When Lord Lake was in India, fighting the Mahrattas, there was a Sergeant W——, of the artillery, who served in nearly all the battles of his illustrious chief. This sergeant owned a Hindoo slave, belonging to the lowest dregs of the pariahs; but through the earnest labours of a Baptist missionary, she was converted to Christianity, and the sergeant made her his wife. She accompanied him in all his campaigns, and followed him into battle. When he was tired, she would lend a hand at the guns. In one action the sergeant was struck down by a bullet which passed through his shako and struck his forehead just above the temple carrying in its course the brass hoop from the shako and forcing it into his skull. He fell, to all appearance, dead; but his wife, determined not to leave his body to the tender mercies of the foe, seized it up, and bore it from the field, amidst a rain of bullets.
The principal leaders in the terrible Indian Mutiny were Nana Sahib, Tantia Topee, and the Ranee of Jhansi. They were equally ferocious: they detested the British, and the motives which induced them to rebel were almost precisely similar. According to the laws and usages of Hindostan, a native prince, in default of sons, could adopt a strange boy and make him his heir; seldom was a dissentient voice raised against the succession of the adopted child till within the last thirty-five or forty years, when the East India Company constituted itself heir-apparent to all the thrones in the country.
The city of Jhansi is situated in Bundelcund, to the south of the river Jumna. Previous to 1857, it was the strongest and most important place in the entire of Central India. The people were nearly all Brahmins, a religion held in common with their rajahs. In the days when the Peishwa was still a person of importance in Hindostan, the ruler of Jhansi was merely a wealthy zemindar, or land-owner, and he rendered such good service to the British that Lord William Bentinck (Governor-General from 1828 to 1835), raised him to the position of Rajah. On the death of this man, he was succeeded by his brother, Gungadhur Rao. The latter, having no children, made a will some weeks before his death, publicly adopting a little boy nearly related to himself, and at this time six years old. Lukshmi Baee, the Rajah's wife, was to be the guardian of this boy and Regent of Jhansi till he had attained his eighteenth year. Gungadhur gave due notice of this to the British Governor-General; and in presence of the British Resident and his assembled subjects, took the child in his lap, as a public declaration of adoption.
Gungadhur Rao died in 1854. Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General, refused to acknowledge his right to adopt an heir, and the little province of Jhansi was annexed to British India. The young Rajah and the Ranee, his mother by adoption, were pensioned off; the latter receiving six thousand a year, paid monthly. Her troops were disbanded, and replaced by a few regiments of Sepoys and Sowars.
The Ranee was powerless to resist; she could only bide her time. She had not long to wait. Three years later, India was in a blaze. The Bundelcund Sepoys were amongst the first to mutiny. On the 14th of June, the native troops at Jhansi broke into rebellion, murdered several of their officers in the cantonments, and seized the "Star Fort." Some few English escaped to Nagoda, but the rest, numbering fifty-five men, women, and children, barricaded themselves in the "Town Fort." But after a brave resistance of four days, the mutineers burst open the gates on the 8th; and the English, having been promised life and liberty, laid down their arms. Thereupon a massacre commenced, which for barbarity, almost equalled that which took place shortly after at Cawnpore. Nineteen ladies, twenty-three children, twenty-four civil service employés, two non-commissioned officers, and eight officers were butchered in a manner familiar to all who can remember the Indian Mutiny.
It was generally believed at the time that this massacre took place by order of the Ranee, who is said to have stood by while the heads of ladies were chopped off, and the brains of babies were dashed out upon the flags. Nay, some have declared she laughed aloud when some deed of atrocity worse than the rest came under her notice.
Shortly after this massacre, the Ranee took the field at the head of some hundreds of Sepoys, and marched towards Gwalior, where Scindiah, the descendant of our old enemy whom we routed at Assaye, remained faithful to the British. But little was known of her movements during the rest of 1857; in August of that year, a female, dressed in a green uniform, was captured at Delhi, while leading on a party of Sepoys. This woman was at first supposed to be the terrible Ranee, and a rumour sped through the British Camp that she was leading the Gwalior rebels; but it was afterwards found that Lukshmi Baee still remained in the territories of the Maharajah. The prisoner was described as "an ugly old woman, short and fat." She was a species of prophetess, held in high estimation by the rebels around Delhi.
In January, 1858, Sir Hugh Rose (Lord Strathnairn), commanding the second brigade of the Central India Field Force, set out against the rebels south of Delhi; his chief object being the capture of Jhansi. Having been joined by Brigadier Stuart, they invested the fortress on the 21st of March following.