Forty-one years in India: from subaltern to commander-in-chief

by Earl Frederick Sleigh Roberts Roberts

Meanwhile the three assaulting columns had made good their lodgment on the walls. The guns in the Kashmir and Water bastions had been turned so as to allow of their being used against the foe, and preparations were made for the next move.

Nicholson's orders were to push his way to the Ajmir gate, by the road running inside the city wall, and to clear the ramparts and bastions as he went. Jones was to make for the Kabul gate, and Campbell for the Jama Masjid.

These three columns reformed inside the Kashmir gate, from which point the first and second practically became one. Nicholson, being accidentally separated from his own column for a short time, pushed on with Campbell's past the church, in the direction of the Jama Masjid, while the amalgamated column under Jones's leadership took the rampart route past the Kabul gate (on the top of which Jones had planted a British flag), capturing as they advanced all the guns they found on the ramparts, and receiving no check until the Burn bastion was reached by some of the more adventurous spirits. Here the enemy, taking heart at seeing but a small number of opponents, made a stand. They brought up a gun, and, occupying all the buildings on the south side of the rampart with Infantry, they poured forth such a heavy fire that a retirement to the Kabul gate had to be effected.

It was at this point that Nicholson rejoined his own column. His haughty spirit could not brook the idea of a retirement; however slight the check might be, he knew that it would restore to the rebels the confidence of which our hitherto successful advance had deprived them, and, believing that there was nothing that brave men could not achieve, he determined to make a fresh attempt to seize the Burn bastion.

The lane which was again to be traversed was about 200 yards long, with the city wall and rampart on the right, and on the left flat-roofed houses with parapets, affording convenient shelter for the enemy's sharp-shooters.

Nicholson Wounded As the troops advanced up this lane the mutineers opened upon them a heavy and destructive fire. Again and again they were checked, and again and again they reformed and advanced. It was in this lane that Major Jacob, the gallant Commander of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, fell, mortally wounded. His men wanted to carry him to the rear, but he would not allow them to remain behind for him, and refused their help, urging them to press forward against the foe. The officers, leading far ahead of their men, were shot down one after the other, and the men, seeing them fall, began to waver. Nicholson, on this, sprang forward, and called upon the soldiers to follow him. He was instantly shot through the chest.

A second retirement to the Kabul gate was now inevitable, and there all that was left of the first and second columns remained for the night.

Campbell's column, guided by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, who from his intimate acquaintance with the city as Magistrate and Collector of Delhi was able to conduct it by the route least exposed to the enemy's fire, forced its way to the vicinity of the Jama Masjid, where it remained for half an hour, hoping that the other columns would come to its assistance. They, however, as has been shown, had more than enough to do elsewhere, and Campbell (who was wounded), seeing no chance of being reinforced, and having no Artillery or powder-bags with which to blow in the gates of the Jama Masjid, fell back leisurely and in order on the church, where he touched what was left of the Reserve column, which had gradually been broken up to meet the demands of the assaulting force, until the 4th Punjab Infantry alone remained to represent it.

While what I have just described was taking place, I myself was with General Wilson. Edwin Johnson and I, being no longer required with the breaching batteries, had been ordered to return to our staff duties, and we accordingly joined the General at Ludlow Castle, where he arrived shortly before the assaulting columns moved from the cover of the Kudsiabagh.

Wilson watched the assault from the top of the house, and when he was satisfied that it had proved successful, he rode through the Kashmir gate to the church, where he remained for the rest of the day.