The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8

The native informant, above adverted to, states that when Nena Sahib found the mutineers about to depart to Delhi, ‘he represented to the native officers that it would not be correct to proceed towards Delhi until they had entirely destroyed the officers and European soldiers, and women and children of the Christian religion; and that they should, if possible, by deceiving the officers, accomplish this grand object, or they would be good for nothing.’ Such words were certainly consistent with the machinations of a villain who sought a terrible revenge for some injury, real or pretended; but they do not the less illustrate the remarkable subtlety and secretiveness of the Hindoo character, so long concealing a deadly hatred under a friendly exterior. This same native, who was in Cawnpore at the time, further said: ‘In the city it was as if the day of judgment had come, when the sepoys of the infantry and the troopers of the cavalry, the jingling of whose sword-scabbards and the tread of whose horses’ feet resounded on all sides, proceeded with guns of various sizes, and ammunition, from the magazine through the suburbs of Cawnpore towards the intrenchment.’ In relation to the conduct of native servants of the Company on that day, Mr Shepherd said: ‘None of the native writers, Bengalees and others in government offices or merchants’ employ, went into the intrenchment; they remained in the city, where they appear to have received much annoyance from the mutineers; and some had to hide themselves to save their lives. The (native) commissariat contractors’ [those who supplied provisions and stores for the troops, ordered and paid for by the head commissary] ‘all discontinued their supplies from the 6th; or rather, were unable to bring them in, from the way the mutineers surrounded the intrenchment on all sides, permitting no ingress or egress at any time except under cover of night.’ Those natives must, in truth, have been placed in a perplexing position, between employers whom they wished to serve but could not, and rebels who sought to tamper with their honesty.

Another day broke, revealing a further strengthening of the rebels’ attack. They increased their number of guns, four of which were 24-pounders; and with the shot from these guns not only were many valuable men struck down, but the walls and verandahs of the hospitals pierced, spreading terror among the helpless inmates. There was but one well within the intrenchment; and so hot was the fire from without, that, to use the words of Mr Shepherd, ‘it was as much as giving a man’s life-blood to go and draw a bucket of water; and while there was any water remaining in the large jars, usually kept in the verandah for the soldiers’ use, nobody ventured to the well; but after the second day, the demand became so great that a bheestee bag of water was with difficulty got for five rupees, and a bucket for a rupee. Most of the servants deserted, and it therefore became a matter of necessity for every person to fetch his own water, which was usually done during the night, when the enemy could not well direct their shots.’ What was the degree of thirst borne under these circumstances, none but the forlorn garrison could ever know. As there was no place under which to shelter live cattle, some of the animals were let loose, and others slaughtered; entailing a necessary exhaustion of meat-rations after three or four days. The commissariat servants, however, now and then managed to get hold of a stray bullock or cow near the intrenchment at night, which served for a change. Not only was it difficult to obtain suitable food to eat, but the native servants took every opportunity to escape, and the cooking was in consequence conducted under very sorry conditions.

The tale of accumulated suffering need not, and indeed cannot, be followed day by day: several days must be grouped together, and the general character of the incidents noted – so far as authentic recitals furnish the materials. Meat, as has just been intimated, soon became scarce; hogsheads of rum and malt liquor were frequently burst by cannon-balls, but the supply still remained considerable; chupatties and rice were the chief articles of food for all. The English found their troubles increase in every way: the rebels at first fired only cannon on them; but by degrees, after burning the English church and all other buildings around and near the intrenchment, the sepoys masked themselves behind the ruined walls, and kept up an almost incessant fire of musketry, shooting down many who might have escaped the cannon-balls. There were seven unfinished barracks outside the intrenchment, three of them at about a furlong distance. These were scenes of many an exciting encounter. Captain Moore of the 32d foot, a gallant and intrepid officer, often encountered the rebels near those places. He would send some of his men, with field-telescopes, to watch the position of the enemy’s guns, from the roof of one of the barracks, as a guidance for the besieged; and as soon as these men were attacked, a handful of gallant companions would rush out of the intrenchment, and drive off the assailants with a fire of musketry. The enemy having no cannon on this side, a sort of drawn battle ensued: the besiegers holding three or four of the barracks, and the besieged maintaining a hold of the three nearest to the intrenchment After a while, the enemy brought one gun round to this quarter; but twenty English made a sortie at midnight on the 11th, spiked the gun, and returned safely. Whenever fighting on anything like terms of equality took place, the European troops proved themselves a match for many times their number of natives; but any daring achievements for effectual liberation were rendered nugatory by the presence of so many helpless women and children, whose safety was the first thought in the minds of the men, whether civilians or military. Numbers of the poor creatures died within the first week, from illness, heat, fright, want of room, want of proper food and care. In the obituary of many an English newspaper, when news of the terrible calamity had crossed the ocean, might be read that such a one, probably an officer’s wife, had ‘died in the intrenchment at Cawnpore;’ what that intrenchment meant, few readers knew, and fewer knew what sufferings had preceded the death. The dead bodies were thrown into a well outside the intrenchment, lest they should engender disease by any mode of burial within the crowded and stifling enclosure; and even this sad office could only be rendered under a shower of shot and shell. ‘The distress was so great,’ says Mr Shepherd, ‘that none could offer a word of consolation to his friend, or attempt to administer to the wants of each other. I have seen the dead bodies of officers, and tenderly brought-up young ladies of rank (colonels’ and captains’ daughters), put outside the verandah amongst the rest, to await the time when the fatigue-party usually went round to carry the dead to the well; for there was scarcely room to shelter the living.’

During all these days, Cawnpore itself, and the country between it and the intrenchment, became prey to a marauding host of sepoys, liberated prisoners, and ruffians of every kind. The native before adverted to, one Nujeer Jewarree, referring to this period, said: ‘In whatever shop the sepoys entered to ask for sugar or rice, they plundered everything belonging to the citizen that they could find; so much so, that plunder and oppression were the order of the day. Every violent man did what came into his mind; and the troopers got possession of a note, the value of which amounted to twenty-five thousand rupees, belonging to Eman-u-Dowlah and Bakir Ali. One troop, or thereabouts, left the cantonment and proceeded to the buildings in which the civil and revenue and judicial courts were held, and commenced firing them. In the city and gardens there was so much villainy committed that travelling became dangerous, and to kill a man was quite easy. They (the marauders) committed deeds of oppression and plundered each other; some forcibly cut the grain out of the fields, and others were occupied in picking up plundered property. He then spoke of the houses and offices of certain English merchants and traders – Greenway, Crump, Mackintosh, Reid, Marshall, Kirk, &c. – and of the ‘lacs’ of treasure that were plundered from each; too vaguely estimated to be relied on in detail, but evidently denoting a scene of unscrupulous pillage. Another native, Nerput, presently to be noticed more particularly, said: ‘Zemindars of the neighbourhood are fighting among themselves in payment of old quarrels; sepoys, making for their homes with plundered treasure, have been deprived of their plunder, and, if any opposition is made, immediately murdered. Such few Europeans as had remained beyond the intrenchment, were caught and put to death.’

The native authority just referred to states (although the statement is not confirmed by Mr Shepherd), that on the 9th of June Sir Hugh Wheeler sent a message to Nena Sahib, demanding why he had thus turned against the English, who had hitherto been treated by him in a friendly spirit; and why he was causing the death of innocent women and children – to which the Nena gave no other reply than from the cannon’s mouth.

One day was so much like another, after the actual commencement of the siege, that the various narrators make little attempt to record the particular events of each. Every day brought its miseries, until the cup nearly overflowed. The food was lessening; the water was difficult to obtain; strength was sinking; lives were being rapidly lost; the miscreant rebels were accumulating in greater and greater number outside the intrenchment; the two buildings were becoming every day more and more riddled with shot; the wounded had their wretchedness increased by the absence of almost everything needful to the comfort of the sick; the hearts of the men were wrung with anguish at seeing the sufferings borne by the women; and the women found their resolution and patience terribly shaken when they saw their innocent little ones dying from disease and want.

A scene was presented on the 13th that filled every one with horror. The officers and their families had hitherto lived chiefly in tents, within the intrenchment; but the rebels now began to fire red-hot shot, which not only necessitated the removal of the tents, but ignited the thatch-roof of one of the two hospitals. This building contained the wives and children of the common soldiers, and the sick and wounded. The flames spread so rapidly, and the dire confusion among the wretched creatures was such, that forty of the helpless invalids were burned to death before aid could reach them. The rebels appeared to have calculated on all the men within the intrenchment rushing to save the victims from the flames, leaving the besiegers to enter with musket and sword; and so threatening was the attack, so close the approach of the enemy, that the Europeans were forced to remain watchful at their frail earthen defence-work, despite their wish to rescue the shrieking sufferers in the hospital. Nearly all the medicines and the surgical instruments were at the same time destroyed by the fire, affording a hopeless prospect to those who might afterwards fall ill or be wounded. The rebels by this time amounted to four thousand in number, and their attacks increased in frequency and closeness; but the besieged had not yielded an inch; every man within the intrenchment, a few only excepted, was intrusted with five or six muskets, all of which were kept ready loaded, to pour a fire into any insurgents who advanced within musket-shot. Bayonets and swords were also ready at hand, for those who could use them. The condition of every one was rendered more deplorable than before by this day’s calamity; the fire had wrought such mischief that many of the men, who had until then occasionally sheltered themselves under a roof for a few hours at a time, were now forced to remain permanently in the open air, exposed to a fierce Indian sun at a date only one week before the summer solstice. That many were struck down by coup de soleil at such a time may well be conceived. The poor ladies, too, and the wives of the soldiers, were rendered more desolate and comfortless than ever, by the destruction of much of their clothing during the fire, as well as of many little domestic comforts which they had contrived to bring with them in their hurried flight from their homes in the city or the cantonment.

What transpired outside the intrenchment, none of the captives knew; and even at later times it was difficult to ascertain the real truth. The native chronicler already referred to speaks of many deeds of cruelty, but without affording means of verification. On one day, he says, a family was seen approaching from the west in a carriage; the husband was at once killed; the others, ‘one lady and one grown-up young lady and three children,’ were brought before the Nena, who ordered them to be instantly put to death. ‘The lady begged the Nena to spare her life; but this disgraceful man would not in any way hearken to her, and took them all into the plain. At that time the sun was very hot, and the lady said: “The sun is very hot, take me into the shade;” but no one listened. On four sides the children were catching hold of their mother’s gown and saying: “Mamma, come to the bungalow and give me some bread and water.” At length, having been tied hand to hand, and made to stand up on the plain, they were shot down by pistol-bullets.’ This story, touching amid all its quaintness of recital, was probably quite true in its main features. Another lady, whom he calls the wife of Mukan Sahib, merchant, and who had been hiding for four or five days in the garden of her bungalow, ‘came out one evening, and was discovered. She had through fear changed her appearance by putting on an Hindustani bodice, and folding a towel around her head. She was taken before the Nena, who ordered her to be killed. The writer of this journal having gone in person, saw the head of that lady cut off, and presented as a nazir (gift of royalty).’ There can be no question that the vicinity of Cawnpore was at that time in a frightful state. Not only were mutinous sepoys and sowars engaged in hostilities against the ‘Feringhees,’ whom they had so lately served, and whose ‘salt’ they had eaten; but many of the ambitious petty rajahs and chieftains took advantage of the anarchy to become leaders on their own special account; plunderers and released prisoners were displaying all their ferocious recklessness; while timid, sneaking villagers, too cowardly to be openly aggressive, were in many instances quite willing to look complacently at deeds of savage brutality, if those deeds might leave a little loot, or plunder, as their share. Consequently, when any English refugees from other towns passed that way, their chance of safety was small indeed.

Before tracing the course of events in the intrenchment during the third week in June, we must advert to another calamity. The griefs and sufferings endured by the English soldiers and residents at Cawnpore did not fill up the measure of Nena Sahib’s iniquity. Another stain rests on his name in connection with the fate of an unfortunate body of fugitives from Futteghur. It is an episode in the great Cawnpore tragedy; and must be narrated in this place, in connection with the events of the month.

Futteghur, as will be seen by reference to a map, is situated higher up the Ganges than Cawnpore, near Furruckabad. Practically, it is not so much a distinct town, as the military station or cantonment for the place last named. Furruckabad itself is a city of sixty thousand inhabitants; handsome, cleaner, and more healthy than most Indian cities, carrying on a considerable trading and banking business, and standing in the centre of a fertile and cultivated region. It has no other fortifications than a sort of mud-fort connected with the native nawab’s residence. When this nawab became, like many others, a stipendiary of the modern rulers of India, the British built a military cantonment at Futteghur, about three miles distant, on the right bank of the river. Towards the close of May, Futteghur contained the 10th regiment Bengal native infantry, together with a few other native troops. Among the chief English officers stationed there, were General Goldie, Colonels Smith and Tucker; Majors Robertson, Phillot, and Munro; Captains Phillimore and Vibert; Lieutenants Simpson, Swettenham, and Fitzgerald; and Ensigns Henderson and Eckford. The troops displayed much insubordination as the month closed; and on the 3d of June the symptoms were so threatening, that it was deemed prudent to arrange for sending off the women and children for safety to Cawnpore – in ignorance that the Europeans in that city were in a still more perilous state. Boats had already been procured, and held in readiness for any such exigency. On the next day the 10th infantry exhibited such ominous signs of mutiny, that a large party of the English at once took to their boats. After a short voyage, finding the natives on the banks of the Ganges likely to be troublesome, the fugitives resolved on separating themselves into two parties; one, headed by Mr Probyn, the Company’s collector, and consisting of about forty persons, sought refuge with a friendly zemindar named Herden Buksh, living about twelve miles from Futteghur, on the Oude side of the river; while the other party proceeded on the voyage down the Ganges to Cawnpore. This last-named party amounted to more than a hundred and twenty persons, nearly all non-combatants; missionaries, merchants, indigo planters, estate stewards, agents, collectors, clerks, shopkeepers, schoolmasters, post and dâk agents – such were the male members of this hapless band of fugitives; most of them had wives; and the children far exceeded the adults in number. It is pitiable, knowing as we now know the fate that was in store for them, to read such entries as the following, in a list of the occupants of the boats – ‘Mr and Mrs Elliott and five children;’ ‘Mr and Mrs Macklin and eight children;’ ‘Mr and Mrs Palmer and nine children.’

So few persons survived from Futteghur, that it is not certain at what places and on what days they separated into parties; nor how many lives were lost on the way; but there is evidence that while some pursued their way down the Ganges without much interruption until they reached Bithoor, others went back to Futteghur. This retrograde movement was due to two causes; for while, on the one hand, the officers trusted to a report that the sepoys had returned to a sense of their duty; Herden Buksh, on the other, was threatened by the Oude mutineers if he harboured any of the English. We will follow the fortunes of this second party. From about the 12th to the 18th of June there was a lull in the station; but on the last-named day the 10th infantry broke out in earnest, and being joined by the mutinous 41st from the other side of the Ganges, seized the treasure and threatened the officers. There were about a hundred Europeans now in the place; and as the river was at the time too low to render a boat-voyage to Cawnpore safe, it was resolved to defend a post or fort at Futteghur, and there remain till succour arrived. Out of the hundred there were scarcely more than thirty fighting-men, so numerous were the women and children; nevertheless, Colonel Smith, of the 10th, organised the whole, and prepared for the worst. He had a fair store both of ammunition and of food within the fort. Until the 4th of July they maintained a manly struggle against the mutineers, holding their fort until they could hold it no longer. Colonel Tucker and one of the civil officers were shot in the head while acting as artillerymen; General Goldie was slightly wounded, as was likewise one of his daughters; and many other casualties occurred. The besieged had great difficulty in making a covered-way to protect their servants, to enable them to pass to and fro with the meals for the ladies and children, who were collected in a room or godown overlooked by a two-storied house held by the insurgents. Then commenced a voyage full of miseries, in boats that contained all the Europeans still remaining at that spot. First the rebels fired on the boats as they rowed along; then one of the boats ran aground; then a boatful of rebels approached, and the ladies in the stranded boat jumped overboard to avoid capture. Death by bullets, death by drowning, took place every hour; and the fugitives were thrown into such dire confusion that none could help the rest. Some crept on shore, and wandered about the fields to escape detection; others found shelter under friendly roofs; one boat-load succeeded in prosecuting their voyage down to Cawnpore, or rather Bithoor.

There were thus two sets of Futteghur fugitives; one that reached the clutches of the Nena towards the middle of June; the other, much smaller, that was spared that fate until the middle of July. So complete was the destruction of both, however; so sweeping the death-stroke hurled against them by Nena Sahib, that the details of their fate have been but imperfectly recorded. Towards the close of June, Mr Court and Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received information touching the events at Cawnpore from a native named Nerput, an opium gomashta or agent at the last-named city; he gave them or sent them a narrative written in Persian, portions of which were afterwards translated and published among the official papers. Nerput was one of the few who wrote concerning the arrival of the first party of Futteghur fugitives at Cawnpore. Under the date of June the 12th he said: ‘Report that Europeans were coming in boats to relieve Cawnpore; and two companies sent westward to make inquiries. They found that a hundred and twenty-six men, women, and children, were in boats, sick.’ Another narrative of the Futteghur calamity simply states, that when the unhappy fugitives arrived at the part of the Ganges opposite Bithoor, Nena Sahib ‘stopped their boats, brought the fugitives on shore, and shot every one. He then tied their bodies together, and threw them into the river.’ A native resident at Cawnpore, who was examined a few weeks afterwards by Colonel Neill concerning his knowledge of the atrocities committed by the rajah, and of the sufferings borne by the English, gave an account of the Futteghur catastrophe corresponding nearly with those derived from other quarters. He states that on the 12th of June, just as the customary daily cannonading of the intrenchment was about to recommence, a report came in that Europeans were approaching from the west. Immediately a troop of cavalry and two companies of infantry were sent to reconnoitre (probably to the vicinity of Bithoor). There were found three boats, containing about a hundred and thirty men, women, and children. ‘The troopers seized them all and took them to the Nena, who ordered that they should all be killed; and sundry Rampoorie troopers of the Mussulmans of the 2d Cavalry, whom the Nena kept with him for the express purpose, killed them all. Among them was a young lady, the daughter of some general. She addressed herself much to the Nena, and said: “No king ever committed such oppression as you have, and in no religion is there any order to kill women and children. I do not know what has happened to you. Be well assured that by this slaughter the English will not become less; whoever may remain will have an eye upon you.” But the Nena paid no attention, and shewed her no mercy; he ordered that she should be killed, and that they should fill her hands with powder and kill her by the explosion.’

The fate of the second party of fugitives from Futteghur will be noticed presently. We must return now to the unfortunate occupants of the intrenchment at Cawnpore.

When three weeks of the month of June had transpired, the rebels, joined by a number of ruffians who had crossed over the Ganges from Oude, made a more determined effort than ever to capture the intrenchment; they had made the subadar-major of the 1st N. I. a sort of general over them; and he swore to vanquish the weakened garrison, or die in the attempt. They brought large bales of cotton, which they rolled along the ground, and approached in a crouching position under cover of these bales, firing their muskets at intervals. About a hundred sepoys thus advanced within a hundred and fifty yards of the intrenchment, backed up by a strong body, who seemed bent on storming the position. In this, as in every former attempt, they failed; their leader was struck down, nearly two hundred were killed or wounded by a fire of grape-shot, and the rest driven back to their former distance. At the very same time, contests were maintained on all sides of the enclosure; for what with musketeers in the unfinished barracks, guns and mortars in four different directions, and rifle-pits approached under cover of zigzags, the rebels maintained a tremendous fire upon the besieged. Wheeler’s guns, under a gallant young officer, St George Ashe, were manned at all hours, loaded and fired with great quickness and precision, and pointed in such directions as might produce most mischief among the enemy. But the contest was unequal in this as in most other particulars; one gun after another was disabled by the more powerful artillery of the insurgents – until the eight were reduced to six, then to four, three, and at last two. As the forlorn garrison became weaker and weaker, so did the heroic men redouble their exertions in defence. One day a shot from the enemy blew up an ammunition-wagon within the intrenchment; and then it became a question of terrible import how to prevent the other wagons from being ignited. Lieutenant Delafosse, a young officer of the once trusted but now disloyal 53d, ran forward, laid himself down under the wagons, picked up and threw aside the burning fragments, and covered the flaming portions with handfuls of earth – all the while subject to a fearful cannonading from a battery of six guns, aimed purposely by the enemy at that spot! Two soldiers ran to him, with two buckets of water; and all three succeeded in rescuing the other ammunition-wagons from peril, and in returning from the dangerous spot in safety.