In former chapters of this work,[[94]] much has been said concerning Lucknow, its relations towards the British government on the one hand, and the court of Oude on the other, and the operations which enabled Havelock and Neill to bring a small reinforcement to its British garrison towards the close of September; but what the garrison did and suffered during the three months before this succour could reach them, has yet to be told. The eventful story may be given conveniently in this place, as one among certain intermediate subjects between the military operations of Sir Henry Havelock and those of Sir Colin Campbell.
Let us endeavour, by recapitulating a few facts, to realise in some degree the position of the British at Lucknow when July commenced. The city is a little over fifty miles from Cawnpore—exactly fifty to the Alum Bagh, fifty-three to the Residency, and fifty-seven to the cantonment. Most of its principal buildings, including the Residency, were on the right or southwest bank of the river Goomtee. There was a cantonment Residency, and also a city Residency, at both of which, according to his daily duties, it was the custom of the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence to dwell, before the troubles of the mutiny began; but it is the city Residency which has acquired a notoriety that will never die. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the mere official mansion called the Residency bore but a small ratio to the area and the buildings now known to English readers by that name. This ambiguity is not without its inconveniences, for it denotes a Residency within a Residency. Understanding the Residency to mean English Lucknow, the part of the city containing the offices and dwellings of most of the official English residents, then it may be described as an irregular quadrangle a few hundred yards square, jutting out at the north corner, and indented or contracted at the west. Within that limit were numerous residences and other buildings, some military, some political or civil, some private. The word ‘garrison’ was applied after the defence began, to buildings which had previously been private or official residences; if, therefore, the reader meets in one map with ‘Fayrer’s House,’ and in another with ‘Fayrer’s Garrison,’ he must infer that a private residence was fortified as a stronghold when the troubles began. In this chapter we shall in most instances denominate the whole area as the intrenchment or enclosure, with the Residency itself as one of the buildings; and we shall furthermore retain the original designation of house, rather than garrison, for each of the minor residences. The northeast side of the whole enclosure was nearly parallel with the river; and the north corner was in near proximity to an iron bridge carrying a road over the river to the cantonment.
How the British became cooped up within that enclosure, the reader already knows; a few words will bring to recollection the facts fully treated in the chapters lately cited. We have there seen that there were burnings of bungalows, and cartridge troubles, as early as April, in the cantonment of Lucknow; that on the 3d of May some of the native troops became insubordinate at the Moosa Bagh, a military post three or four miles northwest of the Residency; that the 3d Oude infantry was broken into fragments by this mutiny and its consequences; that Sir Henry Lawrence sought to restore a healthy feeling by munificently rewarding certain native soldiers who had remained faithful under temptation; that towards the close of the month he attended very sedulously to various magazines and military posts in and near the city; that he fortified the English quarter by placing defence-works on and near the walls by which it was already three-fourths surrounded, and by setting up other defences on the remaining fourth side; that he brought all the women and children, and all the sick, of the English community, into the space thus enclosed and guarded; that on the last two days of the month he had the vexation of seeing most of the native troops in Lucknow and at the cantonment, belonging to the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, march off in mutiny towards Seetapoor; and that of the seven hundred who remained behind, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single hour. Next, under the month of June, we have seen that nearly all the districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents, increasing at every stage the difficulties which beset Sir Henry as civil and military chief of the province; that he knew the mutineers were approaching Lucknow as a hostile army, and that he looked around in vain for reinforcements; that he paid off most of the sepoys still remaining with him, glad to get rid of men whose continuance in fidelity could not be relied on; that he greatly strengthened the Residency, and also the Muchee Bhowan, a castellated structure northwest of it, formerly inhabited by the dependents of the King of Oude; that all his letters and messages to other places became gradually cut off, leaving him without news of the occurrences in other parts of India; that he stored the Residency with six months’ provisions for a thousand persons as a means of preparing for the worst; and that on the last day of the month he fought a most disastrous battle with the mutineers at Chinhut, seven or eight miles out of Lucknow. Then, when July opened, we have seen the British in a critical and painful situation. Lawrence having lost many of his most valued troops, could no longer garrison the Muchee Bhowan, the cantonment, the dâk bungalow, or any place beyond the Residency. No European was safe except within the Residency enclosure; and how little safety was found there was miserably shewn on the 2d of the month, when a shell from the insurgents wounded the great and good Sir Henry Lawrence, causing his death on the 4th, after he had made over the military command of Lucknow to Brigadier Inglis, and the civil command to Major Banks.
The Europeans, then, become prisoners within the walls of the Residency enclosure at Lucknow—officers, soldiers, revenue-collectors, judges, magistrates, chaplains, merchants, ladies, children. And with them were such native soldiers and native servants as still remained faithful to the British ‘raj.’ What was the exact number of persons thus thrown into involuntary companionship at the beginning of July appears somewhat uncertain; but an exact enumeration has been given of those who took up their quarters within the Residency on the 30th of May, when the symptoms of mutiny rendered it no longer safe that the women and children should remain in the city or at the cantonment. The number was 794.[[95]] The principal persons belonging to the European community at Lucknow were the following: Sir Henry Lawrence, chief-commissioner; Captain Hayes, military secretary; Major Anderson, chief-engineer; Brigadier Inglis, commandant of the garrison; Brigadier Handscomb, commandant of the Oude brigade; Captain Carnegie, provost-marshal; Captain Simons, chief artillery officer; Colonel Master, 7th native cavalry; Colonel Case and Major Low, H.M. 32d foot; Major Bruyère, 13th native infantry; Major Apthorp, 41st native infantry; Colonel Palmer and Major Bird, 48th native infantry; Colonel Halford, 71st native infantry; Brigadier Gray, Oude Irregulars; Mr Gubbins, finance commissioner; Mr Ommaney, judicial commissioner; Mr Cooper, chief-secretary. Some of these died between the 30th of May and the 4th of July, but a few only. When the whole of the Europeans, officers and privates, had been hastily driven by the mutiny from the cantonment to the Residency; when all the native troops who remained faithful had been in like manner removed to the same place; and when the Muchee Bhowan and all the other buildings in Lucknow had been abandoned by the British and their adherents—the intrenched position at and around the Residency became necessarily the home of a very much larger number of persons; comprising, in addition to the eight hundred or so just adverted to, many hundred British soldiers, and such of the sepoys as remained ‘true to their salt.’
In one sense, the Europeans were not taken by surprise. They had watched the energetic exertions of Sir Henry during the month of June, in which he exhibited so sagacious a foresight of troubles about to come. They had seen him accumulate a vast store of provisions; procure tents and firewood for the Residency; arm it gradually with twenty-four guns and ten mortars; order in vast quantities of shot, shell, and gunpowder, from the Muchee Bhowan and the magazines; make arrangements for blowing up all the warlike matériel which he could not bring in; bury his barrels of powder beneath the earth in certain open spots in the enclosure; bury, in like manner, twenty-three lacs of the Company’s money, until more peaceful days should arrive; destroy many outlying buildings which commanded or overtopped the Residency; organise all the males in the place as component elements in a defensive force; bring in everything useful from the cantonment; build up, in front of the chief structures in the enclosure, huge stacks of firewood, covered with earth and pierced for guns; bring the royal jewels and other valuables from the king’s palace into the Residency for safety; and disarm—much to their chagrin—the servants and dependents of the late royal family. All this the Europeans had seen the gallant Lawrence effect during the five weeks which preceded his death. Of the non-military men suddenly converted into soldiers, Captain Anderson says: ‘Sir Henry Lawrence deemed it expedient to enrol all the European and Eurasian writers in the public offices as volunteers, and he directed arms and ammunition to be served out to them. Some of these men were taken into the volunteer cavalry—which also comprised officers civil and military—and the remainder were drilled as infantry. At the commencement, when these men were first brought together, to be regularly drilled by sergeants from Her Majesty’s 32d regiment, the chance of ever making them act in a body seemed almost hopeless. There were men of all ages, sizes, and figures. Here stood a tall athletic Englishman; there came a fat and heavy Eurasian, with more width about the waist than across the chest; next to the Eurasian came another of the same class, who looked like a porter-barrel, short and squat, and the belt round his waist very closely resembled a hoop; not far off you observed an old, bent-double man, who seemed too weak to support the weight of his musket and pouch.... We must not always judge by appearances. Amongst this awkward-looking body there sprang up, during the siege, bold, intrepid, and daring men!’
Notwithstanding these preparations, however, the calamity fell upon the inmates too suddenly. The fatal result of the battle of Chinhut compelled every one to take refuge within the Residency enclosure; even those who had hitherto lived in the city, rushed in, without preparation, many leaving all their property behind them except a few trifling articles. No one was, or ever could be, bitter against Sir Henry Lawrence; yet were there many criticisms, many expressions of regret, at the policy which led to the battle; and it is unquestionable that much of the misery subsequently borne arose from the precipitate arrangements rendered inevitable on the 30th of June and the following day. When they saw the rebels march into Lucknow, invest the Residency, set up a howitzer-battery in front of it, and loophole the walls of houses for musketry, the Europeans could no longer wait to provide for domestic and personal comforts, or even conveniences: they hastened to their prison-house with such resources as could be hastily provided.
Here, then, was a British community thrown most unexpectedly into close companionship, under circumstances trying to all. It is no wonder that some among the number kept diaries of the strange scenes they witnessed, the sad distresses they bore; nor could there be other than a strong yearning on the part of the English public for a perusal of such diaries or narratives. Hence the publication of several small but deeply interesting volumes relating to the defence of Lucknow—one by Mr Rees, a Calcutta merchant, who happened, unluckily for himself, to be at Lucknow when the troubles began; another by the wife of one of the two English chaplains; a third by Captain Anderson; a fourth by a staff-officer.[[96]] Such diaries, when used in illustration and correction one of another, are and must ever be the best sources of information concerning the inner life of Lucknow during that extraordinary period.
Terrible was the confusion within the Residency enclosure for the first few days. Those who had hastened into the place from other spots were endeavouring to find or make something which they could call ‘home;’ those who had been wounded at Chinhut were suffering in agony within the walls of a building hastily fitted up for them; while the military men looked anxiously around at the defences of the place, to see what could be done to keep the enemy out. When the officers, civil or military, went on the roofs of the houses, they had the mortification of seeing the mutineers gradually concentrating their forces towards the Residency; they saw, also, that the prisoners had escaped from the jails, to join the ranks of those who hated or at any rate opposed the Feringhees.
Arrangements had for some time been in progress, and were now hastily completed, to fortify the principal buildings within the enclosure. If we imagine this English Lucknow to be an irregular diamond-shaped enclosure, with the acute angles very nearly north and south; then it may be said that the south angle was the nearest point to the Cawnpore road, and the north angle the nearest to the iron bridge over the Goomtee towards the cantonment. Near the south point was the house of Captain Anderson, standing in the middle of a garden or open court surrounded by a wall; the house was defended by barricades, and loopholed for musketry; while the garden was strengthened by a trench and rows of palisades. Next to this house, and communicating with it by a hole in the wall, was a newly constructed defence-work that received the name of the Cawnpore Battery, mounted with guns, and intended to command some of the houses and streets adjacent to the Cawnpore road. Mr Deprat’s house had a verandah which, for defensive purposes, was blocked up with a mud-wall six feet high and two feet and a half thick; this wall was continued in a straight line to that of the next house, and carried up to a height of nine feet, with loopholes for musketry. Next to this was a house occupied as a school for boys of the Martinière College,[[97]] strengthened by a stockade of beams placed before it; and adjacent was a street or road defended by stockades, barricades, and a trench. Further towards the western angle of the enclosure was a building formerly known as the Daroo Shuffa or King’s Hospital, but now called the Brigade Mess-house, having a well-protected and lofty terrace which commanded an exterior building called Johannes’ house. In its rear was a parallelogram, divided by buildings into two squares or courts, occupied in various ways by officers and their families. Then came groups of low brick buildings around two quadrangles called the Sikh Squares, on the tops of which erections were thrown up to enable the troops to fire out upon the town. Separated from these by a narrow lane was the house of Mr Gubbins, the financial commissioner; the lane was barricaded by earth, beams, and brambles; the buildings were strengthened in every way; while the extreme western point was a battery formed by Mr Gubbins himself. Then, passing along the northwest side were seen in turn the racket-court, the slaughter-house, the sheep-pen, and the butcher-yard, all near the boundary of the fortified position, and separated one from another by wide open spaces; there was a storehouse for bhoosa (cut chaff for cattle-food), and a guardhouse for Europeans; and all the buildings were loopholed for musketry. In the rear of the Bhoosa Intrenchment, as this post was called, was Mr Ommaney’s house, guarded by a deep ditch and a cactus-hedge, and provided with two pieces of ordnance. North of the slaughter-house a mortar-battery was formed. The English church was the next important building towards the north; it was speedily converted into a granary; and in the church-yard was formed a mortar-battery capable of shelling all the portion of the city between it and the iron bridge. This church-yard was destined afterwards to present melancholy proofs of the large number of deaths among the English defenders of the place. Beyond the church-yard was Lieutenant Innes’s house, in dangerous proximity to many buildings held by the rebels, and bounded on two sides by a garden; it was a difficult but most important duty to strengthen this house as much as possible. The extreme northern part of the whole enclosure, not five hundred yards from the iron bridge, was scarcely susceptible of defence in itself; but it was fully protected by the Redan Battery, constructed by Captain Fulton: this was decidedly the best battery in the whole place, commanding a wide sweep of city and country on both banks of the river. Along the northeast side, connected at one end with the Redan, was a series of earthworks, fascines, and sand-bags, loopholed for musketry, and mounted with guns. A long range of sloping garden-ground was turned into a glacis in front of the line of intrenchment just named. In the centre of the northern half of the whole place was the Residency proper, the official home of the chief-commissioner; this was a large and beautiful brick building, which was speedily made to accommodate many hundred persons; and as it was on high ground, the terrace-roof commanded a view of the whole city—to whoever would incur the peril of standing there.[[98]] The hospital, a very large building near the eastern angle of the whole enclosure, had once been the banqueting-room for the British resident at the King of Oude’s court; but it was now occupied as a hospital, a dispensary, officers’ quarters, and a laboratory for making fuses and cartridges; it was defended by mortars and guns in various directions. The Ballee or Bailey guard was near the hospital, but on a lower level; various parts of it were occupied as a store-room, a treasury, and barracks; the portion really constituting the Bailey guard gate, the station of the sepoys formerly guarding the Residency, was unluckily beyond the limits of the enclosure, and was productive of more harm than good to the garrison; as a means of security, the gateway was blocked up with earth, and defended by guns. Dr Fayrer’s house, south of the hospital, had a terrace-roof whence rifles were frequently brought to bear on the insurgents, and near it a gun or two were placed in position. Southward again was the civil dispensary; and near this the post-office, a building which, from its position and construction, was one of the most important in the whole place; soldiers were barracked in the interior, a shell and fuse room was set apart, the engineers made it their head-quarters, several families resided in it, and guns and mortars were planted in and around it. The financial-office, and the house of Mrs Sago (mistress of a charity-school), were on the southeast side of the enclosure, and were with great difficulty brought into a defensive state. The judicial office, near Sago’s house, could only be protected from an open lane by a wall of fascines and earth. The jail, near the Cawnpore Gate, was converted into barracks; and the native hospital became a tolerably sheltered place. The Begum’s Kothee, or ‘lady’s house’ (formerly belonging to a native lady of rank), was in the centre of the whole enclosure; it comprised many buildings, which were afterwards parcelled off as commissariat store-rooms, cooking-rooms, and dwellings for officers’ families.
It will thus be seen that the Residency at Lucknow, so often mentioned in connection with the history of the mutiny, was a small town rather than a single building. But it will also be seen that this small town was most dangerously placed, in juxtaposition to a large city full of hostile inhabitants and revolted sepoys. Before Sir Henry Lawrence took it in hand in June, it could be approached and entered from all sides; and at the beginning of July only a part of the defence-works above described were completed. The officers had to fight and build, to suffer and work, to watch and fortify, day after day, under privations difficult for others to appreciate. The various houses, more frequently designated garrisons by those engaged in the siege, did really deserve that title in a military sense; for they were gradually transformed into little forts or strongholds, each placed under one commander, and each defended indomitably against all attacks from the enemy. To give one as an example of many—Captain Anderson, who had resided at Lucknow, as assistant-commissioner, ever since the annexation of Oude, made his own house one of these fortified posts; he had under him eighteen men and one subaltern officer, with whose aid he withstood a five months’ siege, notwithstanding the enemy had nine 9-pounder guns playing on his house. The wall of the compound around the house was levelled, and a stockade put in its place; within the stockade was a ditch, then an earthwork five feet high, and then another ditch with pointed bamboos, forming a chevaux-de-frise. It was, in truth, a small citadel, and one very important for the safety of the whole place.