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

Ferozpore was not so happily managed as Lahore and Umritsir in this exciting and perilous week; either because the materials were less suitable to work upon, or because the mode of treatment was not so well adapted to the circumstances. Ferozpore is not actually in the Punjaub; it is one of the towns in Sirhind, or the Cis-Sutlej states – small in size and somewhat mean in appearance, but important through its position near the west bank of the Sutlej, and the large fort it comprises. In the middle of May, this station contained H.M. 61st foot, the 45th and 57th Bengal native infantry, the 10th Bengal native cavalry, about 150 European artillery, and one light-horse field-battery, with six field-guns – a large force, not required for Ferozpore itself, but to control the district of which it was the centre. Ferozpore had been the frontier British station before the annexation of the Punjaub, and had continued to be supplied with an extensive magazine of military stores. When Brigadier Innes heard on the 12th of May of the mutiny at Meerut, he ordered all the native troops on parade, that he and his officers might, if possible, judge of their loyalty by their demeanour. The examination was in great part, though not wholly, satisfactory. At noon on the 13th the disastrous news from Delhi arrived. The intrenched magazine within the fort was at that time guarded by a company of the 57th; and the brigadier, rendered somewhat uneasy on this matter, planned a new disposition of the troops. There had been many ‘cartridge’ meetings held among the men, and symptoms appeared that a revolt was intended. The relative positions of all the military were as follows: In the middle of the fort was the intrenched magazine, guarded as just stated; outside the fort, on the west, were the officers’ bungalows and the official buildings; still further to the west were the sepoy lines of the 45th and 57th; northward of these lines were the artillery barracks; still further north were the lines of the cavalry; south of the fort were the barracks of the European regiment; on the north of the fort was the Sudder Bazaar; while eastward of it was an open place or maîdan. The brigadier sought to avert danger by separating the two native regiments; but the Queen’s 61st, by the general arrangements of the cantonment, were too far distant to render the proper service at the proper moment. The 45th were to be removed to an open spot northeast of the cantonment, and the 57th to another open space on the south, two miles distant; the native cavalry were to take up a position near their own lines; the 61st were to encamp near the south wall of the fort; while one company, with artillery and guns, was to be placed within the fort. After a parade of the whole force, on the afternoon of the 13th, each corps was ordered to the camping-ground allotted for it. The 57th obeyed at once, but some companies of the 45th, while marching through the bazaar, refused to go any further, stopped, loaded their muskets, and prepared for resistance; they ran towards the fort, clambered over a dilapidated part of the ramparts, and advanced towards the magazine, where scaling-ladders were thrown over to them by a company of the 57th who had been on guard inside. This clearly shewed complicity to exist. A short but severe conflict ensued. Captain Lewis and Major Redmond had only a few Europeans with them, but they promptly attacked the mutineers, drove out the 45th, and made prisoners the treacherous guard of the 57th. All was now right in the fort and magazine, but not in the cantonment. About two hundred men of the 45th commenced a system of burning and looting; officers’ bungalows, mess-houses, hospitals, the church – all were fired. Many isolated acts of heroism were performed by individual Europeans, but no corps was sent against the ruffians. Fortunately, a powder-magazine beyond the cavalry lines, containing the enormous quantity of three hundred thousand pounds of gunpowder, did not fall into the hands of the rebels; it might have done so, for no preparations had been made to defend it. All this time the Queen’s troops chafed at their enforced inaction; their camping-ground had been so badly chosen that they dared not in a body attack the 45th lest the 57th should in the meantime surprise them in the rear; and there is no evidence that they were ordered to do what any English regiment would cheerfully have undertaken – divide into two wings, each to confront a whole regiment of sepoys. During the night and the following morning nearly all the sepoys decamped, some with arms and some without. Ferozpore was saved for the present; but mutinous proceedings were encouraged at Jullundur, Jelum, and Sealkote, by the escape of the 45th and 57th; and the brigadier fell into disgrace for his mismanagement of this affair. He had only just arrived to take command of that station, and it may be that he was on this account less able to judge correctly the merits or demerits of the forces placed at his disposal.

Jullundur, which gives name to the Jullundur Doab between the Sutlej and the Beas, is another of this group of stations. It is situated on the high road from Umballa and Umritsir to Lahore; and was formerly the capital of an Afghan dynasty in the Punjaub. Although shorn of much of its former greatness, it is still an important and flourishing town, with forty thousand inhabitants. Jullundur received the news from Meerut on the 11th of May, and immediately precautionary measures were taken. Brigadier-general Johnstone, the commandant, being absent at the time, a plan was at once formed by Colonel Hartley of H.M. 8th foot, and Captain Farrington, the deputy-commissioner, and agreed to by all the other officers. The station at that time contained H.M. 8th foot, the 6th light cavalry, the 36th and 61st native infantry, and one troop of horse-artillery. The chief officers in command were Colonels Longfield and Hartley, Majors Barton, Innes, and Olpherts, and Captain Faddy. When the telegraph of the 12th of May confirmed the Meerut news of the 11th, it was resolved at once to control the native troops at Jullundur, and to disarm them if mutinous symptoms should appear. Part of the Queen’s troops were marched into the artillery lines; the guns were pointed at the lines of the native regiments in such a way as to render the sepoys and sowars somewhat uneasy; two field-guns were kept with horses ready harnessed for movement; careful patrolling was maintained during the night; and the ladies and children were safely if not comfortably placed in barracks and rooms guarded by their own countrymen. Captain Farrington was placed in charge of the civil lines, the public buildings, and the town generally; and most fortunate was it for him, and the English generally, that the native Rajah of Jullundur, Rundheer Singh Alloowalla, remained friendly. This prince had been deprived of part of his territory at the period of the annexation of the Punjaub, but the deprivation had not rendered him hostile to his powerful superiors; he promptly aided Farrington with guns and men, instead of throwing in his lot with the mutineers. Jullundur, like Lahore, Umritsir, and Ferozpore, was saved for the present.

Phillour, the fifth station in this remarkable group, was in one sense more perilously placed than any of the others, owing to its nearer proximity to the mutineers of Meerut and Delhi. It stands on the right bank of the Sutlej, on the great high road from Umballa and Loodianah to Umritsir and Lahore. Phillour is of no account as a town, but of great importance as a military station on the frontier of the Punjaub, and as commanding the passage of the grand trunk-road across the Sutlej. At the time of the mutiny it had a magazine containing a vast supply of warlike material, without any European troops whatever. The adjoining cantonment contained one native regiment, of which one company guarded the fort and magazine. The military authorities all over the Punjaub and Sirhind well knew that Phillour contained munitions of war that would be most perilous in the hands of mutineers. Lieutenant Hildebrand, as was lately stated, was sent from Lahore with a company of artillery to Phillour; but he stopped on the way to aid the operations at Umritsir. When the news from Meerut arrived, Colonel Butler made such precautionary arrangements as he could at the lines, while Lieutenant Griffith looked watchfully after the fort and arsenal. Securing the telegraph, in order that the sepoys of the 3d native infantry might not tamper with it, they communicated with Jullundur, and were rejoiced to find that a small force was about to be despatched from that place for their relief. As soon as the authorities at the last named station became aware of the insurgent proceedings, they determined, besides attending to the safety of their own station, to aid Phillour; they sent a telegraphic officer to make such arrangements as would keep the wire in working order; they sent a message to Loodianah, to warn the deputy-commissioner to guard the bridge of boats across the Sutlej; and they sent a small but compact force to Phillour. This force consisted of a detachment of the Queen’s 8th foot, two horse-artillery guns, spare men and horses for the artillery, and a small detachment of the 2d Punjaub cavalry. Knowing that this welcome force was on the road, Colonel Butler and Lieutenant Griffith sought to maintain tranquillity in Phillour during the night; they closed the fort-gate at sunset; they placed a loaded light field-piece just within the gate, with port-fires kept burning; and the little band of Europeans remained on watch all night. At daybreak their succour arrived; the force from Jullundur, commanded by Major Baines and Lieutenants Sankey, Dobbin, and Probyn, marched the twenty-four miles of distance without a single halt. The guns and cavalry, being intended only as an escort on the road, and to aid in recovering the fort in the event of its having been captured by the sepoys during the night, returned to Jullundur, together with fifty of the infantry. The actual reinforcement, therefore, was about a hundred of H.M. 8th foot, and a few gunners to work the fort-guns if necessary. The little garrison opened the fort-gates to admit this reinforcement – much to the dismay of the sepoys in the cantonment; for, as was afterwards ascertained, a plot had been formed whereby the fort was to be quietly taken possession of on the 15th of the month, and used as a rendezvous for the sepoy regiments in the Punjaub, when they had risen in mutiny, and formed a system of tactics in reference to the great focus of rebellion at Delhi.

Thus were the days from the 11th to the 14th of May days of critical importance in the eastern part of the Punjaub. Evidence almost conclusive was obtained that the 15th was intended to have been a day of grand mutiny among the Bengal sepoys stationed in that region: the regimental officers knew nothing of this; some of them would not believe it, even at the time of the disarming; but the current of belief tended in that direction afterwards. There is very little doubt, as already implied, that the Meerut outbreak occurred before the plans were ready elsewhere; that event seemed to the British, and rightly so, a dreadful one; but, if delayed five days, it would probably have been followed by the shedding of an amount of European blood frightful to contemplate.

Having noticed the prompt measures taken at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, and Phillour, shortly before the middle of May; it will be useful, before tracing the course of subsequent revolt in some of the eastern Punjaub stations, to attend to the state of affairs in the western division, of which Peshawur was the chief city.

Peshawur was beyond the limits of British India until the annexation of the Punjaub. Situated as it is on the main road from the Indus at Attock to the Indian Caucasus range at the Khyber Pass, it has for ages been regarded as an important military position, commanding one of the gates of India. The Afghans and other Mohammedan tribes generally made their irruptions into India by this route. During the complexities of Indian politics and warfare, Peshawur passed from the hands of the Afghans to those of the Sikhs, and then to the British, who proceeded to make it the head-quarters of a military division. Peshawur had been so ruthlessly treated by Runjeet Singh, after his capture of that place in 1818, that its fine Moslem buildings were mostly destroyed, its commerce damaged, and its population diminished. At present, its inhabitants are believed to be about sixty thousand in number. The fort is very strong; it consists of lofty walls, round towers at the angles, semicircular ravelins in front, faussebraies of substantial towers and walls, a wet ditch, and one only gateway guarded by towers; within the enclosure are capacious magazines and storehouses.

When the mutiny began, the Peshawur division contained about fourteen thousand troops of all arms. A peculiar military system was found necessary in this division, owing to the large proportion of semi-civilised marauders among the inhabitants. The western frontier is hilly throughout, being formed of the Indian Caucasus and the Suliman Range, and being pierced by only a few roads, of which the Khyber Pass and the Bolan Pass are the most famous. These passes and roads are for the most part under the control of hardy mountaineers, who care very little for any regular governments, whether Afghan, Sikh, or British, and who require constant watching. Many of these men had been induced to accept British pay as irregular horsemen; and Colonel (formerly Major) Edwardes acquired great distinction for his admirable management of these rough materials. The fourteen thousand troops in the Peshawur division of the Punjaub comprised about three thousand European infantry and artillery, eight thousand Bengal native infantry, three thousand Bengal native cavalry and artillery, and a few Punjaubees and hill-men. These were stationed at Peshawur, Nowsherah, Hoti Murdan, and the frontier forts at the foot of the hills. Major-general Reid was chief military authority at Peshawur. On the 13th of May he received telegraphic news of the mutiny at Meerut and of the disarming at Lahore, and immediately held a council of war, attended by himself, Brigadiers Cotton and Neville Chamberlain, Colonels Edwardes and Nicholson. Edwardes was chief-commissioner and superintendent of the Peshawur division, besides being a military officer. It was resolved that, as senior military officer in the Punjaub, General Reid should assume chief command, and that his head-quarters should be with those of the Punjaub civil government, at Lahore or elsewhere; while Cotton should command in the Peshawur division. The council also agreed that, besides providing as far as was possible for the safety of each station individually, a ‘movable column’ should be formed at Jelum, a station on the great road about midway between Lahore and Peshawur – ready to move on any point in the Punjaub where mutinous symptoms might appear. This force, it will be seen,30 was made up of a singular variety of troops, comprising all arms of the service, irregulars as well as regulars, Europeans as well as natives; but the Oudian or ‘Poorbeah’ element was almost wholly absent, and by this absence was the efficiency of the column really estimated. Various arrangements were at the same time made for so distributing the European troops as to afford them the best control over the sepoy regiments. At Peshawur itself, the Company’s treasure was sent into the fort for safety, and the Residency was made the head-quarters of the military authorities.

On the 21st of May, news reached Peshawur that the 55th Bengal native infantry – encouraged probably by the withdrawal of the 27th foot from Nowsherah to aid in forming the movable column – had mutinied at Murdan on the preceding day, keeping their officers under strict surveillance, but not molesting them; and that Colonel Spottiswoode, their commander, had put an end to his existence through grief and mortification at this act. The crisis being perilous, it was at once resolved to disarm the native troops at Peshawur, or so much of them as excited most suspicion. This was successfully accomplished on the morning of the 22d – much to the chagrin of the officers of the disbanded regiments, who, here as elsewhere, were among the last to admit the probability of insubordination among their own troops. The 24th, 27th, and 51st regiments of Bengal native infantry, and the 5th of light cavalry, were on this occasion deprived of their arms; and a subadar-major of the 51st was hanged in presence of all his companions in arms. The disarming was effected by a clever distribution of the reliable forces; small parties of European artillery and cavalry being confronted with each regiment, in such way as to prevent aid being furnished by one to another. The men were disarmed, but not allowed to desert, on pain of instant death if caught making the attempt; and they were kept constantly watched by a small force of Europeans, and by a body of irregular troopers who had no sympathy whatever with Hindustanis. This done, a relieving force was at once sent off to Murdan; a step which would have been dangerous while sepoy troops still remained so strong at Peshawur. The small force of Europeans and irregulars was found to be sufficient for this duty; it arrived at Murdan, attacked the mutinous 55th, killed or captured two hundred, and drove the rest away. These misguided insurgents ill calculated the fate in store for them. Knowing that Mohammedan hill-tribes were near at hand, and that those tribes had often been hostile to the English, they counted on sympathy and support, but met with defeat and death. The chivalrous Edwardes, who had so distinguished himself in the Punjaub war, had gained a powerful influence among the half-trained mountaineers on the Afghan border. While the detachment from Peshawur was pursuing and cutting down many of the mutineers, the hill-men were at that very time coming to Edwardes to ask for military employment. These hill-men hated the Brahmins, and had something like contempt for traitors; when, therefore, Edwardes sent them against the mutineers, the latter soon found out their fatal error. ‘The petted sepoy,’ says one who was in the Punjaub at the time, ‘whose every whim had been too much consulted for forty years – who had been ready to murder his officer, to dishonour his officer’s wife, and rip in pieces his officer’s child, sooner than bite the end of a cartridge which he well knew had not been defiled – was now made to eat the bread and drink the water of affliction: to submit at the hazard of his wretched life, which he still tenaciously clung to, to ceremonies the least of which was more damning to his caste than the mastication of a million of fat cartridges.’ Even this was not the end; for the sepoys were brought back to the British cantonment, in fives and tens, and there instantly put to death; no quarter was given to men who shewed neither justice nor mercy to others. There were other forts in the Peshawur Valley similar to that at Murdan, places held by native regiments, in which little or no reliance could be placed. There were four native regiments altogether in these minor forts; and it became necessary to disarm these before the safety of the British could be insured. Peshawur contained its full Asiatic proportion of desperate scoundrels, who would have begun to loot at any symptom of discomfiture of the paramount power.

When this disarming of the native troops at the surrounding forts had been effected, the authorities at Peshawur continued to look sharply after the native troops at this important station. The disarmed 5th irregular cavalry, having refused to go against the 55th at Murdan, were at once and successfully disbanded. By a dexterous manœuvre, the troopers were deprived of horses, weapons, coats, and boots, while the mouths of cannon were gaping at them; they were then sent off in boats down the Indus, with a hint to depart as far as possible from any military stations. The authorities in the Punjaub, like Neill at Benares and Allahabad, believed that mercy to the sepoys would be cruelty to all besides at such a time; they shot, hanged, or blew away from guns with terrible promptness, all who were found to be concerned in mutinous proceedings. On one occasion a letter was intercepted, revealing the fact that three natives of high rank (giving names) were to sit in council on the morrow to decide what to do against the British; a telegraphic message was sent off to Sir John Lawrence, for advice how to act; a message was returned: ‘Let a spy attend and report;’ this was done, and a plot discovered; another question brought back another telegram: ‘Hang them all three;’ and in a quarter of an hour the hanging was completed. The importance of retaining artillery in European hands was strongly felt at Peshawur; to effect this, after many guns had been sent away to strengthen the moving column, a hundred and sixty European volunteers from the infantry were quickly trained to the work, and placed in charge of a horse-battery of six guns, half the number on horseback, and the other half sitting on the guns and wagons – all actively put in training day after day to learn their new duties. Fearful work the European gunners had sometimes to perform. Forty men of the 55th regiment were ‘blown from guns’ in three days. An officer present on the occasion says: ‘Three sides of a square were formed, ten guns pointed outwards, the sentence of the court read, a prisoner bound to each gun, the signal given, and the salvo fired. Such a scene I hope never again to witness – human trunks, heads, arms, legs flying about in all directions. All met their fate with firmness but two; so to save time they were dropped to the ground, and their brains blown out by musketry.’ It sounds strangely to English ears that such a terrible death should occasionally be mentioned as a concession or matter of favour; yet such was the case. Mr Montgomery, judicial commissioner of the Punjaub, issued an address to one of the native regiments, two sepoys of which had been blown away from guns for mutinous conduct. He exhorted them to fidelity, threatened them with the consequences of insubordination, and added: ‘You have just seen two men of your regiment blown from guns. This is the punishment I will inflict on all traitors and mutineers; and your consciences will tell you what punishment they may expect hereafter. These men have been blown from guns, and not hanged, because they were Brahmins, and because I wished to save them from the pollution of the hangman’s touch; and thus prove to you that the British government does not wish to injure your caste and religion.’ The treachery and cruelty of the mutinous sepoys soon dried up all this tenderness as to the mode in which they would prefer to be put to death. We have seen Neill at Cawnpore, after the revelation of the horrors in the slaughter-room, compelling the Brahmin rebels to pollute themselves by wiping up the gore they had assisted to shed, as a means of striking horror into the hearts of miscreant Brahmins elsewhere.

In addition to the severe measures for preserving obedience, other precautions were taken involving no shedding of blood. A new levy of Punjaubee troopers was obtained by Edwardes from the Moultan region; the disarmed sepoys were removed from their lines, and made to encamp in a spot where they could be constantly watched; a land-transport train was organised, for the conveyance of European troops from place to place; the fort was strengthened, provisioned, and guarded against all surprises; the artillery park was defended by an earthwork; and trusty officers were sent out in various directions to obtain recruits for local irregular corps – enlisting men rough in bearing and unscrupulous in morals, but who knew when they were well commanded, and who had no kind of affection for Hindustanis. Thus did Cotton, Edwardes, Nicholson, and the other officers, energetically carry out plans that kept Peshawur at peace, and enabled Sir John Lawrence to send off troops in aid of the force besieging Delhi. Colonel Edwardes, it may here be stated, had been in Calcutta in the month of March; and had there heard that Sikhs in some of the Bengal regiments were taking their discharge, as if foreseeing some plot then in preparation; this confirmed his predilection for Punjaub troops over ‘Poorbeahs.’ The activity in raising troops in the remotest northwest corner of India appears to have been a double benefit to the British; for it provided a serviceable body of hardy troops, and it gratified the natives of the Peshawur Valley. This matter was adverted to in a letter written by Edwardes. ‘This post (Peshawur), so far from being more arduous in future, will be more secure. Events here have taken a wonderful turn. During peace, Peshawur was an incessant anxiety; now it is the strongest point in India. We have struck two great blows – we have disarmed our own troops, and have raised levies of all the people of the country. The troops (sepoys) are confounded; they calculated on being backed by the people. The people are delighted, and a better feeling has sprung up between them and us in this enlistment than has ever been obtained before. I have also called on my old country, the Derajat, and it is quite delightful to see how the call is answered. Two thousand horsemen, formerly in my army at Moultan, are now moving on different points, according to order, to help us in this difficulty; and every post brings me remonstrances from chiefs as to why they have been forgotten. This is really gratifying.’ It may be here stated that Sir John Lawrence, about the end of May, suggested to Viscount Canning by telegraph the expediency of allowing Bengal sepoys to retire from the army and receive their pay, if they preferred so doing, and if they had not been engaged in mutinous proceedings – as a means of sifting the good from the bad; but Canning thought this would be dangerous east of the Sutlej; and it does not appear to have been acted on anywhere.