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Chapter 21

Engineer Hospitality – Banquet to commemorate the Relief of Lucknow by Outram and Havelock – Col. Bulwer going to the war – Fort of Seelimpoor surprised by Bulwer, and Simon Martin – The people unfriendly – The monster Munsub Ali – The courage of a loyal native severely tried – His revenge at Seelimpoor – A hot ride through neutral ground, – Night incursions of the enemy – Return to Lucknow to meet my family – Beni Madhu, and Colonel Bulwer’s three victories – Ordered to Sandela – Forts dismantled, and Chiefs humbled – An old man, with an old retrospect

The engineers were quartered in a splendid mansion adjoining the Kaisarbagh Palace, and they dispensed their hospitality in a style that might be expected where such frank and cheerful spirits as Major Teddy Oakes presided. On the morning of the 25th September, 1858, a party of the defenders of Lucknow assembled there for the purpose of celebrating the anniversary of the reinforcement of the garrison by Outram and Havelock. The story of the siege was recounted in laudatory speeches; the “heroes,” absent and present, were adequately praised; a silent toast was drank to the memory of the noble fellows who died in the unequal struggle; and the good things on the table were more and more inflaming the generous feelings within us, when we were suddenly drawn outside by the laughing voices of a detachment of troops marching out of Lucknow to attack the enemy.

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It was a lovely night, with the moon and the stars shining and sparkling as is only to be seen in the beautiful blue autumn sky of the East; and the Comet, which afterwards attained such great proportions, was then lifting its head and waving its prodigious tail in the eyes of the enemy, who regarded it as presaging famine and an increase of the calamities of war. The infantry, mounted for the first time in their lives on miserable ponies and donkeys with and without bits to guide them, passed by in grotesque groups, kicking and thumping little beasts, that anon pitched their riders, and ran through the crowd of laughing equestrians, disturbing their seats, or left the noisy medley to draw breath, and pick up a stray straw on the road side. The men enjoyed the novelty of this queer ride to the contest, and their merry voices could be heard long after they left our sight.

The following morning we heard the thundering noise of Colonel Bulwer’s artillery, and, during the day, we learnt that he had surprised the rebels in the fort of Seelimpoor; had carried it by assault, inflicting great damage; and chased the enemy into the river Gumti which engulfed a large number of them, and increased the casualties to about seven hundred. His detachment was composed of a wing of that splendid regiment the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, two guns of the Royal Artillery, and a regiment of the Oudh Military Police. Mr. Simon Martin, of the Civil Service, (one of the most amiable of the defenders of Lucknow,) accompanied the force, and, with some native police, did good service in clearing the fortress. That officer held the important appointment of Deputy Commissioner of Lucknow, and the heavy and responsible duties of his

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office rendered it necessary that he should return to the city at once. As European troops could not be left without a civil officer, on whom the commander was dependent for information of the rebels, and for some of his provisions, I was directed by Sir Robert Montgomery to join Colonel E. G. Bulwer, if well enough to do so. My wound had partly healed, and I was, beginning to regain strength. Tired of the dull life my confinement enforced, I was glad of the opportunity of returning to the field, and, the next morning, my tent was pitched, beside the gallant Colonel’s, at Goosaingunj, twenty miles east of Lucknow: to which village he retired after the capture of Selimpoor.

Here I found the people more hostile than in the west of Oudh, owing to the presumptuous bearing of Beni Madhu, who paraded the country with over twenty thousand of the hardiest men in the province, and threatened death and destruction to all friends of the cursed Feringhi. Munsub Ali, (a cruel upstart who was denied his estates on the annexation for plundering and oppressing his neighbours,) carried out the menace on the bodies of all persons suspected of corresponding with the English. It was to destroy the mischievous power of this wretch that Seelimpoor was captured; but the dread of his brother remained, and the people kept aloof, excepting in our immediate neighbourhood, where they were sure of protection. The crimes perpetrated by the monster were sufficient to deter the most loyal subject, for he sometimes disembowelled his victims, and I once heard of his loading an unfortunate scribe with powder, and firing him off as if he were a piece of ordnance 1 He was among the rebels drowned in the river Gumti in attempting to escape from the avenging

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arm of Bulwer; but a brother succeeded in crossing the stream who had been an active promoter of Munsub Ali’s diabolical policy, and he endeavoured to organize a force to arrest our further progress, encouraged by Beni Madhu, who promised to fall on us by-and-bye.

By long and frequent excursions into the country we deterred them from attempting to molest our small force on the heights of Goosaingunj, where I began the restoration of an old fort, in which a-body of police were nearly annihilated a short time before. A native, who had gone through the siege of Lucknow, was promoted for his loyalty; and, several miles away from any support, and almost without ammunition, was posted in this dilapidated fort, with about fifty policemen, in the hope of his being let alone to collect some revenue from the villages around. Munsub All surrounded him: a sham fight was maintained all. day, which exhausted the Thanadar’s ammunition: a wretched little gun on one of the bastions burst itself, after terrifying the enemy by its noise. At night the strings of the gate were forced, when some of the defenders escaped through the darkness over the walls, while the Thanadar, followed by the rest, mixed, unperceived, with the assailants, as the crowd of screaming wretches pressed in; and, in a very short time, he reported, in propria persona, the defence and disaster to his superior at Lucknow. This lucky man, after escaping two great sieges, was sent with the force of Colonel Bulwer; and, at the back of Mr. Simon Martin, he revenged himself on the bodies of the creatures in Selimpoor. He was a good, honest, servant, and I engaged him on the work of restoring the defences, although he made no secret of his dislike to being caught behind them again.

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On the left, between Nawabgunj-Burabunkee, on the road to Faizabad, and our own position at Goosaingunj, there was about twenty miles of country unoccupied. by us, and seldom frequented by the enemy. I thought we might as well show ourselves in this neutral ground to restore the feeling of ownership, and to drive in the landholders with money, which was much needed; and, started off, therefore, one morning, with Lieut. Cuthbert, the Royal Artillery, and Lieutenant Willes, of the. Fusiliers. After much delay, the Sikh cavalry escort succeeded in getting their horses to swim the. Gumti, which was swollen by the rains. The sun shone with all its refulgence, and raised blisters on our noses, as we passed village after village embowered in large mango groves, and encompassed by the long yellow crops of the season, which were moved to and fro by the high wind blowing hot in our faces. The people were timid, and distressed at the; partial desertion of their companions, many of whom, were fighting in the ranks of the enemy. Several complained of the licence of our cattle-drivers, who drove, their animals into ripening fields, and extorted provisions,, and sometimes money, to stay them from robbing. Our camp followers remorselessly plundered the helpless wherever they could reach in safety, and, such was the terror of the British arms, that the meanest fellow from the English camp could turn out a whole village to pillage their hearths! These contemptible wretches inflicted more mischief on the population of Oudh than our battles, and many an innocent family was violated and plundered by them in the name of the “Company Bahadur.”

Colonel Purnell, of the 90th Foot, commanded the;

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force at Nawabgunj, which was located, in thatched sheds, on a dry sandy plain, and hid in a storm of hok dust, which blew hard in our faces as we rode into the. lines. I had not been there since the ride from Lucknow in June 1857, to fetch in the families from the mutinous troops at Secrora, and it pleased me now to enter the place under circumstances so much more favourable. I saw the gallant commander, and after lunching with the officers of the 23rd Fusiliers, and showing my wound to Dr. Sylvester, (who thought me mad for venturing out,) Cuthbert, Willes, and myself, recrossed the country to our little encampment: which we reached at night, after losing our way in the dark, and riding forty miles on a very hot day.

Our stay at Goosaingunj very much weakened the influence of the rebel leaders. They never ventured closer than fourteen miles, excepting at night, when small parties pounced on unsuspecting landholders, and either killed them, or carried them off to extort the payment of a ransom. We endeavoured, as much as possible, to check these raids, and to give confidence to the peasantry, and succeeded till reports of a threatened advance by Beni Madhu emboldened the rebels, and induced the authorities to move Colonel Bulwer’s force further south, to Jubrowlee, to co-operate with Brigadier Evelegh in resisting that redoubtable chief. I left Colonel Bulwer here to go into Lucknow to see my family, which had just arrived from Calcutta, and to settle them in a home till the war was over. My wife had been distressed by repeated rumours of my death, and the prognostics of friends that I could not escape the perils into which I was always rushing; and she was therefore, glad to have ocular evidence of my existence after a separation of nine months.

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Before she had recovered from the joy of our meeting, an order reached me from the Chief Commissioner to proceed at once to Sandela, where, he my presence with the force under Brigadier George Barker was indispensable. Previous to transporting the reader there, I will briefly tell the achievements of Bulwer’s column after I was relieved by my friend Mr. James Anderson, Assistant Commissioner: one of Havelock’s Volunteer Calvary, with which he did good service during the advance from Allahabad to the relief of the garrison at Lucknow.

Shortly after leaving him Colonel Bulwer had a cavalry engagement, a few miles from his camp, with the infantry of the enemy, who had no time to get away; and the spirited young Mitford, Anderson, and the Colonel, signalized themselves during the short combat, which sent over forty of the mutineers to paradise. Beni Madhu, who was in the neighbourhood, excited by the British Commander’s impudence, some days afterwards sent down upon him a host of foot and horse, supported by some great guns; and, as usual, they began the attack with drums and trumpets. The contending forces were very unequal in numbers, and at the beginning of the engagement one of the two English guns was disabled. The enemy blazed away at a distance, and progressed so slowly, that our small force had time to recover from its amazement; and Bulwer actively used the opportunity to feel the left flank of Beni Madhu; which proved to be so weak, in all but numbers, that Cuthbert’s nine-pounder and the Sikh cavalry, led on by Bulwer, Anderson, Hawkins, Mitford, (who was wounded,) and Pennington, pushed right into it. The whole mass of six thousand rebels and mutineers

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turned right about, and, leaving their guns behind, flew in disorder after their great leader, who went off on an elephant to extol the stratagem by which he had discovered the prowess of his army! Bulwer good naturedly accelerated their departure as much as possible, and he was afterwards the wonder of the neighbourhood, till ordered to Poorwa, on the west of the Kanhpur road.

There Beni Madhu, reinforced by about fourteen thousand infantry, a second time cautiously attacked him in the. front, and on both flanks, with three, separate columns. The British leader had now more cavalry, and two guns. He patiently continued, nearly all day, the game of long bowls, at which natives are great adepts. Beni Madhu, deceived by his inertness, spread out his strength to give Colonel Bulwer’s force a final embrace, and obliged our two little guns to turn all round to resist his approaches, while the cavalry chased him back. At last the Colonel saw his chance, and, improving it on the right by a dashing charge of cavalry led by Lieutenant Drummond, and another on the left led by Hawkins, he crushed the spirit of the enemy, and turned their faces homewards, which they made great haste to reach with the pressing help of the victors, who triumphantly brought back two of their guns. Colonel Bulwer had the modesty not to call these “pitched battles,” nor were they; but his waiting to be opposed by such enormous numbers, and his skill in successfully resisting, and then driving them back confused and dispirited, placed the two engagements among the best of the season. The calm courage and decision, the gentle temper, superior intelligence, and good practical sense of this officer, point to him as one well fitted for high command.

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Oudh is divided into twelve districts. and they cover an area of about 25,000 square miles. Towards the middle of October not a fourth of the province had submitted to British rule, and it was only where the English troops were stationed that there was a semblance of authority. A few police posts had been indiscreetly pushed out here and there to reassure the people; but the enemy soon surrounded and murdered the policemen. Across the Gogra – a majestic river dividing the province in two – the rebel government reigned supreme, and affected to govern the territory through two Parliaments composed of reprobates elected by interest and bribery, who confined their parliamentary functions to enforcing payment of the land revenue in the name of the puppet Bing Birjis Kuddur, or of his mother the Begum, whom it never reached entire. Commissioners, and Deputy Commissioners, and Assistant Commissioners, purchased permission to administer civil and criminal justice, and, armed with mandates bearing great illegible seals, they spread over the richest towns and villages, and did justice to nobody but themselves. Military officers, and their greedy followers, were fed and enriched at the expense of the people, who, despite of all this outrageous abuse of power, managed to be the gainers, and, therefore, preferred their misgovernment to the orderly and exacting rule of the English.

On the third day after quitting the force of Colonel Bulwer, I rode thirty-six miles in the morning to the camp of Brigadier Barker, who had retired to the shade of the mango groves of Sandela after driving the enemy across the Gumti. He had about 750 European Infantry and Cavalry, and 850 Native Infantry and Cavalry, with 14 guns – a force ample for the re-conquest

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of the Western Districts of Oudh, where he had only two opponents, who stayed inside their defences at Birwa and at Ruiya. The first was held by Gulab Singh, the man that, after being defeated at Rahimabad and Sandela, beat Dawson back from his fort; and the second belonged to Raja Narpat Singh, who was notorious for resisting General Walpole, and killing the noble Adrian Hope. The inhabitants this side of Oudh were less hostile than elsewhere, and nearly all but those two chiefs had tendered their submission.

With the aid of Brigadier Barker I dismantled the fortresses in our neighbourhood, all of which were compassed by broad belts of the bamboo plant that formed a beautiful impenetrable barrier. This precautionary measure greatly distressed the chiefs, as it degraded them in the eyes of their rebellious compeers, who jeered them, from across the river, for their submission to so much dishonour. Rather than endure the demolition of their forts two small chiefs deserted to the enemy, and they only returned to me on seeing that it was useless resisting a dishonour in which all the Barons of Oudh were soon involved. I also forced them to surrender as many guns as we could discover, and to pay the arrears of land revenue not already collected by the rebels.

The discontent of the Sepoys was mostly confined to young soldiers, who, having few benefits to remember, and the unsteadiness of youth to mislead them, overawed veterans that had many years eaten our salt and were looking forward to the period when the bounty of Government would enable them to settle comfortably at their homes. We were one afternoon agreeably surprised by a visit from one of the British

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pensioners, who was carried in a litter, and being blind and infirm, was led by me to a seat: an attention that brought tears to his eyes, and blessings on the head of the “Company Buhadoor.” He uncovered his fine old head, and running his fingers through his scanty hair, pathetically told us that it was black and plentiful when he entered the service of the English: that it was grey when he left it: and that it was now falling off in a home provided by the bounty of the Government. He showed us his scars, and the fire came back to his blind eyes as he recounted, in an animated voice, the battle? of the English and the noble valour of his officers. He laid great stress on the frequent bestowal of Batta, or service money, after each success, and lauded the extreme regularity and justice of the English to their soldiers. The great earnestness of the aged man riveted our attention, and we could all have risen and embraced the honest fellow when he angrily spoke of the cowardice and ingratitude of the mutineers, and deplored the loss of honour by the army in which he had himself served nearly sixty years.

I afterwards learnt that he always spoke of his old masters with affection, and that he frequently endangered his life by condemning, to their faces, the dastardly and ungrateful behaviour of the mutineers. He drew the pension of a native officer, and being about ninety years old, his career in our service must have begun when the bold but rash Tipu Sahib was provoking Marquis Cornwallis to the war that ended in the capture of Seringapatam, the death of Tipu, and the subjection of the southern provinces of India; and it must have continued to the pursuit and destruction of the roving Maratha robbers; to the

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‘degradation of the great Mogul at Delhi; to the forfeiture of the Gangetic provinces of Oudh; to the ‘humiliation of the impudent little Goorkhas of Nepaul; to the desperate capture of the Fort of Bhurtpoor by Lord Combermere; to the chastisement of the Burmah savages to check their incursions for a time; and it must have closed with the year when a British Army started for Afghanistan to force a fool and a tyrant on a bold people: who killed him, compelled the army to retire, and then treacherously destroyed it in the mountain passes of Jugdulluck.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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