CHAPTER V
THE INDIAN MUTINY – ORGANISATION – RELIEF OF LUCKNOW – DEFEAT OF GWALIOR CONTINGENT
In the beginning of 1857 the clouds that presaged the awful storm of mutiny which Sir Charles Napier had foretold and temporarily averted seven years earlier, were ominously gathering over the Bengal Presidency. On the 19th of February the first flash of actual outbreak burst forth at Berhampore. The revolt spread to Barrackpore, and in the course of a few weeks it became apparent that the spirit of insubordination was gradually but surely ripening throughout the Bengal army. In the middle of May the crisis which had been threatening for three months came to a head at Meerut. The revolt of the native troops at that great station was consummated in rapine and slaughter. Delhi, with its vast munitions of war unprotected save by a handful of devoted European soldiers, fell into the hands of the insurgents. The pensioned King of Delhi was drawn from his senile obscurity and proclaimed Emperor of India, and the great city became the capital of a rival power and the centre of attraction to the revolted army. The native regiments in the stations of the North-West Provinces broke out successively into revolt and hastened tumultuously to Delhi, which soon contained within its walls a turbulent mass of many thousand mutinous soldiers. Within a month after the outbreak at Meerut British authority had become almost extinct throughout the North-West Provinces. From Meerut to Allahabad, among a population of some thirty millions and throughout an area of many hundred miles, there remained no vestige of British occupation, save where at Agra the British residents were waiting anxiously for the signal to withdraw from their bungalows into the shelter of Akbar's fort, and the hapless people closely beleaguered in Wheeler's miserable entrenchment at Cawnpore. Across the Ganges throughout Oude, British men, women, and children were being mercilessly slaughtered by revolted sepoys; and Henry Lawrence, himself in the midst of troops scarcely caring to cloak their mutinous intentions, had soon sadly to realise that all Oude was gone except the Lucknow Residency, where he was to die after having exhausted himself in successful exertions to make that position defensible by the brave and steadfast men who survived him.
While on the march from Umballa towards Delhi the Commander-in-Chief in India, General the Hon. George Anson, died of cholera at Kurnal on May 27th. Tidings of this misfortune did not reach the War Office until July 11th. On that same afternoon Sir Colin Campbell was sent for by Lord Panmure, who made him the offer of the high command rendered vacant by Anson's decease. Campbell promptly accepted the offer and expressed his readiness to start that same evening if necessary. He stipulated successfully that his friend Colonel Mansfield, then Consul-General at Warsaw (afterwards Lord Sandhurst), should be offered the appointment of chief of staff with the rank of major-general. This settled, Campbell had an interview with the Duke of Cambridge, then as now Commander-in-Chief, who approved of the selection of Major Alison[3] as military secretary, and of Sir David Baird and Lieutenant Alison as aides-de-camp.
It had been arranged at Sir Colin's interview with Lord Panmure that he should start next morning. He was ready and his modest kit complete; but sundry matters intervened delaying his departure for a few hours. The Queen, for one thing, had desired that he should wait on her. The Duke of Cambridge brought him to Buckingham Palace; and, so Sir Colin wrote in his journal, "Her Majesty's expressions of approval of my readiness to proceed at once were pleasant to receive from a Sovereign so good and so justly loved." He left London by the continental night train, full of a justifiable elation. "Never," he wrote, "did a man proceed on a mission of duty with a lighter heart and a feeling of greater humility, yet with a juster sense of the compliment that had been paid to a mere soldier of fortune like myself in being named to the highest command in the gift of the Crown." Hurrying through Paris he found time to breakfast with General Vinoy his old Crimean friend, and reaching Marseilles on the morning of the 14th he immediately embarked for India on a vessel which was in readiness with its steam up. During the voyage he prepared a strategic scheme, the essence of which was a great concentric advance upon the Central Indian States, to be undertaken by the whole disposable military forces of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, that would effectually engage the whole rebel strength of those turbulent territories, and so in some degree divert the severe pressure of the Gwalior Contingent on the left flank of the long and precarious main line of communication. This object obtained, Bengal and the Punjaub once more united by the reconquest of the intervening territory, and the left flank and rear of the reconquered base secured by the reduction of Central India, the most arduous work of the war could be safely undertaken; the vast, populous, and bitterly hostile province of Oude might then be subdued, with the result of securing non-molestation on the right flank of the region through which the principal line of communication must pass. The operation of this grand strategic scheme was weakened and retarded by various causes; but the sound wisdom of Campbell's prescient conception was ultimately in great measure vindicated.
The new Commander-in-Chief landed at Calcutta on the 13th of August and became Lord Canning's guest at Government House. The situation which confronted him was gloomy almost to utter hopelessness. It was true, indeed, that John Lawrence was holding the Punjaub in his strong hand, and was pressing forward all his available reinforcements to strengthen the British force contending against overwhelming odds before the walls of Delhi. But meanwhile that force was little over four thousand strong, and it seemed more than doubtful whether it could hold its ground until reinforcements should reach it. The garrison at Agra was isolated and cut off from all communication. That of Lucknow, hemmed within the feebly-defensive position of the Residency and its environs by many thousands of fierce and relentless enemies, encumbered also with a great company of helpless women and children, had numbers wholly inadequate to man the defences and was maintaining an almost hopeless resistance against overwhelming odds. Havelock, at the head of less than two thousand brave men, had fought his way from Allahabad to Cawnpore, too late to save the lives of the hapless women and children who had been reserved from the massacre of the men of Wheeler's command only to endure a crueller fate. His gallant and persistent efforts to relieve Lucknow had failed and he had been obliged to fall back to Cawnpore, where with an attenuated force he was maintaining himself precariously in the face of the threatening attitude of the revolted Gwalior Contingent on the further bank of the Jumna.
Through the gloom there was one gleam of sunshine. The fortress of Allahabad, with its magazines of military stores, remained in British possession. At the point where the Ganges and the Jumna blend their waters, distant by land five hundred miles from Calcutta, it was a position of the highest strategical importance, forming as it did an advanced base for operations in the regions beyond having for their object the relief of beleaguered places and the restoration of communications with Delhi and the Punjaub. From Calcutta to Allahabad there were two available routes; by the Ganges a distance of eight hundred miles, to accomplish which by steamer required from twenty to thirty days; by the land route of five hundred miles, one hundred and twenty of which was by railway and three hundred and eighty by the Grand Trunk Road. The troops as they landed were despatched up country in detachments by one or other of those routes. The common objective for the time was Allahabad, where Sir James Outram, who had returned from the command of the Persian expedition and had left Calcutta on the 6th of August to assume the command of the combined Cawnpore and Dinapore divisions along with the civil appointment of Chief Commissioner in Oude, was to collect the detachments of reinforcements as they arrived, preparatory to moving upward to Cawnpore there to join Havelock and advance with him to attempt the relief of the beleaguered garrison in the Residency of Lucknow.
But the troops, which as soon as possible after landing at Calcutta should have been pushing straight up country to Allahabad either by land or by water, suffered unavoidable detentions by the way. So disturbed was the country that posts had to be maintained to keep the routes open, and their occupation absorbed a certain proportion of the scanty European force. The mutinies of native troops at Dinapore and Bhagulpore caused the temporary detention by the local authorities of important reinforcements; and it was not until the first week of September that Outram was able to collect his scattered detachments at Allahabad. After a sharp and successful fight on the way he reached Cawnpore on September 15th; bringing reinforcements which raised to a strength of about three thousand men the force of which he chivalrously waived the command in favour of Havelock. Ten days later was accomplished what is commonly though erroneously styled the First Relief of Lucknow, – not a "relief" in any sense of the term, but simply a great augmentation to the defensive strength of the garrison which had been holding the weak position of the Residency with a heroism so staunch.
Sir Colin found Calcutta all but entirely bare of material for a campaign; nothing was in readiness for the equipment of the troops fast converging on his base on the Hooghly. Means of transport there were scarcely any; horses for cavalry or artillery there were none; ammunition for the Enfield rifles was deficient; flour even was running out; guns, gun-carriages, and harness for the field-batteries were either unfit for active service or did not exist. Prompt and active were the exertions made by the energetic Chief and his subordinates to cope with needs so pressing. Horses were purchased no matter at what cost; ammunition was gathered in far and wide; flour was commissioned from the Cape; field-guns were cast at the Cossipore foundry; gun-carriages and harness were made up with all possible haste. The Commissariat and Ordnance departments were stirred from their lethargy and stimulated to an activity previously undreamed of; and the whole military machine was set throbbing at high pressure. As the falling of the Ganges gradually made the river route precarious, great exertions were made to quicken and extend the means of transport by the Grand Trunk Road, for which purpose the Bullock Train, as it was called, was established. Relays of soldiers travelled up night after night in bullock-waggons, halting during the heat of the day at prepared resting-places. Ultimately this system was so perfected that two hundred men were daily forwarded from the end of the railway at Raneegunge; and they reached Allahabad after about a fortnight's travel, perfectly fresh and fit for immediate service.
In the midst of the pressure of his preparations Sir Colin found time to write with soldierly appreciation and cordiality to the principal officers now under his command. His first message to Outram concluded with the words, "It is an exceeding satisfaction to me to have your assistance, and to find you in your present position." To Havelock he wrote: "The sustained energy, promptitude, and vigorous action by which your whole proceedings have been marked during the late difficult operations deserve the highest praise. I beg you to express to the officers and men under your command the pride and satisfaction I have experienced in reading your reports of the intrepid valour they have displayed upon every occasion they have encountered the vastly superior numbers of the enemy, and how nobly they have maintained the qualities for which British soldiers have ever been distinguished – high courage and endurance." To Archdale Wilson, commanding the force before Delhi, he sent on August 23rd some words of generous encouragement, the first communication which had reached that officer from any military authority for many weeks: "I must delay no longer to congratulate you on the manner in which the force under your command has conducted itself and upheld the honour of our arms. You may count on my support and help in every mode in which it may be possible for me to afford them." And when on September 26th the happy news reached him that Delhi, the head and heart of the rebellion as it was then considered to have been, was once more in the occupation of a British garrison, the Chief promptly telegraphed to Wilson, "Accept my hearty congratulations on your brilliant success."
It seems quite clear that Sir Colin regarded it as virtually certain that Outram, who assumed command when Havelock and he had fought their way into the Lucknow Residency, would succeed in speedily effecting the relief and withdrawal of the garrison which was still holding that precarious position. But his confident hope for the prompt relief of Lucknow was doomed to early and utter disappointment. Outram's column had proved to be simply in the nature of a reinforcement, and that, too, with no corresponding addition to the supplies of the original garrison. The beleaguerment was close; the position environed by some sixty thousand armed and rancorous enemies. Outram sent word on October 7th, just a fortnight after his entry, to the effect that by eating his horses and gun-draught bullocks he would be able to subsist for a month; and he added that a force equal at least to two strong brigades would be required for the extrication of the garrison.
The sudden and pressing danger threatening Outram's isolated and beleaguered force in Lucknow imposed on the Commander-in-Chief the most urgent exertions. Every military department was stimulated to the utmost; the whole resources of the Government were thrown into violent action. Stores, provisions, carriages, ammunition, guns, all were hurried forward upon Allahabad. But the available resources were sadly limited. The infantry were straggled in small detachments all along the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Cawnpore. No cavalry existed except some two hundred men of the military train, and there were scarcely any horses for the field-batteries which were being organised at Allahabad. All told, the troops on the up-country march constituted a force hardly equivalent to a single weak brigade, less than half the strength which Outram had specified as requisite for his extrication. To relieve Lucknow in time seemed a sheer impossibility and disaster to the garrison there inevitable.
Fortunately, while every nerve was being strained to succour Outram from below, the welcome tidings were received that invaluable co-operation was approaching from the opposite direction. As soon as Delhi had fallen General Wilson had sent out in pursuit of the fugitive rebels a mixed column under the command of Colonel Greathed. The strength of this force amounted to two thousand eight hundred men, of whom nine hundred and thirty were Europeans. It was made up of two troops and one battery of artillery with sixteen guns, the Ninth Lancers three hundred strong, the Eighth and Seventy-Fifth Regiments four hundred and fifty strong, two hundred native sappers, four hundred Punjaub cavalry, and two regiments of Punjaub infantry twelve hundred strong. Marching down the Gangetic Doab, Greathed defeated bodies of mutineers at Bolundshuhur, Malaghun, and Allyghur. Failing to overtake the main body of fugitives which had crossed his front towards Oude, he pushed on to Agra by forced marches, and had barely pitched his camp there when he was suddenly attacked by the Indore brigade. Recovering from their momentary surprise, the British troops notwithstanding their exhaustion met the hostile onslaught with vigour, and after a sharp engagement routed the enemy with heavy slaughter and the capture of thirteen guns and a great quantity of baggage and stores in the lengthened pursuit following on the combat. During the march from Agra down the Doab Colonel Hope Grant overtook the column, and having taken command of it in virtue of seniority arrived at Cawnpore on October 26th. Four days later, at the head of the Delhi column reinforced by several companies of the Ninety-Third Highlanders and some infantry detachments, he crossed the Ganges into Oude. Strictly enjoined to refrain from any serious operation pending the arrival of the Commander-in-Chief, Grant halted at Buntera, six miles short of the Alum Bagh, with the garrison of which position he established communications. As the reinforcements and supplies reached Cawnpore they were sent forward to the depôt-camp at Buntera. The arrival of this Delhi column was of priceless value to Sir Colin, on whom his all but utter want of cavalry and his deficiency in field-artillery had hitherto weighed sorely. The column had come well provided with carriage, a hardly less valuable acquisition than the cavalry and artillery it brought. Now the Chief had to his hand the elements wherewith to organise a field-force strong enough to justify the opening of active operations at an early date.
Sir Colin left Calcutta on the 27th of October, and hurried with all speed to the seat of war. On the way he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of a body of mutineers who were crossing the road just as he came up. At Allahabad on November 1st intelligence reached him that Outram considered himself able to hold out on further reduced rations until beyond the middle of the month, – a welcome announcement, since it afforded Sir Colin more time to complete his arrangements and gave opportunity for the arrival of reinforcements still on the way. On the morning of the 3rd he reached Cawnpore, where he remained a few days to get the engineer train and commissariat in trim for the projected operation.
That operation was of the most difficult and embarrassing character. Its urgent objective was the relief of Lucknow, whence came an importunate cry for succour. Yet to attempt the immediate relief of Lucknow was at the imminent risk of the sacrifice of his communications; and the result of relieving the city at the cost of the forfeiture of his communications, would be simply to find himself in the air, hampered by a great convoy of sick and wounded, of women and children, his scanty force ringed around by vast hordes of enemies. For, as he knew, at Calpee on the Jumna, forty miles south of Cawnpore and directly on the flank of the road between Allahabad and Cawnpore, was gathering the revolted Gwalior Contingent, a large force under the Nana Sahib, and portions of the Dinapore mutineers – a collective body at least triple his own strength, having the obvious intention of striking at Cawnpore and his communications so soon as he should be fairly committed to the Lucknow enterprise. Of this eventuality he had no alternative but to take the risk, leaving in Cawnpore General Windham with a few hundred men to remain on the defensive in an intrenched position and not to move out unless compelled by threat of bombardment.
On the 9th Sir Colin reached the camp at Buntera, where he placed Hope Grant in divisional command, reserving to himself a general superintendence of the operations. During the halt there the brave Kavanagh, who had volunteered to pass from beleaguered Lucknow through the hostile lines in the guise of a native scout, came into camp with despatches for the Chief. The scheme of operations settled on was to skirt the city from the Alumbagh to the Dilkoosha; thence to advance upon the Martinière and the line of the canal; to follow the right bank of the Goomtee seizing the barracks and the Secundrabagh; thence under cover of batteries to be opened on the Kaiserbagh to carry the remaining buildings; and after effecting a junction with the Residency to withdraw its garrison. A message was sent in to Outram informing him that the Commander-in-Chief would leave the Alumbagh on the 13th; that he hoped to gain possession of the barracks and the Secundrabagh on the 14th; and on the 16th to carry out the women and children and the sick and wounded.
On the afternoon of the 11th Sir Colin's little army, all told barely four thousand five hundred strong, was formed up on the plain for the inspection of its Chief. A spectator has graphically depicted the scene. The field-guns from Delhi looked blackened and service-worn; but the horses were in good condition and the harness in perfect repair; the gunners bronzed; stalwart, and in perfect fighting case. The Ninth Lancers, with their gallant bearing, their flagless lances and their lean but hardy horses, looked the perfection of regular cavalry on active service. Wild and bold was the bearing of the Sikh horsemen, clad in loose fawn-coloured dress, with long boots, blue or red turbans and sashes, and armed with carbine and tulwar. Next to them were the worn and wasted remains of the Eighth and Seventy-Fifth Queen's, who with wearied air stood grouped under their colours. Then came the two regiments of Punjaub Infantry, tall of stature, with fierce eager eyes under their huge turbans, – men swift in the march, forward in the fight, and eager for the pillage. On the left of the line, in massive serried ranks, a waving sea of plumes and tartan, stood the Ninety-Third Highlanders, who with loud and rapturous cheers welcomed the veteran commander whom they knew so well and loved so warmly. Till he reached the Highlanders no cheer had greeted Sir Colin as he rode along the line of men to whom as yet he was strange. But the Ninety-Third were his old familiar friends. "Ninety-Third!" so ended his little speech – "You are my own lads, I rely on you to do yourselves and me credit!" "Aye, aye, Sir Colin!" answered a voice from the ranks, "Ye ken us and we ken you; we'll bring the women and bairns out o' Lucknow or we'll leave our ain banes there!"
The expected reinforcements having joined, the column, Sir Colin riding at its head, began the flank march towards the Dilkoosha at daybreak on the morning of the 14th. No opposition was met with until the advance approached the Dilkoosha park, whence came a smart fire which was soon overpowered. The Dilkoosha was promptly occupied and the straggling enemy hurried down the slope towards the Martinière, whence presently came a heavy fire of artillery and musketry which was beaten down by Travers' heavy guns. At the approach of the British skirmishers the Martinière was evacuated, and all the ground on the hither side of the canal was won. The field-hospital and commissariat were installed in the Dilkoosha and headquarters were established in the Martinière, the wood to the west of which was occupied by Hope's brigade with guns on the higher ground on its left. An attack on the position made by the enemy in the afternoon met with defeat, and they were driven back across the canal by a couple of regiments which made good a lodgment on its further side.
All the 15th the advance halted to admit of the closing up of the rearguard, which had been constantly engaged with the enemy during the previous day and did not reach the Dilkoosha until late next morning. The nearest road from Sir Colin's position to the Residency was by the Dilkoosha bridge, the Begum's palace, and the Huzrut Gunj, – the road followed by the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders in the first relief; but it was manifestly extremely dangerous. Another road, starting also from near the Begum's palace and passing between the barracks and a suburb, led straight to the Secundrabagh. This was the route traversed by Outram and Havelock's main force on the 25th of September, and it was recommended in the plan Outram had sent out by Kavanagh. But Sir Colin was assured that this road also would present formidable obstacles to his advance; and he could not afford to run the risk of compromising his scanty resources, already diminished by the detachments he was obliged to leave in his rear. He wisely resolved to make a detour to his right and approach the Secundrabagh by the open ground near the river. In the afternoon a reconnaissance was made by the Commander-in-Chief of the position opposite his left, the intention being to impress the enemy with the belief that his advance was to be made in that direction. The massing of all his artillery on that point and the maintenance upon it of a fire of mortars during the night, together with the entire absence of outposts on his right, were measures intended to contribute to that conviction.
By daybreak of the 16th the army was in motion. The enterprise before it was arduous in the extreme. After the subtraction of the details necessary to hold the Alumbagh, the Martinière, and the Dilkoosha, there were available for the relief operations only the Ninety-Third, part of the Fifty-Third, two weak Sikh regiments, two provisional battalions of detachments, and portions of the Twenty-Third and Eighty-Second regiments – in all not above three thousand bayonets. Opposed to this handful was a host of some sixty thousand armed men concentrated in a central position of great strength. The task would have been rash even to madness but for Campbell's great strength in artillery, on which he chiefly depended for overcoming the obstacles which interposed between him and the garrison he had come to relieve. That artillery comprised the gallant Peel's naval brigade, consisting of six 24-pounders, two 8-inch howitzers, and two rocket-tubes; the sixteen field-guns of Greathed's column, a heavy and a light field-battery and a mortar-battery of the Royal Artillery, one half field-battery of the Bengal Artillery, and two native Madras horse-artillery guns – in all thirty-nine guns and howitzers, six mortars, and two rocket-tubes.
The line of Campbell's advance was from his extreme right along the right bank of the river for about a mile, and then by a narrow and tortuous lane through thickly-wooded enclosures and between low mud-houses until the vicinity of the rear of the Secundrabagh should be approached. A strong advance-guard of cavalry with Blunt's troop of Bengal Horse Artillery and a company of the Fifty-Third led the way. Hope's and Russell's brigades followed, the ammunition and engineer park came next, and Greathed's brigade brought up the rear. After passing the village of Sultangunge the lane by which the force was advancing turned sharp to the left, when the rear of the Secundrabagh became immediately visible, from the loopholes in which and from the adjacent huts on either side of the lane came a brisk fire. The moment was extremely critical; for the movement in advance was checked, while the cavalry, jammed and helpless in the narrow lane, hindered the passage forward of the artillery and infantry. Sir Colin pushed to the front regardless of the enemy's fire, thrust the cavalry into the side alleys of the village, and ordered a company to line and cover the continuation of the lane passing along the west side of the Secundrabagh and debouching into the open space in its front. He himself then brought up to the front of the building two of Travers' 18-pounders, which promptly set about battering a breach in the south-west bastion of the Secundrabagh. Blunt's troop of horse-artillery came tearing up at a gallop through a heavy cross-fire till it reached the open space between that building and the serai a couple of hundred yards to the southward. Blunt gallantly maintained his fire in three different directions, sustaining heavy losses in men and horses. The Ninety-Third now coming up, three companies of that regiment cleared the serai and the adjacent buildings, drove out the enemy holding those positions, and pursuing the rebels across the plain seized and held the barracks while part of the Fifty-Third in skirmishing order connected that post with the main attack against the Secundrabagh. Sir Colin was near one of Blunt's guns when a bullet which had passed through a gunner struck him with great force on the thigh, but it did not penetrate and he escaped with a severe bruise.
While the 18-pounders were doing their work the infantry were lying down behind an embankment waiting impatiently till their time should come. After an hour's battering a Sikh native officer, without waiting for the word, sprang forward sword in hand followed by his men. Sir Hope Grant[4] states that the brave Sikh was outrun by Sergeant-Major Murray of the Ninety-Third. Mr. Forbes-Mitchell[5] says that the Sikh officer was killed on the way and that the two European officers of the Sikh regiment were wounded, misfortunes which caused a temporary halt on the part of the Punjaubis. "Then," according to Forbes-Mitchell, "Sir Colin called to Colonel Ewart, 'Ewart, bring on the tartan!'; his bugler sounded the advance, and the seven companies of the Ninety-Third dashed from behind the bank. It has always been a moot point who got through the hole first. I believe the first man in was Lance-Corporal Donnelly of the Ninety-Third, killed inside; then Subadar Gokul Singh, followed by Sergeant-Major Murray of the Ninety-Third also killed, and, fourth, Captain Burroughs[6] severely wounded."
The foremost men climbed in through the narrow breach. The bulk of the Ninety-Third and the Sikhs entered by the great gate further left after its massive locks had yielded to many bullets, and they were followed by Barnston's battalion of detachments. The Fifty-Third broke in through a window to the right. The vast interior garden in which the deadly strife was proceeding rang with the clash of weapons, the crackle of musketry, the shouts and yells of the combatants. The scene baffled all description. The enemy, caught in a death-trap, fought with the courage of despair. The conflict raged for hours and the carnage was appalling. When the enclosure and buildings were finally cleared of their ghastly contents, no fewer than two thousand native soldiers were found to have been slain.