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

Colonel Campbell, with the 3d column, after the heroic explosion-party had forced an entry for him through the Cashmere Gate, marched boldly through the city towards the Jumma Musjid – a perilous enterprise; for the distance was upwards of a mile even in a straight line, and many populous streets would need to be traversed. In this march he was aided by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, a member of the Company’s civil service, whose house outside Delhi has been so often mentioned, and who had been a valuable adviser to the siege-army during the whole period of its operations on the ridge. He knew Delhi well, and was thus enabled to render Campbell essential service. Conducting the column by a circuitous route, he kept it nearly free from opposition until the fine street, called the Chandnee Chowk, was reached, where they took possession of the Kotwallee. At this point, however, the troops began to fall rapidly under the muskets of the enemy, and it was found to be impracticable to achieve the object fondly hoped – the capture of the Jumma Musjid itself. After a gallant struggle, the column fell back to the neighbourhood of the English church near the Cashmere Gate, where it had the support of the reserve. The colonel at once placed the 52d regiment in the church, the Kumaon battalion in Skinner’s house, and the Punjaub infantry in the houses at the junction of two streets that led from the centre of the city to the open space around the church. Guns, too, were posted at the last-named place, to check the advance of insurgents who had begun to treat Campbell as a fleeing and defeated officer. He was in one sense defeated; for he had to retreat nearly a mile, and saw his fine troops cut up terribly all around him; nevertheless, before nightfall he had placed himself in a position from which the enemy could not dislodge him, and which enabled him to take a prominent part in the subsequent operations.

Rather as a support to Colonel Campbell’s 3d column, than as a leading corps, the reserve now comes for notice – its position being indeed denoted by its name. This reserve column, under Brigadier Longfield, had, it will be remembered, the duty of watching the result of the main attack, and of taking possession of certain posts as soon as the other columns had effected an entry into the city. The reserve followed the 3d column through the Cashmere Gate, having previously spared the Belooch battalion to render service near Hindoo Rao’s house. Longfield at once cleared the college gardens of insurgents, and then told off his troops so as to obtain efficient hold of the Water Bastion, the Cashmere Gate, Skinner’s house, and a large commanding building called Ahmed Ali Khan’s house. Skinner’s house, or in Indian form, Sikunder’s, had at one time been the residence of Major Skinner, commander of a regiment of irregular horse, which had acquired much celebrity; the house was large, and presented many important advantages for a military force.

There is yet another portion of the siege-army, whose fortune on this 14th of September has to be noticed – namely, that which was placed under the command of Major Reid, for a series of operations in the western suburbs of the city. Everything here was under a cloud of disappointment; the operations were not attended with that degree of success which the officers and men had fondly hoped. Captain Dwyer, in command of the Cashmere field-force, was intrusted with the management of 400 men of that force, and four guns; and the object he was to endeavour to attain was the safe occupation of the Eedghah Serai, in dangerous proximity to the garrison within the city. Early in the morning he set out from the camp. Finding the road very difficult for artillery, he pulled down a portion of stone-wall to enable his guns to get upon the Rohtuk high road; the noise unfortunately attracted the enemy, who immediately sent down 2000 men to that point. Dwyer kept up a fire of artillery for three quarters of an hour; but finding that the enemy, instead of being discomfited, were about to outflank him, he resolved on a bold advance on the Eedghah. This resolve he could not carry out; his troops were widely spread in skirmishing order, and could not be collected in column; the guns could not be properly moved, for the grass-cutters had taken away the horses. In short, the attempt was a total failure, and the captain was compelled to retire without his guns. The force appears to have been too small, and the Cashmerian troops scarcely equal in soldierly discipline to the demands of the work intrusted to them. This attack on the Eedghah was to have been part of a larger enterprise intrusted to Major Reid, having in view the conquest of the whole western suburb of Delhi, and the command of all outlets by the western gates. The major advanced from the Subzee Mundee towards the Kissengunje suburb; but he found the enemy so numerous and strongly posted, and he met with such a strenuous opposition, that his progress was soon checked. The gallant Reid himself being struck down wounded, as well as many other officers, Captain Muter of the 60th Rifles, and Captain R. C. Lawrence, political agent with the Cashmere Contingent, felt it necessary promptly to decide on the course best to be pursued. They found the different detachments, of which the column consisted, so broken and disorganised by the heavy fire of the enemy, that it was impossible to reform them on broken ground, and under a severe fire the attack on the Kissengunje could not be renewed; all they attempted was to keep the enemy in check for an hour, without losing ground. They waited for a reinforcement of artillery, which Reid had sent for before being wounded; but these guns, through some unexplained cause, failed to arrive. Seeing the enemy increase in force, and fearing for the safety of the batteries below Hindoo Rao’s house, the officers gave up the attack and retired, strengthening the batteries and the Subzee Mundee picket. The failure of Captain Dwyer’s attack greatly increased the difficulty of the position; for the enemy was thereby enabled to advance on the right flank of the main column, endanger its rear, and hotly press the Subzee Mundee picket. Reid, Lawrence, Dwyer, Muter – all were mortified at their failure in this suburban operation.

Thus ended the 14th of September, a day on which British authority was partially restored in the ‘city of the Moguls,’ after an interregnum of eighteen weeks. Partial, indeed, was the reconquest; for the portion of the city held bore so small a ratio to the whole, that the troops foresaw a terrible and sanguinary ordeal to be gone through before the British flag would again wave undisputed over the conquered city. The loss was very large, in relation to the strength of the army generally. There fell on this one day, 8 British officers, 162 British troops, and 103 native troops, killed; while the list of wounded comprised 52 British officers, 512 British troops, and 310 native troops – a total of 1135. When night closed around the survivors, the 1st and 2d columns held all the towers, bastions, and ramparts from the vicinity of the Cashmere Gate to the Cabool Gate; the 3d column and the reserve held the Cashmere Gate, the English church, Skinner’s house, the Water Bastion, Ahmed Ali Khan’s house, the college gardens, and many buildings and open spots in that part of Delhi; while the 4th column, defeated in the western suburbs, had retreated to the camp or the ridge.

Snatching a little occasional repose during the night, the besiegers found themselves at dawn on the 15th, as we have said, masters of a part only of Delhi; and they prepared for the stern work before them. They dragged several mortars into position, at various points between the Cashmere and Cabool Gates, to shell the heart of the city and the imperial palace. A battery, commanding the Selimgurh and a part of the palace, was also established in the college gardens; and several houses were taken and armed in advance or further to the south. The enemy, meanwhile, kept up a vigorous fire from the Selimgurh and the magazine upon the positions occupied by the British, and skirmishing went on at all the advanced posts. This, be it understood, was within the city itself; the British being in command of a strip of ground and buildings just within the northern wall; while all the rest was still in the hands of the rebels. It was in every way a strange position for an army to occupy; the city was filled with hostile soldiery, who had the command of an immense array of guns and a vast store of ammunition, and whose musketry told with fatal effect from loopholed walls and houses in all the streets within reach; while the besiegers themselves were separated by a lofty city wall from their own camp.

The 16th was marked by a greater progress than the 15th towards a conquest of the city, because the newly established batteries began to shew signs of work. The guns in the college garden having effected a breach in the magazine defences, that important building was stormed and taken, with a loss comparatively slight, by the 61st, the 4th Punjaub, and the Beloochees.[79 - When the magazine was so heroically fired by Lieutenant Willoughby, four months earlier, the destruction caused was very much smaller than had been reported and believed. The stores in the magazine had been available to the rebels during the greater part of the siege.] Outside the city, the Kissengunje suburb was this day evacuated by the enemy, leaving five guns, which were speedily captured by a detachment sent down from Hindoo Rao’s house; it was then found that the enemy’s position here had been one of immense strength, and the failure of Major Reid’s attack received a ready explanation.

Another day dawned, and witnessed the commencement of operations which placed a further portion of the city in the hands of the conquerors. The magazine having been captured, it became important to secure the whole line of rampart and forts from that point to the Cabool Gate, comprising the northeast as well as the north sides of the city. This was begun on the 17th, and completed on the 18th, giving to the British a firm hold of everything behind a straight line extending from the magazine to the Cabool Gate. A bold advance southward could now be made. Columns were sent forth, which captured the Delhi bank, Major Abbott’s house, and the house of Khan Mohammed Khan, and made a near approach to the palace and the Chandnee Chowk. The pen can easily record this, but it must leave to the imagination of the reader to conceive how great must have been the peril of soldiers thus advancing inch by inch through a crowded city; field-artillery was brought to bear against them from almost every street, muskets from almost every house-top and window; and many a gallant fellow was laid low. One great advantage the besiegers now had, was in the command of mortars brought out from the magazine; these were placed in selected positions, and employed to shell the palace and the quarters of the town occupied by the enemy. It was now that the insurgents were seen to be gradually escaping from the palace into the southern parts of the city, and thence through the southern gates into open country not yet attacked by the British. Over the bridge of boats they could not go, for the guns of the conquerors commanded it. Or, it may more correctly be said, the command of the bridge of boats enabled the conquerors to check that passage if they chose; but General Wilson did not make war on women and children, or on such males as appeared to be peaceful citizens: he allowed them to depart from the city if they wished – which nearly all did, for they feared terrible retribution at the hands of the British soldiery.

After another night within the imperial city, the conquerors achieved further successes on the 19th. The post called the Burn Bastion, situated on the west side of the city, close to the Lahore Gate, was surprised and captured by a detachment sent from the already conquered Cabool Gate. This swept the enemy from another large extent of wall. On the following morning a detachment of cavalry, going from the ridge by way of the Kissengunje and the Eedghah, found that the enemy had evacuated a large and strong camp long occupied by them outside the Delhi Gate. Lieutenant Hodson at once took possession of it; and a mere glance shewed, by the quantities of clothing, plunder, and ammunition lying around, that the enemy must have made a very precipitate flight. The cavalry, entering the city by the Delhi Gate – which, together with the Gurstin Bastion, had just been attacked and taken by the infantry, galloped on to the sumptuous Jumma Musjid, of which they took possession, being speedily supported by infantry and guns. While all this was going on, the imperial palace was the object of a distinct attack. A column advanced along the Chandnee Chowk, placed powder-bags against the gate, blew it in, and entered the palace. The enormous building was found to be deserted by all but a few fanatics and numerous wounded sepoys.

Thus at length was the great city of Delhi reconquered by its former masters; thus again did the Feringhee become paramount over the Mogul. Captain Norman, whose semi-official account of the siege has already been adverted to, closed his narrative by saying: ‘It is impossible to conclude without alluding to the trials and constancy of the troops employed in this arduous siege. Called on at the hottest season of the year to take the field, imperfectly equipped, and with the extent of difficulties to be faced very imperfectly known, all felt that a crisis had arrived, to meet which every man’s cheerful, willing, and heartfelt energies must be put forth to the utmost; and how well this was done, those who were with the army know and can never forget. For the first five weeks every effort was required, not indeed to take Delhi, but even to hold our own position; and day after day, for hours together, every soldier was under arms under a burning sun, and constantly exposed to fire. Notwithstanding the daily casualties in action, the numerous deaths by cholera, the discouraging reports relative to the fidelity of some of the native portions of our own force, the distressing accounts from all parts of the country, the constant arrival of large reinforcements of mutineers, and the apparent impossibility of aid ever reaching in sufficient strength to enable us to take the place – the courage and confidence of the army never flagged. And, besides enduring a constant and often deadly cannonade, for more than three months, in thirty different combats, our troops invariably were successful, always against long odds, and often opposed to ten times their numbers, who had all the advantages of ground and superior artillery.’

Taking the 30th of May as the date when the first conflict between the besiegers and defenders of Delhi took place, at some distance from Delhi itself, the interval of 113 days between that date and the final capture on the 20th of September was marked by a very large death-list. It could not be otherwise. Where men were exposed during so many days and nights to shells, balls, bullets, swords, heat, swamps, fatigue, and disease, the hand of the destroyer must indeed have been heavy. And, as in all similar instances, the list of wounded was much larger than that of killed. The official list comprised the names of 46 European officers who had either been killed in battle, or died from wounds received; and of 140 others whose wounds had not proved fatal. But the adjutant-general is seldom accustomed to comprise in his lists those who fall with disease without being wounded; and thus the Delhi enumeration did not include the names of Generals Anson and Barnard, or of any of the numerous officers, who, though not wounded before Delhi, unquestionably met their death in connection with the preparations for, or conduct of, the siege. Distributed under different headings, the killed and wounded amounted altogether to 3807,[80 - ] to which were added 30 missing. Of the horses there were 186 killed and 378 wounded. Of the number of insurgents who fell during the struggle, no authentic knowledge could be obtained.

The official dispatches were nearly silent concerning the proceedings, except military, in the interval of six days between the first assault of the city and the final subjugation, and during the remaining ten days of September. General Wilson, shortly before the final attack was to be made, issued an address to his soldiers, from which a few sentences are here given in a note;[81 - ‘The force assembled before Delhi has had much hardship and fatigue to undergo since its arrival in this camp, all of which has been most cheerfully borne by officers and men. The time is now drawing near when the major-general commanding the force trusts that their labours will be over, and that they will be rewarded by the capture of a city for all their past exertions and for a cheerful endurance of still greater fatigue and exposure… The artillery will have even harder work than they yet have had, and which they have so well and cheerfully performed hitherto; this, however, will be for a short period only, and when ordered to the assault, the major-general feels assured British pluck and determination will carry everything before them, and that the blood-thirsty and murderous mutineers against whom they are fighting will be driven headlong out of their stronghold or be exterminated.‘Major-general Wilson need hardly remind the troops of the cruel murders committed on their officers and comrades, as well as their wives and children, to move them in the deadly struggle. No quarter should be given to the mutineers; at the same time, for the sake of humanity, and the honour of the country they belong to, he calls upon them to spare all women and children that may come in their way… It is to be explained to every regiment that indiscriminate plunder will not be allowed; that prize-agents have been appointed, by whom all captured property will be collected and sold, to be divided, according to the rules and regulations on this head fairly among all men engaged; and that any man found guilty of having concealed captured property will be made to restore it, and will forfeit all claims to the general prize; he will also be likely to be made over to the provost-marshal, to be summarily dealt with.’] and in which, it will be seen, they were instructed to give no quarter to the mutineers – that is, make no prisoners, but put all armed rebels to death. This was attended to; but something more was done, something darker and less justifiable. It is not customary for soldiers to stab wounded and sick men in an enemy’s army; but such was done at Delhi. The sense of hatred towards the mutinous sepoys was so intense, the recollection of the atrocities at Cawnpore was so vivid, that vengeance took place of every other feeling. The troops did that which they would have scorned to do against the Russians in the Crimean war – they bayoneted men no longer capable of resistance. They refused to consider the rules of honourable warfare applicable to black-hearted traitors; their officers joined them in this refusal; and their general’s address justified them up to a certain point. If the rule laid down by Wilson had been strictly adhered to, there would have been military precedence to sanction it; but the common soldiers did not discriminate in their passion; and many a dark-skinned inhabitant of Delhi fell under the bayonet, against whom no charge of complicity with the mutineers could be proved. The letters written home to friends in England, soon after the battle, and made public, abundantly prove this; the soldiers were thirsting for vengeance, and they slaked their thirst. Many of the villagers of India, indeed, bore cruel injustice during that extraordinary period. Instances frequently came to light, such as the following: A revolted regiment or a predatory band would enter a village, demand and obtain money, food, and other supplies by threats of vengeance if the demand were not complied with, and then depart; an English corps, entering soon afterwards, would fine and punish the villagers for having aided the enemy. One thing, however, the British soldiers did not do; they did not murder women and children. This humanity, heroism, justice, or whatever it may best be called, was more than the natives generally expected: the leaders in the revolt had sedulously disseminated a rumour that the British would abuse all the women, and murder them and their children, in all towns and stations where mutinies had taken place; and under the influence of this belief, many of the natives put their wives to death rather than expose them to the apprehended indignities. While, at one part of Delhi, the conquerors (if the narrators are to be believed) found Christian women crucified against the walls in the streets; at another part, nearly twenty native women were found lying side by side with their throats cut, their husbands having put them to death to prevent them from falling into the hands of the conquerors.

What other scenes of wild licence took place within Delhi during those excited days, we may infer from collateral evidence. The mutineers, quite as much in love with plunder as with nationality, had been wont to carry about with them from place to place the loot which they had gathered during the sack of the stations and towns. As a consequence, Delhi contained temporarily an enormous amount of miscellaneous wealth; and such of this as the fugitives could not carry away with them, was regarded as spoil by the conquerors. There are certain rules in the English army concerning prizes and prize-money, which the soldiers more or less closely obey; but the Punjaubee and Goorkha allies, more accustomed to Asiatic notions of warfare, revelled in the unbridled freedom of their new position, and were with difficulty maintained in discipline. There was a large store of beverage, also, in the city, which the conquerors soon got at; and as intemperance is one of the weak points of English soldiers, many scenes of drunkenness ensued.

But all these are among the exigencies of war. The soldiers bore up manfully against their varied trials, fought heroically, and conquered; and it is not by the standards of conduct familiar to quiet persons at home that they should be judged. When General Wilson reported the result of his hard labours, he said in his dispatch: ‘Thus has the important duty committed to this force been accomplished, and its object attained. Delhi, the focus of rebellion and insurrection, and the scene of so much horrible cruelty, taken and made desolate; the king a prisoner in our hands; and the mutineers, notwithstanding their great numerical superiority and their vast resources in ordnance, and all the munitions and appliances of war, defeated on every occasion of engagement with our troops, are now driven with slaughter in confusion and dismay from their boasted stronghold… Little remains for me to say, but to again express my unqualified approbation of the conduct and spirit of the whole of the troops, not only on this occasion, but during the entire period they have been in the field… For four months of the most trying season of the year this force, originally very weak in number, has been exposed to the repeated and determined attacks of an enemy far outnumbering it, and supported by a numerous and powerful artillery. The duties imposed upon all have been laborious, harassing, and incessant, and notwithstanding heavy losses, both in action and from disease, have been at all times zealously and cheerfully performed.’ And in similar language, when the news was known at Calcutta, did Viscount Canning acknowledge the heroism of those who had conquered Delhi.[82 - ‘The reports and returns which accompany this dispatch establish the arduous nature of a contest carried on against an enemy vastly superior in numbers, holding a strong position, furnished with unlimited appliances, and aided by the most exhausting and sickly season of the year.‘They set forth the indomitable courage and perseverance, the heroic self-devotion and fortitude, the steady discipline, and stern resolve of English soldiers.‘There is no mistaking the earnestness of purpose with which the struggle has been maintained by Major-general Wilson’s army. Every heart was in the cause; and while their numbers were, according to all ordinary rule, fearfully unequal to the task, every man has given his aid, wherever and in whatever manner it could most avail, to hasten retribution upon a treacherous and murderous foe.‘In the name of outraged humanity, in memory of innocent blood ruthlessly shed, and in acknowledgment of the first signal vengeance inflicted upon the foulest treason, the governor-general in council records his gratitude to Major-general Wilson and the brave army of Delhi. He does so in the sure conviction that a like tribute awaits them, not in England only, but wherever within the limits of civilisation the news of their well-earned triumph shall reach.’Some days afterwards, Lord Canning issued a more formal and complete proclamation, of which a few paragraphs may here be given: ‘Delhi, the focus of the treason and revolt which for four months have harassed Hindostan, and the stronghold in which the mutinous army of Bengal has sought to concentrate its power, has been wrested from the rebels. The king is a prisoner in the palace. The head-quarters of Major-general Wilson are established in the Dewani Khas [the “Elysium” of the Mogul palace-builders, and of Moore’s Lalla Rookh]. A strong column is in pursuit of the fugitives.‘Whatever may be the motives and passions by which the mutinous soldiery, and those who are leagued with them, have been instigated to faithlessness, rebellion, and crimes at which the heart sickens, it is certain that they have found encouragement in the delusive belief that India was weakly guarded by England, and that before the government could gather together its strength against them, their ends would be gained.‘They are now undeceived.‘Before a single soldier of the many thousands who are hastening from England to uphold the supremacy of the British power has set foot on these shores, the rebel force, where it was strongest and most united, and where it had the command of unbounded military appliances, has been destroyed or scattered by an army collected within the limits of the Northwestern Provinces and the Punjaub alone.‘The work has been done before the support of those battalions which have been collected in Bengal from the forces of the Queen in China and in her Majesty’s eastern colonies could reach Major-general Wilson’s army; and it is by the courage and endurance of that gallant army alone, by the skill, sound judgment, and steady resolution of its brave commander, and by the aid of some native chiefs true to their allegiance, that, under the blessing of God, the head of the rebellion has been crushed, and the cause of loyalty, humanity, and rightful authority vindicated.’]

It will be seen above that the governor-general spoke of the ‘king a prisoner.’ This must now be explained. When all hope of retaining Delhi faded away, the aged king – who had in effect been more a puppet in the hands of ambitious leaders than a king, during four months – fled from the city, as did nearly all the members and retainers of the once imperial family. It fell to the lot of Captain (afterwards Major) Hodson to capture the king and other royal personages. This officer was assistant quartermaster-general, and intelligence-officer on General Wilson’s staff. His long acquaintance as a cavalry officer with Sikhs, Punjaubees, and Afghans had given him much knowledge of the native character, and enabled him to obtain remarkably minute information concerning the movements and intentions of the enemy; to insure this, he was invested with power to reward or punish in proportion to the deserts of those who assisted him. It was known directly the Cashmere Gate was conquered that the exodus of the less warlike inhabitants of Delhi was beginning; but not then, nor until six days afterwards, could this be stopped, for the southern gates were wholly beyond reach of the conquerors. The imperial palace was captured, and was found nearly empty, on the 20th; and on the following day Captain Hodson learned that the king and his family had left the city with a large force by the Ajmeer Gate, and had gone to the Kootub, a suburban palace about nine miles from Delhi. Hodson urged that a detachment should be sent in pursuit, but Wilson did not think he could spare troops for this service. While this subject was under consideration, messengers were coming from the king, and among others Zeenat Mahal, a favourite begum, making ridiculous offers on his part, as if he were still the power paramount – all of which were of course rejected. As these offers could not be accepted; as Wilson could not or would not send a detachment at once to defeat or capture the mutinous troops who had departed with the king; and as it was, nevertheless, desirable to have the king’s person in safe custody – Captain Hodson received permission to promise the aged sovereign his life, and exemption from immediate personal indignity, if he would surrender.

Thus armed, Hodson laid his plans. He started with fifty of his own native irregular troopers to Humayoon’s Tomb, about three miles from the Kootub. Concealing himself and his men among some old buildings close by the gateway of the tomb, he sent his demand up to the palace. After two hours of anxious suspense, he received a message from the king that he would deliver himself up to Captain Hodson only, and on condition that he repeated with his own lips the pledge of the government for his safety. The captain then went out into the middle of the road in front of the gateway, and said he was ready to receive his captives and renew the promise. ‘You may picture to yourself,’ said one familiar with the spot, ‘the scene before that magnificent gateway, with the milk-white domes of the tomb towering up from within, one white man among a host of natives, yet determined to secure his prisoners or perish in the attempt.’ After a time, a procession began to arrive from the palace. Threats and promises soon did their work; and the king, his begum Zeenat Mahal, and her son Jumma Bukht, were escorted to Delhi. It was a striking manifestation of moral power; for there were hundreds or even thousands of retainers in the procession, any one of whom could by a shot have put an end to Hodson’s life; but he rode at the side of the imperial palanquins, cool and undaunted, and they touched him not. As the city was approached, the followers and bystanders slunk away, being unwilling to confront the British troops. The captain rode on a few paces ahead, and ordered the Lahore Gate to be opened. ‘Who have you there in the palanquin?’ asked the officer on duty. ‘Only the King of Delhi,’ was the reply. The guard were all enraptured, and wanted to greet Hodson with a cheer; but he said the king would probably take the honour to himself, which was not desirable. On they went, through the once magnificent but now deserted Chandnee Chowk; and the daring captor, at the gate of the palace, handed up his royal prisoners to the civil authorities.

Captain Hodson’s work was not yet finished; there were other members of the royal family towards whom his attention was directed. Early on the following morning, he started to avail himself of information he obtained concerning three of the princes, who were known to have been guilty of monstrous deeds which rendered them worthy of instant death. He went with a hundred of his troopers to the Tomb of Humayoon, where the princes were concealed. After accepting ‘king’s evidence,’ bribing, threatening, and manœuvring, Hudson secured his prisoners, and sent them off with a small escort to the city. Entering the tomb, he found it filled with an enormous number of palace scum and city rabble, mostly armed; but so thoroughly cowed were they by his fearless demeanour, that they quietly obeyed his order to lay down their arms and depart. The captain and his men then moved warily off to the city; and at a short distance from the gate, he found the vehicle containing the princes surrounded by a mob, who seemed disposed to resist him. What followed must be given in the words of an officer who was in a position to obtain accurate information. ‘This was no time for hesitation or delay. Hodson dashed at once into the midst – in few but energetic words explained “that these were the men who had not only rebelled against the government, but had ordered and witnessed the massacre and shameful exposure of innocent women and children; and that thus therefore the government punished such traitors, taken in open resistance” – shooting them down at the word. The effect was instantaneous and wonderful. Not another hand was raised, not another weapon levelled, and the Mohammedans of the troop and some influential moulvies among the bystanders exclaimed, as if by simultaneous impulse: “Well and rightly done! Their crime has met with its just penalty. These were they who gave the signal for the death of helpless women and children, and outraged decency by the exposure of their persons, and now a righteous judgment has fallen on them. God is great!” The remaining weapons were then laid down, and the crowd slowly and quietly dispersed. The bodies were then carried into the city, and thrown out on the very spot where the blood of their innocent victims still stained the earth. They remained there till the 24th, when, for sanitary reasons, they were removed from the Chibootra in front of the Kotwallee. The effect of this just retribution was as miraculous on the populace as it was deserved by the criminals.’ Thus were put to death two of the old king’s sons, Mirza Mogul Beg, and another whose name is doubtful, together with Mirza’s son.

What was done to restore order in Delhi after its recapture; who was appointed to command it; what arrangements were made for bringing to justice the wretched king who was now a prisoner; and what military plan was formed for pursuing the mutinous regiments which had escaped from the city – will more conveniently be noticed in subsequent pages.

The country did not fail to do honour to those who had been concerned in the conquest of the imperial city. The commander of the siege-army was of course the first to be noticed. Although he had no European reputation, Archdale Wilson had served as an artillery officer nearly forty years in India. He was employed at the siege of Bhurtpore in 1824, and in many other active services; but his chief duties confined him to the artillery depôts. It is a curious fact that most of the guns employed by him at the siege of Delhi, as well as those used by the enemy against him, had been cast by him as superintendent of the gun-foundry at Calcutta many years before, and bore his name as part of the device. He held in succession the offices of adjutant-general of artillery and commandant of artillery. At the commencement of the mutiny, his regimental rank was that of lieutenant-colonel of the Bengal artillery; but he acted as brigadier at Meerut, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of major-general. The Queen, in November, raised him to the baronetcy, and made him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath; and thus the artillery officer had risen to the rank of ‘Major-general Sir Archdale Wilson, K.C.B.’ The East India Company, too, sought to bestow honour – or something more solid than honour – on the victorious commander; the court of proprietors, on the suggestion of the court of directors, voted a pension of £1000 per annum to Sir Archdale Wilson, to commence from the day when his troops entered Delhi.

What honours Brigadier Nicholson would have earned, had his valuable life been spared, it would be useless to surmise. He was an especial favourite among the soldiers in the Indian army – more so, perhaps, than some whose names are better known to English readers; and his death within the walls of Delhi was very generally deplored. He had not yet attained his 35th year – a very early age at which to obtain brigade command, either in the Company’s or the Queen’s armies. Nothing but the unbounded confidence of Sir John Lawrence in the military genius of Nicholson would have justified him in making so young a man, a simple regimental captain (brevet-major), brigadier of a column destined to fight the rebels all the way from the Punjaub to Delhi; yet even those seniors who were superseded by this arrangement felt that the duty was intrusted to one equal to its demands. He had seen hard service during the Afghan and Punjaub campaigns, as captain in the 27th Bengal native infantry; and had, instead of idling his time during a furlough visit to England, studied the armies and military organisation of continental Europe. An officer who served with him during the mutiny said: ‘He had a constitution of iron. The day we marched to Murdan he was twenty-six hours in the saddle, following up the mutineers.’ The Queen granted the posthumous dignity of Knight Commander of the Bath upon Brigadier-general John Nicholson; and as he was unmarried, the East India Company departed from their general rule, by bestowing a special grant of £500 per annum upon his widowed mother, who had in earlier years lost another son in the Company’s service.

One among many civil servants of the Company who fell during the siege was Hervey Harris Greathed, a member of a family well known in India. After filling various official situations in the Punjaub, Rajpootana, and Meerut, he became chief-commissioner of Delhi, after the foul murder of Mr Simon Fraser on the 11th of May. Serve or remain in Delhi itself he could not, for obvious reasons; but he was with Wilson’s army in the expedition from Meerut to Delhi, and then remained with the siege-army on the heights, where his intimate knowledge of India and the natives was of essential value. He died of cholera just before the conclusion of the siege. His brothers, Robert and George Herbert, had already died in the services of the Company or the crown; but two others, Edward Harris and William Wilberforce Harris, survived to achieve fame as gallant officers.

Another of those who fell on the day of the assault was Lieutenant Philip Salkeld, of the Bengal engineers. He was the son of a Dorsetshire clergyman, and went to India in 1850, in his twentieth year, in the corps of Sappers and Miners. He was employed for four years as an engineer in connection with the new works of the grand trunk-road, in Upper India; and was then transferred to the executive engineers’ department in the Delhi division. His first taste of war was in relation to the mutinies; he was engaged in all the operations of the siege of Delhi, and was struck down while gallantly exploding the Cashmere Gate. He lingered in great pain, and died about the 10th of October. The Rev. S. G. Osborne, in a letter written soon after the news of Salkeld’s death reached England, said: ‘This young officer has not more distinguished himself in his profession by his devotion to his country’s service of his life, than he stands distinguished in the memory of those who knew him for his virtues as a son and brother. His father, a clergyman in Dorsetshire, by a reverse of fortune some years since, was with a large family reduced, I may say, to utter poverty. This, his soldier son, supported out of his own professional income one of his brothers at school, helping a sister, obliged to earn her own bread as a governess, to put another brother to school. Just before his death he had saved a sum of £1000, which was in the bank at Delhi, and was therefore lost to him, and, more than this, it was lost to the honourable purpose to which, as a son and brother, he had devoted it. In his native county it has been determined to erect a monument to his memory by subscription. Cadetships having been given to two of his young brothers, it is now wisely resolved that while the memorial which is to hand down his name to posterity in connection with his glorious death shall be all that is necessary for the purpose, every farthing collected beyond the sum necessary for this shall be expended as he would have desired, for the good of these his young brothers.’

Lieutenant Duncan Home, another hero of the Cashmere Gate, was not one of the wounded on that perilous occasion; he lived to receive the approval of his superior in the engineering department; but his death occurred even sooner than that of his companion in arms, for he was mortally wounded on the 1st of October while engaged with an expeditionary force in pursuit of the fleeing rebels. It was on that day, a few hours before he received the fatal bullet, that he wrote a letter to his mother in England; in which, after describing the operations at the Cashmere Gate, he said: ‘I was then continually on duty until the king evacuated the palace. I had never more than four hours’ sleep in the twenty-four, and then only by snatches. I had also the pleasure of blowing in the gate of the palace; luckily no one fired at me, there being so few men left in the palace.’

Salkeld and Home received the ‘Victoria Cross,’ a much-coveted honour among the British troops engaged in the Indian war. As did likewise Sergeant Smith, who so boldly risked, yet saved, his life; and also Bugler Hawthorne of the 52d, who blew his signal-blast in spite of the shots whistling around him. Poor Sergeant Carmichael and Corporal Burgess did not live to share in this honour; they fell bullet-pierced.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY

There were events that made a deeper impression on the minds of the English public; military exploits more grand and comprehensive; episodes more fatal, more harrowing; trains of operation in which well-known heroic names more frequently found place – but there was nothing in the whole history of the Indian mutiny more admirable or worthy of study than the defence of Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis and the British who were shut up with him in the Residency. Such a triumph over difficulties has not often been placed upon record. Nothing but the most resolute determination, the most complete soldierly obedience, the most untiring watchfulness, the most gentle care of those who from sex or age were unable to defend themselves, the most thorough reliance on himself and on those around him, could have enabled that gallant man to bear up against the overwhelming difficulties which pressed upon him throughout the months of July, August, and September. He occupied one corner of an enormous city, every other part of which was swarming with deadly enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant death at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble; no friends could succour him, seeing that anything less than a considerable military force would have been cut off ere it reached the gates of the Residency; no food or drink, no medicines or comforts, no clothing, no ammunition, in addition to that which was actually within the place at the beginning of July, could be brought in. Great beyond expression were the responsibilities and anxieties of one placed in command during eighty-seven of such days – but there was also a moral grandeur in the situation, never to be forgotten.

In former chapters of this work,[83 - Chap. vi., pp. 82-96 (#x_19_i11). Chap. x., pp. 163 (#X)-165 (#x_28_i6). Chap, xv., pp. 247-263 (#x_40_i17).] much has been said concerning Lucknow, its relations towards the British government on the one hand, and the court of Oude on the other, and the operations which enabled Havelock and Neill to bring a small reinforcement to its British garrison towards the close of September; but what the garrison did and suffered during the three months before this succour could reach them, has yet to be told. The eventful story may be given conveniently in this place, as one among certain intermediate subjects between the military operations of Sir Henry Havelock and those of Sir Colin Campbell.

Let us endeavour, by recapitulating a few facts, to realise in some degree the position of the British at Lucknow when July commenced. The city is a little over fifty miles from Cawnpore – exactly fifty to the Alum Bagh, fifty-three to the Residency, and fifty-seven to the cantonment. Most of its principal buildings, including the Residency, were on the right or southwest bank of the river Goomtee. There was a cantonment Residency, and also a city Residency, at both of which, according to his daily duties, it was the custom of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence to dwell, before the troubles of the mutiny began; but it is the city Residency which has acquired a notoriety that will never die. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the mere official mansion called the Residency bore but a small ratio to the area and the buildings now known to English readers by that name. This ambiguity is not without its inconveniences, for it denotes a Residency within a Residency. Understanding the Residency to mean English Lucknow, the part of the city containing the offices and dwellings of most of the official English residents, then it may be described as an irregular quadrangle a few hundred yards square, jutting out at the north corner, and indented or contracted at the west. Within that limit were numerous residences and other buildings, some military, some political or civil, some private. The word ‘garrison’ was applied after the defence began, to buildings which had previously been private or official residences; if, therefore, the reader meets in one map with ‘Fayrer’s House,’ and in another with ‘Fayrer’s Garrison,’ he must infer that a private residence was fortified as a stronghold when the troubles began. In this chapter we shall in most instances denominate the whole area as the intrenchment or enclosure, with the Residency itself as one of the buildings; and we shall furthermore retain the original designation of house, rather than garrison, for each of the minor residences. The northeast side of the whole enclosure was nearly parallel with the river; and the north corner was in near proximity to an iron bridge carrying a road over the river to the cantonment.

How the British became cooped up within that enclosure, the reader already knows; a few words will bring to recollection the facts fully treated in the chapters lately cited. We have there seen that there were burnings of bungalows, and cartridge troubles, as early as April, in the cantonment of Lucknow; that on the 3d of May some of the native troops became insubordinate at the Moosa Bagh, a military post three or four miles northwest of the Residency; that the 3d Oude infantry was broken into fragments by this mutiny and its consequences; that Sir Henry Lawrence sought to restore a healthy feeling by munificently rewarding certain native soldiers who had remained faithful under temptation; that towards the close of the month he attended very sedulously to various magazines and military posts in and near the city; that he fortified the English quarter by placing defence-works on and near the walls by which it was already three-fourths surrounded, and by setting up other defences on the remaining fourth side; that he brought all the women and children, and all the sick, of the English community, into the space thus enclosed and guarded; that on the last two days of the month he had the vexation of seeing most of the native troops in Lucknow and at the cantonment, belonging to the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, march off in mutiny towards Seetapoor; and that of the seven hundred who remained behind, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single hour. Next, under the month of June, we have seen that nearly all the districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents, increasing at every stage the difficulties which beset Sir Henry as civil and military chief of the province; that he knew the mutineers were approaching Lucknow as a hostile army, and that he looked around in vain for reinforcements; that he paid off most of the sepoys still remaining with him, glad to get rid of men whose continuance in fidelity could not be relied on; that he greatly strengthened the Residency, and also the Muchee Bhowan, a castellated structure northwest of it, formerly inhabited by the dependents of the King of Oude; that all his letters and messages to other places became gradually cut off, leaving him without news of the occurrences in other parts of India; that he stored the Residency with six months’ provisions for a thousand persons as a means of preparing for the worst; and that on the last day of the month he fought a most disastrous battle with the mutineers at Chinhut, seven or eight miles out of Lucknow. Then, when July opened, we have seen the British in a critical and painful situation. Lawrence having lost many of his most valued troops, could no longer garrison the Muchee Bhowan, the cantonment, the dâk bungalow, or any place beyond the Residency. No European was safe except within the Residency enclosure; and how little safety was found there was miserably shewn on the 2d of the month, when a shell from the insurgents wounded the great and good Sir Henry Lawrence, causing his death on the 4th, after he had made over the military command of Lucknow to Brigadier Inglis, and the civil command to Major Banks.

The Europeans, then, become prisoners within the walls of the Residency enclosure at Lucknow – officers, soldiers, revenue-collectors, judges, magistrates, chaplains, merchants, ladies, children. And with them were such native soldiers and native servants as still remained faithful to the British ‘raj.’ What was the exact number of persons thus thrown into involuntary companionship at the beginning of July appears somewhat uncertain; but an exact enumeration has been given of those who took up their quarters within the Residency on the 30th of May, when the symptoms of mutiny rendered it no longer safe that the women and children should remain in the city or at the cantonment. The number was 794.[84 - Another account gave the number 865, including about 50 native children in the Martinière school.] The principal persons belonging to the European community at Lucknow were the following: Sir Henry Lawrence, chief-commissioner; Captain Hayes, military secretary; Major Anderson, chief-engineer; Brigadier Inglis, commandant of the garrison; Brigadier Handscomb, commandant of the Oude brigade; Captain Carnegie, provost-marshal; Captain Simons, chief artillery officer; Colonel Master, 7th native cavalry; Colonel Case and Major Low, H.M. 32d foot; Major Bruyère, 13th native infantry; Major Apthorp, 41st native infantry; Colonel Palmer and Major Bird, 48th native infantry; Colonel Halford, 71st native infantry; Brigadier Gray, Oude Irregulars; Mr Gubbins, finance commissioner; Mr Ommaney, judicial commissioner; Mr Cooper, chief-secretary. Some of these died between the 30th of May and the 4th of July, but a few only. When the whole of the Europeans, officers and privates, had been hastily driven by the mutiny from the cantonment to the Residency; when all the native troops who remained faithful had been in like manner removed to the same place; and when the Muchee Bhowan and all the other buildings in Lucknow had been abandoned by the British and their adherents – the intrenched position at and around the Residency became necessarily the home of a very much larger number of persons; comprising, in addition to the eight hundred or so just adverted to, many hundred British soldiers, and such of the sepoys as remained ‘true to their salt.’

In one sense, the Europeans were not taken by surprise. They had watched the energetic exertions of Sir Henry during the month of June, in which he exhibited so sagacious a foresight of troubles about to come. They had seen him accumulate a vast store of provisions; procure tents and firewood for the Residency; arm it gradually with twenty-four guns and ten mortars; order in vast quantities of shot, shell, and gunpowder, from the Muchee Bhowan and the magazines; make arrangements for blowing up all the warlike matériel which he could not bring in; bury his barrels of powder beneath the earth in certain open spots in the enclosure; bury, in like manner, twenty-three lacs of the Company’s money, until more peaceful days should arrive; destroy many outlying buildings which commanded or overtopped the Residency; organise all the males in the place as component elements in a defensive force; bring in everything useful from the cantonment; build up, in front of the chief structures in the enclosure, huge stacks of firewood, covered with earth and pierced for guns; bring the royal jewels and other valuables from the king’s palace into the Residency for safety; and disarm – much to their chagrin – the servants and dependents of the late royal family. All this the Europeans had seen the gallant Lawrence effect during the five weeks which preceded his death. Of the non-military men suddenly converted into soldiers, Captain Anderson says: ‘Sir Henry Lawrence deemed it expedient to enrol all the European and Eurasian writers in the public offices as volunteers, and he directed arms and ammunition to be served out to them. Some of these men were taken into the volunteer cavalry – which also comprised officers civil and military – and the remainder were drilled as infantry. At the commencement, when these men were first brought together, to be regularly drilled by sergeants from Her Majesty’s 32d regiment, the chance of ever making them act in a body seemed almost hopeless. There were men of all ages, sizes, and figures. Here stood a tall athletic Englishman; there came a fat and heavy Eurasian, with more width about the waist than across the chest; next to the Eurasian came another of the same class, who looked like a porter-barrel, short and squat, and the belt round his waist very closely resembled a hoop; not far off you observed an old, bent-double man, who seemed too weak to support the weight of his musket and pouch… We must not always judge by appearances. Amongst this awkward-looking body there sprang up, during the siege, bold, intrepid, and daring men!’

Notwithstanding these preparations, however, the calamity fell upon the inmates too suddenly. The fatal result of the battle of Chinhut compelled every one to take refuge within the Residency enclosure; even those who had hitherto lived in the city, rushed in, without preparation, many leaving all their property behind them except a few trifling articles. No one was, or ever could be, bitter against Sir Henry Lawrence; yet were there many criticisms, many expressions of regret, at the policy which led to the battle; and it is unquestionable that much of the misery subsequently borne arose from the precipitate arrangements rendered inevitable on the 30th of June and the following day. When they saw the rebels march into Lucknow, invest the Residency, set up a howitzer-battery in front of it, and loophole the walls of houses for musketry, the Europeans could no longer wait to provide for domestic and personal comforts, or even conveniences: they hastened to their prison-house with such resources as could be hastily provided.

Here, then, was a British community thrown most unexpectedly into close companionship, under circumstances trying to all. It is no wonder that some among the number kept diaries of the strange scenes they witnessed, the sad distresses they bore; nor could there be other than a strong yearning on the part of the English public for a perusal of such diaries or narratives. Hence the publication of several small but deeply interesting volumes relating to the defence of Lucknow – one by Mr Rees, a Calcutta merchant, who happened, unluckily for himself, to be at Lucknow when the troubles began; another by the wife of one of the two English chaplains; a third by Captain Anderson; a fourth by a staff-officer.[85 - Personal Narrative of the Siege of Lucknow, from its Commencement to its Relief. By L. E. Ruutz Rees, one or the Survivors.A Lady’s Diary of the Siege of Lucknow, written for the Perusal of Friends at Home.A Personal Journal of the Siege of Lucknow. By Captain R. P. Anderson, 25th Regiment N. I., commanding an outpost.The Defence of Lucknow: a Diary recording the Daily Events during the Siege of the European Residency. By a Staff-officer.] Such diaries, when used in illustration and correction one of another, are and must ever be the best sources of information concerning the inner life of Lucknow during that extraordinary period.

Terrible was the confusion within the Residency enclosure for the first few days. Those who had hastened into the place from other spots were endeavouring to find or make something which they could call ‘home;’ those who had been wounded at Chinhut were suffering in agony within the walls of a building hastily fitted up for them; while the military men looked anxiously around at the defences of the place, to see what could be done to keep the enemy out. When the officers, civil or military, went on the roofs of the houses, they had the mortification of seeing the mutineers gradually concentrating their forces towards the Residency; they saw, also, that the prisoners had escaped from the jails, to join the ranks of those who hated or at any rate opposed the Feringhees.

Arrangements had for some time been in progress, and were now hastily completed, to fortify the principal buildings within the enclosure. If we imagine this English Lucknow to be an irregular diamond-shaped enclosure, with the acute angles very nearly north and south; then it may be said that the south angle was the nearest point to the Cawnpore road, and the north angle the nearest to the iron bridge over the Goomtee towards the cantonment. Near the south point was the house of Captain Anderson, standing in the middle of a garden or open court surrounded by a wall; the house was defended by barricades, and loopholed for musketry; while the garden was strengthened by a trench and rows of palisades. Next to this house, and communicating with it by a hole in the wall, was a newly constructed defence-work that received the name of the Cawnpore Battery, mounted with guns, and intended to command some of the houses and streets adjacent to the Cawnpore road. Mr Deprat’s house had a verandah which, for defensive purposes, was blocked up with a mud-wall six feet high and two feet and a half thick; this wall was continued in a straight line to that of the next house, and carried up to a height of nine feet, with loopholes for musketry. Next to this was a house occupied as a school for boys of the Martinière College,[86 - In a former chapter (p. 84 (#x_18_i6)), a brief notice is given of Claude Martine, a French adventurer who rose to great wealth and influence at Lucknow, and who lived in a fantastic palace called Constantia, southeastward of the city. His name will, however, be more favourably held in remembrance as the founder of a college, named by him the Martinière, for Eurasian or half-caste children. This college was situated near the eastern extremity of the city; but when the troubles began, the principals and the children removed to a building hastily set apart for them within the Residency enclosure. The authoress of the Lady’s Diary, whose husband was connected as a pastor with the Martinière, thus speaks of this transfer: ‘The Martinière is abandoned, and I suppose we shall lose all our remaining property, which we have been obliged to leave to its fate, as nothing more can be brought in here. We got our small remnant of clothes; but furniture, harp, books, carriage-horses, &c., are left at the Martinière. The poor boys are all stowed away in a hot close native building, and it will be a wonder if they don’t get ill.’] strengthened by a stockade of beams placed before it; and adjacent was a street or road defended by stockades, barricades, and a trench. Further towards the western angle of the enclosure was a building formerly known as the Daroo Shuffa or King’s Hospital, but now called the Brigade Mess-house, having a well-protected and lofty terrace which commanded an exterior building called Johannes’ house. In its rear was a parallelogram, divided by buildings into two squares or courts, occupied in various ways by officers and their families. Then came groups of low brick buildings around two quadrangles called the Sikh Squares, on the tops of which erections were thrown up to enable the troops to fire out upon the town. Separated from these by a narrow lane was the house of Mr Gubbins, the financial commissioner; the lane was barricaded by earth, beams, and brambles; the buildings were strengthened in every way; while the extreme western point was a battery formed by Mr Gubbins himself. Then, passing along the northwest side were seen in turn the racket-court, the slaughter-house, the sheep-pen, and the butcher-yard, all near the boundary of the fortified position, and separated one from another by wide open spaces; there was a storehouse for bhoosa (cut chaff for cattle-food), and a guardhouse for Europeans; and all the buildings were loopholed for musketry. In the rear of the Bhoosa Intrenchment, as this post was called, was Mr Ommaney’s house, guarded by a deep ditch and a cactus-hedge, and provided with two pieces of ordnance. North of the slaughter-house a mortar-battery was formed. The English church was the next important building towards the north; it was speedily converted into a granary; and in the church-yard was formed a mortar-battery capable of shelling all the portion of the city between it and the iron bridge. This church-yard was destined afterwards to present melancholy proofs of the large number of deaths among the English defenders of the place. Beyond the church-yard was Lieutenant Innes’s house, in dangerous proximity to many buildings held by the rebels, and bounded on two sides by a garden; it was a difficult but most important duty to strengthen this house as much as possible. The extreme northern part of the whole enclosure, not five hundred yards from the iron bridge, was scarcely susceptible of defence in itself; but it was fully protected by the Redan Battery, constructed by Captain Fulton: this was decidedly the best battery in the whole place, commanding a wide sweep of city and country on both banks of the river. Along the northeast side, connected at one end with the Redan, was a series of earthworks, fascines, and sand-bags, loopholed for musketry, and mounted with guns. A long range of sloping garden-ground was turned into a glacis in front of the line of intrenchment just named. In the centre of the northern half of the whole place was the Residency proper, the official home of the chief-commissioner; this was a large and beautiful brick building, which was speedily made to accommodate many hundred persons; and as it was on high ground, the terrace-roof commanded a view of the whole city – to whoever would incur the peril of standing there.[87 - The wood-cut at p. 93 represents a part of the Residency in this limited sense of the term; the view at p. 82 will convey some notion of the appearance of the city of Lucknow as seen from the terrace-roof of this building. The plan on next page will give an idea of the Residency before siege; and in the next Part will be given a plan of the Residency under siege, shewing the relation which the enemies’ guns bore to those of the besieged.] The hospital, a very large building near the eastern angle of the whole enclosure, had once been the banqueting-room for the British resident at the King of Oude’s court; but it was now occupied as a hospital, a dispensary, officers’ quarters, and a laboratory for making fuses and cartridges; it was defended by mortars and guns in various directions. The Ballee or Bailey guard was near the hospital, but on a lower level; various parts of it were occupied as a store-room, a treasury, and barracks; the portion really constituting the Bailey guard gate, the station of the sepoys formerly guarding the Residency, was unluckily beyond the limits of the enclosure, and was productive of more harm than good to the garrison; as a means of security, the gateway was blocked up with earth, and defended by guns. Dr Fayrer’s house, south of the hospital, had a terrace-roof whence rifles were frequently brought to bear on the insurgents, and near it a gun or two were placed in position. Southward again was the civil dispensary; and near this the post-office, a building which, from its position and construction, was one of the most important in the whole place; soldiers were barracked in the interior, a shell and fuse room was set apart, the engineers made it their head-quarters, several families resided in it, and guns and mortars were planted in and around it. The financial-office, and the house of Mrs Sago (mistress of a charity-school), were on the southeast side of the enclosure, and were with great difficulty brought into a defensive state. The judicial office, near Sago’s house, could only be protected from an open lane by a wall of fascines and earth. The jail, near the Cawnpore Gate, was converted into barracks; and the native hospital became a tolerably sheltered place. The Begum’s Kothee, or ‘lady’s house’ (formerly belonging to a native lady of rank), was in the centre of the whole enclosure; it comprised many buildings, which were afterwards parcelled off as commissariat store-rooms, cooking-rooms, and dwellings for officers’ families.

It will thus be seen that the Residency at Lucknow, so often mentioned in connection with the history of the mutiny, was a small town rather than a single building. But it will also be seen that this small town was most dangerously placed, in juxtaposition to a large city full of hostile inhabitants and revolted sepoys. Before Sir Henry Lawrence took it in hand in June, it could be approached and entered from all sides; and at the beginning of July only a part of the defence-works above described were completed. The officers had to fight and build, to suffer and work, to watch and fortify, day after day, under privations difficult for others to appreciate. The various houses, more frequently designated garrisons by those engaged in the siege, did really deserve that title in a military sense; for they were gradually transformed into little forts or strongholds, each placed under one commander, and each defended indomitably against all attacks from the enemy. To give one as an example of many – Captain Anderson, who had resided at Lucknow, as assistant-commissioner, ever since the annexation of Oude, made his own house one of these fortified posts; he had under him eighteen men and one subaltern officer, with whose aid he withstood a five months’ siege, notwithstanding the enemy had nine 9-pounder guns playing on his house. The wall of the compound around the house was levelled, and a stockade put in its place; within the stockade was a ditch, then an earthwork five feet high, and then another ditch with pointed bamboos, forming a chevaux-de-frise. It was, in truth, a small citadel, and one very important for the safety of the whole place.

The siege began on the 1st of July, the day following the disastrous battle of Chinhut. It was indeed a siege, even more so than that to which Sir Hugh Wheeler had been exposed at Cawnpore; for there was not only constant firing of musketry, cannon, and mortars, by the mutineers against the Residency; but there were also subterranean mines or galleries dug from the outer streets under the enclosing wall, to blow up the defenders and their defence-works. At every hour of the day, at every corner of the Residency enclosure, was it necessary to keep strict watch. A telegraph, worked at the top of one of the buildings, gave signals to the officers at the Muchee Bhowan, directing them to blow up that fort, and retire to the Residency with the treasure and the guns. This was a most perilous enterprise, but under the skilful superintendence of Captain Francis and Lieutenant Huxhain it succeeded; 240 barrels of gunpowder, and 600,000 rounds of ammunition, were blown into the air, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy; and then the few officers and soldiers marched from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency, where they helped to strengthen the wofully small number of efficient fighting-men.[88 - Mr Rees relates a strange anecdote in connection with this retreat from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency: ‘We saved all but one man, who, having been intoxicated, and concealed in some corner, could not be found when the muster-roll was called. The French say, Il y a un Dieu pour les ivrognes; and the truth of the proverb was never better exemplified than in this man’s case. He had been thrown into the air, had returned unhurt to mother-earth, continued his drunken sleep again, had awaked next morning, found the fort to his surprise a mass of deserted ruins, and quietly walked back to the Residency without being molested by a soul; and even bringing with him a pair of bullocks attached to a cart of ammunition. It is very probable that the débris of these extensive buildings must have seriously injured the adjacent houses and many of the rebel army – thus giving the fortunate man the means of escaping.] All this was done by midnight on the 1st. On the 2d, while resting on a couch after his exhausting and anxious labours, Sir Henry Lawrence was struck by the shell which took away his valuable life; for it was a day on which ten thousand rebels were firing shells, balls, and bullets into or at the Residency. Miss Palmer, daughter of Colonel Palmer of the 48th, had her thigh shattered by a ball which entered one of the buildings; and Mr Ommaney was among the wounded. On the 3d dire confusion was everywhere visible; for all felt that their great leader would die of his wound: none had yet fully realised the appalling difficulties of their position; yet were they distracted by family anxieties on the one hand, and public duty on the other. On the 4th, Lawrence descended to the grave; on that day his nephew, Mr G. H. Lawrence, was wounded; and on that day, also, all order or legitimate trade ceased in the city, for marauders and budmashes plundered the shops. No military honours marked the funeral of Sir Henry; there was neither time nor opportunity for any display; a hurried prayer was repeated amid the booming of the enemy’s cannon, and a few spadefuls of earth speedily covered the mortal remains of one whose good name was not likely soon to die.[89 - The authoress of the Lady’s Diary gives an affecting account of the hour that succeeded the wounding of Sir Henry Lawrence. She, with her husband, was at that time in the house of Dr Fayrer, a surgeon who had more than once urged upon Sir Henry the paramount duty of cherishing his own life as one valuable to others even if slighted by himself. ‘He was brought over to this house immediately. – prayed with him, and administered the Holy Communion to him. He was quite sensible, though his agony was extreme. He spoke for nearly an hour, quite calmly, expressing his last wishes with regard to his children. He sent affectionate messages to them and to each of his brothers and sisters. He particularly mentioned the Lawrence Asylum, and entreated that government might be urged to give it support. He bade farewell to all the gentlemen who were standing round his bed, and said a few words of advice and kindness to each… There was not a dry eye there; every one was so deeply affected and grieved at the loss of such a man.’It may here be stated that the Queen afterwards bestowed a baronetcy on Sir Henry’s eldest son, Alexander Lawrence; to whom also the East India Company voted a pension of £1000 per annum.] On or about the 5th, the enemy seized the building known as Johannes’ house, from which they were able to keep up a deadly fire of musketry against Anderson’s house, the jail barracks, the post-office, and the Begum’s Kothee; it was afterwards much regretted that this house had not been included among those demolished by Sir Henry. On the 6th and 7th, the harassing fire continued from various points. Some of the bhoosa, or chopped straw for bullocks’ fodder, had been left in an ill-defended place; it was fired by the enemy, and totally consumed, placing in imminent danger a powder-magazine at no great distance. Major Francis had both his legs cut off by a cannon-ball, while quietly sitting in the mess-room; Mr Marshall, an opium-merchant, was killed, and the Rev. Mr Polehampton was wounded, about this time. It was a cruel vexation to the garrison to see and feel how much they were suffering through the skilful gunnery which the British had taught to the miscreants now in the insurgent army. The enemy’s artillerymen displayed great rapidity, ingenuity, and perseverance, in planting batteries in positions totally unlooked for; some even on house-tops, and others in spots where the garrison could not respond to their fire. It was more than suspected that Europeans were among them; indeed one reckless member of an otherwise worthy English family was recognised among the number, bringing discredit upon brothers and cousins who were at that very time gallantly serving the Company elsewhere. Many of the enemy’s batteries were not more than fifty or a hundred yards distant from the marginal buildings of the Residency enclosure; the balls knocked down pillars and verandahs with fearful accuracy. Most of the deaths, however, from ten to twenty a day, were caused by musket-bullets; the enemy had many good marksmen – especially a rebel African, who used his musket with deadly effect from Johannes’ house. If Sir Henry Lawrence had been a sterner soldier, if he had not been influenced by such considerate feelings for the opinions and prejudices of others, the British would have lost fewer lives than they did in Lucknow. We have already said that many of the houses around the Residency were destroyed by orders of Sir Henry, to prevent the enemy from converting them into strongholds; but it was afterwards known that the military officers under him urged the necessity for a still greater demolition. Brigadier Inglis, when at a later date he made a military report of the siege and the defence, adverted to this point in very decisive language. ‘When the blockade commenced,’ he said, ‘only two of our batteries were completed, part of the defences were yet in an unfinished condition, and the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which gave cover to the enemy, were only very partially cleared away. Indeed, our heaviest losses have been caused by the fire from the enemy’s sharpshooters, stationed in the adjoining mosques and houses of the native nobility, to the necessity of destroying which the attention of Sir Henry had been repeatedly drawn by the staff of engineers; but his invariable reply was: “Spare the holy places, and private property too, as far as possible;” and we have consequently suffered severely from our very tenderness to the religious prejudices and respect to the rights of our rebellious citizens and soldiery. As soon as the enemy had thoroughly completed the investment of the Residency, they occupied these houses, some of which were within easy pistol-shot of our barricades, in immense force, and rapidly made loopholes on those sides which bore on our post, from which they kept up a terrific and incessant fire day and night.’

The second week of the siege began, bringing with it an augmentation of the troubles already bitterly tasted. One day the Bailey guard would be fiercely attacked, another day the Cawnpore Battery, demanding incessant watchfulness on the part of the officers and men posted at those outworks. Brigadier Inglis sent off letters and messages to Cawnpore and Allahabad; but none reached their destination, the messengers being all intercepted on the way. He did not know how his missives fared; he only knew that no aid, no intelligence, reached him, and he measured his resources with an anxious heart. Sometimes a few officers would retire to snatch a little rest just before midnight, and then would be roused at one or two o’clock in the morning by a message that Gubbins’s house – or ‘garrison,’ as most of the houses within the enclosure were now called – or the Bailey guard, or some other important post, was closely attacked. Sleep, food, everything was forgotten at such moments, except the one paramount duty of repelling the enemy at the attacked point. One day a rebel musketeer pushed forward to such a spot as enabled him to shoot Lieutenant Charlton within side the very door of the church. The enemy sometimes fired logs of wood from their cannon and mortars, as if deficient in shot and shell; but they did not slacken from this or any other cause; they sent shots which set the commissioner’s house on fire, causing much danger and difficulty in extinguishing the flames; and it became perilous for any one within the enclosure to be seen for an instant by the enemy – so deadly accurate were their marksmen. Once now and then the officers with a few men, longing for a dash that would inspirit them in the midst of their troubles, would astonish the enemy by making a sortie beyond the defences, spiking a gun or two, despatching a few of the rebels, and hastening back to the enclosure. Lives being, however, too valuable to be risked for advantages so small as these, the brigadier sought rather to discourage than encourage such acts of heroism. Mr Bryson and Lieutenant Baxter were among the many who fell at this time. The officers did men’s duty, the civilians did military duty; for there were not hands enough to guard properly the numerous threatened points. One night all spare hands would be called upon to cover with tarpaulin the bhoosa stacks in the racket-court; on another, civilians who never before did labourers’ work were called up to dig earth and to carry sand-bags for batteries or breastworks; or they would stand sentinels all night in drenching rains. And then, perhaps on returning to their houses or ‘garrisons’ in the morning, they would find them untenable by reason of the torrent of balls and bullets to which they had been exposed. The open spots between the several buildings became gradually more and more dangerous. ‘A man could not shew his nose,’ says Captain Anderson, ‘without hearing the whiz of bullets close to his head. The shot, too, came from every direction; and when a poor fellow had nearly jerked his head off his shoulders in making humble salutations to passing bullets, he would have his penance disagreeably changed into a sudden and severe contortion of the whole body to avoid a round shot or shell. So soon as a man left his post he had no time for meditation; his only plan was to proceed rapidly. In fact, to walk slow was in some places very, very dangerous; and many a poor fellow was shot, who was too proud to run past places where bullets danced on the walls like a handful of pease in a frying-pan.’

The third week arrived. Now were the gallant defenders still more distressed and indignant than they had hitherto been; for the enemy commenced firing at the Brigade Mess, where large numbers of ladies and children had taken refuge; attacks were thus made on those who could not defend themselves, and the officers and soldiers found their attention distracted from necessary duties at other points. Anderson’s house had by this time become so riddled with shot, that the stores were removed from it; and Deprat’s house, similarly battered by the enemy, in like manner became uninhabitable. The buildings near the boundary naturally suffered most; and, as a consequence, those nearer the centre became more and more crowded with inmates. Day by day did officers and men work hard to strengthen the defences. Mortars were placed behind the earthwork at the post-office, to jet forth shells upon the troublesome Johannes’ house; stockades and traverses were made, to screen the entrance to the Residency, within which so many persons were domiciled. Nevertheless the attack increased in vigour quite as rapidly as the defence; for the insurgents appear to have received large reinforcements. Their custom was to fire all night, so as to afford the garrison no rest, and thus tire them out; they so pointed a mortar as to send two shells directly into the Residency itself; they commenced a new battery, to bear upon Gubbins’s house; their cannon-balls – of which there were indications of a new supply – fell upon and into Fayrer’s and Gubbins’s houses, the post-office and the Brigade Mess; a shot burst through a room in which many of the principal officers were breakfasting; a mine was sprung inside the Water Gate, intended to blow up the Redan Battery; and at the same time vigorous attacks were made with guns and musketry on almost every part of the enclosure, as if to bewilder the garrison with crushing onslaughts on every side. The pen cannot describe the state of incessant anxiety into which these daily proceedings threw the forlorn inmates of the place: no one could look forward to a night of sleep after a harassing day; for the booming of cannon, and the anticipated visit of a cannon-ball or a mortar-shell, drove away sleep from most eyelids. It was on the 20th that the specially vigorous attack, just adverted to, was made; so general and energetic, that it almost partook of the character of a storming or assault of a beleaguered city. Nothing but the most untiring assiduity could have saved the garrison from destruction. Every one who could handle a musket or load a cannon, did so; others helped to construct stockades and earthen barriers; and even many of the sick and wounded rose from their pallets, staggered along to the points most attacked, sought to aid in the general cause, and in some instances dropped dead while so doing. Almost every building was the object of a distinct attack. The Redan Battery was fortunately not blown up, the enemy having miscalculated the distance of their mine; but the explosion was followed by a desperate struggle on the glacis outside, in which the insurgents were mowed down by grape-shot before they would abandon their attempt to enter at that point. At Innes’s house, Lieutenant Loughnan maintained a long and fierce contest against a body of insurgents twentyfold more numerous than the little band who aided him; before they desisted, no less than a hundred dead and wounded were carried off by the rebels. The financial office and Sago’s house, entirely defended by non-military men, bore up bravely against the torrent brought against them. The judicial office, under Captain Germon, and Anderson’s house, under Captain Anderson, were not only successfully defended, but the handful of troops aided other points where there were no military men. The Brigade Mess, Gubbins’s house, the houses near the Cawnpore Battery – all were attacked with vigour, but every attack was repelled.

When the muster-roll was called after these exciting scenes, it was found that many valuable lives had been lost. Yet is it truly remarkable that less than thirty persons of all classes in the garrison were killed or wounded on the 20th. No officer was killed; among the wounded were Captains Lowe and Forbes, Lieutenants Edmonstone and M’Farlane, and Adjutant Smith. Mr Rees asserts that the loss of the enemy, during seven hours of incessant fighting, could hardly have been less than a thousand men. It was the grape-shot poured forth from the garrison that worked this terrible destruction. The week had been attended with its usual list of isolated losses within the enclosure. On one day Lieutenant Lester was killed; on another, Lieutenants Bryce and O’Brien were wounded; and on another, Lieutenant Harmer was laid low.

The arrival of the fourth week of the siege found Brigadier Inglis and his companions stout in heart, but yet depressed in spirits; proud of what they had achieved on the 20th, but fearful that many more such dangers would beset them. The detachment of the 32d foot was that on which Inglis most relied in a military point of view, and in that the casualties had been 150 in three weeks. He had sent out repeated messengers, but had hitherto obtained not a word of news from any quarter; shut out from the world of India, he knew of nothing but his own cares and responsibilities. On the 23d, however, a gleam of joy shot through the garrison; a messenger, amid imminent peril, had been to Cawnpore, and brought back news of Havelock’s victories in the Doab. Inglis immediately sent him off again, with an urgent request to the gallant general to advance with his column to Lucknow as quickly as possible. The English residents began to count the days that must elapse before Havelock could arrive – a hopeful thing at the time, but bitterly disappointing afterwards; for they knew not how or why it was that succour did not arrive. Whatever might be the hopes or fears for the future, there was an ever-present danger which demanded daily and hourly attention. Although mortified by their late defeat, the enemy did not on that account give up their attacks. On narrowly watching, the engineers detected the enemy forming a mine beneath the ground from Johannes’ house to the Sikh Square and the Brigade Mess; they could hear the miners at their subterraneous work, and they did what military engineers are accustomed to in such cases – run out a countermine, and destroy the enemy’s handiwork by an explosion. Above ground the attack was maintained chiefly by artillery, the hurling of balls, shells, shrapnels, and those abominable compounds of pitchy and sulphureous substances which artillerymen call ‘stinkpots.’ The breakfast-table of the officers at the post-office was one morning visited by an eight-inch shell, which fell on it without exploding. On the 25th a letter arrived from Colonel Tytler at Cawnpore, the first received from any quarter throughout July; for the former messenger had brought rumours concerning Havelock, not a letter or a message. Great was the joy at learning that Havelock intended to advance to Lucknow; and Inglis at once sent off to him a plan of the city, to aid his proceedings – offering the messenger five thousand rupees if he safely brought back an answer. An anxious time indeed was it for all, and well might they look out for succour. Major Banks, the civil commissioner appointed by Sir Henry Lawrence, was shot dead while reconnoitring from the top of an outhouse; he was an officer who had served nearly thirty years in India, and who, both as a soldier and a linguist, had won a good name. Dr Brydon was wounded; the Rev. Mr Polehampton was killed, as were Lieutenants Lewin, Shepherd, and Archer, and many others whose lives were valuable, not only to their families, but to all in the garrison. The death of Major Banks increased the cares and responsibilities of Brigadier Inglis, who, now that there was no chief-commissioner, felt the necessity of placing the whole community under strict military-garrison rules.

In the official dispatch afterwards prepared by Inglis, full justice was done to the ingenuity and perseverance of the besiegers. Speaking of the large guns placed in batteries on every side of the enclosure, he said: ‘These were planted all round our post at small distances, some being actually within fifty yards of our defences, but in places where our own heavy guns could not reply to them; while the perseverance and ingenuity of the enemy in erecting barricades in front of and around their guns, in a very short time rendered all attempts to silence them by musketry entirely unavailing. Neither could they be effectually silenced by shells, by reason of their extreme proximity to our position, and because, moreover, the enemy had recourse to digging very narrow trenches about eight feet in depth in rear of each gun, in which the men lay while our shells were flying, and which so effectually concealed them, even while working the gun, that our baffled sharpshooters could only see their hands while in the act of loading.’

And now, the reader may ask, what were the ladies and children doing during this terrible month of July; and how did the officers and men fare in their domestic and personal matters? It is a sad tale, full of trouble and misery; and yet it is a heroic tale. No one flinched, no one dreamed for an instant of succumbing to the enemy. It must be remembered, as a beginning of all the privations, that the Europeans went into the Residency very scantily supplied with personal necessaries. When the cantonment was burned during the mutiny of the 31st of May, much property belonging to the officers was destroyed; and when every one hurried in for shelter after the disastrous 30th of June, no time was allowed for making purchases in the city, or bringing in property from bungalows or storehouses outside the official stronghold. Hence every one was driven to make the best of such commodities as had been secured by the last day of June. Even during the greater part of that month the troubles were many; the enclosure Residency was full of officers and men, all hard at work; the heat was excessive; cholera, dysentery, and small-pox were at their deadly work; the church being full of grain, those who sought religious aid in time of need met for divine service in any available spot; most of the native servants ran away when the troubles began; and many of them ended their service by robbing their masters.

How July opened for the British, may faintly be imagined. The commissariat chief was ill; no one could promptly organise that office under the sudden emergency; the food and draught bullocks, unattended to, roamed about the place; and many of them were shot, or tumbled into wells. Terrible work was it for the officers to bury the killed bullocks, lest their decaying carcasses should taint the air in excessively hot weather. Some of the artillery horses were driven mad for want of food and water. Day after day, after working hard in the trenches, the officers had to employ themselves at night in burying dead bullocks and horses – officers, be it understood; for the men were all employed as sentries or in other duties. It was not until after many days that they could turn out of the enclosure all the spare horses, and secure the rest. As the heat continued, and as the dead bodies of animals increased in number, the stench became overpowering, and was one of the greatest grievances to which the garrison were exposed; the temperature at night was often less patiently borne than that by day, and the officers and men were troubled by painful boils. Even when wet days occurred, matters were not much improved; for the hot vapours from stagnant pools engendered fever, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhœa. The children died rapidly, and the hospital-rooms were always full; the sick and wounded could not be carried to upper apartments, because the enemy’s shot and shell rendered all such places untenable. The officers were put on half-rations early in the month; and even those rations they in many cases had to cook for themselves, owing to the disappearance of the native servants. The English ladies suffered unnumbered privations and inconveniences. The clergyman’s wife, in her Diary, told of the very first day of the siege in these words: ‘No sooner was the first gun fired, than the ladies and children – congregated in large numbers in Dr Fayrer’s house – were all hurried down stairs into an underground room called the Tye Khana, damp, dark, and gloomy as a vault, and excessively dirty. Here we sat all day, feeling too miserable, anxious, and terrified to speak, the gentlemen occasionally coming down to reassure us and tell us how things were going on. – was nearly all the day in the hospital, where the scene was terrible; the place so crowded with wounded and dying men that there was no room to pass between them, and everything in a state of indescribable misery, discomfort, and confusion.’ In the preceding month it had been a hardship for the ladies to be deprived of the luxuries of Anglo-Indian life; but they were now driven to measure comforts by a different standard. They were called upon to sweep their own rooms, draw water from the wells, wash their own clothes, and perform all the menial duties of a household; while their husbands or fathers were cramped up in little outhouses or stables, or anywhere that might afford temporary shelter at night. When food became scanty and disease prevalent, these troubles were of course augmented, and difference of rank became almost obliterated where all had to suffer alike. Many families were huddled together in one large room, and all privacy was destroyed. The sick and wounded were, as may be supposed, in sad plight; for, kind as the rest were, there were too many harassing duties to permit them to help adequately those who were too weak to help themselves. Officers and men were lying about in the hospital rooms, covered with blood and often with vermin; the dhobees or washermen were too weak-handed for the preservation of cleanliness, and few of the British had the luxury of a change of linen; the windows being kept closed and barricaded, to prevent the entrance of shot from without, the pestilential atmosphere carried off almost as many unfortunates as the enemy’s missiles. The writer of the Lady’s Diary, whose narrative is seldom relieved by one gleam of cheerfulness, departs from her habitual sadness when describing the mode in which eleven ladies and seven children slept on the floor in the Tye Khana or cellar, ‘fitting into each other like bits into a puzzle.’ Chairs being few in number, most of the ladies sat on the floor, and at meal-times placed their plates on their knees. The cellar being perfectly dark, candles were lighted at meal-times. The reason for keeping so many persons in this subterranean abode was to lessen the chance of their being shot in any upper apartment. Of one torment, the flies, every person complained bitterly who was shut up in the Residency enclosure on those fearfully hot days. Mr Rees says: ‘They daily increased to such an extent that we at last began to feel life irksome, more on their account than from any other of our numerous troubles. In the day, flies; at night, mosquitoes. But the latter were bearable; the former intolerable. Lucknow had always been noted for its flies; but at no time had they been known to be so troublesome. The mass of putrid matter that was allowed to accumulate, the rains, the commissariat stores, the hospital, had attracted these insects in incredible numbers. The Egyptians could not possibly have been more molested than we were by this pest. They swarmed in millions, and though we blew daily some hundreds of thousands into the air, this seemed to make no diminution in their numbers; the ground was still black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed flies. We could not sleep in the day on account of them. We could scarcely eat. Our beef, of which we got a tolerably small quantity every day, was usually studded with them; and when I ate my miserable boiled lentil-soup and unleavened bread, a number of scamps flew into my mouth, or tumbled into and floated about in my plate.’

Let us proceed, and watch the military operations of the month of August.

The fifth week of the siege opened with the same scenes as before, deepened in intensity. The enemy, it is true, did not attack with more vigour, but the defenders were gradually weakened in every one of their resources – except courage, and the resolution to bear all rather than yield to the enemy. Colonel Tytler’s letter had afforded hope that the relieving column under Havelock would arrive at Lucknow before the end of July; but when the 30th and 31st had passed, and the 1st and 2d of August had passed also, then were their hopes cruelly dashed. It required all the energy of Brigadier Inglis to keep up the spirits of himself and his companions under the disappointment. He did not know, and was destined to remain for some time in ignorance, that Havelock had been forced to return to Cawnpore, owing to the losses suffered by his heroic little band. About the beginning of the month, great numbers of additional rebel sepoys entered Lucknow, increasing the phalanx opposed to the British. They began a new mine near Sago’s house, and another near the Brigade Mess, in which many of the ladies and children were sheltered; and it required all the activity of the officers to frustrate these underground enemies. The rebels planted a 24-pounder near the iron bridge, to batter the church and the Residency. On one day a shell burst in a room of the Begum’s Kothee, where Lieutenant James and Mr Lawrence were ill in bed, but without injuring them; and on another a soldier was shot dead by a cannon-ball in the very centre room of the hospital. Inglis tried, but tried in vain, to get any one to take a letter, even so small as to go into a quill, to Havelock; the enterprise was so perilous, that the offer of a great reward fell powerless. Thus reduced to his own resources, he began anxiously to count up his stores and supplies: he protected the powder-magazine with heavy beams, laden with a great thickness of earth; and he got the civilians to labour at the earthworks, and to watch the batteries, for nearly all his engineers were ill. One engineer-officer, Captain Fulton, was happily spared from illness longer than most of the others; and he laboured unremittingly and most skilfully to baffle the enemy’s mining by countermining: he organised a body of sappers from among the humbler members of the garrison, and begged every one who did sentry-duty at night to listen for and give information concerning any underground sounds that denoted the driving of galleries or mines by the enemy. One of the ladies, Mrs Dorin, was among the number who this week fell from the shots of the enemy. An event of this kind was peculiarly distressing to all; an officer learns to brave death, but he is inexpressibly saddened when he sees tender women falling near him by bullets.

The sixth week arrived. The brigadier, by redoubling his offers, did at length succeed in obtaining the aid of a native, who started on the dangerous duty of conveying a small note to General Havelock at Cawnpore. This done, he renewed his anxious superintendence of matters within the enclosure. The enemy mounted on the top of Johannes’ house, and thence kept up a very annoying fire on the Brigade Mess. They also recommenced mining near the Redan. On the 8th of August the garrison could hear and see much marching and countermarching of troops within the city, without being able to divine its cause; they fondly hoped, when the booming of guns was heard, that Havelock was approaching. This hope was, however, speedily and bitterly dashed; for on the following day a great force of rebels was seen to approach from the direction of the cantonment, cross the river, and join the main body of the insurgents within Lucknow. This was a bad omen, for it prefigured an increase in the number, frequency, and varieties of attack. On the 10th the enemy succeeded in exploding one of their mines opposite Johannes’ house; it blew up sixty feet of palisades and earthen defences. Under cover of this surprise, and of a tremendous firing of guns, the enemy pushed forward into all the buildings near the Cawnpore Battery and Johannes’ house; but they encountered so steady and determined a resistance that they were beaten at all points. Near Sago’s house, too, they fired another mine, which blew up two soldiers; but here, in like manner, they were repulsed after a fierce contest. This explosion was accompanied or attended by an incident almost as strange as that connected with the soldier at Muchee Bhowan; the two men were blown into the air, but both escaped with their lives; one fell within the enclosure, slightly bruised, but not seriously injured; the other, falling into an open road between the enclosure and the enemy, jumped up when he found himself unhurt, and clambered over a wall or through the breach, untouched by the storm of bullets sent after him. On the same day there were other attacks on Innes’s, Anderson’s, and Gubbins’s houses or garrisons. Of the attacks on the Brigade Mess, the Cawnpore Battery, and Anderson’s house, Brigadier Inglis afterwards thus spoke in his dispatch: ‘The enemy sprang a mine close to the Brigade Mess, which entirely destroyed our defences for the space of twenty feet, and blew in a great portion of the outside wall of the house occupied by Mr Schilling’s garrison. On the dust clearing away, a breach appeared through which a regiment could have advanced in perfect order, and a few of the enemy came on with the utmost determination; but they were met with such a withering flank-fire of musketry from the officers and men holding the top of the Brigade Mess, that they beat a speedy retreat, leaving the more adventurous of their numbers lying on the crest of the breach. While this operation was going on, another large body advanced on the Cawnpore Battery, and succeeded in locating themselves for a few minutes in the ditch. They were, however, dislodged by hand-grenades. At Captain Anderson’s post, they also came boldly forward with scaling-ladders, which they planted against the wall; but here, as elsewhere, they were met with the most indomitable resolution; and the leaders being slain, the rest fled, leaving the ladders, and retreated to their batteries and loopholed defences, whence they kept up for the rest of the day an unusually heavy cannonade and musketry fire.’ All the attacks, it is true, were frustrated, but only by fearful labour on the part of the defenders; every man was worn down by exhaustion on this terrible day. A message or rather a rumour was received, obscure in its purport, but conveying the impression that Havelock had been baffled in his attempt to reach Lucknow: news that produced very great despondency in the garrison, among those who had become sick at heart as well as in body. When a cannon-ball rushed along and demolished the verandah of the Residency or chief-commissioner’s house, it could not do less than add to the trepidation of the numerous families domiciled within the walls of that building, already brought into a state of nervous agitation by the incessant noises and dangers. Death and wounds were as rife as ever during this week. A shot broke the leg of Ensign Studdy while breakfasting in the Residency; Captain Waterman was wounded; Lieutenant Bryce died of a wound received some days earlier; Major Anderson, chief-engineer, died of dysentery and over-fatigue, bringing grief to the whole garrison for the loss of a most valuable and intrepid officer. These were the chief names: those of humbler rank who fell to rise no more were too many to be officially recorded; they were hastily buried in the church-yard, and soon driven from the memories of those who had no time to dwell on the past.

Up to the day when the seventh week of the siege opened, there had been twenty letters sent for succour, first by Sir Henry Lawrence, and then by Brigadier Inglis; and to only one of these had a direct reply been received. Only a few of them, indeed, had reached their destinations; and of these few, a reply from one alone safely passed through all the perils between Cawnpore and Lucknow. As has been already said, this reply was not such as to comfort the British residents; they had to rouse themselves to a continuance of the same kind of exertions as before. The enemy did not give them one day, scarcely one hour, of rest. On the 12th of August so fierce an attack was made on the Cawnpore Battery, that all the defenders were forced to shield themselves from the balls and bullets – still remaining at hand, however, in case a closer assault were attempted. It being found, too, that a mine was being run by the enemy in the direction of Sago’s house, some of the officers made a daring sortie to examine this mine, much to their own peril. Then commenced, as before, a system of countermining, each party of miners being able to hear the other working in an adjoining gallery; it became a struggle which should blow the other up; the British succeeded, and shattered all the works of the enemy at that spot. Nothing in the whole progress of the siege was more extraordinary than this perpetual mining and countermining. While the infantry and artillery on both sides were at their usual deadly work in the open air, the Sappers and Miners were converting the ground beneath into a honey-comb of dark galleries and passages – the enemy attempting to blow up the defence-works, and the defenders attempting to anticipate this by blowing up the enemy. Whenever the firing by the mutineers slackened in any material degree, the defenders took advantage of the opportunity to make new sand-bags for batteries and earthworks, in place of the old ones which had been destroyed. The 15th of August was a white day within the enclosure; no burial took place. It was also rendered notable by the receipt of a letter from General Havelock – a letter telling of inability to afford present succour, and therefore a mournful letter; but still it was better than none, seeing that it pointed out to all the necessity for continued exertions in the common cause. Now came the time when a great increase of discomfort was in store for the numerous persons who had been accommodated in the Residency, the official house of the chief-commissioner. The building had been so shaken by shells and balls that it was no longer secure; and the inmates were removed to other quarters. On the 18th a terrible commotion took place; the enemy exploded a mine under the Sikh Square or barrack, and made a breach of thirty feet in the defence-boundary of the enclosure. Instantly all hands were set to work; boxes, planks, doors, beams, were brought from various quarters to stop up the gap; while muskets and pistols were brought to bear upon the assailants. Not only did the gallant fellows within the enclosure repel the enemy, but they made a sortie, and blew up some of the exterior buildings which were in inconvenient proximity. By the explosion on this day, Captain Orr, Lieutenant Meecham, and other officers and men, were hurled into the air, but with less serious results than might have been expected; several, however, were suffocated by the débris which fell upon them.

By the eighth week the garrison had become in a strange way accustomed to bullets and balls; that is, though always in misery of some kind or other, the report of firearms had been rendered so thoroughly familiar to them, through every day and night’s experience, that it was a matter of course to hear missiles whiz past the ear. Mr Rees, speaking of his daily movements from building to building in the enclosure, says: ‘At one time a bullet passed through my hat; at another I escaped being shot dead by one of the enemy’s best riflemen, by an unfortunate soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the wound through the temples instead; at another I moved off from a place where in less than a twinkling of an eye afterwards a musket-bullet stuck in the wall; at another, again, I was covered with dust and pieces of brick by a round-shot that struck the wall not two inches away from me; at another, again, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old woman, and wounding a native boy and a native cook.’ Every day was marked by some vicissitudes. On the 20th, the enemy opened a tremendous cannonading, which knocked down a guard-room over the Mess-house, and lessened the number of places from which the garrison could obtain a look-out. The enemy were also on that day detected in the attempt to run new mines under the Cawnpore Battery and the Bailey guard. This led to a brilliant sortie, headed by Captain M’Cabe and Lieutenant Browne, which resulted not only in the spiking of two of the enemy’s guns, but also in the blowing up of Johannes’ house, which had been such a perpetual source of annoyance to the garrison. It was one of the best day’s work yet accomplished, and cheered the poor, hard-worked fellows for a time. Yet they had enough to trouble them; the Cawnpore and Redan batteries were almost knocked to pieces, and needed constant repair; the judicial office became so riddled with shot that the women and children had to be removed from it; the enemy’s sharpshooters were deadly accurate in their aim; their miners began new mines as fast as the old ones were destroyed or rendered innoxious; and Inglis’s little band was rapidly thinning.

Another week arrived, the last in August, and the ninth of this perilous life in the fortified enclosure. The days exhibited variations in the degree of danger, but not one really bright gleam cheered the hearts of the garrison. An advantage had been gained by the successful mining and blowing up of Johannes’ house, once the residence of a merchant of that name; it had been a post from which an African eunuch belonging to the late king’s court had kept up a most fatal and accurate fire into the enclosure, bringing down more Europeans than any other person in the enemy’s ranks. An advantage was thus gained, it is certain; but there were miseries in abundance in other quarters. Gubbins’s house had become so shot-riddled, that the ladies and children domiciled there were too much imperiled to remain longer; they were removed to other buildings, adding to the number of inmates in rooms already sadly overcrowded. Among the natives in the enclosure, desertions frequently took place; a fact at which no one could reasonably be surprised, but which nevertheless greatly added to the labours of those on whom devolved the defence of the place. Distressingly severe as those labours had all along been, they were now doubly so; for the enemy erected a new battery opposite the Bailey guard, and commenced new mines in all directions. As the defenders could seldom venture on a sortie to examine the enemy’s works of attack, they were driven to the construction of ‘listening-galleries’ – underground passages where the sound of the enemy’s mining picks and shovels could be heard. And then would be renewed the digging of countermines, and a struggle to determine which party should be the first to blow up the other. The Mohurrum or Mohammedan festival commenced this week; a period in which fanatical Mussulmans are so fierce against all who dissent from their faith, that the garrison apprehended a new onslaught with more force than ever; this fear passed away, however, for though there was much ‘tom-tom’ processioning and buffalo-horn bugling in the city, the attacks on the enclosure did not differ much from their usual character. Another letter was received from Havelock, which gave joy to men who found that they were not wholly forgotten by friends in the outer world; but when they heard that a period of at least three weeks longer must elapse before he could possibly reach them, their overcharged hearts sank again, and deep despondency existed for a time among them.