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Chapter 2 – Kanhpur

June 1857

On that 30th of June – a day rendered memorable in the history of the revolt by a great event to be hereafter narrated – a new actor appeared on the scene at Allahabad. On that morning a soldier of high rank and high reputation arrived from Calcutta. His arrival would have been welcomed by all men, for good soldiers were sorely needed, but there was one adverse circumstance, which detracted from the general delight. The officer who had come up by dak, with a special commission from Government to take command of the troops advancing to the relief of Kanhpur and Lakhnao, thereby, in virtue of seniority, superseded Colonel Neill, in whom all men had a steadfast faith. Three days before the arrival of the officer who was to supersede him, he had written to the Governor-General, saying, “We are getting on well here, laying in grain and collecting carriage for Brigadier Havelock’s Brigade.” There might seem to be some taint of bitterness in these words. But Neill did not slacken in his exertions because the brigade, which he had hoped himself to command, was to be commanded by another. He had learnt some days before that it would not devolve upon him to rescue Sir Hugh Wheeler and his comrades, if already destruction had not descended upon them; but he had pushed forward his preparations for the advance with the utmost possible despatch, as though there had been no one coming, after he had borne so long the burden and heat of the day, to gather up the fruits of his toil, and to snatch from him the glory which he coveted. But recognising the chances of the service, to which every soldier must submit, he neither complained nor repined, but waited for his own time, feeling sure that it would come.

Havelock

He was no common man who had now arrived to command the brigade. Colonel Henry Havelock was a veteran officer of the Queen’s Army; but during his forty years of service he had done as much good Indian

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work, in camp and cantonment, as if he had been attached to one of the regiments of the Company in the old days, when officers did not live on furlough. He had fought in Burmah and in Afghanistan, and was familiar with nearly every great military station lying between those two extreme points. He had tested the temper of Maratha armies in Central India, and of the old Sikh battalions in the zenith of their warlike pride. He was every inch a soldier. Military glory was the passion of his life. But he was a man of the middle classes, without powerful interest or wealthy connexions, having only his own merit to recommend him; and he had risen slowly from subaltern to captain, from captain to field-officer, and now, at the age of sixty-two, he had never held an independent command; he had never been permitted to realise that great dream of his youth, that great ambition of his manhood – to head an army in the battle-field. For nearly half a century he had been sedulously studying his profession, reading every military memoir that he could obtain, English or Continental, and turning his matured knowledge to account by contributing from the wealth of his own personal experiences to the military history of his country. In a thorough, artistic knowledge of the principles of European warfare, no solder in the country surpassed him There was no disinclination anywhere to acknowledge this; but some thought that he was a theorist and a pedant, and doubted whether all his book-learning would profit him much amidst the stern realities of active service.

This mistrust was, perhaps, in some measure engendered by the fact that Henry Havelock was what in the light language of the camp was called a “saint.” A man of strong religious convictions, he had married a daughter of the great Baptist Apostle, Dr. Marshman of Srirampur. This alliance, which was one of unmixed happiness to him, was followed by his public acceptance of the tenets and formularies of the great and enlightened sect of Protestant Christianity in which his wife had been nurtured and reared. There was laughter and ridicule from the profane, but, perhaps, little surprise anywhere; for Havelock had ever been a God-fearing, self-denying man; somewhat rigid and austere; and having only Christian people to deal with, he had not hesitated to teach them to be good men as well as good soldiers. Even in his first campaign, thirty years before the period to which this History relates, the company which he commanded was known as “Havelock’s

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saints” – men who were never drunk and always ready for service. But the Christian zeal of Henry Havelock never overlaid his martial instincts. He was thoroughly persuaded in his own mind that war was righteous and carnage beautiful. And ever as years went on, and his hair grew white, and his features sharpened, and his small spare figure lost the elasticity, though never the erectness of his prime, he cherished the same strong desire to command an army in the field. He has often been likened to one of the Puritan warriors of the Great Rebellion, and it has been said that “a more simple-minded, upright, God-fearing soldier was not among Cromwell’s Ironsides229.”

He was Adjutant-General of Queen’s troops in India, when, in the cold weather of 1856–57, he was selected by Sir James Outram to command a division of the Army then embarking for Persia; and, with the permission of the Commander-in-Chief, he proceeded to Bombay to join the force with the rank of Brigadier-General. Small opportunity of gaining distinction was permitted to him, for the war speedily collapsed, and the sword was returned to the scabbard. On the 5th of April, when Havelock was mustering his division for church service, Outram announced to him that a treaty of peace had been signed. Of all the bountiful illustrations of God’s providence working in our behalf, which that eventful year witnessed, this was perhaps the most signal. It was a merciful deliverance beyond the power of words fully to express. Havelock did not then know its full significance; but in a little while he acknowledged with thanksgiving the abundant goodness of God in thus setting free so many European regiments. Quitting Mohamrah on the 15th of May, he was at Bombay on the 29th. It had been his first thought to rejoin the Head-Quartets of the Army by a landward march, but, after consulting Lord Elphinstone and his Military Secretary, it appeared to him that the journey was not practicable; so he took ship for Galle, hoping there to catch a steamer for Calcutta. Off Kultura, in Ceylon, the vessel went aground at night, and was in infinite danger of going to pieces before assistance could come from shore. Mercifully delivered from the waves, he made his way to Galle, found a steamer there, which had been despatched for European troops, and embarked for Madras. There he found that Sir

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Patrick Grant, the Commander-in-Chief of that Presidency, had been summoned to Calcutta, and was waiting for the Fire Queen to convey him to the Hugli.

Sir Patrick Grant

It was of no small importance that Lord Canning should receive the advice and assistance of an experienced officer of the Bengal Army, acquainted with the character and the temper of the Native soldiery and versed in all military details Sir Patrick Grant had been Adjutant-General of the Army of the chief Presidency; he had seen hard service in the field; and he was held in esteem both as a good soldier and as a ripe military administrator. When, therefore, tidings of General Anson’s death reached Lord Canning230, he placed himself at once in communication with Grant. Having previously telegraphed to Madras, on the 6th of June the Governor-General wrote to him, saying, “My first impulse was to send for you to fill the place of acting Commander-in-Chief, and every day’s deliberate consideration has confirmed it. I am satisfied that there is no man who can so well serve the State at this crisis as yourself, and I earnestly beg you to come to Calcutta as soon as you can. Should this not reach you in time to allow of your coming by the next packet, perhaps a sailing vessel could be taken up, by which time would be saved. But you will judge of this. I would have sent a steamer for you two days ago, but I have none here but the Assaye, and she must go to Rangun for the 29th as soon as she is coaled. The storm has not begun to clear yet, nor will it till Dehli falls.” So Grant and Havelock, embarking together, steamed up the Bay to Calcutta, and arrived there on the 17th of June. It was a source of great personal happiness to the latter that he was accompanied by his son, then a subaltern of the 10th Foot, in whom already were discernible all the instincts and capacities which combine to make a good soldier.

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For a man eager for military service on an extended field of action, no time could be more propitious. Welcome, indeed, to Lord Canning was the advent of so tried and capable a soldier as Havelock; and Patrick Grant, who well knew his worth, was forward to recommend him for immediate employment. News had come that Banaras had been saved; but the fate of Allahabad was still doubtful, and Kanhpur and Lakhnao were girt around by deadly peril. It was the work of Government at this time, not only to push forward every available European soldier, but to take steps to turn those reinforcements to the best account by wise and skilful organisation. Havelock had already mapped out a plan of operations, the formation of a movable column, acting upwards from the Lower Provinces, being a part of it; and this column he was commissioned to command, with the rank of Brigadier-General. He was directed, “after quelling all disturbances at Allahabad, not to lose a moment in supporting Sir Henry Lawrence at Lakhnao and Sir Hugh Wheeler at Kanhpur,” and to “take prompt measures for dispersing and utterly destroying all mutineers and insurgents.” The sovereign importance of swift action was earnestly impressed upon him, and it was added that the Commander-in-Chief, having “entire confidence in his well-known and often-proved high ability, vigour, and judgment,” refrained from giving more definite instructions, and left him to shape his movements according to the circumstances that might develop themselves231.

The ambitious hopes of a life were now on the point of absolute fulfilment. He had an independent command; no one to control his movements in the field; no one to hamper his individual judgment. But with all his self-reliance, he rested, in his human weakness, more on the mighty arm of the God of Battles. “May God,” he said, “give me wisdom to fulfil the expectations of Government, and to restore tranquillity in the disturbed districts.” There were some circumstances against him. It was the worst season of the year for military operations. The alternations of scorching heat and drenching rain, which are the atmospherical necessities of an Indian July, were i trying in the extreme to the European soldier. His force was to consist of four regiments of Infantry, with Cavalry and Artillery. Two of these regiments, the 64th and the 78th Highlanders, had belonged to his old Persian division; and this was

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a source of satisfaction to him. But he was sorely distressed. when he thought of the want of horse, the want of guns, and the want of gunners, and the certain scarcity of carriage which would perplex him at Allahabad, where his force was to be formed, owing to the heavy loss of Commissariat cattle which had been sustained by us during the disorders of that place. Still, full of heart and hope, he took his leave of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief, and turned his back on Calcutta, proceeding upwards by dak, on the 25th of June.

Havelock and Neill

And now, on the morning of the last day of the month, he was breakfasting with Neill at Allahabad. Much had these two fine soldiers to say to each other. Neill had to report what had been recently done at Allahabad. His instructions to Renaud and Spurgin were brought under review, and were cordially approved by Havelock. Nothing could have been better than the arrangements which had been made for the despatch of this vanguard of the relieving army, or more carefully considered than all the instructions which had been issued232. It was agreed that Renaud should advance that evening, but that the steamer which was to carry Spurgin and his detachment should not steam out at once, as its progress would be more rapid than that of the marching column, whose advance it was intended to cover.

Advance of Renaud’s column

So Renaud, leading the van of the relieving force, that after long delay was sent on to save our imperilled people at Kanhpur, pressed on, proud of his commission, and eager to do the bidding of his chief. It was a grand movement in advance – but, like many of our grand movements, the heart-breaking words “Too

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Late” were written in characters of darkest night across it. On they marched for three days, leaving everywhere behind them as they went traces of the retributory power of the English in desolated villages and corpses dangling from the branches of trees233. But on the 2nd or 3rd of July234, a Native spy, sent by Sir Henry Lawrence from Lakhnao, came into Renaud’s camp, and announced that nothing could now be done for the relief of Kanhpur. Wheeler had capitulated, and all his people had been mercilessly destroyed.

This miserable intelligence was received with different emotions by Neill and Havelock. The former was long unwilling to believe that Kanhpur had fallen. He looked upon the story as an invention of the enemy intended to arrest the forward movement of the Force which the English were equipping for its relief. His wish was father to the thought; for, although he could not reproach himself for the delay that had occurred in the despatch of reinforcements to Wheeler’s help – delays, which had the full sanction of the highest military authority in

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the country235 – he could not, without reluctance, accept the fact that those delays had shattered all his hopes of succouring our distressed people, and had turned the relieving force into an army of retribution. But Havelock had full faith in the disastrous story. Two spies came into Allahabad. They spoke of what they had seen. Examined separately, they recited the same details; there were no contradictions or discrepancies in their evidence. They amply confirmed the reports which had reached Renaud’s Camp, and had been sent in by him to Allahabad. Taking these different views of the actual position of affairs in advance, the two soldiers differed with respect to the course to be pursued. Havelock despatched orders to Renaud to stand fast. But Neill was eager for him to push forward, and telegraphed to the Commander-in-Chief remonstrances against delay. Havelock argued that if Kanhpur had fallen, the troops that had besieged it would be released for action elsewhere, and would assuredly move down in immense numbers to intercept the advance of the column from Allahabad, and utterly to overwhelm it. But Neill, still thinking the report a ruse of the enemy, eagerly contended that all would be lost if we faltered at such a moment. Both were right in their several deductions Time proved that Havelock was right as to the facts. Kanhpur had fallen, and the garrison had been destroyed almost to a man. How it happened – how for more than three weeks the little band of heroic Englishmen had stood their ground against the teeming multitude of the enemy, and how at last treachery had accomplished what could not be done by honest fighting, is now to be told. It is the saddest chapter in the whole history of the war – but, perhaps, the brightest. However feeble the recital, no Englishman can ever read it without the profoundest emotions both of pity and of pride.

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The City of Kanhpur

The city or town of Kanhpur had nothing in or about it to make it famous in story. It had no venerable traditions, no ancient historical remains, no architectural attractions, to enable it to rank with Banaras or Agra. Commercially it shone only as the city of the workers-in-leather, It was a great emporium for harness of all kinds, and for boots and shoes alike of the Asiatic and the European types of civilisation. If not better, these articles were cheaper than elsewhere, and few English officers passed through the place without supplying themselves with leather-ware. But life and motion were never wanting to the place, especially on the river-side, where many stirring signs of mercantile activity were ever to be seen. The broad waters of the Ganges, near the great ghaut, floated vessels of all sizes and all shapes, from the stately venetianed pinnace to the rude open “dinghy,” or wherry; and there clustering about the landing-steps, busy with or idly watching the debarkation of produce and goods of varied kinds, or waiting for the ferry-boats that crossed and re-crossed the Ganges, were to be seen a motley assemblage of people of different nations and different callings and different costumes; whilst a continual Babel of many voices rose from the excited crowd. In the streets of the town itself there was little to evoke remark. But, perhaps, among its sixty thousand inhabitants there may have been, owing to its contiguity to the borders of Oudh, rather a greater strength than common of the “dangerous classes.”

The Cantonment

The station of Kanhpur was a large, straggling place, six or seven miles in extent. The British lines stretched along the southern bank of the Ganges, which about midway between the two extremities of the cantonment, was spanned by a bridge of boats, leading from a point opposite the city to the Lakhnao road on the other bank. There was nothing peculiar to Kanhpur in the fact that the private dwelling-houses and public offices of the English were scattered about in the most promiscuous manner, as though they had fallen from the skies or been projected by an earthquake. At the north-western extremity, lying between the road to Bithu and the road to Dehli, were the principal houses of the civilians, the Treasury, the Gaol, and the Mission premises. These buildings lay beyond the lines of the military cantonment, in the extreme north-western corner of which was the Magazine. In the centre, between the city and the river, were the Church,

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the Assembly rooms, the Theatre, the Telegraph office, and other public edifices; whilst scattered about here and there, without any apparent system, were the principal military buildings, European and Native; the Native lines lying for the most part in the rear towards the south-eastern point of the cantonment. It was the essential condition of an English cantonment that it should straggle, and there was not one more straggling than Kanhpur. But, on the whole, it was not a disagreeable, nor, indeed, an inconvenient place, although the distances to be travelled were great and the heat of the summer months was excessive. Even to the dust, which, except during the rainy season, was prodigious, the residents became accustomed after a little while; or, if they did not, they reconciled themselves to it by thinking that the station had many great social advantages, that it was well provided with means of amusement upon the most approved principles of western civilisation, and that “Europe goods” of all kinds were almost as plentiful as in Calcutta.

For during a long series of years Kanhpur had been one of the most important military stations in India. There were few officers either of the Queen’s or the Company’s Army who, during the period of their Eastern service, had not, at some time or other, done duty in that vast cantonment. But the extension of our Empire towards the Afghan frontier had greatly diminished its importance as a military position; and although the subsequent annexation of Oudh had done something to restore the faded pretentions of the Kanhpur division, the station itself only suffered further decline. It was still the Head Quarters of the Division, and the commanding General resided there with the Division Staff. But there were no longer European Regiments, or even an European Regiment, in its barracks. A great strength of Native soldiery garrisoned the place, with some sixty European Artillerymen, and afterwards sixty men of Her Majesty’s 84th Regiment and a few Madras Fusiliers, whom Tucker and Ponsonby had sent on from Banaras236. The 1st, the 53rd, and the 56th Sipahi Regiments

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of Infantry were there, and the 2nd Regiment of Sipahi Cavalry – in all, about three thousand men. And it was computed that the aggregate population of the Cantonment, with its vast assemblage of camp-followers, was nearly equal to that of the Town.

Sir Hugh Wheeler

The Kanhpur Division was then commanded by General Sir Hugh Wheeler. He was an old and a distinguished officer of the Company’s Army. He had seen much good service in Afghanistan and in the Panjab, and had won his spurs under Gough in the second Sikh War, in command of a division of his army. No man knew the Sipahis better, and no man was more respected by them. But he had known them a little too long. Looking back through more than half-a-century of good service, he could remember how they fought in the good old days of Lake and Ochterlony. There was nothing, indeed, to be said against him except that he bore the burden of more than seventy years. He bore it lightly, succumbing little to the pressure. Still it was there; and it was a necessity that he should have lost beneath it some measure at least of the vigour and energy of his prime. He was of short stature and of light weight; and to the last he was a good and active horseman. Accompanied by his daughters, he often went out in pursuit of a jackal, with a few imported hounds, which he kept for the purpose237; and there was still enough of the fire of the sportsman in the ashes of the veteran to suffer him, in the crisp air of the early morning, to enjoy the excitement of the chase.

But General Wheeler, though far advanced in years, had lost none of the clearness of his mental vision. He had not become blind to the failings of the Sipahi; he had not encased himself in that hard incredulity which forbade many to believe it possible that the Native soldier could ever he “untrue to his salt.” Ever since the first symptoms of disquietude at Barrackpur and Barhampur had been manifested, he had watched narrowly the Sipahi regiments under his immediate command, looking for indications of a like temper among them238. And when news

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came of the revolt of the Native Regiments at Mirath and at Dehli, he saw clearly that it would demand the exercise of all his influence to prevent a similar explosion at Kanhpur. Then he lamented that hard necessity had stripped the station of European troops, in order that Oudh and other newly-acquired territories might be defended. Annexation was doing its work. We had extended our Empire without increasing our Army; and so it happened that many of the most important stations between the new and the old capital of India were, saving a few English gunners, utterly without European troops. It would be difficult to conceive any position more dispiriting than Wheeler’s in that fatal month of May. Lakhnao had got the regiment, which might otherwise have been stationed at Kanhpur; and not only was the latter negatively, but positively, weakened by the arrangement, for all the human impedimenta, the women, the children, and the invalids of the 32nd Queen’s, had been left at that place. And there were many besides these. Kanhpur abounded in excellent house accommodation, as well as in public buildings of all kinds; and not merely the wives and children of our civil and military functionaries, high and low, but the families also of European or Eurasian merchants and traders were gathered there in large numbers, and the grievous responsibility of protecting all these helpless ones then fell upon the aged General. His half-a-century of service had brought him no such work as this.

State of the Soldiery

There was much then going on in the Lines of which, doubtless, the General knew nothing; but now and then, as the month of May advanced, unpleasant revelations were made to him through his officers. It did not appear that the Sipahis were disaffected or even discontented, but, as in other places of which I have spoken, a great fear was settling down upon our Native soldiery. The most extravagant stories were current among them. The Hindu and Muhammadan troops on a given

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day were to be assembled upon an undermined parade-ground, and the whole of them blown into the air. This and other fables equally monstrous were freely circulated among the Sipahis and readily believed. Nothing could be more alarming to one well acquainted with the character of the Native soldier than the free acceptance of stories of this kind, which showed that the old bonds of confidence were utterly broken; and Sir Hugh Wheeler, therefore, plainly saw that the danger was one which it would be most difficult to arrest, for nothing is so intractable as a panic. For some days after the news from Mirath and Dehli had reached Kanhpur, he had hope that the public mind might be reassured; but this soon passed away. It was plain to him, as time wore on, that the excitement rather increased than diminished. And the peril which stared him in the face was not merely the peril of mutinous soldiery; he was threatened also by an insurgent population, which might have overwhelmed him. And it seemed to him in this emergency that the best means of defending the lives of the Christian communities and maintaining, though only on a narrow space, the authority of the Christian Government, until succours should arrive to enable him to act on the offensive, was by throwing up some defensive works, within which the English might gather themselves together, and with the aid of their guns keep the enemy at a distance. Beyond this there was nothing that he could do; and it was not easy to determine how even this little was to be done.

The question of defence

Of all the defensible points in the Cantonment, it was held, in the first instance, that the Magazine in the north-western corner of the military lines was that best adapted, in the exigency which had arisen, for a defensive position. It almost rested on the river, and it was surrounded by walls of substantial masonry. But instead of this, Sir Hugh Wheeler selected a spot about six miles lower down to the south-east, at some distance from the river, and not far from the Sipahis’ huts. There were quarters of some kind for our people within two long hospital barracks (one wholly of masonry, the other with a thatched roof) – single-storied buildings with verandahs running round them, and with the usual outhouses attached. This spot he began to intrench, to fortify with artillery, and to provision with supplies of different kinds. Orders went forth to the Commissariat, and their efforts were supplemented by the managers

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of the regimental messes, who freely sent in their stores of beer and wine, hermetically-sealed dainties, and other creature-comforts that might serve to mitigate the evils of the brief detention which was believed to be the worst that could befall us. But the aggregate amount of food was lamentably ill-proportioned to the exigencies of the occasion. The Native contractors failed, as they often do fail at such times, and the stores which they sent in fell short of the figures in the paper-indents. All else was of the same kind – weak, scanty, and insufficient. As to the so-called fortifications, they were so paltry that an English subaltern could have ridden over them on a cast-horse from the Company’s Stud. The earthworks were little more than four feet high, and were not even bullet-proof at the crest. The apertures for the artillery exposed both our guns and our gunners, whilst an enemy in adjacent buildings might find cover on all sides. Not, however, from ignorance or negligence did this insufficiency arise. The last weeks of the dry season were upon us, and the earth was so hard that it was difficult to dig it, and so friable when dug that the necessary cohesion was almost unattainable.

It has often been said that Wheeler ought to have chosen, the Magazine as the centre of his lines of defence, and that all the subsequent evil arose from the absence of this obvious precaution. The considerations which suggested themselves to the military critics were not absent from his own mind. But there was one paramount thought which over-ruled them. The first step towards the occupation of the Magazine would have been the withdrawal of the Sipahi guard; and to have attempted this would certainly have given the signal for an immediate rising. With the small European force at his disposal it would have been manifestly unwise to provoke a collision. If the first blow were to be struck by our own people, it would, he believed, have immediate results of a far more disastrous character than those which were likely to arise from a spontaneous revolt against British authority, detached from those feelings of animosity and resentment which might have been engendered by a first offensive movement on our part. It must be admitted that the spot selected for our refuge was, indeed, but a miserable place for the protection of a large body of Christian people against the thousands and tens of thousands that might surge up to destroy them. But it was not believed, at that time, that Wheeler and his followers would be called

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upon to face more than the passing danger of a rising of the “budmashes” of the city and the bazaars. All the information that reached him confirmed the belief that if the regiments should mutiny they would march off at once to Dehli. And he was in almost daily expectation of being recruited from below by reinforcements sent upwards from Calcutta. All that was needed, it then appeared to the General and to others, was a place of refuge, for a little space, during the confusion that would arise on the first outbreak of the military revolt, when, doubtless, there would be plunder and devastation. It was felt that the Sipahis had at that time no craving after European blood, and that their departure would enable Wheeler and his Europeans to march to Allahabad, taking all the Christian people with him239.

Help from Lakhnao

Whilst these precautions were being taken, the General sent an express to Lakhnao requesting Sir Henry Lawrence to lend him for a while a company or two of the 32nd Regiment, as he had reason to expect an immediate rising at Kanhpur240. Little could Lawrence

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spare a single man from the troublous capital of Oudh; but those were days when Christian gentlemen rose to noble heights of generosity and self-sacrifice; and Henry Lawrence, who at any time, would have divided his cloak with another, or snatched the helmet with the last drop of water from his own lips, was not one to hesitate when such a demand was made upon him. He sent all that he could send – eighty-four men of the 32nd, Queen’s – packed closely in such wheeled carriages as could be mustered. He sent also two detachments of the Oudh Horse to keep open the road between Kanhpur and Agra, and render such other assistance as Irregular Horse well commanded can render, if only they be true to their leaders. A party of Oudh Artillery accompanied them with two field guns, under Lieutenant Ashe – a young officer of rare promise, which was soon to ripen into heroic performance241.

Fletcher Hayes

With these detachments went Captain Fletcher Hayes, Military Secretary to Sir Henry Lawrence – a man of great capacity and great courage; in the prime of his life and the height of his daring. He had graduated in one of our great English universities, and was an erudite scholar and an accomplished gentleman. He was now sent to Kanhpur to ascertain the real state of affairs there for the information of his Chief. So he mounted his horse and started with the Cavalry, giving up his carriage, in which he had at first intended to travel, to a party of European soldiers: – “For,” he wrote, “as they represented three hundred rounds of balled ammunition ready at any moment for anybody, I thought that they were of far more importance than any number of military secretaries.” All through the day, from dawn till some hours after sunset, they toiled on, suffering severely from the intense heat and the parching thirst. But they reached Kanhpur without disaster; and in a little while Hayes had taken in the situation and had flung himself into the

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work that lay before him, as if he had been one of the garrison himself.

The Nana Sahib

And when the English authority at Kanhpur appealed to Henry Lawrence for assistance, as though by some strange fatality it were doomed that aid should be sought, in the crisis which had arisen, from the two extremes of humanity, an appeal was made to our neighbour, the Rajah of Bithur.

Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, after the visit to Lakhnao, recorded in my first volume242, had returned to his home at Bithur. He had, doubtless, clearly discerned the feeling in the Oudh capital – nay, throughout the whole province. He knew well that there was a great excitement – it might be of danger, it might be of fear – alive among the Sipahis all over Upper India. He felt that he hated the English, and that his time had come. But all that was passing in the mind of the disappointed Maratha was as a sealed book to the English. Of course the whole story of the disappointment was on record. Had it not gone from Calcutta to London – from London back to Calcutta; and from Calcutta again to Kanhpur? And did it not cover many sheets of foolscap? Military men might know little of the story which has been told in this book243, and to civilians a rejected memorial was so common a thing, that even to the best-informed of them there could have appeared to be no earthly reason why Dana Pant should not accept his position quietly, submissively, resignedly, after the fashion of his kind, and to be ever after loyal to the Government that had rejected his claims. So when danger threatened them, it appeared to the authorities at Kanhpur that assistance might be obtained from the Nana Sahib. For although Lord Dalhousie and the Company had refused to increase his store, he had abundance of money and all that money could purchase, including horses and elephants and a large body of retainers – almost, indeed, a little army of his own. He had been in friendly intercourse with our officers up to this very time, and no one doubted that as he had the power, so also he had the will to be of substantial use to us in the hour of our trouble. It was one of those strange revenges, with which the stream of time is laden. The “arbiter of others’ fate”

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had suddenly become “a suppliant for his own;” and the representatives of the British Government were suing to one recently a suitor cast in our own high political courts. The madness of this was seen at Lakhnao; but it was not seen at Kanhpur. So the alliance of the Nana Sahib was sought as an element of strength in our hour of trouble244.

It was in this wise: To secure the safety of the Government treasure was necessarily at such a time one of the main objects of both the military and the civil authorities. If it could be lodged within the intrenchments it would be out of the grasp of the soldiery, who, as our officers well knew, on the first open manifestation of revolt, would assuredly make for the Treasury and gorge themselves with the spoil. But when there was mention made of an intention to remove the coin, the Sipahis, by whom it was guarded, were outwardly all loyalty and devotion, and declared that it was safe in their hands. The reason of this was manifest; and Wheeler, anxious above all things not to precipitate a collision, shrunk from insisting upon a measure which would in all probability have been violently resisted. ‘ To counteract any danger from this source, it was considered a good stroke of policy to avail ourselves of the assistance of a party of the armed followers of the Nana, Sahib, who had been in frequent intercourse with Mr Hillersdon, the Collector, and who had smilingly assured that officer of his sympathy and friendship The Treasury stood at a little distance from the Bithur road, some miles away from the military lines; and very soon some two hundred of the retainers of the Nana, with a couple of guns, were posted at Nawabganj, which commanded both the Treasury and the Magazine245.

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The Place of Refuge

May 22

This was on the 22nd of May. On the preceding day the reinforcements from Lakhnao had arrived; and about the same time, on the suggestion of the. General, the women and children and non-combatants had betaken themselves to the place of refuge within the improvised intrenchments. There was then a scene of frightful confusion, which one, who had just arrived from Lakhnao, thus graphically described. “The General,” wrote Fletcher Hayes in a private letter to Secretary Edmonstone, “was delighted to hear of the arrival of the Europeans, and soon from all sides, I heard of reports of all sorts and kinds which people kept bringing to the General until nearly one A.M., on the 22nd, when we retired to rest. At six A.M. I went out to have a look at the various places, and since I have been in India never witnessed so frightful a scene of confusion, fright, and bad arrangement as the European barracks presented. Four guns were in position loaded, with European artillerymen in night-caps and wide-awakes and side-arms on, hanging to the guns in groups – looking like melodramatic buccaneers. People of all kinds, of every colour, sect, and profession, were crowding into the barracks.

May 22–23

Whilst I was there, buggies, palki-gharrees, vehicles of all sorts, drove up and discharged cargoes of writers, tradesmen, and a miscellaneous mob of every complexion, from white to tawny – all in terror of the imaginary foe; ladies sitting down at the rough mess-tables in the barracks, women suckling infants, ayahs and children in all directions, and – officers too! In short, as I have written to Sir Henry, I saw quite enough to convince me that if any insurrection took or takes place, we shall have no one to thank but ourselves, because we have now shown to the Natives how very easily we can become frightened, and when frightened utterly helpless. During that day (the 22nd) the shops in all the bazaars were shut, four or five times, and all day the General was worried to death by people running up to report improbable

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stories, which in ten minutes more were contradicted by others still more monstrous. All yesterday (23rd) the same thing went on; and I wish that you could see the European barracks and the chapel close to it – and their occupants. I believe that if anything will keep the Sipahis quiet, it will be, next to Providence, the great respect which they all have for General Wheeler, and for him alone. He has all his doors and windows open all night, and has never thought of moving or of allowing his family to move. Brigadier Jack, Parker, the cantonment magistrate, and Wiggins, the Judge Advocate-General, are, I believe, the only people who sleep in their houses246.”

Temper of the 2nd Cavalry

The chief source of immediate danger at this time was the temper of the 2nd Cavalry. The place in the Army List assigned to this regiment had, for some time been a blank. It was the number of the regiment which had disgraced itself at Parwandarah, and had been ignominiously disbanded; and it was not until 1850, that the number had been restored to the List of the Bengal Army247. That the troopers were ripe for revolt was certain, for already they were quietly making arrangements to send away their families and their property, and soon they had nothing in their huts but their drinking-vessels. They stood, as it were, with their loins girt about for action, and Wheeler had more than once credible information that they were about immediately to strike. It was believed that, differing from the infantry regiments at Kanhpur, these cavalry Sipahis included in their programme the murder of their officers. There were many Muhammadans in the corps, and Muhammadan feeling was then strong in the place. There had been great gatherings at the mosques, in which the Musalman Sipahis had taken a forward part, for the full discussion of the crisis. And it was thought, as had before been thought, in other places, that the festival of the In, on the 24th of May, would prove the appointed day for a great Muhammadan demonstration. But it passed over as quietly as any other day. There was the usual interchange of courtesies and compliments, as in quiet times, between the two races; and on one side, at least,

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there was much self-congratulation that the anniversary was well over.

Progress of mistrust

But all this time, as the arrangements were proceeding apace for the security of our place of refuge, the general feeling of mistrust was fixing itself in the hearts of the soldiery. The principle of “trusting all in all or not at all” was in those days the only one to be worked out in action with any prospect of success. There was strength in striking the first blow with a heavy mailed hand. There was strength also in perfect quietude and composure. But in any middle course there was weakness; and whether in doing or in suffering, “to be weak is to be miserable.” When, therefore, Wheeler began to throw up defences which could not defend him, and to betray his mistrust of the Sipahis, without having it in his power effectually to arrest the danger, of which such action indicated the dread, there was nothing but misery before him. Indeed, when our people were seen wildly leaving their homes and seeking safety either within our so-called intrenchments or in some strongly-built edifices in the neighbourhood, and the Sipahis beheld the English artillerymen placing guns in position, the end was certain, and the beginning of the end had come. Some regarded the movement as an indication of fear; some looked upon it as a menace. All regarded it as a proof of mistrust. Confidence was at an end; there was a deadly breach between the officer and the soldier.

May 24–31

But during that last week of May, whatever plots and perils might have been fermenting beneath the surface, outwardly everything was calm and reassuring. And the brave old General began to think that the worst was over, and that he would soon be able to assist Lawrence at Lakhnao.

June 1

On the 1st of June, he wrote to Lord Canning, saying, “I have this day sent eighty transport-train bullocks in relays at four stages for the purpose of bringing up Europeans from Allahabad; and in a few – a very few days, I shall consider Kanhpur safe – nay, that I may aid Lakhnao, if need be.” And he added, “I have left my house and am residing day and night in my tent, pitched within our intrenched position, and I purpose continuing to do so until tranquillity is restored. The heat is dreadful. I think that the fever has abated; but the excitement and distrust are such that every act, however simple or honestly intended, is open to misapprehension and misrepresentation. My difficulties have

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been as much from the necessity of making others act with circumspection and prudence as from any disaffection on the part of the troops. In their present state, a single injudicious step might set the whole in a blaze. It is my good fortune in the present crisis, that I am well known to the whole Native Army as one who, although strict, has ever been just and considerate to them to the best of his ability, and that in a service of fifty-two years I have ever respected their rights and their prejudices. Pardon, my Lord, this apparent egotism. I state the fact solely as accounting for my success in preserving tranquillity at a place like Kanhpur. Indeed, the men themselves have said that my name amongst them had alone been the cause of their not following the example so excitingly set them248.”

Help to Lakhnao

And, indeed, this pleasurable anticipation of reciprocating Henry Lawrence’s chivalrous generosity was not so much empty talk. Part of the detachment of the 84th, which had been sent from Banaras249, was now passed on to Lakhnao. And as they crossed the Bridge of Boats and set their faces towards the Oudh capital, there was inward laughter and self-congratulation under many a dusky skin at the thought of what the English were doing. It was hard to say, in that conjuncture, at what particular point European manhood was most needed, but it is certain that in that intrenched position at Kanhpur it was weary work for those who kept watch and ward, day and night, with loaded guns, behind the low mud walls we had raised for our defence250.

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And bitter was the grief, a few days later, that a single white soldier had been suffered to leave Kanhpur.

Working of the plot

For when the month of June came in, the revolt of the Native Brigade was merely a question of time – a question of precedence. It was to be; but it was not quite settled how it was to be – how it was to begin. There was not that perfect accord between the regiments out of which simultaneous action could arise. Some were eager to strike at once; some counselled delay251. The Cavalry troopers, always the most excitable and impetuous, were ready for the affray before their more slowly-moving comrades of the Infantry. But everywhere in the Lines and in the Bazaars the plot was working. And the plotters were not only in the Lines and the Bazaars. Out at Nawabganj, where the retainers of the Bithur Rajah were posted, and where the Rajah himself had fixed his quarters for a little while to do the bidding of his friends the Faringhis, were the germs of a cruel conspiracy. To Dundu Pant and to the ministers, Hindu and Muhammadan, who surrounded him, there could be no more grateful tidings than those which came from the Sipahis’ quarters; and as they looked at the Treasury, the Magazine, and the Gaol, which lay so temptingly at hand, it seemed to them that the work was easy.

Tika Singh

Some of these retainers were in communication with the men of the 2nd Cavalry; and it is stated that arrangements were soon made for an interview between one of the Cavalry subahdars, an active agent of sedition, and the Nana Sahib of Bithur. It is not easy to extract from the mass of Native evidence – often second-hand reports derived from interested or prejudiced sources – the true history of all the secret meetings which have been described, and to feel in such a case the confidence which should never be absent from historical assertion252. But it is stated that during the first days of June

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there were frequent interviews between the chiefs of the rebellious Sipahis and the inmates of the Bithur Palace; and that it was known to the soldiery before they broke into rebellion that the Nana was with them, and that all his resources would be thrown into the scale on the side of the nascent rebellion.

June 4

Outbreak of the Sipahis

On the night of the 4th of June, the 2nd Cavalry and the 1st Infantry Regiment were ready for immediate action. The troopers had got to horse and the footmen were equipping themselves. As ever, the former were the first to strike253. It was after the wonted fashion. There was a firing of pistols, with perhaps no definite object; then a conflagration which lit up the sky and told our people in the intrenchments that the game of destruction had commenced; and then a mad nocturnal ride to Nawab- ganj, scenting the treasure and the stores in the Magazine.

Colonel Ewart

The 1st Regiment soon followed them. In vain their colonel, calling them his “babalog,” his children, had implored them, in affectionate, parental tones, not to stain themselves by such wickedness. It was too late. The Sipahis did not wish to harm their officers, but they were bent on rebellion. They hurried after the Cavalry, setting their faces towards the north-west, where lay the Treasury, the Gaol, and the Magazine, with Dehli in the distance. Thither as they went they burnt, and plundered, and spread devastation along

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their line of march, but left the Christian people behind them as though not lusting for their blood.

Arrived in the neighbourhood of Nawabganj, the Sipahis of the two regiments fraternised with the retainers of the Nana. The Treasury was sacked, the gates of the Gaol were thrown open and the prisoners released. The public offices were fired and the records burnt. The Magazine, with all its supplies of ammunition, and the priceless wealth of heavy artillery, fell into the hands of the mutineers254. The spoil was heaped upon elephants and on carts, which the troopers had brought from their Lines; and the one thought of the soldiery was a hurried march to the great imperial centre of the rebellion. But where were the two other regiments? The Sipahis at Nawabganj had begun to doubt whether their comrades were coming to join them255. All through the hours of darkness and of dawn the 53rd and the 56th gave no sign of comradeship. Their officers had spent the night with them in their Lines, and from two in the morning till after sunrise the regiments had been on parade, every officer with his own company. Then they were dismissed;

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the men took off their uniforms, and prepared for their morning meal. The English officers went to the intrenchments or to their own bungalows. Then the latent fire of mutiny began to spread from man to man, from company to company. Some emissaries from the 2nd Cavalry had come in to tempt them. Their share of the spoil might be lost by delay. It might have been that no presence, no influence of English officers could then have kept the regiments true to their allegiance. The experiment was not tried, but another was substituted for it. Wheeler’s intrenched position commanded the parade-ground, and a long far-reaching gun was brought to bear upon the Sipahis’ Lines. They broke at the third discharge of the British cannon, and made their way in wild confusion to Nawabganj. They broke, but not all; some, still true to their old masters, followed them into the intrenchments, and were faithful to the end of their lives.

The first march to Dehli

It was still the game of the Kanhpur mutineers to make their way straight to Dehli, to join the regiments already assembled there, and to serve the cause of the King. And they gladly recognised the Nana Sahib as their leader. They had money and munitions of war and carriage for the march, and they expected great things from the restored sovereignty of the Mughul. But Bandit Pant, stimulated by those about him, and chiefly, it is thought, by the wily Muhammadan, Azimullah, looked askance at the proposed centralisation of rebellion, and urged upon the Sipahi leaders that something better might be done. They had made one march to the imperial city, but halted at Kalianpur, whither the Nana had accompanied them. Then they began to listen to the voice of the charmer, and to waver in their resolution. The Bithur people might be right. It might be better to march back to Kanhpur256.

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Designs of the Nana Sahib

Wise in his generation, the Nana Sahib saw clearly the danger of an eclipse. To march to Dehli would be to place himself in a subordinate position – perhaps to deprive him of all substantive authority under the baneful influence of Muhammadan jealousy. The troops might desert him. The Emperor might repudiate him. In the neighbourhood of Kanhpur he would be supreme master of the situation. He knew well the weakness of the English. He knew well that at Lakhnao the danger which beset us was such that no assistance could be looked for from that quarter, and that from none of the large towns on the Ganges and the Jamnah – as Banaras, Allahabad, and Agra – had Wheeler any prospect of immediate relief. With four disciplined Native regiments and all his Bithur retainers at his back – with gulls and great stores of ammunition and treasure in abundance, what might he not do? If the range of his own imagination did not take in at once the grand idea of the restoration of the Peshwaship, there were those at his elbow to suggest the prospect of such a consummation. He had been told by Azimullah that the power of the English in Europe was declining. He knew that we were weak in India – that vast breadths of country, over which Rebellion was running riot, lay stripped of European troops. Now, he felt, was the time to strike. The game was in his own hands. The ambition and the malice of the Maratha might be gratified at one blow.

At Kalianpur, therefore, the Nana arrested the march of the mutineers to Dehli. It is not very clearly known what arguments and persuasions were used by him or his ministers to induce the mutinous regiments to turn back to Kanhpur. It is probable that, infirm of purpose, ductile, unstable, and wanting leaders with force of character to shape their plans, they were induced by promises of large gain, to turn back to the place which they had quitted, and which lay, still with much wealth,

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at their mercy. Kanhpur had not been half gutted. And, perhaps, there were ties, of a better, or at least a tenderer kind, which lured some of the Sipahis who were still men, back to their old haunts. In all such cases, it may be assumed that the mass of the soldiery, huddle confusedly to their doom – objectless, rudderless, perplexed, and bewildered, not knowing what is to come. The blind impulse of the moment, perhaps a sudden contagion of fear, not the strength of a steadfast conviction, or a settled purpose, swept them along, like a flock of scared sheep on a dusty road.

But there was no such want of purpose among those who swept the flock back to Kanhpur. There were teeming brains and strong wills and resolute activities among the people of the Bahia Palace. It commonly happens that we know but little about the individual manhood which shapes events in the camps of our Native enemies. The chief actor is not always of the highest rank – he, in whose name the deeds, which make History, are done. And, perhaps, we shall never know what foul promptings and instigations were the prologue of the great tragedy then about to be enacted. But from this time Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, stood forth in the eyes of men as our arch enemy; and with him were Bala Rao and Baba Bhat, his brothers; the Rao Sahib, his nephew; and Tantia Topi, who had been his playfellow in former days, and had grown into his counsellor and his guide. And ever by his side, linked to him by bonds of pitiless hatred for the English, the astute Muhammadan, Azimullah, the sometime table-servant of an English master, who had pleaded the Nana’s cause in England and made love to English ladies. He had played his game so well that no one had suspected him. Only a few days before the regiments had broken into rebellion, he had been in friendly and familiar intercourse with English officers, veiling his hatred under the suavity of his manners and the levity of his speech.

June 6

The attack threatened

But as day dawned on Saturday, the 6th of June257, Wheeler was startled by the receipt of a letter from the Nana Sahib, intimating that he was about to attack the intrenchments. The supposed departure of the Sipahis to Dehli had inspired the General and his

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companions with new hopes. It would be easy for them, they thought, in a little while, to drop down to Allahabad. But this pleasant dream was now rudely broken. The rebellious soldiery were returning to Kanhpur, strengthened in numbers by the retainers of the Nana, and still more invigorated by the identification with the rebel cause of men of influence and energy, able to keep together the scattered atoms of revolt, and to organise a great movement against the English. The blow fell heavily upon the brave old General; on soldiers and civilians; on officers and men; heavily upon all who clung to them for protection. There was not an hour to be lost. Forth went the mandate for all the English to concentrate themselves within the intrenchments. The women and children and non-combatants were already there – and those on duty in the garrison; but many of the Sipahi officers had slept or watched in the Sipahis’ lines, and had gone thence to their own bungalows; and now they were summoned without a moment’s pause or respite to the earthworks, with no time to snatch a hasty mouthful of food, to collect a change of clothes for the morrow, and scarcely to apparel themselves for the work of the day. Leaving their household gods, which they had hoped still to preserve, they obeyed, promptly, but regretfully, the orders of their chief, and hurried into the intrenchments. Soon everyone was at his post. It was a miserable place for defensive purposes, but such as it was, the best dispositions were made for its defence. And every man braced himself up for the work before him, with clenched teeth and a stern resolution to show what English manhood could do to prevail against the fearful odds to which it was opposed.

Approach of the enemy

And whilst our people were thus manning the several posts which had been marked out for the defence of our feeble earthworks, the enemy were surging onwards in confused numbers towards the intrenchments; but eager rather for plunder than for battle, they turned aside to gorge themselves with the spoil, in city and cantonment, which lay profusely at their mercy, and to murder all the defenceless Christian people who fell in their way258. The question

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of proprietorship disturbed them little. Not content with the pillage of the Faringhis, many enriched themselves at the expense of their own countrymen, and some at least straightway deserted the ranks of the rebel army and made their way to their own homes. But enough remained, after all defections, thoroughly to invest our position – and more, perhaps, than could be brought under effectual command and control. Organisation, however, was not wholly neglected. In the name of the Nana Sahib, promotions and appointments were made in the army of the Peshwa. The Subahdar, Tika Singh, who had been from the commencement the most active promoter of revolt, received the command of the cavalry, with the rank of General; whilst Jamadar Dalganjan Singh and Subahdar Ganga Din were appointed to the command, as Colonels of infantry regiments. The names of these dignitaries will suggest the fact that the chief commands were given to Hindus. But, whether, as has been supposed, this proceeded from the belief that “the boldest and most active of the mutineers were not Musalmans, but Hindus259,” or whether it were that the prejudices and predilections of the Maratha Brahman, who was recognised as the rebel leader, wrought strongly in favour of his co-religionists, can only be conjectured.

The Attack commenced

For some hours after the first alarm, the little garrison waited and waited; and there was no sound of the threatened attack. But about noon the booming of the cannon told that the enemy had commenced their operations. A round-shot from a nine-pounder came into our intrenchments, scaring and scattering a large party of ladies and children, who were gathered together outside the barracks. Then the bugle sounded; and our fighting men got to their posts, and prepared themselves for the unequal conflict. As the day advanced, shot after shot from the enemy’s guns was poured in with increasing rapidity and deadliness of aim, and with the sound of every shot arose the screams of the

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women and the children. On that first day of the siege the unaccustomed horror tore down all barriers of self-restraint. But soon this human weakness, which vented itself in the shrill utterances of fear, passed away from these helpless ones; and in its place there was an unnatural stillness, more pathetic than the wailings of grief and the clamorous outbursts of terror.

June 6–27

The Siege

Then commenced a siege, the miseries of which to the besieged have never been exceeded in the history of the world. All the wonted terrors of a multitudinous enemy without, of a feeble garrison and. scant shelter within, of the burden of women, and children, and sick people, with little to appease their want or allay their sufferings, were aggravated by the burning heat of the climate. The June sky was little less than a great canopy of fire; the summer breeze was as the blast of a furnace. To touch the barrel of a gun was to recoil as from red-hot iron. It was the season when European strength and energy are ever at their lowest point of depression; when military duty in its mildest form taxes the powers of Englishmen to the utmost, and English women can do little more than sustain life in a state of languid repose, in shaded apartments, with all appliances at command to moderate the temperature and to mitigate the suffering. But now, even under the fierce meridian sun, this little band of English fighting men were ever straining to sustain the strenuous activity of constant battle against fearful odds; whilst delicate women and fragile children were suddenly called to endure discomforts and privations, with all the superadded miseries peculiar to the country and the climate, which it would have been hard to battle with, in strong health, under their native skies. The morning and evening baths, the frequent changes of raiment, the constant ministrations of assiduous servants in the smallest things, which are the necessities of English life in India, were now suddenly lost to these helpless ones; and, to intensify the wretchedness, the privacy and seclusion so dear to them became only remembrances of the past. Even amidst the roar of the cannon and the rattle of the musketry, with death around them in many ghastly shapes, the loss of these privileges was amongst the heaviest of their trials, for it violated all the decencies and proprieties of life, and shocked the modesty of their womanly natures.

To the English soldier in India to be outmatched in numbers

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is scarcely a discouragement. Ever since, a century before, Clive had fought against heavy odds the great battle of Plassey, our English forces had ever been outnumbered in the field, and yet they had fought their way to empire. The overwhelming multitude of Sipahis which now encompassed our position at Kanhpur, were kept at bay by the little handful of English soldiers that now manned our feeble intrenchments. As men, all the mighty host of Hindus and Muhammadans which the Nana Sahib sent against us were utterly contemptible in our eyes. Had the positions of the two nations been reversed, had the English been outside these paltry earthworks, one rush would have carried the place, and the whole garrison would have been put to the sword in an hour. There was nothing to keep the besiegers out of the intrenchments but the contrast between the indomitable pluck of the Few and the flaccid irresolution of the Many. The besiegers, who might have relieved each other every hour, who might have bathed, and eaten,, and smoked, and slept whilst their comrades were on duty, and sent any number of fresh troops to the assault, shrank from a close encounter with our weary people, overworked and underfed, ever labouring in the trenches, ever under fire, with the clothes rotting on their backs, and the grime from the guns caking on their hands and faces. But, poor and despicable as the enemy were, they were rich and royal in their possessions. They had an immense wealth of artillery. The Kanhpur Magazine had sent forth vast supplies of guns and ammunition260. And now the heavy ordnance of the Government was raking its servants with a destructiveness which soon diminished our numbers working in the trenches. The English artillerymen dropped at their guns, until one after another the places of our trained gunners were filled by volunteers and amateurs, with stout hearts but untutored eyes, and the lighter metal of their guns could make no adequate response to the heavy fire of their twenty-four pounders. But when the enemy neared our parapets, and sought further to molest us at close quarters, they met with such a reception as soon put them to panic flight.

In these encounters there was one man ever conspicuous – ever in the front of the battle – inspiring and animating all

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who served under him by his lustrous example.

Captain Moore

This was Captain Moore, of the 32nd – a soldier of a commanding presence, light-haired and blue-eyed, whom no toil could weary, no danger could daunt. Wounded at the commencement of the siege, he went about with his arm in a sling; but the strong spirit within him defied pain. Day and night he laboured on, now in the trenches, now heading desperate sorties against the enemy, but, even when he ceased to hope, he neither fainted nor failed. There was no greater heroism than this English captain’s in all the war from first to last – no name more worthy than his to be recorded in the rolls of our English chivalry.

But, though ever in the heroic annals of the siege this fair-haired captain must hold the foremost place as the Agamemnon of the defence, there were other heroic deeds than his worthy of distinguished record – other brave men whose names should find fitting mention in the page of history. There was Vibart, Major of the 2nd Cavalry, who held the Redan, slackening not, day or night, in his exertions, and, though ever under the merciless fire of the enemy, active and robust to the last. There was Whiting, Captain of the Bengal Engineers, who commanded at the north-west point of the intrenchments, a man of stout heart and clear brain. There was Jenkins, Captain of the 2nd Cavalry, described as “one of the bravest and best of our party,” who held one of our outposts beyond the trenches with unflinching gallantry, till a bullet through the jaws, from the musket of a Sipahi who was feigning death, brought his services to an agonising end. There was Mowbray-Thomson, Subaltern of the 56th, who “had the miserable satisfaction” of avenging, on the spot, the death of his friend – a soldier ever to be found where danger was hottest, of whose deeds the world would have known more if any other pen than his had chronicled the events of the siege; now holding, with a few followers, a perilous outpost, now heading a desperate sortie against merciless odds, he exposed himself to death in every shape, but he seemed to bear a charmed life261. And there was his friend and comrade to the last, Delafosse of the 53rd, a young hero, equal

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to any feat of heroic daring. One day a shot from the enemy’s battery had blown up a tumbril and set fire to the woodwork of the carriage, in the place where our ammunition was stored. It was clearly seen, both by the insurgents and by our own people, that if the fire were not extinguished there would soon be a most disastrous explosion. So the Sipahi batteries poured in a deadly stream of eighteen and twenty-four pound shot. But, unmoved by these messengers of death, Delafosse went forth, threw himself down beneath the blazing carriage, tore off the burning wood with his hand, and, throwing dry earth upon the fire, stifled it before it could spread. Then there was Sterling, the dead shot, who perched up in a sort of crow’s-nest on the barrack-wall, which Delafosse had improvised for him, picked off single Sipahis with unerring aim, and became a scourge to our assailants; and Jervis of the Engineers, who with indomitable pride of race, refused to run from a black fellow, and was shot through the heart whilst walking across the open in stern composure, with the pingings of the hostile bullets, and the imploring cries of his comrades to save himself, sounding in his ears. There was Ashe, too, the stout gunner from Lakhnao, who served his nine-pounders, to the admiration of the whole garrison and to the terror of the besiegers, with unfailing courage and constancy from day to day, pouring in round after round with astonishing rapidity, and after each discharge leaping on to the heel of his gun, and, regardless of the danger of exposure, taking a new sight, and dealing out new death in the direction most disastrous to the enemy. And there were many other soldiers so good and true in the hour of our great national need, that History deplores its insufficiency to do full justice to the individual heroism of all the mighty defenders of those miserable works.

Gallantry of Civilians

Nor were these great and glorious manifestations of the consummate bravery of our people confined to those who were combatants by profession. There were many in the intrenchments, not bred to arms, who started suddenly into stalwart soldiers. Among them were some railway engineers, potent to do and strong to endure, who flung themselves into the work of the defence with unstinting self-devotion, and made manifest to their assailants that they were men of the warrior caste, although they wore no uniforms on their backs. Conspicuous among them was Mr. Heberden, who was riddled with grape-shot, and lay for many

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days, face downwards, in extreme agony, which he bore with unmurmuring fortitude until death came to his relief262. And not the least heroic of that little band of heroes was the station-chaplain, Mr. Moncrieff, who went about ministering to the sick and the wounded, offering the consolations of religion to all who were passing away from the scene, and with that “access of unexpected strength” derived from prayer sustained the toilers in the intrenchments, who turned aside for a little while from their ghastly work to listen to the sweet promises of the Gospel.

Womanly Endurance

And never since war began, never “in the brave days of old,” of which poets delight to sing, when women turned their hair into bow-strings has the world seen nobler patience and fortitude than clothed the lives and shone forth in the deaths of the wives and daughters of the fighting-men of Kanhpur. No bow-strings were used in this defence; our arrows were of another kind. They went forth from the roaring mouths of our guns in the shape of round shot and grape and canister. But when these missiles fell short, or, by reason of the damage done to our pieces by the heavy artillery of the enemy, could not be used in the form from which they were issued from the expense-magazine, the gentlewomen of Kanhpur gave up some of the cherished components of their feminine attire to improvise the ammunition most needed263. It would take long to tell in detail all the stories of womanly self-devotion and patient endurance and calm courage waiting for the end. Among these heroines was Mrs. Moore, the true-hearted wife of the leader of the garrison. All the officers who fought under him had for her a tenderness equal to his own, and they “fitted up for her a little hut, made of bamboo and covered with canvas,” where, “she would sit for hours, bravely bearing the absence of her husband while he was gone on some perilous enterprise264.” Many others, perhaps, suffered more. The pangs of child-birth camp upon some in the midst of all this drear discomfort

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and painful publicity. Some saw their children slowly die in their arms; some had them swept away from their breasts by the desolating fire of the enemy. There Was no misery which humanity could endure that did not fall heavily upon our English women. It was the lot of many only to suffer. But those who were not prostrate, or in close attendance upon their nearest and dearest, moved about as sisters of charity, and were active in their ministrations. Nor was there wanting altogether the stalwart courage of the Amazon. It is related that the wife of a private of the 32nd, named Bridget Widdowson, stood sentry, sword in hand, for some time over a batch of prisoners tied together by a rope; and that the captives did not escape until the feminine guard had been relieved by one of the other sex.

The burning of the Barrack

After the siege had lasted about a week a great calamity befell the garrison. In the two barracks of which I have spoken were gathered together all the feeble and infirm, the old and the sick, the women and the children. One of the buildings, it has been said, had a thatched roof, and, whilst all sorts of projectiles and combustibles were flying about, its ignition could be only a question of time, Every effort had been made to cover the thatch with loose tiles or bricks, but the protection thus afforded was insufficient, and one evening the whole building was in a blaze. The scene that ensued was one of the most terrible in the entire history of the siege; for the sick and wounded who lay there, too feeble and helpless to save themselves, were in peril of being burnt to death. To their comrades it was a work of danger and difficulty to rescue them; for the enemy, rejoicing in their success, poured shot and shell in a continuous stream upon the burning pile, which guided their fire through the darkness of the night. Two artillerymen only perished in the flames. But the destruction of the barrack was a heavy blow to the besieged. It deprived numbers of women and children of all shelter, and sent them out houseless to lay day after day and night after night upon the bare ground, without more shelter than could be afforded by strips of canvas and scraps of wine-chests, feeble defences against the climate, which were soon destroyed by the unceasing fire of the enemy. And there was a worse result even than this. The conflagration destroyed all the resources upon which our people had relied for the mitigation of the sufferings of the sick and wounded. All our

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hospital stores and surgical instruments were lost to us; and from that time Death and Pain had their way without anything to arrest the one or to soften the other.

There was another result of this conflagration, of which little or no notice has been taken by the chroniclers of the Siege. It has been narrated that a few faithful Sipahis cast in their lot with their white officers, and accompanied them within the intrenchments. It appears that they were told that they might find shelter in this barrack, and we may assume that ‘ they littered down in the verandahs.

Bhowani Singh

There was one old Native officer, the Subahdar-Major of the 2nd Cavalry, who from the first had arrayed himself against the mutineers of his regiment, and had received the reward of his great loyalty to the English in the wounds which he carried off with him to the intrenchments. And this reward was soon supplemented by another. Death came to the brave old man whilst still clinging to his former masters. He was killed in the early part of the siege by a shell265. The 53rd Regiment is stated to have sent ten Native officers, with Faithful Sipahis, into General Wheeler’s camp. All the other regiments contributed their quota to the garrison, and there is evidence that during the first week of the siege they rendered some service to the English. But, when the barrack was destroyed, there was no place for them. Provisions were already falling short, and, although there was no reason to mistrust them, it was felt that they were rather an incumbrance than an assistance. So they were told that they might depart; and as, although there was danger beyond the intrenchments, there was greater danger within them, they not reluctantly perhaps turned their faces towards their homes. Some perished by the way; some succeeded in reaching their native villages; a few returned, after a time, to the British Camp, to detail their experiences of the early days of the siege266.

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Mortality in the Garrison

Day after day passed, and, ever as our little garrison waned weaker and weaker, the fire of the enemy grew hotter and hotter. With what terrible effect it told upon our suffering people in the intrenchments, on brave fighting men, on patient women, and on poor little children, has been narrated by one of the survivors with a simplicity of pathos which goes straight to the heart. Incidents, which in ordinary times would have been described with graphic minuteness of detail, have been told in a few words as events of such common occurrence, as scarcely to have excited a sensation in the garrison. If the “bara sahib,” or great lord of the district, to whom a few weeks before all Natives would have crouched, were shot dead in an instant, or the commandant of a regiment, whose word had been law to a thousand armed men, were disabled by agonising wounds, it was the talk of the intrenchments for a quarter of an hour, and then a new tragedy brushed it away. In truth it did not much matter at what moment death came. Happiest those, perhaps, to whom it came soonest. Hillersdon, the Collector, who had negotiated the alliance with the Nana Sahib, fell a corpse at the feet of his young wife, with his entrails torn out by a round shot. A few days afterwards she was relieved from the ghastly memories of her bereavement by a merciful fall of masonry, which killed her. The General’s son and aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Wheeler, was lying wounded in one of the barrack-rooms, when, in the presence of his whole family, father, mother, and sisters, a round shot boomed into the apartment, and carried off the young soldier’s head. Another round shot struck up splinters into Major Lindsay’s face, gashing and blinding him. He lingered on in darkness and in agony for some days, attended by his

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wife, when Death took him, and she soon followed. Colonel Williams, of the 56th, being disabled by a wound early in the siege died of apoplexy from sunstroke, leaving his wife and daughters in the intrenchments. The former, shot in the face and frightfully disfigured, lay for some days, tended by her wounded daughter, until death came to the suffering widow’s relief. Colonel Ewart of the 1st, who would have taken an active part in the defence if he had been spared, was disabled at an early period, but lingered through the siege, attended by his admirable wife, only to be brutally murdered at the end of it. Captain Halliday was shot dead carrying from the barracks to the intrenchments a little horse-soup, which he had begged for his famishing wife. Thus many of Wheeler’s chief officers were rendered powerless for good by the unceasing fire of the enemy, whilst the old General himself issued orders from the shelter of the barracks, but was seldom capable of taking part in the active duties of the defence. In bitterness of spirit he saw his garrison diminishing every day before his eyes. There was a well a little way outside the intrenchments, which served as the general cemetery of the Christian people; and night after night the carnage of the day was carried to this universal mausoleum. And there were some who died hopelessly, though not in the flesh; for the, horrors of the siege were greater than they could bear, and madness fell upon them, perhaps as a merciful dispensation.

Chastisement of the Enemy

It is impossible to compute the aggregate of death which our people dealt back to the enemy in return for these visitations. It is known that in the space of three weeks the English consigned to the well two hundred and fifty of their party. The number of bodies buried by the insurgents, or devoured by the vultures and jackals, must have been counted, if ever counted at all, at this amount many times told. If hands were scarce in the intrenchments, muskets were not; and every man stood to his work with some spare pieces ready-loaded, which he fired with such rapidity that the enemy marvelled when they thought of what was supposed to be the number of our garrison. But it was not only from the intrenchments that death went forth to greet our assailants. Incidental allusion has been made to our outposts. There was a row of unfinished barracks at one corner of our position, which it was of immense importance to us to possess, in whole or in part, lest the enemy should hold them against us, and make

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sad havoc within our miserable earthworks. There were in all eight of these buildings. Two the English contrived to occupy, and between these two was a third, with the well attached in which we buried our dead, and which we saved from the grasp of the enemy. From the shelter which we thus held, and which must have given good command over two sides of our intrenched position, our people poured in a deadly fire on the insurgents, whenever they approached our works. Conspicuous among the defenders of these outposts, as has already been told, were Jenkins and Mowbray-Thomson; and to these good names should be added that of Lieutenant Glanville, of the 2nd Bengal Europeans, who held with sixteen men “Number Two” barrack, described as the key of our position, until he was incapacitated by a dangerous wound267. From the barracks, or carcasses of barracks, thus gallantly held, such punishment was inflicted upon the enemy, as, even after a lapse of years, could not be remembered by anyone living to look back upon it without a shudder. Here was the hardest work, and hence came the greatest carnage268. Any ad-venturous Sipahi coming within the reach of our rifles or muskets, paid the penalty of his audacity, and never troubled us or disported himself any more. Some-times, if a favourable opportunity presented itself, our little garrisons made bold sallies into the open, spiking the enemy’s guns and cutting off all who fell in their way. It was not of much use; for, whether guns were spiked or men were killed, there were so many of both in the background, that the loss was scarcely felt for a moment. Indeed, the ranks of the besiegers were recruited from time to time, as the siege went on, amongst others by the Sipahis from Azamgarh269, and the new hands were often found to be better than the old. To us, on the other hand, the loss of every man was a grievous calamity, for we waited and waited for succours that never came; and though sometimes our people were stimulated by the belief that firing

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was to be heard in the distance, intimating the approach of reinforcements, they were soon driven back again upon disappointment and despair.

The incidents of one day much resembled those of another, both in what was done and what was suffered. Few landmarks broke the uniformity of that great expanse of glorious disaster.

June 23

Centenary of Plassey

One day, however, at Kanhpur, as in other places where the great struggle for empire was going on, differed from the rest; for it was the centenary of the battle of Plassey.

On the previous night there had been signs of extraordinary activity in the enemy’s ranks, and a meditated attack on our outposts had been thwarted by Moore’s fertility of resource270; and as the morning of the 23rd dawned upon Kanhpur the insurgents, stimulated to the utmost by the associations of the day, came out in full force of Horse, Foot, and Artillery, flushed with the thought of certain success, to attack both our outposts and our intrenchments. If the whole strength of the Nana’s force was not brought forth to surround us on this memorable day, all its components were fully represented. And there was a stern resolution, in many cases strengthened by oaths on the Ganges-water or the Koran, to destroy the English or to die in the attempt. The excitement of all branches of the rebel-army was at its highest pitch. The impetuosity of the Cavalry far exceeded their discretion, for they galloped forward furiously within reach of our guns, and met with such a reception, that many horses were left riderless, and the troopers who escaped wheeled round and fled in fearful confusion. The Infantry, more cautious, improvised moving ramparts to shelter their

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skirmishers, by rolling before them as they advanced huge bales of cotton; but our guns were too well served to suffer this device to be of much use to the enemy, for some well-directed shots from our batteries set fire to these defences, and the meditated assault was defeated before it had developed itself into action. The attack on the outer barracks was equally unsuccessful. The enemy swarmed beneath our walls, but were saluted with so hot a fire from Mowbray-Thomson and his companions, that, in a little time, the seventeen had laid one more than their number dead at the doorway of the barrack. The great assault of the Centenary of Plassey, which was to have humbled the Faringhis to the dust, and to have revenged the victory of Clive, was in the issue a disastrous failure. The enemy begged to be permitted to bury their dead; and the remains of their cotton-bales served to stop the gaps in the earthworks of the English. But there was a more deadly foe than this weak and disordered crowd of Hindus and Muhammadans to be encountered by our distressed people; and the Nana Sahib saw another source of victory than that which lay in the number of his fighting men.

Approaches of Famine

For hunger had begun to gnaw our little garrison. Food, which in happier times would have been turned from with disgust, was seized with avidity and devoured with relish. To the flesh-pots of the besieged no carrion was unwelcome. A stray dog was turned into soup. An old horse, fit only for the knackers, was converted into savoury meat. And when glorious good fortune brought a Brahmani bull within the fire of our people, and with difficulty the carcase of the animal was hauled into the intrenchments, there was rejoicing as if a victory had been gained. But in that fiery month of June the agonies of thirst were even greater than the pangs of hunger. The well from which our scant supplies of water were drawn was a favourite mark for the Sipahi gunners. It was a service of death to go to and fro with the bags and buckets which brought the priceless moisture to the lips of our famished people. Strong men and patient women thirsted in silence, but the moans of the wounded and the wailings of the children it was pitiable to hear. The bheesties, or professional water-carriers, were soon slain in the exercise of their calling, and then English soldiers addressed themselves to the hazardous work of ministering at the well. A brave-hearted civilian, John Mackillop, appointed himself

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captain of the well, and, after a week of this hazardous service, was shot down at his post. As he lay dying, his care was still for those in whose cause he had yielded up his life, and he besought, almost with his last breath, a stander-by to carry the precious fluid to the lady to whom it had been promised. And so as day by day our people were wasting under these dire penances of hunger and thirst, the hopes of the Nana grew higher and higher, and he knew that the end was approaching.

The Capitulation

June 25

Three weeks had now nearly passed away since the investment had commenced – three weeks of such misery as few, since sorrow entered the world, have ever been condemned to suffer. No reinforcements had come to their assistance. The looked-for aid from below seemed now to be a grim delusion. Their numbers were fearfully reduced. Their guns were becoming unserviceable. Their ammunition was nearly expended; and starvation was staring them in the face. To hold their position much longer was impossible. To cut their way out of it, with all those women and children, was equally impossible. The shadow of a great despair was over them. When thus, as it were, at the last gasp, there came to them a message from the Nana Sahib, brought by the hands of a Christian woman. It was on a slip of paper in the handwriting of Azimullah, and it was addressed “to the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.” “All those who are in no way connected” – so the document ran – “with the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to lay down their arms, shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad271.”

There was not a soldier in garrison who did not recoil from the thought of surrender – who would not have died with sword or musket in hand rather than lay down his arms at the feet of the treacherous Maratha. Sir Hugh Wheeler lifted up his voice against capitulation. To the English General the bitterness of death was as nothing to the dishonour of abandoning his post. He had not yet given up the hope of relief from the lower country, and he mistrusted the Nana of Bithur. The younger officers were all for fighting it out to the last; but

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Moore and Whiting, whom the General consulted in this con-juncture, reluctantly declared themselves in favour of capitulation. They had no thought for themselves. Had there been only men in the intrenchments, they would have counselled and clung to the nobler and the manlier course. But when they thought of the women and children, and of what might befall them in the hands of the enemy, they turned hopefully to whatever promised deliverance from the horrors of the past and the greater horrors that might be in the future. There was, too, a great crowd of sick and wounded, who could not be abandoned, and yet who could not be carried off in the face of an opposing enemy. So the overtures of Nana Sahib were not rejected; and the messenger carried back to the enemy’s Camp an announcement that Wheeler and his chief officers were deliberating upon the offer that had been made to them.

June 26

Next morning (there was then an armistice) Azimullah and Jawala-Parshad presented themselves near our intrenchments, and Captain Moore and Whiting, accompanied by Mr. Roche, the Postmaster, went out with full powers to treat with the emissaries of the Nana. It was then proposed that the British should surrender their fortified position, their guns, and their treasure, and that they should march out with their arms and sixty rounds of ammunition in each man’s pouch. On his part, the Nana was to afford them safe conduct to the river side, and sufficient carriage for the conveyance thither of the women and the children, the wounded and the sick. Boats were to be in readiness at the ghat to carry them down the Ganges, and supplies of flour (some added “sheep and goats also”) were to be laid in for the sustenance of the party during the voyage to Allahabad. These proposals were committed to paper and given to Azimullah, who laid them before his chief, and that afternoon a horseman from the rebel camp brought them back, saying that the Nana had agreed to them, and that our people were to evacuate the intrenchments on that very night.

Against this Wheeler protested; and the draft-treaty was returned with an intimation that it was impossible to march out until the morning. Then the enemy began to gasconade and to endeavour to intimidate our people. They might as well have threatened to move the Himalayahs. Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, sent word that he knew exactly the state of our defences, the condition of our guns, and the scarcity of our provisions;

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that he would open fire at once upon our wretched place of refuge, and that in a few days not a man would be alive. Whiting and Mowbray-Thomson went out to meet the Bithur emissaries, and the former replied, as became a lion-hearted Englishman, that they might carry our intrenchments, if they could; that their soldiers had generally shown greater alacrity in retiring from than in advancing towards our fortifications, and that we had, at all events, abundance of powder in our magazine to blow up both armies together. This determined language had its effect. The Nana consented to wait till the morrow. And a gentleman named Todd, who had been his English tutor, carried the treaty to the Rajah’s quarters, at the Savada Koti, and obtained his signature to it.

The Nana is represented to have been very courteous to his old preceptor. It was the time, indeed, for serenity of manner and suavity of demeanour – nay, indeed, for kindly and compassionate utterances and mollifying assurances. So, also, when Jawala-Parshad, with two others, went over as hostages to the British intrenchments, he blandly condoled with the British commander, expressed his sorrow that the old General should have suffered so much – that after half a century of service with the Sipahi Army of the Company they should turn against him at the close of his life. But God be praised, it was now all over – deliverance was at hand. Every care would be taken that the English gentlemen and their families should not be molested on their way to the river. And the companions of Jawala-Parshad talked to others in the same polite and almost obsequious strain. That night our guns were made over to the enemy, and some of the old Golandaz of the Company were placed in charge of them.

The massacre at the Ghaut

June 27

So forth from their intrenchments, in the early morning, went the remnant of our garrison, with the women and the children, who had outlived the horrors of the siege – gaunt and ghastly, in tattered garments, emaciated and enfeebled by want, worn by long suffering, some wounded and scarred with the indelible marks of the battle upon them. The river was distant only a mile from our starting-point. But to them it was a long and a wretched journey. The wounded were carried mostly in palanquins. The women and children went in rough native bullock-carriages or on the backs of elephants, whilst the able-bodied marched out on foot with but little semblance

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of martial array, Moore as ever in the van, and Vibart bringing up the rear of the funeral procession. The veteran Wheeler, ‘ with his wife and daughters, is said to have walked down to the boats272. With what faith and hope within him, the poor old man turned his face towards the ghaut, He alone who reads the secrets of all hearts ever knew. But there were many in that woe-begone train who, although there was no sunshine on their faces, had glimmerings in their hearts of a peaceful future, and who ‘were fain to carry with them as they went such of their household gods as they had saved from the great wreck, or little memorials of the past, relics, perhaps of departed friends, to be treasured after long years in the old home beyond the seas. Little was all they could take with them, weighed against what they bad left behind; parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, friends. The beautiful had left their beauty, the young had left their youth, in those battered barracks; and even. the children had old and wizened faces, which told that they had lived long years in the last miserable month.

The place of embarkation was known as the Sati Chaora Ghaut, so called from a ruined village hard by which bore that name. The road ran across a wooden bridge, painted white, which reminded a traveller, who afterwards visited the spot, “of a bit in a Surrey common273.” Over this bridge they defiled down into

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a ravine, which led past the compounds of some of our English residences to the ghaut on the river-side. Near the ghaut was a Hindu temple274, known as the Temple of Hardeo, or the Fisherman’s Temple, a structure of somewhat fanciful and not unpicturesque design. The incidents of this mile-march were not many. The Sipahis, as our wretched people huddled on towards the river, sometimes crowded round and talked to their old officers, uttering words of admiration or of compassion, which were not wholly feigned. But, as everywhere the Sipahi stands out as a living inconsistency of the strangest kind, no one can read with surprise any story illustrating the malignant and cruel hatred that, at the same time, burned in the bosoms of some who had once served in our ranks. Among those who left the intrenchments on that June morning were Colonel and Mrs. Ewart, a brave and good man, with a wife every way worthy of him. He, sorely wounded, was carried on a bed or litter, and the lady walked anxiously beside him. But their progress was slow; they fell in the rear before they had reached the bridge, and some Sipahis of his own regiment – the 1st – seeing his helpless condition, thus severed from his countrymen, came up to him and taunted him. Ordering the litter to be placed on the ground, they mocked and mimicked him, saying, “Is not this a fine parade, Colonel? is not the regiment well dressed up?” Saying which, they fell upon him with their swords and killed him; and, though some made profession of not slaying women, Mrs. Ewart was presently cut down, and lay a corpse beside the body of her husband.

That the boats were ready on the river-side had been ascertained by a Committee of our own people; and, when the dreary procession reached the appointed place of embarkation the uncouth vessels were seen a little way in the stream in shallow water; for it was the close of the dry season, and the river was at its lowest. The boats were the ordinary eight-oared budgerows of the country – ungainly structures with thatched roofs, looking at a distance like floating hay-stacks, and into these our people now began to crowd without order or method, even the women with children in their arms, with but little help from others, wading knee-deep in the water, and scrambling as

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they best could up the sides of the vessels. It was nine o’clock before the whole were embarked, and some, Heaven only knows, for their voices are sealed, may have breathed more freely as they awaited the friendly order to push off and to drop down the stream towards the great goal of their ultimate deliverance. But there were those on the river banks – those even in the boats themselves – who had far other thoughts, far other expectations. Every boat that had been prepared for our people was intended to be a human slaughter-house. They had not gone down to the banks of a friendly river that was to float them to safety. They had been lured to the appointed shambles, there to be given up to cruel death.

So foul an act of treachery the world had never seen. Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the last of the Peshwas, had studied to some purpose the early history of his race. He knew how the founder of the Maratha Empire – the head of the great family who had been the masters of the Peshwas – had, under false pretext of friendly embrace, dug his vaknak275 into the bowels of the Muhammadan envoy, and gained by foulest treachery what he could not gain by force. The vaknak was now ready – the vaknak of a thousand claws – in the bands of the man who aspired to be the founder of a new or renovated. Maratha Empire. Day after day, week after week, the English, with their little band of fighting men, had defied all the strength of this new confederacy, aided by the moral and material help of our lessons and our resources; and now the enemy, under the garb of a new-born friendship, was hiding the cruel weapon that was to destroy them. Everything was ready for the great carnage. Tantia Topi, who had been appointed master of the ceremonies, sat enthroned on a “chabitra,” or platform, of a Hindu temple, and issued his orders to his dependants. Azimullah, also, was there, and the brethren of the Nana, and Tika Singh, the new Cavalry General, and others of the-leading men of the Bithur party. And many Zemindars from the districts, and merchants and lesser people from the city, are said to have gone forth and to have lined the river banks to see the exodus of the English; not knowing what was

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to come, and not all, perhaps, rejoicing in our humiliation. It looked like a great holiday show. Scarcely is a more animated scene to be witnessed on the banks of the Thames on the day of our great national boat-race. And it was something even more than this, for there was a great military display. The soldiery had gone out in force – Horse, Foot, and Artillery; and the troopers sat their horses, with their faces turned towards the river, as though anxious for the sport to begin. And their patience was not long tried. The signal had been given, and the butchery was to commence276.

No sooner were our people on board the boats, than the foul design became apparent. The sound of a bugle was heard. The Native boatmen clambered over the sides of the vessels and sought the shore. Then a murderous fire of grapeshot and musket-balls was opened upon the wretched passengers from

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both banks of the river; and presently the thatch of the budge-rows, cunningly ignited by hot cinders, burst into a blaze. There was then only a choice of cruel deaths for our dear Christian people. The men, or the foremost amongst them, strenuous in action to the last, leaped overboard, and strove, with shoulders to the hulls of the boats, to push them into mid-channel. But the bulk of the fleet remained immovable, and the conflagration was spreading. The sick and wounded were burnt to death, or more mercifully suffocated by the smoke; whilst the stronger women, with children in their arms, took to the river, to be shot down in the water, to be sabred in the stream by the mounted troopers, who rode in after them, to be bayoneted on reaching land, or to be made captives, and reserved for a later and more cruel immolation. The fewest words are here the best. I should have little taste to tell the foul details of this foul slaughter, even if authentic particulars were before me. It is better that they should remain in the obscurity of an uncertain whole; enough that no aspect of Christian humanity, not the sight of the old General, who had nearly numbered his fourscore years, nor of the little babe still at its mother’s breast, raised any feeling of compunction or of pity in these butchers on the river-side. It sufficed that there was Christian blood to be shed.

Whilst this terrible scene was being acted at the ghaut, the Nana Sahib, having full faith in the malevolent activity of his lieutenants on the river-bank, was awaiting the issue in his tent on the cantonment plain. It is related of him that, unquiet in mind, he moved about, pacing hither and. thither, in spite of the indolence of his habits and the obesity of his frame. After a while, tidings of the progress of the massacre were brought to him by a mounted trooper. What had been passing within him during those morning hours no human pen can reveal. Perhaps some slight spasm of remorse may have come upon him, or he may have thought that better use might be made of some of our people alive than dead. But, whether moved by pity or by craft, he sent orders back by the messenger that no more women and children should be slain, but that not an Englishman was to be left alive. So the murderers, after butchering, or trying to butcher, the remnant of our fighting men, stayed their hands and ceased front the slaughter; and a number of weaker victims, computed with probable accuracy at a hundred and twenty-five, some sorely wounded, some half

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drowned, all dripping with the water of the Ganges and begrimed with its mud, were carried back in custody to Kanhpur, 1 by the way they had come, envying, perhaps, those whose destiny had been already accomplished.

Escape of the Single Boat

But among the men – survivors of the Kanhpur garrison. – were some who battled bravely for their lives, and sold them dearly. Strong swimmers took to the river, but often sank in the reddened water beneath the fire of their pursuers; whilst others, making towards the land lower down the stream, stood at bay on bank or islet, and made vain but gallant use of the cherished revolver in the last grim energies of death. There was nothing strange, perhaps, in. the fact that the foremost heroes of the defence were the last even now to yield up their lives to the fury of the enemy. One boat held Moore and Vibart, Whiting and Mowbray-Thomson, Ashe, Delafosse, Bolton, and others, who had been conspicuous in the annals of that heroic defence. By some accident or oversight the thatch had escaped ignition. Lighter, too, than the rest, or perhaps more vigorously propelled by the shoulders of these strong men, it drifted down the stream; but Moore was shot through the heart in the act of propulsion, and Ashe and Bolton perished whilst engaged in the same work. The grape and round-shot from the Oudh bank of the river ere long began to complete the massacre. The dying and the dead lay thickly together entangled in the bottom of the boat277, and for the living there was not a mouthful of food.

As the day waned it was clear that the activity of the enemy had not abated. That one drifting boat, on the dark waters of the Ganges, without boatmen, without oars, without a rudder, was not to’ be left alone with such sorry chance of escape; so a blazing budgerow was sent down the river after it, and burning arrows were discharged at its roof. Still, however, the boat was

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June 28

true to its occupants; and with the new day, now grounding on sand-banks, now pushed off again into the stream,

it made weary progress between the two hostile banks, every hour lighter, for every hour brought more messengers of death278. At sunset, a pursuing boat from Kanhpur with fifty or sixty armed Natives on board, came after our people, with orders to board and to destroy them. But the pursuers also grounded on a sand-bank; and then there was one of those last grand spasms of courage even in death which are seldom absent from the story of English heroism. Exhausted, famishing, sick and wounded, as they were, they would not wait to be attacked. A little party of officers and soldiers armed themselves to the teeth, and fell heavily upon the people who had come dawn to destroy them. Very few of the pursuers returned to tell the story of their pursuit. This was the last victory of the hero-martyrs of Kanhpur279. They took the enemy’s boat, and found in it good stores of ammunition. They would rather have found a little food. Victors as they were, they returned to the cover of the boat only to wrestle with a more formidable enemy. For starvation was staring them in the face.

June 29

Sleep fell upon the survivors; and when they woke the wind had risen, and the boat was drifting down the stream – in the darkness they knew not whither; and some even then had waking dreams of a coming deliverance. But with the first glimmer of the morning despair came upon them. The boat had been carried out of the main channel of the river into a creek or siding, where the enemy soon discerned it, and poured a shower of musket balls upon its miserable inmates. Then Vibart, who lay helpless, with both arms shot through, issued his last orders. It was a forlorn hope. But whilst there was a sound arm among them, that could load and

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fire, or thrust with a bayonet, still the great game of the English was to go to the front and smite the enemy, as a race that seldom waited to be smitten. So Mowbray-Thomson and Delafosse,, with a little band of European soldiers of the 32nd and the 84th, landed to attack their assailants. The fierce energy of desperation drove them forward. Sipahis and villagers, armed and unarmed, surged around them, but they charged through the astounded multitude, and made their way ‘lack again through the crowd of blacks to the point from which they had started. Then they saw that the boat was gone. The fourteen were left upon the pitiless land, whilst their doomed companions floated down the pitiless water.

The last Stand

There was one more stand to be made by Mowbray-Thomson and his comrades. As they retreated along the bank of the river, seeing after a while no chance of overtaking the boat, they made for a Hindu temple, which had caught the eye of their leader and defended the doorway with fixed bayonets. After a little time they stood behind a rampart of black and bloody corpses, and fired, with comparative security, over this bulwark of human flesh. A little putrid water found in the temple gave our people new strength, and they held the doorway so gallantly, and so destructively to the enemy, that there seemed to be no hope of expelling them by force of arms. So, whilst word went back to Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, that the remnant of the English Army was not to be conquered, the assailants, huddling round the temple, brought leaves and faggots, which they piled up beneath the walls, and strove to burn out the little garrison. Then Providence came to their help in their sorest need. The wind blew smoke and fire away from the temple. But the malice of the enemy had a new device in store. They threw bags of powder on the burning embers. There was now nothing left for our people but flight. Precipitating themselves into the midst of the raging multitude, they fired a volley and then charged with the bayonet. Seven of the fourteen carried their lives with them, and little else, to the bank of the river. There they took to the stream; but presently two of the swimmers were shot through the head, whilst a third, well-nigh exhausted, making for a sand-bank, had his skull battered in as soon as he landed. But the surviving four, being strong swimmers, and with heroic power in doing and in suffering, struck down the stream, and, aided by the current, evaded their pursuers. Mowbray-Thomson

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and Delafosse, with Privates Murphy and Sullivan, reached alive the territory of a friendly Oudh Rajah, and survived to tell the story of Kanhpur.

Neglected Heroism

Teeming as it does with records of heroic exploits, this narrative of the Sipahi War contains nothing that surpasses – perhaps nothing that can justly be compared with – this wonderful episode of the last struggles of the martyrs of Kanhpur. The grand national courage, of the manifold developments of which it is impossible to write without strong emotion, has no nobler illustration than that of the last stand of the remnant of the Kanhpur garrison. A year before, England had made tardy reparation of past neglect by instituting an Order of Valour. It bears a name which renders it personally dear to the recipients of this generation, and will be cherished in historical ages yet to come. It was right that of such an order there should be but one class. But, if there had been many classes, Mowbray-Thomson and Delafosse, Murphy and Sullivan, would have earned the highest decoration of which the order could boast. But, I know not by what strange omission, by whose neglect, or by what accident for which no one is responsible, it happens that not one of these heroes has borne on his breast the Victoria Cross. Doubtless, they are the representatives of a gigantic disaster, not of a glorious victory. But the heroism of failure is often greater than the heroism of success. And since the time when, in the days of early Rome, the Three kept the Bridge, there have been none more worthy of all the honour that a sovereign or a nation can bestow on the doers of brave deeds, than those who held the temple on the banks of the Ganges, and fought their way through an armed multitude thirsting for their blood, until from village to village there ran the cry that Englishmen could not be beaten.

Fate of the boat’s company

Whilst the gallant Four, thus mercifully saved by what, humanly regarded, had seemed to be a summons to certain destruction, the companions from whom they had been severed were losing all hope of deliverance. What befell them after they drifted away, leaving Mowbray-Thomson and his little band of resolute fighting men on the shore, can never be accurately known in detail. But the boat was overtaken, and all its living cargo carried back to Kanhpur, and turned out upon the well-known. landing-place, where a great assemblage of Sipahis was ready to receive them.

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Some eighty Christian people in all had been brought back, after three days of agony and terror on the dark waters of the Ganges, too merciless to overwhelm them280.

June 30

From the river bank they were driven, a miserable herd of men, women, and children, to the old cantonment, to await the execution of the orders of the Nana. He went out himself to gloat upon their sufferings. The men were doomed to death at once. The women and children, with greater refinement of cruelty, were suffered to survive their husbands and their fathers, and reserved for a second death. One English lady clung to her husband, and perished. The rest were torn away, whilst the muskets of the Sipahis were loaded for that fatal fusillade. Then an English officer, who throughout all the accidents of that river voyage had preserved a prayer-book of the Church of England, sought permission to read to his doomed comrades a few sentences of that beautiful liturgy, whose utterances are never so touchingly appropriate as amidst the sorest trials and. troubles of life. Leave was granted. And with one arm in a sling, whilst with the other he held the precious volume before his eyes, Seppings proclaimed to that doomed congregation the great message of salvation; and even amidst the roar and rattle of the musketry the glad tidings were still ringing in their ears, as they passed away to another world.

Then the women and children were sent to swell the crowd of captives, which these conquerors of the hour were holding still in store as a final relish for their feast of slaughter. All who had not been burnt, or bayoneted, or sabred, or drowned in the great massacre of the boats on the 27th of June, had been swept up from the ghaut and carried to the Savada House, building which had figured in the history of the siege as, for a time, the head-quarters of the rebel leader. And now these newly-made widows and orphans were added to the shuddering herd of condemned innocents.

July 1

The Nana proclaimed Peshwa

This done, Dundu Pant, Nana Sahib, carrying with him an infinite satisfaction derived from the success of his machinations, went off to his palace at Bithur. Next day, in all the pride and pomp of power, he was publicly proclaimed Peshwa. No formality,

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no ceremony was omitted, that could give dignity to the occasion. He took his seat upon the throne. The sacrament of the forehead-mark was duly performed. The cannon roared out its recognition of the new ruler. And when night fell the darkness was dispersed by a general illumination, and showers of fireworks lit up the sky. But it was not long before, even in the first flush of triumph, heaviness fell upon the restored sovereignty of the Peshwa. He was, after all, only a miserable tool in the hands of others. And news soon reached him that, in his absence from Kanhpur, his influence was declining. The Muhammadan party was waxing strong. It had hitherto been overborne by the Hindu power, probably more than all else for want of an efficient leader. But there was a Muhammadan nobleman, known as the Nani Nawab, who had taken a conspicuous, if not an active, part in the siege. At the commencement of the outbreak he had been made prisoner by the Nana Sahib, and his house had been plundered; but subsequently they had entered into a covenant of friendship, and a command had been given to the Nawab. He directed or presided over one of the batteries planted at the Racquet Court, driving down to it in his carriage, and sitting on a chair, in costly attire, with a sword at his side and a telescope in his hand; and there was no battery that wrought us greater mischief than the Nani Nawab’s. He had got together some cunning Native artificers, who experimentalised on red-hot shot and other combustibles, not without damage to the lives of those working in the batteries; and it was a projectile from one of his guns – described as a ball of resin – which set fire to the barrack in the intrenchments. The Nana was so delighted with this exploit that he sent the Nawab a present of five thousand rupees, and the story ran, that in the administrative arrangements which were to follow the extermination of the English he was to be Governor of Kanhpur. Among the Muhammadans of the neighbourhood he was held in high estimation, and large numbers of followers attended him as he went down every day to his battery.

And now there was some talk of setting up the Nawab as head of the new Government. If this had been done, there would have been faction fights between Hindus and Muhammadans, which would have weakened the power of the general enmity to the Christian races, and hastened the day of retribution. Then other disturbing rumours reached him. The

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English reinforcements were advancing from Allahabad – hot for revenge, eager for blood. The story ran that the white soldiers were hanging every Native who came in their way. It was plain that the time for strenuous action had come. A great fear was settling down upon the minds of the inhabitants of Kanhpur, who were leaving their homes in the city and seeking refuge in the villages; and the military classes, as is ever their wont at such times, were clamouring for donatives, and. declaiming against the parsimony of the Nana. To send forth assuring and even boastful addresses alike to the citizen and to the soldier, was his first care in this month of July; and it was necessary, without delay, to issue largesses in money, and in the alluring shape of those much-coveted gold bangles, the thought of which, ever since the commencement of the siege, had stimulated the activity of the Sipahis.

July 6

So the Peshwa of the hour was summoned back to Kanhpur by the lieutenants whom he had left to govern in his absence. He established himself in an edifice, of goodly proportions, which had been built for an hotel by a Muhammadan capitalist; and here he held high carnival. The native gossips of the day related how, after the fashion of the East, he strove to drown the cares and anxieties which gathered round him with music, and dancing, and buffoonery in public; and that he solaced himself, in more retired hours, with strong drink and the caresses of a famous courtesan. Day after day his scouts brought exaggerated stories of the advance of the English battalions; and he issued instructions to his officers to go out to meet them. He had put forth astounding proclamations to assure the people that the pride of the English had been humbled to the dust, and that their armies had been overwhelmed by more powerful nations, or, by God’s providence, drowned in the sea. There was no lie which Dundu Pant and his lieutenants had not put forth, in some shape or other, to assure the minds of the people and to make men believe that there was nothing now to be hoped or feared from the prostrate Faringhis. But ever, as the month of July wore on, news came from below that the English were advancing; and the Peshwa trembled as he heard, even in the midst of his revelries. There was, however, one more victory to be gained before the collapse of the new Maratha power on the banks of the Ganges. And the Nana smiled, as he thought that the game was all in his own hands.

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The captives in the Bibigarh

It was only a victory over a number of helpless women and children – a victory safe and easy. The English prisoners had been removed from the Savada Koti to a small house, which had been built by an English officer for his native mistress (thence called the “Bibigarh”); but had more recently been the residence of a humble Eurasian clerk. There was scanty accommodation in it for a single family. In this wretched building were now penned, like sheep for the slaughter, more than two hundred women and children. For the number of the captives had by this time been increased by an addition from a distance. Whilst our Christian people at Kanhpur had been suffering what has been but dimly portrayed in the preceding pages, there had been a great crisis at Fathgarh, the British military station adjacent to the city of Farrukhabad281, in the district of that name. It lies on the right bank of the Ganges, eighty miles above Kanhpur. In the first week of June, after nearly a month of extreme anxiety, it had become apparent that the lives of all the Europeans, and they were many, would be sacrificed if they continued to dwell at Fathgarh. So, not knowing in the first week of June the true position of affairs at Kanhpur, a large number of our people took to their boats and drifted down to the great British Cantonment, as to a place of refuge. The story of Fathgarh must be told in another chapter of this narrative. It is enough that it should be related here that those who descended the river were attacked on the way, and that when one boat reached the neighbourhood of Kanhpur the Nana, Sahib’s people captured it, dragged out its unhappy inmates, and carried them, bound, to the feet of their master. Then there was a slaughter, in his presence, of all the men, three excepted; and the women and children were carried off to swell the miserable crowd in the “Bibigarh.”

This new prison-house lay between the Native city and the river, under the shadow of the improvised palace of the Peshwa, within sound of the noisy music, and within sight of the torch-glare which signalised his highness’s nocturnal rejoicings282.

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Thus huddled together fed upon the coarsest provender of the country, doled. out to them by sweepers,. their sufferings were intolerable. Cholera and diarrhoea broke out among them. and some were mercifully suffered to die283. If, in the agony and terror of this captivity, bereft of reason, any one of these sufferers anticipated, by action of her own, the day of doom, God will surely take merciful account of the offence. The horror of a fouler shame than had yet come upon them may have crazed more intellects than one. But there was in this no more than a phantom of the imagination. Our women were not dishonoured save that they were made to feel their servitude. They were taken out, two at a time, to grind corn for the Nana’s household. An educated English gentlewoman needed not even a week’s residence in India to teach her the meaning of this. As they sat there on. the ground, these Christian captives must have had some glimmering recollection of their Biblical studies, and remembered how in the East the grinding of corn was ever regarded as a symbol of subjection – how, indeed, it was one of the crowning curses of the first great captivity on record. When the wives of the English conquerors were set to grind corn in the court-yards of the Maratha, the national humiliation was then and there complete

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– then, but only for a little while; there, but only on a little space. And the pathos of the picture is perfected when we see that these delicate ladies, with their faces to the grind-stone, did not find the office so wholly distasteful, as it enabled. them to carry back a little flour to the “Bibigarh” to feed. their famishing children.

So here, just under the windows of the Nana Sahib, was a very weak, defenceless enemy, which might be attacked with impunity and vanquished with ease. But, with that other enemy, which was now advancing from Allahabad, and, as the story ran, destroying everyone in their way, the issue of the contest was more doubtful. A great body of Horse and Foot, with a formidable array of guns, had. gone down to dispute the progress of the British; but, before the month of July was half spent, news came that they had been disastrously beaten. Havelock had taken the field in earnest. The hopes of his

youth, the prayers of his manhood, had been accomplished; he had lived to command an army, to gain a victory, and to write a despatch in his own good name.

*** At the close of this chapter, I must express my obligations to the printed volumes of Captain Mowbray-Thomson and Mr. Otto Trevelyan. The reminiscences of the one writer and the investigations of the other have been equally serviceable to me. But to no one ant I more indebted than to Colonel Williams for the invaluable mass of oral information which he has elicited and placed on record, and the admirable synopsis which accompanies it. From an immense pile of conflicting evidence, I believe that, guided by Colonel Williams, I have extracted the truth. There are still, however, some doubts and uncertainties as regards points of detail, especially in respect of the numbers both of the fighting men in the intrenchments and of the women and children in the “Bibigarh.” The discrepancy with respect to the former may have arisen from the circumstance that in some lists the sick were computed, but not others. Colonel Williams gives a nominal roll of European troops composing the English portion of the Kanhpur garrison who were killed between the 6th and 30th of June. In this we have the names of fifty-nine Artillerymen, seventy-nine men of the 32nd, forty-nine of the 84th, and fifteen of the Madras Fusiliers – making in all two hundred and two, exclusive of officers. Mr Sherer’s numbers differ from these – his aggregate being a hundred and sixty-four. With regard to the women and children in the “Bibigarh,” I think that Major Gordon’s estimate is most probably correct. He says, after studying the list of prisoners, “It appears from this that two hundred and ten were left on the 11th, and, as twelve died between that and the 15th, there must probably have been a hundred and ninety-seven when the massacre took place.”

Footnotes

229. Westminster Review, quoted by Mr. Montgomery Martin.

230. This was on the 3rd of June. The first intelligence came from Sir John Lawrence at Rawalpindi. Writing to England on the following day, Lord Canning said: “It comes upon me as a sad and dispiriting blow in the midst if present troubles. But this is not a time to be depressed by any calamity, when every effort must be made to keep up the hearts of those around us. I assure you that they need it, though I am glad to say that the panic which had seized the Calcutta world when the last mail left is, in a measure, suppressed. ... I have telegraphed to Sir Patrick Grant to come to Calcutta immediately to assume the office of acting Commander-in-Chief.” – MS. Correspondence.

231. Marshman’s Life of Havelock.

232. These instructions, the substance of which is given in the preceding chapters (and which were published verbatim in the Memoir of General Neill, in the “Lives of Indian Officers”), were highly commended by Sir Patrick Grant, who wrote: “Your instructions to Renaud and Spurgin are admirable, and provide for every possible present circumstances as well as all eventualities, and by them, and them only, Renaud should have been guided. I hope you were in time to prevent the withdrawing Spurgin’s detachment from the steamer, and that the vessel has proceeded up the river according to your original intention. Sending her was an excellent measure, and I anticipate most favourable results from it, and she will be of incalculable value in collecting boats and assisting in making the passage of the river after the work to be done at Kanhpur is finished.” – Mg. Correspondence.

233. I should be untrue to history if I not record my belief that these retributory measures were distinguished by undue severity. William Russell, among whose many high qualities as a public writer truthfulness is conspicuous, records the following in his “Diary in India:” “In the course of a conversation to-day, an officer, who was attached to Renaud’s column when it moved out in advance of Havelock’s force, told MC that the executions of Natives were indiscriminate to the last degree. ... In two days forty-two men were hanged on the roadside, and a batch of twelve men were executed because their faces were turned the wrong way when they were met on the march. All the villages in his front were burnt when he halted. These ‘severities’ could not have been justified by the Kanhpur massacre, because they took place before that diabolical act. The officer in question remonstrated with Renaud, on the ground that, if he persisted in this course, he would empty the villages, and render it impossible to supply the army with provisions.” This is confirmed by the account of the signs of retribution apparent to those who followed in the wake of Renaud’s march. [It was difficult in those days to discriminate. Renaud was not a cruel man, and it is more than probable that he had better reasons for his action than those suggested by the officer “attached to his column,” who certainly was not in his councils. It should not be forgotten that though the Kanhpur atrocity had not then been perpetrated, the stories of the cruelties to which our countrymen had been subjected at Mirath and Dehli, and, to Renaud’s own knowledge, at Allahabad, had roused to white heat the indignation of our countrymen. There can be no doubt, moreover, but that the enormous majority of the natives in the Duab were at that time our enemies. – G.B.M.]

234. On the 3rd, Lieutenant Chalmers rode into Allahabad with the news.

235. Sir Patrick Grant had written to him more than once to urge him to be cautious, and not to strip Allahabad of troops or to send an insufficient force to Kanhpur. “You talk of an early advance towards Kanhpur, and I shall be right glad that you made a move in that direction; but I pray you to bear in mind that Allahabad is a point of the very greatest importance, the perfect security of which ought not to be neglected on any account.” And again, on the following day: “Far be it from me to hamper you in any way – your energy, decision, and activity are admirable; but I must warn you to be cautious not to commit too small a force of Europeans towards Kanhpur. If Dehli has fallen, as we believe it has. the fugitives from it will all make for Kanhpur and Lakhnao, and there will certainly be an immense gathering of scum of all sorts at those points.” – MS. Correspondence.

236. Ante, p. 155, Mowbray Thomson says that “the European force consisted of the officers attached to the Sipahi regiments; sixty men of the 84th Regiment; seventy-four men of the 32nd, who were invalided; sixty-five men of the Madras Fusiliers, and fifty-nine men of the Company’s Artillery – about three hundred combatants in all.” Mr. Sherer, in his official narrative, computes the invalids of the 32nd at thirty.

237. See Mowbray Thomson’s narrative. The blood which ran in the veins of Wheeler’s children was not that of the pure European race.

238. “He had proved himself on so many occasions so fertile in resources, so ready to overcome difficulties, so prompt, active, and energetic, that he was thought the man of all others most competent to deal with an insurrection of this character – most fitted to unravel the web of mystery in which its origin was then clouded, and to open the minds of the Sipahis to the insensate folly of their proceedings. And if this had been a mere military outbreak, as some have imagined; if the dispossessed princes and people of the land, farmers, villagers, ryots, had not made common cause with the Sipahis, there is every reason to believe that but a portion of the Force would have revolted.” – Red Pamphlet.

239. However sound these reasons may have been, it is not to be questioned that the selection was a great misfortune. The Magazine position is thus described by General Neill, after visiting the place, on his first arrival at Kanhpur: “It is a walled defence, walled enclosure, proof against musketry, covering an area of three acres – ample room in it for all the garrison – close to the bank of the river; the houses close to it are all defensible, and they, with the Magazine, could have been held against any Native force, as having the large and [obscure] guns, with abundance of ammunition, neither the Nana nor the Natives would have come near them. They could have moved out and attacked them with the guns, and would have not only saved themselves but the city, to say nothing of a large arsenal and many thousand stand of arms, artillery tents, harness, &c., &c. General Wheeler ought to have gone there at once; no one could have prevented him; they might have saved everything they had almost, if they had. There is something awful in the number of catastrophes, which could have been avoided by a common degree of caution.” – MS. Correspondence. It was not, however, want of caution, but perhaps over-caution, that caused Wheeler not to resort to the Magazine buildings. The distance between the Lines and the Magazine is to be taken into account; and some military authorities may differ from Neill’s opinion, that no one could have prevented Wheeler from betaking himself, with his women, children, and invalids to the Magazine.

240. It should be observed that Lakhnao was within the Kanhpur Division of the Army, and therefore, in the normal state of affairs, Wheeler might have made any disposition of the troops under his command that seemed fit to him. But when the crisis arose, Sir Henry Lawrence had telegraphed to the Governor-General for “plenary military authority in Oudh,” and Lord Canning had gladly given him the powers he had sought (vol. i. p. 616), writing to Wheeler at the same time a kindly explanation of the circumstances which had reconciled the General to the change.

241. The number of Europeans sent by Sir Henry Lawrence to Kanhpur has been variously stated. His Military Secretary, in a letter to Mr. Edmonstone, sets it down at fifty men and two officers. The Cavalry detachments were sent on by Sir Hugh Wheeler, and the officers were murdered; but Ashe and the guns remained, or returned, to take good part in the defence.

242. Ante, vol. i. pp. 422–4.

243. Ante, vol. i. p. 74, et seq.

244. Mr. Martin Gubbins states that the General was distinctly warned not to trust the Nana Sahib. “Sir H. Lawrence,” he says, “concurred in my suspicions, and by his authority I addressed Sir Hugh Wheeler, cautioning him against the Nana, and stating Sir Henry’s belief that he was not to be depended upon.” – Mutinies in Oudh, p. 32.

245. Some time afterwards, Tantia Topi gave the following account of Mr. Hillersdon’s negotiations with the Nana Sahib. I give it as the Native version of the transaction: – “In the month of May, 1857, the Collector of Kanhpur sent a note of the following purport to the Nana Sahib at Bithur, viz., that he begged him (the Nana) to forward his wife and children to England. The Nana consented to do so, and four days afterwards the Collector wrote to him to bring his troops and guns with him from Bithur to Kanhpur. I went with the Nana and about one hundred Sipahis and three hundred matchlock-men and two guns to the Collector’s house at Kanhpur. The Collector was then in the intrenchments, and not in his house. He sent us word to remain, and we stopped at his house during the night. The Collector came in the morning and told the Nana to occupy his own house, which was in Kanhpur. We accordingly did so. We remained there four days, and the gentleman said it was fortunate we had come to his aid, as the Sipahis had become disobedient; and that he would apply to the General in our behalf. He did so, and the General wrote to Agra, whence a reply came that arrangements would be made for the pay of our men.” – MS. Records.

246. MS. Correspondence.

247. Another regiment (the 11th Light Cavalry) bad been raised in the place of the 2nd; and the officers of the latter bad been transferred to it bodily. Only one trooper of the 2nd had been re-enlisted – the Hawaldar-Major, Bhowani Singh, of whom more hereafter. The 11th was renumbered the 2nd, for its gallantry at Multan.

248. MS. Correspondence.

249. See ante, page 155. They appear to have reached Kanhpur on the night of the 26th, or morning of the 27th of May. They were sent to Lakhnao on the 3rd of June. – See Wheeler’s telegram to Government. “Sir H. Lawrence having expressed some uneasiness, I have just sent him by post carriages, out of my small force, two officers and fifty men of Her Majesty’s 84th Foot. Conveyance for more not available. This leaves me weak, but I trust to holding my own until more Europeans arrive.”

250. “Last night I went the rounds of our positions with the General. The battery is divided in half, and placed east and west, commanding the principal approaches; we came upon one half battery without any challenge or the least exhibition of any alarm on the part of the gunners. I walked up and put my hand on one of the guns, and could have spiked all three with the greatest ease Some little time afterwards the officer in charge was found asleep, and was immediately put under arrest. ... Dempster, the Adjutant of the Artillery, was as so worn out with watching at night and performing other duties, that, seeing he was so done up and could not look after both batteries, I said I would take one, and accordingly remained in charge till daybreak.” – Fletcher Bayes to Henry Lawrence. May 26. MS.

251. “The chief obstacle to a rise and insurrection of the Sipahis is, that they are undecided as to who should commence it. They have been wrangling, among themselves for some days. An attempt was made by a Native officer to make the Cavalry seize their arms and turn out. He made a trumpeter take his trumpet and commence with the signal, but the trumpet was seized and snatched away by another Native officer. Last night there was an alarm, and the gunners stood to their guns, but everything passed over quietly.” – The Same to the Same. May 26.

252. The depositions taken down by Colonel Williams, Commissioner of Police, North West Provinces, are very full, and they are of a highly interesting, and in some respects, valuable character; but Colonel Williams himself admits that much must be received with caution, as being only hearsay evidence. Take, for example, the following from the evidence of Sheo Charn Das: “Three or four days before the troops broke out, Tika Singh, Subahdar of the 2nd Cavalry, began to have interviews with the Nana, and said to him on one occasion, ‘You have come to take charge of the Magazine and Treasury of the English. We all, Hindus and Muhammadans, have united for our religions, and the whole Bengal Army have become one in purpose. What do you say to it?’ The Nana replied, ‘I also am at the disposal of the Army.’ I heard this from the Sawars themselves.”

253. A casual circumstance, of no great importance in itself, seems just at this time to have accelerated the crisis. It is thus summarised by Colonel Williams, in his synopsis of the evidence collected by him: “Again the unfortunate incident of a cashiered officer named Cox firing on a patrol of the 2nd Cavalry on the night of the 2nd of June, and his acquittal after trial on the following day, on the plea of being unconscious at the time from intoxication, caused much dissatisfaction, the mutinously-inclined Cavalry declaring openly that perhaps their fire-arms might be discharged by accident some day. The violent and insubordinate conduct of the troops, particularly of the Cavalry, though they still ostensibly took duty, caused many to take refuge in the intrenchments.”

254. It is stated, and on very high authority, that Sir Hugh Wheeler and his Staff were ignorant of the contents of the Kanhpur Magazine. I find the following in a letter from General Neill, in which he gives the results of his inquiry into the “Story of Kanhpur.” He had, at that time, been in communication with the only two surviving officers of the siege. “General Wheeler was then under the delusion that the Nana would assist him. All the mutineers went one march to Dehli. The Nana got them to return, and General Wheeler found himself surrounded, and guns firing upon him in every direction from our own Arsenal, of the existence of which guns General Wheeler and his staff were until then ignorant. It appears that a committee of officers, some time before, were sent down to examine the Arsenal, and to report what was in it. They came down in the usual easy-going style – only thought of tents and other trifles – happened not to be shown the gun-sheds, and did not enter the Magazine; in fact, forgot all about it, and reported that there was nothing in the ‘Magazine,’ as it was styled.” The authority of such a man as General Neill must, in all cases, be respected, but it is hardly credible that the contents of the Magazine were unknown to the Artillery officers at Kanhpur, especially to the Ordnance Commissariat Department. Moreover, it is to be observed that the supposed ignorance is not consistent with the undoubted anxiety manifested by Wheeler and his chief officers to blow up the Magazine at the commencement of the outbreak. Arrangements had been made for this, but the feat could not be accomplished. Colonel Williams says: “The Assistant-Commissary, Mr. Riley, had been directed to blow up the Magazine, but was unfortunately prevented by the Sipahis on guard there.”

255. It seems that the Cavalry had broken into the Treasury and begun the work of appropriation before the Infantry arrived.

256. This is the received version of what took place between the Bithur people and the Sipahis. It is not, however, given with any certainty of its correctness. Tantia Topi afterwards endeavoured to make it appear that the Nana had acted under compulsion. The following is his evidence: – “Two days afterwards, the three regiments of Infantry and the 2nd Light Cavalry surrounded us, and imprisoned the Nana and myself in the Treasury, and plundered the Magazine and Treasury of everything they contained, leaving nothing in either. Of the treasure, the Sipahis made over two lacs and eleven thousand rupees to the Nana, keeping their own sentries over it. The Nana was also under charge of these sentries, and the Sipahis which were with us also joined the rebels. After this the whole army marched from that place, and the rebels took the Nana Sahib and myself and all our attendants along with them, and said, ‘Come along to Dehli.’ Having gone three kos from Kanhpur, the Nana said that as the day was far spent it was far better to halt there then, and to march on the following day. They agreed to this, and halted. In the morning the whole army told him (the Nana) to go with them towards Dehli. The Nana refused, and the army then said, ‘Come with us to Kanhpur and fight there.’ The Nana objected to this, but they would not attend to him. And so, taking him with them as a prisoner, they went towards Kanhpur, and fighting commenced there.”

257. Captain Mowbray Thomson (“Story of Kanhpur”) says that it was on Sunday the 7th, but Colonel Williams, who collated all the evidence on record, says it is proved that the mutineers returned to Kanhpur on the 6th. The Red Pamphlet gives the 6th as the date of the return of the troops to Kanhpur, and the 7th as the date of the receipt of the Nana’s letter. This might explain the discrepancy; but Captain Thomson speaks of the two incidents as synchronous, and Mr. Trevelyan adopts this view.

258. “An old gentleman, supposed to be a merchant, with his wife and two children, one a boy of sixteen, the other a little girl, on being found secreted in a house near the dawk-bungalow, were shot in front of it. Four office-writers, living in a house on the lank of a canal their house being set on fire, were, obliged to abandon it, and were murdered as they fled. Another European (unknown) was shot by the troopers, who were indefatigable in their search after Christians.” – Col. Williams’s Synopsis.

259. See Mr. Trevelyan’s interesting. volume, “Cawnpore.” The suggestion is contained in Colonel Williams’s Synopsis of Evidence.

260. And in addition to the guns and stores taken from the Magazine, were other supplies of both found at the ghaut, which were about to be despatched to Rurki.

261. Mr. Trevelyan very felicitously says of him, “This officer did his best to lose a life which destiny seemed determined to preserve, in order that England might know how, in their exceeding distress, her sons had not been unmindful of their ancient honour.”

262. Not until the close of the siege. “He was carried on a mattress down to the boats, where he died.”

263. “In consequence of the irregularity of the bore of the guns, through the damage inflicted upon them by the enemy’s shot, the canister could not be driven home; the women gave us their stockings, and, having tapped the canisters, we charged them with the contents of the shot-cases – a species of cartridge probably never heard of before.” – Mowbray-Thomson’s Narrative.

264. Mowbray-Thomson’s Narrative.

265. This is the man of whom previous mention has been made (page 228) as the one Sipahi of the old disgraced 2nd Cavalry that had been re-enlisted. It is to be hoped that good provision has been made for the family of so brave a man and so faithful a servant.

266. “The Major having gone to inquire of General Wheeler what we were to do, the latter came out and. ordered us to occupy the hospital barracks; he said, ‘In such a barrack we shall not manage to save our lives, as the round shot will reach us from all sides.’ ... On the evening of the 9th or 10th. a hot round shot fell on our barrack and set it on fire. On this we left it, and concealed ourselves for the night in a nullah not far distant.” “We held the hospital barracks from the 5th to the 9th or 10th; we left because the house caught fire from the enemy’s shot. I believe the shot was wrapped in some inflammable material, which, catching the thatched roof, soon became a blaze.” – (Deposition of Bhola Khan, Sipahi, 53rd Native Infantry.) “The barracks caught fire about four o’clock P.M., on the 9th or 10th. The Major then told us he could do nothing for us, there being an order of General Wheeler prohibiting any Native from entering the intrenchment. He therefore recommended us to provide for our own safety ... The whole party then left the hospital barrack.” – (Deposition of Ram Baksh, Pay-Hawaldar, 53rd Native Infantry.) The number of these Sipahis is supposed to have been about eighty or a hundred, with a considerable proportion of Native officers.

267. He was succeeded in the command by Mowbray-Thomson.

268. “The orders given to us were not to surrender with our lives, and we did our best to obey them, though it was only by an amount of fatigue that in the retrospect now seems scarcely possible to have been a fact, and by the perpetration of such wholesale carnage that nothing could have justified but the instinct of self-preservation, and, I trust, the equally strong determination to shelter the women and children to the last moment.” – Mowbray-Thomson.

269. The 17th Native Infantry.

270. The following illustrative anecdote, told by Mowbray-Thomson, claims insertion in this place: “We saw the Pandis gathering to this position from all parts, and, fearing that my little hand would be altogether overpowered by numbers, I sent to Captain Moore for more men. The answer was not altogether unexpected. ‘Not one could be spared!’ Shortly afterwards, however, the gallant captain came across to me in company with Lieutenant Delafosse, and he said to me, ‘Thomson, I think I shall try a new dodge; we are going out into the open, and I shall give the word of command as though our party were about to commence an attack.’ Forthwith they sallied out, Moore with a sword, Delafosse with an empty musket. The captain vociferated the words, ‘Number one to the front.’ And hundreds of ammunition pouches rattled on the bayonet sheaths as our courageous foes vaulted out front the cover afforded by heaps of rubbish, and rushed into the safer quarters presented by the barrack walls.”

271. There are contrary statements with respect to the identity of the messenger. Some say that it was Mrs. Greenaway, some Mrs. Jacobi. Mr. Trevelyan speaks of it as an “important point.” But I cannot say that I think it is of much use to discuss, or of consequence to determine, the question.

272. This is very distinctly stated by Mowbray-Thomson: “Poor old Sir Hugh Wheeler, his lady, and daughters, walked down to the boats.” Other accounts, of a more circumstantial, but perhaps not more trustworthy character, indicate that the ladies were conveyed to the ghaut on an elephant, and that the General himself went in a palanquin. is the statement of Mr. Trevelyan, who very carefully collated ail the evidence that has been produced. Colonel Williams, in his synopsis, says, “Hasim Khan, the rider of General Wheeler’s elephant, after taking Lady Wheeler and her two daughters to the first boat on the line, returned for the General, whom meeting on the way mounted on a galloway, he likewise conveyed to the boats.” The Christian wife of a musician of the 56th regiment, named Bradshaw, says: “General Wheeler came last in a palki (palanquin). They carried him into the water, near the boat. He said, Carry me a little further towards the boat but the Sawar said, ‘No, get out here!’ As the General got out of the palki, head foremost, a Sawar gave him a cut with his sword in the neck, and he fell into the water. ... My son was killed near him. I saw it, alas! alas!” Another statement is: “The General and some officers were on elephants – Mrs. Wheeler was in a palki.” The further the investigation is pursued, the greater the uncertainty that is left upon the mind. This is given as another instance of the difficulty of extracting, the truth flora a mass of conflicting evidence.

273. Mr. Trevelyan: “Story of Cawnpore.”

274. “Small but in good repair, resembling nothing so much as those slimmer houses of a century back, which at the corners of old houses overhang Dutch canals and suburban English bye-ways.” – Trevelyan.

275. [A “vaknak,” or “vagnak,” is a weapon made of five rings, to each of which is attached a steel claw, like that of a tiger. The rings fit the fingers of the hand, and the claws lie concealed in the palm, till the moment for striking arrives. – G.B.M.]

276. As Tantia Topi is here stated to have been the foremost agent in this hellish work, it will interest the reader to see the master-butcher’s own account of the butchery: “The Nana,” he declared, “got a female who had been captured before to write a letter to General Wheeler to this effect: that the Sipahis would not obey his orders, and that, if he wished, he (the Nana) would get boats and convey him and those with him in the intrenchment as far as Allahabad. An answer came from the General that he approved of this arrangement, and the same evening the General sent the Nana, something over one lac of rupees, and authorised him to keep the amount. The following day I went and got ready forty boats, and having caused all the gentlemen, ladies, and children to get into the boats, I started them off to Allahabad. In the mean while, the whole army, artillery included, having got ready, arrived at the river Ganges. The Sipahis jumped into the water, and commenced a massacre of all the men, women, and children, and set the boats on fire. They destroyed thirty-nine boats; one, however, escaped as far as Kala Kankar, but was there caught, and brought back to Kanhpur, and all on board of it destroyed. Four days after this the Nana said he was going to Bithur, to keep the anniversary of his mother’s death.” This statement is at least partially true, and it might be suggested that the signal which Tantia Topi was seen to give was, according to his statement, a signal to start the boats. On this point, however, witnesses were examined and cross-examined with the same result. One said, “In my presence and hearing Tantia Topi sent for Tika Singh, Subahdar of 2nd Cavalry, known as a General, and gave him orders to rush into the water and spare none.” Another said, “I was standing concealed in a corner, close to where Tantia Topi was seated, and I heard him tell Tika Singh, a Subahdar of the 2nd Cavalry, who was known as the General, to order the Sawars to go into the water and put an end to the Europeans, and accordingly they rushed into the river and murdered them. Other witnesses spoke distinctly to the same effect; one man adding, “All orders regarding the massacre, issued by the Nang, were carried into execution by Tantia Topi.” I do not think that there can be the least doubt of the guilty activity of Tantia Topi in this foul deed.

277. The horrors of the lingering hours of that day seemed as if they would never cease. We had no food in the boat, and had taken nothing before starting. The water of the Ganges was all that passed our lips, save prayers, and shrieks, and groans. The wounded and the dead were often entangled together in the bottom of the boat; to extricate the corpses was a work of extreme difficulty, though imperatively necessary from the dreaded consequences of the intense heat and the importance of lightening the boat as much as possible.” – Mowbray-Thomson.

278. “At two P.M. we stranded off Nazafgarh, and they opened upon us with musketry. Major Vibart had been shot through one arm on the preceding day; nevertheless, he got out, and, whilst helping to push off the boat, was shot through the other arm. Captain Athill Turner had both his legs smashed. Captain Whiting was killed. Lieutenant Quin was shot through the arm; Captain Seppings through the arm, and Mrs. Seppings through the thigh. Lieutenant Harrison was shot dead. ... Blenman, our bold spy, was shot in the groin.” – Mowbray-Thomson.

279. Mowbray-Thomson was one of these. Nothing can be more modest than this part of his narrative. “Instead of waiting for them to attack us, eighteen or twenty of us charged them, and few of their number escaped to tell the story.”

280. Eighty is the number given by Mr. Sherer after very careful inquiry and collation of evidence. They were brought back on carts, and arrived at the ghaut on the 30th of June.

281. [Farrukhabad, anglice “the abode of the happy,” so called after the Emperor Farrukhseyar – G.B.M.]

282. The following minute description of the “Bibigarh” is from a private journal kept by Major Gordon of the 61st: “It was a dismal kind of bungalow in a small compound near what used to be the Assembly Rooms. There was a narrow verandah running along nearly the whole of the front. At the two ends of it were bathing-rooms, opening both into the verandah and into side-rooms. Then came an inner entrance room, and then one about sixteen by sixteen, and then an open verandah as in front. At either side was a narrow room. ... It was, in fact, two small houses, built on exactly the same plan, facing each other, and having a space enclosed between them.”

283. Mr. Trevelyan, referring to a diary kept by a Native doctor who visited the prisoners, says, “There is a touching little entry which deserves notice. In the column headed ‘names’ appears the words ‘ek bibi’ (one baby), under that marked ‘disease’ is written ‘ap se,’ of itself.” As a “bibi” is not a baby, but a lady or woman, I attributed this error to the writer’s brief residence in India, but I find the passage is taken from Mr. Sherer’s official report, a document of the highest value. I must still, however, hold to the opinion that “ek bibi” means one lady, and I should have thought that the pathos of the “ap se” lay in its meaning that she killed herself, if it were not for a suspicion that in Sherer’s report “bibi” is a misprint for “baba.” I have not seen the original list, but it was translated by Major Gordon, who was on General Neill’s Staff. This officer wrote down in his journal, at the time, most of the names. “From. the 7th,” he says, “to the morning of the 15th, twenty-eight people died; nine cholera; nine diarrhoea; one dysentery; three of wounds; one, an infant two days old; five, disease not mentioned. I could not make out all the names, but those of which I am sure are” ... and then a list is given, including, under date July 10, “A baby of two days old – of itself.” This seems to be conclusive.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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