Colin Campbell

The defeat of the rebels would have been complete, but for the escape of the Bithoor troops constituting the enemy's left in the ground between the city and the river. After the capture of the Gwalior Contingent's camp there had been assigned to General Mansfield, Sir Colin's Chief-of-Staff, the task of cutting off the retreat of the rebel left along the Bithoor road. Mansfield advanced, with the Rifles in skirmishing order followed by the Ninety-Third and covered by an artillery fire, to a position near the Subadar's Tank, where he halted short of the road which was the enemy's line of retreat. This passive attitude not only permitted the escape of the enemy, but emboldened them to venture an artillery-attack on Mansfield's stationary troops; and the rebels were allowed to carry off their guns without hindrance and to make good their retreat on Bithoor. Mansfield's inaction would have more seriously detracted from the completeness of the British victory, but for the success of the enterprise which Sir Colin committed to Hope Grant on the 8th. That gallant soldier hurried in pursuit of the Bithoor fugitives with some two thousand five hundred men and eleven guns. On the early morning of the 9th he overtook them at Serai Ghaut twenty-five miles above Cawnpore. Promptly opening fire on them, he drove them across the river and captured fifteen guns. Of the forty guns with which the rebels had advanced on Cawnpore, they had now lost all but one. Sir Colin had disposed of some twenty-five thousand enemies, including the formidable Gwalior Contingent, at the cost of only ninety-nine casualties among the troops he had led to a success so signal.

He was free at last to appreciate the virtue of the old proverb, "All's well that ends well." But he had run great risks and had narrowly escaped disaster. Nobly stimulated by an exigence in the urgency of which he put faith, he had set aside ordinary military considerations and concentrated every energy on the relief of a garrison which he had been led to believe was in extremity. As a matter of fact, there was no such imminency as had been represented to him. It must be said that both the chiefs who successively conducted the defence of Lucknow were unduly impatient of beleaguerment. Havelock sacrificed half his scanty force in successive attempts to reach Lucknow, urged to try and to try again by Inglis' needless nervousness on the subject of rations. Outram's sole edible contributions to the resources of the original garrison were the bullocks which had hauled his guns and ammunition waggons; yet no approach to starvation threatened either the original garrison or the so-called "relieving force." As a matter of fact there was no resort to horse-flesh; and there never should have been any occasion for reduced rations of farinaceous food, of which, indeed, Sir Colin carried away one hundred and sixty thousand lbs. The commissariat had simply miscalculated; and there was really no need that Sir Colin should have strained every nerve for the immediate relief of Lucknow, involving as it did the postponement of military undertakings of more imminent importance. This fact impressed itself on the Commander-in-Chief; and the realisation that he had been influenced by representations which circumstances did not warrant gave occasion to a coolness on his part towards Sir James Outram.

It is fair, however, to state that Outram wrote from Lucknow to Captain Bruce in the following terms: – "However desirable it may be to support me here, I cannot but feel that it is still more important that the Gwalior rebels should be first disposed of… We can manage to screw on, if absolutely necessary, till near the end of November, on further reduced rations… But it is so absolutely to the advantage of the State that the Gwalior rebels should first be effectually destroyed, that our relief should be a secondary consideration." Had Outram written in this tone three weeks earlier, the option would have been with Sir Colin to strike at Calpee before undertaking the relief of Lucknow. But it was not until the 28th of October, when Sir Colin had already taken his line, that Outram wrote as above; and his communication was addressed neither to the Commander-in-Chief nor to Brigadier Wilson in command at Cawnpore, but to a subordinate officer. Outram adds that his letter, since it reached Bruce on October 30th, was no doubt communicated to Sir Colin who did not leave Cawnpore for Lucknow until November 9th. But a plan of campaign cannot be altered at a moment's notice and at the eleventh hour. Nor is there any evidence that Sir Colin ever saw Outram's letter to Bruce. It is true that intelligence reached him at Allahabad on November 1st that Outram "was prepared, if absolutely necessary, to hold out on further reduced rations till near the end of November;" and the announcement pleased him, as it afforded him a longer period in which to make his preparations for the relief of Lucknow. But he wrote to the Duke of Cambridge on November 8th that "all accounts from Lucknow show that Sir James Outram is in great straits;" and his biographer Shadwell testifies that "the urgent cry for succour which reached him from Lucknow overbore every other consideration."

CHAPTER VI

THE STORMING OF LUCKNOW

Sir Colin Campbell had effected the relief of the Residency of Lucknow and the withdrawal of its garrison, and he was now free to devote himself to the strategic prosecution of the main campaign. Some delay had to be endured pending the return of the carriage which had conveyed the great convoy from Lucknow to the advanced base at Allahabad; but the interval enabled him to concert the measures necessary for the restoration of British authority in the Gangetic Doab and the opening of communications with Agra and Delhi. Greathed's column on its descent from Delhi had already traversed this region through fire and blood; but the wave of rebellion had closed in upon its rear and obliterated every trace of its hurried progress. Campbell had now not merely to traverse but to subdue and occupy; and this was to be accomplished only by the methodised sweep through the length and breadth of the Doab of columns restoring, as they moved, the British authority, and expelling the numerous bands of mutineers. Sir Colin with a wise perception decided on the fort of Futtehghur as the objective point on which the columns to be employed should converge. For various reasons the possession of this strong place, situated as it was on the Ganges about midway between Allahabad and Delhi, was of great strategical importance. It was close to the town of Furrukhabad, the Nawaub of which was a bitter rebel; and it covered the floating bridge on the Ganges at a point where the states of Oude and Rohilcund met, from which hostile territories the enemy were as yet free to enter the Doab and intercept the communication by the Grand Trunk Road with Agra, Delhi, and the Punjaub. His occupation of Futtehghur, on the other hand, would carry with it the command of the fourth side of the Doab; while Agra, Allahabad, and Delhi, whose respective positions dominated the other three, were already in British possession.

Sir Colin fully recognised the strong strategic temptation, before advancing up the Doab, to root out from Calpee the Gwalior Contingent which he had just defeated before Lucknow, and so secure his flank and communications. But he also realised that the Contingent had been so cowed and weakened by its recent overthrow that many weeks must elapse before it could rally sufficiently to venture on any serious offensive operation. The brigade left at Lucknow under the command of Inglis, Sir Colin judged amply sufficient to prevent the interruption of his rearward communications; and it was with no apprehensions on that score that he proceeded to carry out the details of his project for the subjugation of the Doab by a concentric movement on Futtehghur. Before the close of November Colonel Seaton had already left Delhi in command of a column of all arms about nineteen hundred strong, in charge of a vast convoy covering some seventeen miles of road, and comprising carts, camels and elephants laden with tents, stores and ammunition for the headquarter column. Marching down the Trunk Road and sweeping the upper Doab, Seaton was the victor in two successive sharp combats with insurgent bodies, and having reached Bewar on December 31st he remained there until January 3rd, when he was joined by Brigadier Walpole. From that point the united force under Walpole was to move straight on Futtehghur, driving before it the rebel bands from the Delhi, Agra, and Etawah sections of the Doab.

Of the two columns marching up country, one commanded by Walpole the other by Sir Colin himself, the former had the greater distance to travel and was therefore the earlier to move out. On December 16th Walpole quitted Cawnpore with two thousand men consisting of two battalions of Rifles and a strong force of cavalry and artillery. Making a semicircular sweep to the left through the lower Doab in the direction of Calpee, a movement in the nature of a threatening demonstration against the Gwalior Contingent, he swung round to his right by Akbarpore and marched up the left bank of the Jumna to Etawah, whence he struck across to Mynpooree and, as has been said, joined Seaton at Bewar. On December 24th Sir Colin at the head of the main army some five thousand strong set out from Cawnpore, moving by easy marches up the Grand Trunk Road and clearing the right bank of the Ganges as he advanced. Thus three columns, from the north-west, from the south, and from the south-east, were simultaneously moving to converge on Futtehghur, driving before them the malcontents of the Doab with intent to push them across the Ganges into Oude and Rohilcund.

No matter how careful may be the pre-arrangements for precision in the execution of a combined operation when the distances are wide, as often as not there interposes some complication which detracts from the fulfilment of the combination. Sir Colin had anticipated a simultaneous concentric advance on Futtehghur, but events forestalled this operation. On the 1st of January 1858 Brigadier Hope with two infantry regiments and some cavalry and artillery reached the point, about fifteen miles from Futtehghur, where the road crossed the Kala Nuddee stream by a fine suspension bridge, just in time to prevent its total destruction by the enemy who had torn up a great part of the planking. The engineers and sailors had already repaired the structure when in the early morning of the 2nd several rebel battalions of the Nawaub's force under cover of a thick fog came down to dispute the passage of the river. When the fog lifted the enemy were seen to have occupied in great force the village of Khoodagunj, whence they opened a vigorous musketry-fire covered by several heavy guns, one of which, a 24-pounder, had been placed in the toll-house commanding the bridge. Sir Colin had come up and promptly made his dispositions to meet the enemy's rapidly developing attack. He sent back the order for the main body to hurry up; and meanwhile he pushed the Fifty-Third across the bridge to reinforce the pickets, with strict orders not to advance but to remain on the defensive so as to allow time for the cavalry, which had been sent across five miles up stream, to get behind the enemy and cut off his retreat to Futtehghur. One wing of the Ninety-Third was in reserve behind the bridge; the other with some horse-artillery guns was detached to hold a ford three miles down stream for the purpose of securing the right flank.

Peel sent an eight-inch shell through the window of the toll-house which burst under the enemy's big gun in that building, upsetting it and killing or disabling most of the rebel gunners. Campbell's main body came up, and under cover of a heavy artillery fire which soon silenced the hostile guns, the passage of the river was accomplished. The Fifty-Third regiment had been lying for hours under the bank of a road which afforded inadequate cover, and had lost a good many men. It was comprised chiefly of Irishmen, – fine stalwart fellows and ever keen for fighting, but somewhat difficult to keep in hand when their blood was up. When the main body began to cross, the Fifty-Third conceived the idea that they were to be relieved; and this suspicion, coupled with glimpses of the enemy attempting to withdraw some of their guns, overmastered their sense of discipline. All of a sudden, and in spite of the attempts to restrain them, they made a dash with loud cheers and charged and captured several of the rebel guns. Sir Colin had intended to make a waiting fight of it, to give plenty of time for the cavalry turning movement; when the hot-headed Irishmen interfered with this project he galloped up to the regiment in high wrath and objurgated it in terms of extreme potency. But each volley of his invective was drowned by repeated shouts of "Three cheers for the Commander-in-Chief, boys!" until, finding that the men were determined not to give him a hearing, the sternness of the commander gradually relaxed and the veteran turned away with a laugh. He might have made his voice heard over the cheery clamour of the Irishmen, but that a few minutes before he had been hit in the stomach by a spent bullet, happily with merely the momentary inconvenience of loss of breath.

The village of Khoodagunj when attacked by the Ninety-Third and Fifty-Third was carried with little opposition, the enemy abandoning their guns which had been posted in and about the place and retiring with the remainder of their artillery in good order along the road to Futtehghur. But they had yet to experience the fierce mercies of Hope Grant and his horsemen. Making a detour to the left, that fine cavalry leader rode parallel with the rebels' line of retreat, screened from their sight by groves and tall crops. Then, wheeling suddenly to his right, he crashed in on the flank of the insurgent force moving on a narrow front along the high road. Taken utterly by surprise, the mutineers fled panic-stricken before this terrible onslaught. Hope Grant's cavalry, committing ruthless havoc with lance and sabre, maintained the pursuit for miles, capturing guns, ammunition waggons and material of all descriptions; and so demoralised was the foe that he never halted in his camp at Futtehghur, but rushed across the floating bridge into Rohilcund. The return of Grant's troopers to camp in the evening was described by Alison's vivid pen as "a stirring scene of war." "The Ninth Lancers came first, with three standards they had taken waving at their head; the wild-looking Sikh cavalry rode in their rear. As they passed Sir Colin, he took off his hat to them and said some words of soldierly praise. The Lancers waved their lances in the air and cheered; the Sikhs took up the cry, shaking their sabres over their heads; the men carrying the standards spread them to the wind. The Highland Brigade encamped close by, ran down and cheered the victorious cavalry, waving their bonnets in the air. It was a beautiful sight, and recalled the old days of chivalry. When Sir Colin rode back to camp through the tents of the Highland Brigade, the cheering and enthusiasm of the men exceeded anything I had ever seen."

Hitherto Sir Colin Campbell had been carrying on the plan of campaign which he had formulated without interference on the part of the Governor-General. If he had continued to have a free hand, no doubt he would have followed up the clearance of the Doab by the immediate invasion of Rohilcund and the destruction of the rebel power at the important centre of Bareilly. Those objects he would have had ample time to accomplish before the setting in of the hot season. At its approach he would have distributed his force in quarters throughout the recovered provinces, and while restraining the Oude insurgents within the borders of their own territory, he would have employed the summer in the restoration of our authority in our old provinces. With the advent of the autumn cool weather he would have concerted a great concentric movement on Lucknow, driving the Oude rebels from the circumference of that territory into the heart of it, there to be hemmed in and finally crushed. His scheme was based alike on strict military and hygienic principles, avoiding at once a harassing guerilla warfare and the depletion of his invaluable European army in a hot weather campaign. The project thus outlined furnishes in itself the fullest testimony to the scope and accuracy of Sir Colin Campbell's strategic coup d'œil.

But he was now no longer free to conduct military operations in accordance with his soldierly sense of the fitness of things. Political considerations intervened, and Lord Canning was strongly in favour of proceeding to the reduction of Lucknow and the subjugation of Oude in advance of any other enterprise. Sir Colin's views, on the other hand, were in favour of the course briefly summarised in the preceding paragraph; but he fully realised that the decision of the Government was paramount as regarded the future course of the campaign. A long correspondence ensued on the subject between Lord Canning and Sir Colin, the terms of which illustrate the cordial relations existing between the head of the Government and his military subordinate. Some short extracts from this correspondence will serve to indicate its character. Lord Canning took the initiative. In his letter of December 20th, 1857, he writes: "So long as Oude is not dealt with, there will be no real quiet on this side of India. Every sepoy who has not already mutinied will have a standing temptation to do so, and every native chief will grow to think less and less of our power… I am therefore strongly in favour of taking Oude in hand after Futtehghur, Mynpooree, etc., and when the Great Trunk Road communication shall have been made safe." Sir Colin forwarded to his lordship a memorandum in which it was pointed out that twenty thousand men were necessary for the reduction of Lucknow, and thirty thousand for the complete subjugation of the Oude province. "It is," in the words of the memorandum, "for the Government to decide whether it be possible, with regard to the circumstances of the Presidency, to effect the necessary concentration of troops for this purpose." It was further pointed out that, "If through exposure during the hot weather of 1858, the strength of the British forces in India be seriously reduced – viz. by one-third, and less than that number could not be reckoned on were the campaign to be prolonged throughout the year – it will not be in the power of the Government at home to replace them." In his reply to Sir Colin's memorandum Lord Canning was willing to limit his demand to the capture and holding of Lucknow, without attempting more for the present. "Paradoxical as it may appear," wrote his lordship, "I think it of more importance to establish our power in the centre and capital of Oude, which has scarcely been two years in our hands, than to recover our older possessions. Every eye is now upon Lucknow, as it lately was upon Delhi. I grant that, as with Delhi so with Lucknow, we may find ourselves disappointed of a very wide-spread and immediate effect from its capture. Still I hold that the active mischief which will result from leaving it untaken will be incalculable and most dangerous – just as a retirement from Delhi would have been, and scarcely less in degree." Sir Colin replied temperately but firmly, maintaining his standpoint so far as true military principles were concerned. "After much thought," he wrote, "it appears to me advisable to follow up the movement now made by this force by an advance into and occupation of Rohilcund, to root out the leaders of the large gatherings of insurgents which we know to exist there, and to establish authority as is now being effectually done in the Doab. It seems to me that if we halt in this course to divert the only force at our command to another object, we run no slight risk of seeing the results of our late labours wasted, and of an autumn, perhaps a summer, campaign on the present ground to rescue the garrisons left in Futtehghur and Mynpooree. I come therefore to the conclusion that Oude and Lucknow ought to wait till the autumn of 1858." The Governor-General naturally had the last word, and his decision was for the earlier operations against Lucknow. "I am obliged," he wrote, "to say that I hold those operations should be directed against Lucknow at no long interval. I believe it to be impossible to foresee the consequences of leaving that city unsubdued." The tone of the correspondence, though expressing divergent convictions, may be held up as a pattern of the temper in which the interchange of opinions between the civil and military chiefs of a great Government should be carried on.

Sir Colin lost no time in giving loyal effect to the views of the Governor-General by pressing on the preparations for the reduction of Lucknow. An inevitable pause in the active operations now occurred while the siege-train at Agra was being equipped, while reinforcements and Peel's 68-pounders were being brought up from Allahabad to Cawnpore, and while the needful amount of ammunition, provisions, and carriage, and the numerous requirements of the artillery and engineer parks were being concentrated in the same depôt. The soldiers meanwhile were in expectation of an immediate forward movement, and they wondered exceedingly at the incomprehensible delay which their Chief seemed to be maintaining. Keeping his own counsel, the Commander-in-Chief awaited the development of his plans, wholly indifferent to the abuse of the Indian press. Pending the moment for renewed action he took post at Futtehghur, where he could cover from above the concentration of his resources at Cawnpore, and at once dominate the reconquered territory and keep in check the enemy in the regions still unsubdued. Futtehghur was an excellent strategic centre whence troops could promptly be pushed out to points threatened by insurgents from Oude, Rohilcund, or the trans-Jumna territory, while it covered the long-distance transport of the siege-train from Agra to Cawnpore. From Futtehghur movable columns were from time to time sent out to scour the surrounding country and reduce the still insurgent villages. Sir Colin for weeks deceived the Rohilcund mutineers as to his intentions, and for some ten or twelve days they were kept in position on the Ramgunga watching Walpole, whose force they supposed to be the advanced guard of Campbell's army of invasion. When at length, losing patience, some five thousand of them crossed into the Doab some miles above Futtehghur, Hope made matters extremely unpleasant for them. He overwhelmed them with gun-fire, crashed in upon them with cavalry; and although they fought desperately, four of their guns were taken, their camp was captured, and they were pursued hot-foot for several miles.

Before quitting the Doab Sir Colin assigned a brigade under Colonel Seaton to the task of holding several main positions in that territory, to be relieved presently in some degree by a force from the Punjaub which was being organised at Roorkee for the purpose of invading Rohilcund from the north-west. The siege-train was now well forward on its way to Cawnpore; the secret which Sir Colin had rigidly kept for three weeks, was a secret no longer; and on February 1st he left Futtehghur with his cavalry and horse-artillery, and making forced marches reached Cawnpore on the 4th. A few days later he made a short visit to Allahabad for an interview with Lord Canning, who had arrived there. By the middle of February the greater part of the army destined for the operation against Lucknow was in échelon along the road from the Ganges to the Alumbagh, covering the advance of the vast military stores and supplies which were constantly being brought up. Sir Colin anticipated that he should be ready to begin operations about the 18th of February with his own army of ten thousand men. But the Nepaulese force of some nine thousand men with twenty-four guns under Jung Bahadoor, which had been on the frontier of Oude since the beginning of January and had subsequently done a good deal of sharp fighting in the eastern part of that province, was expected to prove an important reinforcement to Sir Colin's army. The gallant Franks was fighting his way from south-eastern Oude with some three thousand men. The twelve thousand additional troops which Sir Colin might look forward to obtain from those sources would be extremely valuable, bringing up his total strength to twenty-two thousand men. But neither body could reach Lucknow at the earliest before the 27th. Sir Colin left the decision to the Governor-General, whether he should proceed at once, which he was quite ready to do holding himself perfectly able to reduce Lucknow with the force now at his hand; or whether he should delay operations until Franks and the Nepaulese should arrive. Lord Canning promptly replied, "I wish," he wrote, "that the delay could have been avoided; but I am sure that we ought to wait for Jung Bahadoor, who would be driven wild to find himself deprived of a share in the work."