History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0235/02356.txt

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$Title{Indian Mutiny}
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$Author{Wheeler, J. Talboys}
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$Subject{cawnpore
sepoys
british
delhi
european
lucknow
city
europeans
general
havelock}
$Date{}
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Title:       Indian Mutiny
Author:      Wheeler, J. Talboys

Indian Mutiny

1857

     From the time when Warren Hastings, the first English Governor-General of
India, was sent to rule there (1774), the British power in that country grew
steadily, and many annexations were made to the territory under its control.
There were frequent wars with the French, England's rivals in India, and with
the natives in different Provinces that one after another were absorbed into
the British possessions.  The first serious menace against this growing power
appeared in a native movement, the culmination of which is known as the Indian
or Sepoy Mutiny.

     The causes of this rising are traced to distrust and hatred of the
British rulers - feelings that caused a ferment among the Hindus and
Mahometans of India, who suspected a design for suppressing their religions.
The natives also became alarmed at the introduction of Western ideas and
improvements - new methods of education, the steam-engine, the telegraph, etc.
- portending to the Indian peoples the substitution of a foreign civilization
for their own.  The truth is that in attempting to abolish suttee and other
ancient native customs, and to introduce more enlightened practices, the
British Government was acting in the interest of general humanity.

     The immediate provocation of the great mutiny among the sepoys or native
troops in the British East-Indian service is well shown, and the entire story
of the revolt is equally well told, by Mr. Wheeler.  This author, while a
secretary to the Government of India in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, enjoyed peculiar advantages for study and research.  These advantages
he turned to account by writing an authoritative and interesting history of
the land of his official residence.

     Early in the year 1857, it is said, there were rumors of a coming danger
to British rule in India.  In some parts of the country chupatties, or cakes,
were circulated in a mysterious manner from village to village. ^1 Prophecies
were also rife that in 1857 the East India Company's raj [rule] would come to
an end.  Lord Canning has been blamed for not taking alarm at these
proceedings; but something of the kind always had been going on in India.
Cakes of cocoanuts are given away in solemn fashion; and as the villagers were
afraid to keep them or eat them, the circulation went on to the end of the
chapter.  Then, again, holy men and prophets have always been common in India.
They foretell pestilence and famine: the downfall of British rule, or the
destruction of the whole world.  They are often supposed to be endowed with
supernatural powers and to be impervious to bullets; but these phenomena
invariably disappear whenever they come in contact with Europeans, especially
as all such characters are liable to be treated as vagrants without visible
means of subsistence.

[Footnote 1: The form of the cake conveyed information that an insurrection
was in preparation - an old custom - understood by the natives. - Ed.]

     One dangerous story, however, got abroad in the early part of 1857, which
ought to have been stopped at once, and for which the military authorities
were wholly and solely to blame.  The Enfield rifle was being introduced; it
required new cartridges, which in England were greased with the fat of beef or
pork.  The military authorities in India, with strange indifference to the
prejudices of sepoys, ordered the cartridges to be prepared at Calcutta in
like manner; forgetting that the fat of pigs was hateful to the Mahometans,
while the fat of cows was still more horrible in the eyes of the Hindus.

     The excitement began at Barrackpur, sixteen miles from Calcutta.  At this
station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the
regimental officers.  One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar, asked a
Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot.  The Brahmin refused,
as it would defile his pot.  The lascar retorted that the Brahmin was already
defiled by biting cartridges which had been greased with cow's fat.  This
vindictive taunt was based on truth.  Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in
preparing the new cartridges, and the man was possibly one of them.  The taunt
created a wild panic at Barrackpur.  Strange to say, however, none of the new
cartridges had been issued to the sepoys; and had this been promptly explained
to the men, and the sepoys left to grease their own cartridges, the alarm
might have died out.  But the explanation was delayed until the whole of the
Bengal army was smitten with the groundless fear; and then, when it was too
late, the authorities protested too much, and the terror-stricken sepoys
refused to believe them.

     The sepoys had proved themselves brave under fire, and loyal to their
salt in sharp extremities; but they are the most credulous and excitable
soldiery in the world.  They regarded steam and electricity as so much magic;
and they fully believed that the British Government was binding India with
chains, when it was only laying down railway lines and telegraph wires.  The
Enfield rifle was a new mystery; and the busy brains of the sepoys were soon
at work to divine the motive of the English in greasing cartridges with cow's
fat.  They had always taken to themselves the sole credit of having conquered
India for the company; and they now imagined that the English wanted them to
conquer Persia and China.  Accordingly, they suspected that Lord Canning was
going to make them as strong as Europeans by destroying caste, forcing them to
become Christians, and making them eat beef and drink beer.

     The story of the greased cartridges, with all its absurd embellishments,
ran up the Ganges and Jumna to Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, and the great
cantonment at Meerut; while another current of lies ran back again from Meerut
to Barrackpur.  It was noised abroad that the bones of cows and pigs had been
ground into powder, and thrown into wells and mingled with flour and butter,
in order to destroy the caste of the masses and convert them to Christianity.

     For a brief interval it was hoped that the disaffection was suppressed.
Excitement manifested itself in various ways at different stations throughout
the length of Hindustan and the Punjab - at Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Ambala,
and Sealkote.  In some stations there were incendiary fires; in others the
sepoys were wanting in their usual respect to their European officers.  But it
was believed that the storm was spending itself, and that the dark clouds were
passing away.

     Suddenly on May 3d there was an explosion at Lucknow.  A regiment of Oudh
Irregular Infantry, previously in the service of the Mogul, broke out in
mutiny and began to threaten their European officers.  Sir Henry Lawrence, the
new Chief Commissioner, had a European regiment at his disposal, namely the
Thirty-second Foot.  That same evening he ordered out the regiment, and a
battery of eight guns manned by Europeans, together with four sepoy regiments,
three of infantry and one of cavalry.  With this force he proceeded to the
lines of the mutineers, about seven miles off.  The Oudh Irregulars were taken
by surprise; they saw infantry and cavalry on either side, and the European
guns in front.  They were ordered to lay down their arms, and they obeyed.  At
this moment the artillery lighted their port fires.  The mutineers were seized
with a panic, and rushed away in the darkness; but the leaders and most of
their followers were pursued and arrested by the native infantry and cavalry,
and confined pending trial.  Subsequently it transpired that the native
regiments sympathized with the mutineers, and would have shown it but for
their dread of Sir Henry Lawrence and the Europeans.  The energetic action of
Lawrence sufficed to maintain order for another month in Oudh.  Meanwhile the
Thirty-fourth Native Infantry was disbanded at Barrackpur, and again it was
hoped that the disaffection was stayed.

     The demon of mutiny was only scotched.  Within a week of the outbreak at
Lucknow, the great military station of Meerut was in a blaze.  Meerut was only
forty miles from Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India.  There were three
regiments of sepoys, two of infantry and one of cavalry; but there were enough
Europeans to scatter four times the number; namely, a battalion of the
Sixtieth Rifles, a regiment of Dragoon Guards known as the "Carabineers," two
troops of horse-artillery, and a light field-battery.

     In spite of the presence of Europeans there were more indications of
excitement at Meerut than at any other station in the northwest.  At Meerut
the story of the greased cartridges had been capped by the story of the
bonedust; and there were the same kind of incendiary fires, the same lack of
respect toward European officers, and the same whispered resolve not to touch
the cartridges, as at Barrackpur.  The station was commanded by General
Hewitt, whose advancing years unfitted him to cope with the storm which was
bursting upon Hindustan.

     The regiment of sepoy cavalry at Meerut was strongly suspected of
disaffection; accordingly it was resolved to put the men to the test.  On May
6th it was paraded in the presence of the European force, and cartridges were
served out; not the greased abominations from Calcutta, but the old ones which
had been used times innumerable by the sepoys and their fathers.  But the men
were terrified and obstinate, and eighty-five stood out and refused to take
the cartridges.  The offenders were at once arrested, and tried by a
court-martial of native officers; they were found guilty, and sentenced to
various periods of imprisonment, but recommended for mercy.  General Hewitt
saw no grounds for mercy, excepting in the case of eleven young troopers; and
on Saturday, May 9th, the sentences were carried out.  The men were brought on
parade, stripped of their uniforms, and loaded with irons.  They implored the
General for mercy, and, finding it hopeless, began to reproach their comrades;
but no one dared to strike a blow in the presence of loaded cannon and rifles.
At last the prisoners were carried off and placed in a jail, not under
European soldiers, but a native guard.

     The military authorities at Meerut seem to have been under a spell.  The
next day was Sunday, May 10th, and the hot sun rose with its usual glare in
the Indian sky.  The European barracks were at a considerable distance from
the native lines, and the intervening space was covered with shops and houses
surrounded by trees and gardens.  Consequently the Europeans in the barracks
knew nothing of what was going on in the native quarter.  Meanwhile there were
commotions in the sepoy lines and neighboring bazaars.  The sepoys were
taunted by the loose women of the place with permitting their comrades to be
imprisoned and fettered.  At the same time they were smitten with a mad fear
that the European soldiers were to be let loose upon them.  The Europeans at
Meerut saw and heard nothing.

     Nothing was noted on that Sunday morning except the absence of native
servants from many of the houses, and that was supposed to be accidental.
Morning service was followed by the midday heats, and at five o'clock in the
afternoon the Europeans were again preparing for church.  Suddenly there was
an alarm of fire, followed by a volley of musketry, discordant yells, the
clattering of cavalry, and the bugle sounding an alarm.  The sepoys had worked
themselves up to a frenzy of excitement; the prisoners were released with a
host of jailbirds; the native infantry joined the native cavalry, and the
colonel of one of the regiments was shot by the sepoys of the other. Inspired
by a wild fear and fury, the sepoys ran about murdering or wounding every
European they met, and setting houses on fire, amid deafening shouts and
uproar.

     Meanwhile there were fatal delays in turning out the Europeans.  The
Rifles were paraded for church, and time was lost in getting arms and serving
out ball cartridges.  The Carabineers were absurdly put through a roll-call,
and then lost their way among the shops and gardens.  Meanwhile European
officers were being butchered by the infuriated sepoys.  Men and women were
fired at or sabred while hurrying back in a panic from church.  Flaming houses
and crashing timbers were filling all hearts with terror, and the shades of
evening were falling upon the general havoc and turmoil, when the Europeans
reached the native lines and found that the sepoys had gone, no one knew
whither.

     The truth was soon told.  The mutiny had become a revolt; the sepoys were
on the way to Delhi to proclaim the old Mogul as sovereign of Hindustan; and
there was no Gillespie to gallop after them and crush the revolt at its
outset, as had been done at Vellore half a century before.  One thing,
however, was done.  There were no European regiments at Delhi; nothing but
three regiments of sepoy infantry and a battery of native artillery.  The
station was commanded by Brigadier Graves; and there were no Europeans under
his orders excepting the officers and sergeants attached to the three native
corps.  Accordingly telegrams were sent to Brigadier Graves to tell him that
the mutineers were on their way to Delhi.

     Monday at Delhi was worse than the Sunday at Meerut.  The British
cantonment was situated on a rising ground about two miles from the city,
which was known as the "Ridge." The great magazine, containing immense stores
of ammunition, was situated in the heart of the city.  One of the three sepoy
regiments was on duty in the city; the other two remained in the cantonment on
the Ridge.

     The approach to Delhi from Meerut was defended by the little river
Hindun, which was spanned by a small bridge.  It was proposed to procure two
cannon from the magazine and place them on the bridge; but before this could
be done the rebel cavalry from Meerut were seen crossing the river, and were
subsequently followed by the rebel infantry.  The magazine remained in charge
of Lieutenant Willoughby of the Bengal Artillery.  He was associated with two
other officers and six conductors and sergeants; the rest of the establishment
was composed entirely of natives.

     Brigadier Graves did his best to protect the city and cantonment until
the arrival of the expected Europeans from Meerut.  Indeed, throughout the
morning and greater part of the afternoon everyone in Delhi was expecting the
arrival of the Europeans.  Brigadier Graves ordered all the non-military
residents, including women and children, to repair to Flagstaff Tower - a
round building of solid brickwork at some distance from the city.  Late
detachments of sepoys were sent from the Ridge to the Cashmere gate, under the
command of their European officers, to help the sepoys on duty to maintain
order in the city.

     Presently the rebel troops from Meerut came up, accompanied by the
insurgent rabble of Delhi.  The English officers prepared to charge them, and
gave the order to fire, but some of the sepoys refused to obey or only fired
into the air.  The English officers held on, expecting the European soldiers
from Meerut.  The sepoys hesitated to join the rebels, out of dread of the
coming Europeans.  At last the Delhi sepoys threw in their lot with the rebels
and shot down their own officers.  The revolt spread throughout the whole
city; and the suspense of the English on the Ridge and at Flagstaff Tower
began to give way to the agony of despair.

     Suddenly, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a column of white smoke arose
from the city, and an explosion was heard far and wide.  Willoughby and his
eight associates had held out to the last, waiting and hoping for the coming
of the Europeans.  They had closed and barricaded the gates of the magazine;
and they had posted six-pounders at the gates, loaded with double charges of
grape, and laid a train to the powder-magazine.  Messengers came in the name
of Bahadur Shah to demand the surrender of the magazine, but no answer was
returned.  The enemy approached and raised ladders against the walls; while
the native establishment escaped over some sheds and joined the rebels.  At
this crisis the guns opened fire.  Round after round of grape made fearful
havoc on the mass of humanity that was heaving and surging round the gates.
At last the ammunition was exhausted.  No one could leave the guns to bring up
more shot.  The mutineers were pouring in on all sides. Lieutenant Willoughby
gave the signal.  Conductor Scully fired the train; and with one tremendous
upheaval the magazine was blown into the air, together with fifteen hundred
rebels.  Not one of the gallant nine had expected to escape.  Willoughby and
three others got away, scorched, maimed, bruised, and nearly insensible; but
Scully and his comrades were never seen again. Willoughby died of his injuries
six weeks afterward, while India and Europe were ringing with his name.

     Still more terrible and treacherous were the tragedies enacted at
Cawnpore, a city situated on the Ganges about fifty-five miles to the
southwest of Lucknow.  Cawnpore had been in the possession of the English ever
since the beginning of the century, and for many years was one of the most
important military stations in India; but the extension of the British Empire
over the Punjab had diminished the importance of Cawnpore; and the last
European regiment quartered there had been removed to the northwest at the
close of the previous year.

     In May, 1857, there were four native regiments at Cawnpore, numbering
thirty-five hundred sepoys.  There were no Europeans whatever, excepting the
regimental officers and sixty-one artillerymen.  To these were added small
detachments of European soldiers, which had been sent in the hour of peril
from Lucknow and Benares during the month of May.

     The station of Cawnpore was commanded by Sir Hugh Wheeler, a
distinguished general in the company's service, who was verging on his
seventieth year.  He had spent fifty-four years in India, and had served only
with native troops.  He must have known the sepoys better than any other
European in India.  He had led them against their own countrymen under Lord
Lake; against foreigners during the Afghan War, and against Sikhs during both
campaigns in the Punjab.

     The news of the revolt at Meerut threw the sepoys into a ferment at every
military station in Hindustan.  Rumors of mutiny or coming mutiny formed
almost the only topic of conversation; yet in nearly every sepoy regiment the
European officers put faith in their men, and fondly believed that, though the
rest of the army might revolt, yet their own corps would prove faithful.  Such
was eminently the case at Cawnpore, yet General Wheeler seems to have known
better.  While the European officers continued to sleep every night in the
sepoy lines, the veteran made his preparations for meeting the coming storm.

     European combatants were very few at Cawnpore, but European inpedimenta
were very heavy.  Besides the wives and families of the regimental officers of
the sepoy regiments, there was a large European mercantile community.
Moreover, while the Thirty-second Foot was quartered at Lucknow, the wives,
families, and invalids of the regiment were living at Cawnpore.  It was thus
necessary to secure a place of refuge for this miscellaneous multitude of
Europeans in the event of a rising of the sepoys.  Accordingly General Wheeler
pitched upon some old barracks which had once belonged to a European regiment;
and he ordered earthworks to be thrown up, and supplies of all kinds to be
stored, in order to stand a siege.  Unfortunately there was fatal neglect
somewhere; for when the crisis came the defences were found to be worthless,
while the supplies were insufficient for the besieged.

     All this while the adopted son of the former peshwa ^1 was living at
Bithoor, about six miles from Cawnpore.  His real name was Dandhu Panth, but
he is better known as Nana Sahib.  The British Government had refused to award
him the absurd life pension of eighty thousand pounds sterling, which had been
granted to his nominal father; but he had inherited at least half a million
from the ex-peshwa; and he was allowed to keep six guns, to entertain as many
followers as he pleased, and to live in half royal state in a castellated
palace at Bithoor.  He continued to nurse his grievance with all the
pertinacity of a Mahratta; but at the same time he professed a great love for
European society, and was profuse in his hospitalities to English officers.
He was popularly known as the Raja of Bithoor.

[Footnote 1: Formerly a chief of the Mahrattas. - Ed.]

     When the news arrived of the revolt at Meerut on May 10th, Nana was loud
in his professions of attachment to the English.  He engaged to organize
fifteen hundred fighting men to act against the sepoys in the event of an
outbreak.  On May 21st there was an alarm.  European women and families, with
all European non-combatants, were removed into the barracks, and General
Wheeler actually accepted from Nana the help of two hundred Mahrattas and two
guns to guard the treasury.  The alarm, however, soon blew over, and Nana took
up his abode at the civil station of Cawnpore, as a proof of the sincerity of
his professions.

     At last, on the night of June 4th, the sepoy regiments at Cawnpore broke
out in mutiny.  They were driven to action by the same mad terror which had
been manifested elsewhere.  They cared nothing for the Mogul, nothing for the
pageant King at Delhi; but they had been panic-stricken by extravagant stories
of coming destruction.  It was whispered among them that the parade-ground was
undermined with powder, and that Hindus and Mahometans were to be assembled on
a given day and blown into the air.  Intoxicated with fear and bhang, they
rushed out in the darkness, yelling, shooting, and burning according to their
wont; and when their excitement was somewhat spent, they marched off toward
Delhi.

     Sir Hugh Wheeler could do nothing.  He might have retreated with the
whole body of Europeans from Cawnpore to Allahabad; but there had been a
mutiny at Allahabad, and, moreover, he had no means of transport. Subsequently
he heard that the mutineers had reached the first stage on the road to Delhi,
and consequently he saw no ground for alarm.

     Meanwhile the brain of Nana Sahib had been turned by wild dreams of
vengeance and sovereignty.  He thought not only to wreak his malice upon the
English, but to restore the extinct Mahratta Empire, and reign over Hindustan
as the representative of the forgotten peshwas.  The stampede of the sepoys to
Delhi was fatal to his mad ambition.  He overtook the mutineers, dazzled them
with fables of the treasures in Wheeler's intrenchment, and brought them back
to Cawnpore to carry out his vindictive and visionary schemes.

     At early morning on Saturday, June 6th, General Wheeler received from
Nana a letter announcing that he was about to attack the intrenchment.  The
veteran was taken by surprise, but at once ordered all the European officers
to join the party in the barracks and prepare for the defence.  But the
mutineers were in no hurry for the advance.  They preferred booty to battle,
and turned aside to plunder the cantonment and city, murdering every Christian
that came in their way, not sparing the houses of their own countrymen.  They
appropriated all the cannon and ammunition in the magazine by way of
preparation for the siege; but some were wise enough to desert the rebel army
and steal to their homes with their ill-gotten spoil.

     About noon the main body of the mutineers, swelled by the numerous
retainers of Nana, got their guns into position, and opened fire on the
intrenchment.  For nineteen days - from June 6th to the 25th - the garrison
struggled manfully against a raking fire and fearful odds, amid scenes of
suffering and bloodshed that cannot be recalled without a shudder.

     It was the height of the hot weather in Hindustan.  A blazing sun was
burning over the heads of the besieged; and to add to their misery, one of the
barracks containing the sick and wounded was destroyed by fire.  The
besiegers, however, in spite of their overwhelming numbers, were utterly
unable to carry the intrenchment by storm, but continued to pour in a raking
fire.  Meanwhile the garrison was starving from want of provisions, and
hampered by a multitude of helpless women and children.  Indeed, but for the
latter contingency, the gallant band would have rushed out of the intrenchment
and cut a way through the mob of sepoys or perished in the attempt.  As it
was, they could only fight on, waiting for reenforcements that never came,
until fever, sunstroke, hunger, madness, or the enemy's fire delivered them
from their suffering and despair.

     On June 25th a woman brought a slip of writing from Nana, promising to
give a safe passage to Allahabad to all who were willing to lay down their
arms.  Had there been no women or children, the garrison would never have
dreamed of surrender.  The massacre at Patna a century before had taught a
lesson to Englishmen which ought never to have been forgotten.  As it was,
there were some who wished to fight on till the bitter end.  But the majority
saw that there was no hope for the women or the children, the sick or the
wounded, except by accepting the proffered terms.  Accordingly the pride of
Englishmen gave way, and an armistice was proclaimed.

     Next morning the terms were negotiated.  The English garrison were to
surrender their position, their guns, and their treasure, but to march out
with their arms, and with sixty rounds of ammunition in the pouch of every
man.  Nana Sahib on his part was to afford a safe-conduct to the river-bank,
about a mile off; to provide carriage for the conveyance of the women and
children, the sick and the wounded; and to furnish boats for carrying the
whole party, numbering some four hundred fifty individuals, down the river
Ganges to Allahabad.  Nana accepted the terms, but demanded the evacuation of
the intrenchment that very night.  General Wheeler protested against this
proviso.  Nana began to bully and to threaten that he would open fire.  He was
told that he might carry the intrenchment if he could, but that the English
had enough powder left to blow both armies into the air.  Accordingly Nana
agreed to wait until the morrow.

     At early morning on June 27th the garrison began to move from the
intrenchment to the place of embarkation.  The men marched on foot; the women
and children were carried on elephants and in bullock-carts, while the wounded
were mostly conveyed in palanquins.  Forty boats with thatched roofs, known as
budgerows, were moored in shallow water at a little distance from the bank;
and the crowd of fugitives were forced to wade through the river to the boats.
By nine o'clock the whole four hundred fifty were huddled on board, and the
boats prepared to leave Cawnpore.

     Suddenly a bugle was sounded, and a murderous fire of grape-shot and
musketry was opened upon the wretched passengers from both sides of the river.
At the same time the thatching of many of the budgerows was found to be on
fire, and the flames began to spread from boat to boat.  Numbers were murdered
in the river, but at last the firing ceased.  A few escaped down the river,
but only four men survived to tell the story of the massacre.  A mass of
fugitives were dragged ashore; the women and children, to the number of a
hundred twenty-five, were carried off and lodged in a house near the
headquarters of Nana.  The men were ordered to immediate execution.  One of
them had preserved a prayer-book, and was permitted to read a few sentences of
the liturgy to his doomed companions.  Then the fatal order was given; the
sepoys poured in a volley of musketry, and all was over.

     On July 1st Nana Sahib went off to his palace at Bithoor and was
proclaimed peshwa.  He took his seat upon the throne, and was installed with
all the ceremonies of sovereignty, while the cannon roared out a salute in his
honor.  At night the whole place was illuminated, and the hours of darkness
were wiled away with feasting and fireworks.  But his triumph was short-lived.
The Mahometans were plotting against him at Cawnpore.  The people were leaving
the city to escape the coming storm, and were taking refuge in the villages.
English reenforcements were at last coming up from Allahabad, while the greedy
sepoys were clamoring for money and gold bangles. Accordingly Nana hastened
back to Cawnpore and scattered wealth with a lavish hand; and sought to hide
his fears by boastful proclamations, and to drown his anxieties in drink and
debauchery.

     Within a few days more the number of helpless prisoners was increased to
two hundred.  There had been a mutiny at Fathigarh, higher up the river, and
the fugitives had fled in boats to Cawnpore, a distance of eighty miles. They
knew nothing of what had happened, and were all taken prisoners by the rebels,
and brought on shore.  The men were all butchered in the presence of Nana; the
women and children, eighty in number, were sent to join the wretched sufferers
in the house near Nana's headquarters.

     Meanwhile Colonel Neill, commanding the Madras Fusiliers, was pushing up
from Calcutta.  He was bent on the relief of Cawnpore and Lucknow, but was
delayed on the way by the mutinies at Benares and Allahabad.  In July he was
joined at Allahabad by a column under General Havelock, who was destined
within a few weeks to win a lasting name in history.

     General Havelock was a Queen's officer of forty years' standing; but he
had seen more service in India than perhaps any other officer in Her Majesty's
Army.  He had fought in the first Burma War, the Kabul War, the Gwalior
campaign of 1843, and the Punjab campaign of 1845-1846.  He was a pale, thin,
thoughtful man; small in stature, but burning with the aspirations of a
Puritan hero.  Religion was the ruling principle of his life, and military
glory was his master passion.  He had just returned to India after commanding
a division in the Persian War.  Abstemious to a fault, he was able, in spite
of his advancing years, to bear up against the heat and rain of Hindustan
during the deadliest season of the year.

     On July 7th General Havelock left Allahabad for Cawnpore.  The force at
his disposal did not exceed two thousand men, Europeans and Sikhs.  He had
heard of the massacre at Cawnpore on June 27th, and burned to avenge it.  On
July 12th he defeated a large force of mutineers and Mahrattas at Fathipur. On
the 15th he inflicted two more defeats on the enemy.  Havelock was now within
twenty-two miles of Cawnpore, and he halted his men to rest for the night.
But news arrived that the women and children were still alive at Cawnpore, and
that Nana had taken the field with a large force to oppose his advance.
Accordingly Havelock marched fourteen miles that same night, and on the
following morning, within eight miles of Cawnpore, the troops bivouacked
beneath some trees.

     On that same night, July 15th, the crowning atrocity was committed at
Cawnpore.  The rebels, who had been defeated by Havelock, returned to Nana
with the tidings of their disaster.  In revenge Nana ordered the slaughter of
the two hundred women and children.  The poor victims were literally hacked to
death, or almost to death, with swords, bayonets, knives, and axes.  Next
morning the bleeding remains of dead and dying were dragged to a neighboring
well and thrown in.

     At two o'clock in the afternoon after the massacre the force under
Havelock was again upon the march for Cawnpore.  The heat was fearful; many of
the troops were struck down by the sun, and the cries for water were
continuous.  But for two miles the column toiled on, and then came in sight of
the enemy.  Havelock had only one thousand Europeans and three hundred Sikhs;
he had no cavalry, and his artillery was inferior.  The enemy numbered five
thousand men, armed and trained by British officers, strongly intrenched, with
two batteries of guns of heavy calibre.  Havelock's artillery failed to
silence the batteries, and he ordered the Europeans to charge with the
bayonet.  On they went in the face of a shower of grape, but the bayonet
charge was as irresistible at Cawnpore as at Assaye.  The enemy fought for a
while like men in a death struggle.  Nana Sahib was with them, but nothing is
known of his exploits.  At last they fled, and there was no cavalry to pursue
them.

     As yet nothing was known of the butchery of the women and children.
Havelock halted for the night, and next morning marched his force into the
station at Cawnpore.  The men beheld the scene of the massacre, and saw the
bleeding remains in the well.  But the murderers had vanished, no one knew
whither.  Havelock advanced to Bithoor, and destroyed the palace of the
Mahratta.  Subsequently he was joined by General Neill, with reenforcements
from Allahabad; and on July 20th he set on for the relief of Lucknow, leaving
Cawnpore in charge of General Neill.

     The defence of Lucknow against fifty-two thousand rebels was, next to the
siege of Delhi, the greatest event in the mutiny.  The whole Province of Oudh
was in a blaze of insurrection.  The talukdars were exasperated at the hard
measure dealt out to them before the appointment of Sir Henry Lawrence as
Chief Commissioner.  Disbanded sepoys, returning to their homes in Oudh,
swelled the tide of disaffection.  Bandits that had been suppressed under
British administration returned to their old work of robbery and brigandage.
All classes took advantage of the anarchy to murder the money-lenders.
Meanwhile the country was bristling with the fortresses of the talukdars; and
the cultivators, deprived of the protection of the English, naturally flocked
for refuge to the strongholds of their old masters.

     The English, who had been lords of Hindustan ever since the beginning of
the century, had been closely besieged in the residency at Lucknow ever since
the final outbreak of May 30th.  For nearly two months the garrison had held
out with a dauntless intrepidity, while confidently waiting for reenforcements
that seemed never to come.  "Never surrender" had been from the first the
passionate conviction of Sir Henry Lawrence; and the massacre at Cawnpore on
June 27th impressed every soldier in the garrison with a like resolution.  On
July 2d the Muchi Bawen was abandoned, and the garrison and stores were
removed to the residency.  On July 4th Sir Henry Lawrence was killed by the
bursting of a shell in a room where he lay wounded; and his dying counsel to
those around him was, "Never surrender!"

     On July 20th the rebel force round Lucknow heard of the advance of
General Havelock to Cawnpore, and attacked the residency in overwhelming
force.  They kept up a continual fire of musketry while pounding away with
their heavy guns; but the garrison held their ground against shot and shell,
and before the day was over the dense masses, of assailants were forced to
retire from the walls.

     Between July 20th and 25th General Havelock began to cross the Ganges and
make his way into Oudh territory; but he was unable to relieve Lucknow. His
small force was weakened by heat and fever and reduced by cholera and
dysentery; while the enemy occupied strong positions on both flanks.  In the
middle of August he fell back upon Cawnpore.

     During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on May 11th, all
political interest was centred at the ancient capital of the sovereigns of
Hindustan.  The public mind was occasionally distracted by the current of
events at Cawnpore and Lucknow, as well as at other stations which need not be
particularized; but so long as Delhi remained in the hands of the rebels the
native princes were bewildered and alarmed; and its prompt recapture was
deemed of vital importance to the prestige of the British Government and the
reestablishment of British sovereignty in Hindustan.  The Great Mogul had been
little better than a mummy for more than half a century; and Bahadur Shah was
a mere tool and puppet in the hands of rebel sepoys; nevertheless the British
Government had to deal with the astounding fact that the rebels were fighting
under his name and standard, just as Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the
days of Ahmed Shah Durani and Mahadaji Sindhia.  To make matters worse, the
roads to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every outbreak in
Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers to the old capital of the
Moguls.

     Meanwhile, in the absence of railways, there were unfortunate delays in
bringing up troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the head
centre.  The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up by mutiny and
insurrection; and every European soldier sent up from Calcutta was stopped for
the relief of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lucknow.  But the possession of
the Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation of the empire.  Sir John
Lawrence, Chief Commissioner in the Punjab, was called upon for almost
superhuman work; to maintain order in a conquered province; to suppress mutiny
and disaffection among the very sepoy regiments from Bengal that were supposed
to garrison the country; and to send reenforcements of troops and guns, and
supplies of all descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had
been only a few short years under British Administration; they had not
forgotten the miseries that prevailed under the native Government, and could
appreciate the many blessings they enjoyed under British rule.  They were
stanch to the British Government and eager to be led against the rebels.  In
some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal sepoys within
the Punjab, but the Imperial interests at stake were sufficient to justify
every severity, although all must regret the painful necessity that called for
such extreme measures.

     On June 8th, about a month after the revolt at Delhi, Sir Henry Barnard
took the field at Alipur, about ten miles from the rebel capital.  He defeated
an advance division of the enemy, and then marched to the Ridge and reoccupied
the old cantonment which had been abandoned on May 11th.  So far it was clear
that the rebels were unable to do anything in the open field, although they
might fight bravely under cover.  They numbered about thirty thousand strong;
they had a very powerful artillery and ample stores of ammunition, while there
was an abundance of provisions within the city throughout the siege.

     In the middle of August, Brigadier John Nicholson, one of the most
distinguished officers of the time, came up from the Punjab with a brigade and
siege-train.  On September 4th a heavy train of artillery was brought in from
Firozpur.  The British force on the Ridge now exceeded eight thousand men.
Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt to breach the city walls;
but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought into position and the siege began
in earnest.  From September 8th to 12th for batteries poured in a constant
storm of shot and shell; number one was directed against the Cashmere bastion,
number two against the right flank of the Cashmere bastion, number three
against the Water bastion, and number four against the Cashmere and Water
gates and bastions.  On September 13th the breaches were declared to be
practicable, and the following morning was fixed for the final assault upon
the doomed city.

     At three o'clock in the morning of September 14th three assaulting
columns were formed in the trenches, while a fourth was kept in reserve.  The
first column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier Jones;
the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or reserve, by Brigadier
Longfield.

     The powder-bags were laid at Cashmere gate by Lieutenants Home and
Salkeld.  The explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and pushed
toward the Jumna Musjid.  Meanwhile the first column under Nicholson escaladed
the breaches near the Cashmere gate, and pushed along the ramparts toward the
Kabul gate, carrying the several bastions in the way.  Here it was met by the
second column under Brigadier Jones, who had escaladed the breach at the Water
bastion.

     The advancing columns were met by a ceaseless fire from terraced houses,
mosques, and other buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day, while
attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was struck down by a
shot and mortally wounded.  Then followed six days of desperate warfare.  No
quarter was given to men with arms in their hands; but women and children were
spared, and only a few of the peaceable inhabitants were sacrificed during the
storm.

     On September 20th the gates of the old fortified palace of the Moguls
were broken open, but the royal inmates had fled.  No one was left but a few
wounded sepoys and fugitive fanatics.  The old King, Bahadur Shah, had gone
off to the great mausoleum without the city, known as the tomb of Humayun. It
was a vast quadrangle raised on terraces and enclosed with walls.  It
contained towers, buildings, and monumental marbles in memory of different
members of the once distinguished family, as well as extensive gardens,
surrounded with cloistered cells for the accommodation of pilgrims.

     On September 21st Captain Hodson rode to the tomb, arrested the King, and
brought him back to Delhi with other members of the family, and lodged them in
the palace.  The next day he went again, with one hundred horsemen, and
arrested two sons of the King in the midst of a crowd of armed retainers, and
brought them away in a native carriage.  Near the city the carriage was
surrounded by a tumultuous crowd; and Hodson, who was afraid of a rescue, shot
both princes with his pistol, and placed their bodies in a public place for
all men to see.

     Thus fell the imperial city; captured by the army under Brigadier Wilson
before the arrival of any of the reenforcements from England.  The losses were
heavy.  From the beginning of the siege to the close, the British army at
Delhi had nearly four thousand killed and wounded.  The casualties on the side
of the rebels were never estimated.  Two bodies of sepoys broke away from the
city and fled down the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges, followed by two flying
columns under Brigadiers Greathed and Showers.  But the great mutiny and
revolt at Delhi had been stamped out, and the flag of England waved
triumphantly over the capital of Hindustan.

     The capture of Delhi, in September, 1857, was the turning-point in the
sepoy mutinies.  The revolt was crushed beyond redemption; the rebels were
deprived of their head centre; and the Mogul King was a prisoner at the mercy
of the power whom he had defied.  But there were still troubles in India.
Lucknow was still beleaguered by a rebel army, and insurrections still ran
riot in Oudh and Rohilkhand.

     In the middle of August General Havelock had fallen back on Cawnpore,
after the failure of his first campaign for the relief of Lucknow.  Five weeks
afterward Havelock made a second attempt under better auspices.  Sir Colin
Campbell had arrived at Calcutta as Commander-in-Chief.  Sir James Outram had
come up to Allahabad.  On September 16th, while the British troops were
storming the streets of Delhi, Outram joined Havelock and Neill at Cawnpore
with fourteen hundred men.  As senior officer he might have assumed the
command; but with generous chivalry the "Bayard of India" waived his rank in
honor of Havelock.

     On September 20th General Havelock crossed the Ganges into Oudh at the
head of twenty-five hundred men.  The next day he defeated a rebel army and
put it to flight, while four of the enemy's guns were captured by Outram at
the head of a body of volunteer cavalry.  On the 23d Havelock routed a still
larger rebel force which was strongly posted at a garden in the suburbs of
Lucknow, known as the "Alumbagh." He then halted to give his soldiers a day's
rest.  On the 25th he was cutting his way through the streets and lanes of the
city of Lucknow - running the gauntlet of a deadly and unremitting fire from
the houses on both sides of the streets, and also from guns which commanded
them.  On the evening of the same day he entered the British intrenchments;
but in the moment of victory a chance shot carried off the gallant Neill.

     The defence of the British residency at Lucknow is a glorious episode in
the national annals.  The fortitude of the beleaguered garrison was the
admiration of the world.  The women nursed the wounded and performed every
womanly duty with self-sacrificing heroism; and when the fight was over they
received the well-merited thanks of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

     During four long months the garrison had known nothing of what was going
on in the outer world.  They were aware of the advance and retreat of
Havelock, and that was all.  At last, on September 23d, they heard the booming
of the guns at the Alumbagh.  On the morning of the 25th they could see
something of the growing excitement in the city; the people abandoning their
houses and flying across the river.  Still the guns of the rebels kept up a
heavy cannonade upon the residency, and volleys of musketry continued to pour
upon the besieged from the loopholes of the besiegers.  But soon the firing
was heard from the city; the welcome sounds came nearer and nearer. The
excitement of the garrison grew beyond control.  Presently the relieving force
was seen fighting its way toward the residency.  Then the pent-up feelings of
the garrison burst forth in deafening cheers; and wounded men in hospital
crawled out to join in the chorus of welcome.  Then followed personal
greetings as officers and men came pouring in.  Hands were frantically shaken
on all sides.  Rough-bearded soldiers took the children from their mothers'
arms, kissed them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and thanked God that
they had come in time to save them from the fate of the sufferers at Cawnpore.

     Thus after a siege of nearly four months Havelock succeeded in relieving
Lucknow.  But it was a reenforcement rather than a relief, and was confined to
the British residency.  The siege was not raised; and the city of Lucknow
remained two months longer in the hands of the rebels.  Sir James Outram
assumed the command, but was compelled to keep on the defensive.  Meanwhile
reenforcements were arriving from England.  In November Sir Colin Campbell
reached Cawnpore at the head of a considerable army.  He left General Windham
with two thousand men to take charge of the intrenchment at Cawnpore, and then
advanced against Lucknow with five thousand men and thirty guns.  He carried
several of the enemy's positions, cut his way to the residency, and at last
brought away the beleaguered garrison, with all the women and children.  But
not even then could he disperse the rebels and reoccupy the city.  Accordingly
he left Outram at the head of four thousand men in the neighborhood of
Lucknow, and then returned to Cawnpore.

     On November 24th, the day after leaving Lucknow, General Havelock was
carried off by dysentery, and buried in the Alumbagh.  His death spread a
gloom over India, but by this time his name had become a household word
wherever the English language was spoken.  In the hour of surprise and panic,
as successive stories of mutiny and rebellion reached England, and culminated
in the revolt at Delhi and massacre at Cawnpore, the victories of Havelock
revived the drooping spirits of the British nation, and stirred up all hearts
to glorify the hero who had stemmed the tide of disaffection and disaster. The
death of Havelock, following the story of the capture of Delhi, and told with
the same breath that proclaimed the deliverance at Lucknow, was received in
England with a universal sorrow that will never be forgotten so long as men
are living who can recall the memory of the "Mutiny of Fifty-seven."

     The subsequent history of the sepoy revolt is little more than a detail
of the military operations of British troops for the dispersion of the rebels
and restoration of order and law.  Sir Colin Campbell ^1 - later made Baron
Clyde of Clydesdale - undertook a general campaign against the rebels in Oudh
and Rohilkhand, and restored order and law in those disaffected Provinces;
while Sir James Outram drove the rebels out of Lucknow, and reestablished
British sovereignty in the capital of Oudh.

[Footnote 1: Died at Chatham, England, August 14, 1863. - Ed.]