The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib

by G. A. Henty

Immense exertions were made to restore the efficiency of the baggage train, and on the 3rd of May, the army marched from Bangalore.

Tippoo, devoured alike by rage and fear, had taken no efficient steps to meet the coming storm. His first thought was to prevent the English from discovering the brutal cruelty with which his white captives had been treated. He had, over and over again, given the most solemn assurances that he had no white prisoners in his hands; and he now endeavoured to prevent their obtaining evidence of his falsehood and cruelty, by murdering the whole of those who remained in his hands at Seringapatam. Having effected this massacre, he next ordered all the pictures that he had caused to be painted on the walls of his palace and other buildings, holding up the English to the contempt and hatred of his subjects, to be obliterated; and he also ordered the bridge over the northern loop of the Cauvery to be destroyed. He then set out with his army to bar the passage of the British to Seringapatam.

The weather was extremely bad when the British started. Rain storms had deluged the country, and rendered the roads well nigh impassable, and the movement was, in consequence, very slow. Tippoo had taken up a strong position on the direct road and, in order to avoid him, Lord Cornwallis took a more circuitous route, and Tippoo was obliged to fall back.

The whole country through which the English passed had been wasted. The villages were deserted, and not an inhabitant was to be met with. Suffering much from wet, and the immense difficulties of bringing on the transport, the army, on the 13th of May, arrived on the Cauvery, nine miles east of Seringapatam. Here it had been intended to cross the river, but the rains had so swollen the stream that it was found impossible to ford it. It was, therefore, determined to march to a point on the river, ten miles above Seringapatam, where it was hoped that a better ford could be found; and where a junction might be effected with General Abercrombie's Bombay army, which was moving up from the Malabar coast, and was but thirty or forty miles distant.

To effect this movement, it was necessary to pass within sight of the capital. Tippoo came out, and took up a strong position, on a rugged and almost inaccessible height. In front was a swamp stretching to the river, while batteries had been thrown up to sweep the approaches.

By a night march, accomplished in the midst of a tremendous thunder and rain storm, Lord Cornwallis turned Tippoo's position. The confusion occasioned by the storm, however, and the fact that several of the corps lost their way, prevented the full success hoped for from being attained, and gave Tippoo time to take up a fresh position.

Colonel Maxwell led five battalions up a rocky ledge, held by a strong body of the Mysore troops, carried it at the point of the bayonet, and captured some guns. Tippoo immediately began to fall back, but would have lost the greater portion of his artillery, had not the Nizam's horse moved forward across the line by which the British were advancing. Here they remained in an inert mass, powerless to follow Tippoo, and a complete barrier to the British advance. So unaccountable was their conduct, that it was generally believed in the army that it was the result of treachery; and it was with difficulty that the British troops could be restrained from firing into the horde of horsemen, who had, from the time they joined the force, been worse than useless.

As soon as the British could make their way through, or round, the obstacle to their advance, they pursued the retreating force of Tippoo, until it took refuge under the guns of the works round Seringapatam. Their loss had been 2000, that of the British 500.

But the success was of little benefit to the latter. The terrible state of the roads, and the want of food, had caused the death of great numbers of draught animals, and the rest were so debilitated as to be absolutely useless; and during the two days' marches, that were required to reach the point on the river previously determined upon, the battering train, and almost the whole of the carts, were dragged along by the troops.

The position of the army was bad in the extreme. Neither food nor forage were to be obtained from the country round. The troops were almost on famine rations, worn out by fatigue, and by the march through heavy rains, and nights spent on the sodden ground. Tippoo's horsemen hovered round them. The cavalry of the Nizam, which had been specially engaged to keep the foe at a distance, never once ventured to engage them. It was absolutely impossible to communicate with General Abercrombie, and after remaining but a couple of days in his new camp, Lord Cornwallis felt that the army could only be saved from destruction by immediate retreat.