the last week in March that the Nepaulese allies quitted Lucknow, and marched off towards the Oude frontier.
Of the troops which remained at Lucknow, after the departure of some of the brigades, it need only be said in this place that they began to experience the heat of an Indian equinox, which, though much less than that of summer, is nevertheless severely felt by Europeans. A letter from an assistant-surgeon in the division lately commanded by Brigadier Franks, conveyed a good impression of camp-troubles at such a time.[150]
When the governor-general wrote the usual thanks and compliments after the conquest of Lucknow, he adverted very properly to the previous operations, which, though not conquests in the ordinary sense of the term, had won so much fame for Inglis, Havelock, Neill, Outram, and Campbell; and then after mentioning some of the most obvious facts connected with the siege,[151] praised all those whom Sir Colin had pointed out as being worthy of praise. Concerning the proclamation which Lord Canning issued, or proposed to issue, to the natives of Oude, it will be convenient to defer notice of it to a future chapter; when attention will be called to the important debates in the imperial legislature relating to that subject.
Here this chapter may suitably end. It was designed as a medium for the remarkable episode of the final conquest of Lucknow in the month of March; and will be best kept free from all topics relating to other parts of India.
Note.
Lucknow Proclamations.—When Sir Colin Campbell had effectually conquered Lucknow, and had gathered information concerning the proceedings of the rebels since the preceding month of November, it was found that no means had been left untried to madden the populace into a death-struggle with the British. Among other methods, printed proclamations were posted up in all the police stations, not only in Lucknow, but in many other parts of Oude.
One of these proclamations, addressed to the Mohammedans, ran thus:
‘God says in the Koran: “Do not enter into the friendship of Jews and Christians; those who are their friends are of them—that is, the friends of Christians are Christians, and friends of Jews are Jews. God never shews his way to infidels.”
‘By this it is evident that to befriend Christians, is irreligious. Those who are their friends are not Mohammedans; therefore all the Mohammedan fraternity should with all their hearts be deadly enemies to the Christians, and never befriend them in any way; otherwise, all will lose their religion, and become infidels.
‘Some people, weak in faith and worldly, think that if they offend the Christians, they will fall their victims when their rule is re-established. God says of these people: “Look in the hearts of these unbelievers, who are anxious to seek the friendship of Christians through fear of receiving injury,” to remove their doubts and assure their wavering mind. It is also said that “God will shortly give us victory, or will do something by which our enemies will be ashamed of themselves.” The Mussulmans should therefore always hope, and never believe that the Christians will be victorious and injure them; but, on the contrary, should hope to gain the victory and destroy all Christians.
‘If all the Mohammedans join and remain firm to their faith, they would no doubt gain victory over the Christians, because God says that the victory is due to the faithful from Him; but if they become cowards and infirm to their religion, and do not sacrifice their private interest for the public good, the Europeans will be victorious, and, having subdued the Mohammedans, they will disarm, hang, shoot, or blow them away, seize upon their women and children, disgrace, dishonour, and christianise them, dig up their houses and carry off their property; they will also burn religious and sacred books, destroy the musjids, and efface the name of Islam from the world.
‘If the Mohammedans have any shame, they should all join and prepare themselves to kill the Christians without minding any one who says to the contrary; they should also know that no one dies before his time, and when the time comes, nothing can save them. Thousands of men are carried off by cholera and other pestilence; but it is not known whether they die in their senses, and be faithful to their own religion.
‘To be killed in a war against Christians is a proof of obtaining martyrdom. All good Mohammedans pray for such a death; therefore, every one should sacrifice his life for such a reward. Every one is to die assuredly, and those Mohammedans who would spare themselves now will be sorry on their death for their neglect.
‘As it is the duty of all men and women to oppose, kill, and expel the Europeans for deeds committed by them at Delhi, Jhujur, Rewaree, and the Doab, all the Mohammedans should discharge their duty with a willing heart; if they neglect, and the Europeans overpower them, they will be disarmed, hung, and treated like the inhabitants of other unfortunate countries, and will have nothing but regret and sorrow for their lot. Wherefore this notice is given to warn the public.’
Another proclamation, addressed principally to zemindars and Hindoos in general, but to Mohammedans also, was couched in the following terms:
‘All the Hindoos and Mohammedans know that man loves four things most: 1, his religion and caste; 2, his honour; 3, his own and his kinsmen’s lives; 4, his property. All these four are well protected under native rulers; no one interferes with any one’s religion; every one enjoys his respectability according to his caste and wealth. All the respectable people—Syad, Shaikh, Mogul, and Patan, among Mohammedans; and Brahmins, Chatrees, Bys, and Kaeths, among the Hindoos—are respected according to their castes. No low-caste people like chumars, dhanook, and passees, can be equal to and address them disrespectfully. No one’s life or property is taken unless for some heinous crime.
‘The British are quite against these four things—they want to spoil every one’s caste, and wish both the Mohammedans and Hindoos to become Christians. Thousands have turned renegades, and many will become so yet; both the nobles and low caste are equal in their eyes; they disgrace the nobles in the presence of the ignoble; they arrest or summon to their courts the gentry, nawabs, and rajahs at the instance of a chumar, and disgrace them; wherever they go they hang the respectable people, kill their women and children; their troops dishonour the women, and dig up and carry off their buried property. They do not kill the mahajuns, but dishonour their women, and carry off their money. They disarm the people wherever they go, and when the people are disarmed, they hang, shoot, or blow them away.
‘In some places, they deceive the landholders by promising them remittance of revenue, or lessen the amount of their lease; their object is that when their government is settled, and every one becomes their subject, they can readily, according to their wish, hang, disgrace, or christianise them. Some of the foolish landholders have been deceived, but those who are wise and careful do not fall into their snares.
‘Therefore, all the Hindoos and Mohammedans who wish to save their religion, honour, life, and property, are warned to join the government forces, and not to be deceived by the British.
‘The passees (low-caste servants) should also know that the chowkeedaree (office of watchmen) is their hereditary right, but the British appoint burkundauzes in their posts, and deprive them of their rights; they should therefore kill and plunder the British and their followers, and annoy them by committing robbery and thefts in their camp.’
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Footnote 141:
The plans of Lucknow at pp. 321 and 362 will convey an idea of the situation of the city relatively to the river.
Footnote 142: 23d Fusiliers. 79th Highlanders. Rifle Brigade, two battalions. 1st Bengal Europeans. 3d Punjaub infantry. 2d Dragoon Guards. 9th Lancers. 1st, 2d, and 5th Punjaub cavalry, detachment. D’Aguilar’s troop, horse-artillery. Remington’s troop, royal artillery. M’Kinnon’s troop, royal artillery. Gibbon’s light field-battery. Middleton’s light field-battery. Head-quarters, field-artillery brigade.
Footnote 143:
Mr Russell, all day on the 6th and 7th, was watching the proceedings from a position such as has seldom before been occupied by a newspaper writer. He was on the roof of the Dil Koosha, taking his chance of such shots as came from the Martinière, and viewing Outram’s marchings and fightings by means of a telescope. Sometimes his resolution was nearly baffled by heat and dust. ‘The wind was all but intolerable—very hot and very high, and surcharged with dust. I had a little camp-table and chair placed on the top of the building, and tried to write; but the heat and the dust were intolerable. I tried to look out, but the glasses were filled with dust; a fog would be just as good a medium.’
Footnote 144:
‘He (Sir Edward Lugard) will employ for the purpose the 4th brigade, with the 38th and 53d regiments of the 3d brigade in support.
‘The 42d Highlanders will lead the attack, and seize, as a first measure, the huts and ruined houses to the left of the Martinière, as viewed from the brigadier-general’s front.
‘While the movement is being made upon the huts in question, the wall below the right heavy battery will be lined very thickly, with at least the wing of a regiment, which will be flanked again by a troop of R.A. The huts having been seized, this extended wing behind the wall will advance right across the open on the building of the Martinière, its place being taken immediately by a regiment in support, which will also move rapidly forward on the building. But the attack on the huts is not to stop there. As soon as they are in, the Highlanders must turn sharp on the building of the Martinière, also following up the retreating enemy. The heavy guns of the right battery, as well as those belonging to the troop, will search the intrenchments of the tank and the brushwood to the right while this advance is going forward.
‘The whole line of the ruined huts, Martinière, &c., having been seized, the engineers attached to the 2d division for the operation will be set to work immediately by the brigadier-general to give cover to the troops.
‘The men employed in the attack will use nothing but the bayonet. They are absolutely forbidden to fire a shot till the position is won. This must be thoroughly explained to the men, and they will be told also that their advance is flanked on every side by heavy and light artillery, as well as by the infantry fire on the right.
‘The brigadier-general will cause his whole division to dine at 12 o’clock. Inlying pickets will remain in camp. The 90th foot, now in the Mahomed Bagh, will be relieved by a regiment from Brigadier-general Franks’s division. The troops will not be allowed to pass the lines of huts and the building without orders.’
Footnote 145:
When Sir Colin started from Buntara to the Dil Koosha on the 2d of March, Mr Russell says of his personal appearance: ‘He wears a serviceable air which bespeaks confidence and resolution, and gives the notion of hard work and success. Everything about him is for service, even down to the keen-edged sabre in a coarse leather sheath, not dangling and clattering from his side and hitting the flanks of his horse from gaudy sling-belts, but tucked up compactly by a stout shoulder-belt just over his hip.... And so of his nether man; not clothed in regulation with gold stripes, but in stout brown corduroy, warranted to wear in any climate. The chief of the staff and the officers of the staff for the most part follow the example of the commander-in-chief.’
Footnote 146:
It is well to bear in mind the distinction between two great Emanbarras at Lucknow; one, called the Emanbarra of Ghazee-u-deen Hyder, just mentioned; and the other, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, between the Muchee Bhowan and the Moosa Bagh.
Footnote 147:
The graphic writer to whom we have more than once adverted was among those who hastened to the Begum Kothee as a spectator on this morning. Among the scenes that met his view he said: ‘I saw one of the fanatics, a fine old sepoy with a grizzled moustache, lying dead in the court, a sword-cut across his temple, a bayonet-thrust through his neck, his thigh broken by a bullet, and his stomach slashed open, in a desperate attempt to escape. There had been five or six of these fellows altogether, and they had either been surprised and unable to escape, or had shut themselves up in desperation in a small room, one of many looking out on the court. At first, attempts were made to start them by throwing in live shell. A bag of gunpowder was more successful; and out they charged, and, with the exception of one man, were shot and bayoneted on the spot. The man who got away did so by a desperate leap through a window, amid a shower of bullets and many bayonet-thrusts. Such are the common incidents of this war. From court to court of the huge pile of buildings we wandered through the same scenes—dead sepoys—blood-splashed gardens—groups of eager Highlanders, looking out for the enemy’s loopholes—more eager groups of plunderers searching the dead, many of whom lay heaped on the top of each other, amid the ruins of rooms brought down upon them by our cannon-shot. Two of these were veritable chambers of horrors. It must be remembered that the sepoys and matchlockmen wear cotton clothes, many at this time of year using thickly quilted tunics; and in each room there is a number of resais, or quilted cotton coverlets, which serve as beds and quilts to the natives. The explosion of powder sets fire to this cotton very readily, and it may be easily conceived how horrible are the consequences where a number of these sepoys and Nujeebs get into a place whence there is no escape, and where they fall in heaps by our shot. The matches of the men and the discharges of their guns set fire to their cotton clothing; it is fed by the very fat of the dead bodies; the smell is pungent and overpowering, and nauseous to a degree. I looked in at two such rooms, where, through the dense smoke, I could see piles of bodies; and I was obliged to own that the horrors of the hospital at Sebastopol were far exceeded by what I witnessed. Upwards of 300 dead were found in the courts of the palace, and, if we put the wounded carried off at 700, we may reckon that the capture of the place cost the enemy 1000 men at least. The rooms of the building round the numerous courts were for the most part small and dark, compared with the great size of the corridors and garden enclosures. The state-saloon, fitted up for durbars and entertainments, once possessed some claims to magnificence, which were, however, now lying under our feet in the shape of lustres, mirrors, pier-glasses, gilt tables, damask, silk and satin, embroidered fragments of furniture, and marble tables, over which one made his way from place to place with difficulty. The camp-followers were busily engaged in selecting and carrying away such articles as attracted their fancy—shawls, resais, cushions, umbrellas, swords, matchlocks, tom-toms or drums, pictures, looking-glasses, trumpets; but the more valuable plunder disappeared last night. It will be long before a Begum can live here in state again. Every room and wall and tower are battered and breached by our shot.’
Footnote 148:
‘It having been understood that several small pieces of ordnance captured in the city have been appropriated by individuals, all persons having such in their possession are directed at once to make them over to the commissary of ordnance in charge of the park.
‘It is reported to the commander-in-chief that the Sikhs and other native soldiers are plundering in a most outrageous manner, and refuse to give up their plunder to the guards told off for the express purpose of checking such proceedings. His excellency desires that strong parties, under the command of European officers, be immediately sent out from each native regiment to put a stop to these excesses.
‘Commanding officers of native regiments are called upon to use their best endeavours to restore order, and are held responsible that all their men who are not on duty remain in camp, and that those who are on duty do not quit their posts.
‘All native soldiers not on duty are to be confined to camp till further orders, and all who may now be on duty in the city are to be relieved and sent back to camp.
‘All commanding officers are enjoined to use their best endeavours to prevent their followers quitting camp.’
Footnote 149:
Chap. xxi. p. 369.
Footnote 150:
‘Though we are all in the town, our camp and hospital are still in the old place. While I write this in my tent in camp, the thermometer is at 100 degrees; not a breath of wind, and the flies—I can pity the Egyptians now—the tent is filled with them, and everything edible covered with them. We drink and eat flies, and in our turn are eaten by them. They nestle in your hair, and commit the most determined suicides in your tea or soup. Old-fashioned looking crickets come out of holes and stare at you; lizards run wildly across the tent; and ants by the thousand ply their wonted avocations utterly unmindful of your presence. When night arrives, it becomes a little cooler, the candles are lit, all the flies (save the suicides) have gone to roost upon the tent-poles, and you fancy that your troubles are over. Vain hope! the tent-doors are open; in flies a locust, hops into some dish, kicks himself out again, hitting you in the face, and finally bolts out at the opposite door. Then comes a flock of moths, all sizes and shapes, which dart madly at the lights. At last you put out your candle, and get into bed, when a new sound commences. Hum, hum, something soft and light settles on your face and hands: a sensation of red-hot needles intimates that the mosquitoes are upon you. The domestic flea and bug also abound; their appetites quite unimpaired by the climate. Jackals and pariah dogs yell and howl all night. Day dawns, and you have your flies down upon you lively as ever. This will give you some idea of our tent comforts.’
Footnote 151:
‘From the 2d to the 16th of March a series of masterly operations took place, by which the commander-in-chief, nobly supported in his well-laid plans of attack by the ability and skill of the general officers, and by the indomitable bravery and resolution of the officers and men of all arms, drove the rebels successively from all their strongly fortified posts, till the whole fell into the possession of our troops. That this great success should have been accomplished at so little cost of valuable lives, enhances the honour due to the leader who has achieved it.’ After mentioning the remarkable services rendered by Outram during more than five months in the Residency and the Alum Bagh, Viscount Canning could not do other than recognise the crowning service of that distinguished man, as the second in command under Campbell during the great operations of March.