Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde

by Archibald Forbes

Sir Colin Campbell was unquestionably a deliberate man. This was not so in his original nature, which was quick and ardent; but in the course of his long military life he had seen much evil come of hurry. Fighting man as he was, there probably never was a greater economist of the lives of his soldiers. When absolute need was, he did not hesitate to avert failure at the cost of men's lives, as he showed in the long and bloody fight under the walls of the Shah Nujeef; but whenever and wherever there was the possibility, his most earnest anxiety was to spare his men to the utmost of his endeavour. The chief object he had now in view was to attain the possession of Lucknow with no more loss to his force than the ordinary risk of such a service would justify. All his instructions, all his measures, conduced to this end. He was a man to whom a "big butcher's bill" was an utter abomination. And thus it was that he moved with a systematic deliberation which rash and callous men have sneered at as slowness. There were men about him, for instance, who would have stormed Banks' house on the evening of the 9th. Since no heavy guns were up, that enterprise would have cost dear in infantry-men. But the cool, shrewd, steadfast old Chief waited till next morning, when Lugard had his instructions to knock a breach with heavy guns in the high wall surrounding the house; which done, the infantry entered and at noon the building was captured and presently converted into a military post.

The preliminaries accomplished, there was no delay in the operations. Arrangements were at once made for prosecuting the advance on the Kaiserbagh. On the 10th Outram had placed his heavy guns in battery to play on that citadel and on the Mess House, on the former of which a battery of five mortars had already opened. Hope Grant with his cavalry scoured the ground between the Goomtee and the old cantonments. On the morning of the 11th some of the 68-pounders and heavy howitzers were brought up into position near Banks' house. A gradual approach was being made towards the Begum's palace, and the intervening gardens and suburbs were occupied by the troops designed for the assault—the Ninety-Third, Fourth Punjaub Rifles, and some Ghoorkas, under the command of Adrian Hope. It was Sir Colin's design to advance successively through the courts and palaces on either side of the Huzrut Gunj street, and profiting by the cover thus afforded, take in reverse the enemy's second and third line of works instead of sapping up to their front. During this progress on his part the rebels' position would be simultaneously enfiladed from the left bank by Outram's heavy cannon. About 4 P.M. the breach was pronounced practicable and the assault was promptly delivered. Sir Colin well termed it "the sternest struggle of the siege." Captain M'Donald of the Ninety-Third was shot down just after he had led his company through the breach in the outer rampart. About twenty paces further the advance was arrested by a ditch nearly eighteen feet wide and from twelve to fourteen deep. The stormers dashed into the ditch but they could not scale its further face. Lieutenant Wood, hoisted on the shoulders of a Ninety-Third grenadier, scrambled up claymore in hand. He was the first to enter the inner works of the Begum's palace, and when the enemy saw him emerge from the ditch they fled to barricade the further accesses. Then Wood reached down and caught hold of the men's rifles by the bends of the bayonets, so that with assistance from below all his people finally cleared the ditch. Barrier after barrier was then forced, and independent detachments headed by officers pushed on into the great inner square, where the mutineers in great strength were prepared to stand and fight. The numbers were very unequal but the Highlanders did not care to count heads. "The command," says Forbes-Mitchell, "was—'Keep together and use the bayonet!' The struggle raged for some two hours from court to court and from room to room; the pipe-major of the Ninety-Third, John MacLeod, playing the pipes amid the strife as calmly as if he had been walking round the officers' mess-tent at a regimental festival." Within two hours from the signal for the assault over eight hundred and sixty mutineers lay dead within the inner court. The assailants were by this time broken up into small parties in a series of separate fights. A room whose door had been partly broken in was found full of rebels armed to the teeth. The party of Highlanders watching the door stood prepared to shoot every man who attempted to escape, while two of their number went back for a few bags of gunpowder with slow matches fixed, to be lighted and heaved in among the mutineers. Forbes-Mitchell, himself a leading figure in the tragic scene, thus describes how the gallant Hodson met his fatal wound. "The men sent by me found Major Hodson, who did not wait for the powder but came running up himself sabre in hand. 'Where are the rebels?' he asked. I pointed to the door, and Hodson, shouting 'Come on!' was about to rush in. I implored him not to do so, saying 'It's certain death, sir! wait for the powder.' Hodson made a step forward, and I seized him by the shoulder to pull him out of the line of the doorway, when he fell back shot through the body. He gasped out a few words, but was immediately choked by blood." Placed in a dooly he was sent back to the surgeons, but his wound was mortal. Forbes-Mitchell adds: "It will thus be seen that the assertion that Major Hodson was looting when he was killed, is untrue. No looting had been then commenced, not even by Jung Bahadoor's Ghoorkas. Major Hodson lost his life by his own rashness; but to say that he was looting is a cruel slander on one of the bravest of Englishmen."

The ignited bags of gunpowder drove the enemy out from their lair to be promptly bayoneted. One soldier, using butt and bayonet and shouting "Revenge for Hodson!", killed more than half of them single-handed. In another doorway Lieutenant MacBean, Adjutant of the Ninety-Third, a soldier who rose from the ranks to die a Major-General, encountered eleven sepoys and killed them all with his claymore, one after the other. With the advent of night opposition for the most part ceased, although numbers of rebels were still in hiding in the dark rooms. The troops bivouacked in the courts of the palace under cover of strong guards. Horrible spectacles were presented with the daylight of the 12th. Hundreds of bodies lay about smouldering in the cotton clothing which had caught fire from the exploding bags of gunpowder, and the stench of burning flesh was sickening. During the morning the camp-followers dragged the corpses into the deep ditch which had been found so difficult to cross on the previous day. The Begum's palace was recognised to be the key to the enemy's position, and our heavy guns were promptly advanced for the object of breaching the Imambara, which was the only building of magnitude intervening between the Begum's palace and the Kaiserbagh.

From the early morning of the 11th Sir Colin had been at the front superintending the preparations for the assault of the Begum Kotee. But before that enterprise was ripe he was reluctantly summoned from the scene of action to receive a visit from Jung Bahadoor, who had just arrived at the Dilkoosha with the Nepaulese army after an interminable series of delays. In the midst of the formal durbar there occurred a striking scene. Captain Hope Johnstone, aide-de-camp to General Mansfield, covered with powder-smoke and the dust of battle, strode up to the Chief with the welcome tidings that the Begum Kotee had been taken. Thereupon Sir Colin, to whom ceremonial was detestable, seized the occasion to bring the durbar to a close, and after announcing the news to his guest hurried to the front. Next day the Nepaulese troops came up into position holding the line of the canal between Banks' house and the Charbagh bridge, thus covering the left of the main attack. On the right the Shah Nujeef had been occupied on the evening of the 11th, on a parallel front with the position in the Begum Kotee.

By the afternoon of the 13th the engineers had driven a practicable way through the buildings intervening between the Begum Kotee and the Imambara. Heavy guns were brought into action close to the massive containing wall of the latter structure, and on the morning of the 14th the breach was reported practicable. The storming force consisted of Brasyer's Sikhs and the Tenth Foot, with the Ninetieth in support. After a short but sharp struggle the garrison fled in disorder, the Imambara was in possession of the stormers, and the second line of the enemy's defence was thus turned. The assailants in the ardour of their success pursued the fugitives into the buildings intervening between the Imambara and the Kaiserbagh itself. Those occupied, the engineers proposed to suspend active operations for the day and to resort to the process of sap. Sir Colin himself, who had ridden through the fire in the Huzrut Gunj and had entered the Imambara amidst the cheers of the troops, was understood to favour that course. But the men in the front were not to be restrained, and under a fierce fire they forced their way into a courtyard communicating with the Kaiserbagh, driving the enemy before them. Reinforcements were sent for and came hurrying up. After a brief consultation Napier and Franks resolved to push on. Franks sent his men through Saadat Ali's Mosque into the Kaiserbagh itself. Its courts, gardens and summer-houses were full of sepoys who from the roofs and battlements rained down a musketry-fire on the assailants. But the British troops fought their way into this chief citadel of the hostile position, and after a short interval of hard fighting the Kaiserbagh was in possession of Sir Colin's valiant soldiers. Its fall took in reverse the third and last line of the enemy's defence. By nightfall the palaces along the right side of the Goomtee, the Motee Mahal and the Chattee Munzil, were occupied; as also the nearer buildings of the Mess House and the Tara Kotee. With the capture of the Kaiserbagh and the other buildings within the third line of defence, Lucknow may be said to have fallen.

Mr. Russell in his Diary in India has given a vivid description of the scene in the Kaiserbagh immediately after the capture. "Imagine courts as large as the Temple Gardens, surrounded with ranges of palaces, with fresco paintings on the blind windows, and with green jalousies and venetians closing the apertures which pierce the walls in double rows. In the great courtyard are statues, fountains, orange-groves, aqueducts, and kiosks with burnished domes of metal. Through these with loud shouts dart hither and thither European and native soldiers, firing at the windows, whence come occasionally dropping shots, or hisses a musket-ball. At every door there is an eager crowd, smashing the panels with the stocks of firelocks or bursting the locks by discharges of their weapons. Here and there the invaders have forced their way into the long corridors; and you hear the musketry rattling inside, the crash of glass, and the shouts and yells of the combatants, as little jets of smoke curl out of the closed lattices. Lying amid the orange-groves are dead and dying sepoys, and the white statues are reddened with blood. Leaning against a smiling Venus is a British soldier shot through the neck, gasping, and at every gasp bleeding to death. Officers are running to and fro after their men, persuading or threatening in vain. From the broken portals issue soldiers laden with loot—shawls, rich tapestry, gold and silver brocades, caskets of jewels, arms, splendid dresses. The men are wild with fury and lust of gold—literally drunk with plunder. Some come out with china vases or mirrors, dash them to pieces on the ground, and return to seek more valuable booty. Some are busy gouging out the precious stones from stems of pipes, from saddle-cloths, from hilts of swords, or from butts of pistols and firearms. Many swathe their bodies in stuffs crusted with precious metals and gems; others carry off useless lumber, brass pots, pictures, or vases of jade and of china."

The success attained was magnificent; but, in Colonel Malleson's words, it might, and ought to have been greater. On the 11th Outram had pushed his advance on the left bank of the Goomtee up to the iron bridge, to sweep which he had established a battery. On the 12th and 13th he continued to occupy his positions commanding the bridge, but was restricted from crossing it by Sir Colin's orders. On the 14th, the day of the capture of the Kaiserbagh, he applied for permission to cross the bridge, which was in the vicinity of the Residency. The presence of his division on the line of the enemy's retreat could not but have produced important results in spreading panic and cutting off the fugitive rebels. Outram was informed in reply by the Chief of the Staff that he might cross the iron bridge, but with the proviso that "he was not to do so if he thought he would lose a single man." This of course was equivalent to an absolute prohibition. The stipulation was utterly incomprehensible, and no explanation in regard to the subject was ever made. Mr. Russell makes it clear that the order emanated from Sir Colin himself. It is significant that his biographer General Shadwell ignores the matter altogether, a course which seems to savour of disingenuousness.

Already on the 14th the rebels had begun to recognise that the game was up, and on the 15th they were streaming out of Lucknow in thousands. Detachments of horse and foot were sent to cut off their retreat by the Sundeela and Seetapore roads, but it appeared that the fugitives had taken neither. Their chief exodus was by the stone bridge, whence some twenty thousand followed the Fyzabad road. On the 16th Outram with a brigade crossed the river and drove the rebels out of the old Residency position. Pushing onward and taking in reverse the iron bridge and the rebel batteries crossing it, he opened a heavy fire on the Muchee Bawun which was followed by its capture by the infantry, and the great Imambara later shared the same fate. Although by the 18th most of the mutineers had been expelled from Lucknow, it was found that a considerable body were threatening to make a stand in the Moosabagh, a vast building on the right bank of the Goomtee about four miles north-west of Lucknow. On the 19th Sir Colin ordered out a column under Outram composed of an infantry brigade and some artillery and cavalry, with instructions to make a direct attack on the Moosabagh while Hope Grant from the left bank of the Goomtee cannonaded it with his horse-artillery guns. A mixed force of all arms under the command of Brigadier Campbell was put in march with directions to intercept the retreat of the enemy when dislodged from the Moosabagh. The dislodgment occurred so soon as Outram's guns opened; but the expected interception of the fugitives failed, and great masses of the rebels were allowed to escape with comparative impunity in a northwesterly direction.

With the capture of the Moosabagh and the expulsion from the city of the Moulvie of Fyzabad and his band of fanatics, there terminated a series of operations which had extended over a period of twenty days. Sir Colin's plan of turning the enemy's defensive works, and thus promptly expelling many thousands of armed men from formidable positions prepared with great labour and no little skill, had been accomplished with a total loss of eight hundred of all ranks exclusive of the Nepaulese casualties, which were reckoned at about three hundred. To have achieved a success so great at a cost so small, was a result of which the most exacting commander might well have been proud.

In the course of the early operations against Lucknow Sir Colin had the gratification of receiving a letter from the Duke of Cambridge intimating to Sir Colin that he had recommended Her Majesty to confer on him the colonelcy of the Ninety-Third Highlanders. "I thought," wrote His Royal Highness, "that this arrangement would be agreeable to yourself, and I know that it is the highest compliment that Her Majesty could pay to the Ninety-Third Highlanders to see their dear old Chief at their head." By the same mail there reached the Commander-in-Chief a letter from the Queen written by her own hand. This lofty and touching letter is printed in full in Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort, but it is impossible to refrain from quoting here one or two extracts. Her Majesty wrote:—"The Queen has had many proofs already of Sir Colin Campbell's devotion to his Sovereign and his country, and he has now greatly added to that debt of gratitude which both owe him. But Sir Colin must bear one reproof from his Queen, and that is, that he exposes himself too much; his life is most precious, and she entreats that he will neither put himself where his noble spirit would urge him to be—foremost in danger, nor fatigue himself so as to injure his health.... That so many gallant and distinguished men, beginning with one whose name will ever be remembered with pride, General Havelock, should have died and fallen, is a great grief to the Queen.... To all European as well as native troops who have fought so nobly and so gallantly, and among whom the Queen is rejoiced to see the Ninety-Third Highlanders, the Queen wishes Sir Colin to convey the expression of her great admiration and gratitude."