Lieutenant Moorsom was the next to enter. ‘I went through the rooms strewn with Bibles and prayer books, and other religious works,’ he wrote, ‘with shoes, some of little children, certainly not three inches long, and amidst all these fearful stains and pools of innocent English blood.’ A few months earlier he had visited the Lindsay family in Cawnpore, and now, however unpleasant the task, he took time to search for any evidence of their fate. ‘Each room I entered, I peered into, expecting to see their bodies,’ he informed his sister, ‘but thank God I was spared that sight, their butchers threw them into a well.’
Those who followed the two officers were confronted with a spectacle which caused some to stumble out, retching violently, and others to remain with faces contorted with rage. ‘The smell of the still reeking human blood was dreadful,’ confessed Captain Francis Maude, ‘and a thing never to be forgotten.’
John Sherer, who was probably the first civilian to enter the Bibighar, found the scene ‘so unspeakably horrible … The whole of the pavement was thickly coated with blood, long tresses of hair glued with clotted blood to the ground.’ A Bible discovered half hidden beneath a litter of clothing bore an inscription on the fly leaf: ‘For darling Mama, from her affectionate daughter Isabella Ball. 27th June. Went to the boats 29th. Taken out of the boats 30th. Taken to Sevadah Kottri. Fatal day.’
Despite the absence of bodies, the evidence that remained angered many, and one grisly detail in particular sickened William Munro, a surgeon of the 93rd of Foot:
About six feet from the floor, a large iron hook was fixed to the wall, which, on examining I found to be covered with congealed blood, and on the wall immediately around it were many marks of blood which on close inspection, I saw were the hand prints of a little child … the poor thing must have struggled for a long time, perhaps in the sight of its helpless mother. This was horrible to think of or to look at, so I hurried from the room.
A little more than 40 feet from the Bibighar was the well. Looking down, the horrified viewers saw a tangled mass of naked flesh, human limbs and severed heads stacked to within a few feet of the well’s lip. ‘I looked down and saw such a sight as I hope never to see again,’ wrote an anonymous Highlander. ‘The whole of the bodies were naked, and the limbs had been separated.’ ‘I have faced death in every form,’ another veteran remarked, ‘but I could not look down that well again.’
It was a sight so ghastly that when Sherer sought out General Havelock to report the discovery, the General immediately requested, ‘Please, at once procure coolies, and have it filled up with earth.’ The order was duly carried out, ‘Not a moment too soon,’ observed Sherer, ‘for the effluvia was becoming excessively bad.’
On that day the slogan ‘Remember Cawnpore!’ was born, and it was perhaps understandable that a soldier who had fought in the Crimea where he had been reluctant to kill a Russian, felt any compassion for the mutineers desert him. ‘As I looked around, I could almost have cried with rage,’ confessed Colonel John Alexander Ewart of the 93rd. Remembering his cousin and his family, he wrote: ‘I felt that I had become a changed man. All feeling of mercy or consideration for the mutineers had left me. I was no longer a Christian, and all I wanted was revenge.’
In feeling this way, he was not alone. The bloodstained walls and the sword cuts on a tree over the well, with here and there a trace of human hair sticking to the bark, filled young Hugh Gough with just one desire: ‘Vengeance, deep and sure’. Similar feelings possessed even the most liberal minded. ‘If I am wrong,’ mused Lieutenant Swanston, ‘may God forgive me, but it is hard to think of what our unoffending women and children suffered, and not have feelings of revenge rise in one’s heart.’
In his capacity as Magistrate in Cawnpore, John Sherer submitted an official report to the Commissioner after the Mutiny had been suppressed, in which he stated:
It seems probable that the volleys were first fired into the doors and windows and then the executioners were sent in to do the rest with swords. If the work was anything like completed, it must have taken a considerable time. At length the doors were closed and night fell upon what had happened. The hotel, where Nana had his headquarters, was within fifty yards of this house and I am credibly informed that he ordered a nautch and passed the evening with singing and dancing. Early the next morning, orders were given for the Bebeegurh to be cleared. There must have been near upon 200 corpses, so many I do not think could have been thrown into the well. It seems probable that a portion was dragged down to the Ganges. Considering the smallness of the house, and the crowded conditions of the captives it is next to impossible that all can have been slaughtered the previous night. It is exercising therefore no morbid imagination and pondering to no prurient curiosity to say that I hold no doubt some of the living met a more terrible death than assassination, even by being plunged with their dead companions into the tainted waters of the well.
The retribution exacted by the enraged Fusiliers and Highlanders, encouraged by Brigadier General James Neill – he had recently been promoted from Colonel – was every bit as brutal and indiscriminate as that inflicted by the rebels upon the unfortunate women and children in the Bibigarh. The guilty had long since fled Cawnpore, but the mere suspicion of having been involved was sufficient to convict a mutineer, and Neill, who had arrived on the 20th from Allahabad to take command, was quick to ensure that in his eyes, at least, the punishment fitted the crime.
Accompanied by Captain Gordon, his aide-de-camp, Neill had visited the Bibighar and was taken aback by what Gordon termed ‘the horrors of that human slaughter house’. James Neill, despite a strict Scottish Presbyterian schooling which had taught him to combine justice with mercy, found it impossible to control his feelings, and was led to remark, ‘No one who has witnessed these scenes of murder, mutilation and massacre, can ever listen to the word mercy as applied to these fiends. I can never spare a sepoy again. All that fall into my hands will be dead men.’
Given the amount of alcohol freely available it was no surprise that restraint was cast aside by the enraged redcoats. The first two mutineers captured in Cawnpore had been so badly wounded that they had been unable to make their escape. One, a sowar, and the other a corporal in the 53rd NI, were laid out in the sun as a preliminary punishment, and they protested by heaping abuse and curses upon their tormentors. William Shepherd, who was a witness, wrote: ‘The Europeans rewarded them with a kick or so for their pains.’ The pair were subsequently hung.
The Provost’s party made sure that the condemned knew beforehand that their souls were not about to go to paradise by taking steps to defile their religion or caste. Beef was forced down the throats of Hindus and pork fat was smeared on Muslims. Many were buried in graves that they had been forced to dig themselves. Every Brahmin, under pain of the lash, was made to clean a portion of the bloodstained floor, which to a high-caste Hindu was tantamount to condemning his soul to perdition.
After witnessing the punishment of one such victim, John Gordon recorded the event in his diary: ‘When he became a little dilatory at his work he was brightened up by several good cuts across his back from a cat which a European soldier was standing alongside with for that purpose. This was repeated several times and he roared like a bull.’ The prisoner was then taken out to a gallows which had been erected in the compound and hanged before he could indulge in any ceremony of purification. Forbes-Mitchell, who earlier had seen Surgeon Munro examining the hook with tears streaming down his face, was present at the execution of three sepoys captured the day before the arrival of General Neill. ‘The dried blood on the floor was first moistened with water,’ he observed, ‘and the lash of the warder was applied till the wretches kneeled down and cleaned their square foot of flooring.’
Few of the hangmen paused to consider whether they were punishing the innocent, and when Captain Maude suggested that the method by which they were sent to their deaths was just a little too casual, and asked the Provost Sergeant whether he thought so, he was not al
together surprised by his reply: ‘Well, I don’t know, Sir; I’ain’t’eard no complaints.’ Very probably, thought Maude, ‘he had not’.
Feelings were certainly running high, for even after the well had been filled it was not difficult to find gruesome evidence of the appalling massacres that had taken place. Major Anson wrote to his wife in Kussowlee:
Yesterday I went to see the house where so many of our unfortunate women and children had been murdered. It is a villainous looking place, and will be more famous than the Black Hole of Calcutta. We saw lots of remnants of gowns, shoes, and garments dyed in blood and blood upon the walls in different places. Outside in the compound there was the skull of a woman, and hair about on the bushes.
Neill’s bizarre method of punishment continued until 18 July when General Havelock ordered that all intoxicating liquor be confiscated and put under guard, for as he explained: ‘It would require one half of my force to keep it from being drunk by the other half, and I should scarcely have a sober soldier in camp.’
Soldiers were banned from entering the native quarters and the General warned that any found guilty of plundering would be ‘hung up in their uniform’. In the event it proved to be an idle threat, for as an anonymous soldier stated, ‘We have had one European hung, but they are very loath to do anything to the Europeans.’
In his tour of Wheeler’s entrenchment and the surrounding area, Major Anson found the magazine to be a complete ruin and he was convinced that the old General had made the correct decision in occupying the hospital barrack and digging the entrenchment. He was of the opinion that but for the failure of provisions and a shortage of ammunition, the garrison could have held out pending the arrival of General Havelock. Major Anson’s view however would have brought little comfort to William Shepherd, for although he now had his freedom, the knowledge that his wife and daughter had perished at the Satichaura Ghat meant that he could no longer entertain fond hopes for the future, and felt quite alone.
Early in August Lady Canning was able to provide further details to Queen Victoria relating to the tragedy when she wrote:
I cannot write to your Majesty all the horrors we have to mourn over. The Cawnpore massacres were the worst of all & little has yet come to light … Poor little scraps of journal, one by a child & a letter from a lady to her mother with verses of ‘Farewell’ were picked up in that house where they were murdered. The sight of those rooms makes strong men faint – the bodies were never seen. All were already thrown down a well. I think the spot will be cleared & consecrated & a simple memorial put up to their memory. I hear of letters from a large party of merry happy girls there who at first thought Cawnpore ‘so delightful’. They did not wish to be sent away, they feared nothing & the life was so pleasant, like a picnic every day. After the siege began what a cruel contrast! Their house was shelled & the roof gone. Many were wounded. A list of deaths by wounds and cholera up to the last dreadful day was found & it has given comfort to many to see the names of their friends on it.
It was said that when Lord Canning learned of the massacre, he walked the halls of Government House all through the night, tormented by thoughts that had he acted sooner, the women and children might have been saved.
Although the Nana and his army of 12,000 had been driven from Cawnpore, it was still a force to be reckoned with but Generals Neill and Havelock could not agree upon tactics. A potentially awkward situation was only avoided when General Havelock announced his intention of taking command of the Lucknow relief column, leaving Neill with a small force to defend Cawnpore. On 25 July, Havelock left to join the relief column which earlier that week had made a hazardous crossing of the fast-flowing Ganges, 1,500 strong and equipped with ten field guns. Coincident with the river crossing was the beginning of the monsoon period which added to the difficulties experienced by Havelock’s troops, not least to their personal comforts. ‘The heavy and frequent rain incident during this monsoon weather makes writing a matter of difficulty,’ complained Charles North. The ploughed ground beneath one’s feet is a regular swamp. Water, water, everywhere! A dry jacket is a luxury unknown to us for many days.’
Held back by the monsoon rains, the Madras Fusiliers had been among the last troops to cross. ‘Here we are still and the rain falling in torrents’, complained Lieutenant William Tate Groom in a letter to his wife. ‘Nearly the whole force are now on the other side of the river without tents. They say that the Sikhs are to cross this morning and we cross this evening … No tents or baggage to be taken to Lucknow, so you may fancy what a comfortable time we shall have of it.’
‘Nothing would keep the water out, it seemed to soak up from the ground,’ wrote William Swanston. ‘This state of affairs could not last long; cholera broke out and the men weakened by exposure and hard work gave out one by one.’
For three days Havelock’s troops remained on the Oude side of the river without shelter of any description before moving on to a small village where, as recorded by Ensign Blake, ‘cholera broke out, taking men off by the score’.
Having warned Calcutta that General Neill had been left in Cawnpore with a small force in prepared positions north of the canal, General Havelock began his march upcountry, conscious of the opposition he could expect from the Nana’s troops and the Oudh irregulars who had joined them. The difficulties they would face were not lost upon Major Charles North. ‘The entire population of Oudh is against us’, he wrote on 27 July, ‘therefore we may anticipate the most stringent opposition.’ Nevertheless, he was certainly relieved to march away from Cawnpore, leaving it ‘literally alive with all sorts and sizes of flies, some of them sleek and others bloated, apparently gorged with putridity and thriving on this pestilential atmosphere, which swelters with mortality’.
General Havelock was not given to taking undue risks and was beginning to appreciate the enormity of the task which lay ahead. The strength of his column and the amount of supplies he had brought were barely adequate, furthermore the monsoon rains had turned the rough country tracks into quagmires threatening to bring his advance to a halt. Major Bingham reported:
We are marching in the middle of a monsoon at a time when no troops of any description are moved in this country. The rains are very heavy. The country on both sides of the road is almost a swamp, in parts it is entirely so. The sun at other times is so hot when it shines that many of the men have been killed by sunstroke.
After ten days of being drenched to the skin and floundering ankle deep through mud, sickness and exhaustion had reduced the 1,200 British contingent – already weakened by drink – to the extent that unless reinforcements were available, Havelock’s attempt to relieve Lucknow must be abandoned. On 29 July, a day of such intense heat that it led Lieutenant Groom to admit that he felt ‘as if all my bones were dried up’, the General’s men fought a successful if minor engagement on the Lucknow road near the town of Unao. ‘Four hours of good hard fighting,’ enthused Major Bingham. ‘Having displaced the enemy and captured five guns, we made an advance to a tope of trees under which we bivouacked for three hours during the great heat, the insufferable heat of the day. We had breakfast, and afterwards fell asleep, how refreshing! … Men and officers completely exhausted.’
Before the day ended Havelock had followed up this success with another at Bashiratgunj, a walled village some 6 miles beyond Unao. Here, the attackers met with stronger opposition in the form of a brisk cannonade and withering musketry from the loopholed houses. The flooded state of the roads prevented the use of mounted troops, but supported by the Madras Fusiliers and the 78th Highlanders, the 64th of Foot were able to force their way between an enemy strong point and a bridge, to turn the rebel’s flank. By sunset Bashiratgunj was in British hands. Havelock’s men were now within 30 miles of Lucknow but with their ranks decimated by sickness in addition to battle casualties, General Havelock recognized the folly of maintaining the advance. On the 31st he withdrew from the town after sending a telegraph to the acting C-in-C, Lieutenant General Sir Patric
k Grant, in Calcutta:
My force is reduced by sickness and repeated combats to 1,364 rank and file with two ill equipped guns. I could not therefore move on against Lucknow with any prospect of success, especially as I have no means of crossing the Sye or the canal. I have therefore shortened my communication with Cawnpore, by falling back two short marches. If I am speedily reinforced by 1,000 more British soldiers and Major Oliphant’s battery complete, I might resume my march towards Lucknow or keep fast my foot in Oudh, or I might re-cross and hold the head of the Grand Trunk Road at Cawnpore.
Havelock’s decision to pull back to Mangalwar puzzled Lieutenant General Sir Patrick Grant, and on 5 August he conveyed his misgivings to General Neill:
I have been astonished by a telegram from Havelock intimating that his force being reduced by sickness and repeated combats, he could not move on against Lucknow with any prospect of success, and that he had therefore fallen back within 6 miles of Cawnpore, but that if reinforced by 1,000 Europeans and Oliphant’s battery he may yet obtain a good result. All this puzzles me inexpressibly.
Neill, having sent on a half battery and a detachment of the 84th on 1 August, followed Grant’s telegraph with a letter to Havelock remarkable for its level of insubordination:
I deeply regret that you have fallen back one foot. The effect on our prestige is very bad indeed. It has been most unfortunate your not bringing any guns captured from the enemy. The natives will not believe that you have captured one … When the iron guns are sent to you, also the half battery and the company of the 84th escorting it, you ought to advance again. As for the infantry they are not to be had, and if you wait for them Lucknow will follow the fate of Cawnpore … Return here sharp, for there is much to be done.
Cawnpore & Lucknow Page 13