Note.

The British at the Military Stations.—The reader will have gathered, from the details given in various chapters, that the stations at which the military servants of the Company resided, in the Mofussil or country districts, bore a remarkable relation to the Indian towns and cities. They were in most cases separated from the towns by distances varying from one mile to ten, and formed small towns in themselves. Sometimes the civil officers had their bungalows and cutcheries near these military cantonments; while in other instances they were in or near the city to which the cantonment was a sort of appendage. Such, with more or less variety of detail, was the case at Patna (Dinapoor), Benares (Chunar), Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, Furruckabad (Futteghur), Agra, Delhi, Gwalior, Lahore (Meean Meer), Nagpoor (Kamptee), Indore (Mhow), Hyderabad (Secunderabad), Moorshedabad (Berhampore), Saugor, &c. The marked separation between the native and the British portions of the military stations has been described in a very animated way, by an able and distinguished correspondent of the Times, one of whose letters contains the following paragraph:

‘For six miles along the banks of the Ganges extend the ruins of the English station of Cawnpore. You observe how distinct they are from the city. The palace of the Victoria Regia at Chatsworth is not more unlike the dirty ditch in which lives the humble duck-weed—Belgravia is not more dissimilar to Spitalfields—than is the English quarter of an Indian station to the city to which it is attached. The one is generally several miles away from the other. There is no common street, no link to connect the one with the others; and the one knows nothing of the other. Here are broad roads, lined on each side with trees and walls, or with park-like grounds, inside which you can catch glimpses of gaily-painted one-storied villas, of brick, covered with cement, decorated with Corinthian colonnades, porticoes, and broad verandahs—each in its own wide park, with gardens in front, orchards, and out-offices. There are narrow, tortuous, unpaved lanes, hemmed in by tottering, haggard, miserable houses, close and high, and packed as close as they can stand (and only for that they would fall), swarming with a hungry-eyed population. The mosque and the Hindoo temple are near each other, but they both shun the church, just as the station avoids the city.... In the station there are hotels, ball-rooms, magazines, shops, where all the habits and customs of Europe, sometimes improved and refined by the influence of the East, are to be found; and when the cool of the evening sets in, out stream the carriages and horses and buggies, for the fashionable drive past the long line of detached villas within their neat enclosures, surrounded by shadowing groves and rich gardens. They pass the lines or barracks of the native infantry—a race of whom they know almost less than they do of the people of the town; and they are satisfied with the respect of action, with the sudden uprising, the stiff attitude of attention, the cold salute, regardless of the insolence and dislike of the eye; they chat and laugh, marry and are given in marriage, have their horse-races, their balls, their card-parties, their dinners, their plate, their tradesmen’s bills, their debts; in fact, their everything that English society has, and thus they lived till the deluge came upon them. We all know how nobly they stemmed its force, what heroic struggles they made against its fury. But what a surprise when it burst in upon them! What a blow to all their traditions! What a rebuke to their blind confidence! There is at the moment I write these lines a slight explosion close at hand, followed by the ascent of some dark columns of earth and bricks into the air. We are blowing up the Assembly-rooms of Cawnpore in order to clear the ground in front of the guns of our intrenchment, and billiard-rooms and ball-rooms are flying up in fragments to the skies. Is not that a strange end for all Cawnpore society to come to? Is it not a curious commentary on our rule, and on our position in India?’

Native Musicians at a Sepoy station.

[67]. Chaps. ix., x., xi.: pp. [147]-[191].

[68]. ‘On the morning of the 18th they were not a mile off, so at noon we marched through the city to meet them. Our force consisted of 160 sepoys and 100 irregular cavalry or sowars, one six-pounder, and eight men to work it. This gun was an old one that had been put up to fire every day at noon. I rigged it out with a new carriage, made shot and grape, and got it all in order. With my gun I kept the fellows in front in check; but there were too many of them. There were from 2500 to 3000 fighting-men, armed with matchlocks and swords, and many thousands who had come to plunder. They outflanked us on both sides, and the balls came in pretty fast. Men and horses were killed by my side, but, thank God, I escaped unhurt! We retired through the city to our intrenchments, followed by the enemy. They made several attacks, coming up every time within a hundred yards; but they could not stand the grape. At five P.M. they made their last attempt; but a lucky shot I made with the gun sent them to the right-about. They lost heart, and were seen no more. We killed from 150 to 200 of them, our own loss being 18 killed and wounded, and eight horses. All their wounded and a lot of others were cut up during their retreat by the rascally villagers, who would have done the same to us had the day gone against us. Our victory was complete. Not a house in Azimghur was plundered, and the whole of the rebels have since dispersed. Please God, as soon as I hear of Lucknow being relieved, I’ll be after them again. They have paid me the compliment of offering five hundred rupees for my head.’

[69]. ‘In the evening there was a fearful though causeless panic at Rajghat, where the intrenchment is being made. The cry arose: “The enemy are coming.” The workmen, 3000 in number, rushed down the hill as for their lives. Prisoners who were at work tried to make their escape, and were with difficulty recovered. Gentlemen ran for their rifles; the soldiers got under arms; the gunners rushed to their guns; and altogether, there was indescribable confusion and terror. All this was the result of a succession of peals of thunder, which were mistaken for the firing of artillery!’

[70]. Chapter xi., pp. [177]-[181].

[71].

Men.Women.Boys.Girls.Total.
Europeans,10652893442911989
East Indians,4433314293391542
Native Christians,267177205209858
Hindoos,9424916241157
Mohammedans,24410423299
——————————————————
296185611828465845

[72].

3d Europeans,154officers and men.
Artillery,61officers and men.
Militia,22officers and men.
Jât matchlockmen,70officers and men.
Two 9-pounders; one 24-pounder howitzer.

[73]. Chapter xii., pp. [193]-[205].

[74]. Chapter xi., pp. [176]-[190].

[75]. ‘We were still looking at the scene and speculating upon the tenants of the tombs, when an old Mussulman came near us with a salam; he accosted us, and I asked him in whose honour the tomb had been erected. His reply struck me at the time as rather remarkable. “That,” said he, pointing to the largest, “is the tomb of the Nawab Mustapha; he reigned about 100 years ago: and that,” pointing to a smaller mausoleum near it, “is the tomb of his dewan, and it was he who counselled the nawab thus: ‘Beware of the French, for they are soldiers, and will attack and dispossess you of your country; but cherish the Englishman, for he is a merchant, and will enrich it.’ The nawab listened to that advice, and see here!” The old man was perfectly civil and respectful in his manner, but his tone was sad: it spoke the language of disappointment and hostility, if hostility were possible. In this case the man referred to our late assumption of the Carnatic, upon the death of the last nawab, who died without issue. As a general rule, never was a conquered country so mildly governed as India has been under our rule; but you can scarcely expect that the rulers we dispossessed, even though like ourselves they be foreigners, and only held the country by virtue of conquest, will cede us the precedence without a murmur.’

[76]. ‘My Lord—We, the undersigned inhabitants of Bombay, have observed with sincere regret the late lamentable spread of mutiny and disaffection among the Bengal native soldiery, and we have read with feelings of horror and indignation the accounts of the cowardly and savage atrocities perpetrated by the ruthless mutineers on such unfortunate Europeans as fell into their hands.

‘While those who have ever received at the hands of government such unvarying kindness and consideration have proved untrue to their salt and false to their colours, it has afforded us much pleasure to observe the unquestionable proof of attachment manifested by the native princes, zemindars, and people of Upper India in at once and unsolicited rallying around government and expressing their abhorrence of the dastardly and ungrateful conduct of the insurgent soldiery. Equally demanding admiration are the stanchness and fidelity displayed by the men of the Bombay and Madras armies.

‘That we have not earlier hastened to assure your lordship of our unchangeable loyalty, and to place our services at the disposal of government, has arisen from the entire absence in our minds of any apprehension of disaffection or outbreak on this side of India.

‘We still are without any fears for Bombay; but, lest our silence should be misunderstood, and with a view to allay the fears which false reports give rise to, we beg to place our services at the disposal of government, to be employed in any manner that your lordship may consider most conducive to the preservation of the public peace and safety.

‘We beg to remain, my lord, your most obedient and faithful servants,

‘Nowrojee Jamsetjee, &c., &c.’

[77]. Chapter vii., p. [111]; chapter xi., pp. [181]-[189].

Brigadier-General Nicholson.—Copied by permission from a Portrait published by Messrs Gambart.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SIEGE OF DELHI: FINAL OPERATIONS.

After eleven weeks of hostile occupation, after seven weeks of besieging, the great city of Delhi still remained in the hands of a mingled body of mutineers and rebels—mutineers who had thrown off their soldierly allegiance to their British employers; and rebels who clustered around the shadowy representative of an extinct Mogul dynasty. Nay, more—not only was Delhi still unconquered at the end of July; it was relatively stronger than ever. The siege-army had been increased; but the besiegers had increased in number in a still larger ratio. General Anson[[78]] had had thirteen days of command, in reference to the preparations for the reconquest of the city, before his death; General Barnard, forty, before he likewise died; General Reed, twelve, before his retirement; General Wilson, thirteen, by the end of July; and now the last-named commander was called upon to measure the strength with which he could open the August series of siege-operations.

It may be convenient slightly to recapitulate a few events, and to mention a few dates, connected with the earlier weeks of the siege, as a means of refreshing the memory of the reader concerning the train of operations which, in the present chapter, is to be traced to an end.

It will be remembered, then, that as soon as the startling mutinies at Delhi and Meerut became known to the military authorities at the hill-stations, the 75th foot were ordered down from Kussowlie, the 1st Europeans from Dugshai, and the 2d Europeans from Subathoo—all to proceed to Umballa, there to form portions of a siege-army for Delhi; that a siege-train was prepared at Phillour; that Generals Anson and Barnard, and other officers, held a council of war at Umballa on the 16th of May, and concerted such plans as were practicable on the spur of the moment; and that troops began at once to march southeastward towards Delhi. We have further seen that Anson was troubled by the presence of Bengal native troops whom he could not trust, and by the scarcity of good artillerymen to accompany his siege-train; and that his operations were suddenly cut off by a fatal attack of cholera, under which he sank on the 27th. Next we traced twelve days’ operations of Sir Henry Barnard, during which he had advanced to Raneeput, Paniput, Rhye, Alipore, Badulla Serai, and Azadpore, to the ridge northward of Delhi, on which he established his siege-camp on the 8th of June; he had just been joined by General Wilson, who had beaten the enemy at Ghazeeoodeen Nuggur, and had crossed the Jumna from Meerut near Bhagput. Then came the diversified siege-operations of the month of June, with a force which began about 3000 strong, aided by 22 field-guns and 17 siege-guns and mortars—the arrival on the 9th of the Guide corps, after their surprising march in fiercely hot weather from Peshawur; the bold attack made by the rebels on the same day; the manifest proofs that the siege-guns were too light, too few, and too distant, to batter the defences of the city; the commencement on the 13th, but the speedy abandonment as impracticable, of a project for storming the place; the continual arrival of mutineers to swell the number of defenders within Delhi; the daily sallies of the enemy; the daily weakening of the small British force; and the necessity for employing one-half of the whole siege-army on picket-duty, to prevent surprises. We have seen how Hindoo Rao’s house became a constant target for the enemy’s guns, and Metcalfe House for attacks of less frequency; how Major Reid, with his Goorkhas and Guides, guarded the ridge with indomitable steadiness, and made successful attacks on the Eedghah and Kissengunje suburbs; and how sedulously Barnard was forced to watch the movements of the enemy in the rear of his camp. Passing from June to July, the details of the former chapter told us that the siege-army became raised to about 6000 men, by various reinforcements early in the last-named month; that an assault of the city was again proposed, and again abandoned; that insurgent troops poured into Delhi more rapidly than ever; that Sir Henry Barnard died on the 5th, worn down by anxiety and cholera; that numerous canal-bridges were destroyed, to prevent the enemy from gaining access to the rear of the camp; that the British were continually thrown on the defensive, instead of actively prosecuting the siege; that the few remaining Bengal native troops in the siege-army were either sent to the Punjaub, or disarmed and unhorsed, in distrust of their fidelity; that on the 17th, General Reed gave up the command which had devolved upon him after the death of Barnard, and was succeeded by Brigadier-general Wilson; and that towards the close of the month the enemy made many desperate attempts to turn the flanks and rear of the siege-camp, requiring all the skill of the British to frustrate them.[[79]]

August arrived. The besieged, in every way stronger than the besiegers, continued their attacks on various sides of the heights. They gave annoyance, but at the same time excited contempt by the manner in which they avoided open hand-to-hand conflicts. An officer of engineers, commenting on this matter in a private letter, said: ‘At Delhi, they are five or six to one against us, and see the miserable attempts they make to turn us out of our position. They swarm up the heights in front of our batteries by thousands; the ground is so broken and full of ravines and rocks, that they can come up the whole way unseen, or you may depend upon it they would never venture. If they had the pluck of a goose, their numbers might terrify us. It is in the Subzee Mundee that most of the hard fighting goes on; they get into and on the tops of the houses, and fire into our pickets there; this goes on until we send a force from camp to turn them out, which we invariably do, but not without loss. We have now cleared the ground all around of the trees, walls, and houses; as a consequence, there is a large clear space around our pickets, and Pandy will not venture out of cover; so we generally let him pop away from a distance until he is tired.’ Early in the month, an attempt was made to destroy the bridge of boats over the Jumna; the rains had set in, the river was high, the stream strong, and these were deemed favourable conditions. The engineers started three ‘infernal machines,’ each consisting of a tub containing fifty pounds of powder, a stick protruding from the tub, and a spring connected with an explosive compound; the theory was, that if the tubs floated down to the bridge, any contact with the stick would explode the contents of the tub, and destroy one or more of the boats of the bridge; but there is no record of success attending this adventure. The bridge of boats being a mile and a half distant from the batteries on the ridge, it could not be harmed by any guns at that time possessed by the British; and thus the enemy, throughout the siege, had free and unmolested passage over the Jumna. The supply of ammunition available to the mutineers seemed to be almost inexhaustible; the British collected 450 round shot that had been fired at them from the enemy’s guns in one day; and as the British artillerymen were few in number, they were worked nearly to exhaustion in keeping up the necessary cannonade to repel the enemy’s fire. Although the ‘Pandies’ avoided contests in the open field, many of their movements were made with much secrecy and skill—especially that of the 1st of August, when at least 5000 troops appeared in the vicinity of the British position, by a combined movement from two different quarters, and made an attack which nothing but the courage and skill of Major Reid and his handful of brave fellows could have withstood. In some of these numerous operations, when the rainy season commenced, the amount of fatigue borne by the troops was excessive. It was the special duty of the cavalry, not being immediately available for siege-services, to guard the rear of the camp from surprise; and to insure this result, they held themselves ready to ‘boot and saddle’ at a few minutes’ notice—glad if they could insure only a few hours of sleep in the twenty-four. Many an officer, on picket or reconnoitring duty, would be in the saddle twelve hours together, in torrents of rain, without food or refreshment of any kind. Yet, with all their trials, they spoke and wrote cheerfully. An artillery-officer said: ‘Our position here is certainly by nature a wonderfully secure one; and if the Pandies could not have found a better place than Delhi as the head-quarters of their mutiny, with an unlimited magazine at their disposal, I doubt if we could have been so well off anywhere else. Providence has assisted us in every way. From the beginning, the weather has been most propitious; and in cantonments I have never seen troops so healthy as they are here now. Cholera occasionally pays us a visit, but that must always be expected in a large standing camp. The river Jumna completely protects our left flank and front; while the large jheel (water-course) which runs away to the southwest is at this season quite impassable for miles, preventing any surprise on our right flank; so that a few cavalry are sufficient as a guard for three faces of our position’—that is, a few, if constantly on the alert, and never shirking a hard day’s work in any weather.

The enemy gradually tired of attacks on the rear of the camp, which uniformly failed; but they did not cease to maintain an aggressive attitude. Early in the month, they commenced a series of efforts to drive the British from the Metcalfe post or picket. This Metcalfe House, the peaceful residence of a civil-service officer until the disastrous 11th of May, had become an important post to the besiegers. As early as four days after the arrival of the siege-army on the ridge, the enemy had emerged from the city, concealed themselves in some ravines around Sir T. Metcalfe’s house, and thence made a formidable attack on the Flagstaff Tower. To prevent a recurrence of this danger, a large picket was sent to occupy the house, and to form it into a river-side or left flank to the siege-position. This picket was afterwards thrown in advance of the house, and divided into three portions—one on a mound near the road leading from the Cashmere Gate to the cantonment Sudder bazaar; a second in a house midway between this mound and the river; and a third in a range of stables close to the river. All the portions of this picket were gradually strengthened by the engineers, as reinforcements reached them. The Flagstaff Tower was also well guarded; and as the night-sentries paced the whole distance between the tower and the Metcalfe pickets, the belt of rugged ground between the ridge and the river was effectually rendered impassable for the enemy. These various accessions of strength, however, were made only at intervals, as opportunity offered; at the time now under notice, they were very imperfectly finished. The enemy plied the Metcalfe picket vigorously with shot and shell, from guns brought out of the Cashmere Gate and posted a few hundred yards in advance of the city wall; while a number of infantry skirmishers, many of whom were riflemen, kept up a nearly incessant fire from the jungle in front. Although the losses at the Metcalfe picket were not numerous, owing to the good cover, the approach to it for reliefs, etc., was rendered extremely perilous; and as this species of attack was in many ways annoying to the British, General Wilson resolved to frustrate it. He placed under the command of Brigadier Showers a force of about 1300 men,[[80]] by whom the insurgents were suddenly surprised on the morning of the 12th, and driven off with great loss. It was a sharp contest, for the brigadier had more than a hundred killed and wounded. Showers himself was in the list of wounded; as were also Major Coke, Captain Greville, Lieutenants Sherriff, James, Lindesay, Maunsell, and Owen. Four guns belonging to the enemy were captured and brought into camp; but the chief advantage derived from the skirmish was in securing the abandonment of a mode of attack likely to be very annoying to the besiegers. The insurgents, it is true, by placing guns on the opposite side of the Jumna, frequently sent a shot or shell across; but the danger here was lessened by shifting the camp of the 1st Punjaub infantry.

That the siege-army was weakened by these perpetual encounters, need hardly be said. Every day witnessed the carrying of many gallant fellows to the camp-hospital or to the grave. At about the middle of August, the force comprised 3571 European officers and men, and 2070 native officers and men, fit for duty; with 28 horse-artillery guns (6 and 9 pounders) and a small supply of siege-artillery. A detail of the component elements of the force, and of the ratio which the effectives bore to the sick and wounded, will be more usefully given presently in connection with the September operations. Knowing well from dearly-bought experience that he could not successfully assault and capture Delhi with his present force, General Wilson looked anxiously for reinforcements from the Punjaub, which were due about the middle of the month. Indeed, all in camp were prepared to welcome one who, from the daring and energy which characterised nearly all the operations with which he had been intrusted, had earned from some the title of the ‘Lion,’ from others that of the ‘Bayard,’ of the Punjaub. This was Brigadier-general Nicholson, a soldier who had attained to that rank at an unusually early age. About the end of June, Sir John Lawrence had intrusted to him a flying column which had been organised at Wuzeerabad,[[81]] but which had undergone many vicissitudes; for Nicholson had been compelled to disarm all the Bengal native troops who were in his column. As we have seen in former pages, the brigadier struck terror into the mutineers, and swept away bands of rebels in front and on either side of him in the region between the Chenab and the Sutlej. He nearly annihilated the Sealkote mutineers near Goordaspore,[[82]] and then cleared the country during a long march, in fearfully hot weather, to Delhi. He himself with a few companions reached the city on the 8th of August; but the bulk of his column did not arrive till the 14th. Its composition had undergone some change; and it now comprised H.M. 52d foot, the remaining wing of the 61st foot, the 2d Punjaub infantry, 200 Moultan horse, and a small force of artillery—in all, about 1100 Europeans and 1400 Punjaub troops. Valuable, however, as was this accession of strength, it could not immediately affect the siege-operations; seeing that it was necessary to await the arrival of another siege-train, which Sir John Lawrence had caused to be collected at Ferozpore, and which was on its way to Delhi, with great stores of ammunition.

As soon as General Wilson found himself aided by the energetic Nicholson, he gave additional efficiency to his army by grouping the infantry into four brigades, thus constituted: First brigade, under Brigadier Showers, H.M. 75th foot, 2d Bengal Europeans, and the Kumaon battalion of Goorkhas; Second, under Colonel Lenfield, H.M. 52d foot, H.M. 60th Rifles, and the Sirmoor battalion of Goorkhas; Third, under Colonel Jones, H.M. 8th foot, H.M. 61st foot, and Rothney’s Sikhs; Fourth, under Brigadier Nicholson, 1st Bengal Europeans, 1st Punjaub infantry (Coke’s rifles), and 2d Punjaub infantry (Green’s Rifles). The Guides were not brigaded, but were left free for service in any quarter. The cavalry was placed under Brigadier Grant, and the artillery under Brigadier Garbett. Nicholson had brought with him a few guns; nevertheless it was necessary, as just remarked, to wait for a regular siege-train before a bombardment of the city could be attempted. The camp, organised as it now was, although it put on a somewhat more regular appearance than before, was a singular phenomenon, owing to the mode in which European and Asiatic elements were combined in it. An officer who was present through all the operations has given, in a letter which went the round of the newspapers, a graphic account of the camp, with its British and native troops, its varieties of costume, its dealers and servants, its tents and animals, and all the details of a scene picturesque to an observer who could for a moment forget the stern meaning which underlay it.[[83]] About the time of Nicholson’s arrival, Lieutenant Hodson was intrusted by General Wilson with an enterprise small in character but useful in result. It was to watch a party of the enemy who had moved out from Delhi on the Rohtuk road, and to afford support, if necessary, either to Soneeput or to the Jheend rajah, who remained faithful to his alliance with the British. Hodson started on the night of the 14th of August with a detachment of about 350 cavalry, comprising 230 of the irregular horse named after himself, 100 Guide cavalry, and a few Jheend cavalry. The enemy were known to have passed through Samplah on the way to Rohtuk; and Hodson resolved to anticipate them by a flank-movement. On the 15th, at the village of Khurkowdeh, he captured a large number of mutineer cavalry, by a stratagem at once bold and ingenious. On the 16th the enemy marched to Rohtuk, and Hodson in pursuit of them. On the 17th skirmishes took place near Rohtuk itself; but on the 18th Hodson succeeded in drawing forth the main body of rebels, who suffered a speedy and complete defeat. They were not simply mutineers from Delhi; they comprised many depredatory bodies that greatly troubled such of the petty rajahs as wished to remain faithful to or in alliance with the British. Lieutenant Hodson, by dispersing them, aided in pacifying the district around the siege-camp—a matter of much consideration. A letter from one of the officers of the Guides will afford a good idea of the manner in which all fought in those stirring times, and of the language in which the deeds were narrated when the formality of official documents was not needed.[[84]]

For ten days after Nicholson’s arrival, little was effected on either side save this skirmish of Hodson’s at Rohtuk. Wilson did not want to begin; it was not his strategy; he steadily held his own until the formidable siege-train could arrive. On the other hand, the enemy were foiled in every movement; all their attacks had failed.

Nicholson was on the alert to render good service; and the opportunity was not long in presenting itself. His energy as a soldier and his skill as a general were rendered very conspicuous in his battle of Nujuffghur, resembling in its tactics some of those in which Havelock had been engaged. General Wilson obtained intelligence that a force of the enemy was advancing from Delhi towards Bahadoorghur, with the apparent intention of attacking the siege-camp in the rear; the distance between the city and the town being about twenty miles, and the latter being nearly due west of the former. Or, as seems more probable (seeing that all attacks on the rear of the camp had signally failed), the enemy may have intended to cross the Nujuffghur jheel or water-course, and intercept the siege-train which they as well as the British knew to be on the way from Ferozpore. One account of the matter is, that Bukhtar Singh, a rebel who had gained unenviable notoriety at Bareilly, had got into disfavour with the King of Delhi for his want of success as one of the military leaders within the city; that he had offered, if a good force were only placed at his disposal, to wipe off the discredit by a crowning victory over the Feringhees; and that, in pursuance of this object, he proposed to get in rear of the siege-camp, intercept the expected siege-train, capture it, and cut off all communication between the camp and Umballa. Whatever may have been the main purpose, the expeditionary force was of considerable strength, amounting to 7000 men, and comprising the whole or large portions of six mutinied infantry regiments, three of irregular cavalry, and numerous artillery. The general, on receipt of this information, at once placed a column[[85]] under the command of Brigadier Nicholson, with instructions to frustrate the operations of the enemy. The brigadier started at daybreak on the 25th of August, crossed two difficult swamps, and arrived at Nanglooe, a village about midway between Delhi and Bahadoorghur. During a halt and a reconnoitre, it was found that the enemy had crossed a bridge over the Nujuffghur jheel, and would probably encamp in the afternoon near the town of the same name. Nicholson determined to push on against them that same evening. After another ten-mile march, during which his troops had to wade through a sheet of water three feet deep, he came up with the enemy about five o’clock, and found them posted in a position two miles in length, extending from the bridge to the town: they had thirteen guns, of which four were in a strong position at an old serai on their left centre. The brigadier, after a brief reconnaissance, resolved first to attack the enemy’s left centre, which was their strongest point, and then, ‘changing front to the left,’ sweep down their line of guns towards the bridge. His guns having fired a few rounds, the critical moment for a charge arrived; he addressed his men, told them what a bayonet charge had always been in the British army, and shouted—‘Advance!’ The infantry charged, and drove the enemy out of the serai with great impetuosity. He then changed front to the left, and so completely outflanked the enemy that they fled at once from the field, leaving thirteen guns behind them. While this was being done, Lieutenant Lumsden advanced to Nujuffghur, and cleared it of insurgents. A small number of the enemy concealed themselves in the neighbouring village of Nuglee; and when attacked, in a way that left no loophole for escape, they fought so desperately as to bring down a considerable number of Lumsden’s party, including the lieutenant himself. The enemy’s cavalry effected little or nothing; while Nicholson’s was employed chiefly in guarding baggage and escorting guns. Nicholson passed the night near the bridge, which had been the object of a fierce attack and defence during the evening, and which he succeeded in blowing up about two o’clock in the morning—thus cutting off one of the few approaches by which the mutineers from the city could get to the main line of road behind the camp. Nicholson returned to camp on the 26th, after a few hours’ rest for his exhausted troops. They had indeed had a hard day’s labour on the 25th; for they marched eighteen miles to the field of battle—starting at daybreak, and crossing two difficult swamps before they could arrive at Nanglooe; and, to use the words of their commander in his dispatch, ‘as it would not have been prudent to take the baggage across the ford at Baprowla, they were obliged, after fourteen hours’ marching and fighting, to bivouac on the field without food or covering of any kind.’ There seems to have been something wrong here. One of the officers has said: ‘Unfortunately, through some mistake, I suppose, the grog for the men had not arrived, nor commissariat rations; and it is wonderful how they bore up against the privations of a long march, some hard fighting, and no food. A little grumbling was occasionally heard, but good-humour and cheerfulness were the order of the day.’ Such of them as had time to sleep at all during the night, slept on the damp ground; but all these exigencies of a soldier’s life were soon forgotten, and the troops returned to camp in high spirits at their success. Nicholson had relied fully on the Punjaubees in the day of battle, and they justified his reliance, for they emulated the courage and soldierly qualities of the European troops who formed the élite of the force. He had to regret the loss of 25 killed, including Lieutenants Lumsden and Gabbett; and of 70 wounded, including Major Jacob and Lieutenant Elkington. The brigadier’s official dispatch contained some curious particulars not always given in such documents. It appears that during the day his men fired off 17,000 musket and rifle charges, and 650 cannon-shot and shells—a murderous torrent, that may perhaps convey to the mind of a reader some faint idea of the terrible ordeal of a battle. He captured all the enemy’s guns and ammunition; but a better result was, the frustration of an attack which might have been very annoying, if not dangerous, on the rear of the camp. Of the guns captured, nine were English field-pieces, formerly belonging to the regular Bengal army; while the other four were native brass guns belonging to the imperial palace at Delhi.

The Delhi insurgents, whether well or ill commanded, manifested no careless inattention to what was occurring outside the city walls. They were nearly always well informed of the proceedings of the besiegers. They knew that a large siege-train was expected, which they much longed to intercept; they knew that Brigadier Nicholson had gone out to Nujuffghur on the morning of the 25th; they knew that he had not returned to camp on the morning of the 26th; and they resolved on another attack on the camp in its then weakened state. All was in vain, however; in this as in every similar attempt they were beaten. As soon as they made their appearance, General Wilson strengthened his pickets. The enemy commenced by a fire with field-guns from Ludlow Castle against the Mosque picket; but the attack never became serious; it was steadily met, and the enemy, after suffering severely, retired into the city.

During the later days of August, the enemy attempted little more than a series of skirmishing attacks on the pickets. If, once now and then, they appeared in force outside the walls as though about to attack in a body, the intention was speedily abandoned, and they disappeared again within the city. No evidence was afforded that they were headed by any officer possessing unity of command and military ability. There was no Sevajee, no Hyder among them. ‘Often,’ as an eye-witness observed, ‘like an undisciplined mob, at best merely an agglomeration of regiments, the rebels have attacked us again and again, and fiercely enough when under cover, but always with a poverty of conception and want of plan that betrayed the absence of a master-mind. And now that they know strong reinforcements have joined our army, and that the day of retribution is not far distant—although they may make an attempt to intercept the siege-train—yet by their vacillating and abortive gatherings outside the walls, and by the dissensions and desertions that are rife within, they shew that the huge body of the insurrection is still without a vigorous and life-giving spirit.’

True as this may have been in the particular instance, it is nevertheless impossible not to be struck with the fact that the mutineers maintained a remarkable degree of organisation after they had forsworn their allegiance; the men of all the corps rallied round the colours belonging to each particular regiment; and those regiments which had customarily been massed into brigades, long strove to maintain the brigade character. Although the insurrection possessed few elements of unity, although the rebels could not form an army, or operate comprehensively in the field, they sought to maintain the organisation which their late British masters had given to them. There had usually been a brigade of two, three, or four native regiments at each of the larger military stations; from the station the brigade took its name; and when the mutiny was many months old, the mutineers were still recognisable as belonging to the brigades which they had once loyally served—such as the Bareilly brigade, the Neemuch brigade, the Dinapoor brigade, the Nuseerabad brigade, &c. Although single regiments and fragments of regiments entered Delhi, to maintain the standard of rebellion against the English ‘raj,’ nevertheless the majority were distinguishable as brigaded forces. The Delhi brigade itself, consisting of the 38th, 54th, and 74th regiments native infantry, formed the material on which the Meerut brigade had worked on the 11th of May. This Meerut brigade comprised the 11th and 20th infantry, and the 3d cavalry. On the 16th of June arrived the Nuseerabad brigade, consisting of the 15th and 30th infantry, with horse and foot artillery; on the 22d, the Jullundur and Phillour brigades entered, comprising the 3d, 36th, and 61st infantry, and the 6th cavalry; on the 1st and 2d of June came the Bareilly or Rohilcund brigade, including the 18th, 28th, 29th, and 68th infantry, and the 8th irregular cavalry; and later in the same month came the Neemuch and Jhansi brigades. Even when combined within the walls of Delhi, each brigade constituted a sort of family or community, having to a great extent a way and a will of its own. The history of a hundred years has shewn that the sepoys always fought well when well commanded; and their ineffective fighting as mutineers may hence be attributed in part to the fact that they were not well commanded.

It was about this period, the latter half of August, that an unfortunate English lady—unfortunate in being so long in the hands of brutal men—escaped from Delhi under circumstances which were narrated by the Bombay and Calcutta newspapers as below.[[86]] She was the wife of one of the civil officers of the Company engaged at Delhi before the mutiny; but as the newspaper narratives were not always correct in matters of identification, the name will not be given here.

September arrived, and with it many indications that the siege would soon present new and important features. Little is known of what passed within Delhi during those days; but General Wilson learned from various sources that the mutineers were in a very dissatisfied state at the failure of all their attempts to dislodge the besiegers, or even to disturb in any material degree the plan of the siege. They were without a responsible and efficient leader, and were split up into small sections; they had no united scheme of operations; nor were they adequately provided with money to meet their daily demands.

With the besiegers, on the other hand, prospects were brightening. The siege-train, when it arrived early in September, made a formidable increase in the ordnance before Delhi. As the name implies, the guns were larger, and carried shot and shell more weighty, than those used in battles and skirmishes; their main purpose being to make breaches in the defence-works of the city, through which infantry might enter and capture the place. Sir John Lawrence had been able to collect in the Punjaub, and send to Delhi from Ferozpore, a train of about thirty heavy pieces of artillery, consisting of guns, howitzers, and mortars of large calibre. The difficulty was not to obtain the guns, but to secure and to forward men to escort them, animals to draw them, ammunition to serve them, carriages to convey the auxiliary stores, food and camp-equipage for the men, fodder for the animals—whether horses, oxen, camels, or elephants. Such was the disturbed state of India at that time, that Lawrence had not been able to send this reinforcement until September; and even then, all his skill, influence, and energy, were required to surmount the numerous difficulties. About the same time there arrived in camp a Belooch battalion from Kurachee, the 4th Punjaub infantry, the Patan Irregular Horse, and reinforcements to H.M. 8th, 24th, 52d, and 60th regiments. The siege-army now reached an aggregate of about 9000 men of all arms, effectives and non-effectives, including gun-lascars, syce-drivers, Punjaubee Sappers and Miners, native infantry recruits, and other men not comprised in regular regiments. There were also near the camp or on their march to it, numerous troops belonging to the Cashmere, Jheend, and Putialah Contingents. Out of the total number of troops of all kinds, Wilson hoped to be enabled to find 9000 effective infantry to make an assault on the city after a bombardment. To what extent this hope was realised, we shall see presently.

It is important to bear clearly in mind the relative positions of the besiegers and the besieged, the siege-camp and the fortified city, at that time. Let it not be forgotten that the British position before Delhi, from the early days of June to those of September, was purely a defensive one. The besiegers could neither invest the city nor batter down its walls; the troops being too few for the first of these enterprises, and the guns too weak for the second; while an assault, though twice intended, was not attempted, because there was no force sufficient to hold the city, even if it were captured. The position on the north of the city, from Metcalfe House to the Subzee Mundee, was the only one which they could successfully maintain. Nevertheless, though limited to that one side, it was invaluable, because it enabled the British to keep open a road of communication with the northwest, whence all supplies must necessarily be obtained. The English public, grieved and irritated by the astounding news from India, often reproached Barnard and Wilson for their delay in ‘taking Delhi;’ and many of the officers and soldiers on the spot longed for some dashing movement that would restore British prestige, and give them their hour of revenge against the mutineers. Subsequent experience, however, has gone far to prove that the generals were right. The grounds for so thinking have been thus set forth by an artillery-officer whose account of the siege has found a place among the Blue-books: ‘Whether the city might or might not have been carried by a coup de main, as was contemplated first in June and afterwards in July, it is needless now to inquire; but judging from the resistance we afterwards experienced in the actual assault, when we had been greatly reinforced in men and guns, it appears to me fortunate the attempt was not made. The strength of the place was never supposed to consist in the strength of its actual defences, though these were much undervalued; but every city, even without fortifications, is, from its very nature, strongly defensible, unless it can be effectually surrounded or bombarded. Moreover, within Delhi, the enemy possessed a magazine containing upwards of two hundred guns, and an almost inexhaustible supply of ammunition; while their numbers were certainly never less than double those of the besiegers.’ But, more than this, Delhi was not so weak a place as public opinion in England at that time represented it to be. The numerous bastions presented regular faces and flanks of masonry, with properly cut embrasures. The portions of wall or curtain between the bastions were twenty-four feet high, two-thirds of the height being twelve feet thick, and the remainder near the top being a parapet three feet in thickness. Outside the wall was a broad beam or ledge, screened by a parapet as a place for musketeers; below the beam was a ditch, sixteen feet deep by twenty feet wide at the bottom, with well-constructed escarp and counterscarp; and a good sloping glacis, descending from the outer edge of the ditch, covered nearly half the height of the wall from all assaults by distant batteries. Captain Norman, who was present during the whole of the siege as assistant adjutant-general, and who wrote a very lucid semi-official account of the siege-operations, fully corroborates this statement of the strength of the position.

As a memento of a remarkable event in the military history of India, it may be acceptable to present here a detailed list of all the troops constituting the siege-army of Delhi in the second week of September, when the assault was about to be made. The number, it will be seen, was 9866,[[87]] besides ‘unarmed and undisciplined pioneers,’ of whom no enumeration was given. These, it must be remembered, were all effective troops, and did not include those who were disabled by wounds or sickness. It should also be observed, that the Cashmere, Jheend, and Putialah Contingents find no place in this list; they were scarcely mentioned by General Wilson in his dispatches, although from other sources of information they seem to have reached nearly three thousand in number. Why the general and his staff should have had to make the entry ‘strength unknown,’ in reference to them, does not clearly appear. Concerning the other or more important elements of the army, many of the regiments were represented only by detachments or wings in the camp, the rest being at other places; but all that need be noted in the list is the exact number of men. Glancing over this list, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the fact how nearly the Oudian or Hindustani element is excluded from it. There are Europeans, Goorkhas, Sikhs, Punjaubees, Beloochees, and mountaineers from the Afghan frontier; but the only entry referring clearly to the Bengal native army is that of 78 men of the 4th irregular cavalry, and these appear in the unsoldierlike condition, ‘disarmed and unhorsed.’ The horse-artillery were frequently referred to in dispatches by the names of the officers in command—such as Tombs’, Turner’s, Renny’s, and Remington’s troops; while two light field-batteries were named after Scott and Bourchier. There were also several companies of foot-artillery serving with the siege-guns, which altogether numbered more than sixty heavy pieces of ordnance of various kinds. It has been said above that the list of 9866 excluded sick and wounded; these latter numbered at that time no less than 3074; therefore the total of all ranks and all degrees of efficiency nearly reached 13,000 men, even excluding the unenumerated pioneers and contingents. In five regiments alone there were 1300 men sick and wounded, almost equalling in number those in an effective state; the 52d royal regiment and the Sirmoor battalion exhibited a greater number on the sick-list than on that of the effectives.

Now commenced those operations of siege-warfare which depend more on engineers and artillerymen than on infantry and cavalry—the arrangements for bringing near the city guns numerous and powerful enough to batter the walls. All hands were busy. The engineers and their assistants had made 10,000 fascines, 10,000 gabions, and 100,000 sand-bags; field-magazines, scaling-ladders, and spare platforms had been made in great number. The north side of the city being that which was to be assaulted, it was resolved to maintain the right of the position strongly against the enemy, while the main attack was pushed on the left—first, because the river would protect the left flank of the advancing columns; and, secondly, because the troops would find themselves in comparatively open ground in that part after a successful assault, instead of being cooped up in narrow and fiercely defended streets. One of the subsidiary measures taken was to form a trench to the left of the Samee, and to construct at the end of it a battery for four guns and two large howitzers. This Samee, better known to the soldiers as the Sammy House, was an old temple, situated some way down the slope of the ridge towards the city, and about half a mile distant from the Moree Bastion; it had for some weeks been held by the British. The purpose of this newly constructed Samee Battery was to prevent sorties from the Lahore or Cabool Gates passing round the city wall to annoy the breaching-batteries, and also to assist in keeping down the fire of the Moree Bastion. The three main works on the north side of the city were the Moree, Cashmere, and Water Bastions—all of which had been strengthened by the British authorities some years before, when no one dreamed that those strengthenings would be a disaster to the power which ordered them to be effected.

It was on the 7th of September that the besiegers began to render visible those works which pertain especially to the storming of a fortified post. Until then, there had been few or no trenches, parallels, or zigzags, intended to enable the besiegers to approach near the beleaguered city, preparatory to a forcible entry. On that night, however, a working-party was sent out to establish two batteries about seven hundred yards distant from the Moree Bastion. The sappers, attacked by the enemy and defended by infantry, prosecuted their work amid the peril which always surrounds that species of military labour. One battery, on the left, of four 24-pounders, was intended to hold the Cashmere Bastion partially in check; while the other, of five 18-pounders and one 8-inch howitzer, was to silence the Moree Bastion, and prevent it interfering with the attack on the left. A trench was made to connect the two batteries, and extending beyond them a little to the right and left, so as to communicate with a wide and deep ravine which, extending very nearly up to the left attack, formed a sort of first parallel, affording good cover to the guard of the trenches. All this was completed during the night or by the forenoon of the 8th; and the two portions, with the trench connecting them, became known as Brind’s Battery, named after the officer who worked it.

At dusk on the evening of the 8th, a second working-party set forth, to construct a battery to be called ‘No. 2.’ The enemy, influenced by an opinion that the attack would be made on the right, had neglected the ground at and near Ludlow Castle, a house situated barely seven hundred yards from the Cashmere Gate. The British engineers, taking advantage of this neglect, seized the position, occupied it with a strong detachment, and employed the nights of the 9th and 10th in constructing a battery upon it. The enemy, alarmed at this near approach, kept up a fierce cannonade from the Cashmere and Water Bastions and from the Selimgurh; but the besiegers had made their approach so carefully, that few of them suffered. This battery, like Brind’s, was in two portions; one, immediately in front of Ludlow Castle, for nine 24-pounders, was intended to breach the wall between the Cashmere and Water Bastions, and to render the parapet untenable by musketeers; the other, two hundred yards further to the right, for seven 8-inch howitzers and two 18-pounders, was to aid in attaining the same objects. The ‘No. 2’ Battery, from its magnitude, and the important duty assigned to it, was placed under the control of two officers; Major Kaye commanded the right position; while the left was intrusted to Major Campbell, who, being wounded soon afterwards, was succeeded by Captain Johnson.

Jumana Musjid at Delhi. From a Photograph.

Still further was the powerful machinery for attack carried. On the night of the 10th, Battery No. 3 was commenced, within two hundred yards of the Water Bastion, behind a small ruined house in the custom-house compound; it was bold and hazardous work to construct a battery in such a spot, for the enemy kept up a destructive fire of musketry the whole time. The object of No. 3, when mounted with six 18-pounders, was to open a second breach in the Water Bastion. Battery No. 4 was in like manner constructed during the nights of the 10th and 11th, at the Koodseebagh near Ludlow Castle; it was mounted with ten heavy mortars, placed under the charge of Major Tombs. Later in the siege a battery of light mortars was worked by Captain Blunt from the rear of the custom-house. To enable the whole of the siege-batteries to be armed, most of the heavy guns were withdrawn from the ridge, leaving only a few that were necessary to defend it from any attacks made by the enemy from the Kissengunje and Subzee Mundee quarters. There being a deficiency of foot-artillerymen to man the heavy guns and mortars, nearly all the officers and men of the horse-artillery quitted the duties to which they more especially belonged, and worked in the batteries during the bombardment; as did likewise many volunteers from the British cavalry, who were eager to take part in the fray. Even the infantry regiments furnished volunteers from among the officers, who practised at the ridge-batteries for many days before the breaching-batteries opened their fire, when they transferred their services to the latter. The newly raised Sikh artillerymen, proud to share the dangers and emulate the courage of the British, were intrusted with the working of two of the great guns, a duty which they afterwards performed to admiration.

It thus appears that the works at the newly constructed breaching-batteries bristled with forty-four heavy pieces of ordnance, besides guns of lighter weight and smaller calibre at more distant points. The murderous conflict could not much longer be delayed. The besieged knew well the danger impending over them, and made arrangements for a desperate resistance. No sooner did Brind’s Battery open fire on the 8th than the enemy made a sortie from the city, principally of cavalry; but they were soon driven in by the artillery. From the broken ground below the ridge, and from a trench in front of the battery, they kept up a constant fire of musketry; grape-shot had to be used against them, from a light gun-battery near the Samee House. In like manner, during the construction of the remaining breaching-batteries, the enemy kept up a fierce and continuous fire from every available point, causing great loss to the besiegers—not only among the fighting-men, but among the natives employed as porters, magazine lascars, ordnance-drivers, &c. The enemy went to work on the night of the 11th, and constructed an advanced trench parallel to the British left attack, three or four hundred yards distant from it; and from this they opened a very hot fire of musketry. They also got some light guns, and one of heavier calibre, into the open ground on the right of the siege-position, from which they maintained an annoying enfilade fire. At the Custom-house Battery, within two hundred yards of the city, the British were continually assailed with a storm of bullets, which rendered their passage to and from the spot extremely perilous. On more than one occasion, before Battery No. 2 was finished, the mutineers sallied out from the Cashmere Gate, and poured forth a volley of musketry at that spot; and it required a very strong guard of infantry to protect the battery from a closer attack. Some of the enemy’s guns, planted to enfilade the batteries Nos. 1 and 2, were so sheltered that the ordnance on the ridge and at the Samee House were never able effectually to silence them. From another quarter, the Selimgurh or old fort, a constant fire of shells was kept up, so skilfully pointed as to drop with perilous accuracy upon three of the breaching-batteries. During the actual progress of the bombardment and assault, only one attempt was made by the enemy to annoy the besiegers in the rear; a body of horse crossed the canal at Azadpore (at the junction of the two roads leading from the city and the cantonment), drove in a picket of irregular horse, and created some confusion; but parties of Punjaub and Guide cavalry, quickly arriving at the spot, checked, pursued, and dispersed the intruders.

Now commenced the fearful thunder of a cannonading. The engineers having finished their work, handed it over to the artillerymen, who collected around them vast stores of shot and shell. It was on the 11th of September that the British siege-guns may be said to have opened their systematic fire, although some had been already tested, and others were not quite ready. The nine 24-pounders, in Major Campbell’s No. 2 Battery, ‘opened the ball,’ to use the language of one of the engineers, and soon shewed their tremendous power in bringing down huge pieces of the wall near the Cashmere Bastion. The enemy’s guns on that bastion attempted to reply, but were soon knocked over, and the bastion itself rendered untenable. The work was hot on the 11th, but much hotter on the 12th, when Battery No. 3 opened its fire, and upwards of forty ponderous pieces of ordnance belched forth ruin and slaughter on the devoted city. All that night, all the next day and night, until the morning of the 14th, did this cannonading continue, with scarcely an interval of silence. Soldiers like to be met in soldierly fashion, even if they suffer by it. The British did not fail to give a word of praise to the enemy; who, though unable to work a gun from any of the three bastions that were so fiercely assailed, stuck to their artillery in the open ground which enfiladed the right attack; they got a gun to bear through one of the holes breached in the wall; they sent rockets from one of their martello towers; and they poured forth a torrent of musketry from their advanced trench and from the city walls. Throughout the warlike operations here and elsewhere, the enemy were more effective in artillery than in infantry, and less in cavalry than in either of the other two.

When the great day arrived—the day with which hopes and fears, anxieties and responsibilities, had been so long associated—General Wilson made arrangements for the final assault. The plan of operations was dependent on the state to which the breaching-batteries had brought the defence-works of the city during two or three days’ bombarding, by the engineers under Colonel Baird Smith, and the artillery under Major Gaitskell. It was known that the force of shot and shell poured against the place had made breaches near the Cashmere and Water Bastions, destroyed the defences of those bastions, and knocked down the parapets which had afforded shelter to the enemy’s musketeers; but wishing to ascertain the exact state of matters, the general, on the night of the 13th, sent down Lieutenants Medley and Lang on the dangerous duty of examining the breach made in the city wall near the Cashmere Bastion; while Lieutenants Greathed and Home made a similar examination of the breach near the Water Bastion. These officers having announced that both breaches were practicable for the entrance of storming-parties, the general resolved that the next day, the 14th of September, should be signalised by a storming of the great Mogul stronghold. He marshalled his forces into columns,[[88]] the exact components of which it will be interesting to record here; and to each column he prescribed a particular line of duty. The 1st column, of 1000 men, was to assault the main breach, and escalade the face of the Cashmere Bastion, after the heavy siege-guns had finished their destructive work; it was to be covered by a detachment of H.M. 60th Rifles. The 2d column, of 850 men, similarly covered by a body of Rifles, was to advance on the Water Bastion and carry the breach. The 3d column, of 950 men, was to be directed against the Cashmere Gate, preceded by an explosion-party of engineers under Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, and covered by a party of Rifles. The 4th column (strength unrecorded) was to assail the enemy’s strong position in the Kissengunje and Pahareepore suburbs, with a view both of driving in the rebels, and of supporting the main attack by forcing an entrance at the Cabool Gate; for this duty a miscellaneous body of troops, almost wholly native, was told off. In addition to the four columns, there was a reserve of 1300 men, covered by Rifles, which was to await the result of the main attack, and take possession of certain posts as soon as the columns entered the place. No more troops were left at camp than were absolutely necessary for its protection; a few convalescents of the infantry, and a few troopers and horse-artillery, were all that could be spared for this duty. Nearly all the pickets were handed over to the cavalry to guard. Arrangements were, however, made to send back a force as speedily as possible to the camp to guard the sick, wounded, stores, &c., which naturally became objects of much solicitude to the general at such a time. Brigadier Grant, with the bulk of the cavalry and some horse-artillery, moved down to the vicinity of No. 1 Battery, to check any attempt that might be made by the enemy, after a sortie from the Lahore or Ajmeer Gates, to attack the storming columns in flank.

The night which closed in the 13th and opened the 14th of September was not one to be soon forgotten by the soldiers of the siege-army. Few of them, officers or men, slept much; their thoughts were too intensely directed towards the stern realities of the morrow, which would end the career of so many among their number. At four o’clock on the morning of the 14th, the different columns set forth on their march from the camp to their respective places. The first three columns were, according to the programme just cited, to engage in the actual assault on the northern side of the city; the heads of those columns were to be kept concealed until the moment for assault had arrived; and the signal for that crisis was to be, the advance of the Rifles to the front, to act as skirmishers.

Brigadier Nicholson took the lead. He gave the signal; the Rifles rushed to the front with a cheer, and skirmished along through the low jungle which extended to within fifty yards of the ditch. The 1st and 2d columns, under himself and Brigadier Jones, emerged from behind the Koodseebagh, and advanced steadily towards the breached portions of the wall. Up to this time the enemy’s guns had wrought little mischief on the columns; but as soon as the latter emerged into the open ground, a perfect storm of bullets met them from the front and both flanks; officers and men were falling fast on the glacis; and for several minutes it was impossible to get the ladders placed for a descent into the ditch and an ascent of the escarp. After a fierce struggle, the British bayonet, as usual, won the day; the troops dashed through and over all obstacles, and entered the city through the breaches which the guns had previously made in the walls. Now within the boundary of the imperial city, the two brigadiers at once turned to the right, proceeded along the ramparts, fought the sepoys inch by inch, overcame all opposition, and captured in succession a small battery, a tower between the Cashmere and Moree Bastions, the Moree itself, and the Cabool Gate; but the vigorous attempts they made to take the Burn Bastion and the Lahore Gate failed, so determined was the resistance opposed to them, and so terrible the loss they suffered in officers and men. It was in one of the many attacks on the Lahore Gate, when the troops had to advance along a narrow lane swept by the enemy’s grape-shot and musketry, that the bullet was fired which laid low the gallant Nicholson—an officer in whom the whole army had reposed a full and deep reliance. As far as the Cabool Gate, the two columns were enabled to maintain their conquests; and they immediately made preparations for opening fire from the bastions inwards upon the yet unconquered buildings of the city—a sand-bag parapet being constructed across the gorge or open rear of each bastion.

We have now to see what was transpiring in another quarter, on this morning of heroism and slaughter. While the 1st column was engaged in forcing an entrance through the breach near the Cashmere Bastion, and the 2d column a similar entrance through that near the Water Bastion, the 3d directed its operations against the Cashmere Gate—through which, it will be remembered, the troops of that column were to rush after an explosion-party had blown in the gate itself. If there be any sublimity in bloody warfare, it is manifested in the self-devotion with which a soldier marches steadfastly to a position where he knows that death will be almost certain and immediate. Such self-devotion was shewn by the little band of heroes forming this explosion-party. They had to advance in broad daylight to the gate, amid a storm of bullets from above, from both flanks, and from a wicket in the gate itself; they had carefully to lay down and adjust the bags of gunpowder close to the gate, to arrange a train or fuse, to fire the bags, and to take their chance of being themselves blown up by the explosion. The gallant men intrusted with this dangerous duty were divided into two parties—an advanced and a firing party. The first consisted of an engineer officer, Lieutenant Home, two non-commissioned officers, Sergeants Smith and Carmichael, and a few native sappers, who carried the powder-bags. The firing-party consisted of Lieutenant Salkeld, Corporal Burgess, and a few native sappers. Owing to some delay, the two parties did not set out for their rendezvous at Ludlow Castle until broad daylight, and then they had to encounter a heavy fire of musketry all the way. When the advanced party reached the gate—a heavy wooden structure, flanked by massive walls—they found that a part of the drawbridge over the ditch had been destroyed; but, passing across the precarious footing afforded by the remaining beams, they proceeded to lodge their powder-bags against the gate. The wicket was open, and through it the enemy kept up a heavy fire. Sergeant Carmichael, and a native sapper named Madhoo, were killed while laying the bags; but Lieutenant Home only received a blow from a stone thrown up by a bullet. The perilous duty of laying the bags being completed, the advanced party slipped down into the ditch, to make room for the firing-party, which then advanced. ‘Lieutenant Salkeld,’ said Colonel Baird Smith, in his report of the engineering operations of the day, ‘while endeavouring to fire the charge, was shot through the arm and leg, and handed over the slow match to Corporal Burgess, who fell mortally wounded just as he had successfully accomplished the onerous duty. Havildar Tilluh Singh, of the Sikhs, was wounded, and Ramloll Sepoy of the same corps, was killed during this part of the operation. The demolition being most successful, Lieutenant Home, happily not wounded, caused the bugler (Hawthorne) to sound the regimental call of the 52d, as the signal for the advancing columns. Fearing that amid the noise of the assault the sounds might not be heard, he had the call repeated three times, when the troops advanced and carried the gateway with complete success.’ Sergeant Smith had a narrow escape from being blown up. Seeing Burgess fall, and not knowing the exact result of the gallant fellow’s efforts to fire the train, he ran forward; but seeing the train alight, he had just time to throw himself into the ditch before the explosion took place. The perilous nature of this kind of duty gave rise to a correspondence in the public journals, from which a few lines may not unsuitably be given in a note.[[89]]

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.

Corporal Burgess, blown up at Cashmere Gate.

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.[[90]] 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,[[91]] 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;[[92]] 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.[[93]]

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.

Scene of Capture of the Princes of Delhi—Tomb of Emperor Humayoon.

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.

State Palanquin.

[78]. Chap. xiv., pp. [230]-[246].

[79]. By comparing two wood-cuts—‘Bird’s-eye View of Delhi’ (p. [64]), and ‘Delhi from Flagstaff Tower’ (p. [76])—the reader will be assisted in forming an idea of the relative positions of the mutineers within the city, and of the British on the ridge and in the camp behind it. The ‘Bird’s-eye View’ will be the most useful for this purpose, as combining the characteristics of a view and a plan, and shewing very clearly the river, the bridge of boats, the camp, the ridge, the broken ground in front of it, the Flagstaff Tower, Metcalfe House, the Custom-house, Hindoo Rao’s house, the Samee House, the Selimgurh fort, the city, the imperial palace, the Jumma Musjid, the walls and bastions, the western suburbs, &c.

[80].

H.M. 75th foot,100men.
1st Bengal Europeans,350men.
Coke’s Punjaub Rifles,250men.
H.M. 8th foot,100men.
2d Bengal Europeans,100men.
Kumaon Goorkhas,100men.
4th Sikh infantry,100men.
H.M. 9th Lancers,onesquadron.
Horse artillery,sixguns.

[81].

[82]. During that famous pursuit and defeat of the Sealkote mutineers, a wing of H.M. 52d foot marched sixty-two miles in forty-eight hours of an Indian summer, besides fighting with an enemy who resisted with more than their usual determination. It was work worthy of a regiment which had marched three thousand miles in four years.

[83]. ‘What a sight our camp would be even to those who visited Sebastopol! The long lines of tents, the thatched hovels of the native servants, the rows of horses, the parks of artillery, the English soldier in his gray linen coat and trousers (he has fought as bravely as ever without pipeclay), the Sikhs with their red and blue turbans, the Afghans with their red and blue turbans, their wild air, and their gay head-dresses and coloured saddle-cloths, and the little Goorkhas, dressed up to the ugliness of demons in black worsted Kilmarnock hats and woollen coats—the truest, bravest soldiers in our pay. There are scarcely any Poorbeahs (Hindustanis) left in our ranks, but of native servants many a score. In the rear are the booths of the native bazaars, and further out on the plain the thousands of camels, bullocks, and horses that carry our baggage. The soldiers are loitering through the lines or in the bazaars. Suddenly the alarm is sounded. Every one rushes to his tent. The infantry soldier seizes his musket and slings on his pouch, the artilleryman gets his guns harnessed, the Afghan rides out to explore; in a few minutes everybody is in his place.

‘If we go to the summit of the ridge of hill which separates us from the city, we see the river winding along to the left, the bridge of boats, the towers of the palace, and the high roof and minarets of the great mosque, the roofs and gardens of the doomed city, and the elegant-looking walls, with batteries here and there, the white smoke of which rises slowly up among the green foliage that clusters round the ramparts.’

[84]. ‘The first day we marched to a place called Khurkowdeh, but such a march! We had to go through water for miles up to the horses’ girths. We took Khurkowdeh by surprise, and Hodson immediately placed men over the gates, and we went in. Shot one scoundrel instanter, cut down another, and took a ressaldar (native officer) and some sowars (troopers) prisoners, and came to a house occupied by some more, who would not let us in at all; at last, we rushed in and found the rascals had taken to the upper story, and still kept us at bay. There was only one door and a kirkee (window). I shoved in my head through the door, with a pistol in my hand, and got a clip over my turban for my pains; my pistol missed fire at the man’s breast (you must send me a revolver), so I got out of that as fast as I could, and then tried the kirkee with the other barrel, and very nearly got another cut. We tried every means to get in, but could not, so we fired the house, and out they rushed a muck among us. The first fellow went at ——, who wounded him, but somehow or other he slipped and fell on his back. I saw him fall, and, thinking he was hurt, rushed to the rescue. A Guide got a chop at the fellow, and I gave him such a swinging back-hander that he fell dead. I then went at another fellow rushing by my left, and sent my sword through him, like butter, and bagged him. I then looked round and saw a sword come crash on the shoulders of a poor youth; oh, such a cut; and up went the sword again, and the next moment the boy would have been in eternity, but I ran forward and covered him with my sword and saved him. During this it was over with seven men. —— had shot one with his revolver, and the other four were cut down at once. Having polished off these fellows, we held an impromptu court-martial on those we had taken, and shot them all—murderers every one, who were justly rewarded for their deeds.’

[85].

H.M. 9th Lancers(Captain Sarrell),Onesquadron.
Guide cavalry(Captain Sandford),120men.
2d Punjaub cavalry, 80men.
Moultan horse.
H.M. 61st foot(Colonel Renny),420men.
1st Bengal Europeans(Major Jacob),380men.
1st Punjaub infantry(Coke’s),400men.
2d Punjaub Infantry(Green’s),400men.
Sappers and Miners, 30men.
Horse-artillery(Tombs’ and Olphert’s), Sixteen guns.

Captain (now Major) Olphert being ill, the command of his troop was taken by Captain Remington.

[86]. ‘Mrs ——, the wife of Mr ——, made her escape from Delhi on the morning of the 19th. Poor creature, she was almost reduced to a skeleton; as she had been kept in a sort of dungeon while in Delhi. Two chuprassees, who, it appears, have all along been faithful to her, aided her in making her attempt to escape. They passed through the Ajmeer Gate, but not wholly unobserved by the mutineers’ sentries, as one of the chuprassees was shot by them. It being dark at the time, she lay hidden among the long web-grass until the dawn of day, when she sent the chuprassee to reconnoitre, and as luck would have it, he came across the European picket stationed at Subzee Mundee. So soon as he could discover who they were, he went and brought the lady into the picket-house amongst the soldiers, who did all they could to insure her safety. As soon as she arrived inside the square, she fell down upon her knees, and offered up a prayer to Heaven for her safe deliverance. All she had round her body was a dirty piece of cloth, and another piece folded round her head. She was in a terrible condition; but I feel assured that there was not a single European but felt greatly concerned in her behalf; and some even shed tears of pity when they heard the tale of woe that she related. After being interrogated by the officers for a short time, Captain Bailey provided a doolie for her, and sent her under escort safe to camp, where she has been provided with a staff-tent, and everything that she requires.’

[87].

Artillery, Engineers, &c.
European{Artillerymen of all kinds,1350
and{Engineers, Sappers, Miners, &c.,722
Native.{Pioneers, unarmed and undisciplined,?
————
2072
Cavalry.
{H.M. Carabiniers,123
European.{H.M. 9th Lancers,391
{4th irregular cavalry (disarmed and unhorsed),78
{1st Punjaub cavalry,147
Native.{2d Punjaub cavalry,114
{5th Punjaub cavalry,107
{Hodson’s Irregular Horse,462
{Guide corps, cavalry,283
————
1705
Infantry.
{H.M. 8th foot,322
{H.M. 52d foot,302
{H.M. 60th Rifles,390
European.{H.M. 61st foot,402
{H.M. 75th foot,459
{1st Bengal European Fusiliers,427
{2d Bengal European Fusiliers,370
{Sirmoor battalion, Goorkhas,212
{Kumaon battalion, Goorkhas,312
{Guide corps, infantry,302
Native.{4th Sikh infantry,414
{1st Punjaub infantry,664
{2d Punjaub infantry,650
{4th Punjaub infantry,541
{Belooch battalion,322
————
6089

[88].

1st Column, under Brigadier-general Nicholson—
Men.
H.M. 75th foot (Lieutenant-colonel Herbert),300
1st Bengal Europeans (Major Jacob),250
2d Punjaub infantry (Captain Green),450
2d Column, under Brigadier Jones—
H.M. 8th foot (Lieutenant-colonel Greathed),250
2d Bengal Europeans (Captain Boyd),250
4th Sikh infantry (Captain Rothney),350
3d Column, under Colonel Campbell—
H.M. 52d foot (Major Vigors),200
Kumaon Goorkhas (Captain Ramsay),250
1st Punjaub infantry (Lieutenant Nicholson),500
4th Column, under Major Reid—
Sirmoor Goorkhas,}
Guide infantry, } Besides Cashmere Contingent,
European pickets,} of which strength unknown.850
Native pickets, }
Reserve, under Brigadier Longfield—
H.M. 61st foot (Lieutenant-colonel Deacon),250
4th Punjaub infantry (Captain Wilde),450
Belooch battalion (Lieutenant-colonel Farquhar),300
Jheend auxiliaries (Lieutenant-colonel Dunsford),300

The engineer officers were attached to the several columns as follows:

To the 1st column,Lieuts. Medley, Lang, and Bingham.
To the 2d column,Lieuts. Greathed, Hovenden, and Pemberton.
To the 3d column,Lieuts. Home, Salkeld, and Tandy.
To the 4th column,Lieuts. Maunsell and Tennant.
To the Reserve,Lieuts. Ward and Thackeray.

[89]. One of the writers remarked: ‘The stout rope-mat which forms an efficient screen to the Russian artillerymen while serving their gun, impervious to the Minié ball, which lodges harmlessly in its rough and rugged surface, may surely suggest to our engineers the expediency of some effort to shield the valuable lives of our men when exposed to the enemy’s fire. In ancient warfare, all nations appear to have defended themselves from the deadly arrow by shields, and why the principle of the testudo should be ignored in modern times is not obvious. Take the instance before us—Lieutenant Salkeld and a few others undertake the important, but most perilous duty of blowing in the Cashmere Gate, by bags of gunpowder, in broad daylight, and in the face of numerous foes, whose concentrated fire threatens the whole party with certain death. It is accomplished, but at what a loss! Marvellous indeed was it that one escaped. Now, as a plain man, without any scientific pretensions, I ask, could not, and might not, some kind of defensive screen have been furnished for the protection of these few devoted men? Suppose a light cart or truck on three wheels, having a semicircular framework in front, against which might be lashed a rope-matting, and inside a sufficient number of sacks of wool or hay, propelled by means of a central cross-bar pushed against by four men within the semicircle, the engineers could advance, and on reaching the gate, perform their work through a central orifice in the outer matting, made to open like a flap. The party would then retire in a similar manner, merely reversing the mode of propulsion, until the danger was past.’ Another, Mr Rock of Hastings, said: ‘In July 1848, I sent a plan for a movable shield for attacking barricades, to General Cavaignac, at Paris; and on the 13th or 14th of July your own columns (the Times) contained descriptions of my machine, and a statement by your Paris correspondent that it had been constructed at the Ecole Militaire in that city. Fortunately, it was never used there, but there seems to me no valid reason why such a contrivance should not be used on occasions like that which recently occurred at Delhi. The truck proposed, with a shield in front, would serve to carry the powder-bags, without incurring the chance of their being dropped owing to the fall of one or two of the men employed on the service, while the chances of premature ignition would be diminished. These, I think, are advantages tending to insure success which should induce military engineers to use movable cover for their men when possible, even if they despise it as a personal protection.’

[90]. 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.

[91].

Europeans—Killed.Wounded.
Officers,46140
Non-commissioned officers,50113
Rank and file,4761313
Natives—
Officers,1449
Non-commissioned officers,37104
Rank and file,3891076

[92]. ‘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.’

[93]. ‘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.’

Sir J. E. W. Inglis, defender of Lucknow.

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,[[94]] 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.[[95]] 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.[[96]] 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,[[97]] 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.[[98]] 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.

Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow.

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.[[99]] 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.[[100]] 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.

English Church and Residency at Lucknow—from Officers’ Quarters.

During this month of August, the women and children, the sick and wounded, of course suffered much more terribly than in the previous month of July. Every kind of peril and discomfort had increased in severity; every means of succour and solace had diminished in quantity. Death struck down many; disease and wounds laid low a still greater number; and those who remained were a prey to carking cares, which wore down both mind and body. Those who, in a Christian country, are accustomed to pay the last token of respect to departed friends by decent funeral ceremonies, were often pained by their disability to do so in the Lucknow enclosure, under the straitened circumstances of their position. The Rev. Mr Polehampton, after working day and night in his kindly offices among the sick and wounded, was at length himself struck down by cholera; and then came the mournful question, whether he could have a coffin and a separate grave. The writer of the Diary, wife of the clergyman who succeeded Mr Polehampton in his duties as a pastor, says that her husband read the funeral-service over the dead body in presence of the mourning widow, on the day and in the room where the death took place, before removal for instant interment. ‘She (the widow) was extremely anxious he should have a coffin, a wish it seemed impossible to gratify; but —— instituted a search, and found one stored away with some old boxes under the staircase in the hospital; and he also had a separate grave dug for him. Since the siege, the bodies have hitherto always been buried several in the same grave, and sewn up in their bedding, as there are no people and no time to make coffins.’ In their troubled state of feeling, vexations affected the different members of the imprisoned community more acutely than would have been the case at other times. The plague of flies can be adverted to in a half-laughing manner by a man in health; but in the Lucknow enclosure it was a real plague, a source of exquisite misery, against which more complaints were uttered than almost anything else. There were also troublesome and painful boils on the person, brought on by high temperature and insufficient diet and medicines. Whatever might be the amount of care taken, bullocks were frequently killed by the shot of the enemy; and as animals so dying were not fit for human food, it became necessary to bury the carcasses at once. A frightful duty this was, mostly performed (as has already been stated) at night by officers, whose few hours of possible sleep were cut short by this revolting sort of labour. No one could leave the enclosure, except native servants determined on escape; not an inch of ground belonged to the British beyond the limits of the intrenched position; and therefore whatever had to be put out of sight—dead bodies of human beings, carcasses of bullocks and horses, garbage and refuse of every kind—could only so be treated by being buried underground in the few open spots between the buildings. And this, too, in the August of an Indian climate, when even the best sanitary arrangements fail to remove offensive odours. The officers, in all their letters and diaries, spoke of this portion of their labours as being most distressing; while the poor women, cabined by dozens together in single rooms, yearned, but yearned in vain, for the breathing of a little air free from impurities. They dared not move out, for the balls and bullets of the enemy were whizzing across and into every open spot. Sometimes an 18-pounder shot would burst into a room where two or three of them were dressing, or where a larger number were at meals. In some of the houses or ‘garrisons,’ where many ladies formed one community, they used to take it in turn to keep awake for hourly watches during the night; one of them said in a letter: ‘I don’t exactly know what is gained by these night-watchings—except that we are all very nervous, and are expecting some dreadful catastrophe to happen.’ The little children died off rapidly, their maladies being more than could be met by the resources at hand; and those who bore up against the afflictions were much emaciated. The husbands and fathers, worn out with daily fatigue and nightly watching, had little solace to afford their families; and thus the women and children were left to pass the weary hours as best they could. A few little creatures, ‘siege-babies,’ as their poor mothers called them, came into the world during this stormy period; and with them each day was a struggle for life. When the native servants one by one escaped, the discomforts of the English women of course underwent much aggravation; and when the house or bungalow of Mr Gubbins became untenable through shot and bullet, the difficulty was immense of finding shelter elsewhere; every place was already overcrowded. Much additional misery befell the officers and men from this fact—that the commissariat quarter, offensive to every sense on account of the organic accumulations inseparable from the slaughtering and cutting up of animals—was one of the weakest parts in the whole enclosure, and required to be guarded at all hours by armed men, who loathed the spot for the reason just mentioned. The chaplain, too, found the church-yard getting into such a horrible state that he dared not go near the graves to read the funeral-service. Mr Rees mentions an instance to illustrate the anxieties of those who, willing to suffer themselves, were almost crushed by witnessing the privations of those dear to them. ‘He’ (mentioning one of the officers) ‘had at first told me of his wife being feverish and quite overcome with the abominable life she had to lead. And then he talked to me of his boy Herbert; how he was attacked with cholera, and feared he was very ill; and how, instead of being able to watch by his bedside, he had been all night digging at Captain Fulton’s mine; and then how his child next night was convulsed, and what little hope of his darling being spared to them—how heart-rending the boy’s sufferings were to his parents’ feelings—how even his (the father’s) iron constitution was at last giving way—how he had neither medicine, nor attendance, nor proper food for the child—and how the blowing up of the mine so close to his sick child had frightened him. And then to-day he told me, with tears in his eyes, that yesterday—the anniversary of his birthday—his poor child was called away. “God’s will be done,” said he; “but it is terrible to think of. At night we dug a hole in the garden, and there, wrapped in a blanket, we laid him.”’ This case is not singular; many another poor parent’s heart was thus torn.

The provisioning of the garrison was of course a perpetual source of anxiety to Brigadier Inglis and the other officers; or rather, the distribution of the food already possessed, and rapidly becoming exhausted, without any prospect of replenishing. Fresh meat was in store for the garrison as long as any healthy bullocks remained; but in other articles of food the deficiency became serious as the month advanced. An immense store of attah—the coarse meal from which chupatties or cakes were made—had been provided by Sir Henry Lawrence; but this was now nearly exhausted, and the garrison had to grind corn daily, from the store kept in the impromptu granaries. The women and the elder children were much employed in this corn-grinding, by means of hand-mills. To economise the meal thus laboriously ground, rice and unground wheat were served out to the natives. The animal food was likely to be limited, by the want not of bullocks, but of bhoosa or fodder to feed them; and the commissariat-officers saw clearly before them the approach of a time when the poor animals must die for want of food. The tea and sugar were exhausted, except a little store kept for invalids. The tobacco was all gone; and the soldiers, yearning for a pipe after a hard day’s work, smoked dried leaves as the only obtainable substitute. A few casks of porter still remained, to be guarded as a precious treasure. Once now and then, when an officer was struck down to death, an auction would be held of the few trifling comforts which he had been able to bring with him into the enclosure; and then the prices given by those who possessed means plainly told how eager was the desire for some little change in the poor and insufficient daily food. A few effects left by Sir Henry Lawrence were sold; among them, £16 was given for a dozen bottles of brandy, £7 for a dozen of beer, the same amount for a dozen of sherry, £7 for a ham, £4 for a quart bottle of honey, £5 for two small tins of preserved soup, and £3 for a cake of chocolate. Sugar was the luxury for which most craving was exhibited.

We pass on now to another month, September, whose early days ushered in the tenth week of the captivity.

New mines were everywhere discovered. The British, officers and men, attended sedulously to the underground listening-galleries adverted to in a former paragraph, and there obtained unmistakable evidence that the enemy were running mines towards Sago’s house, the Brigade Mess, the Bailey guard, and other buildings, with the customary intent of blowing them up, and making a forcible entry into the enclosure. Untiring exertions at countermining alone frustrated these terrible operations. On one day, the upper part of the Brigade Mess was smashed in by a shot; on another, a breach was made in the wall of the Martinière temporary school, requiring very speedy stockading and barricading to prevent the entrance of the enemy; on another, a few engineers made a gallant sortie from Innes’s house, and succeeded in blowing up a building from which the enemy had maintained an annoying fire of musketry; and on another day, an officer had the curiosity to count the cannon-balls, varying from 3 to 24 pounds each, which had fallen on the roof of one building alone, the Brigade Mess—they were no less than 280 in number! On the 5th of the month, the enemy made a more than usually impetuous attack; there were 5000 of them in sight from the Residency; they had formed a battery on the other side of the river; they exploded two mines near the Bailey guard and the mess-house; they advanced to Gubbins’s house and to the Sikh Square, bringing with them long ladders to effect an escalade—in short, they seemed determined to carry their point on this occasion. All was in vain, however; the garrison, though worked almost to death, gallantly rushed to every endangered spot and repelled the enemy, hastily reconstructing such defence-works as had been destroyed or damaged. Fortunately, the two exploded mines were short of their intended distance: they wrought but little damage. Much marching and countermarching were occasionally visible among the troops in the city: vague rumours reached the Residency that Havelock had a second time vanquished Nena Sahib’s troops at Cawnpore or Bithoor; but to what extent these movements and rumours would influence the garrison was left painfully undecided. The nights were more terrible than the days; for the enemy, as if to destroy all chance of sleep, kept up a torrent of musketry, accompanied by much shouting and screaming. Many of the officers worked with almost superhuman energy at this time. Captains Fulton and Anderson, Lieutenants Aitken, Clery, Innes, Hutchinson, Tulloch, Birch, Hay, and others, were constantly on the watch for mines, and sedulously digging countermines to foil them.

The eleventh week found the garrison more than ever exposed to hourly peril. The officers, driven from place to place for their few hours of repast and repose, had latterly messed in one of the buildings of the Begum’s Kothee; this fact seemed to be well known to the rebels, who were from the first better acquainted with what transpired inside the fort than the garrison were with external affairs; they directed their shells and balls so thickly on that spot, that ingress and egress were equally difficult. Two sides of Innes’s house were blown in, and the whole structure made little else than a heap of ruins; the Residency, too, became so tottering, that renewed precautions had to be taken in that quarter; new mines were perpetually discovered, directed to points underneath the various buildings; and the enemy sought to increase their means of annoyance by booming forth shells filled with abominable and filthy compositions. Perhaps the most harassing troubles were owing to the uncertainty of the time and place when active services would be needed. The officers could not reckon upon a single minute of peace. ‘In the midst of all these miseries,’ says Captain Anderson, ‘you would hear the cry of “Turn out;” and you had to seize your musket and rush to your post. Then there was a constant state of anxiety as to whether we were mined or not; and we were not quite sure, whilst we were at a loophole, that we might not suddenly see the ground open, or observe the whole materials of the house fly into the air by the explosion of a mine. Shells came smashing into our rooms, and dashed our property to pieces; then followed round-shot, and down tumbled huge pieces of masonry, while hits of wood and brick flew in all directions. I have seen beds literally blown to atoms, and trunks and boxes completely smashed into little bits.’ Nevertheless, there was no flinching in the garrison; if a mine were discovered, a countermine was run out to frustrate it; if a wall or a verandah were knocked down by shot, the débris was instantly used to form a rampart, barricade, or stockade. On the 14th of the month, a loss was incurred which caused grief throughout the garrison. Captain Fulton, whose indomitable energy had won the admiration of all in his duties as engineer, and whose kindness of manner had rendered him a general favourite, was struck by a cannon-ball which took his head completely off. Brigadier Inglis felt this loss sensitively, for Fulton had been to him an invaluable aid in all his trials and difficulties. Fulton, who was especially marked by his skill and promptness in countermining, had succeeded Major Anderson as chief-engineer, and was himself now succeeded by Captain Anderson.

The twelfth week, the last which the beleaguered English were destined to suffer before the one which was to bring Havelock and Neill to Lucknow, found them in great despondency. They had lately lost a number of valuable officers. Lieutenant Birch fell; then M. Deprat, a merchant who worked and fought most valiantly at the defences; then Captain Cunliffe; and then Lieutenant Graham, whose mental firmness gave way under privation, grief, and wounds, leading him to commit suicide. As a natural consequence of these and similar losses, harder work than ever pressed on those who remained alive. Never for a moment was the look-out neglected. At all hours of the day and night, officers were posted on the roofs of the Residency and the post-office, finding such shelter as they could while watching intently the river, the bridges, the roads, and the buildings in and around the city; every fact they observed, serious in its apparent import, was at once reported to Brigadier Inglis, who made such defensive arrangements as the circumstances made desirable, and as his gradually lessened means rendered possible. What were the sleepless nights thus added to harassing days for the responsible guardian of the forlorn band, may to some extent be conceived. The enemy’s batteries were now more numerous than ever. They were constructed near the iron bridge; in a piece of open ground that formerly comprised the Residency kitchen-garden; near a mosque by the swampy ground on the river’s bank; in front of a range of buildings called the Captan Bazaar; in the Taree Kothee opposite the Bailey guard; near the clock-tower opposite the financial office; in a garden and buildings opposite the judicial office and Anderson’s house; in numerous buildings that bore upon the Cawnpore Battery and the Brigade Mess; in fields and buildings that commanded Gubbins’s house; and in positions on the northwest of the enclosure—in other words, the whole place was surrounded by batteries bristling with mortars and great guns, some or other of which were almost incessantly firing shot and shell into it.

And what, the reader may anxiously ask, was the domestic or personal life of the inmates of the enclosure during these three weeks of September? It was sad indeed—beyond the former sadness. If the men toiled and watched in sultry dry weather, they were nearly overcome by heat and noisome odours; if they slept in the trenches in damp nights after great heat, they suffered terribly in their limbs and bones, for they had neither tents nor change of clothing. Such was the state to which the whole of the ground was brought, by refuse of every kind, that a pool resulting from a shower of rain soon became an insupportable nuisance; sanitary cleansings were unattainable by a community who had neither surplus labour nor efficient drains at command. Half the officers were ill at one time, from disease, over-fatigue, and insufficient diet; and when they were thus laid prostrate, they had neither medicines nor surgeons sufficient for their need. There was not a sound roof in the whole place. On one day a cannon-ball entered at one end of the largest room in the hospital, traversed the whole length, and went out at the other—but, singular to relate, it did not hurt one human being in the whole crowded apartment. In the commissariat department, some of the bullocks yet remaining fell sick through privations, others were shot; thereby lessening the reserve store, and adding to the repulsive night-duties of the officers already adverted to. Of the few native servants still remaining, hardly one now could be retained; and the saving of their simple food was an inadequate counterbalance for the loss of their assistance in drudgery labours. There were not, however, wanting proofs of a fact abundantly illustrated in many walks of life—the moral healthiness of useful employment. One of the ladies, whose early weeks in the Residency had been weeks of misery, afterwards wrote thus: ‘I now find every hour of the day fully occupied. It is a great comfort to have so much to do, and to feel one’s self of some little use; it helps one to keep up one’s spirits much better than would otherwise be possible under the circumstances.’ The live-stock, the rum, the porter, were all getting low; tea, sugar, coffee, and chocolate had long disappeared from the rations. Such officers and civilians as had money in their pockets, were willing to give almost any prices for the few luxuries still remaining in private hands, in order that they might in some degree alleviate the sufferings of their wives and children. Forty shillings were eagerly given for a bottle of brandy; thirty-two for a bottle of curaçoa; forty for a small fowl; sixteen shillings per pound were offered, but offered in vain, for sugar; two shillings a pound for coarse flour; ten shillings a pound for a little half-rancid butter or ghee; tobacco, four shillings a leaf; a bottle of pickles, forty shillings. Mr Rees sold a gold watch to a companion who had money to spare, and with it purchased the luxury of smoking cigars at two shillings each; but when those bits of rolled tobacco-leaf commanded three rupees or six shillings each, he bade adieu to his last remaining source of personal enjoyment. What any one gave, he gave out of kind sympathy to his suffering companions; but what he sold, he sold in the usual commercial spirit to the highest bidder. The attire was reduced to the most piteous condition. Many of the officers had found much of their clothing burned nearly four months earlier, during the mutiny at the cantonment; and the troubles of June had prevented them from making purchases in the city before the arrival of the day when they were all alike to be shut up in the enclosure. As a consequence, their remaining clothes wore away to rags, or something worse. There was scarcely a vestige of a military uniform visible throughout the place. Officers worked and fought, dined and slept, in shirt, trousers, and slippers; one made himself a coat out of a billiard table-cloth; and another contrived a sort of shirt out of a piece of floor-cloth. When the trifling effects of one of the deceased officers came to be examined and sold, a little underclothing was sought for with an eagerness which sumptuous garments would not have excited; four pounds sterling were given for a new flannel-shirt, and twelve pounds for five others which had already rendered much service.

Joy, joy beyond expression rang through the enclosure when, on the 21st of September, the rumour ran round that a messenger had arrived with good news. Inglis had, a few days before, sent off a spy on the often-tried but generally unsuccessful attempt to carry a small note (enclosed in a quill); the peril had been great, but the man safely returned with a small written reply from Havelock, announcing that Outram and himself were on the road from Cawnpore, and expected to reach Lucknow in three or four days. Hearts were filled to overflowing with this announcement. Many wept for joy, some laughed and shouted, more sank on their knees in thanksgiving, while the sick and wounded rose from their pallets, as if wondrously strengthened by the glad tidings. All worked hard and vigorously, in their respective ways, to prepare for the struggle inevitable on any attempt of the two generals to penetrate through the streets of the city; the inmates of the garrison could not, it is true, leave their stronghold to join in the fight, but they might possibly aid when the forlorn-hope was approaching the Bailey guard, the probable place of entrance. The 22d passed over in hopes and fears, expectations and preparations. On the 23d, musketry was heard on the Cawnpore road, and much agitation was visible within the city. On the next day, cannonading and musketry were again heard; and then were the garrison rejoiced at seeing multitudes escaping out of the city, and over the bridge to the other side of the river—rejoiced, because this movement denoted success on the part of the advancing British.

The 25th arrived—the day of deliverance! Prodigious agitation and alarm had marked the city all night: movements of men and horses, and all the indications of a city in commotion. At noon, the increasing sounds told that street-fighting was going on; those who went on the top of the Residency for a look-out could see the smoke of musketry, but nothing else. As the afternoon advanced, the sounds came nearer and nearer;[[101]] then was heard the sharp crack of rifles; then was gradually perceived the flash of musketry; and then the well-known uniforms of a friendly hand. Outram and Havelock, when they had fought their way over the canal by the Char Bagh Bridge (bridge of the ‘four gardens’), intended to have taken the straight road to the Residency; but this road had been blocked up by the enemy with guns, palisades, stockades, barricades, concealed pits and trenches, and other obstacles. The two generals therefore diverged to the right, marched along a by-road to the eastern part of the city, and there fought their way through a continuous line of streets to the Bailey guard entrance of the Residency enclosure, suffering terribly as they went.[[102]] Great was the shout with which they were welcomed, and warm the grasp with which Inglis thanked his deliverers. ‘The immense enthusiasm,’ says Mr Rees, ‘with which they were greeted defies description. As their hurrah and ours rang in my ears, I was nigh bursting with joy.... We felt not only happy, happy beyond imagination, and grateful to that God of mercy who, by our noble deliverers, Havelock and Outram, and their gallant troops, had thus snatched us from imminent death; but we also felt proud of the defence we had made, and the success with which, with such fearful odds to contend against, we had preserved, not only our own lives, but the honour and lives of the women and children intrusted to our keeping. As our deliverers poured in, they continued to greet us with loud hurrahs.... We ran up to them, officers and men without distinction, and shook them by the hands—how cordially, who can describe? The shrill notes of the Highlanders’ bagpipes now pierced our ears. Not the most beautiful music ever was more welcome, more joy-bringing. And these brave men themselves, many of them bloody and exhausted, forgot the loss of their comrades, the pain of their wounds, the fatigue of overcoming the fearful obstacles they had combated for our sakes, in the pleasure of having accomplished our relief.’ What the women felt on this day, the Lady’s Diary will tell us. ‘Never shall I forget the moment to the latest day I live. It was most overpowering. We had no idea they were so near, and were breathing air in the portico as usual at that hour, speculating when they might be in—not expecting they could reach us for several days longer; when suddenly, just at dark, we heard a very sharp fire of musketry close by, and then a tremendous cheering. An instant after, the sound of bagpipes, then soldiers running up the road, our compound and verandah filled with our deliverers, and all of us shaking hands franticly, and exchanging fervent “God bless you’s!” with the gallant men and officers of the 78th Highlanders. Sir James Outram and staff were the next to come in, and the state of joyful confusion and excitement was beyond all description. The big, rough-bearded soldiers were seizing the little children out of our arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and thanking God they had come in time to save them from the fate of those at Cawnpore. We were all rushing about to give the poor fellows drinks of water, for they were perfectly exhausted; and tea was made down in the Tye Khana, of which a large party of tired, thirsty officers partook, without milk or sugar; we had nothing to give them to eat. Every one’s tongue seemed going at once with so much to ask and to tell; and the faces of utter strangers beamed upon each other like those of dearest friends and brothers.’

After a night, in which joy kept many awake whom fatigue would have else sent into a deep sleep, the dawn of the 26th ushered in a day in which there was again to be much severe fighting; for some of Havelock’s heroic little band had been left in palatial buildings outside the Residency enclosure, which they managed to hold during the night. To succour these comrades, to bring in the guns which they had guarded, and to obtain firm possession of the buildings, were objects that required great exertion and daring courage. The attempt succeeded. The palaces of Fureed Buksh and Taree Kothee were conquered from the enemy, and formed into new intrenched positions, which greatly relieved the overcrowded Residency. When the further conquest of the Chuttur Munzil palace and other buildings near the river-side had been effected, the position held by the British was thrice as large in area as that which Brigadier Inglis had so long and so gallantly defended. It lay along the river-bank for a considerable distance; while on the other side it was bounded by a dense mass of the streets constituting the main portion of the city.

One of the results of Havelock and Outram’s advance was the capture of an important outpost. At a spot three or four miles out of Lucknow, near the new road from Cawnpore, was the Alum Bagh, the ‘garden of the Lady Alum or beauty of the world.’ It comprised several buildings, including a palace, a mosque, and an emambarra or private temple, bounded by a beautiful garden, which was itself in the middle of a park, and the park enclosed in a wall with corner towers. There was abundant space within it for a large military force, and it was susceptible of being made a stronghold if the defences were well maintained. Havelock, on his advance from Cawnpore, found the enemy drawn up in considerable strength, within and without the wall of the Alum Bagh; and it was only after a hot and fierce contest that he could capture the place. He encamped there on the night of the 23d, and had to bear many attacks from the enemy near the same spot on the 24th. On the 25th he advanced to Lucknow, and maintained the sanguinary street-fight already noticed. The Alum Bagh was too important a place to be abandoned when once conquered. Havelock left there the baggage, ammunition, sick, and wounded, of his relieving force; with 300 men to protect them, and an immense array of elephants, camels, horses, camp-followers, and laden carts; and with four guns to aid in the defence. No one for an instant supposed that that detachment would be left there without further aid. Havelock and his men fully expected, that, Lucknow once conquered, the Alum Bagh would simply be one of the strongholds of his position with which he could communicate when he pleased. Little did he look forward to the state of things actually produced, when the occupants of the Alum Bagh were so completely isolated from the British in the city, that they could not send even a message, unless by good-fortune a kossid or native messenger succeeded in conveying, in a quill or in the sole of his shoe, a brief letter from the one place to the other.

This isolated position of the little garrison at Alum Bagh was, moreover, only one among many grave subjects that speedily presented themselves for consideration. After the first outburst of thankfulness at the arrival of the welcome deliverers, the residents in the Lucknow intrenchment had to ask themselves to what extent it was really a deliverance. Then did they find that, in effect, they were as close prisoners as ever. Havelock had lost nearly one-third of his small force during the desperate encounters of the past few days; and those who survived were far too weak for any considerable military operations. The one great, absorbing, sacred, deeply earnest object he had all along held in view, was to save his fellow-countrymen, their wives and children, from horrors such as had been perpetrated at Cawnpore. To his dying day he remained deeply grateful that he had been permitted to effect this; but what more could he do? Could he remain a conqueror in Lucknow, or could he bring away from that city all those who for four months had been exposed to such peril! He could do neither the one nor the other. The result of the fighting on the 25th and 26th of September had given to him the command of a larger portion of the city than the Residency enclosure, which had been so long and so gallantly maintained by Inglis; but he could neither gain another inch without struggling for it, nor retain the portion already acquired without incessant watchfulness and assiduity. Nor could he make the Residency and the Alum Bagh component parts of one great stronghold, seeing that the British were alike besieged in the one and the other, and could not hold intercommunication. Nor could he send the women and children to Allahabad or any other place of safety; they would all have been cut to pieces on the road, so small was the escort he could afford, and so overwhelming the force of the enemy. The whole of the immediate benefit consisted in an increase in the number of British for the defence-works; but as these hard-working and hard-fighting troops brought little or no supplies further than the Alum Bagh, there was an increase rather in the number of mouths to be fed than in the means of feeding them. The disappointment of Inglis’s garrison, after the first joy had passed, was very severe. Captivity and short commons were still to be their lot. Many councils of war were held, to determine what should be done. A party of volunteer cavalry on one day set out with the intention of cutting their way to the Alum Bagh, and perhaps to Cawnpore, to seek for reinforcements and to give notice of the exact state of affairs; but they were driven back almost immediately, by a body of rebels too large to be resisted. Sir James Outram sought to ascertain whether any of the influential natives in the city were disposed, by tempting offers, to render him and his companions aid in their difficulties; but here in like manner failure resulted. The scene was very miserable until something like order could be restored. The poor fellows who had fallen on the 25th and 26th had been brought into the intrenchment, some to be buried, some to be healed if possible. The authoress of the Lady’s Diary said: ‘The hospital is so densely crowded, that many have to lie outside in the open air, without bed or shelter. —— says he never saw such a heart-sickening scene. It is far worse than that after Chinhut—amputated arms and legs lying about in heaps all over the hospital, and the crowd and confusion such that little can be done to alleviate the intense discomfort and pain of the poor sufferers.’

It might be interesting to surviving friends, but would be tedious to general readers, to present here a list of all the persons mentioned by name in Brigadier Inglis’s dispatch as having distinguished themselves in this most gallant struggle. They amount to about ninety in number. Indeed, it may well be supposed that at such a time every soldier worthy of the name, every civilian with a drop of honest blood in him, would achieve things of which, at another time, he would scarcely deem himself capable. Not only British; for Captain Anderson mentions two gentlemen of foreign birth, a Frenchman and an Italian, who, shut up like the rest in the intrenchment, fought and worked as untiringly as their companions. In a foot-note we give the names of officers mentioned by Brigadier Inglis as having died during the siege;[[103]] and in another, of those who commanded eleven of the outposts or ‘garrisons,’ those fortified houses which were defended in so extraordinary a way.[[104]] Of all these he had a kindly word to say; as well as of the artillery and engineer officers, the infantry officers, the officers of the staff, the surgeons and the chaplains, the commissariat-officers, the gentlemen-volunteers, the humble rank and file, and the ladies who became the ‘Florence Nightingales’ of the garrison. Nothing, perhaps, in the whole course of the siege, was more remarkable than the conduct of the native troops. It will be remembered that when three native infantry regiments mutinied at the cantonment on the 30th of May, some of the sepoys in each remained faithful. This select band shared all the labours and sufferings of the British during the siege. With scanty food, little and broken sleep, harassing exertions, daily fightings, they remained steadfast to the last. Though sorely tempted by the mutineers, who would often converse with them over the palisades of the intrenchment, they never flinched from their duty. What they were on the 30th of May, they were on the 25th of September, soldiers ‘true to their salt.’ Few things are more embarrassing, in taking an estimate of the causes and progress of the Revolt, than to meet with such anomalies as this. Explain it how we may, it would be gross injustice to withhold from such men a tribute of admiration for their fidelity at so trying a time. May there not have been something of a moral grandeur, a sublimity of heroism, in the conduct of the devoted garrison, that touched the hearts of these sepoys, and appealed to their better nature?

Viscount Canning did not fail to give an official recognition of the merits of those who had made this glorious defence. In an ‘Order in Council,’ issued at Calcutta, after adverting to the receipt of a military account of the proceedings from Brigadier Inglis, his lordship said:

‘The governor-general in council believes that never has a tale been told which will so stir the hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen.... There does not stand recorded in the annals of war an achievement more truly heroic than the defence of the Residency at Lucknow. That defence has not only called forth all the energy and daring which belong to Englishmen in the hour of active conflict, but it has exhibited continuously, and in the highest degree, that noble and sustained courage which against enormous odds and fearful disadvantages, against hope deferred, and through increasing toil and wear of body and mind, still holds on day after day, and triumphs. The heavy guns of the assailants, posted almost in security within fifty yards of the intrenchments—so near, indeed, that the solicitations, threats, and taunts which the rebels addressed to the native defenders of the garrison were easily heard by those true-hearted men; the fire of the enemy’s musketry, so searching that it penetrated the innermost retreat of the women and children and of the wounded; their desperate attempts, repeatedly made, to force an entry after blowing in the defences; the perpetual mining of the works; the weary night-watching for the expected signal of relief; and the steady waste of precious lives until the number of English gunners was reduced below that of the guns to be worked—all these constitute features in a history which the fellow-countrymen of the heroes of Lucknow will read with swelling hearts, and which will endure for ever as a lesson to those who shall hope, by treachery, numbers, or boldness in their treason, to overcome the indomitable spirit of Englishmen.’

The officer who so nobly held the command after Lawrence and Banks had been stricken down by death, well earned the honours which the Queen afterwards conferred upon him. He entered Lucknow as a lieutenant-colonel; he left it as Major-general Sir John Eardley Wilmot Inglis, K.C.B. Promotion in various ways awaited many of the other officers; but the immediate recognition by the governor-general of the services rendered by the garrison was embodied in the following general order: ‘Every officer and soldier, European and native, who has formed part of the garrison of the Residency between the 29th of June and the 25th of September last shall receive six months’ batta. Every civilian in the covenanted service of the East India Company who has taken part in the defence of the Residency within the above-named dates shall receive six months’ batta, at a rate calculated according to the military rank with which his standing corresponds. Every uncovenanted civil officer or volunteer who has taken a like part shall receive six months’ batta, at a rate to be fixed according to the functions and position which may have been assigned to him. Every native commissioned and non-commissioned officer and soldier who has formed part of the garrison shall receive the Order of Merit, with the increase of pay attached thereto, and shall be permitted to count three years of additional service. The soldiers of the 13th, 48th, and 71st regiments native infantry, who have been part of the garrison, shall be formed into a regiment of the line, to be called “the Regiment of Lucknow,” the further constitution of which, as regards officers and men, will be notified hereafter.’

What was done at Lucknow during October and November must be recorded in a future chapter. While Outram, Havelock, and Inglis were maintaining themselves, by indomitable resolution, in the Residency and the Alum Bagh, Sir Colin Campbell was collecting a force adequate, if not to the actual reconquest of Lucknow, at least to the rescue of all the British of every class residing in that hateful city. Those two concurrent lines of proceeding will be treated in intimate connection, a few pages on.