When the sun rose, the pursuit of the mutineers was resumed but to little avail, as Lieutenant Roberts had predicted, and he and the rest returned to Cawnpore. The Nana and his force had boarded the boats waiting at the Serai Ghat to ferry them across the river into Oudh, having abandoned all but two of their seventeen cannon and a train of carts, leaving them to sink in the mud.
The defeat of the Gwalior Contingent and the capture of their camp with all its stores had ensured that Campbell’s line of communication along the river was safe, and with reinforcements pouring into Bengal from Burma, Ceylon, Persia, Mauritius, and from England via the Cape, his army was rapidly gaining strength for a punitive thrust into Oudh and the expulsion of the vast numbers of rebels threatening Outram at the Alambagh. Transport was still a problem, some of it having been taken for the conveyance of the Lucknow refugees to Allahabad, but Campbell did not let the shortage deter him and he left Cawnpore on Christmas Eve, knowing that the hot weather season was almost upon him. His first objective was to occupy Fatehgarh, the last rebel-held city in the Doab, midway between Allahabad and Delhi, and orders were issued that several converging columns were to advance on the city, which he hoped to reach by the beginning of January. Of greater interest to Corporal William Forbes-Mitchell and his fellow Scots, however, was the opportunity it gave them for a bathe in the Ganges. ‘The condition of our flannel shirts is best left undescribed,’ confessed Forbes-Mitchell. ‘We sent our shirts afloat in the sacred waters of mother Ganges, glad to be rid of them, and that night we slept in comfort.’
Meanwhile the first Christmas of the Mutiny was celebrated in Cawnpore by the sailors of Peel’s Naval Brigade in time-honoured fashion with a double allowance of rum. A young naval cadet with fond memories of his mother’s plum puddings wrote: ‘We had a very good cosy little Christmas dinner, some of these natives are excellent cooks and it is quite wonderful how they do it considering the material they have.’
Campbell’s force, having recently replaced the carriages taken by the Lucknow refugees thanks to a column from Delhi, was averaging 25 miles a day in a long winding column of wagons and naval guns drawn by elephants, leaving a vast horde of camp followers in their wake. By 2 January Fatehgarh had been taken with a minimum of casualties and now that he had secured the city, Campbell turned his attention to the reduction of the neighbouring district of Rohilkhand. However, he was dissuaded from this by the Governor General, for Lord Canning held the view that Oudh should not be afforded any respite from military action, and by 15 February Sir Colin had returned to Cawnpore.
By the end of the month British military strength had grown to 17 battalions of infantry, 28 squadrons of cavalry and more than 100 cannon of varying calibre, including mortars, all of which had turned the sandy plain around Cawnpore into one vast encampment. While he waited to join those shortly to cross the bridge of boats into Oudh, Lieutenant Vivian Majendie of the Royal Artillery had time to inspect Wheeler’s old cantonments, and as he traced the paths and flower beds of what had once been well-kept gardens, but were now covered inches deep in pulverized brick dust, he was conscious of a feeling of acute depression, writing: ‘There is something indescribably sad about Cawnpore. You may yet through the ruins of razed houses, trace the walks and beds of what once were gardens … wondering where the hand is that used to tend them so carefully.’
Where previously had stood the much-admired Assembly Rooms, shops, houses, large shady trees and a flourishing bazaar, there was now an empty space. The shattered barrack blocks stood as a reminder of past events, but the Bibighar had been demolished and the trees around the courtyard uprooted. The only memorial to the victims was a wooden cross near the well, put up by the soldiers of the 32nd Regiment as a mark of respect to the memory of their wives and children.
‘It was a horrid spot,’ William Russell informed his readers. ‘Rows of gorged vultures sit with outspread wings on the mouldering parapets, or perch in clusters on the two or three leafless trees. Again I am struck by the scowling, hostile look of the people,’ he added. ‘The banniahs bow with their necks, and salaam with their heads, but not with their eyes.’
In his preparation for a renewed assault on Lucknow, Sir Colin Campbell held the view that it would be to his advantage to advance upon the town from the north, an approach never previously attempted and which could reasonably be expected to possess fewer defence works. Campbell was correct in this for the mutineers had neglected to construct any appreciable defence on the city’s northern side, believing that the British would never consider a crossing of the River Gumti, with all the difficulties that would entail.
As previously mentioned, there were three lines of defence around Lucknow. The outer was in the form of a deep canal which enclosed the city on its eastern and southern sides until it bore away to the north-east where it joined the Gumti. The second subtended an angle formed by the river and the suburb of Hazratganj, and included the Mess House which had proved so troublesome in the November assault. The third was formed by a rampart around the Kaiserbagh, a palace whose 400-yard square and enclosure formed the rebel citadel. To man these natural and artificial defences and resist an assault on the town, the Maulvi of Faizabad, who repeatedly led attacks on Outram at the Alambagh, had upwards of 100,000 trained sepoys and armed civilians. No less impressive were the 127 pieces of artillery at his disposal, among which were several 18-pounders and large-calibre mortars.
At his meeting with Sir Colin Campbell, when referring to Jung Bahadur’s generous offer of 8,000 troops and 120 guns, the Governor General emphasized the importance of including the Gurkhas in his operations in Oudh, since recruiting additional troops from England was far from certain. When in Cawnpore, Campbell had lost no time in appointing senior commanders to lead the various divisions to be employed against Lucknow. Brigadier General James Hope Grant was given command of the cavalry division, Major General Sir James Outram, Major General Sir Edward Lugard and Brigadier General Robert Walpole, the three infantry divisions, whilst command of the artillery was to go to Brigadier General Archdale Wilson and of the engineers to Colonel Robert Napier.
The appointments were not without controversy and were resented by some senior staff recently arrived from England, but as Campbell explained to the Duke of Cambridge, for an officer unfamiliar with Indian affairs it would be difficult for him ‘to weigh the value of intelligence … he is totally unable to make an estimate for himself of the resistance the enemy opposed to him is likely to offer’.
Having crossed the Ganges the force was halted at Banthira, a few miles into Oudh, for two days while Campbell awaited the arrival of the Gurkhas promised by Jung Bahadur. For a while all was peaceful until a sudden shout of ‘Get up! Get up! The sepoys is a-coming!’ galvanized the camp into action. Lieutenant Vivian Majendie, hearing the shouts and the general pandemonium, scrambled out of his tent in pyjamas to join officers in shirtsleeves feverishly buckling on their swords, others swearing and trying to mount their horses in what Majendie termed ‘the very hottest of hot haste’, going on to suggest:
A dead silence pervades the camp now, and one could not help thinking that ‘Jack Sepoy’ would be a sad fool if he chose this moment for making his attack, and I suppose ‘Jack Sepoy’ thought much the same, for he did not put in an appearance that day, and indeed, I believe he had never had the slightest intention of doing so, the whole being a false alarm.
One officer, added Majendie, ‘wondered what on earth this inexperienced army would do when the enemy really did appear’.
Order having been restored, the march was resumed on 2 March, through cultivated fields and beneath the welcome shade of mango trees, to approach the Dilkusha the next day, where many of the newcomers saw for the first time the remains of mutineers killed by Outram’s soldiers from the Alambagh. ‘Lying,’ wrote Majendie, ‘in all sorts of unnatural and distorted positions, with their fleshless limbs contorted, and the white teeth imparting a horrid grin to the ghastly skulls. Some of their old rags y
et clung to them, the mouldy remains of their red coats and uniforms as decayed as themselves.’
Now that the Dilkusha was occupied, Campbell split his force into two. One part under Outram was given the task of crossing the Gumti and advancing along the Faizabad road to within a mile of Chinhat where he was to set up his heavy guns on the rising ground. The other half, led by Sir Colin himself, would cross the canal north of the Martiniere before mounting an attack against the city’s main citadel, the Kaiserbagh.
On the morning of 9 March, Outram began his advance towards the Chakar Kothi with the Bengal Fusiliers and a regiment of Sikhs. For many of them it was to be their first experience of battle and the building was taken at the expense of one officer and twenty men. Most of the casualties had been inflicted by a small group of rebels desperately defending a room on the ground floor. Rather than risk further casualties, Outram ordered up two of his artillery pieces to shell the building, and when the smoke of the last round had drifted away, the Sikhs charged forward to storm the shattered entrance. Lieutenant Majendie wrote that:
It was most exciting to see them racing up to the place, where, when they reached it, there was for a moment a confused scrambling at the doorways, then a sharp report or two, then a sort of shout and scuffling, then bang! bang! bang! Sharp and distinct, and finally there burst from the building, with loud yells, a crowd of Sikhs bearing among them the sole survivor of the garrison.
Enraged at the loss of a popular officer, the Sikhs attempted to tear him in two by seizing his legs. ‘Failing in this,’ continued Majendie, ‘they dragged him along stabbing him with their bayonets as they went. I could see the poor wretch writhing as the blows fell.’ Worse was to follow. ‘Whilst still alive, though faint and feeble from his many wounds, he was deliberately placed on a small fire of dry sticks, which had been improvised for the purpose, and there held down in spite of his dying struggles.’
Commenting later upon this incident, Lieutenant Majendie expressed his horror that:
in this nineteenth century, with its boasted civilisation and humanity, a human being should lie roasting and consuming to death, while Englishmen and Sikhs, gathered in little knots around and looked on without attempting to interfere. The whole business was done so quickly and with such noise and confusion, that to me who beheld it from a short distance, it seemed almost like a dream, till I rode up afterwards and saw the black trunk burned down to a stumpy, almost unrecognisable cinder.
After waiting in vain for the Gurkha detachment, Sir Colin Campbell had begun an operation against the Martiniere on the other side of the river. The attack was pressed home to such good effect by the Highland Brigade that the defenders were forced into a precipitous retreat, during which their musketry became so wildly inaccurate that only the tall, feathered bonnets of the 93rd suffered damage from the high-flying musket balls. ‘Nae doot the niggers think our brains are higher up than ither men’s,’ remarked one amused Scot to Surgeon Munro. The doctor of the 93rd smiled, but as he later commented: ‘An inch or two lower would have found the brains of several officers and a number of the men and increased the list of our casualties considerably.’ The Martiniere was captured with remarkably few casualties, the most notable perhaps being Captain William Peel who had sustained a severe thigh wound from a musket ball.
Now that particular building was in his possession Campbell ordered his force to cross the canal, and on the morning of 11 March he launched an attack on the Begum Kothi with troops commanded by Major General Sir Edward Lugard. Two large-calibre guns manned by sailors of the Naval Brigade were ranged upon the high wall surrounding the palace, and after a four-hour bombardment from no more than 50 yards, a practicable breach was made. Surgeon Munro, who was close to the storming party, wrote:
Each man stood leaning on his rifle, wrapt in his own thoughts … Thus they remained for a second or two, when the tall form of their favourite leader, Adrian Hope, appeared and his right hand waved the signal for the assault. Then a cry burst from their ranks. It was not a cheer, which has a pleasant ring in it, but a short, sharp, piercing cry which had an angry sound which almost made one tremble.
The Highlanders and the 4th Punjab Rifles rushed towards the breach with howls of rage, and such was their fearsome appearance that many of the defenders immediately turned and fled.
There remained a fanatical body of some 700 men who were determined to fight to the death, however, and a confused melee spilt from court to court and from room to room. Forbes-Mitchell came upon a group of mutineers when leading a section of the 93rd and, rather than risk casualties by following the rebels into a room, he sent for a few bags of gunpowder. As he waited, Major William Raikes Hodson approached, sword in hand, demanding to know the whereabouts of the group of sepoys. Forbes-Mitchell pointed to the closed doors. ‘It’s certain death, sir,’ he told the Major. ‘Wait for the powder, I’ve sent men for powder bags.’ Hodson, who really had no valid reason to be involved in the battle, brushed aside the warning and, bursting through the doors, paid with his life for his rash action. Afterwards, bags of powder with slow matches attached, were brought as requested and, wrote Forbes-Mitchell: ‘Two or three bags very soon brought the enemy out, and they were bayoneted down without mercy.’
‘A running fight was going on in the street all this time,’ wrote Lieutenant Majendie. ‘Little knots of desperate rebels, here and there, shut themselves up in houses where they fought fiercely, necessitating an infinity of small sieges on our part to drive them out.’
After two hours of brutal hand-to-hand combat in which more than 800 rebels were killed, Sir Colin Campbell could not find praise enough for his favourite regiment. Clapping his hands together, he cried, ‘I knew it! I knew it! I knew my Highlanders would take it!’
On 14 March, the Imambara, a large mosque between the Begum Kothi and the Kaiserbagh, was taken without loss. It had not been Campbell’s intention to advance as far, but so relentless had been the pursuit of the rebels that by early evening even the Kaiserbagh and the Mess House had fallen to his troops.
Nightfall did nothing to lessen an orgy of looting. William Russell, The Times correspondent, was the first civilian upon the scene and he was appalled by the behaviour of the British soldiers:
At every door there is an eager crowd smashing the panels with the stocks of their firelocks or breaking the fastenings by discharges of their weapons. Here and there officers are running to and fro after their men, persuading or threatening in vain … The men are wild with fury and lust for gold – literally drunk with plunder. Some come out with china vases or mirrors, dash them to pieces on the ground, and return to seek more valuable property.
Few had any notion of the value of their loot and Russell saw them breaking up sporting guns and pistols to get at the gold filigree mountings and the jewels set in the stocks.
Campbell’s troops were not alone in the search for valuables. William Russell, stumbling over ground littered with corpses bloated by the fierce heat, had been almost suffocated by the stench of death, but nothing had revolted him so much as the hundreds of camp followers crowded together in the Hazratganj – so named after the Begum of Oudh. ‘They were,’ he informed his readers, ‘as ravenous as vultures, packed in a dense mass in the street afraid or unable to go into the palaces, and, like the birds they resembled, waiting until the fight was done to prey on their plunder.’
An unofficial estimate of the day’s plunder put the figure at £1¼ million sterling, but given the British soldier’s suspicion of the bounty system, probably less than a quarter found its way into the Treasury. It was Forbes-Mitchell’s belief that a good number of diamonds, pearls and emeralds were concealed in the uniform cases of even the prize agents. Whatever the truth of the matter, the prize money awarded to each private soldier amounted to less than 18 rupees, a miserable reward by any standard.
‘I could myself name over a dozen men who served throughout every engagement, two of whom gained the Victoria Cross,’ stated Forbes-Mitch
ell, ‘who have died in the almshouses of their native parishes, and several in the almshouses of the Calcutta District Society.’
The next day, 15 March, was spent in consolidating the various gains and in mopping up small pockets of resistance. The capture of the Residency took less than half an hour before the artillery turned its attention to the crumbling walls of the Machi Bhawan, the old fort half a mile away. The final confrontation with the rebels in Lucknow occurred on the 21st when a strong body led by the Maulvi of Faizabad was defeated at the Shadatganj in the centre of the city by men of the 93rd and the Punjab Rifles. In the pursuit which followed, a great many were killed by Hope Grant’s cavalry, but the Maulvi was among those who escaped to cause further trouble in Rohilkhand and northwestern Oudh.
As the last of the rebels in Lucknow were killed and the more fortunate escaped across the river, Campbell’s officers strolled about the devastated city, now but a travesty of the once most magnificent in all of India. Lieutenant Vivian Majendie was fortunate enough to accompany a brother officer who had experienced the siege and he found the personally conducted tour to be most informative. ‘That long windowless, shot riddled ruin was a hospital,’ he was told. ‘This old, haggard skeleton of a gateway, pitted with bullet marks and with the ragged plaster dropping from its sides, is the Baillie Guard Gate. That shell pocked building the Racquet Court, the house which the ladies occupied, and that, the Gubbins House.’ As he gazed at the ruins and listened to his friend expound upon a particular thrilling incident, Majendie felt that he was standing among the remains of buildings ‘replete with associations half mournful, half joyous, but always glorious’.
Cawnpore & Lucknow Page 23