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Chapter 4 – First Weeks of the Siege of Dehli

June

The British position at Dehli

The Dehli Field Force having planted its Head-Quarters on the old site of the British Cantonments on the “Ridge,” was now spreading itself out over the ground which it had conquered, in the manner best adapted to both offensive and defensive operations. Seldom has a finer position been occupied by a British Army; seldom has a more magnificent panorama turned for a while the soldier’s thoughts from the stern realities of the battle. It was difficult not to admire the beauty of the scene even amidst the discomforts of the camp and the labours of the first encamping. The great city, with its stately mosques and minarets, lay grandly at our feet, one side resting upon the Jamnah, and others forming a mighty mass of red walls standing out threateningly towards the position which we had occupied. And scattered all about beneath us were picturesque suburbs, and stately houses, walled gardens and verdant groves refreshing to the eye; whilst the blue waters of the flowing Jamnah glittered in the light of the broad sun. It was not an hour for philosophical speculation or for the indulgence of any romantic sentiments concerning the decay of empires and the revolutions of dynasties; else was there much food for thought in the strange circumstances which had brought a British Army to besiege a city which, only a month before, had been regarded as securely our own as London or Liverpool, and to contend against a sovereign who, within the same brief space of time, had been held in contempt as a harmless puppet. There was no room in the minds of our military chiefs for such thoughts as these. They contemplated the position on which they had encamped our Army with the keen eyes of practical soldiers, and looked around them from their commanding position upon the ground that was to be the

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scene of their future operations. And this was the result of the survey.

Roads and canals

Intersecting the old Cantonment towards the left-centre, and then following its front towards the right, was a road which joined the Grand Trunk from Karnal, beyond the extremity of the Ridge, and led down, through a mass of suburban gardens and ancient edifices, to the Kabul Gate of Dehli. Two other roads, also leading from Karnal, diverged through the Cantonment to different gates of the city. And scarcely less important to us than the roads were the canals which were cut through the country in the neighbourhood of our camp. In the rear of our encampment was a branch canal, known as the Najafgarh Jhil aqueduct, which carried the waters emptied into this lake to the stream of the Jamnah. To the right rear of our position this great drain was intersected by the Western Jamnah Canal, which, passing through a bold excavation of the solid rock, flowed through the great suburbs of Dehli, and entering the city by a culvert under the walls, traversed the length of its main street and emptied itself into the river near the walls of the Imperial Palace. And it was a source of especial rejoicing to the British chiefs, firstly, that our position was open to the rear, and that there were good roads leading down to it, from which we could keep up a constant communication with the Panjab, now become our base of operations; and, secondly, that there was an abundant supply of water in the Najafgarh Canal. It was the driest season of the year, and in common course the canal would have been empty. But the excessive rains of 1856 had so flooded and extended the area of the lake, that it had not ceased even in the month of June to emit an unfailing supply of pure good water to fill the aqueduct in the rear of our position393

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water in which not only our people could freely bathe, but which they could drink with safety and with pleasure; and it is hard to say how much the salubrity of the camp was maintained by this providential dispensation. Nor was it merely in a sanitary point of view that this flow of water was so advantageous to the English, for in its military aspects it was equally favourable to defensive purposes. And so there were comfort and encouragement in the contemplation of our position.

The Ridge

And a nearer inspection of the Ridge, though there were some countervailing circumstances to detract from the general satisfaction, had an assuring effect upon the British Leader and the Staff by whom he was surrounded. It had been, in part at least, the site of the old Dehli Cantonment. The left of this rocky chain rested upon the Jamnah. some three or four miles above Dehli, whilst the right extremity approached the Kabul Gate of the city at a distance of about a thousand yards. “Formed of a hard, compact, semi-crystalline quartz rock, disposed in layers, and presenting occasional natural cliffs on the city side394,” it extended along a line of rather more than two miles, at an elevation of from fifty to sixty feet above the general elevation of the city395. The natural soil was so hostile to cultivation that the general aspect of the Ridge was bare and rugged; and the same gritty, friable qualities of the earth rendered it especially ill-adapted to defensive purposes, for where no cohesive properties existed the construction of earthworks was almost impossible. On the left and centre of the Ridge, obliquely to the front of attack, the tents of the English were pitched a little to the rear of the ruins of their old houses, which effectually concealed us from the besieged. The extreme left of the Ridge was so far retired from the main position of the enemy as to be in little danger from his assaults, but our post on the extreme right “invited

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attack from the moment of occupation to the close of the operations396.”

Hindu Rao’s House

This position on the extreme right was surmounted by a somewhat extensive building of comparatively modern construction, known as Hindu Rao’s House. The former owner of this edifice was a Maratha nobleman, who is said to have been nearly connected with the family of Sindhia. Political necessities had compelled his residence at a distance from Gwaliar, and he had settled himself in the neighbourhood of Dehli, where he had earned a good reputation among all classes of the community. Of a robust manhood and a genial temperament, he was noted for his hospitality397. The house had been built and fitted up much after the fashion of an Anglo-Indian mansion of the better class. But on his death it had been left without an occupant, and on the arrival of Barnard’s force it was found empty and deserted. It was a roomy and convenient edifice, with good approaches both from the Cantonment and the City; and, apart from the excellence of the situation, which strongly recommended it as an advanced post, it afforded good shelter and accommodation for a considerable body of troops.

The Flagstaff Tower

Between the two extreme points of the Ridge were other important posts, destined to occupy conspicuous places in the history of the coming siege. Near the point at which the middle road of the three crossed the Ridge, was the Flagstaff Tower, of which mention has before been made; for thence was it that our people, on the fatal 11th of May, huddled together for transient safety, had looked forth despairingly towards the city, from which the signal for massacre was to come398. A double-storied, circular building, it had a fine command of observation, comprehending the country lying between the Ridge and the walls of the city, and was sufficiently strong to afford good shelter to troops.

The Mosque

Further on to the right – about midway between the Flagstaff and Hindu Rao’s house – was a ruined mosque “of the old Pathan type,” which had also good walls

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of masonry, and was well suited for an outpost, as it afforded both shelter and accommodation to our men;

The Observatory

and still further along the Ridge road, at a distance of some two hundred yards from our position on the extreme right, was an ancient Observatory399, of somewhat irregular structure, ill-lighted and ill-ventilated, but still a serviceable building, as it afforded good support to the advanced position on our right, which was so long to bear the brunt of the affray. At these four points, Sir Henry Barnard, after the battle of Badli-ki-Sarai, established strong picquets, each supported by guns.

The Suburbs

The country around Dehli, which the roads and canal-cuttings above described intersected after passing the Ridge, was a varied mass of ruined and habitable houses, walled gardens, green woodlands, cultivated rice fields, and unhealthy swamps. Beyond Hindu Rao’s house to the rear was the beautiful suburb of Sabzimandi (or the Green Market), lying along the Grand Trunk Road – a cluster of good houses and walled gardens, which afforded shelter to the enemy, and were, indeed, the very key of our position. And beyond this the plain was “covered with dense gardens and thick groves, houses, and walled enclosures bordering upon the great canal.” Beyond the Sabzimandi, on this line of the Grand Trunk Road, stretching towards the Kabul Gate of the city, were the villages of Kishanganj, Trevelyanganj, Paharipar, and Taliwari. These villages were amongst the worst of the local evils opposed to us, for they were near enough to the walls of the city to cover the enemy as they emerged from their stronghold, and afforded them a sheltered approach as they advanced towards our position on the Ridge; whilst they were too far off from our posts to admit of our occupying them in force400. Looking out from the Ridge towards the centre and left of our encampment, the space before the city appeared to be less crowded. There were a few somewhat imposing buildings irregularly scattered about this expanse of country, among which that known as Metcalfe House was one of the most conspicuous. It stood on the banks of the river, in the midst of an extensive park, and

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was almost buried in thick foliage. Some substantial out-buildings in the park, with a mound of some altitude in their rear, seemed to recommend themselves as serviceable outposts for future occupation. Between the Metcalfe House and the city was an old summer-palace of the Dehli Emperors, known as the Kusia Bagh. It was then little more than one of the many memorials of the former grandeur of the Mughul sovereigns with which the new capital was surrounded; but the lofty gateways, the shaded cloisters and arcades, and the spacious court-yards, of which it was composed, showed, even. in their decay, that it had once been a place of no common architectural beauty401. More remote from the river, and almost in a line with the Kashmir Gate of the city, was Ludlow Castle – a modern mansion of some importance, which had been the home of the late Commissioner, Simon Fraser, slaughtered in the Dehli Palace402. It was erected on the crest of a ridge sloping down towards the city walls, with the dry bed of a drainage canal at its base. And on the line of the Jamnah, between the Kusia Bagh and the water-gate of the city, was a spacious modern building of the English official type, but surrounded by trees and shrubs, looking out from the windows of which it almost seemed. that the city walls were overhanging the place403. These were the most noticeable edifices, which attracted the attention. of our people on the Ridge, as posts, which in. the coming operations might be turned to account, whilst in. the intervening spaces it was seen that there were gardens and groves, sometimes intersected by deep ravines. These fine breadths of luxuriant foliage, seen from the higher ground, were pleasant to the eye of the English soldier; but it was too probable that they would prove to be as favourable to the operations of the enemy as damaging to our own404.

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May 12

The City

And over these tracts of country the British Commander now looked at the great city itself, and surveyed the character of its defences. The circuit of its walls extended to some seven miles, two of which were covered by the side which ran parallel to the river, and were completely defended by it. The rest formed an irregular figure, partly facing obliquely the line of our position on the Ridge, and partly turned towards the country on the left. These landward walls, about twenty-four feet in height, consisted of a series of curtains of red masonry, terminating in small bastions, each capable of holding from nine to twelve guns. Around them ran a dry ditch, some twenty-five feet in breadth and somewhat less than twenty feet in depth, the counterscarp being an earthen slope of very easy descent, “much water-and-weather worn.” There was something that might be called a glacis, but to the eye of a skilled engineer it was scarcely worthy of the name405. The entrances to the city through these substantial walls of masonry were numerous.

June

A series of so-called gates – for the most part in the near neighbourhood of the several bastions were to be seen at irregular intervals along the walls. They were abutments of heavy masonry, but not without some architectural

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pretensions, comprising handsome arched gateways, which were surmounted by towers, forming stations or look-out posts for the city guards. These gates were ten in number – one was on the river side of the city; another led down to the Bridge of Boats from the extreme corner of the King’s Palace; and the rest were on the landward sides. The gates, known as the Kashmir Gate, the Mori Gate, and the Kabul Gate, were those most easily assailable from our position on the Ridge406. Indeed, it was only on one side of the great walled city that the English Commander, looking down from his newly-erected camp, could hope to make an early impression To invest so extensive a place with so small a force was an absolute impossibility. It was as much as we could do to invest this front – about one-seventh of the entire enceinte – leaving all the rest to the free ingress and egress of the enemy.

The Palace

The Palace, or, as it was sometimes called, the Fort of Dehli, was situated about the centre of the river-front of the city, one side almost overhanging the waters of the Jamnah. The artist pronounced it to be a “noble mass of building of truly beautiful design, vast magnitude, and exquisite detail;” but to the eye of the scientific soldier it appeared to be capable of only very feeble resistance to the appliances of modern warfare. Its defences consisted chiefly of high walls and deep ditches, with “most imperfect arrangements for flanking or even direct fire407.” And on the north-east side, partly resting on the main stream of the Jamnah, was the ancient Pathan Fort of Selimgarh, separated front the Palace by a narrow stream of the river, which was crossed by a bridge of masonry. It was, for defensive purposes, an important outwork, which, manned with heavy guns, might play along the river-side as far as the Metcalfe House, and enfilade the approaches to the city in that direction. Such were the principal material objects which presented themselves to Barnard and his Staff, when their telescopes on that June morning swept the country which lay between the River and the Ridge. And as they estimated the worth of all these several posts for offensive or defensive purposes, they endeavoured to calculate also the numerical strength of the

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enemy within the walls But there was little more than dim conjecture to guide them. It was assumed that the bulk of the Mirath and Dehli troops – five regiments of Infantry, one regiment of Cavalry, and a company of Native Artillery – were now within the walls of the city. And it was not less certain that the Sappers and Miners from Mirath, the head-quarters of the Aligarh Regiment, the bulk of the regiments from Firuzpur, large detachments of Native Infantry from Mathura, and Irregulars from Hang, Hisar, and Sirsa, had swollen the stream of insurrection within the circuit of Dehli. To these might be added the King’s Guards, and, probably, large numbers of Native soldiers of all branches absent from their regiments on furlough, according to custom at that season of the year. , And these trained soldiers, it was known, had at their command immense supplies of ordnance, arms, ammunition, and equipments, wanting none of the materials of warfare for a much larger force. To the General, who had served at Sebastopol, it appeared that the strength of Dehli thus garrisoned had been greatly underrated by those who believed that it was to be disposed of in a day408.

And against this great walled city thus garrisoned what had Barnard brought? Collectively it may be said that he had three thousand European soldiers and twenty-two field guns. This European force consisted of –

Her Majesty’s 9th Lancers. Two squadrons of the Carabineers. Six companies of Her Majesty’s 60th Rifles. Her Majesty’s 75th Foot. The 1st Bengal (Company’s) Fusiliers. Six Companies of 2nd Bengal (Company’s) Fusiliers. Sixteen Horse Artillery guns, manned by Europeans. Six Horse Battery guns, also Europeans: with the Siege-train, the details of which have been already given.

Besides these there were two other bodies of reliable troops, as good as Europeans – the Gurkha battalion under Reid, and

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the Panjab Guide Corps under Daly. There were also a hundred and fifty men of the old regiment of Sappers and Miners, that had mutinied at Mirath, and who were still believed to be staunch. In Barnard’s camp, also, were a regiment of Irregular Native Cavalry (the 9th), and a portion of another (the 4th), but the fidelity of both was doubtful.

June 9

General Barnard at Dehli

There were many then in all parts of India, especially among the more eager-minded civilians, who believed that to reach Dehli was to take it. Habituated to success, and ever prone to despise our enemies, it seemed to our people, in this conjuncture, to be a settled thing that the force moving on Dehli, by whomsoever commanded, should, in the language of the day, “dispose of it,” and then proceed to finish the mutineers in other parts of the country. Even the cool brain of Lord Canning conceived this idea of the facility of the enterprise. It was thought that the Dehli Field Force might march into the city, make short work of the rebels, the King and Royal Family included; and then, leaving there a small British garrison, proceed to the relief of Lakhnao, Kanhpur, or any other beleaguered position in that part of Hindustan. And this belief in the possible was so common, that it soon began to take in men’s minds the shape of the actual; and before the month of June was half spent, it was said in all parts of the country that Dehli had been retaken, and that the star of our fortune was again on the ascendant.

Whether, as was said at the time, and is still confidently maintained by some, if, after the victory of Badli-ki-Sarai, Barnard had swept on and pursued the enemy into the city, he might have driven them out, after great slaughter, with the loss of all their munitions of war, must ever remain a mystery. It was not attempted. But it was no part of the General’s plan to sit down before Dehli and to commence the tedious operations of a protracted siege. It was assuredly not his temper to magnify dangers and difficulties or to shrink from any enterprise that promised even a chance of success. It might be a hazardous undertaking; he felt, indeed, in his inmost heart, that it was.

June 11

But he knew that his countrymen expected him to do it. He knew that anything like hesitation at such a moment would king down upon him a storm of reproach. He knew, also, that if he failed in the perilous enterprise, he would be charged with rashness and incapacity. But this appeared to

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the fine old soldier to be the lesser evil of the two. Right or wrong, he was prepared to risk it.

Question of a coup-de-main

With such thoughts heavy within him, Barnard was by no paeans slow to accept the counsel of the young Engineer officers, who urged upon him the expediency of an immediate attack upon the city. Nothing was plainer, than that delay would weaken our chances of success; for not only was the numerical strength of the enemy increasing by fresh accessions of mutineers, making the city of the Mughul their central rallying-point, but there was strong probability that the material defences of the place would be strengthened – especially by the simple device of bricking up the gateways. That this had not been done on the 11th, the Engineers ascertained; and on that day they were prepared with the plan of a coup de-main, which they laid before the General, urging him to attempt it on the following morning at break of day. “We find,” they said in the Memorandum placed in Barnard’s hands, “that the Kabul and Lahor Gates are not as yet bricked up – that the bridges in front of them are up to this time perfect – and that troops can approach from camp under cover to four hundred and nine hundred yards of these gates respectively. An entrance can also be effected close to the Kabul Gate by the channel through which the canal flows into the city. We recommend a simultaneous attempt to blow in the Lahor Gate by powder-bags, and such one of the two obstacles at the other point (namely, either the Kabul Gate or the Canal grating close by it), as may be preferred on reconnaissance by the officers in charge of the explosion party.” ... “We are impressed with the necessity,” they added, “of driving the enemy out of the City and into the Fort by the simultaneous advance of several columns, of which two shall pass along the ramparts right and left, taking possession of every bastion and capturing every gun, whilst the remainder, advancing towards the Palace by the principal streets of the city, will establish posts on the margin of the esplanade, which surrounds the Palace, communicating right and left with the heads of the adjoining columns. To this end we believe it essential that the attack should commence at the peep of dawn. We propose to effect the explosions at half-past three A.M.; intimation of success to be immediately followed by the advance of the columns detailed for each attack, which will be in readiness at the points hereafter indicated, half an hour before that time.”

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The report embodying. this scheme was signed by four subaltern officers – by Wilberforce Greathed, by Maunsell and Chesney, of the Engineers, and Hodson, of the Intelligence Department, at a later period known as “Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse409.”

June 12

The scheme was accepted by Barnard, and orders were issued for its execution. Soon after midnight everything was ready. The troops selected for this enterprise were duly warned. Each Engineer officer had his appointed work.

Contemplated night attack

They were to assemble, under cover of the darkness of the night, between one and two o’clock, and to proceed noiselessly to the gates, which were to have been blown in with powder-bags. But when the parade was held, an important part of the destined force was missing. A body of three hundred men of the 1st European Fusiliers was to have been brought up by Brigadier Graves; but at the appointed hour there was no sign of his appearance; and the column, thus weakened by their defection, was not strong enough to do the work before it. It was an intense disappointment to many eager spirits, who, on that June morning, believed that the stronghold of the enemy was within their grasp. But there seemed to be nothing left but the postponement of the enterprise; so, reluctantly, orders were given for the return of the storming party to their quarters. It is difficult not to believe that Brigadier Graves disobeyed orders. The excuse was that he misunderstood them, and the kind heart of Sir Henry Barnard inclined him to accept the excuse410.

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Revised scheme of assault

But the project of a surprise, though thus delayed, was not abandoned. Wilberforce Greathed went hopefully to work, revising his scheme, and never ceasing to urge at Head-Quarters the necessity of a night attack. The brief delay had at least one advantage. The moon was waning, and the cover of darkness was much needed for such an enterprise. Every day had made Barnard more and more sensible of the underrated strength of the great city which lay before him. But he still clung to the idea of a sudden rush, and either a grand success or a crippling failure.

June 13

“The place is so strong,” he wrote to Lord Canning on the 13th of June, “and my means so inadequate, that assault or regular approach were equally difficult – I may say impossible; and I have nothing left but to place all on the hazard of a die and attempt a coup-de-main, which I purpose to do. If successful, all will be well. But reverse will be fatal, for I can have no reserve on which to retire. But, assuredly, you all greatly under-estimated the difficulties of Dehli. They have twenty-four-pounders on every gate and flank bastion;

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and their practice is excellent – beats ours five to one. We have got six heavy guns in position, but do not silence theirs, and I really see nothing for it but a determined rush; and this, please God, you will hear of as successful.”

About this time, Barnard had under consideration the revised scheme of Wilberforce Greathed for an attack on Dehli, “by means of simultaneous explosions of powder-bags at the Kabul and Lahor Gates, and of a charge against the Kashmir Gate, to be fired at such time as the attention of the defenders of that enclosure may be engaged by the first-mentioned operations.” Maunsell and Hodson were to conduct one explosion party, and Greathed and McNeill the other. On the sound of the bugle, the appointed storming parties were to advance and stream through the openings thus effected. Every precaution was taken in the event of failure at any point, and precise instructions laid down as to the course to be pursued by each column of attack on the occurrence of any possible contingency, and nothing was wanted to show, not only by written description, but also by plans and charts, what each detail of the force was to do after entrance had been effected.

June 14

Councils of war

This project, signed by Wilberforce Greathed, was dated June 14. On the following day a Council of War was held, and the scheme was considered. It was summoned by General Reed, who on Anson’s death had come down from Rawalpindi to assume as senior officer in the Presidency the Provisional Command in. Chief of the Army411, and it was held in his tent. Sir Henry Barnard, Brigadier Wilson, Hervey Greathed, and the chief Engineer officers, were present. The old adage that a Council of War never fights was not falsified in this case. It was set forth very strongly that the project of the Engineers involved the employment of nearly the whole of the Dehli Field Force; that there would be no reserve to fall back upon in the event of failure; and that, in the event of success, the enemy, streaming out of Dehli, might

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attack our camp, seize our guns, and otherwise inflict grievous injury upon us. The military authorities were all in favour of delay, until such time as a reinforcement of at least a thousand men might arrive.

Views of Hervey Greathed

The Civilian who appeared in Council as the representative of the Government of the North-Western Provinces was opposed to this delay. Very forcibly Hervey Greathed urged that “the delay of a fortnight would disappoint expectations, protract the disorders with which the country is afflicted, increase the disaffection known to exist among the Muhammadan population in the Bombay Presidency, and cause distrust on the part of our Native allies;” but he added that he could not take upon himself to say that the delay would lead the Native States actually to throw off their allegiance to the British Government, or endanger the safety of Kanhpur and Oudh, and of the county to the eastward. He assumed that British relations with the Native States were too close to be so easily dissolved, and that the concentration of English troops at Kanhpur would insure the safety of the districts to which allusion had been made. Wilberforce Greathed, ever ready for an immediate attack on the blood-stained city, pleaded that it would be easy to revise the scheme, so as to leave a larger reserve in camp. And, finally, it was agreed to defer the decision to the following day.

June 16

The Council reassembled

On the 16th of June, therefore, the Council again assembled. The military leaders had thought over the grave questions before them. The feeling at the first consultation had been that, on political grounds, at would be desirable to attack the city immediately on the arrival of the first reinforcements. But even this much of forwardness waned on. the evening of the 15th, and the Commandant of Artillery, who had been moved by Hervey Greathed’s arguments at the first Council, had fallen back upon his military experience, and had recorded a Memorandum, which had in no small measure influenced Barnard412. For the General

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was a man too little self-reliant for his position – too prone to be swayed hither and thither by the gusts of other men’s recorded or spoken opinions. When, therefore, on the 16th of June, the Council of War again met, and. all the military members of Council, except Wilberforce Greathed, were opposed to immediate operations, his resolution yielded to the array of authority before him, and again he began to intrench himself behind military principles and precedents.

Opinion of Brigadier Wilson

At that Council, on the 16th of June, Archdale Wilson put in, as the expression of his matured judgment on the subject, the paper which he had written on the day before, and which was now read aloud: “Taking into consideration the large extent of the town to be attacked,” it said, “a full mile in breadth, nearly two miles in length from the Kashmir to the Dehli Gate, I must own that I dread success, on entering the town, almost as much as failure. Our small force, two thousand bayonets, will be lost in such an extent of town; and the insurgents have shown, by their constant and determined attacks upon our position, how well they can and will fight from behind cover, such as they will have in street-fighting in the city, when every man will almost be on a par with our Europeans. With the large number of heavy ordnance they have mounted on the walls (from thirty to forty pieces), we must also expect heavy loss during the assault of the gateways, as their grape-shot will command the ground from seven hundred or eight hundred yards round the walls. I gave my vote for the assault, on the arrival of our first reinforcements, solely on the political grounds set forth by Mr. Greathed, feeling, at the same time, that, as a military measure, it was a most desperate and unsafe one. It has, however, since struck me that, even in a political point of view, it would be wiser to hold our own position and wait for the reinforcements

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from Lahor, when we could insure success in our attack. So long as we hold this position we keep the whole of the insurgents in and round Dehli. On taking the city, they will naturally form into large bodies, and go through the country, plundering in every direction. These bodies should be immediately followed by movable brigades, and cut up whenever come up with. It would be impossible, with the small force we now have, to leave a sufficient force for the protection of Dehli, and at the same time to send out such brigades as will be required. It appears to me a question of time only. The country all round, it is true, is in the hands of the insurgents and other plunderers, and must remain so until we can clear the country by our brigades. Mr. Greathed also contemplates the probability of the Native chiefs, who are now favourable to us, becoming lukewarm in our cause; but what have they yet done for us? The Gwaliar and Bharatpur forces have long ago left us to our resources; and, from what I hear, little is to be expected from the Jaipur Contingent, until they are quite satisfied of our complete success over the insurgents.”

Opinion of General Reed

General Reed then declared his opinion at some length413. He said that “our success on the 8th had placed us in a favourable position, and one which we could hold for any time. It, therefore, became a question whether it would not be better to await the arrival of the strong reinforcements that were on their way to join us – the rear guard of which must have reached Lodiana, so that by ordinary marches they ought all be assembled here in fifteen days – than to risk an attack on the place at once, which would require every available bayonet of our force to effect, leaving no reserve, except Cavalry and heavy guns in position, thus risking the safety of our camp, stores, and magazines, which would be exposed to. the incursion of many bodies of mutineers which we knew were encamped outside the walls of Dehli, and would take the opportunity of looting our camp, while our troops were attacking the city. There can be no question,” he continued, “of the propriety of waiting, in a military point of view. In that all agree. We have, then, to look upon it in a political aspect, and to inquire whether, in that sense, so great a risk is

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to be run as an immediate assault would entail. There can be no doubt that expedition in terminating this state of affairs – which it is to be hoped that the capture of Dehli would accomplish – is a great consideration; but the possibility of failure, either total or partial, in that operation should be averted. This can only be done by having in hand such a force as will insure success. That force, it is believed, will be assembled here in the course of fifteen days. In the mean time, by holding this position, we keep the chief body of the mutineers concentrated in and about Dehli. They know they cannot dislodge us, and that strong reinforcements are on their way to join us, while they are prevented from dispersing and marauding the country, which would be the effect of a successful attack upon Dehli at tiny time. Now we have not the means of sending our detachments to pursue them; then we should have ample means, and movable columns would be organised without delay to drive out the mutineers, and re-establish order in the neighbouring , places which have suffered. It is not apparent, therefore, that the delay contemplated can have an effect, politically, sufficiently injurious to warrant the certainty of great loss and risk of possible failure, than which nothing could be more disastrous in its consequences. We have suffered no diminution of prestige since we advanced on Delhi; all our objects have been accomplished, in spite of great obstacles, by the well-known redoubtable bravery of our troops, the mutineers driven from their strong positions, and their guns taken. Their sorties in force have since been repulsed with great loss to them, and in no one instance have they succeeded in gaining any, even the smallest, advantage. Their only effective defence lies in their walls, which, instead of being weak and unable to support the weight and resist the concussion of guns, are strong (recently repaired and strengthened by us), capable of sustaining a numerous and heavy artillery, with which all their bastions are mounted. As neither our time nor material would admit of a regular siege, an assault or storm can only be resorted to; but the success of this must be insured. A contrary event would endanger the Empire. Another reason has been alleged for an immediate attack – the approaching rains; but they are seldom heavy till the ensuing month, and the sickness does not ensue till the month after. Every precaution must, of course, be taken in cutting drains in camp previously, to carry off the water; for the wounded (there are, I am happy to say, few sick), there

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are good pucka buildings, Native hospitals, in the Lines which we occupy, so that no inconvenience need be expected as far as they are concerned, nor do I anticipate any for the Force. There has been no ‘Chhota Barsat’ yet, which generally precedes the regular rains, and is succeeded by some fine weather before these regularly set in. The necessity of having as large a force as can be made available is also apparent in the size of Dehli, the circumference of which is six or seven miles. Having accomplished a lodgement, a strong force would be required to clear the ramparts and occupy the town, in which they may expect to be, opposed at every house and wall behind which an insurgent can find room, under which it is known they can defend themselves with vigour. All things considered,” concluded the General, “it is my opinion that the military reasons for awaiting the arrival of a sufficient force to insure success far outweigh any political inconvenience that might arise, and which would all be remedied by certain success in the end.”

Abandonment of the assault

The result of these decided expressions of opinion on the part of the principal military officers at Dehli was that again the project of a coup-de-main was abandoned. In the face of such opinions, Barnard did not consider that he would be justified in incurring the serious risks so emphatically dwelt upon by Wilson and Reed.

June 18

The expression of his personal views is on record. Writing on the 18th to Sir John Lawrence, he said: “I confess that, urged on by the political adviser acting with me, I had consented to a coup-de-main which would have entailed all the above considerations; accident alone prevented it; it may be the interposition of Providence. From what I can hear, and from the opinion of others whom it became my duty to consult, I am convinced that success would have been as fatal as failure. A force of two thousand bayonets, spread over a city of the magnitude of Dehli, would have been lost as a military body, and, with the treachery that surrounds us, what would have become of my matériel? Be sure that I have been guided by military rule, and that it required moral courage to face the cry that will be raised against our inactivity before Dehli; I can but act for the best, and wait any favourable opportunity for striking the blow. The great point raised by Mr. Greathed was the security of the Duab, and the desirableness of sending troops to Aligarh from Dehli; but were I in the city now I could not do this. The Castle and Selimgarh yet

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remain before me, and to hold the city and attack these with a force under two thousand would prevent my detaching any there. The fact is, Dehli, bristling with lances, and garrisoned by men who, however contemptible in the open, have sagacity behind stone walls and some knowledge of the use of heavy ordnance – for hitherto they beat us in the precision of their fire – is not to be taken by the force from Ambalah, with two troops of six-pounders; and its present strength has been greatly under-estimated. We have fought one action at Badli-ki-Sarai, where, so long as their guns remained to them, they appeared formidable. We have been subject to frequent attacks ever since, each made with some spirit, but repulsed with heavy loss, and having now the position taken up from which we must eventually reduce the place. It strikes me the best policy is to view it in its best light; it is a difficult task, and not to be accomplished without a sufficient force. Once in the town, the game is over if we can hold it, and immediately a force will be available for any purpose Mr. Colvin requires. Delay is vexatious, and losing men daily in these attacks is heart-breaking. I am well, but much harassed. I do assure you, the more I think of it, the more I rejoice in the haphazard experiment failing. It is some comfort to see that you agree; I hope others will now see I had more to do than to walk into Dehli414.”

But Wilberforce Greathed still did not despair of turning the hearts of the military chiefs towards his schemes of energetic action. Before a week had passed, he had submitted to Barnard another memorandum, urging that since the date of the last Council the mutineers had been reinforced by the Nasirabad Brigade of two regiments and six guns, and the Jalandhar force

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of three regiments with one gun; that information had been received of the near approach to join the insurgents of the revolted Bata force, six regiments of Infantry with eight guns, and a regiment of Cavalry; and that, moreover, there were tidings of the Gwaliar Contingent, of seven regiments of Infantry, three of Cavalry, and three batteries of Artillery, with a siege-train and magazine, having declared for the King of Dehli; and that in all human probability Agra would be besieged by the latter force – perhaps, indeed, already was in imminent peril. In such circumstances it had become a matter of infinite importance that a portion of the Dehli force should be detached to the relief of the former city. “But this is possible,” he added, “only after Dehli is in our possession, and the mutineers’ force dispersed. I respectfully submit, therefore, that a political necessity for pressing the attack of Dehli at almost any risk has arisen, and upon this ground I venture to submit a project of immediate attack concurred in by the officers who were commissioned to prepare the first project.” But Barnard was not to be induced to swerve from the resolution formed by the Council of War. So, again, the younger and more eager spirits of the British camp were disappointed; and our troops fell back upon their old daily business of repulsing the enemy’s sorties.

Work in camp

There was, indeed, whilst this great design of the coup-de-main was under consideration at Head-Quarters, no lack of work in camp, and no lack of excitement. There were real alarms and false alarms, and officers and men on the Ridge were compelled to be constantly on the alert. Greatly outmatched as we were in Artillery, we could make little or no impression upon the batteries of the enemy or the walls of Dehli, and were, in truth, except when our Horse Artillery guns were brought into close quarters, only wasting our ammunition. The Sipahis, who knew our habits but too well, were wont to come out against us in the midst of the fiercest midday heats. In the climate they had an ally, to which they felt that they could trust; and many of our best and bravest were struck down, or went about shivering with ague or confused by quinine. The days were very hot and the nights were unwontedly cold; and these severe alternations are very trying in the extreme to the European constitution. But nothing could abate the elastic cheerfulness and hopeful spirit of our people. Some of our younger officers then

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ripened into heroism of the highest order, and all displayed a constant courage in action, and an enduring fortitude in suffering, unsurpassed in the military annals of any country or any time. Day by day sad tidings came in of new mutinies and new massacres, and ever and anon fresh reinforcements of rebel regiments marched into Dehli to the sound of band-instruments playing our well-known English tunes. But the dominant feeling ever was, as these regiments arrived, that it was better for our countrymen and our country that they should be in the doomed city of the Mughul than they should be scattered about the provinces, assailing weak garrisons or defenceless cantonments, for, please God, the Dehli Field Force could not only hold its own, but, on some not very remote day, make short work of the Dehli rebels. How that was best to be done there were eager discussions in camp, leading to small results and no convictions. It must be admitted that there were many who shook their heads at the project of the coup-de-main, of whim Greathed and Hodson had been the eager authors and the persistent exponents. It was said that, although the Force might have made its way into Dehli, only a small part of it would have ever made its way out. And yet as weeks passed and no change came over the position of the Army before Dehli, men began to chafe under the restraints which had held them back They felt that, in all parts of India, Englishmen were asking each other why Dehli was not taken; and it was painful to those gallant souls to think that their countrymen had expected of them that which they had not done.

Ever active among the active was Sir Henry Barnard. There was not an officer in camp, in the flower of his youth, who, all through this fiery month of June, worked day and night with such ceaseless energy as the Commander of the Dehli Field Force. He was not inured to the climate by long acquaintance with it. He had arrived in India at that very period of life at which the constitution can least reconcile itself to such extreme changes. But nothing could now induce him to spare himself. All day long he was abroad in the great glare of the summer sun, with the hot wind in his face; and it was often observed of him that he never slept. Men have ere now been carried safely through the most trying conjunctures by the possession. of a power enjoyed by many of the world’s greatest men – a power of sleeping and waking at will. But sleep had forsaken Barnard, and therefore the climate and the work were grievously

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assailing him. Not only was there strong within him, amidst all perplexities, an eager, dominant desire to do his duty to the country, for the sake of which he would at any moment have gone gladly to his death, but a tender concern for the welfare of all who were under his command, which kept him unceasingly in a state of unrest, passing from post to post by day and by bight, now visiting a battery or directing a charge, and now gliding into an officer’s hut, and seeing that he was sufficiently covered to resist the cold night air, as he lay asleep on his bed. He impressed all men with the belief that he was a good and gallant soldier, and the kindliest-hearted, truest gentleman who ever took a comrade by the hand.

But although he bore himself thus bravely before men, the inward care was wearing out his life. Never since War ‘began, was General in command of an Army surrounded by so many discouragements and distresses. For in truth there was no possibility of disguising the fact that instead of besieging Dehli, he was himself the besieged. The inadequacy of his means of regular attack became every day more apparent. He had planted strong picquets with guns at some of the principal outposts of which I have spoken; and the enemy were continually streaming out to attack them. At Hindu Rao’s house, at the Flagstaff Tower, and at the Observatory, detachments of Infantry, supported by heavy guns, were planted from the commencement of our operations.

The Metcalfe House

The Metcalfe House would also have been garrisoned from the beginning, but for its distance from our supports and the paucity of troops at our disposal. The occupation of these buildings by the enemy was among the first effects of their offensive activity. It is believed that there was a peculiar feeling of animosity against the Faringhis in connexion with this edifice. It was said to have been erected on land formerly the site of a Gujar village; and that the Gujars had flown upon it, eager for its demolition and resolute to recover their ancient holdings, on the first outbreak of the mutiny415. And there is another story still more significant. The building was originally the tomb of one of the foster-brothers of the Emperor Akbar. It had been converted into a residence by an English civilian, who was murdered, and the act of profanation had been vainly appealed against to another civilian, who afterwards

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shared the same fate416. Whatsoever effect these circumstances may have had upon the conduct of the insurgents, it is certain that they gutted the building and did their best to destroy it417. It was a wreck when we returned to Dehli. A

June

month had passed, and now the enemy were in force at the Metcalfe House, where they had established a formidable battery, which played upon the left of our position on the Ridge. On the morning of the 12th, the Sipahi mutineers came out to attack us both in front and rear. The ground between the Flagstaff Tower and the Metcalfe buildings favoured, by its ravines and shrubberies, the unseen approach of the enemy, who stole up within a short distance of our picquet at the former post, and before the English officer in command418 could realise the position of affairs, had opened fire upon him within a range of some fifty yards. Our men replied. promptly with the Enfield rifle, but Knox was shot dead by a Sipahi

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musketeer, and many of his men fell wounded beside him, whilst our artillerymen dropped at their guns. Meanwhile a party of mutineers had made their way to the rear of the British camp, and were pushing onward with desperate audacity into the very heart of it before our people were aroused. There was danger, indeed, on both sides. But the English got to their arms in time to repulse the attack and to carry victory before them. The enemy turned and fled; and after them went swift retribution. Rifles, Fusiliers, and other infantry detachments, aided by Daly’s gallant Guide Corps, pushed after them, and dealing death as they went, pursued the fugitives through the Metcalfe grounds up to the walls of the city. The lesson was not thrown away upon us. A strong picquet was, from that time, planted at the Metcalfe House, and communications with this advanced post were kept open with the Flagstaff Tower on the Ridge419.

Reid’s Picquet

On the same day an attack was made on the right of our position, on that famous post of Hindu Rao’s House, where Reid with his regiment of Gurkhas, two companies of the Rifles, Daly’s Guides, two guns of Scott’s Battery, and some heavy artillery, was destined to bear the brunt of the affray through weeks and months of incessant fighting. Exposed to the fire of the enemy’s guns planted on the Kashmir, Mori, and other bastions, this picquet was seldom suffered to enjoy many hours of continuous rest420. On the morning of the 12th, under cover of the guns, the mutineers came out in two bodies towards our right flank, the one moving directly on the picquet at Hindu Rao’s house, the others pushing into the gardens of the Sabzimandi421. Both

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attacks were repulsed, and with heavy loss to the enemy. But it was not without a disaster on our own side; for a detachment of Native Irregular Cavalry, on whose loyalty we had relied, went over to the enemy. And so sudden was the retrograde movement that the greater number of them escaped from the fire of our guns, which were turned upon them as soon as their treachery was disclosed422. Nor was this the only disheartening circumstance which, about this time, showed how little the Native soldiery generally believed that the Ikhbal of the Company was on the ascendant, even though we had recovered our old position before Dehli, and had beaten the enemy in three pitched battles.

Mutiny of the 60th

The officers of the 60th Sipahi Regiment had come into Dehli without their men. This corps was under the command of a distinguished soldier, Colonel Thomas Seaton, who had made a name for himself, fifteen years before, as one of the illustrious garrison of Jalalabad. He had believed, as other Sipahi officers had believed, in his men, but they had broken into rebellion at Rohtak, and had now gone to swell the tide of rebellion within the walls of Dehli. No sooner had they arrived than they went out against us and were amongst the most vehement of our assailants.

June 13–17

Renewed attacks

Again and again – day after day – the enemy came out to attack our posts with an uniformity of failure of which it would be tedious to recite the details. On the 13th and 15th, they again flung themselves upon our position at Hindu Rao’s House, and, as ever, the Gurkhas and the Guides distinguished themselves by their unflinching gallantry423. On the afternoon of the 17th, we began to act on the offensive. The enemy were

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strongly posted in the suburbs of Kishanganj and Trevelyan-ganj, between our right and the city, and were erecting a battery on rising ground, which would have completely enfiladed the Ridge. So two columns were sent out to destroy their works. It was a dashing enterprise, and Barnard selected the right men for it. One column was intrusted to Reid, the other to Henry Tombs. The former moved from Hindu Rao’s House, the latter from the camp. Both were completely successful. After a gallant resistance by the Sappers and Miners of our old Army, who, after firing their muskets, drew their swords and flung themselves desperately upon us, the battery and magazine were destroyed, and the village in which they were planted was burnt. Large numbers of the enemy were killed and wounded, and their rout was complete. Our own loss was trifling. Tombs, always in the thick of the affray, had two horses shot under him424, and was himself slightly wounded, Captain Brown of the 1st Fusiliers, well-nigh received his death-wound. That evening General Barnard walked into the Artillery mess-tent, and with characteristic appreciation of gallantry lavished his well-merited praises upon Tombs.

Artillery practice of the enemy

There was much, in all this, of the true type of English soldiership. But it was weary and disheartening work at the best. If we lost fewer men than the enemy, they had more to lose, more to spare, and their gaps could be more readily filled. Every victory cost us dearly. And we made no progress towards the great consummation of the capture of Dehli. Every day it became more apparent that we were grievously outmatched in Artillery425. Their guns could take our distance, but ours could not take theirs. They were of heavier metal and longer reach than our own, and sometimes worked with destructive precision. On one occasion a round shot from a twenty-four

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June 9

pounder was sent crashing into the portico of Hindu Rao’s House, and with such deadly effect that it killed an English officer426 and eight men and wounded four others, including a second English subaltern. We could not silence these guns. A twenty-four pounder had been taken from the enemy in battle, but we had no ammunition in store for a gun of such calibre, and were fain to pick up the shot which had been fired from the city walls. Whilst the ordnance stores at our command were dwindling down to scarcity-point, so vast were the supplies in the city, that it little mattered to our assailants how many rounds they fired every hour of the day. The gallantry of the Artillery subaltern, Willoughby, had done but little to diminish the resources of the enemy. There were vast supplies of material wealth that could not be blown into the air.

The fire from the Mori bastion, especially, played always annoyingly and sometimes destructively on the Ridge. The Sipahi gunners seemed to take a delight, which was a mixture of humour and savagery, in watching the incidents of our camp, and sending in their shots just at a critical moment to disturb our operations, whether of a military or a social character. If one detachment were marching to the relief of another – if a solitary officer were proceeding to inspect a battery – if a line of cook-boys were toiling on with their cauldrons on their heads for the sustenance of the Europeans on picquet, a, round shot was sure to come booming towards them, and perhaps with fatal precision of aim. In time our people became accustomed to this exercise, and either avoided the exposure altogether, or kept themselves on the alert so as to anticipate the arrival of the deadly missile, and secure safety by throwing themselves upon the ground. The cook-boys, whose journeys – as men must eat – could not be arrested or postponed, became adepts in this work. They went adroitly down on their knees and deposited their burdens till the danger had passed. The water-carriers, too, were greatly exposed. And it is characteristic of the relations which at that time existed between the two races, that although these servile classes did their duty

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with all fidelity – and it would have fared ill with us indeed if they had failed us in the hour of need – not only was there little kindliness and sympathy extended towards them, but by some at least of the Englishmen in camp, these unarmed, harmless, miserable servitors were treated with most unmerited severity. There is something grotesque, but not less terrible for its grotesqueness, in the story that when the cook-boys thus deftly saved themselves from swift death, and secured also their precious burdens, the European soldiers would sometimes say, “It is well for you, my boys, that you have not spilt our dinners427.”

June 18–19

Attack on our rear

On the 18th, two Sipahi regiments that had mutinied at Nasirabad streamed into Dehli, bringing with them six guns428. This welcome reinforcement raised the hopes of the mutineers, and they re- solved, on the following day, to go out in force against the besiegers. They had so often failed to make an impression on our front, that this time it was their game to attack our position in the rear. So, passing the Sabzimandi, they entered the gardens on our right, and, disappearing for a while, emerged by the side of the Najafgarh Canal, to the dismay of the camel-drivers, whose animals were quietly browsing on the plain. The day was then so far spent that the expectation of an attack, which had been entertained in the morning, had passed away from our camp, and we were but ill-prepared to receive the enemy. Our artillery were the first in action against them. Scott, Money, and Tombs brought their guns into play with marvellous rapidity429; but for a while they were unsupported, and the enemy’s fire, artillery and musketry, was heavy and well directed.

Waterloo Day

The guns of the mutineers were the far-famed guns of the illustrious garrison of Jalalabad, known in history as Abbott’s Battery – guns with the mural crown upon them in

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honour of their great achievements. The Infantry, too, of the Nasirabad Brigade were proving their title to be regarded as the very flower of the rebel army. So fierce and well directed was the fire of a party of musketeers under cover, that Tombs, seeing his men dropping at their guns, and unable to reach the sheltered enemy, doubted for a little space whether he could maintain himself against them. But in this crisis up rode Daly with a detachment of his Guides’ Cavalry, and a word from the heroic artilleryman sent him forward with a few followers against the musketeers in the brushwood. The diversion was successful; but the gallant leader of the Guides returned severely wounded, and for a while his services were lost to the Force430.

Meanwhile the Cavalry had been getting to horse, and Yule’s Lancers were to be seen spurring into action. But the shades of evening were now falling upon the battle, and ere long it was difficult to distinguish friends from enemies. Yule’s saddle was soon empty431; and Hope Grant, who commanded, well-nigh fell into the hands of the enemy, for his charger was shot under him, and it was sore trouble to rescue him in the confusion and darkness of the moment. The engagement, scattered and discursive as were its incidents, is not one easily to be described. A confused narrative of that evening’s fighting must be most descriptive of the chaos of the fight. Night fell upon a drawn battle, of which no one could count the issues, and, as our officers met together in their mess-tents, with not very cheerful countenances, they saw the camp-fires of the enemy blazing up in their rear. We had sustained some severe losses. That fine field-officer of the Lancers, Yule, had been killed; Daly, of the Guides, had been incapacitated for active work; Arthur Becher, Quartermaster General of the Army, had been wounded; and we had left many men upon

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the field. The enemy had increased in numbers, and with numbers their daring had increased. It would have gone ill with us if the mutineers had succeeded in establishing themselves in our rear, and the strength of the rebel force within a the walls had enabled them to renew their attacks on our front and on our flanks. They were welcoming fresh reinforcements every day, whilst our reinforcements, notwithstanding the ceaseless energies of the authorities above and below Dehli, were necessarily coming in but slowly. Perhaps at no period of the siege were circumstances more dispiriting to the besiegers.

There was little sound sleep in our camp that night, but with the first dawn of the morning, and the first breath of the morning air, there came a stern resolution upon our people not to cease from the battle until they had driven the exulting enemy from our rear. But it was scarcely needed that we should brace ourselves up for the encounter. The vehemence of the enemy was seldom of long duration. It expended itself in fierce spasms, often, perhaps, the growth of vast druggings of bang, and was generally exhausted in the course of a few hours. On the morning of the 19th, therefore, our people saw but little of the desperate energy of the 18th. Soon after our camp turned out there was another scene of wild confusion. Nobody seemed to know what was the actual position of affairs, and many were quite unable in their bewilderment to distinguish between enemies and friends. The former had nearly all departed, and the few who remained were driven out with little trouble. One last spasm of energy manifested itself in a farewell discharge of round-shot from a Sipahi gun; but the worst that befell us was an amazing panic among the camp-followers beyond the canal, and a considerable expenditure of ammunition upon an imaginary foe.

June 20–21

A lull

It always happened that after one of these storms of excitement there was a season of calm. To the irresistible voluptuousness of perfect repose the Sipahis ever surrendered themselves on the day after a great fight. The 20th and 21st were, therefore, days of rest to our Force. The latter was our Sabbath, and early service was performed by Mr. Rotton in the mess-tent of the 2nd Fusiliers, and afterwards in other parts of the camp. There were many then amongst our people instant in prayer, for they felt that a great crisis was approaching. They may have laughed to scorn the old

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prophecy that on the centenary of the great battle of Plassey, which had laid Bengal at our feet, and had laid, too, broad and deep the foundations of our vast Anglo-Indian Empire, our empire would be finally extinguished.

June 22

The self-reliance of the Englishman made light account of such vaticinations; but no one doubted that the superstition was strong in the minds of the Dehli garrison, and that the 23rd of June would be a great day, for good or for evil, in the History of the War. It was certain, indeed, that then one of those convulsive efforts, with which already our people were so well acquainted, would be made on a larger scale than ever had been made before. On such a day, warned by the thought of the prophecy which designing people had freely circulated in the Lines of all our real regiments, it could not be doubted that Hindu and Muhammadans would unite with common confidence and common enmity against us, and that an unwonted amount of confidence and bang would hurl their regiments against us with unexampled fury and self-devotion, in full assurance of the re-establishment of Native rule from one end of India to the other. Our force had been growing weaker and weaker every day, whilst the rebel force had grown stronger and stronger. It was not, therefore, a very cheerful prospect which lay before the English when they thought of the issues of the morrow.

June 23

The Centenary of Plassey

Day had scarcely broken on the 23rd when our people learnt that their expectations were not unfounded. The enemy, in greater force than had ever menaced us before, streamed out of the Lahor Gate, and again moved by our right towards the rear of the British camp. But they encountered an unexpected difficulty, which disconcerted their plans. On the previous night our Sappers had demolished the bridges over the Najafgarh Drain, by which the enemy had intended to cross their guns; and thus checked, they were compelled to confine their attacks to the right of our position. The effect of this was, that much of the day’s fighting was among the houses of the Sabzimandi, from which the enemy poured in a deadly fire on our troops. Again and again the British Infantry, with noble courage and resolution, bearing up against the heats of the fiercest sun that had yet assailed them, drove the Sipahis from their cover, and fought against heavy odds all through that long summer day. We

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had need of all our force in such a struggle, for never had we been more outmatched in numbers, and never had the enemy shown a sterner, more enduring courage. Fresh troops had joined us in the morning, but weary as they were after a long night’s march, they were called into service, and nobly responded to the call432. The action of the 19th had been an Artillery action; this of the 23rd was fought by the Infantry, and it was the fighting that least suits the taste and temper of the English soldier. But the 60th Rifles went gallantly to the attack, and the Gurkhas and Guides vied with them in sturdy, unflinching courage to the last. At noonday the battle was raging furiously in the Sabzimandi; and such were the fearful odds against us, that Reid, cool and confident as he was in the face of difficulty and danger, felt that, if not reinforced, it would strain him to the utmost to hold his own433. But his men fought on; and after a while the reinforcements which he had sent for came up, and then, though the contest was still an unequal one, the chances of war were no longer desperately against us, and our stubborn courage prevailed against the multitude of the enemy, As the sun went down, the vigour of the enemy declined also, and at sunset the mutineers had lost heart, and found that the work was hopeless. Before nightfall the Sabzimandi was our own, and the enemy had withdrawn their guns and retired to the city. It had been a long weary day of hard fighting beneath a destroying sun, and our troops were so spent and exhausted that they could not charge the rebel guns, or follow the retreating masses of the mutineers. It was one of those victories of which a few more repetitions would have turned our position into a graveyard, on which the enemy might have quietly encamped.

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June 24

State of affairs in Camp

After this there was another lull, and there was again time for our chief people to take account of the circumstances of their position and to look the future in the face. The result of the fighting on the Centenary of Plassey was somewhat to abate the confidence of the enemy. There were no signs of the descent of that great Star of Fortune which had risen above us for a hundred years. Little now was to be gained by them from spiritual manifestations and encouragements. They had only to look to their material resources; but these were steadily increasing, as the stream of mutiny continued to swell and roll down in full current towards the great ocean of the imperial city. Nasirabad and Jalandhar had already discharged their turbid waters, and now Rohilkhand was about to pour in its tributaries. All this was against us, for it was the custom of the enemy upon every new accession of-strength to signalise the arrival of the reinforcements by sending them out to attack. us. Thus the brunt of the fighting on. the 19th had been borne by the Nasirabad force, and on the 23rd by the regiments from Jalandhar. It was felt, therefore, that on the arrival of the Rohilkhand Brigade there would be again a sharp conflict, which, although the issue of the day’s fighting could not be doubtful, would tend to the diminution of our strength, and to the exhaustion of our resources, and would place us no nearer to the final consummation for which our people so ardently longed.

Arrival of reinforcements

On the other hand, however, it was a source of congratulation that our reinforcements were also arriving. Sir John Lawrence was doing his work well in the Panjab, and sending down both European and Sikh troops, and every available gun, to strengthen Barnard in his position before Dehli. The dimensions of the British camp were visibly expanding. The newly arrived troops were at first a little dispirited by the thought of the small progress that had been made by their comrades before Dehli; for the besiegers were found to be the besieged. But they soon took heart again, for the good spirits of the Dehli Field Force were contagious, and nothing finer had ever been seen than the buoyancy and the cheerfulness which they manifested in the midst of all sorts of trials and privations. Many old friends and comrades then met together in the mess-tents to talk. over old times, and many new friendships were formed by men meeting as strangers,

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on that ever-memorable Ridge – friendships destined to last for a life. Hospitality and good-fellowship abounded everywhere. There was not an officer in camp who did not delight in the opportunity of sharing his last bottle of beer with a friend or a comrade. And from the old Crimean General down to the youngest subaltern in camp, all were alike chivalrous, patient, and self-denying.

Last days of General Barnard

There was never any despondency among them. Vast divergencies of opinion prevailed in camp with respect to the great something that was to be done. Some of the younger, more eager, spirits panted for a rush upon Dehli. The Engineer subalterns – Greathed and his gallant brethren – never ceased to urge the expediency of a coup-de-main, and as the month of June wore to a close, Barnard again consented to the enterprise – doubtfully as to the issue, and altogether reluctantly, but with a dominant sense that there was nothing else to be done. He was very active at this time. No subaltern, in the flower of his youth, was more regardless of exposure and fatigue. Under the fierce June sun, never sparing himself, he was continually abroad, and night seldom found his anxious head upon the pillow. Sometimes he and his son laid themselves down together, with revolvers in their hands, but still the general notion in camp was that he “never slept,” He was torn to pieces by conflicting counsels. But he wore outwardly a cheerful aspect, and ever resolute to do his best, he bore up manfully against the troubles which surrounded him. Even the feeling that, do what he might, his reputation would be assailed, did not, to outward appearance, very sorely distress him. All men placed in difficult conjunctures must be prepared to encounter reproach, and Barnard well knew it. But ever as time went on he won upon the hearts of the officers under his command by his kindliness and generosity. It was said that he kept open tent; he had a liberal table; and never had an officer in high command a keener sense of individual merit or a more open-hearted desire to bestow his personal commendations on all who had distinguished themselves by acts of gallantry. So, before the month of June was at an end, Sir Henry Barnard had securely established himself in the affections of the Dehli Field Force.

But, as weeks passed away, and he saw that he was making no impression upon Dehli, the inward care that was weighing upon his very life grew heavier and heavier. He wrote many

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letters at this time both to public functionaries in India and to private friends in England, in which he set forth very clearly his difficulties and perplexities, and suggested that he had been, and was likely. to be, misjudged.

June 28

To Sir John Lawrence he wrote, on the 28th of June, a letter, in which he reviewed the Past, and set forth the circumstances of the Present. “You have, of course,” he said, “been well informed of our proceedings, which, from the commencement, have been a series of difficulties overcome by the determined courage and endurance of our troops, but not leading us to the desired termination. When first I took up this position, my Artillery were to silence the fire of the town from the Mori and Kashmir Gates, at least, and our heavy guns then brought into play to open our way into the city. So far from this, however, we have not silenced a single gun, and they return us to this day at least four to one. The Chief Artillery Officer admits the distance to be too great; but to get nearer we must look to our Engineers, who are only now commencing to collect some few materials, such as trenching tools, sand-bags, &c., of which they were destitute, and even now have not enough to aid me in strengthening any outpost. In the mean time, my force is being worn out by the constant and sanguinary combats they are exposed to – the attacks which require every soul in my camp to repel – for it is never certain where the enemy intend to strike their blow, and it is only by vigilance I can. ascertain it, and having done so, withdraw troops from one place to strengthen the threatened one; and thus the men are hastened here and there, and exposed to the sun all day. To me it is wonderful how all have stood it. It is heartbreaking to engage them in these affairs, which always cost us some valuable lives. The Engineers had arranged a plan of approach on the Kashmir side; the difficulties that meet one here are the constant interruptions the operations would experience by the fire from the town, and more so by the more frequent renewal of these dangerous attacks. But a greater one was in store for me when, on inquiring into the means, the amount of siege ammunition was found to be so totally inadequate, that the Chief Engineer declared the project must be abandoned. There remains, therefore, but one alternative. My whole force will be here in a day or two, when. our entire project will be matured. Disappointing as, I fear, our progress has been to you, the results of our exertions have been great; an.

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immensely superior force has been on all occasions defeated with great loss, and I have reason to believe that the spirit of this mutineering multitude – contemptible in the open, but as good, if not better, than ourselves behind guns – is completely broken, and that the game is in our hands; for, by confining, or rather centralising the evil on Dehli, the heart of it will be crushed in that spot, and that delay, so far from being detrimental, has been of essential use! But for the prestige, I would leave Dehli to its fate. Anarchy and disorder would soon destroy it; and the force now before it – the only one of Europeans you have in India set free – would be sufficient to re-establish the greater part of the country. To get into Dehli will greatly reduce this small force, and I feel much moral courage in even hinting at an object which I have no intention of carrying out – at all events, till after an attempt had been made. You may say, why engage in these constant combats? The reason simply is that, when attacked, we must defend ourselves; and that to secure our camp, our hospitals, our stores, &c., every living being has to be employed. The whole thing is too gigantic for the force brought against it. The gates of Dehli once shut, with the whole of your Native Army drilled, equipped, and organised within the walls, a regularly prepared force should have been employed, and the place invested. Much as I value the reduction of Dehli, and great as I see that the danger to my own reputation will be if we fail, still I would rather retire from it than risk this army! But, by God’s blessing, all may be saved yet.” And in this letter, having set forth the general state of the great question. before him, he proceeded to speak of some of its personal bearing. “My position,” he said, “is difficult; and not the less so for its undefined responsibilities, which must always be the case when a Commander-in-Chief is in the same field. But the valuable assistance which you have given me, in Brigadier-General Chamberlain, will henceforward greatly lighten my anxieties.”

June 24

Arrival of Brigadier-General Chamberlain

A few days before – on the 24th of June – Brigadier Chamberlain had arrived in Camp to take the post of Adjutant-General of the Army. His coming had been anticipated with the liveliest emotions of satisfaction. Some said that he would be worth a thousand men. Those who had ever encouraged the bolder and the more hazardous course of action rejoiced most of all, for they believed that his voice would be lifted up

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in favour of some dashing enterprise434. It was, doubtless, at that time great gain to have such a man at the elbow of the Commander435. A few months before officialism would have stood aghast at such a selection. Neville Chamberlain. had little departmental experience. But the Departments, in that great crisis, were not in the highest honour. Not that they had failed – not that they had done any worse or any better than Departments are wont to do in great conjunctures; but that the Dehli Field Force did not want Departments, but men. There was no want of manliness in the general Staff, for already within the space of three weeks one departmental chief had been killed and another disabled. But it was felt that there were men in the country, cast in the true heroic mould, with a special genius for the work in hand. Some said, “Oh, if Henry Lawrence were but here!” others spoke of John Nicholson as the man for the crisis; and all rejoiced in the advent of Neville Chamberlain. There was another, too, whose name at that time was in the mouth of the general camp. It was known that Baird Smith had been summoned to direct the engineering department, which had been lamentably in want of an efficient chief. All these things were cheering to the heart of the Crimean General, for he mistrusted his own judgment, and he looked eagerly for counsellors in whom he could confide.

July

Colonel Baird Smith

Baird Smith was at Rurki, leading an active, busy life, thinking much of the Army before Dehli, but never dreaming of taking part in the conflict, when, in the last week of June, news reached him that he was wanted there to take the place of the Chief Engineer, who had completely broken down. Having improvised, with irregular despatch, a body of some six hundred Pioneers, and loaded fifty or sixty carts with Engineer tools and stores,

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he started on the 29th of June, accompanied by Captains Robertson and Spring436. Pushing on by forced marches, he was within sixty miles of Dehli, when, on the morning of the 2nd of July, after a weary night-march, an express reached him with the stirring news that an assault on Dehli had been planned for the early dawn of the morrow, and that all were anxious for his presence. After an hour or two of sleep, he mounted again, and. rode – or, as he said “scrambled.” – on; getting what he could to carry him – now a fresh horse, now an elephant, and again the coach-and-four of the Rajah of Jhind; and so, toiling all through the day and the night, he reached Dehli by three o’clock on the morning of the 3rd. Weary and worn out though he was, the prospect of the coming assault braced him up for the work in hand; but he had made the toilsome march for nothing. The projected attack was in abeyance, if it had not wholly collapsed.

Postponement of the Assault

July 3

It was the old story: that fatal indecision, which had been the bane of General Barnard, as leader of such an enterprise as this, had again, at the eleventh hour, overthrown the bolder counsels which he had been persuaded. to adopt. All the expected reinforcements had arrived, and he was stronger than he had ever been before437. The details of the assault had been arranged; the plans had been prepared; the troops had been told off for the attacking columns, though they had not yet been warned, and the project was kept a secret in Camp – when information. reached him that the enemy were contemplating a grand attack upon our position by the agency of the rebel regiments recently arrived from Rohilkhand. The time of early morning appointed for the assault – a little before daybreak – would have

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been propitious, for the hour before dawn was dark and cloudy, and our troops could have advanced unseen to the City walls. But now the opportunity was lost. The time was coming for “the moon and day to meet,” and so all hope of our creeping up, unseen, beneath the shadow of the darkness, was passing away. What Barnard and others called the “Gamester’s Throw,” was not destined to be thrown by him438.

July 4

The Bareli Brigade

The threatened attack on our position, said to have been fixed for the morning of the 3rd, was not then developed into a fact; but at night the Rohilkhand Brigade439 – some four thousand or five thousand strong, Horse, Foot, and Artillery – the Infantry in the scarlet uniforms of their old masters – went out, under cover of the darkness, and made their way towards Alipur, in rear of our Camp, with some vague intention of cutting off our communications by destroying a post we had established there, and of intercepting some convoys on their way to or from the Ridge440. A force under Major Coke, of the Panjab Irregular Army, who had arrived in Camp on the last day of June, was sent out to give battle to the mutineers. It was a compact, well-appointed column of Cavalry and Infantry, with some Horse Artillery guns; and the leader was held in repute for

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his achievements in border warfare. But the result was a disappointment. The ground was marshy; the progress was slow; and we were too late to do the work. Soon after day-break on the 4th, our column came in sight of the Sipahi Regiments which were then returning from Alipur, and our guns were brought into action. But Coke had not taken right account of the distance; our light field pieces made little impression upon the enemy, and our Infantry had not come up in time to take part in the engagement. The Sipahi General, Bakht Khan, was, however, in no mood to come to closer quarters with us, so he drew off his forces and set his face towards Dehli, leaving behind him his baggage, consisting mainly of the night’s plunder – an ammunition waggon and some camel-loads of small-arm cartridges. But they carried off all their guns, and returned to garrison not much weaker than when they started. “The distance we had come from Camp,” wrote General Reed to Sir John Lawrence, “and the deep state of the ground, prevented our guns and cavalry from pursuing. In fact, the horses were knocked up, and the guns could scarcely be moved, while the enemy, being on higher ground, managed to get away their guns441.” But if we had gained no glory, the enemy had added another to their long list of failures. They had taken out some thousands of their best troops, and had only burnt a village, plundered a small isolated British post, and left the plunder behind them on the field. But, if our eyes had not been opened before to the danger of some day having our rearward communications with the Karnal and the Panjab – all the upper country from which we drew our supplies and reinforcements – interrupted by a swarming enemy, who might attack us at all points at the same time, so as to prevent us from effectively protecting our rear, this expedition of the Rohilkhand force dispersed all the films that still obscured our vision. And our Engineer officers, therefore, were directed to adopt every possible measure to render the establishment of the

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enemy in our rear a feat of difficult, if not impossible accomplishment; and the chief of these was the destruction of the bridges across the Najafgarh Canal, except the one immediately in our rear, which we could always command and protect.

Very soon Baird Smith and Barnard were in close consultation. The General rejoiced greatly in the presence of his new adviser, and gave him his unstinted confidence. The arrival, indeed, of such a man as the accomplished Engineer, who knew every nook and crevice in Dehli, and who, before he had any expectation of being personally connected with the siege, had devised a plan of attack, was great gain to the besieging force; and Barnard, whose ignorance of Indian warfare and mistrust of his own judgment drove him to seek advice in all likeliest quarters, would gladly have leant most trustingly on Smith. But it was not decreed that he should trust in any one much longer. His life was now wearing to a close.

Death of General Barnard

July 5

On the second day after Baird Smith’s arrival in Camp, cholera fell heavily upon the General, and smote him down with even more than its wonted suddenness. General Reed had seen Barnard in the early morning, and observed nothing peculiar about him; but by ten o’clock on that Sunday morning a whisper was running through the Camp that the Commander of the Dehli Field Force was dying. He had been missed from his accustomed place at church-service; and, before many hours had passed, his broken-hearted son, who had ministered to him with all the tenderness of a woman, was standing beside his lifeless body. “Tell them,” said the dying General, speaking of his family in England, almost with his last breath – “tell them that I die happy.” Next day his remains were conveyed on a gun-carriage to their last resting-place. “The only difference,” wrote the Chaplain who performed the burial-service, “between the General and a private soldier consisted in the length of the mournful train, which followed in solemn silence the mortal remains of the brave warrior.”

From his death-bed he had sent a message to Baird Smith, saying that he trusted to him to give such an explanation of the circumstances in which he was placed as would save his reputation as a soldier. And, indeed, the same generosity of feeling as he had evinced in all his endeavours to brighten the

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character of his dead friend Anson was now displayed by others towards him; for all men spoke and wrote gently and kindly of Barnard, as of one against whom nothing was to be said except that circumstances were averse to him. “I found him,” wrote Baird Smith, “one of the most loveable men I had ever met – rigidly conscientious in every duty, a perfect gentleman in manner and feeling, a brave soldier, but unequal to the present crisis from an apparent want of confidence in himself and an inability to discriminate between the judgments of others.” – “In him,” wrote General Reed to Sir John Lawrence, “the service has lost a most energetic and indefatigable officer, and I fear his untimely end was in a great measure to be attributed to his fearless exposure of himself, not only to the fire of the enemy, but to the more deadly rays of the sun.” – “He was a high-minded, excellent officer,” said Mr. Commissioner Greathed; “and on European ground, in a European war, would have done the State good service; but he was too suddenly thrust into the most difficult active service in India that could be imagined, and found himself placed in command of an Army which General Anson had organised, and obliged to carry out operations which he would not himself have undertaken with the means at his command. With more knowledge of the relative merits of his troops and of the enemy, he would, I think, have achieved a great success.” – “How he has carried on so long,” wrote Neville Chamberlain, “is wonderful. All day in the sun, and the most part of the night either walking up and down the main street of the camp or visiting the batteries and posts. His constitution was such that he could not command sleep at the moments when he might have rested, and exhausted nature has given way. We all deeply lament his loss, for a kinder or more noble-minded officer never lived.”

I need add nothing to these tributes from the foremost officers in the Camp. Only three months before Barnard had written to Lord Canning, saying: “Cannot you find some tough job to put to me? I will serve you faithfully442.” The “tough job” had been found, and a single month of it had sufficed to lay him in his grave. But he had redeemed his promise. He had served the State faithfully to the last hour of his life.

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And here fitly closes the second part of this Story of the Siege of Dehli. It is the story of a succession of profitless episodes – desultory in narration as in fact; the story, of a month’s fighting with no results but loss of life, waste of material resources, and bitter disappointment in all the dwelling-places of the English in India, as week after week passed away, and every fresh report of the fall of Dehli was proved to be a mockery and a lie.

Footnotes

393. See remarks of Colonel Baird Smith on this subject (Unfinished Memoir): “By one of those remarkable coincidences of which so many occurred to favour the English cause as to suggest the idea of a special Providence in them, the rains of the year preceding the mutiny had been unprecedented in magnitude, and the whole basin had been gorged with water, the area covered exceeding a hundred square miles. ... From the enormous accumulation of water in the Jhil during 1856, this canal, ordinarily dry during the hot season, was filled with a deep, rapid stream of pure and wholesome water during the whole period of the siege. It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the value of such a provision both to the health and comfort of the troops, for without it the river, two miles distant, or the wells in Cantonment, all brackish and bad, must have been the sole sources of water supply for man and beast. Sanitary arrangements were facilitated, good drainage secured. abundant means of ablution and healthy aquatic exercises were provided, and the Jhil Canal was not merely a good defensible line tor military operations, but a precious addition to the comfort and salubrity of the camp.”

394. MS. Memoir by Colonel Baird Smith.

395. Baird Smith says in the Memoir quoted above that “its utmost height above the level of the city does not exceed eighty or ninety feet.” In another memorandum he says that “the average command may be taken for practical purposes at about forty feet.”

396. Baird Smith.

397. “The old man was a well-known member of the local society – a keen sportsman, a liberal and hospitable gentleman, of frank, bluff manners, and genial temperament.” – Baird Smith’s Unfinished Memoir.

398. Ante, book iv., chap. iii. It is stated that a cart-load of dead bodies was found in it, supposed to be the bodies of officers of the 54th.

399. Built by the Rajput Astronomer, Rajah Jait Singh.

400. “They were all strong positions, and Kishanganj pre-eminently so, from its massive masonry enclosures and commanding site on the slope of the right flank of the Gorge.” – Baird Smith.

401. “Its interior was in ruins, but sufficient indications of its design and structure remained to show it to have been one of the rich examples of florid architecture of the later Mughuls, of which Dehli possesses so many beautiful illustrations; and the broad space, with its walls, was overgrown with orange-trees, and limes, and rose-bushes, and other shrubs, all growing in the wildest luxuriance.” – Baird Smith, Unpublished Memoir.

402. Mr. Russell, in his “Diary in India,” speaks of Ludlow Castle as a “fine mansion, with turrets and clock-towers, something like a French chateau of the last century.”

403. Baird Smith.

404. “They offered innumerable facilities for occupation by armed men of any degree of discipline, and in truth so incompatible were its features generally with the action in mass of disciplined troops that the many combats of which it was the scene were rather trials of skill between small bodies or individuals than operations by mass.” – Baird Smith. “The luxuriant foliage, though picturesque as a landscape-effect, concealed to a damaging extent the movement of our enemies, who, creeping out of the Kashmir or Lahor Gates, would, under cover of trees and walls and houses, reach unperceived almost the foot of our position on the Ridge. It was thus that our engineers found it necessary to lop away branches and cut down trees and bushes, marring the beauty of the scene, but adding to our security.” – MS. Memorandum by an Officer of Artillery.

405. Baird Smith. The most recent writer on the subject of the material aspects of Dehli, quoting a professional description of the fortifications, says, “The ‘original round towers formed into angular bastions,’ the ‘crenelated curtains,’ and the fine glacis covering three-fourths or more of the height of the wall, are the additions and improvements of engineers of the present century.” – Bholanath Chandr. – Travels of a Hindu. I rely, however, on Baird Smith’s authority more confidently than on any other. [Since this was written I have read in Major Norman’s “Narrative” that there was before Dehli “an admirable glacis covering the wall for a full third of its height.” As this is a high authority I think it right to quote Baird Smith’s words: “The glacis scarcely merits the name, as it is but a short slope, seventy or eighty feet in breadth, springing from the crest of the counterscarp and provided with no special means of obstruction.”]

406. These gates were known respectively as the Rajghat and the Calcutta Gates. By them the mutineers had entered on the 11th of May.

407. Baird Smith.

408. I have endeavoured in this description of Dehli to represent merely the appearances of the great city and the environs as they presented themselves to General Barnard and. his Staff at the time of their first encamping on the Ridge. Other details will, from time to time, be given as the narrative proceeds. I have consulted a variety of authorities, but I am principally indebted to Colonel Baird Smith’s unfinished Memoir of the Siege of Dehli. As this was written after he had been enabled to verify by subsequent inspection his impressions formed during the siege, I confidently accept the accuracy of his descriptions.

409. Hodson himself has thus referred to the matter in one of the letters published by his brother: “Yesterday I was ordered by the General to assist Greathed, and one or two more Engineers, in forming a project of attack, and how we would do to take Dehli. We drew up our scheme and gave it to the General, who highly approved, and will, I trust, carry it out: but how times must be changed when four subalterns are called upon to suggest a means of carrying so vitally important an enterprise as this, one on which the safety of the Empire depends. Wilberforce Greathed is the next Senior Engineer to Boughton, Chesney is Major of the Engineer Brigade, and Maunsell commands the Sappers. I was added because the General complimentarily told me that he had the utmost value for my opinion; and though I am known to counsel vigourous measures, it is equally well known I do not urge others to do what I would not be the first to do myself.”

410. Graves was Brigadier of the day on duty. The orders conveyed to him were verbal orders, and he rode to Barnard’s tent to ask for a confirmation of them. The story is thus told, and with every appearance of authority by, Mr. Cave-Browne: “Brigadier Graves was the field-officer of the day. About eleven o’clock that night he received verbal orders that the Europeans on picquet along the heights were to move off without being relieved for special duty; with a vague hint that a night-assault was in contemplation. On reaching the Flagstaff picquet we found the Native guards in the act of relief, and unable to believe that it was intended to leave that important position, with its two guns, in the charge of Natives only, he galloped down to the General’s tent for further instructions. Here he heard that they were on the point of assaulting, and that every European infantry soldier was required. Now the Brigadier probably knew more of the actual strength of Dehli than any other soldier in the force; – he had commanded the brigade at the time of the outbreak; and when asked his opinion as to the chance of success, he replied, ‘You may certainly take the city by surprise, but whether you are strong enough to hold it is another matter.’ This made the General falter in his plans. Some of the young officers who were to take a leading part now came in and found him wavering. The Brigadier’s remark had so shaken his purpose that, in spite of entreaty and remonstrance, he withdrew the consent which, if truth be told, he had never very heartily given to the project, and the assault was abandoned. The Rifles, already under the walls, and the advancing columns were recalled into camp.” Major Reid expresses his opinion that the Brigadier was “perfectly justified in having declined to allow his picquets to be withdrawn without written orders” (Reid himself had received written orders, which he obeyed), and declares that the mischance was a fortunate event. Major Norman says that “there are few who do not now feel that the accident which hindered this attempt was one of those happy interpositions in our behalf of which we had such numbers to be thankful for.”

411. He had joined the army about the time of its arrival at Dehli; but he was prostrated by sickness, unable to mount a horse, and quite incompetent to take any active part in the prosecution of the siege. It was not before the 11th that he was enabled to sit up and write a letter to Sir John Lawrence. But from that time his health began to improve, and he did good service by keeping the Chief Commissioner informed of the state of affairs at Dehli. The letters which the General then wrote were full of interesting and important details, and are distinguished by much clear good sense.

412. Barnard recorded a note on the 15th, in which he said that circumstances were altered “by the fact that the Chief Officer of Artillery had represented that the means at his command were inadequate to silencing the enemy’s guns on the walls, so necessary before any approach could be made,” and that the “Chief Engineer represented that, as he had not the means of undertaking any necessary siege operations, the only practicable mode of attack rested on a coup-de-main, to effect which, and to occupy so large an area as the city of Dehli, required the employment of so much of the force under my command as to prevent my leaving- ct sufficient number to guard my camp, and enable me to sustain the position in the case of any reverse attending the attempt.” But he added that political considerations of moment bad been so strongly urged upon Lim, that, although reinforcements were shortly expected, and, in a military point of view, there could be no doubt that it would be expedient to wait for them, he must “submit to those intrusted with the political interests to determine whether to wait is less hazardous than to incur the risk of failure.” He halted, indeed, between two opinions; but, he added, “I am ready to organise the attack to-night, if deemed desirable.”

413. The substance of what follows in the text was stated orally before the council of the 15th. General Reed afterwards embodied it in a letter to Sir John Lawrence, and it was read out at the meeting on the following day.

414. To this letter Barnard added a postscript, saying: “We gave them a great beating yesterday, with heavy loss. They had attempted to take up a position, seize [ ] and Kishanganj, and Trevelyan-ganj and Paharipur; with two small columns under Major Tombs, B.A., and Major Reid, Sirmur Battalion, we not only dislodged them, but drove them out of the serai above, and, in fact, drove all before us on this side of the Force. It has had a very chilling effect, we hear, and their spirits are much disturbed. But their fire from the north is as true as ever; so hot is it, that, until we approach ours nearer, we shall do no good; and such is the state of the service, that with all the bother of getting the siege-train, my commanding Artillery Officer can only man six guns, and my Engineer has not a sand-bag. It is really too distressing. I never contemplated making regular approaches, but I did expect my guns to silence those brought against me. But to do this they must be got Dearer. Delay concentrates the insurgents.”

415. Cave-Browne’s “Punjab and Dehli 1857.”

416. Sir William Sleeman says: “The magnificent tomb of freestone coveting the remains of a foster-brother of Akbar was long. occupied as a dwelling-house by the late Mr. Blake, of the Bengal Civil Service, who was lately barbarously murdered at Jaipur. To make room for his dining-tables, he removed the marble slab which covered the remains of the dead from the centre of the building against the urgent remonstrances of the people, and threw it carelessly on one tide against the wall, where it now lies. The people appealed in vain, it is said, to Mr. Fraser, the Governor-General’s representative, who was soon afterwards assassinated, and a good many attribute the death of both to this outrage upon the dead foster-brother of Akbar.” Bholanath Chandr, in his “Travels of a Hindu,” quotes this passage, and adds, “Rooms are let in the Metcalfe House for a rupee a day for each person.”

417. “They stripped the roof of all its massive and valuable timber, carried off all the doors and windows, everything which they could themselves bring into use or convert into money; they demolished the costly marble statues and the unnumbered small articles of vertu, and then, with consistent Goth-like ruthlessness, tore up and piled in the centres of the rooms the volumes of that far-famed library, believed to be without its equal in India, and then set fire to the building.” – Cave-Browne.

418. Captain Knox, of Her Majesty’s 75th. Mr. Cave-Browne says that he ‘‘seemed to imagine that the Sipahis were coming to lay down their arms, and refused to let the men fire.” Mr. Rotton (Chaplain’s Narrative) says that Captain Knox “only a moment before shot with his own hand one of the enemy, when his eyes caught sight of a Sipahi levelling a musket at him: ‘See,’ said he to one of his men, ‘that man pointing at me; take him down.’ The words had hardly escaped his lips, when the fatal shot took effect on his person. He was on one knee when singled out as a mark by the mutineer; and I am told. that as soon as he received the shot, he rose regularly to ‘attention,’ and then fell and expired without word or groan.”

419. “Thus throwing up, as it were, the left flank of our defences, and rendering it almost impossible for the enemy to pass round on that side.” – Norman.

420. Major Reid commanded all the posts on the right of the Ridge. He describes the disposition of his troops as follows: “My own regiment and one company of Rifles occupied the House, and one company of Rifles the Observatory, where a battery for three heavy guns was constructed on the night of the 9th to reply to the Kashmir bastion. The centre battery for three eighteen-pounders was close to the House, and the guns were all laid for the Mori bastion. The Guides I located in and behind the outhouses.” Whenever the alarm was sounded, two more companies of the Rifles were sent up in support.

421. “The first of these attacks was not serious, but the latter threatened the Mound picquet, and supports of all arms had to be moved up. The 1st Fusiliers, under Major Jacob, then advanced and drove the mutineers out of the gardens, killing a considerable number of them.” – Norman’s Narrative.

422. Major Reid says that, “They went to the front just as if they were going to charge, but no sooner had they closed than, to my horror, I saw them mix up with the enemy and walk off with them. Immediately I saw this I ordered the guns to open upon them, but the wretches were too far off, and I don’t think that more than half a dozen were killed.”

423. It is said that some regiments newly arrived from Oudh took part in these attacks. The 60th was conspicuous in the action of the 13th. Major Reid writes, that they “marched up the Grand Trunk Road in columns of sections right in front, and led the attack headed by the Sirdar Bahadur of the regiment, who made himself very conspicuous, calling out to the men to keep their distance, as he intended to wheel to his left. They fought most desperately. The Sirdar Bahadur was killed by his orderly, Lall Singh. I took the riband of India from his breast and sent it to my wife.”

424. “Making,” at this early stage, writes Major Norman, “five horses that from the commencement of the campaign up to that date had been shot under him.”

425. At first our offensive operation. were principally confined to shelling the city. “We annoy them excessively with our shells, some of which reach almost to the Palace.” But afterwards, perhaps because it was thought that we thus afflicted the townspeople rather than the mutineers, this course was abandoned. “I told you a little while ago that we were filing into the town, but last night there was an order given to fire on the gateways only, not into the town.” – Journal of an Artillery Officer. June 16.

426. Lieutenant Wheatly of the 54th Native Infantry, who was doing duty with the Sirmur Battalion. Among the Gurkhas killed was Taka Ram, “one of the best shots in the regiment, who had killed twenty-two tigers in the Dun.”

427. I am writing of this now only with reference to the practice of the enemy in the city. I shall speak more fully hereafter of the treatment of the Natives in camp.

428. This reinforcement consisted of the 15th and 30th Sipahi Regiments, the 2nd Company 7th Battalion (Golandaz) Artillery, with No. 6 Horse Battery attached, and some men of the 1st Bombay Light Cavalry.

429. The Field Artillery employed on this occasion consisted of three guns each of four different batteries, under Turner, Money, Tombs, and Scott The battle was fought by them.

430. The author of the “History of the Siege of Dehli” thus describes this incident: “A portion of the Guide Cavalry came up. ‘Daly, if you do not charge,’ said Tombs to their leader, ‘my guns are taken.’ Daly spurred into the bushes – scarcely a dozen of his men followed him. He returned with a bullet in his shoulder; but the momentary diversion saved the guns.”

431. The contemporary annalists of the siege do not relate in what manner Yule met his death, but his horse galloping riderless into camp seems to have conveyed the first news of his fall, and his body lying all night on the field, it may be assumed that he was killed in the confusion which arose when the brief twilight had closed upon the scene. It is distinctly stated that our own Artillery fired upon the Lancers.

432. These reinforcements consisted of a company of the 75th Foot, four companies of the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers, four European Horse Artillery guns and part of a Native troop, with some Panjabi Infantry and Cavalry – in all about 850 men.

433. “The mutineers, about twelve o’clock, made a most desperate attack on the whole of my position. No men could have fought better. They charged the Rifles, the Guides, and my own men again and again. and at one time I thought I must have lost the day. The cannonade from the city, and the heavy guns which they had brought out, raged fast and furious, and completely enfiladed the whole of my position. Thousands were brought against my mere handful of men: but I knew the importance of my position, and was determined to do my utmost to hold it till reinforcements arrived.” – Reid’s Letters and Notes.

434. “Neville Chamberlain has arrived; of this we are all glad, as well as the General. Wilby’s bold conceptions may now receive more consideration.” – Greathed’s Letters. – “Everything will be right, they used to say, when Chamberlain comes, and all took courage when they saw his stern pale face.” – History of the Siege of Dehli.

435. “You have sent me a sound, good auxiliary in Brigadier Chamberlain, who fully sees and admits the difficulties I have been placed in. He is favourable to the trial of getting into the place, and a reasonable hope of success may be entertained. I am willing to try, provided I can see my way to honourably secure my sick and wounded, and keeping open my supplies.” – Sir H. Barnard to Sir John Lawrence, July 1. MS. Correspondence.

436. The latter was going to join his regiment in the Panjab. On the morning of his arrival at Jhilam he was killed in an attack on the Native troops that had broken into mutiny in that place.

437. The reinforcements which had joined our Camp from the Panjab between the 26th of June and 3rd of July were the Head-quarters of Her Majesty’s 8th Foot, released by the defection of the Jalandhar Brigade, the Head-quarters of Her Majesty’s 61st Foot; the 1st Regiment of Panjab Infantry (Coke s Rifles); a squadron of Panjab Cavalry; with two guns of European , and two of Native Horse Artillery; some European Reserve Artillery, and some Sikh gunners. The want of artillerymen to work our guns had been severely felt, and Sir John Lawrence had done his best to supply them from all sources. The reinforcements detached above made up, according to Norman, our effective force to six thousand six hundred men of all arms.

438. The causes of the abandonment of the enterprise were thus stated by Sir H. Barnard: “I had all prepared for the gamester’s throw last night, when the arrival of the reinforcements of Coke’s gave me all the available means I can expect. It was frustrated, first, by hearing that we were to be attacked in great force this morning at dawn of day, when to a certainty our Camp would be destroyed; and, secondly, on account of serious disaffection in (Charles) Nicholson’s Regiment, all the Hindus of which I have disarmed – and hung two of the Native officers. The 9th Irregulars evinced evident sign of ‘shake’, and as they numbered some four hundred and fifty, it became a serious question to leave all these natives in my Camp, when all my own forces were employed elsewhere. Chamberlain admits that few men were ever placed in a more painfully responsible position. If I lose this small force, it will be felt all over the Punjab, and yet, if I do not take Dehli, the result will be equally disastrous. It will be a good deed when done! – and I will take care and do it, with every chance in my favour, in good will.” – Sir Henry Barnard to Sir John Lawrence, July 3, 1857. MS. Correspondence.

439. The Rohilkhand, or Bareli, Brigade marched in on the 1st and 2nd of July. It consisted of the 18th, 28th, 29th, and 68th Infantry Regiments; the 8th Irregular Cavalry, No. 15 Horse Battery, and two 6-pounder post guns from Shahjahanpur.

440. The enemy expected to find a convoy of wounded men going from our Camp to Ambalah, and another with treasure and ammunition coming from Firuzpur. But he fortunately missed both of them.

441. MS. Correspondence. – The author of the “History of the Siege of Dehli,” who was obviously with Coke’s force, adds: “Our men returned completely exhausted by the heat. Indeed, many of the 61st sank down beneath trees, and our elephants had to be sent from Camp to carry them in.” – Hodson says that “our loss was about thirty or forty Europeans, and three of my Native officers temporarily disabled.” Another writer (MS. Journal) says: “Our loss was one Irregular, who came from the Panjab with Coke, and an Artillery driver.”

442. Ante, vol. i., page 413.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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