Recollections of Thirty-nine Years in the Army

New Year’s Day brought the welcome news that the rebels had been severely beaten at Alumbagh by Sir James Outram, great loss inflicted upon them, and four of their guns captured; also that Colonel Seton had defeated a body of mutineers at Futtyghur. Having moved our camp to a position north-westward of the town, we discovered a saltpetre manufactory for the use of the rebels. Firing was again heard in our near vicinity, indicative, as we soon learned, that our Nepaulese allies had attacked a rebel village, which they captured and destroyed.

The 10th were ordered to advance towards Azimghur, to be joined en route by other regiments, the combined force to be named the Jounpore Field Force, commanded by Brigadier-General Franks. On the second day of our progress, at a place called Muttyala, the first active signs of disaffection were shown by some of the villagers; it was quickly suppressed, however, by the simple method of handing over to the Provost Marshal those who had so acted, and having them flogged. No further trouble with natives was experienced; and so, without adventure, on the fourth day of our march we crossed the river Gogra, and entered the district of Azimghur. Thence to the provincial city our progress was cautious and wary; villages through which our route lay were seen to be deserted by their ordinary inhabitants, except the old and very young, by women and the infirm.

At Azimghur – once a pretty and otherwise favoured station – the public buildings, including the church, had been reduced to charred and roofless walls, gardens wasted and disfigured; a series of huts in course of being erected for the faithless sepoys at the time, when on June 3 the 17th N.I. broke into mutiny, left standing as they then were; the gaol strongly fortified, everything destructible bearing an aspect of ruin. Within the intrenched position at the gaol a small force of Ghoorkas kept at defiance the rebel sepoys who had already made two unsuccessful attacks, with considerable loss in life and of two of their guns. Resuming our progress, the 10th reached Aroul on January 26. There the various portions182 of the force of which we were to form a part united, and was organized for its prospective duties. A halt of three days sufficed. On the 29th a march of twenty-three miles was performed by our little army, the minimum quantity of equipment and transport accompanying it. Several houses in ruins, belonging to planters, were passed in our progress to the river Goomtee; that river was crossed, and about midnight we bivouacked on Oude territory. By break of day our force was again in motion towards its objective point, now known to be Lucknow. That day’s march was uneventful, except that the water in the roadside wells was rendered unpalatable by branches of neem tree (Melia Azadirachta) thrown into them by the rebels.

A short halt was made at Singramow, during which preparation was made for eventualities. Intimation was there received that the rebels were collecting their forces at Chanda, about a dozen miles in front of us, and that their pickets had advanced to within four or five miles of our camp. On February 19 our force was under arms at daylight, and then began its advance towards the enemy. About nine o’clock a halt was ordered; men and officers partook of such “breakfast” as under the circumstances they could get, while staff officers rode to the front to reconnoitre. A long line of rebels was seen to occupy a somewhat elevated position at a little distance from us. Our guns immediately advanced, opened fire upon them, their fire being for a short time returned. The 10th – Colonel Fenwick at their head – threw out their skirmishers, and thus covered, advanced at steady pace towards the point where the rebels seemed thickest. They, however, did not long stand their ground; before our men came within striking distance the sepoys gave way and took to flight. Pursuit was impossible, by reason of want of cavalry; but the small band of mounted infantry, recently extemporised from the 10th, managed to come up, with some of the enemy, of whom, in the language of the day, they “gave a good account.” We subsequently learned that the forces against whom we had been engaged comprised 8,000 men, commanded by Bunda Hussun, a lieutenant of Mendhee Hussun.

It was intended that our force should encamp on the field whence the rebels had fled. While halting for that purpose, it was found that a second engagement was to take place; that the enemy had taken up a position at Hummeerpore, a little distance from their former, and under shelter of a wood. From there their guns soon opened fire upon us. Ours quickly replied; a few casualties in our ranks were the result, when darkness having put an end to the duel we bivouacked on our ground. When morning dawned, it was seen that the position they had occupied was abandoned; our camp was accordingly pitched, and so we remained, prepared for the next move.

Resuming our advance towards Lucknow, two successive marches of great length, and consequently fatiguing, were performed, considerable numbers of our transport animals completely breaking down, and so being the cause of much inconvenience to our force.

On the 23rd, about 10 a.m., our skirmishers drew upon them fire from a position taken up by the rebels at Sooltanpore. That position was attacked, and from a direction unexpected by them; thus disconcerted, their fire was comparatively little destructive in our ranks, nor was it long before – having discharged upon us a volley of grape – they abandoned their artillery and fled, leaving fourteen guns, besides stores and a large quantity of equipment, in our possession, also much ammunition and loot. Again the mounted men of the 10th183 did good service in pursuit of the fugitives; some of our artillery followed, and it was said destroyed large numbers of them, the loss to our troops engaged being again comparatively small. Thus were the forces of Mendhee Hussun defeated, though numbering 6,000 regular sepoys and 6,000 matchlock men; the station of Sooltanpore recovered after being held by the rebels since the previous month of June.

After some delay our camp was pitched on the ground our men had won, and we halted for a day. A party dispatched to destroy a manufactory of gun carriages deserted by the rebels came upon various relics, with which doubtless were connected sad and painful associations; these included what had been an elegant barouche, a palkee garree, and a metal toy – the whole pertaining to victims of the first outburst of mutiny among the troops there stationed. Near our camp the artillery were occupied in bursting the guns deserted by the enemy.

On the 25th our force resumed its march at daylight, and so continued till late in the afternoon, making one short halt to allow the troops to draw water from some village wells, a second to cook and distribute food. Shortly after we had started a very hideous object presented itself to view; it was the body of a native suspended by the feet from a branch of a tree, his arms dangling in mid-air, and so doubtless indicating the cruel manner of his death. Arrived at Mosufferkhan, where it was arranged that our camp should be pitched we found awaiting to join us a reinforcement of Sikh and Pathan Horse, together with some mounted men comprising half-castes and Christians who had belonged to mutinied or disbanded regiments all of whom had been sent by forced marches to our aid. Some stray mutineers were discovered in near proximity to camp by our scouts and by them duly “disposed of.”

A long and arduous march through difficult country; the villages along our route deserted by their inhabitants, the fields destitute of labourers. On arrival at our camping ground near Jugdispore, it was ascertained that our advance guard had fallen in with and captured two messengers conveying a purwana, or order, from the Ranee of Lucknow to the zemindars of the district just traversed by us, intimating to them the advance of a small body of English, and calling upon them to destroy the intruders at Sooltanpore; also to send without delay provisions for the rebel troops holding Lucknow. A day’s halt and much-needed rest for man and animal. On 28th a long march, in the course of which we passed through some villages strongly fortified and loopholed, but deserted by inhabitants. Reinforced as we now were by cavalry, they scoured the vicinity of our route, in the course of their proceedings coming upon seventeen rebels, some wearing the uniform of their former regiments, all of whom they killed.

With rain and boisterous weather the month of March began; it was therefore somewhat late in the morning of the 1st when our advance was resumed. As we proceeded, the discovery was made by our scouts that a considerable body of rebels occupied a point at some little distance on our flank. The main body of our force was accordingly halted, while a portion was sent against the mutineers, the result being that in the attack upon them the latter had sixty of their numbers killed or wounded, and lost two of their guns. Resuming progress, we traversed a number of towns and villages, all strongly fortified, but sparsely occupied. Night had closed in when we reached our halting-place. While tents were being pitched, lurid flames at intervals in our near vicinity told the fate of villages and isolated houses.

During the attack just mentioned several hand-to-hand conflicts took place between the Sikh troopers and the rebels. In one of these an officer received a tulwar cut which severed an artery. By-and-by I came upon him, prostrate on the ground, alone, and bleeding to death. A ligature was applied to the divided vessel; he was placed in a dooly, and so carried to my tent, where he remained during the following night. While there he was visited by some of his men, who laid before him various articles of loot – some valuable – of which they had possessed themselves, and now presented to him. In contrast with an incident shortly to be related, and also in its way characteristic of a class, the fact made an impression upon me that under the particular circumstances of time and place, the officer alluded to184 offered to me – who in all likelihood had been the means of saving his life – not one thing of the many laid out for display on the floor rug of my tent.

Early on March 3 the sound of heavy guns from the direction of Lucknow told that active work was in progress there. Later in the day a staff officer, escorted by a squadron of the 9th Lancers and two Horse Artillery guns, arrived in camp as bearer of dispatches. These contained orders that on the morrow our force should advance and take up the position assigned to it in relation to the contemplated attack on that capital. They informed us that already the Dilkhosha had been captured. On the following day our force was accordingly in motion towards Lucknow. It had not proceeded far when information was received that a small body of rebels occupied the inconsiderable fort of Dowraha, situated at the distance of a mile or so from our line of route. A body, unfortunately, as events proved, too small for its intended purpose, was detached with the object of effecting its capture; but with the loss of one officer killed and several casualties among the rank and file, the position had to be left untaken, while our force continued its march. In the afternoon we took up the position assigned to us on an extensive plain between Dilkhosha and Bebeepore, and so merged into the general force under the Commander-in-Chief.

CHAPTER XV

1858. CAPTURE OF LUCKNOW

Rifles against cannon – The sailors’ battery – The circle narrows – The 10th in Lucknow – The Moulvie’s house – Ladies rescued – Surgeon’s place in battle – Soldiers’ gratitude – Martinière – Wrecks of victory – The city – The Residency – Isolated casualties – Flight of sepoys – Columns in pursuit.

Throughout March 5 heavy bombardment continued, the batteries of rebels within Lucknow replying actively to those outside the city. On the 6th, Captain Graham’s company of the 10th occupied an intrenched position at an angle of the Mohamed Bagh, where during the night temporary defences had been thrown up, the task assigned to, and successfully performed, being by their rifle fire to keep down that from rebel guns of a battery close to Begum Serai. It became an exciting sight to watch the enemy as they moved their guns into the several embrasures of their battery preparatory to discharging them upon our position, and then the effect of the volley poured into those embrasures by our men; then the burst of flame – our soldiers instantly throwing themselves prone on the ground; the thud of round shot upon our protecting rampart; our soldiers starting to their feet, pouring volley after volley as before into the embrasures, while the guns were being lowered therefrom to be reloaded. Thus the seemingly unequal duel went on. After a time the rebel fire from that particular point began to slacken, then ceased. The men of the 10th had done their work right well. Other portions of our general force were engaged elsewhere, preparatory to the grand attack about to be delivered.

Steadily during the next two days the circle of fire narrowed around the city. On the 9th a more than usual heavy artillery fire took place between our forces and the enemy. The sailors’ battery of 68-pounders was engaged against large bodies of the rebels assembled among a range of ruined buildings at the western end of the Martinière, the men who worked the guns taking affairs with such coolness that, in the intervals between firing, cleaning, and loading their respective pieces, they squatted in parties of four on the ground, and proceeded with games of cards, in which they seemed to take as much interest as in the effect produced by their fire. About 2 p.m., to an increased rapidity of fire from sailors and artillery guns was added more active pings of rifles, and somewhat later on the position of the Martinière was in the possession of our force.

Two more days of arduous work by all ranks, the rebels gradually but steadily being pressed in from their advanced positions; the siege guns opening heavily upon the city; bodies of rebels in their endeavours at flight falling into the hands of our troops, many of their own numbers being killed. Our force increased by the arrival of reinforcements from Cawnpore, and by that of 10,000 Ghoorkas under Jung Bahadur, the advent of the latter causing some interest, and not a little amusement, dirty and untidy, flat-faced, small-sized as they were, their guns drawn by men instead of horses, their whole aspect more suited to dramatic effect than for such work as was then in progress.

On March 11 the Begum Kotee was stormed and captured by a combined force of 93rd Highlanders, 4th Sikhs, and Ghoorkas, the losses sustained by the assailants being on the occasion very heavy in both men and officers. In the afternoon of next day, the 10th, led by Colonel Fenwick, occupied the position thus so gallantly won. Everywhere around signs indicated the deadly nature of the struggle that had taken place during its assault. Bodies of defenders, bleeding and mangled, lay in heaps; some were being thrown pell-mell into a V-shaped ditch, down, then up the sides of which our troops had in the first instance to scramble, while exposed to terrific fire by the defenders. As we entered, our artillery hastened to prepare for its further work of bombarding at close quarters. During the night we bivouacked within the city. On the 13th, the 10th forced its way against severe opposition directly through the city towards the Kaiser Bagh, while other portions of the troops were similarly at work from other directions. Again, as night closed in after a day of most arduous work and heavy list of casualties among our numbers, the 10th bivouacked in streets and gardens wrested from their sepoy occupants. On the 14th the regiment went on with its work of conquest, heavy fire from roofs and loopholes bringing to earth, now one, then another, and another of our men as we continued to advance. At last the Kaiser Bagh was reached; it was quickly entered by Captain Annesly at the head of his company, by means of a gateway first detected by Havelock, then adjutant of the 10th; thus the central point within the city, held by the rebels, was now in the hands of our troops.

At a short distance from that position, and partly hidden by other buildings, were the ruins of what had until the previous day been the residence of the notorious Moulvie,185 by whose orders, in the earlier days of the mutiny, several of our countrymen and countrywomen who had fallen into the hands of the rebels were put to death. As our troops now entered the enclosure within which those ruins stood, they came upon two gory heads of British soldiers, who had during recent operations been captured by the rebels. The Moulvie had, however, escaped, but was known to be in the still unsubdued part of the city, whence he exerted command over the rebels yet actively engaged against our forces.

A communication of romantic and pathetic interest now reached the more advanced portion of our force. It detailed the fact that two ladies186 were in the hands of the rebels, their lives threatened, their position in other respects one of serious danger; it urged those into whose hands it might fall to press onwards to their rescue. As subsequently transpired, those ladies were held prisoners by Wajid Ali, and by him treated with some degree of consideration, so much so that suspicion was brought upon him in respect to his fidelity to the rebel cause. He it was also who sent, by the hand of his brother, to the nearest British officer, the letter alluded to. Instantly on receipt of it, Captain McNeil and Lieutenant Bogle, at the head of a rescue party of Ghoorkas, started under the guidance of the bearer of the letter. The house in which the ladies were was quickly reached; the two captives were placed in doolies, and together with their protector escorted, not without much difficulty and risk, to the camp of General Macgregor.

While these operations were in progress, one or other regimental surgeon was constantly with the fighting line, rendering what aid was practicable to those struck down; and here it is well to mention that whenever officer or soldier felt himself wounded, his first call was “for the doctor.” Nor is it to be questioned that the moral effect of our presence was very considerable; the presence of a hand to succour imparted confidence.

As soon as practicable, the wounded were withdrawn to our hospital tents, and there their injuries more particularly attended to. While work in front was in progress, and as a consequence that in hospital was most active, I was on an occasion occupied during twilight in so affording aid to a wounded soldier just brought in, myself on my knees on the ground and leaning over him. A touch on my shoulder, and then in a soldier’s voice, “Here, sir, put that in your haversack,” the action accompanying the word, and the man passed on his way, my attention too much occupied to observe his appearance. When work was done and I returned to my tent, I examined my haversack; I found therein a brick of silver, of sufficient size to make, as subsequently it did, a tea and coffee service, the donor remaining unknown. The circumstance is noted, as in contrast to that already mentioned, in which an officer was concerned.

A visit to the Martinière revealed the effects of recent operations against that building; statues and other works of art dilapidated, broken, and in ruins; doors and other woodwork torn and split, walls, ceilings, corridors injured in every possible way, large masses of débris at particular places indicating those upon which shot and shell had been most heavily directed. From the summit of the building we traced the route by which, in the previous October, the relieving force had effected its advance, together with some of the buildings historically associated with that gallant feat, including the Yellow House, Secundra Bagh, Mess House, and Motee Mahal.

In our field hospital the wreck of our “glorious victory” was to be seen in plenty; officers and soldiers, wounded, maimed, or in various instances terribly burnt and disfigured by explosions; many groaning in their agony, others placidly bearing their sufferings, a few unconscious to pain, the death-rattle in their throats – all arranged on pallets, and far less comfortably seen to than were their comrades fortunate enough to be taken into their own regimental hospitals.

The streets along which the 10th had so recently forced its way to the Kaiser Bagh presented a scene of utter devastation: walls blackened, loopholed, shattered with shot-holes of various sizes, the buildings roofless and tenantless except by dead bodies gashed or torn by bullets, their cotton-wadded clothing burning, sickening odours therefrom contaminating the air; heaps of débris everywhere, furniture, utensils and dead bodies, all mixed up together; breaches made by heavy guns to make way for advancing infantry, round shot by which they had been effected; domes, at one time gilded and otherwise ornamental, but now dilapidated and charred; costly furniture, oil paintings once of great value, ornamental glass and china strewed about, and everywhere to be seen; ornamental garden lakes black from gunpowder cast into them; the gardens trodden down, mosaic work of cisterns broken into fragments. At Secundra Bagh, where on November 16 some two thousand sepoys perished at the hands of the 53rd and 93rd Regiments, the bones of the slain, now, four months after the event, lay in heaps, a heavy odour of decomposition pervading the enclosure.

At the Residency a deep irregular-shaped pit immediately outside the Bailee Guard marked the spot where, in the latter days of the memorable siege, the rebels had prepared their mine against the defenders of that position; inside and close to the same entrance were the remains of the countermine by which the operations connected with the former were detected, and itself sprung upon the besiegers. The door of that gateway, penetrated and torn by bullets; buildings roofless and bespattered with shot-marks, including that where ladies and children spent the eighty-five days to which the siege extended, and that in which Sir Henry Lawrence received his death-wound, – the whole presenting an epitome of what war implies, not to be forgotten.

For some time after Lucknow was virtually in the power of our force desultory fights continued to occur at places in and around the city. In the portions actually held by our troops, isolated men occasionally fell by a rebel bullet. Among other casualties, two officers had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the sepoys, by whom they were put to death, and their heads, so report said, borne away as trophies.

No sooner had the principal positions held by the rebels been captured from them than their flight from the city began, at first in small bodies, but rapidly increasing in numbers as channels of egress became known among them. Although without artillery, considerable numbers carried their small arms, while others were content to abandon everything, and seek only their own safety. One armed body of the fugitives, while endeavouring to get away in the direction of the Alumbagh, was fallen upon by our troops and severely dealt with; in other directions, however, the fact became known that large bodies effected their escape without being attacked, in places where no special difficulties intervened, – nor did explanation of the circumstance transpire.

Several field columns were immediately organized and dispatched along different routes known or believed to have been taken by the escaped rebels. Years afterwards the gallant services performed by one of those columns187 were detailed in a published Biography. Other bodies found their way to the neighbourhood of Azimghur and there united with a considerable force of their brethren, which had on March 21 defeated a small body of British troops at Atrowlea, obliging it to retire within entrenchments at the first-named city.

CHAPTER XVI

1858. THE AZIMGHUR FIELD FORCE

The force extemporised – Jounpore – Tigra – Azimghur – Prestige – Casualties – Pursuing column – Mr. Venables – Night march – Painful news – Ghazepore – Recross the Ganges – Arrah – Preparations – Beheea – Jugdispore – Resting – Jungle fight – Chitowrah – Heat and exhaustion – Work under difficulties – Our commissariat lost – Peroo – Bivouac – Return to camp – Threatened attack – Village destroyed – Our physical condition – Dhuleeppore – Preparing for attack – Guns recaptured – A sad duty performed – Sick and wounded – Messenger mutilated – Keishwa – Slaughter – Force to Buxar – Non-effectives – The force ceases to exist – General orders, thanks, and batta.