Chapter 32

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 reinforcements 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 reënforcements 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 axús. 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 reinforcements 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 reinforcements 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 reënforcements 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 four 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 the 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 reënforcements 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 en 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.