Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow.
The siege began on the 1st of July, the day following the disastrous battle of Chinhut. It was indeed a siege, even more so than that to which Sir Hugh Wheeler had been exposed at Cawnpore; for there was not only constant firing of musketry, cannon, and mortars, by the mutineers against the Residency; but there were also subterranean mines or galleries dug from the outer streets under the enclosing wall, to blow up the defenders and their defence-works. At every hour of the day, at every corner of the Residency enclosure, was it necessary to keep strict watch. A telegraph, worked at the top of one of the buildings, gave signals to the officers at the Muchee Bhowan, directing them to blow up that fort, and retire to the Residency with the treasure and the guns. This was a most perilous enterprise, but under the skilful superintendence of Captain Francis and Lieutenant Huxhain it succeeded; 240 barrels of gunpowder, and 600,000 rounds of ammunition, were blown into the air, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy; and then the few officers and soldiers marched from the Muchee Bhowan to the Residency, where they helped to strengthen the wofully small number of efficient fighting-men.[[99]] All this was done by midnight on the 1st. On the 2d, while resting on a couch after his exhausting and anxious labours, Sir Henry Lawrence was struck by the shell which took away his valuable life; for it was a day on which ten thousand rebels were firing shells, balls, and bullets into or at the Residency. Miss Palmer, daughter of Colonel Palmer of the 48th, had her thigh shattered by a ball which entered one of the buildings; and Mr Ommaney was among the wounded. On the 3d dire confusion was everywhere visible; for all felt that their great leader would die of his wound: none had yet fully realised the appalling difficulties of their position; yet were they distracted by family anxieties on the one hand, and public duty on the other. On the 4th, Lawrence descended to the grave; on that day his nephew, Mr G. H. Lawrence, was wounded; and on that day, also, all order or legitimate trade ceased in the city, for marauders and budmashes plundered the shops. No military honours marked the funeral of Sir Henry; there was neither time nor opportunity for any display; a hurried prayer was repeated amid the booming of the enemy’s cannon, and a few spadefuls of earth speedily covered the mortal remains of one whose good name was not likely soon to die.[[100]] On or about the 5th, the enemy seized the building known as Johannes’ house, from which they were able to keep up a deadly fire of musketry against Anderson’s house, the jail barracks, the post-office, and the Begum’s Kothee; it was afterwards much regretted that this house had not been included among those demolished by Sir Henry. On the 6th and 7th, the harassing fire continued from various points. Some of the bhoosa, or chopped straw for bullocks’ fodder, had been left in an ill-defended place; it was fired by the enemy, and totally consumed, placing in imminent danger a powder-magazine at no great distance. Major Francis had both his legs cut off by a cannon-ball, while quietly sitting in the mess-room; Mr Marshall, an opium-merchant, was killed, and the Rev. Mr Polehampton was wounded, about this time. It was a cruel vexation to the garrison to see and feel how much they were suffering through the skilful gunnery which the British had taught to the miscreants now in the insurgent army. The enemy’s artillerymen displayed great rapidity, ingenuity, and perseverance, in planting batteries in positions totally unlooked for; some even on house-tops, and others in spots where the garrison could not respond to their fire. It was more than suspected that Europeans were among them; indeed one reckless member of an otherwise worthy English family was recognised among the number, bringing discredit upon brothers and cousins who were at that very time gallantly serving the Company elsewhere. Many of the enemy’s batteries were not more than fifty or a hundred yards distant from the marginal buildings of the Residency enclosure; the balls knocked down pillars and verandahs with fearful accuracy. Most of the deaths, however, from ten to twenty a day, were caused by musket-bullets; the enemy had many good marksmen—especially a rebel African, who used his musket with deadly effect from Johannes’ house. If Sir Henry Lawrence had been a sterner soldier, if he had not been influenced by such considerate feelings for the opinions and prejudices of others, the British would have lost fewer lives than they did in Lucknow. We have already said that many of the houses around the Residency were destroyed by orders of Sir Henry, to prevent the enemy from converting them into strongholds; but it was afterwards known that the military officers under him urged the necessity for a still greater demolition. Brigadier Inglis, when at a later date he made a military report of the siege and the defence, adverted to this point in very decisive language. ‘When the blockade commenced,’ he said, ‘only two of our batteries were completed, part of the defences were yet in an unfinished condition, and the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which gave cover to the enemy, were only very partially cleared away. Indeed, our heaviest losses have been caused by the fire from the enemy’s sharpshooters, stationed in the adjoining mosques and houses of the native nobility, to the necessity of destroying which the attention of Sir Henry had been repeatedly drawn by the staff of engineers; but his invariable reply was: “Spare the holy places, and private property too, as far as possible;” and we have consequently suffered severely from our very tenderness to the religious prejudices and respect to the rights of our rebellious citizens and soldiery. As soon as the enemy had thoroughly completed the investment of the Residency, they occupied these houses, some of which were within easy pistol-shot of our barricades, in immense force, and rapidly made loopholes on those sides which bore on our post, from which they kept up a terrific and incessant fire day and night.’
The second week of the siege began, bringing with it an augmentation of the troubles already bitterly tasted. One day the Bailey guard would be fiercely attacked, another day the Cawnpore Battery, demanding incessant watchfulness on the part of the officers and men posted at those outworks. Brigadier Inglis sent off letters and messages to Cawnpore and Allahabad; but none reached their destination, the messengers being all intercepted on the way. He did not know how his missives fared; he only knew that no aid, no intelligence, reached him, and he measured his resources with an anxious heart. Sometimes a few officers would retire to snatch a little rest just before midnight, and then would be roused at one or two o’clock in the morning by a message that Gubbins’s house—or ‘garrison,’ as most of the houses within the enclosure were now called—or the Bailey guard, or some other important post, was closely attacked. Sleep, food, everything was forgotten at such moments, except the one paramount duty of repelling the enemy at the attacked point. One day a rebel musketeer pushed forward to such a spot as enabled him to shoot Lieutenant Charlton within side the very door of the church. The enemy sometimes fired logs of wood from their cannon and mortars, as if deficient in shot and shell; but they did not slacken from this or any other cause; they sent shots which set the commissioner’s house on fire, causing much danger and difficulty in extinguishing the flames; and it became perilous for any one within the enclosure to be seen for an instant by the enemy—so deadly accurate were their marksmen. Once now and then the officers with a few men, longing for a dash that would inspirit them in the midst of their troubles, would astonish the enemy by making a sortie beyond the defences, spiking a gun or two, despatching a few of the rebels, and hastening back to the enclosure. Lives being, however, too valuable to be risked for advantages so small as these, the brigadier sought rather to discourage than encourage such acts of heroism. Mr Bryson and Lieutenant Baxter were among the many who fell at this time. The officers did men’s duty, the civilians did military duty; for there were not hands enough to guard properly the numerous threatened points. One night all spare hands would be called upon to cover with tarpaulin the bhoosa stacks in the racket-court; on another, civilians who never before did labourers’ work were called up to dig earth and to carry sand-bags for batteries or breastworks; or they would stand sentinels all night in drenching rains. And then, perhaps on returning to their houses or ‘garrisons’ in the morning, they would find them untenable by reason of the torrent of balls and bullets to which they had been exposed. The open spots between the several buildings became gradually more and more dangerous. ‘A man could not shew his nose,’ says Captain Anderson, ‘without hearing the whiz of bullets close to his head. The shot, too, came from every direction; and when a poor fellow had nearly jerked his head off his shoulders in making humble salutations to passing bullets, he would have his penance disagreeably changed into a sudden and severe contortion of the whole body to avoid a round shot or shell. So soon as a man left his post he had no time for meditation; his only plan was to proceed rapidly. In fact, to walk slow was in some places very, very dangerous; and many a poor fellow was shot, who was too proud to run past places where bullets danced on the walls like a handful of pease in a frying-pan.’
The third week arrived. Now were the gallant defenders still more distressed and indignant than they had hitherto been; for the enemy commenced firing at the Brigade Mess, where large numbers of ladies and children had taken refuge; attacks were thus made on those who could not defend themselves, and the officers and soldiers found their attention distracted from necessary duties at other points. Anderson’s house had by this time become so riddled with shot, that the stores were removed from it; and Deprat’s house, similarly battered by the enemy, in like manner became uninhabitable. The buildings near the boundary naturally suffered most; and, as a consequence, those nearer the centre became more and more crowded with inmates. Day by day did officers and men work hard to strengthen the defences. Mortars were placed behind the earthwork at the post-office, to jet forth shells upon the troublesome Johannes’ house; stockades and traverses were made, to screen the entrance to the Residency, within which so many persons were domiciled. Nevertheless the attack increased in vigour quite as rapidly as the defence; for the insurgents appear to have received large reinforcements. Their custom was to fire all night, so as to afford the garrison no rest, and thus tire them out; they so pointed a mortar as to send two shells directly into the Residency itself; they commenced a new battery, to bear upon Gubbins’s house; their cannon-balls—of which there were indications of a new supply—fell upon and into Fayrer’s and Gubbins’s houses, the post-office and the Brigade Mess; a shot burst through a room in which many of the principal officers were breakfasting; a mine was sprung inside the Water Gate, intended to blow up the Redan Battery; and at the same time vigorous attacks were made with guns and musketry on almost every part of the enclosure, as if to bewilder the garrison with crushing onslaughts on every side. The pen cannot describe the state of incessant anxiety into which these daily proceedings threw the forlorn inmates of the place: no one could look forward to a night of sleep after a harassing day; for the booming of cannon, and the anticipated visit of a cannon-ball or a mortar-shell, drove away sleep from most eyelids. It was on the 20th that the specially vigorous attack, just adverted to, was made; so general and energetic, that it almost partook of the character of a storming or assault of a beleaguered city. Nothing but the most untiring assiduity could have saved the garrison from destruction. Every one who could handle a musket or load a cannon, did so; others helped to construct stockades and earthen barriers; and even many of the sick and wounded rose from their pallets, staggered along to the points most attacked, sought to aid in the general cause, and in some instances dropped dead while so doing. Almost every building was the object of a distinct attack. The Redan Battery was fortunately not blown up, the enemy having miscalculated the distance of their mine; but the explosion was followed by a desperate struggle on the glacis outside, in which the insurgents were mowed down by grape-shot before they would abandon their attempt to enter at that point. At Innes’s house, Lieutenant Loughnan maintained a long and fierce contest against a body of insurgents twentyfold more numerous than the little band who aided him; before they desisted, no less than a hundred dead and wounded were carried off by the rebels. The financial office and Sago’s house, entirely defended by non-military men, bore up bravely against the torrent brought against them. The judicial office, under Captain Germon, and Anderson’s house, under Captain Anderson, were not only successfully defended, but the handful of troops aided other points where there were no military men. The Brigade Mess, Gubbins’s house, the houses near the Cawnpore Battery—all were attacked with vigour, but every attack was repelled.
When the muster-roll was called after these exciting scenes, it was found that many valuable lives had been lost. Yet is it truly remarkable that less than thirty persons of all classes in the garrison were killed or wounded on the 20th. No officer was killed; among the wounded were Captains Lowe and Forbes, Lieutenants Edmonstone and M’Farlane, and Adjutant Smith. Mr Rees asserts that the loss of the enemy, during seven hours of incessant fighting, could hardly have been less than a thousand men. It was the grape-shot poured forth from the garrison that worked this terrible destruction. The week had been attended with its usual list of isolated losses within the enclosure. On one day Lieutenant Lester was killed; on another, Lieutenants Bryce and O’Brien were wounded; and on another, Lieutenant Harmer was laid low.
The arrival of the fourth week of the siege found Brigadier Inglis and his companions stout in heart, but yet depressed in spirits; proud of what they had achieved on the 20th, but fearful that many more such dangers would beset them. The detachment of the 32d foot was that on which Inglis most relied in a military point of view, and in that the casualties had been 150 in three weeks. He had sent out repeated messengers, but had hitherto obtained not a word of news from any quarter; shut out from the world of India, he knew of nothing but his own cares and responsibilities. On the 23d, however, a gleam of joy shot through the garrison; a messenger, amid imminent peril, had been to Cawnpore, and brought back news of Havelock’s victories in the Doab. Inglis immediately sent him off again, with an urgent request to the gallant general to advance with his column to Lucknow as quickly as possible. The English residents began to count the days that must elapse before Havelock could arrive—a hopeful thing at the time, but bitterly disappointing afterwards; for they knew not how or why it was that succour did not arrive. Whatever might be the hopes or fears for the future, there was an ever-present danger which demanded daily and hourly attention. Although mortified by their late defeat, the enemy did not on that account give up their attacks. On narrowly watching, the engineers detected the enemy forming a mine beneath the ground from Johannes’ house to the Sikh Square and the Brigade Mess; they could hear the miners at their subterraneous work, and they did what military engineers are accustomed to in such cases—run out a countermine, and destroy the enemy’s handiwork by an explosion. Above ground the attack was maintained chiefly by artillery, the hurling of balls, shells, shrapnels, and those abominable compounds of pitchy and sulphureous substances which artillerymen call ‘stinkpots.’ The breakfast-table of the officers at the post-office was one morning visited by an eight-inch shell, which fell on it without exploding. On the 25th a letter arrived from Colonel Tytler at Cawnpore, the first received from any quarter throughout July; for the former messenger had brought rumours concerning Havelock, not a letter or a message. Great was the joy at learning that Havelock intended to advance to Lucknow; and Inglis at once sent off to him a plan of the city, to aid his proceedings—offering the messenger five thousand rupees if he safely brought back an answer. An anxious time indeed was it for all, and well might they look out for succour. Major Banks, the civil commissioner appointed by Sir Henry Lawrence, was shot dead while reconnoitring from the top of an outhouse; he was an officer who had served nearly thirty years in India, and who, both as a soldier and a linguist, had won a good name. Dr Brydon was wounded; the Rev. Mr Polehampton was killed, as were Lieutenants Lewin, Shepherd, and Archer, and many others whose lives were valuable, not only to their families, but to all in the garrison. The death of Major Banks increased the cares and responsibilities of Brigadier Inglis, who, now that there was no chief-commissioner, felt the necessity of placing the whole community under strict military-garrison rules.
In the official dispatch afterwards prepared by Inglis, full justice was done to the ingenuity and perseverance of the besiegers. Speaking of the large guns placed in batteries on every side of the enclosure, he said: ‘These were planted all round our post at small distances, some being actually within fifty yards of our defences, but in places where our own heavy guns could not reply to them; while the perseverance and ingenuity of the enemy in erecting barricades in front of and around their guns, in a very short time rendered all attempts to silence them by musketry entirely unavailing. Neither could they be effectually silenced by shells, by reason of their extreme proximity to our position, and because, moreover, the enemy had recourse to digging very narrow trenches about eight feet in depth in rear of each gun, in which the men lay while our shells were flying, and which so effectually concealed them, even while working the gun, that our baffled sharpshooters could only see their hands while in the act of loading.’
And now, the reader may ask, what were the ladies and children doing during this terrible month of July; and how did the officers and men fare in their domestic and personal matters? It is a sad tale, full of trouble and misery; and yet it is a heroic tale. No one flinched, no one dreamed for an instant of succumbing to the enemy. It must be remembered, as a beginning of all the privations, that the Europeans went into the Residency very scantily supplied with personal necessaries. When the cantonment was burned during the mutiny of the 31st of May, much property belonging to the officers was destroyed; and when every one hurried in for shelter after the disastrous 30th of June, no time was allowed for making purchases in the city, or bringing in property from bungalows or storehouses outside the official stronghold. Hence every one was driven to make the best of such commodities as had been secured by the last day of June. Even during the greater part of that month the troubles were many; the enclosure Residency was full of officers and men, all hard at work; the heat was excessive; cholera, dysentery, and small-pox were at their deadly work; the church being full of grain, those who sought religious aid in time of need met for divine service in any available spot; most of the native servants ran away when the troubles began; and many of them ended their service by robbing their masters.
How July opened for the British, may faintly be imagined. The commissariat chief was ill; no one could promptly organise that office under the sudden emergency; the food and draught bullocks, unattended to, roamed about the place; and many of them were shot, or tumbled into wells. Terrible work was it for the officers to bury the killed bullocks, lest their decaying carcasses should taint the air in excessively hot weather. Some of the artillery horses were driven mad for want of food and water. Day after day, after working hard in the trenches, the officers had to employ themselves at night in burying dead bullocks and horses—officers, be it understood; for the men were all employed as sentries or in other duties. It was not until after many days that they could turn out of the enclosure all the spare horses, and secure the rest. As the heat continued, and as the dead bodies of animals increased in number, the stench became overpowering, and was one of the greatest grievances to which the garrison were exposed; the temperature at night was often less patiently borne than that by day, and the officers and men were troubled by painful boils. Even when wet days occurred, matters were not much improved; for the hot vapours from stagnant pools engendered fever, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhœa. The children died rapidly, and the hospital-rooms were always full; the sick and wounded could not be carried to upper apartments, because the enemy’s shot and shell rendered all such places untenable. The officers were put on half-rations early in the month; and even those rations they in many cases had to cook for themselves, owing to the disappearance of the native servants. The English ladies suffered unnumbered privations and inconveniences. The clergyman’s wife, in her Diary, told of the very first day of the siege in these words: ‘No sooner was the first gun fired, than the ladies and children—congregated in large numbers in Dr Fayrer’s house—were all hurried down stairs into an underground room called the Tye Khana, damp, dark, and gloomy as a vault, and excessively dirty. Here we sat all day, feeling too miserable, anxious, and terrified to speak, the gentlemen occasionally coming down to reassure us and tell us how things were going on. —— was nearly all the day in the hospital, where the scene was terrible; the place so crowded with wounded and dying men that there was no room to pass between them, and everything in a state of indescribable misery, discomfort, and confusion.’ In the preceding month it had been a hardship for the ladies to be deprived of the luxuries of Anglo-Indian life; but they were now driven to measure comforts by a different standard. They were called upon to sweep their own rooms, draw water from the wells, wash their own clothes, and perform all the menial duties of a household; while their husbands or fathers were cramped up in little outhouses or stables, or anywhere that might afford temporary shelter at night. When food became scanty and disease prevalent, these troubles were of course augmented, and difference of rank became almost obliterated where all had to suffer alike. Many families were huddled together in one large room, and all privacy was destroyed. The sick and wounded were, as may be supposed, in sad plight; for, kind as the rest were, there were too many harassing duties to permit them to help adequately those who were too weak to help themselves. Officers and men were lying about in the hospital rooms, covered with blood and often with vermin; the dhobees or washermen were too weak-handed for the preservation of cleanliness, and few of the British had the luxury of a change of linen; the windows being kept closed and barricaded, to prevent the entrance of shot from without, the pestilential atmosphere carried off almost as many unfortunates as the enemy’s missiles. The writer of the Lady’s Diary, whose narrative is seldom relieved by one gleam of cheerfulness, departs from her habitual sadness when describing the mode in which eleven ladies and seven children slept on the floor in the Tye Khana or cellar, ‘fitting into each other like bits into a puzzle.’ Chairs being few in number, most of the ladies sat on the floor, and at meal-times placed their plates on their knees. The cellar being perfectly dark, candles were lighted at meal-times. The reason for keeping so many persons in this subterranean abode was to lessen the chance of their being shot in any upper apartment. Of one torment, the flies, every person complained bitterly who was shut up in the Residency enclosure on those fearfully hot days. Mr Rees says: ‘They daily increased to such an extent that we at last began to feel life irksome, more on their account than from any other of our numerous troubles. In the day, flies; at night, mosquitoes. But the latter were bearable; the former intolerable. Lucknow had always been noted for its flies; but at no time had they been known to be so troublesome. The mass of putrid matter that was allowed to accumulate, the rains, the commissariat stores, the hospital, had attracted these insects in incredible numbers. The Egyptians could not possibly have been more molested than we were by this pest. They swarmed in millions, and though we blew daily some hundreds of thousands into the air, this seemed to make no diminution in their numbers; the ground was still black with them, and the tables were literally covered with these cursed flies. We could not sleep in the day on account of them. We could scarcely eat. Our beef, of which we got a tolerably small quantity every day, was usually studded with them; and when I ate my miserable boiled lentil-soup and unleavened bread, a number of scamps flew into my mouth, or tumbled into and floated about in my plate.’