Colin Campbell

Rose began his advance on January 6th and arrived in front of the fortress of Rhatghur on the 24th. After two days' bombardment it was evacuated by the garrison during the night of the 28th, an attempt on the part of the forces of the Rajah of Baunpore to raise the siege having been easily frustrated. Rose then pushed forward to Saugur, which had been beleaguered for the last eight months. The place was relieved in the beginning of February, when the Europeans who had been so long cooped up in their fort came out to welcome their deliverers; by whom and by the Thirty-First Bengal Native Infantry, one of the few regiments of that army which had remained faithful, Rose was escorted past the fort into the cantonment. On February 11th with part of his force he was before the fort of Gurrah Kota, which was garrisoned by the revolted sepoys of the Fifty-First and Fifty-Second Bengal Native Infantry. One day's bombardment sufficed to reduce the place. The garrison escaped during the night of the 12th, but the fugitives were pursued by cavalry for twenty-five miles and suffered considerable loss. Rose was back in Saugur on the 17th, eager to prosecute his advance on Jhansi distant one hundred and twenty-five miles farther north. He had been informed that General Whitlock with the Madras column had reached Jubbulpore, but he could not quit Saugur until he should be assured that the Madras general had begun his advance towards that place. The interval he utilised in gathering supplies, replenishing the ammunition of his siege-train, and strengthening it by the addition of heavy guns, howitzers, and mortars from the Saugur arsenal. At length tidings came that Whitlock had left Jubbulpore, and Rose moved from Saugur on the 27th. A few days later, by a flank movement through the pass of Madanpore, he turned the more formidable pass of Malthon by which the enemy had been expecting him, and after some extremely hard fighting entered the town of Madanpore. On March 19th he was within fourteen miles of Jhansi, whither he despatched the cavalry and field-artillery of his second brigade to reconnoitre and invest that place.

Jhansi was the chief stronghold of the rebel power in Central India; and it was a place, moreover, in which the slaughter of British men and women had been perpetrated in circumstances of peculiar atrocity. It was of great strength, both natural and artificial, its walls varying in thickness from sixteen to twenty feet. Town and fortress were garrisoned by eleven thousand men, rebel sepoys, mercenaries, and local levies under the command of the Ranee, a woman of fierce and dauntless character. The cavalry having invested the place on the 22nd, the siege operations began on the night of that day. The batteries opened fire on the morning of the 25th, on which day the first brigade came up into line, having on its march bombarded, breached, and stormed the important fortress of Chandairee, situated about eighty miles south-west of Jhansi. For seventeen days the duel between the besieging batteries and the guns of the defence was incessant. By the 31st a breach had been effected, but it was barely practicable; and on the same evening tidings came to Rose that Tantia Topee with twenty-two thousand men and twenty-eight guns was on the march from the north to the relief of Jhansi. He realised that his position, placed as it was between two superior hostile forces, was critical in the extreme. But Rose was the man to pluck the flower of safety out of the nettle of danger. Maintaining his grip on the fortress, he resolved to take the offensive against Tantia Topee on the following morning.

As the rebel army advanced, he struck both its flanks simultaneously with cavalry and horse-artillery. As soon as that evolution had manifested itself, his infantry advanced, poured in a volley, and then charged. The first line of the rebels broke and fled in disaster hotly pursued. Brigadier Stuart struck in upon the right flank of the second line and hurled it into confused flight. Tantia fired the jungle, and under cover of the smoke made for the Betwa. But the British cavalry and horse-artillery pursued with ardour, and did not desist until every rebel gun had been taken. Fifteen hundred of the mutineers were killed or wounded. Tantia Topee and his discomfited host fled towards Calpee. Rose took prompt advantage of the discouragement which he realised that Tantia's defeat must have wrought on the garrison of Jhansi. He stormed the fortified city at dawn of April the 3rd. It was an arduous task. "The fire of the enemy waxed stronger, and amid the chaos of sounds of volleys of musketry and roaring of cannon, of hissing and bursting of rockets, stink-pots, infernal machines, huge stones, blocks of wood and trees, all hurled on their devoted heads, the men wavered for a moment and sheltered themselves behind stones." Everywhere fierce and bloody, the conflict was most severe near and inside the palace, which had been prepared by the rebels for a centre of resistance in the last resort. Four hundred men who had taken up a position outside the fortress were surrounded by Rose's cavalry and slain almost to a man. Desultory fighting continued for thirty-six hours. The Ranee made her escape and galloped straight to Calpee. The fortress was finally occupied by Rose on the 5th. The loss sustained in its subjugation, including that in the action of the Betwa, amounted to three hundred and forty-three killed and wounded, of whom thirty-six were officers. The enemy's loss was reckoned to exceed five thousand.

It now only remained for Sir Hugh Rose to march on Calpee, and to exterminate from that important position the mutinous bodies which had so long threatened Sir Colin Campbell's main line of communications. He began his advance in the end of April and on May 7th reached Koonch, where the rebels were in an entrenched position covering the Calpee road. That position he turned, stormed the town, and pursued the rebels for eight miles along the road to Calpee, capturing eight guns and a quantity of ammunition and stores. He had now been joined by the Seventy-First Highlanders, and continuing his advance reached the Jumna at Gowlowlee six miles below Calpee. The Commander-in-Chief had sent to co-operate with him Colonel Maxwell with the Eighty-Eighth Foot, some Sikhs and the Camel Corps, part of which crossed the river and joined Rose's force on the right bank. After four days of constant skirmishing Maxwell's batteries opened fire from the left bank on the fort and town, and Rose determined to strike the decisive blow on the 22nd. But the rebels anticipated him. On the morning of that day they came out in great masses to attack him. There was a critical moment when the thin British line momentarily yielded. But Sir Hugh brought up the Camel Corps, dismounted the men, and led them forward in person to the charge. The victory was won; Calpee was evacuated during the following night, and the rebel force, pursued by the horse-artillery and cavalry, lost formation and dispersed, losing all its guns and baggage. "This," writes Dr. Lowe,[9] "was a glorious success won over ten times our number under most trying circumstances. The position of Calpee; the numbers of the enemy, who came on with a resolution and display of tactics we had never before witnessed; the exhausted and weakened state of Sir Hugh Rose's force; the awful, suffocating hot wind and burning sun which the men had to endure all day without time to eat or drink; combined to render the achievement one of unsurpassed difficulty. Every soul engaged suffered more or less. Officers and men fainted away, or dropped down as if struck by lightning in the delirium of sunstroke. Yet all this was endured without a murmur, and in the cool of the evening we were speculating on the capture of Calpee on the morrow." The speculation was justified. Calpee was occupied, fifteen guns and several standards were taken; and Sir Hugh Rose, considering the campaign ended, issued a complimentary order to his troops and prepared to proceed to Bombay on sick certificate.

But in the first week in June he had suddenly to alter his plans. The main body of the Calpee mutineers had reached Morar, the cantonment of the old Gwalior Contingent, situated close to Scindiah's capital. Remaining steadfast to the British cause the young Maharajah moved out from Gwalior on June 1st and engaged the enemy in the Morar position. It was obvious from the first that Tantia Topee had been successfully tampering with the Maharajah's troops, who went over in a body to the rebels and Scindiah had to seek safety in flight to Agra. The daring project of the Ranee had thus far succeeded, and she and her confederates were prompt to take advantage of the temporary good fortune which had come to them. They took possession of fortress, treasury, arsenal, and town, and proceeded to form a regular government. Nana Sahib was proclaimed as Peishwah and Rao Sahib as Governor of Gwalior. The royal property was declared confiscated. The command of the troops outside the city was vested in the Ranee; those inside were under the command of Tantia Topee.

On receiving intelligence of this extraordinary state of things, Sir Hugh Rose resumed his command and advanced on Gwalior by forced marches, gathering up reinforcements as he moved. Of his two brigades one was commanded by Brigadier C. S. Stuart of the Bombay Army; the other by Brigadier R. Napier of the Bombay Engineers. Approaching Gwalior on June 18th, the ninth day from Calpee, he attacked the insurgents on the following morning, drove them out of the cantonments and pursued them vigorously. Smith with the Sipree column joined by Orr with his people of the Hyderabad Contingent, fought his way through the defile of Kotah-ke Serai after a stout defence on the part of the enemy, in which the Ranee of Jhansi lost her life while attempting to escape. Reinforced by Smith and Orr, Sir Hugh advanced on the 19th with the combined force against the heights in front of the city. In face of a heavy fire of artillery the assaulting columns carried the heights gallantly, capturing all the twenty-seven guns of the enemy. Then the rebels lost heart and fled pursued by the cavalry, while Rose advanced on the city. That same evening Scindiah, who had accompanied a force from Agra, found himself once more sovereign of the Gwalior State. The rock-fortress of Gwalior was daringly captured on the morning of the 20th by a couple of lieutenants at the head of a handful of men, after a hand-to-hand struggle with the garrison in which the gallant young Lieutenant Rose met his death. A flying column of cavalry organised by Sir Hugh was placed in command of Brigadier Napier, who on the morning of the 21st, after a ride of twenty-four miles, struck the enemy at Jowra Alipore. He had barely six hundred men all told, and only six guns; the enemy were reckoned twelve thousand strong – the remnants of the Calpee force with additions picked up at Gwalior. Lightfoot with his troop of horse-artillery galloped to the enemy's left flank, fired a couple of rounds, and then dashing forward at full speed with Abbott's cavalry rolled up the enemy's line and drove him from his guns. The mutineers, stricken and demoralised, dispersed, abandoning sixteen guns which Napier brought in. The Central India Field Force was now broken up, and the troops composing it were distributed at Gwalior, Jhansi, Sipree, and Goona. Its gallant chief repaired to Bombay, there to recruit his health impaired by the triumphant march he had accomplished through Central India. The doings of Whitlock with his Madras column in the Banda and Kirwee territories were not brilliant and need not be summarised. With the pacification of Gwalior began what Sir Colin Campbell described as "that hunt of the rebel leaders which was finally brought to a conclusion by the capture and execution of Tantia Topee in April, 1859," after a chase which lasted nearly ten months.

CHAPTER IX

THE PACIFICATION OF OUDE – END OF THE MUTINY

Satisfied of the "military safety" of the troops engaged in Oude, Goruckpore, and Behar, the Doab and Rohilcund, Lord Clyde during his hot-weather residence at Allahabad was resolved not to endanger the health of his forces until he should be able "to move them on a general plan and with one common object." His design, therefore, was to remain quiescent until his preparations should be complete; and then, in his own words, "to break in upon the rebel bodies simultaneously in each province, to leave them no loophole for escape, and to prevent them from travelling from one district to another, and so prolonging a miserable guerilla warfare." One exception to this programme had to be made. Maun Singh, an influential chief of Eastern Oude, after a long hesitation had at length in June deserted the rebel cause and thrown in his lot with the conquering power. The local rebels, twenty thousand strong, irritated by his secession from their side, had besieged him in his fort of Shahgunj near Fyzabad. The Commander-in-Chief deputed Hope Grant to relieve Maun Singh, and also to take the opportunity of beginning the occupation of Oude in accordance with the plan it was intended to carry out on a large scale during the ensuing cold season. Hope Grant, marching from Nawabgunj, reached Fyzabad on July 29th, where his presence caused the dispersion of the rebel hordes which had been besieging Maun Singh. After a satisfactory interview with that personage, Grant, by the Commander-in-Chief's instructions, marched further east to Sultanpore, following up the rebels who had abandoned the siege of Maun Singh's stronghold. They showed fight and actually advanced to the attack; but when Grant moved against them on the morning of August 29th he found that they had dispersed. From Sultanpore Grant visited Allahabad, where Lord Canning invested him and Mansfield with the Knight Commandership of the Bath.

The operations for the subjugation of Oude were to be directed from two points simultaneously: on the one hand, from the frontier of Rohilcund with the object of driving the rebels in a north-easterly direction towards the Gogra: on the other, from the south-east against the Baiswarra district lying between the Ganges and the Goomtee, in which territory the most powerful and stubborn rebels were Lal Mahdo of Amethee and Beni Mahdo of Roy Bareilly and Shunkerpore. Lord Clyde's first object was to sweep the Baiswarra region and drive the rebels from it beyond the Gogra; his second and final object to cross the Gogra, draw gradually tighter the cordon by which the rebels were hemmed in north of that river, and force them back across the Raptee upon the frontier of Nepaul. The task was onerous, for it was officially estimated that in Southern Oude alone there were sixty thousand men in arms exclusive of the disbanded sepoys, and as many as three hundred guns scattered about in the numerous forts in the jungles. But the burden of the task was diminished by the progress made in the organisation of a body of native military police under the superintendence of Captain Bruce the former head of the intelligence department, who in July reported that he had already five thousand men ready for this employment. As the columns advanced defeating the enemy and expelling him from his strongholds, those auxiliaries were to occupy the positions won, and were to support the civil authority in the maintenance of order.

Lord Clyde remained in Allahabad to be present on November 1st when the proclamation announcing the direct government of British India by the Crown was promulgated by Lord Canning. On the 2nd he joined his headquarters at the Beylah cantonment near Perturbghur, thirty-five miles from Allahabad. He occupied a small tent, not only as an example to his staff but also to facilitate rapidity of movement from column to column. Three columns were immediately to his hand in the Baiswarra district. Pinckney's column, consisting of three and a half infantry regiments, two cavalry regiments, two batteries and details, was at Perturbghur with a post on the Sultanpore road. Hope Grant's, comprising four infantry and two cavalry regiments, two and a half batteries and a company of sappers, was two miles north-east of the fort of Amethee. The third was Wetherall's, who with one cavalry and two and a half infantry regiments and twelve guns, contrary to his orders and without the specified co-operation, had just captured the fort of Rampoor Kussia on the Sye, with its armament of twenty-three guns. He had killed some three hundred of the enemy with a loss to himself of about eighty killed and wounded, but had allowed the garrison to escape, and Lord Clyde was much annoyed that he should have disregarded his instructions.

The first act of the Commander-in-Chief on reaching his headquarters in the field was to summon Lal Mahdo the Talukdar of Amethee to make his submission, and a copy of the Queen's proclamation was forwarded to him with the intimation that if he remained recalcitrant the Commander-in-Chief would invest his fort. Lal Mahdo had afforded protection to British fugitives at the outbreak of the rebellion, and as he had thereby established a claim to the clemency of the Government, he was allowed until the 6th to form his decision. He failed to present himself on that date, and his jungle fortress was then invested by the headquarter column and those of Hope Grant and Wetherall. Lal Mahdo surrendered himself on the 10th and gave up his fortress, which when entered was found to have been evacuated. The Rajah's conduct was so equivocal that he was made a prisoner. Mr. Russell thus describes the scene when the Commander-in-Chief rode into the place with the Rajah in attendance. "The latter was pale with affright, for his Excellency, more irritated than I have ever seen him, and conscious of the trick which had been played upon him, was denouncing the Rajah's conduct in terms which perhaps the latter would not have minded much had they not been accompanied by threats of unmistakable vigour."

Leaving a post at Amethee to destroy the fort Lord Clyde moved promptly on Shunkerpore, the stronghold of Beni Mahdo who had been joined by the fugitive rebels from Rampoor Kussia and Amethee. Grant and Wetherall invested the fort on two faces, the headquarter column on the third. Eveleigh's column, which had recently stormed the fort of Simree, should have arrived to complete the investment; but he arrived too late and thus was afforded a means of escape to Beni Mahdo and his followers. Shunkerpore was a strong place of considerable importance; the circumference of its outer ditch measured nearly eight miles and the area of the fort exceeded five acres. Before resorting to hostile action the Talukdar was summoned; but he refused to lay down his arms, and on the night of the 15th the garrison, about ten thousand strong, evacuated the fort, carrying off ten guns and heading northward with the probable intention of reaching the trans-Gogra region. Leaving a detachment at Shunkerpore to destroy the fort and the surrounding jungle, the Commander-in-Chief on the night of the 18th moved with the headquarter column to Roy Bareilly. Wetherall's brigade, now commanded by Colonel Taylor, Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, had been despatched to Fyzabad with instructions to continue the operations beyond the Gogra as soon as the rebels had been cleared out of the Baiswarra district; and Sir Hope Grant proceeded to the same place to take command of the forces which were to operate in the trans-Gogra country. Horsford was acting on his instructions to reduce the country on the right bank of the Goomtee between Jugdespore and Lucknow. Lord Clyde on the 20th had advanced to Buchraon, twenty miles on the road to Lucknow, when information reached him that Beni Mahdo had been headed by Hope Grant's movement and had turned towards the Ganges, on the way to which he had been defeated at Bera by Brigadier Eveleigh, who was following the rebel chief towards Simree. Lord Clyde determined to join the brigadier, who was weak in infantry, and to attack Beni Mahdo. He reached Simree on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th advanced to the village of Bidhoura, whence a summons was sent to the rebel chief giving him a last chance of surrender. No reply came and the advance was resumed.

Beni Mahdo's position was strong, but too extended to be properly defended. It lay on a branch of the Ganges between two villages, the village of Doundea-Khera on the west, the village of Buksar on the east. The advance of the British skirmishers and the artillery fire sufficed to break the rebel line. Part of the enemy were forced into the river; the occupants of both villages were summarily driven out. The rebels left between three hundred and four hundred dead on the ground and abandoned the seven guns they had possessed. But Beni Mahdo escaped, and having been joined by part of his followers hurried northward pursued by Colonel Carmichael's force, till on December 4th he was driven into the country beyond the Gogra. The clearance of the Baiswarra district having been effected, the Commander-in-Chief marched to Lucknow, where he arrived on November 28th to find that the wide region west of Lucknow between the Ganges and the Chouka had been swept clear of rebels by Brigadiers Barker and Troup. The former officer, having reduced the regions of Kuchowna and Benagunj, had reached Khyrabad and a few days later advanced to Biswah. Troup with the Shahjehanpore force had crossed the Rohilcund frontier, stormed the fort of Mittowlee on November 8th, engaged in a sharp and victorious action at Mehndee, and moving to the south-west established himself at Jehangirabad near the right bank of the Chouka.

Thus one half of the task of subjugating Oude had been accomplished. An elaborate plan, which involved exceptional punctuality and precision, had been undeviatingly followed with successful results. Lord Clyde could truthfully report to Lord Canning that, "In the theatre of operations extending over a line of march of more than two hundred miles, each movement and each apparently isolated attack was made to defend and support what was being done on the right and left. The advance in line, stretching from the confines of Rohilcund to Allahabad and Azimghur, had put down everything like rebellion in a large sense of the word, in the region on the right bank of the Gogra." Some critics found occasion to charge his movements with tardiness; but the Commander-in-Chief had a far greater aim than the temporary dispersal of the rebel bands. Unless justified by some urgent military necessity, Lord Clyde was on principle averse from entering any district which could not be permanently occupied. He was determined to leave no territory, through which his columns moved, unfurnished with police posts under civil authority of sufficient strength to guarantee order for the future. In a word, he insisted on the permanent settlement of the country as he advanced.

There remained to him now only the prosecution of the campaign in the trans-Gogra country. Leaving Lucknow on December 5th with a column consisting of fourteen guns, three cavalry and five and a half infantry regiments under the command of Brigadier Horsford, he picked up at Nawabgunj Purnell's column, consisting of four guns, a wing of the Twenty-Third, and the Ninetieth Light Infantry, and marched in the direction of Byram Ghat on the Gogra, at the confluence of the Chouka and the Surjoo. Hearing that a body of fugitives were crossing the river at that point, the ardent veteran with the cavalry and four guns, on the waggons of which were mounted a few marksmen of the Rifle Brigade, galloped forward in the hope of intercepting the rebels in the act of crossing. But he was just in time to be too late. There were no means of crossing the river at Byram Ghat, and Lord Clyde, anxious to prosecute the campaign with a minimum of delay, moved down to Fyzabad with the headquarter column and the siege-train, crossed the river at that point, and on the 14th reached Secrora, a couple of marches beyond the Gogra. Certain dispositions were made at this point, tending to assure the object in view of clearing the region of rebels and hindering them from recrossing into the settled territory. Purnell was sent to watch the fords on the Chouka as far up as Jehangirabad, whence Troup took up the duty to the confines of Rohilcund, while Pratt patrolled the Mullapoor Doab between the Chouka and the Surjoo. From Baraitch on the 17th Christie's column was detached to cover on the left the further advance of the headquarter column up to the edge of the Nepaul hill-territory. On the right in the Goruckpore country Rowcroft's column, advancing from Bustee and crossing the Raptee, was marching on Toolseepore, which place, was believed to be held in strength by Bala Rao the brother of Nana Sahib. After some fighting Rowcroft occupied Toolseepore on December 23rd, where he was joined by Hope Grant, who had parted from the Commander-in-Chief at Secrora on the 14th and had marched to Bulrampore, at which point he covered on the right the advance of the headquarter column.