In the first chapter of this Book I have described the mutiny of the 9th Regiment of Native Infantry cantoned in detachments at the stations of Aligarh, Mainpuri, Itawah, and Balandshahr. It remains now to give an account of the subsequent occurrences in the districts represented by those stations, and in the districts adjoining; and of the action induced by the mutinous feeling in the province of Rohilkhand.
I propose in the first instance to take the reader back to the station of Aligarh. The mutiny at that station, occurring on the 20th of May, has been already related105. Intelligence of this disaster had reached the Lieutenant-Governor on the 21st.
Mr Colvin at once organised an expedition to hold the line. Acting under his orders, Captain Alexander, commanding 1st Irregular Cavalry Gwaliar contingent, sent by Sindhia, to aid in maintaining order, detached Lieutenant Cockburn, with two hundred and
thirty-three troopers, on the 13th, to Aligarh. Cockburn, making forced marches, reached that place on the 26th.
He arrived in time to protect and to escort to Hathras, a walled town twenty-two miles distant, the Europeans who had till then maintained their position in the vicinity of Aligarh.
At Hathras, however, about a hundred of his men, principally Muhammadans, rebelled, and, after having vainly attempted to invite their comrades to join them, rode off to stir up the villagers in the districts. But Cockburn, though his party was reduced to a hundred and twenty-three men, resolved to be even with his revolted troopers. Receiving information that they had been joined by about five hundred villagers, and that these were organising a system of plunder and murder, Cockburn formed a plan by which to entrap them.
He procured a curtained bullock cart, such as native women generally travel in. Inside this cart he placed four troopers with loaded carbines, and drew the curtains. He then sent the cart on the road towards the rebel camp, he following with his main body under the shade of some trees. No sooner did the rebels see the cart than they dashed forward to secure the lady whom they imagined to be inside. The troopers behind the curtains waited till the foremost men approached, when they discharged their carbines with fatal effect. On the sound of the discharge, Cockburn and his men dashed forward, killed forty-eight of the surprised foe, and dispersed the remainder.
An action like this was, however, but a transient gleam of sunshine. To aid in pacifying the districts, Mr. Colvin had ordered thither, likewise, detachments of the 2nd Cavalry, under Captain Billiton and Lieutenant Salmond, and Captain Pearson’s battery of the Gwaliar contingent. Lieutenant Cockburn’s detachment had also been strengthened by the main body of his regiment, the 1st, under Captain Alexander. Up to a certain point, the men belonging to these several arms and detachments behaved perfectly well. Gradually, however, as the villagers rose on every side, the pressure became too much for them.
On the 1st of July, the 1st Cavalry, then at Hathras, mutinied. The men showed no ill-feeling towards their officers, but simply told them they must go. When hundreds with arms in their hands issue orders to
units, the units must obey. Alexander and the officers with him had, then, nothing for it but to ride for Agra, a journey they successfully accomplished. The following day, the men of the Artillery, under Pearson, and those of the 2nd Cavalry, commanded by Burlton, and then stationed at Sansi, seven miles beyond Hathras, incited by letters from their comrades at that place, likewise rose in revolt, and intimated to their officers that they no longer required them. Pearson, Burlton, and Salmond did all that men could do to keep their men true, but in vain. The men still insisted on joining their comrades at Hathras. The cavalry started off the following morning for that place, their officers still accompanying them. There, having effected a junction with the 1st Cavalry, they once again, in a very peremptory manner, insisted that their officers should leave them. Burlton, Salmond, and the surgeon, Dalzell, at once then took the road to Agra.
Shortly afterwards, Pearson, who had clung to his battery, arrived with his mutinous gunners. The only other European with him was his staff-sergeant. Pearson found the two regiments of cavalry drawn up as if on parade. He rode up to them, received their salutes, questioned them about their officers, and was told they had left for Agra. He then calmly and coolly rode down their ranks, speaking to the men he knew, and exchanging greetings with the native officers. His position was full of peril. At any moment he might have been shot down. An imprudent gesture, a sign of alarm, would have been fatal to him. But Pearson was equal to the occasion. He continued his ride down the ranks coolly, followed by his sergeant, mounted on his second charger; nor did he change his pace till the line had been well cleared. He and the sergeant then put spurs to their horses.
A little beyond the village they overtook the cavalry officers. The whole party then rode on, hiding by day, and reached Agra in time to share in the disaster of the 5th.
It is remarkable that the men made no attempt to molest them. Most remarkable when the fact is taken into consideration, that the foot-soldiers of the same contingent evinced the most bloodthirsty feelings towards their officers! Could there have been any significance in the fact that the cavalry soldiers were mostly Muhammadans, whilst nineteen-twentieths of the infantry men were Hindus? more I cannot say. The fact, however,
deserves to be considered in connection with the cause of the rebellion.
Meanwhile, some well-mounted volunteers, consisting of civilians, of officers whose regiments had mutinied, of clerks in public offices, of planters, of shopkeepers, all animated by one feeling, had been doing good service in the districts. Their first act had been to relieve a body of six or seven of their countrymen, besieged by the rebels in an indigo factory. They then pushed on to Aligarh, where they were joined by Mr. Watson, the magistrate, a man of remarkable courage, and by others. They now discovered, however, that the rebellion had grown beyond their strength; so, unable to coerce the revolted villages, they gradually fell back on Agra. Twelve106 of them, however, disdaining a retreat so rapid, remained behind, occupying a factory about five miles from Aligarh. But, resolute as were these men, they, too, were forced to retreat when the Gwaliar cavalry mutinied.
On the concentration of the volunteers at Agra, they were employed as pickets on the Mathura road to watch the approach of the Nimach brigade. How they behaved towards that brigade has been already related.
It will thus be seen that the efforts of the Government of the North-West Provinces to stay the plague in the districts lying on the left bank of the Jamnah, between Dehli and Agra had signally failed. In the more northerly districts, and in the districts of the Rohilkhand division, rebellion had been even more rampant and more successful.
Although the troops in Rohilkhand rose in revolt a few days earlier than did those in the more northerly districts, the plan of the narrative, leading southwards to Kanhpur and Lakhnao, renders it necessary that the latter should in the first instance be considered. I therefore propose to carry the reader with me to the districts known as Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar, to descend thence through Rohilkhand to Fathgarh.
The station of Saharanpur was, before the mutiny, essentially a civil station. It was situated on the bank of the Damaula Nadi, about two miles from the city of
the same name, and which was the capital or chief town of the district, also called Saharanpur. The population of the town amounted to about forty thousand – many of them Muhammadans, with rather a bad character for turbulence. In the earlier portion of the present century Saharanpur had been one of the frontier stations of the British territories.
To guard it a rather strong fort had been built on its northern face. But to such an extent did confidence in their star override in those days all suggestions of prudence in the British mind, that, on the extension of our frontier, the executive of the day had converted the fort into a civil gaol, whilst the same authority had allowed the Stud Department to run up the ditches and mud walls of their paddocks so close to the ramparts of the said gaol, that it would have been easy from their cover to pick off the sentries on its walls.
When the mutiny broke out at Mirath, the European male population of Saharanpur, including clerks, numbered only six or seven persons. The Eurasians were scarcely more numerous. There was over the treasury a native. guard of some seventy or eighty Sipahis, commanded by a native officer, and furnished by the 29th Native Infantry from Muradabad. The civil gaol guard, numbering about a hundred men, in addition to their duties connected with the gaol, furnished guards to the civil officers’ houses. Throughout the district likewise, was scattered the ordinary police force, amply sufficient in times of peace107 to repress the disorder of a population numbering even nearly a million souls.
The position of Saharanpur was in every respect of great importance. It was the point whence the road led to Dehra, and to the hill stations of Masuri and Landaur; it was contiguous to Rurki, from the canal establishments of which the army before Dehli was largely supplied with men and materials for forwarding the siege; and it was the seat of one of the Government studs. Yet now the entire district, comprising likewise the Engineering College, the canal workshops and costly aqueducts, seemed to be at the mercy of the Sipahis and the disaffected natives, for there were no European troops who could be summoned with any hope that the call would be responded to. There were
indeed European troops at Mirath, some seventy miles distant. But, until after the fall of Dehli, timidity bordering upon panic; selfishness, utterly neglectful of the general public weal; ruled with fatal effect the military counsels at that station.
Fortunately there were men at Saharanpur whose bold spirit and ready resource supplied the place of soldiers. The magistrate, Mr. Robert Spankie, was an able public servant, full of energy and mental power.
His lieutenant, Mr. Dundas Robertson, joined to a manly and energetic nature a clear head and a coolness not to be surpassed. A fit associate with these was Lieutenant Brownlow, of the Engineers, cool, daring, enterprising, and resolute. With such men at Saharanpur there was yet a glimmering of hope that the crisis might be surmounted.
The news of the outbreak at Mirath reached Saharanpur on the evening of the 14th of May; that of the massacres at Dehli on the following day.
Mr. Spankie at once convened a meeting of the residents. At the meeting it was decided to hold the station, but to despatch the women and children to Masuri. This arrangement was carried out at once. As soon as possible after the departure of the ladies, those of the gentlemen of the station who had remained behind108 determined to unite and occupy one house. The clerks and Eurasians, invited to join them, showed at first some disinclination, but in a day or two they changed their minds and acceded to the proposal109.
Space will not permit me to detail in full the preliminary dangers which threatened these few bold men. Now, it was the mutiny at the not distant station of Muzaffarnagar; now, it was the approach of two mutinous companies of the sappers and miners; now, a combination of the villagers to attack them. This last-named danger, a very serious one, was warded off by acting on the principle, so conspicuous during the mutiny, and so successful whenever acted upon, that “boldness is prudence.” Instead of waiting for the intended onslaught, Mr. Robertson, enlisting in his cause some influential and well-disposed land-owners, anticipated it by attacking and capturing the conspirators.
Continuing to pursue this policy, Mr. Robertson, taking with him a few of the 4th Lancers (native), a detachment of the 29th Native Infantry, and some police, proceeded to the most important and the most disaffected parts of the district to assert British authority. By a combination of tact and daring Mr. Robertson accomplished a great deal. He soon ascertained, however, that the landowners sympathised with the rabble, and that the fact that rebellion, not plunder, was their object, would make his task extremely difficult. Further success, he felt, would depend on the fidelity of the Sipahis.
Hitherto these had shown no sign of wavering, but very soon there appeared amongst them the symptoms of disaffection so common elsewhere. On the 30th of May, Mr. Robertson had been joined by two companies of the 5th Regiment of Native Infantry. These mutinied on the 3rd of June.
Undaunted, the gallant civilian still continued his noble efforts in the cause of order; nor, though the detachment of the 29th Native Infantry revolted on the 11th of July, did he, or his superior, for one single hour relax their hold on the district. This was still virtually British when the fall of Dehli removed from the native mind the calculations which till then had inspired them to resist.
At the civil station of Muzaffarnagar, about midway between Saharanpur and Mirath, the native guard over the treasury was furnished by the 20th Regiment of Native Infantry, quartered at Mirath. This regiment had taken a prominent part in the famous outbreak of the 10th of May. It was not to be expected, therefore, that the detachment would abstain from following the example set at head-quarters. For three days, however, it did abstain. Nor did the Sipahis composing it make any demonstration until the British magistrate on the spot had given a signal proof of his belief in the collapse of British rule.
That official, Mr. Berford, with a precipitancy as unworthy as it was rare, closed the public offices on the receipt of the bad news from Mirath. He subsequently took refuge in a small house in the town, withdrawing the guards posted over the gaol for his own personal protection.
The consequence of this abnegation of authority was the rise in revolt of the inhabitants of the district. Landowners and peasants
alike believed that the sun of British rule had set, never to rise again. Every man who had a grievance, the plunderers by profession, the plunderers by opportunity, seized the golden chance.
Nor were the Sipahis then backward. They broke open the treasury, carried away all they could convey, and marched for Muradabad. The bulk of the plundered money fell to the townspeople and district revolters. There was no one to prevent or to remonstrate with them. Authority had disappeared with Mr. Berford.
But the risings in the northerly portions of the North-West Provinces were trifling compared with those in Rohilkhand. The principal station in Rohilkhand is Bareli. Here, in 1857, were cantoned the 8th Irregular Cavalry, the 18th and 68th Native Infantry, and a native battery of Artillery.
The brigade was commanded by Brigadier Sibbald. Bareli was likewise the chief civil station in Rohilkhand, being the head-quarters of the Commissioner. The Christian population, including Eurasians, somewhat exceeded a hundred in number.
The uneasy feeling amongst the native troops, which had manifested itself so strongly in Bengal in the month of March, gradually travelling up country, had reached Buell in April. During that month the men of the infantry regiments there stationed questioned their officers regarding the new cartridges, and asked pointedly whether it were true that those cartridges were greased with the fat of the cow and of the pig. The reply given by the officers was apparently satisfactory, for the excitement created by the rumour almost at once subsided. But the introduction into the regiments of the new musket drill again roused suspicion. The natives of India are essentially conservative in their views. A case for innovation must be very clearly put to convince them.
The Sipahis at Bareli, their minds prone to suspicion, could not then understand the reason why, for any military purpose, a new musket or a new musketry drill should be necessary. “We and our fathers,” they said, “have conquered Hindustan with the present musket; what is the use of a new one?” They continued, however, to practise the new drill, and, when taught singly, even touched the cartridges, though with evident dislike
Up to the beginning of the second week of May the men
when drilled together, by companies, had been taught only the new bayonet exercise. But in the second week it was deemed advisable to instruct them in the new system of ball-practice. The experiment began with the grenadier company of the 18th Native Infantry. But only one round per man was served out.
It happened that an arrangement previously considered – by which the guns of the battery were to be moved from their actual position close to the practice-ground110 – had taken effect early on the very morning on which it had been decided that the men of the grenadier company of the 18th Native Infantry should make their first experiment with the new ammunition.
To the minds of the Sipahis, already over-excited, this change in the position of the guns was a new revelation. The suspicion flashed upon their minds that the guns had been shifted with the sole object to coerce them into using the obnoxious cartridges. This, too, accounted for the fact, which at the time had seemed so strange to them, that only one round of balled ammunition had been served out to each man.
They would thus be formed up on the practice-ground, they argued, practically defenceless, liable, at a given word, to be swept away by the guns. The suspicion, soon become conviction, spread to the entire regiment. The grenadier company had already set out. A considerable number of the men of the other companies ran then to the artillery lines to upbraid the gunners for thus aiding the attempt to take away their comrades’ caste; but the bulk of them, gloomy, anxious, but determined, waited in their lines the booming of the guns, or the return of the grenadiers. When these appeared, unharmed, the excitement for the moment cooled.
Only, however, for the moment. The same day brought to the station news of the mutiny at Mirath, of the disaffection of the districts round Bareli, and
of evil dispositions manifested by the native regiment stationed at Muradabad.
This was on the 14th. The Brigadier, Sibbald, was absent on a tour of inspection. His place was temporarily occupied by Colonel Colin Troup, a gallant and distinguished officer. Colonel Troup had not been an indifferent spectator of all that had been going on in the native army during the preceding two months. But, experienced as he was, shrewd, clever, and discerning beyond most of the old officers of the Company’s army, not even Colonel Troup had detected the radical cause of the disease he was called upon to combat.
He believed that it could be cured by persuasion, by an unbounded display of confidence, by, in fact, treating the Sipahis as one would treat naughty children, by assuring them that all previous offences would be condoned, if they would behave well for the future. In a word, he was a believer in Mr. Beadon’s theory of “a passing and groundless panic.”
But Colonel Troup did not the less take every possible measure to meet an emergency which he foresaw might at any moment arrive.
Of all the regiments under his command he believed most implicitly in the 8th Irregular Cavalry. The antecedents of that regiment gave him reason for his belief. Not only was it a splendid regiment, well manned, well horsed, and well commanded, but it had but a very short period before come forward at a critical period to show its readiness to proceed wherever the interests of the British service might demand its presence. When, in 1852, the 38th Regiment of Native Infantry had refused to proceed to Pegu, on the ground that the caste of the men would be ruined by a sea voyage of eight days, the 8th Irregulars had volunteered to sail thither.
Taken at their word, they marched from Hang to the port of embarkation, - a distance of a thousand miles, without losing a single man from desertion. Proceeding by sea to Pegu, they not only rendered there most excellent service, but made themselves remarkable for their discipline and their intelligence. Their native officers were men of good family, given to manly and intellectual pursuits, and proud of their regiment and their service.
The acting commandant of this regiment was Captain Alexander Mackenzie. Captain Mackenzie had been
some years with the 8th. He had served with it as adjutant and as second in command. He was devoted to the regiment, gave to it his undivided care, and was unsurpassed in all the qualities of a commanding officer. He was well supported by his second in command, Lieutenant Becher.
Up to the period at which my narrative has arrived the conduct of this regiment had been most exemplary. Colonel Troup, then, looking at its antecedents and at its actual behaviour, had reason to regard it as his mainstay in case of an outbreak.
It was, I have said, on the 14th of May, that the evil news from the outer world reached Bareli.
Colonel Troup at once directed that the strength of the regiment he most trusted should be doubled; he wrote to the civil authorities requesting them to place under his orders all the sawyers, or horse patrols, in their districts.
He recalled all officers from leave; and he recommended that the ladies and children, in fact, all the European women and children, should be sent off to the hill station of Naini Tal111. Large cavalry pickets were thrown out, and the Irregulars were kept ready to turn out at any moment.
At the same time Colonel Troup paraded the brigade, and addressing the men assured them that they had nothing to fear as long as they continued to behave themselves; that no new cartridges were coming, and that, if any should come, he would destroy them on the parade-ground in their presence. On the following day, the 16th, further to allay the suspicions of the men, he had the guns moved back to their former position.
But the evil was too deeply rooted to be removed by smooth words. Notwithstanding all Colonel Troup’s efforts the suspicions were not allayed and confidence did not return. For some days, indeed, the Sipahis continued to perform their duties with precision, but they were, whether in the lines or on guard, always in a state of excitement. This excitement was fed by the evil-disposed of the city, by emissaries from Mirath, from Dehli, from Firuzpur, and especially by intriguers from the districts instigated by
one Khan Bahadur Khan, a pensioner of the Government, and the heir of the famous Rohilah chief, Hafiz Rahmat Khan112.
Brigadier Sibbald returned to Bareli on the 19th. From that date till the 29th, no material change occurred in the state of affairs. The brigadier confirmed and carried out all Colonel Troup’s arrangements. Whilst the attempts at “management” on the part of the British were continued, the Sipahis displayed the suspicions, the excitement, the sullen determined mien, combined with rigid performance of duty, which characterised their comrades at other stations.
Forewarnings of mutiny
But on the morning of the 29th, Colonel Troup received a note from Mr. Alexander, the Commissioner, informing him that it had come to his knowledge that his, Colonel Troup’s regiment, the 68th Native Infantry, intended to mutiny that day. Colonel Troup had but just perused that note when the native sergeant-major of his regiment ran breathless into his presence to tell him that whilst bathing in the river that morning, the men of both regiments, the 18th and 68th, had sworn to rise at 2 P.M. and murder their European officers.
Colonel Troup acted at once as the emergency required. He warned the officers of the three regiments and of the artillery; informed the brigade major, Captain Brownlow, of the notices he had received, and recommended him to ride off at once to report the information to the brigadier, fixing the lines of the 8th Irregular Cavalry as the place of rendezvous for all.
It was about 1 o’clock in the day when Captain Mackenzie received the order to turn out his regiment. In a very few minutes the men were in their saddles, and certainly, as far as appearances went, no men could have displayed a more loyal spirit, or a greater readiness to do their duty, than did the men of the 8th Irregulars. The regiment continued mounted for two hours. In the interval, whether from the attitude of the cavalry, or from some other reason, the men of the infantry changed their plans. The rising was postponed.
The behaviour of the 8th Irregulars had justified Colonel
Troup’s confidence. On this apparently crucial day not a symptom of disaffection had been manifested by a single trooper.
Yet – curious fact – on the evening of that day, Colonel Troup received from a sure authority information that the men of that regiment were not absolutely to be relied upon; that they had sworn not to act against the infantry and artillery, though they would not harm or raise a hand against any European. The horizon was becoming darker.
The night of the 29th, the day and night of the 30th, were passed in excitement on the one side, in watchfulness on the other. Colonel Troup did not doubt now but that the outbreak was a question, not of days, but of hours. Few of the other officers shared his opinions. The brigadier, the brigade-major, the officer commanding the 18th, the officer commanding the battery, all believed that the storm would pass over. Captain Mackenzie, whilst sharing Colonel Troup’s opinions regarding the other regiments, had still faith in his own men. It would have been strange had it been otherwise, for up to the 31st of May the fidelity and devotion of the 8th Irregulars and their officers had alone kept down revolt.
On the morning of the 31st the crisis came. It was heralded by the usual attempt at incendiarism, Captain Brownlow’s house having been fired in the small hours of the morning. The only other warning given was that conveyed by the behaviour of the men on the treasury guard, who had snatched from a native official a letter he was carrying to the fort, torn it up in his face, and abused him.
This was the first serious impropriety committed by the native soldiers at Bareli. These two occurrences put many on their guard. Still all continued quiet in the lines, when, just at 11 o’clock, the report of one of the battery guns, followed by a volley of musketry and the yells of the Sipahis, warned every one in the station that the crisis was upon them.
The rising in fact had been thoroughly organised by the Sipahis. Parties had been told off to murder each officer. The hour fixed was 11 o’clock on that Sunday, the 31st. No sooner had the regimental gongs struck eleven strokes than some Sipahis of the 68th rushed to the guns and poured a volley of grape
into the houses nearest to their lines.
Small parties carrying with them their muskets went off to each separate bungalow; the remainder rushed out in a mass to burn, to kill, to destroy.
The warning of which I have spoken had induced many officers to have their horses saddled, and to hold themselves ready for immediate action.
The rendezvous was the lines of the 8th Irregulars. To reach those lines some had to gallop across the infantry parade-ground exposed to volleys of grape and musketry. Others, ignorant of the previous occurrences of the morning, and, therefore, not warned, were forced to take refuge in the city.
The brigadier, mounting his horse on the first discharge of the battery guns, rode off at once, but was shot in the chest as he was making for the rendezvous. Other officers shared the same fate, some at the time, some later. But, whilst all are hastening to the rendezvous, the reader must outstrip them, and see what Captain Mackenzie and his regiment were doing there.
At 10 o’clock that morning a Hindu Risaldar of his regiment had reported to Mackenzie that some of the Hindus of his troop, while bathing, had heard the Sipahis of the 18th and 68th say that they intended to rise that day at 11 o’clock, murder every European – man, woman, and child – in the place, seize the treasury, and open the gaol. Similar reports had been so prevalent during the preceding fortnight that Mackenzie was justified in not giving implicit credence to this. But, as a measure of precaution, he sent orders to his native adjutant to warn the native officers commanding troops to have their men ready to turn out at a moment’s notice. He also imparted the information by letter to Colonel Troup.
Then Mackenzie, Becher, and the surgeon, Currie, had their horses saddled; they breakfasted; then donned their uniforms so as to be ready for immediate action. These operations had scarcely been completed, when the brigade-major, Captain Brownlow, rushed in with the information that the row had begun. Almost simultaneously the fire of the battery guns and the discharge of musketry came to confirm his story. Colonel Troup followed almost immediately. Mackenzie and Becher at once mounted their horses and rode down to their
lines to turn out the men.
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd troops of the 8th, forming the right wing, were soon drawn up in front of their lines facing the station. But it seeming to Mackenzie that the troops of the left wing showed unusual delay, he proceeded amongst them to hasten their movements. Meanwhile, the confusion was every moment increasing.
From all parts of Bareli, officers, civilians, and others, were running and riding into the lines for protection. The artillery and infantry were keeping up a constant and rapid fire on the fugitives, whilst all around bungalows were beginning to smoke and blaze.
Keeping his head cool all this time, Mackenzie, gallantly aided by Becher, had turned out the troops of the left wing, and was getting them into order, when happening to look round, he saw the troops of the right wing go “Threes right,” and move off at a trot to the right and rear of the lines.
Digging his spurs into his horse, Mackenzie quickly headed the wing, halted it, and asked by whose order they had moved. The Risaldar commanding the 1st squadron replied that Colonel Troup had given the order. Upon this, Mackenzie rode on to Colonel Troup, who had moved ahead in company with some officers and civilians, and asked what he proposed to do. Troup, who by the death of the brigadier had become the senior officer in the station, replied that he proposed to retire on Naini Tal.
Mackenzie, still feeling sure of his men, earnestly requested permission to be allowed to take his regiment back and try and recover the guns. Troup replied that it was useless;. but, yielding at last to Mackenzie’s urgent pleadings, he consented in these words: “It is no use, but do as you like.”
The fact was that Colonel Troup, influenced by the information he had received on the night of the 30th of May and confirmed in his view by the delay of the left wing to turn out, had come to mistrust the 8th Irregulars. Mackenzie, on the other hand, whilst thoroughly believing in them, felt satisfied that the order given to them by Colonel Troup to follow the Europeans to Naini Tal was the one order which would try their fidelity to the utmost, as the carrying it out would impose upon them the necessity to leave all their property, and,
in some instances, those for whom they cared more than for their property, at the mercy of the rebels. There can be no doubt now that the information on which Colonel Troup acted was partly true. There were traitors amongst the 8th Irregulars.
Prominent amongst these was the senior native officer, Muhammad Shafi. This man had been gained over by Khan Bahadur Khan, and had in his turn done. his best to gain the men. Yet it is to be regretted, I think, that Mackenzie’s arrangements were interfered with before the temper of the men had been actually tested. The movement to the right, and the remonstrance with Colonel Troup, lost many precious moments at a most critical period.
The value, in fact, of a few moments was never more clearly demonstrated than on this occasion. Whilst Mackenzie had been talking to Colonel Troup, the left wing had been drawing up in line. The moment they were quite ready, the traitor, Muhammad Shafi, watching his opportunity, gave the order to the men of the wing to follow him, and at once rode towards the cantonment.
Mackenzie heard the tramp of their horses’ feet the moment after he had received Colonel Troup’s permission to do as he liked. He did not at once realise the cause of their action, for almost simultaneously with it arose the cry that they had gone to charge the guns.
Mackenzie at once addressed the men of the right wing, and told them he was going to take them to recover the guns. The men received the intelligence with apparent delight, and followed Mackenzie – accompanied by Mr. Guthrie, the magistrate, and some officers113 – at a steady trot to the parade-ground. On arriving there they found the left wing drawn up, apparently fraternising with the rebels. It was necessary to bring them back, if possible, to their allegiance; so Mackenzie, leaving his right wing under charge of Becher, rode up to them and addressed them. Whilst, however, in the act of speaking, and after the men had shown a disposition to follow him, there arose from the magazine of the 18th Native Infantry – the point where
the mutinous Sipahis were massed and where a gun had been placed – a cry summoning all the sawars to rally round the Muhammadan flag and to uphold their religion; “otherwise,” shouted speaker, “the Muhammadans will be forced to eat pork, and the Hindus beef.” At the same time a green flag was hoisted.
The cry, and the sight of the flag, arrested the favourable disposition of the men of the left wing, and Mackenzie, finding his efforts with them hopeless, rode back to the right. Here, however, a new disappointment awaited him. The men of this wing had felt the influence acting on the left, and had begun to steal off.
By the time Mackenzie returned, men to the number of about one troop alone remained. Amongst these were most of the
native officers. With so small a body it was hopeless to charge, and it was almost certain that an order to that effect would not have been obeyed. Mackenzie retired then in the direction taken by Colonel Troup and the others.
As he passed his regimental lines more men dropped away, and before he had gone half a mile the number of the faithful was reduced to twenty-three, of whom twelve were native officers114! They overtook Colonel Troup
and his party twenty-three miles from Bareli. Troup was warm in his acknowledgments. In truth he never expected to see them. “Thank God,” he exclaimed to Mackenzie, as the latter rode up, “I feared you had gone to certain death.”
The retiring party now united, proceeded without a halt to Naini Tal, accomplishing the distance, sixty-six miles, in twenty-two hours. On the departure of the fugitives for Naini Tal the rebel rule was inaugurated at Bareli. Every European house but one had been burnt down.
Khan Bahadur Khan was proclaimed Viceroy of Rohilkhand. His vice-royalty was baptised with blood.
The two judges, Messrs. Robertson and Raikes; the deputy-collector, Mr. Wyatt; Dr. Hay, Dr. Orr, Mr. Buck, and three other civilians; all the merchants, traders, and clerks, and all the women and children who had not quitted the station, were murdered. Most of these were judicially slaughtered – slaughtered, that is to say, by the express order of the new viceroy, and many of them after having been brought into his presence. Exposed to this terrible ordeal, cast by ruffians at the feet of this greater ruffian, the English race still asserted itself. The gallant prisoners told the new viceroy to his face that, though he might water his new throne with their blood, it would yet take no root in the ground; that, though he might find it easy to slaughter unarmed men, women, and children, British power would yet assert itself to crush him.
The better to assure the mastery and to rid himself of all rival claimants, Khan Bahadur Khan took the earliest opportunity to persuade Bakht Khan, the Subahdar of artillery before alluded to, and who had assumed the title of Brigadier, to lead the Sipahis to Dehli, furnishing him with a letter to the king. He even made a show of accompanying him. But it was only a show. He returned from the first stage to Bareli, fortified his house, and, adding sacrilege to murder, destroyed the tomb of Mr. Thomason, whilom Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, to build with the materials, after the manner of
the princes of the House of Taimur, a mausoleum for himself.
He at the same time enlisted all the Muhammadans who would carry arms, and with their aid.
began to oppress and plunder the rich Hindus. The latter began very soon to regret the over-. throw of the British rule.
On the very same day on which the tragedy I have recorded was being enacted at Bareli, events not less startling were taking place at Shahjahanpur, but forty-seven miles distant. There was but one native regiment at Shahjahanpur, the 28th Regiment of Native Infantry. The news of the Mirath outbreak, arriving about the 15th of May, had not caused less excitement at this station than elsewhere. But whilst the residents, and especially the officers, continued to trust the Sipahis, they looked for an outbreak on the part of the notoriously turbulent population. Little, however, occurred at the time to cause apprehension.
But as day after day passed, and rebellion seemed to be gathering head, unchecked by all about them, the Sipahis began; to display a behaviour not entirely consistent with duty. Still, however, their officers believed that the bulk of them were loyal.
This belief was roughly and suddenly dispelled. The 31st of May was a Sunday. Many of the residents and officers had gone to church. They were still at their prayers when the Sipahis of the 28th rushed upon them.
On hearing the tumult the chaplain went to the door of the church to meet the mutineers. He was at once attacked, but escaped for the moment with the loss of his hand, severed by a sword stroke. He was subsequently killed by some villagers. Mr. Ricketts, the magistrate, whose vigilance had attracted towards him the peculiar hatred of the mutineers, likewise received a sword cut. He then attempted to escape to his house, but was cut down about thirty-five yards from the vestry door. Mr. Labadoor, a clerk, was killed in the church. His wife, his sister-in-law, and the bandmaster of the regiment, escaped for the moment, but eventually met a worse fate. Another clerk, a Mr. Smith, stole away, but was tracked out and killed.
The scuffle at the door of the church and the attack upon those who first presented themselves to the mutineers had given
time meanwhile to the other officers and ladies present there to improvise a defence.
Captain Lysaght, Mr. Jenkins, and others succeeded in barring the chancel doors against their assailants. These, happily, had brought with them no muskets, only swords and clubs, and so mistrustful were they, that on observing the approach of one solitary officer, Captain Sneyd, armed with a gun, they made at once for their lines to get their muskets.
The gentlemen had, before this, placed the ladies in security in the church turret. Hardly had they done this when the Sipahis went off in the manner described, and almost immediately afterwards their domestic servants, faithful in this extremity, arrived at the church, bringing with them their masters’ guns and rifles. The English then ventured to open the doors. They found not only the horses and carriages, which had brought them to church, still at the door, but clustering round about a hundred Sipahis, principally Sikhs, who had hastened up to rally round and to defend their officers. For the moment they were safe.
Meanwhile the cantonments had been a scene of tumult and bloodshed. When one party of the mutineers had rushed to the church another had fired the bungalows and sought out the Europeans. The assistant magistrate was killed in the verandah of his court, whither he had fled for refuge. Captain James, in temporary command of the 28th, was shot on the parade-ground whilst trying to reason with his men. In reply to his arguments they asserted that they were not after all such great traitors, inasmuch as they had served the Government faithfully for twenty years. As he turned away in disgust they shot him. The mutineers allowed Dr. Bowling, the surgeon of the regiment, to visit the hospital unmolested, but, on his return, after he had taken up and placed inside his carriage his wife, his child, and his English maid, they shot him dead and wounded his wife. She managed, however, to reach the other fugitives at the church.
There, now, were assembled all the Europeans remaining alive. What were they to do? It was a terrible extremity. But desperate situations require desperate remedies, and the only sensible course seemed to be to make for the residence of the Rajah of Powain – across the Oudh frontier, though but a few miles distant. Thither accordingly they proceeded, and there they arrived
the same day. But their reception was unfavourable. The Rajah declared his inability to protect them and refused them shelter. Mr. Jenkins, the assistant magistrate, who was one of the party, wrote at once to Mr. Thomason, the Deputy Commissioner of Muhamdi, in Oudh, to inform him of the events at Shahjahanpur, and to beg him to send all the available carriage to enable the fugitives to reach his station. Mr. Thomason received the letter that night, and complied, as far as he could, with the request. At Muhamdi the fugitives arrived, in a terrible plight115, two days later. But they were not saved. Their subsequent adventures form one of the saddest episodes in the Indian Mutiny.
Midway between Bareli and Shahjahanpur, though not in a direct line, and some thirty miles from the former, lies the civil station of Budaun.
The magistrate and collector of this district, which took its name from the station, was Mr. William Edwards. Mr. Edwards had served as Under Secretary in the Foreign Department during the rule of Lord Ellenborough. A man of observation and ability, he had marked how, during the fifteen years preceding the mutiny, the action of our revenue system had gradually ruined the landowners of the country and broken up the village communities.
Under the action of that revenue system landed rights and interests, sold for petty debts, had been bought by strangers who had no sympathy with the people. The dispossessed landowners, irritated and discontented, smarting under the loss of their estates, looked upon the British Government as the author of their calamities; whilst the peasantry, connected with these landowners for centuries, bestowed upon them all their sympathy, reserving their hatred for the strangers – their patrons, the British.
The social state in Rohilkhand having been gradually growing to this point, it can easily be conceived that, when the mutiny broke out in the North-West, Budaun was ripe for revolt.
Mr. Edwards was well aware of the dangers which awaited
him in his isolated position.
He was alone at Budaun. As soon as the revolt at Mirath had disclosed to him the nature of the impending catastrophe he had sent his wife and child to Naini Tad. He remained alone – well aware that the population all around him was discontented, that the company of Sipahis who guarded his treasury was not to be trusted, that the police would join in the scramble which a signal from Bareli would inaugurate.
To oppose an insurrection on the part of these men Mr. Edwards had no resource beyond his brave and resolute heart.
On the 29th of May Mr. Alfred Phillipps, the magistrate of Itah, a station in the Agra district, on the right bank of the Ganges, rode into Budaun. He was on his way to Bareli to demand help from thence, his own district being in a state of insurrection. Mr. Edwards told him that help was not to be looked for from Bareli, as he had himself asked for it in vain. But two days later information reached Edwards that the important town of Bilsi was about to be attacked by the rebels.
To allow this place to fall without an effort was not to be thought of. Edwards decided then to make another appeal to Bareli. The answer was favourable. He was promised a company of Sipahis under a European officer.
Joyfully he was expecting these, when, on the 1st of June, he received information that the entire Bareli brigade had mutinied, and that revolt reigned at that station.
Mr. Edwards received this information early in the morning. He imparted it to Mr. Phillipps, who realising at once the failure of his mission, started at once to return to his district before the roads should be barred by the rebels. Very soon after Mr. Phillipps’s departure Mr. Edwards was joined by two indigo planters, the Messrs. Donald, and by a subordinate of the salt department, Mr. Gibson. These expressed their resolution to accompany Mr. Edwards whithersoever he might go. But at the moment Mr. Edwards had no mind to go anywhere.
The Sipahis at Budaun had not yet broken into revolt, and their commandant, on receiving the intelligence from Bareli, had voluntarily assured Mr. Edwards that he and his men would defend the treasury confided to
them to the last man. That very evening, however, they rose, and being joined by a party from Bareli and by the released gaol-birds of the place, began to plunder and destroy.
There was now nothing for the four Englishmen but flight. Their numbers, far from being a protection, were an embarrassment, for, with the districts all around them surging, concealment, difficult for one or two, would be almost impossible for four. But there was no help for it. The four Englishmen, accompanied by an Afghan servant of Mr. Edwards and by an orderly – a Sikh, Wazir Singh – both true men, rode at once for their lives. During the first few days, they galloped from village to village, quitting it, or remaining, as they found the native hostile or the reverse; often forced to flee when most in need of food and rest.
They crossed the Ganges two or three times, tracing out a zig-zag path in the hope of avoiding danger.
Ultimately, with the loss of one of their number, they reached Fathgarh. But Fathgarh, on the eve of revolt, was no abiding place for fugitive Europeans. Mr. Edwards himself wished to make for Kanhpur, or even for Agra. Both these routes having been pronounced impracticable, he and his companions determined, in pursuance of the advice of his friend, Mr. Probyn, the Collector of Fathgarh, to join Mrs. Probyn and her children, then at Dharmpur, the fortified residence of a friendly native, Hardeo Bakhsh. Mr. Edwards reached that place on the 10th of June and found collected there many Europeans. Most of these, however, returned to Fathgarh.
Mr. Edwards, Mr. and Mrs. Probyn and their children, remained, and ultimately – after the party had undergone terrible troubles and privations, the weaker and more delicate of its members having been forced to lie for weeks concealed “in a wretched hovel, occupied by buffaloes, and filthy beyond description, the smell stifling, and the mud and dirt over our. ankles,” – they reached Kanhpur.
They arrived at that goal of safety on the 1st of September, just three calendar months after Mr. Edwards had left Budaun.
Meanwhile at that place rebel rule had been inaugurated. The authority of Khan Bahadur Khan was acknowledged, and the Sipahis, after having rifled the treasury, were persuaded to march to Dehli.
Thanks to the prevision of Mr. Edwards, the rifling of the treasury was unusually unproductive, that gentleman having refused, with a view to possible eventualities, to receive the instalments of revenue due from the land-holders.
Muradabad lies forty-eight miles north-west of Bareli In 1857 it was garrisoned by one native regiment, the 29th Native Infantry, and by half a battery of native artillery. It was likewise the seat of a civil district, with judge, magistrate and collector, assistant magistrate, and civil surgeon.
The news of the mutiny at Mirath reached Muradabad on the 16th of May. No immediate result was apparent; but on the evening of the 18th intelligence reached the authorities in the station that a small party of the 20th Regiment of Native Infantry – one of the regiments which had mutinied at Mirath – was encamped, fully equipped and with a large quantity of treasure, in the jungle, on the left bank of the Gorgan rivulet, about five miles from the station.
The opportunity was considered a good one for testing the loyalty, always loudly professed, of the men of the 29th Native Infantry. Accordingly, a company of that regiment, commanded by Captain Faddy, was ordered for duty that night. The night was pitch dark, but as a surprise was intended that circumstance was in favour of the British. At 11 o’clock, Captain Faddy set out, preceded by thirty horsemen and accompanied by his subaltern and some civilians. On approaching the Gorgan rivulet Faddy halted his infantry, and ordered the cavalry to take up a position to cut off the enemy’s retreat.
As soon as this movement had been satisfactorily accomplished he dashed on to the enemy’s encampment with his infantry, overpowered their sentries, and roughly awoke them from their slumbers. The darkness was so great that friend could only be distinguished from foe by the flash of the fire-arms. Owing to this the bulk of the insurgents managed to steal off, with the loss, however, of all their arms and horses, ten thousand rupees in coin, eight prisoners, and one man killed.
So far the men of the 29th seemed to have stood the test well. It has indeed been asserted that they did not exert themselves as much as they might have done, and that, had their hearts
been in the struggle, they might have prevented the escape of so large a number of the insurgents.
Such was not, however, the opinion of their officers at the time. At the best it can only be conjecture, for the pitchy darkness of the night was quite sufficient to account for the escape of the dark-skinned mutineers, roused suddenly from slumber.
It would appear, however, that the mutineers themselves did not consider that the hearts of the men of the 29th Native Infantry were very much incensed against them. For the very morning following the surprise just narrated a few of them, escaped from that surprise, came into the station and boldly entered the lines of the 29th! But, again, the 29th displayed a loyal resolution. The native sergeant who was leading the rebel Sipahis was shot down and the remainder were taken prisoners. It being considered unsafe to lodge the prisoners in the quarter-guard, they were sent to the gaol. It happened, however, unfortunately, that the native sergeant who had been shot had a near relation in the 29th, and that this near relation was a man of some influence in the regiment.
No sooner had this man discovered who it was who had been slain than he collected about a hundred men, the worst characters in the regiment, led them to the gaol, stormed it, and released not only the men of the 20th, but the six hundred prisoners lodged there! But the bulk of the regiment was still true.
On hearing of the raid against the gaol the officers turned out their men, and these displayed the greatest alacrity in responding to the call made upon their loyalty. A number of them followed the Adjutant, Captain Gardiner, in pursuit of the rioters and the escaped convicts, and actually succeeded in bringing back a hundred and fifty of them. The civil authorities co-operated with the military in this well-timed expedition, and are entitled to share in the credit due to its success. Subsequently, more of the insurgents were caught. Some even returned of their own accord. But the real crisis, far from having been surmounted, was still looming in the future. On the 21st of May the authorities discovered that a number of Muhammadan fanatics from Rampur116 had collected on the left bank of the Ramganga, opposite the
town of Muradabad, had hoisted the green flag, and were in communication with the evil-disposed men of the town.
In the town itself the threatening effect of this demonstration was manifest at a glance. The shops were all shut, the streets were deserted, the doors of the houses were barred.
It was patent to all that unless this demonstration were encountered with a firm and resolute hand the British cause was lost. The judge, Mr. Cracroft Wilson, called upon the military authorities to aid him. The aid was given.
Setting out then with some sawars and with two officers and a company of the 29th, he attacked and dispersed the fanatics. One of the latter levelled at Mr. Wilson’s head a blunderbuss loaded with slugs. Mr. Wilson seized it in time. The fanatic then drew a pistol from his belt; but before he could discharge it a Sipahi of the 29th knocked him down. That night the chief of the evil-disposed party within the town was killed by the police.
Two days later, the 23rd, another incident came to try alike the English and the Sipahis. On that day intelligence arrived that two companies of sappers and miners, laden with plunder and fully equipped, were approaching the station. Instantly two companies of the 29th Native Infantry and sixty sawars were warned for duty. Captain Whish, who commanded the party, took with him two guns and marched out on the road by which the enemy were to advance. But intelligence of his march had preceded him. The rebels, not caring to encounter him, crossed the river and made for the Tarai.
The joint magistrate, however, tracked them with four sawars, and kept them in sight till the detachment came up, when, without the semblance of a struggle, the rebels laid down their arms. Previous experience having demonstrated the impolicy of bringing any prisoners into Muradabad, these men were deprived of their arms, their ammunition, their money, and their uniform, and were turned loose.
The good conduct of the men of the 29th Native Infantry in these expeditions had nursed the hope that they might remain staunch and loyal to the end. But it is easy now to perceive how, in the times that were approaching, it was all but impossible that this
should be so. The districts around them were surging. Every day they were seeing and talking with men who appealed to the sentiment lying nearest to their heart – to their religion and their caste; who told them that it was the deliberate intention of the British Government to violate the latter; who pointed to the sufferings and privations their brethren were enduring in the sacred cause; and who appealed at the same time to the baser passions of cupidity and ambition. Muradabad was but forty-eight miles from the larger station of Bareli, and we have seen what was passing at Bareli during the last two weeks of May!
Until the 2nd of June, however, the Sipahis of the 29th Native Infantry performed their duty loyally and well.
But early on the morning of that day it became known throughout Muradabad that rebellion. had proved triumphant at Bareli. The judge and the magistrate had received that intelligence at 2 o’clock in the morning by the hands of a special messenger from the Nawab of Rampur.
The effect of this intelligence upon the Sipahis of the 29th Native Infantry and upon the townspeople was prompt and significant. No one doubted but that a crisis was at hand. The men were sullen, sarcastic, and even rude in their manner; the townspeople defiant and disrespectful. Mr. Wilson’s energetic proposal to them to follow their officers to Mirath with their colours flying, taking guns and treasure with them, was met with derision. They had decided for themselves the part to be taken.
The following morning they threw off all disguise. They began by refusing to all but the Europeans admission to the building in which the public moneys were deposited, on the ground that the fanatics. from Rampur might return to attack it.
The civilians, prevented thus from exercising absolute control over the treasure, thought it would prevent a general disturbance if it were so disposed that the Sipahis could take possession of it without opposition.
They accordingly had it placed, the Sipahis quietly acquiescing, upon tumbrils, and formally made it over to the treasury guard. The magistrate, Mr. Saunders, seized the opportunity to destroy as many of the Government stamps in store as he could lay hands upon. The amount of the money
thus made over to the Sipahis was but £7,500. They were greatly disappointed at the smallness of the amount. In the first burst of their fury they seized the native treasurer, dragged him to the guns, and threatened to blow him away unless he would disclose the place where the remainder had been concealed. Captain Faddy and Mr. Saunders rescued the man from his impending fate. But when the latter and Mr. Wilson were about to ride off a few of the disaffected men levelled their pieces at them and ran round to prevent their escape. Some of the native officers, however, reminding the men of the oath they had taken to spare the lives of the Europeans, induced them to lower their muskets and to desist.
Simultaneously with the seizure of the rupees the Sipahis deliberately appropriated the opium, and all the plate-chests and other property consigned for security to the Government treasury. The police had ceased to act. The rabble were beginning to move. There was but one course to pursue, and that was to save for future service lives which, at Muradabad, would have been uselessly sacrificed.
The English started, then: the civilians and their wives accompanied by a native officer and some men of Irregular Cavalry, who happened to be there on leave, for Mirath; the officers and their families for Naini Tal. Both stations were reached without loss of life.
Those who chose to remain behind, principally Eurasian clerks in offices, were not so fortunate. An invalided officer, an Englishman, Lieutenant Warwick, and his wife, a native Christian, were killed. Mr. Powell, a clerk, was wounded. But he, and some thirty-one others, purchased immunity from further ill-treatment by embracing the Muhammadan faith. Their subsequent fate is uncertain; but it is believed that but few lived to hear of the fall of Dehli.
With the mutiny of the troops at Muradabad all Rohilkhand passed nominally under the sway of Khan Bahadur Khan, the descendant of its last independent ruler, and a pensioned civil officer under the British. I say, nominally, for his authority was never thoroughly established. His sway, in fact, was the sway of disorder. It can best be described by using a proverb familiar to the
natives: “The buffalo is the property of the man who holds the bludgeon.” A social condition was inaugurated not dissimilar to that which prevailed throughout Maratha India in the interval between the departure of Marquess Wellesley and the close of the Pindari War. Unarmed Sipahis, if in small parties, were certain to be set upon by villagers armed with clubs, and plundered – often murdered. Pious Brahmans, telling their beads, were suddenly assaulted and murdered by Muhammadan stragglers, for the sake of the brass vessels in which they cooked their food.
The landowners, dispossessed under the action of the British revenue system, resumed their lands, but in many cases, they, and the farmers generally, especially the Muhammadans, exercised the authority they thus acquired, or of which they were possessed, with so much severity that no peacefully disposed man would dare to venture beyond the limits of his village even in the daytime. If he travelled at night, the greatest secrecy and precaution had to be observed.
Such was the social life in Rohilkhand under native sway in 1857. Nor was the political condition of the province more flourishing. By the Thakurs, or barons, the authority of Khan Bahadur Khan was for a long time disputed. These men were just as greedy of plunder as had been the Sipahis, and they rejoiced for the moment at the sudden acquisition of power to attack villages and towns. But from some cause or other they and their followers were very badly armed – their weapons consisting mainly of bludgeons and matchlocks, antique in form, and rusty from long disuse. Their power, then, was not equal to their will. Budaun, thrice threatened, successfully resisted them. Having no guns, they were unable to combat the trained troops of the native viceroy. Whenever these trained levies marched against them and beat them, they, their relatives, and their followers, experienced no mercy. Mutilation and murder followed defeat, and confiscation followed mutilation and murder. Sometimes stories of these atrocities induced several Thakurs to combine, but never successfully. Badly armed and untrained, the peasantry whom they led, even when they obtained a transient success, dispersed for plunder. In the end they were always beaten.
It is scarcely surprising if, under these circumstances, the
hearts of the rural population began after a time to yearn for their old rulers.
It was in vain that, in a boastful proclamation, Khan Bahadur Khan denounced the English as liars, as destroyers of the creeds of others, as confiscators of property. In the recesses of their own houses the peasantry replied that at least the English were truth-tellers; at least, they did not war on women and children; at least, they were a moral race, above treachery and deceit. The longer the rule of the Muhammadan viceroy lasted the more these opinions circulated. His mis-government begat contrast. Contrast begat a longing desire for the old master, until at last the victory of the English came to be the hope of every peasant’s hut, the earnest desire of every true working man in the province.
The course of events now takes us down to Fathgarh, a station in the Agra division, on the right bank of the river Ganges, twenty-five miles south of Shahjahanpur.
Fathgarh was the seat of a gun-carriage manufactory – the works connected with which were carried on in a dilapidated fort – and the headquarters of the 10th Regiment of Native Infantry and a native battery. Three or four miles to the west of it lies the native city of Farrukhabad, the seat of a pensioned Pathan Nawab. The inhabitants of the district numbered close upon a million. About one-tenth of these were Muhammadans, but Muhammadans of a peculiarly turbulent character, given to murder and rapine beyond their coreligionists in other provinces.
They had been under English rule since the year 1802, but in their inmost hearts they had long rebelled against the system of order and care for life and property then imposed upon the district in which they lived.
The events at Mirath on the 10th of May had awakened in the minds of the men of the 10th Native Infantry sentiments analogous to these which had been produced elsewhere. Like their comrades in those other stations, they resolved to temporise and to bide their time. In this way the month of May was tided over. But on the 3rd of June intelligence was received of the mutinies at Bareli and at Shahjahanpur and of the rising of Rohilkhand. It happened that Colonel Smith, commanding the regiment, was a man of energy and decision. He at once summoned. a council of the leading residents, and
announced to them his intention of despatching that night the women and children by boat, down the Ganges, to Kanhpur.
It was known that Kanhpur was then holding out; that European soldiers had arrived there; that more were on their way thither. It seemed in every the respect eligible as a place of refuge.
At 1 o’clock on the morning of the 4th of June, then, about a hundred and seventy non-combatants, a large proportion of whom were women and children, started off in boats. The next day, all sorts of contradictory reports reaching the fugitives, it was resolved to divide into two parties. A hundred and twenty-six continued to prosecute their journey to Kanhpur, only to be seized there by the order of Nana Sahib, and by his order to be foully murdered
The other party, amongst whom were the wife and family of Mr. Probyn, preferred to accept the hospitality of a native landowner, Hardeo Baksh, at Dharmpur; the same whom we have seen receiving Mr. Probyn and Mr. Edwards. They remained, whilst the majority, about forty in number, after some hesitation, returned to Fathgarh (13th of June).
Meanwhile, affairs in Fathgarh had not progressed very favourably. On the very day of the despatch of the boats Colonel Smith had attempted to move the Government treasure into the fort.
But the Sipahis had flatly refused to allow this. With strange inconsistency, and although they were corresponding with the mutinous regiments in the province of Oudh, the same men cheerfully obeyed their Colonel’s order to destroy the bridge of boats, the sole link between the district of Farrukhabad and that province.
They seemed to evince a true and loyal feeling, when, on the 16th of June, they handed to their Colonel a letter written to them by the Subahdar of the 41st Native Infantry – a regiment which had recently mutinied at Sitapur, in Oudh – in which that Subahdar announced that he and his regiment had arrived within a few miles of Fathgarh, and that he and they now called upon the 10th to murder their officers, to seize the treasure, and to join them. The native officer who communicated to Colonel Smith the contents of this letter added, that he and the men had replied that they had served the Company too many years to turn traitors; that they were resolved to remain true to their salt and to oppose by
force the 41st if they should march that way.
It was after this correspondence that the men of the 10th aided in breaking down the bridge of boats across the Ganges. Yet the very next day, the 18th of June, they warned Colonel Smith that they would no longer obey the British, and that he and his officers had better retire within the fort.
It would appear from this warning and this action that the men of the 10th had no desire to kill their officers; that they cared only for the coin. The day following, the 41st crossed the river in boats and joined them. Bloodier counsels then prevailed.
Colonel Smith and the European population had not, meanwhile, been slow to avail themselves of the opportunity given them. To the number of upwards of a hundred117 they entered the fort. Of that number only thirty-three were able-bodied men: the remainder consisted of women, children, and infirm non-combatants. Their first care was to mount guns on the ramparts. A 6-pounder was at once placed in position to command the gateway.
By strenuous exertions a 3-pounder, a 9-pounder, a 12-pounder, an 18-pounder, and a 24-pounder, were likewise mounted. The last three were howitzers. A small brass mortar, and three hundred muskets were also unearthed and made ready for use.
The next care was to search for ammunition. The supply of this was, however, extremely defective. The garrison could not lay hands on more than a few muster round shot and shells; six boxes of balled, and an equal number of blank cartridges. These latter were at once broken up, and the powder was put by for the use of the guns – a lot of nuts, screws, hammer-heads and such-like articles being collected to be used as grape. At the same time the garrison were told off into three parties, each under an officer, and to these distinct watches were assigned.
All these arrangements had been happily completed before the Sipahis showed any sign of molesting our countrymen. The fact was that perfect union did not reign among the mutineers. The 10th Regiment, on dismissing its officers, had
placed itself unreservedly at the disposal of the Nawab, but had refused to hand over to him the treasure.
The 41st, meanwhile, crossing the Ganges in boats, had 10th entered the city, and demanded from the men of the 10th their share of the plunder. The 10th refused to part with their spoils, whereupon the 41st, reproaching them with having spared the lives of their officers, went tumultuously to the Nawab and implored him to order the 10th to join them in an attack on the fort. The Nawab, it is believed, gave the required order; but, before they received it, the 10th had divided the treasure amongst themselves. Then the greater number of them seized the first opportunity to cross the river into Oudh, and to make their way to their homes. Those who remained were set upon by the men of the disappointed 41st. In the contest which ensued many on both sides were killed. It ended only by the survivors of the 10th agreeing to follow the counsels of the 41st.
The 41st were now masters of the situation, and the object of the 41st was European blood. The Nawab threw himself heartily into their cause, and supplied them with provisions and all the munitions of war at his disposal. But the mutineers still delayed the attack. They were awaiting, they said, an auspicious day. This delay was of no small advantage to the besieged, as it enabled them, by means of the natives who still adhered to them, to store the fort with provisions.
The auspicious day was the 25th of June. But it was not till the evening of the day following that the first alarm was given. This was caused by the opening of a musketry fire upon some coolies employed by our people tee to pull down some walls outside, but contiguous to the fort. It led to nothing. Before daybreak the following morning, however, the mutineers opened fire from their only two guns; but, finding it ineffectual, they soon caused it to cease. A little later, taking position behind trees, bushes, and any wall that afforded cover, they opened a heavy musketry fire. It was, however, quite ineffective, whereas many of them were hit by the English marksmen.
The only incident which made the following day differ from its predecessor was the display by the enemy of escalading ladders. But not one of these could be planted against the walls of the fort. The aim of our countrymen was too true.
For four days similar tactics were pursued, varied only by ineffectual attempts to escalade. The enemy suffered severely from the guns and muskets of the besieged, whereas the loss sustained by the latter was extremely slight.
On the fifth day the rebels changed their tactics. Ceasing direct attack, a body of them went to occupy a village called Husenpur, the roofs of the houses in which commanded a portion of the interior of the fort. From these roofs they opened a deadly and effective fire, speedily productive of casualties amongst the garrison. At the same time another body took possession of a small outhouse about seventy yards from the fort and commanding the rampart, loopholed it, and opened a destructive fire on the gunners, rendering the service of the guns impossible. The garrison suffered a good deal from this fire, Colonel Tucker being amongst the slain. The enemy then began mining operations, and at the end of two days sprung the mine. The explosion shook the whole fort, but blew away only five or six yards of the outer wall, leaving the inner half standing.
The rebels made two attempts, then, to storm. But the first was defeated by the vigilance of one of the garrison, Mr. Jones, who noticing their assembling below the breach, poured into them, unaided, “the fire of two double-barrels and eight muskets, and again discharging them as they were reloaded by a native;” the second, by the excellent aim of Mr. Fisher, the chaplain, the leader of the storming party falling dead by a shot from his rifle.
The situation of the garrison was nevertheless sensibly deteriorating. They had lost some of their best men. Many of their defences were commanded. Ammunition was running short. The enemy, too, were daily devising fresh schemes of attack. The day following the repulse just recorded they managed to hoist one of their guns in a position to command the building in which the women and children were located; the. other to bear against the main gateway.
The firing from these was effective. The building was struck, the gate was pierced, and, worse than all, two of the garrison guns were disabled. Still, however, damages were repaired with a will, and the enemy was again baffled. Under these circumstances, they once more had recourse to mining. Up to this point the garrison had shown a spirit, an
energy, and a resolution not to be surpassed.
But their losses had been severe. Their effective number, originally small, had considerably diminished. Excessive work had thus been thrown upon the survivors, and they were now fairly worn out by fatigue and watching.
They could still have repelled a direct attack, but when they witnessed a second attempt to mine their position, despair of a successful defence began to steal over their minds. It would have been strange had it been otherwise. It was evident that after the firing of the second mine, two breaches would be available for the assault, and the garrison were not sufficiently strong in numbers to defend more than one. The case was desperate. Effective defence had become impossible.
But there remained to the garrison still one chance of escape. The rainy season had set in, and under its influence there had been a considerable rise in the waters of the Ganges. Three large boats had been kept safely moored under the fort walls. It might be possible, starting at night, to descend the rapidly-flowing river to a point where they would be far from the reach of the murderous Sipahis Such a course, at all events, offered, or seemed to offer, a better chance of escape than a continuance of the defence of the fort with numbers diminished and ammunition all but exhausted. So thought, after due consideration, Colonel Smith and the garrison. They resolved then to evacuate the fort and steal away in the boats.
On the night of the 3rd of July the attempt was made. The ladies and children were divided into three parties and at midnight were stowed away in the boats. Meanwhile the pickets and sentries still remained at their posts, nor were they called in until all the non-combatants had embarked. But, before leaving the fort, they spiked the guns and destroyed the small amount of ammunition that remained. It was 2 o’clock in the morning before they had all embarked. The order was then given to let go. The boats started in good order, but the clearness of the night betrayed their movements to the Sipahis. These at once guessed the truth.
Raising the cry that the Faringhis were running away, they fired wildly at the boats, and then followed, still discharging their pieces, along the bank. But Fortune for the moment favoured our countrymen. The banks were
unfavourable for running, and the current was strong. The hostile missiles all fell short.
I have already stated that the boats were three in number. They had been apportioned respectively to the commands of Colonel Smith, Colonel Goldie, and Major Robertson.
But Colonel Goldie’s boat was soon found to be too unwieldy, and was abandoned, its occupants being removed to Colonel Smith’s boat. The delay caused by the transhipment enabled the Sipahis to bring down one of their guns to bear on the boats, but the balls still fell short. At length the fugitives resumed their journey, and reached without accident the village of Singhirampur. Here they stopped to repair the rudder of Colonel Smith’s boat.
But the villagers turned out, opened fire upon it, and killed one of the two boatmen. The villagers still continuing to turn out, five of the British officers118 jumped into the water, waded to land, and charged and drove back the enemy, numbering now about three hundred, killing some of their leaders. They then returned to the boat, the rudder of which had been repaired.
They had scarcely gone a few yards, however, before Major Robertson’s boat grounded on a soft sand-bank. Notwithstanding every effort, and despite the fact that the fugitives jumped into the water to push her off, she remained there immovable. Colonel Smith’s boat, meanwhile, had gone down with the stream.
The grounded boat had been in the helpless position above recorded about half an hour when its occupants descried two boats coming towards them down the stream apparently empty.
These boats approached to within twenty yards of them, when suddenly they became alive with armed Sipahis. These opened upon our countrymen a murderous and continued fire. Before the fugitives had time to recover from their surprise, many of them, including Major Robertson, had been wounded, and some Sipahis had already
boarded the boat. The crisis was terrible, Major Robertson, retaining, despite his wound, all his coolness, and all his courage, implored the ladies to jump into the water and trust to the current rather than to the Sipahis. Many of them did so, and some of them, assisted by the men, some by their own efforts, succeeded in swimming down the stream. Eventually many of these were drowned; many were killed. Those who were taken by the Sipahis were carried prisoners to the Nawab119.
Meanwhile, Colonel Smith’s boat had been carried down by the stream. Its occupants received authentic intelligence of the fate of their friends from Mr. Jones, who, after having defended himself as long as defence was possible, and received a bullet-wound in the right shoulder, had struck out into the stream. Mr. Jones states in his narrative that on board that boat he found “everything in confusion,” some having been killed, some wounded, by the villagers of Singhirampur. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Fisher was picked up.
The boat continued to drop down without pursuit or molestation from, or intercourse with, the natives, till on the evening of the following day it reached a village opposite Kusumkhor, in the Oudh territories. Here the villagers offered the fugitives assistance and village. protection. These at first feared treachery, but, becoming convinced of the friendly intentions of the peasants, they put to shore for the night, and were refreshed by a meal consisting of unleavened bread and buffalo milk.
Well would it have been if our countrymen had remained with these kind-hearted villagers. One of them, Mr. Jones, whose wound had become most painful, decided on doing so. The others all set out that night. They set out to meet their death. The precise form in which that death was meted
out to them may not be certainly known.
Some believe that the boat was stopped near Kanhpur, its occupants dragged out, and there murdered. There is, on the other hand, some ground for believing that as the boat passed Bithur120, the stronghold of Nana, Sahib, it was fired upon by the Sipahis, and all on board were killed. This, however, is certain, that they all met their death at or near, Kanhpur, on the order of Nana Dundu Pant.
Thus had the Nawab, Tafuzal Husen Khan, triumphed at Farrukhabad. He inaugurated his succession by the slaughter of some forty Europeans taken in various ports of the district. The prisoners brought back from Major Robertson’s boat were kept for about a fortnight in confinement, and then murdered under most atrocious circumstances. But the blood thus spilt failed to cement his throne. It failed to win for him the affection of the Hindus, constituting nine-tenths of the population of the district. It failed to give him a sense of security. In a few short months, it was this blood which choked his utterances for pardon, and which, when the penalty he had incurred had been remitted by the unauthorised action of a subordinate official, condemned him to an existence more miserable than death. The Government could not recede from the plighted word of their officer; but, though the Nawab was allowed to live, he lived only to see the utter annihilation of his own schemes, the complete restoration of the authority he had insulted and defied, to be made conscious every day of the contempt and disgust he had brought upon his person and his name.
105. Page 102.
106. Cocks, Watson, and Outram, C.S.; Saunders and Tandy, planters; Stewart Clarke, surgeon; Castle, Hinde, Burkinyoung, and Harington; Ensigns Marsh and Oliphant,
107. Robertson’s District Duties during the Revolt.
108. Two had quitted it, ostensibly to escort the ladies.
109. District Duties during the Revolt, page 25.
110. The real object was to place the guns under the charge of the 8th Irregular Cavalry. They were in fact regularly confided to that corps. It will be seen in the text that subsequently they were withdrawn, and restored to their own men. This restoration was a part of the feigning-confidence policy so popular in the Government circles of Calcutta. The Subahdar of the Artillery, whose tearful protestations in favour of the restoration of the guns excited the sympathy of many, subsequently assumed the command of the rebellious brigade, and eventually commanded in chief at Dehli. His name was Bakht Khan.
111. The ladies, women, and children were at once sent off to Naini Tal escorted thither by a detachment of the 8th Irregular Cavalry.
112. Hafiz Rahmat was the last independent Muhammadan ruler in Rohilkhand. He was defeated and slain in 1774 in a battle against the British, under Colonel Champion, fought near Fathganj. Khan Bahadur Khan received one pension as the descendant and heir of the last ruler of the Rohilahs, another as a retired civil officer of the British Government.
113. Their names were Captain Kirby and Lieutenant Fraser of the Artillery; Captain Paterson and Lieutenant Warde, 68th Native Infantry; Lieutenant Hunter, 18th Native Infantry.
114. It is due to these twenty-three men to place on record that though every possible temptation was held out to them to desert the Europeans, not one of them yielded to it. Amid many trials they remained faithful, and managed to do excellent service. The Risaldar, Muhammad Nazim Khan, not only left all his property, but three children behind, to obey the call of duty. Mackenzie’s orderly, a Muhammadan, rode, throughout the retreat of sixty-six miles, Mackenzie’s second charger, a magnificent Arab, on which it would have been easy for him to ride off. But he was faithful, and when the horse Mackenzie was riding dropped dead the orderly at once dismounted and proceeded on foot. These men had their reward when the regiment was re-organise I, and they redeemed, on the 6th of April, 1858, the good name of their regiment, being commended for the “marked gallantry” they displayed at Harha in Oudh under the command of Captain Mackenzie.
In the text I have recorded a plain and unadorned statement of the conduct of Captain Mackenzie and Lieutenant Becher on this trying occasion. It is but just to both those officers that the opinion of the officer commanding the brigade to which they belonged should be added. In his report on the events recorded in the text Colonel Troup thus wrote: “In justice to Captain Mackenzie and Lieutenant Becher I consider it my duty, however much they like others may have been deceived by their men, to state that in my opinion no two officers could have behaved better towards, or shown a better or more gallant example to, their men than they did. I was in daily, I may say hourly, communication with them, and I have great pleasure in stating that from the very first to the last they were unremitting in the performance of the many harassing duties required of them.” Colonel Troup further recommended them to the favourable notice of the Commander-in-Chief.
115. “Sad was the appearance of the poor Shahjahanpur fugitives on their arrival at Muhamdi; weary and with naked feet did they with much difficulty and toil reach thus far.” – Narrative of the Shahjahanpur Mutiny and Massacre.
116. Rampur, the capital of a mediatized Afghan chief, Mahomed Yusuf Ali Khan, lies eighteen miles to the east of Muradabad.
117. They had been joined by fugitives and travellers from other parts of the country.
118. These were Major Munro, Lieutenants Eckford, Sweetenham, and Henderson of the 10th Native Infantry, and Captain Edmund Vibart, 2nd Cavalry. The writer gladly takes this opportunity to offer his tribute of regret for the untimely end of the last-named officer, who to the form of an Antinous united the noblest and most manly sentiments and a ripe and brilliant intellect.
119. Amongst those who succeeded in swimming to the other boat were Mr. Jones, whose narrative I have mainly followed; Mr. Fisher, the chaplain, whose gallantry had endeared him to every one, and who, on this occasion supported his wife and child till they died in his arms. Mr. David Churcher, supporting Major Robertson, by means of an oar, succeeded in reaching the village of Kalhur. Here the villagers sheltered them. Mr. Churcher remained here tending Major Robertson for two months. The latter then died. Ultimately Mr. Churcher succeeded in reaching Kanhpur, then occupied by the British.
120. “The boat left. I heard nothing more of it for several days till their Manji (boatman) who took her down returned and gave out that Nana Sahib had fired upon them at Bithur, and all on board were killed.” – Mr. Jones’s Narrative. Mr. Jones himself succeeded in joining Mr. Probyn, and ultimately in accompanying him to Kanhpur.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage