The Story of the Indian Mutiny

by A. R. Hope Moncrieff

The General in command here, Sir Hugh Wheeler, was an Indian veteran of the older school, who could speak to the Sepoys in their own language, and, like some other officers of his generation, had become so much one of themselves as to marry a native woman. Such a man would naturally be slow to believe his "children"—babalogue the affectionate word was, that came now to be used rather in scornful irony—capable of being untrue to their salt. Yet when the demeanour of the Sepoys, agitated as much by fear and unreasoning excitement, perhaps, as by deliberate intention to revolt, became too plainly threatening, while still expressing confidence, Wheeler ordered an entrenchment to be thrown up and provided with stores, as a refuge for the Europeans in case of need. So great was his trust in the Maharajah of Bithoor, that he did not doubt to accept the Nana's assistance. A detachment of his ragamuffin troops was actually put in charge of the treasury; and there was some talk of the ladies and children being placed for safety in the palace of this traitor, already plotting their ruin. Every night now they slept within the entrenchment; but the officers of Sepoy regiments had to show true courage by staying among their men, who were not so much impressed by this forced show of confidence as by the distrust of them evident in the preparations for defence.

At length even Sir Hugh began to take a gloomy view of the situation. Many of those under him had done so from the first; and most pathetic it is to read the letters written by some English people to their friends at home by the last mail that got down to Calcutta—farewell messages of men and women who felt how any hour now they might be called on to face death. Before long the roads were all stopped, the telegraph wires were cut, and almost the only news that reached this blockaded garrison of what went on around them, was the grim hint conveyed by white corpses floating down the sacred river, like an offering to cruel Hindoo gods.

On the night of June 4 came the long-expected outbreak. Part of the Sepoys gave themselves up to the usual outrages, breaking open the jail, plundering the treasury and the magazine. The rest remained quiet for a time, and one regiment was even falling in upon the maidan to obey its officers, when, with ill-starred haste, Sir Hugh Wheeler had them fired on from the entrenchment, at which they ran away to join the mutineers. About eighty, however, were found obstinately faithful. More than one of the native officers also risked his life in trying to restrain his men; but others sided with the revolt, among them a Soubahdar named Teeka Singh, who became its general, the Nana Sahib being adopted as a figure-head. He at once consented to lead them to Delhi, and the whole disorderly crew had marched off on the road, when his crafty counsellor, Azimoolah, is understood to have persuaded him that instead of going to swell the triumph of a Moslem king, it would be more to his glory and profit to exterminate the English at Cawnpore, and set up a Brahmin power of his own. The Nana, in turn, won over the Sepoys to this view, and next morning they marched back upon the entrenchment at Cawnpore.

The English here had been fondly hoping the danger past with the running away of their Sepoys, and congratulated themselves that, no longer tied by duty, they would now be able to make their escape down the river. What was their consternation when that trusted friend of theirs unmasked himself by sending in to General Wheeler a note, bidding him to expect an immediate attack! At hasty notice, they fled within the entrenchment, some just in time; others, lingering or trusting to concealment, were butchered by the desperadoes, who soon filled the streets to make themselves a terror to respectable natives as well as to Europeans. The strength of the disorder here was among the Hindoos, at whose hands the Mohamedans were like to come ill-off; and if they had not been united by a common hatred, they would probably before long have taken to cutting one another's throats.

After spending the forenoon in pillage, murder, and arson, the rebel army came forward to the bombardment of that weak entrenchment, which was to endure a siege seldom surpassed for misery and disaster. Sir Hugh Wheeler is judged to have made a fatal mistake in not possessing himself of the magazine, a strong position, which, with all its contents, he abandoned, rather than irritate the Sepoys by taking it out of their hands, and thus, perhaps, drive them into revolt. He seems not to have reckoned on any serious attack. The fortress he had provided was the buildings of a hospital and some unfinished barracks, surrounded by a low mud wall, standing out in the open plain, and commanded on all sides by substantial edifices, at a few hundred yards' distance, to give cover for the besiegers, who soon surrounded it with batteries of our own heavy guns, while the defenders had mounted only a few nine-pounders. Within such slight defences were huddled some thousand Christian souls, four hundred of them fighting men. They had plenty of muskets and rifles, but sorely needed every other means of defence.

For now broke over these poor people a storm of cannon-balls and bullets, pouring upon them all day like the slaughtering rays of the sun overhead, and hardly ceasing by night, when they must steal forth in wary silence to hide away their dead. At first every crashing shot called forth shrieks of alarm from the women and children; but soon they grew too well accustomed to the deadly din. In two or three days all the buildings which gave them shelter were riddled through and through. There was no part of the enclosure where flying missiles and falling brickwork did not work havoc, as well as upon the thin circle of defenders exposing themselves behind the wretched walls. By the end of a week all the artillerymen had been killed or wounded beside their ill-protected guns. But the sick, too, were put out of pain, in whatever corners they might be laid. Children fell dead at play, their mothers in nursing them. One shot struck down husband, wife and child at once. Another carried off the head of General Wheeler's sick son, before the eyes of his horrified family. Two men and seven women were the victims of a single shell. An important out-work was the unfinished barrack, garrisoned by less than a score of men, few of whom ever left that post unhurt. Yet all did their duty as manfully as if not robbed by continual alarms of their nightly rest, with brave hearts tormented night and day by fear for their patient dear ones.

Foremost among so many heroes was Captain Moore of the 32nd, who seems to have been looked on as the soul of the defence, ever present at the sorest need, and never seen but to leave "men something more courageous, and women something less unhappy." We recognize another Greatheart of a different order in Mr. Moncrieff, the chaplain, unsparing of himself to cheer the living and soothe the dying with words to which none now could listen in careless ease. Few and short, indeed, were the prayers which that Christian flock could make over their dead, stealthily buried by night in an empty well without the rampart. Another well within proved more perilous than that of Bethlehem, from which David longed to drink. This was the garrison's one supply of water, and the ruthless enemy trained guns upon it, firing even by night as soon as they heard the creaking of the tackle. When the Hindoo water-carriers had all been killed, or scared away, soldiers were paid several rupees for every pail they drew at the risk of their lives. A brave civilian named Mackillop, declaring himself no fighting man, undertook this post of honour, held only for a few days. In the heat of June, on that dusty plain, no fainting woman or crying child could have a drink of water, but at the price of blood. Washing was out of the question—a severe hardship in such a climate.

Water was not the sole want of our country-people, to many of whom the Indian summer had hitherto seemed scarcely endurable through the help of ice, effervescing beverages, apartments darkened and artificially cooled. After a week, the thatched roof of their largest building was set on fire by night, its helpless inmates hardly saved amid a shower of bullets poured on the space lit up by the flames. With this was destroyed the store of drugs and surgical instruments, so that little henceforth could be done for the sick and wounded. Another time the wood-work of a gun kindled close to the store of ammunition; then young Lieutenant Delafosse, exposing himself to the cannon turned upon this perilous spot, lay down beneath the blazing carriage, tore out the fire, and stifled it with earth before it could spread.

Many of that crowd had now to lie in the open air, or in what holes and corners they could find for shade, exposed to the sun, and threatened by the approach of the rainy season. A plague of flies made not the least of the sufferings by which some were driven mad. They found the stench of dead animals almost intolerable. Their provisions soon began to run short; they were put on scanty rations of bad flour and split-peas. Now and then, sympathizing or calculating townsfolk managed to smuggle to them by night a basket of bread or some bottles of milk, but such god-sends would not go far among so many. A mongrel dog, a stray horse, a vagrant sacred bull, venturing near the entrenchment, was sure to fall a welcome prey. But no expedient could do more than stave off the starvation close at hand for them. Worst of all, the ammunition was not inexhaustible. Such balls as they had would no longer fit the worn-out guns. Then the ladies offered their stockings to be filled with shot. But guns failed before cartridges. At length there were only two left serviceable, when a quarter of the defenders had perished, and still the foe rained death all around the frail refuge, of which one who saw it a few weeks later says: "I could not have believed that any human beings could have stood out for one day in such a place. The walls, inside and out, were riddled with shot; you could hardly put your hand on a clear spot. The ditch and wall—it is absurd to call it a fortification—any child could have jumped over; and yet behind these for three weeks the little force held their own." This is the report of Lady Inglis, herself fresh from the perils of Lucknow, which she judged slight in proportion.

Several times dashing sorties were made to silence the most troublesome batteries, or drive away the marksmen who swarmed like rats in adjacent buildings. Thrice the enemy emboldened themselves to an assault, which was easily repulsed, though under the shelter of cotton-bales, pushed before them, a number of Sepoys contrived to advance close up to the entrenchment. They were better served by their spies, who let them know how losses and starvation must soon give the garrison into their hands without any cost of onslaught. One after another of our men stole out in disguise, vainly commissioned to seek help from Allahabad. Most of these emissaries were caught and ill-treated. More than one native messenger did get through to Lucknow; but with a sore heart Sir Henry Lawrence had to deny the appeal of his beleaguered countrymen, knowing by this time that it was all he could do to hold his own. The only reinforcement that reached Cawnpore was one young officer, who came galloping through the fire of the enemy, and leaped the wall to bring the news how his comrades had failed to make the same lucky escape. Other fugitives, seeking this poor place of refuge, were murdered on the way. Meanwhile, the ranks of the besiegers were daily swollen by all the scoundrelism of the district and by the followers of rebellious chiefs, eager to avenge the wrongs of their subjection to British rule.