The rebels, however, now received a large reinforcement. The brigade that had mutinied at Nusseerabad, in Scindia's country, on the 28th of May, entered Delhi on the 17th of June, and on the 19th were sent out to fight their old masters. Their tactics were new. They resolved to operate strategically, and cut us off from the Punjab. With this object they marched out with much ostentation at mid-day, filing bravely through the Lahore Gate, traversing Kishengunge, and disappearing from view to the westward. The movement had been, of course, observed by Reid and Tombs, and the whole force turned out, but they turned in again when the Sepoys vanished from view. But late in the afternoon news came in from the rear that the Sepoys had worked round, and were in position across the Great Road. This was serious. Colonel Hope Grant could only oppose them with seven troops of British cavalry and the Guides and twelve guns. Although the odds were so great against them—3,000 to about 350—Grant did not hesitate to attack. The guns, under Turner, Tombs, and Bishop, went rapidly into action. The cavalry, under Yule and Daly, of the Guides, charged with headlong gallantry as often as opportunities presented themselves. Right and left the mutineers were checked, by lance and sabre, and cannon, until night drew near. But the rebel infantry worked through the enclosures, and fired on our gunners, while their artillery, splendidly served, did considerable execution. Our cavalry and guns were obliged to fall back before the masses crowding in upon them on all sides, when 300 infantry from the camp reached the field. Yule had fallen dead; the Guides had brought off Daly wounded; two guns were in the hands of the Sepoys. At this moment our foot, Rifles and Fusiliers, went in with the bayonet, and in a few moments the tide of rebel success was arrested and the guns were won back. Night had fallen; the enemy retreated, covering himself with a random fire in the dark, and the action was over.
The next morning Colonel Hope Grant rode on to the field and found it abandoned; dead men and horses were lying about, and he brought in a deserted 9-pounder. Soon came a fresh alarm. The enemy brought up his guns—the famous Jellalabad battery, part of the "illustrious" garrison—and his round shot rolled through the camp. But his triumph was short. Sweeping down with every available bayonet, Brigadier Wilson closed with the rebels and swiftly drove them away. They hurried off, carrying away their guns, and, having had enough of strategy, returned by a roundabout march to Delhi. It was a critical moment in the history of the siege. We were triumphant, but our little force was diminished by 100 men killed and wounded. Precautions were now taken to guard the rear as effectually as the smallness of the force would permit. On the very day of the first attack, Captain M'Andrew, acting on a mere rumour of an attack, had drawn off the force guarding Bhagput Bridge over the Jumna, and Hodson was obliged to ride thither and restore this line of communication with Meerut. M'Andrew was censured for running away without even seeing an enemy.
On the 21st, the Jhallandhar Brigade augmented by the 3rd Native Infantry, picked up at Philour, entered Delhi. The rebels were now so numerous that they encamped outside the place, but out of our reach, and under their own guns. On the 23rd, 850 men, including Rothney's 4th Sikhs, arrived in the British camp. It was a timely succour. The 23rd of June was the anniversary of Plassey. For 100 years the British "raj" had endured. Now crazy, or wily, pundits brought to light a prediction that, on the 23rd of June, 1857, British rule would end. So the Delhi garrison moved out in great excitement to fulfil the prophecy. They paid for it, and dearly. Crowding into the Subzee Mundi, and bringing guns up to the Eedgah, they raked the right flank and skirmished up the slope with their infantry. These attacks were easily repulsed, but the artillery fire was very destructive; and Brigadier Showers begged Sir Henry Barnard to assume the offensive. He assented. The first attacks failed, with the loss of two officers and several men. Then the column was reinforced. The 4th Sikhs, and part of the 2nd Fusiliers, just in from a march of twenty-two miles, went gaily into action and, using the bayonet very freely, rapidly cleared the Subzee Mundi, killing great numbers of rebels, who had shut themselves up in a temple, and forcing the remainder to fly, galled by the fire of our batteries on the ridge. This action gave us the Subzee Mundi, which we occupied, connecting it by a breastwork with the ridge, thus securing the position on that side; but it cost us thirty-eight killed and 118 wounded to prove to the Sepoys that our "raj" had not yet come to an end.
THE PALACE, DELHI. (From a Photograph by Frith & Co., Reigate.)
Thus the position of the British before Delhi became gradually more extensive, stretching now from the Subzee Mundi to Metcalfe's house, and thus commanding both roads leading to our rear. Neville Chamberlain arrived to act as adjutant-general. Then came further reinforcements: half the 8th Foot, a hundred European artillerymen, and many score old Sikh gunners who had served at Sobraon, a battery, and the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, bringing up the force present to about 6,600 men of all arms. This was the force destined to hold on to that ridge, and two months afterwards, when aided by John Nicholson, to rush into Delhi. But now we must leave these heroes for a time, to track the bloody steps of mutiny on the Ganges and Jumna.
It cannot now be denied that at the outset of the mutiny the magnitude of the crisis was totally misapprehended at Calcutta. Lord Canning was new to India. He was a man of a powerful but a slow intellect. With time to think, he acted wisely. But on the first days of the mutiny the civil servants—the Grants, Beadons, Dorins, men of a stamp very different from the clear-sighted and determined statesmen of the Punjab—sadly misled him. They treated the mutiny in the army as a military squabble that would soon be quelled. The civil servants looked down on the military servants of the Company, and from the height of their conceit lived on in blessed ignorance of military affairs. To this we must trace the paltering way in which the Government dealt with the mutiny at the outset; and the severe rebuffs they administered to all—not of the Government—who offered either counsel or advice. It is true, the Governor-General had very few European troops under his hand—only the 53rd at Fort William, and the 84th at Barrackpore. But at an earlier, he ought to have done what he did at a later stage: he might have called in troops from Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, and the Cape. On the 10th of May, before he knew of the outburst at Meerut, Sir John Lawrence had telegraphed his opinion to Calcutta that the whole regular army was ready to break out. And then he gave this large-minded counsel:—"Send for troops from Persia. Intercept the force now on its way to China, and bring it to Calcutta. Every European soldier will be required to save the country if the whole of the native troops turn against us. This is the opinion of all leading minds here"—in the Punjab. But at Calcutta, had the civilians been as quick-sighted as Lawrence, this advice would have been needless, for the course it recommended would have been adopted in March, or at least in April. After Meerut, it was too late to prevent, though not to cure. Lord Elphinstone, indeed, at Bombay, saw what was coming; and as soon as he knew that peace had been made with Persia—that is, in April—he pressed on General Outram the necessity of sending back to India the European troops at once. The Governor-General allowed him to act on his discretion, and Sir James, being discreet, complied with the urgent request of the Governor of Bombay. Yet General Havelock did not quit Mohamerah, at the head of the Persian Gulf, until the 15th, nor did he land at Bombay until the 29th of May, when he was astounded by the news that Delhi was in the hands of mutinous Sepoys. He at once set out for Calcutta by sea; but being wrecked off Ceylon, he did not reach Calcutta until the 17th of June. With him went from Madras Sir Patrick Grant, who, on the death of Anson, was appointed Commander-in-Chief. By this time the Bengal native army had practically "gone."
It was not until the middle of May that Lord Canning, getting some insight into the facts, sent to Ceylon, Mauritius, and Madras for troops, and despatched a steamer to lie in wait for the regiments bound to China, and ordered the late army of Persia to come to Calcutta. The first to arrive were the Madras Fusiliers, under Colonel Neill, a man swift to see and to strike, who did not understand the system of paltering with mutiny. The Madras Europeans arrived on the 23rd of May, and were at once, with the 84th, despatched towards the North-West.
While Neill was hastening onwards towards Benares, and Allahabad, and Cawnpore, the native regiments at these and other stations had thrilled to the shock of the news from Delhi and were prepared to imitate the example. There was one European regiment, the 10th Foot, and three native regiments, at Dinapore, near Patna, 130 miles from Benares; at Benares there were a Sikh regiment, and two Bengal regiments, and thirty European artillerymen; at Allahabad there were a few Sikhs under Braysher—a gallant soldier who had risen from the ranks—and the 6th Native Infantry. Benares, the sacred city, was the headquarters of Hindooism. Its population, numbered at 300,000, mainly Hindoos, was turbulent. Within its walls lived many dethroned princes, from Nepaul and Sattara, a branch of the Delhi family, and several Sikhs. Here, if anywhere, disaffection was certain to exist; and here were only thirty British soldiers and the civil servants. Among these civil servants was Mr. Frederick Gubbins, a very resolute man; and when news of the Meerut mutiny came, although he saw the peril, he determined to stand stiffly up against it and resist. On the 3rd of June the vanguard of the Madras Fusiliers arrived—sixty men—and the question of at once using them and the Sikhs to disarm the 37th Native Infantry was debated. News came that the 17th Native Infantry at Azimghur had just mutinied, and it was resolved on the 4th to disarm the regiment the next day. At this crisis Colonel Neill came in. He saw no good in delay. "As soon as the 37th hear of the mutiny at Azimghur," he said, "they will rise. Do it at once." Brigadier Ponsonby yielded. The troops were paraded; the Sikhs and irregular cavalry on the left, the artillery on the right, of the 37th. The latter at once mutinied, and began firing. Two or three officers fell. The artillery opened fire. By some mistake, never explained, the Sikhs fired on their officers and on the Fusiliers. Then the guns opened on them, and all was confusion. Brigadier Ponsonby fell from sunstroke. Neill took command, and with his handful of thirty gunners and Fusiliers, routed the rebels. The whole district around for many miles rose in revolt at once; but such was the stern energy of Neill, the occult and long-acquired influence of Gubbins, the devotion of men like Venables and Chapman, indigo planters, that not only was the city population held down, but in a very short time we regained our power here also. At this time gibbets were set up and, for many months, traitors and mutineers of every caste and rank were mercilessly hanged thereon.
The safety of Benares was important in a political point of view and it was guarded by thirty European artillerymen! The safety of Allahabad was essential in a military point of view and it did not contain a single European soldier! Its absolute masters were the 6th Native Infantry, a native battery, and part of the Ferozepore regiment of Sikhs. Yet what was Allahabad? It was not only a very strong fortress, commanding the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna; it was not only the point of passage over the Jumna into the Doab on one side, and thence to the north-west, and over the Ganges on the other into Oude and the valley of the Goomtee; it was the greatest arsenal in India—full of guns, stores, ammunition; our sole base of operations upwards towards Cawnpore and Lucknow. The 6th Native Infantry were quite ready to mutiny. Fortunately, Government in a moment of alarm—for it had its moments of alarm as well as its moments of confidence—ordered up from Chunar some sixty European artillerymen, all invalids, yet fit for garrison duty. These arrived on the 23rd of May, and entered the fort. They saved this invaluable post. The 6th had volunteered to march on Delhi, and Government was so delighted that on the 5th its commander, Colonel Simpson, was directed by telegraph to thank the regiment, and tell them the order would appear in the next Gazette. On that very day came news of the mutiny at Benares, and on the 6th of June, twenty-four hours after it had been thanked for loyalty, the 6th rose, and the men shot nearly every one of their officers. In the fort all was anxiety. The real nature of the contest raging in cantonments was not known until an officer, naked from a swim in the Jumna, ran in. Then, by the steadfastness and skill of Braysher, the Sikhs were induced to disarm the company of the 6th, and the fort was saved. But the rabble invested the fort! For five days this was permitted and not a gun allowed to be fired. Colonel Neill, with forty men, came up on the 11th from Benares. The bridge of boats was in the hands of the rebels, but he got a boat and crossed below it. Then, without resting, he organised a plan for recovering the bridge; and early next morning he executed it with vigour and promptitude. From that time he continued to regain the lost sway over the city. Neill became a name of terror all along the banks of the Ganges, and by his wise as well as severe measures he made it possible for Havelock to avenge Cawnpore.