After four months of strict military occupancy, the city of Delhi was thrown open to natives who during that interval had been excluded. On the 18th of January an order to this intent came into operation. Each person availing himself of it had to pay one rupee four annas to the kotwallee or police authority; for this he was provided with a ticket, which insured him certain facilities for living and trading within the city. The Chandnee Chowk began to resume its former lively appearance; a military band resumed its evening music in the open space fronting the English church; and, ‘but for the shot-holes all around,’ as an eye-witness observed, ‘the signs of many sanguinary months were passing away.’ A formal charge was drawn up, and judicial proceedings commenced, against the imprisoned king; but as the trial chiefly took place in February, we may defer for a few pages any notice of the proceedings.
Everything westward of Delhi may happily be dismissed in the same language which has so often sufficed in former chapters. Sir John Lawrence, with his able coadjutors Montgomery, Cotton, and Edwardes, still held the whole length and breadth of the Punjaub at peace or nearly so. And the same may in like manner be said of Sinde, where Mr Frere and General Jacob held sway.
Of the state of the widely scattered and diversely governed regions of Central India and Rajpootana at the beginning of the year, it is difficult to give a correct picture. Unlike the Hindustani regions, they were inhabited by a very motley population—Bundelas, Rajpoots, Rohillas, Mahrattas, Bheels, Jâts, Ghonds, all mingled, and governed by chieftains who cared much more for their own petty authority than for the kings of Delhi and Lucknow, or for castes and creeds. Luckily the two principal Mahratta leaders, Scindia and Holkar, still remained faithful to the British, and thus rendered possible what would have been impossible without their assistance. If to Central India and Rajpootana, we add Bundelcund and the Saugor territories, we shall have a wide sweep of country approached nearest at one point by the Calcutta presidency, at another by the Madras presidency, and at a third by that of Bombay. As, however, Calcutta had no troops to spare for that part of India, Madras and Bombay sent up columns and ‘field-forces’ as fast as they could be provided; and thus it is that we read of small military bodies under Stuart, Steuart, Roberts, Whitlock, Rose, Raines, and other officers. According to the number of troops composing them, and the districts in which their services were required, these columns received various names—such as ‘Rajpootana Field-force,’ ‘Nerbudda Field-force,’ ‘Malwah Field-force,’ and ‘Central India Field-force.’ The mere naming might be of small consequence, were it not that confusion arose occasionally by different appellations being employed at different times for the very same force. At various periods during the month encounters took place, a few of which may briefly be noticed.
On the 6th of January, a small force of about 500 miscellaneous troops, with guns, set out from Camp Muddah in Rajpootana, under Major Raines, to rout a body of rebels at Rowah. They found the village strongly fortified by a hedge fronting a deep ditch and breastwork of earth, thick and loopholed. After a reconnaissance the major advanced; when the enemy opened fire, bringing down branches of trees with a crash among the British. When a hot artillery and infantry fire had been maintained for some time, about 200 men of the 10th Bombay N.I. received orders to storm the village; they advanced in admirable order, dashed forward, cleared the hedge, mounted to the opposite side, and compelled the insurgents to make a precipitate retreat. The village was burned to ashes, and the force returned to camp—having marched over deep sand in a thick jungle for twenty-two miles. One of the horrors of war was illustrated forcibly in a few brief words contained in an officer’s narrative of this engagement: ‘The villagers were mowed down in sections by the artillery, as they were entering a cave on the sides of the rock in rear of the village.’ Nothing perplexed the English officers more than to determine how far to compassionate the native villagers; sometimes these poor creatures suffered terribly and undeservedly; but on other occasions they unquestionably assisted the rebels.’
Houses in the Chandnee Chowk, Delhi.
Sir Hugh Rose had a short but decisive encounter with a body of rebels at Ratgurh or Rutgurh towards the close of the month. This was a town in Central India, between Saugor and Bhopal, in and near which many chieftains had unfurled the banner of rebellion, at the head of whom was Nawab Fazil Mahomed Khan. Ratgurh was a strong place, in good repair, and supplied with a year’s provisions. The rebels intended to have made a bold stand; but they lost heart when they saw siege-artillery brought up to a position which they had deemed unattainable, and applied to the breaching of their fort. Many of the defenders abandoned the fort during the night, letting themselves down by ropes from the rocks, &c. On the next day some of their number, aided by many mutinous sepoys, emerged from the thick jungles in the neighbourhood, attacked the videttes guarding the rear of Sir Hugh’s camp, and attempted to relieve the fort; but they were driven across the river Betwah, and the fort securely captured. It is worthy of note how many of the contests during the wars of the mutiny partook of the nature of sieges. Mud-forts have been famous in India for centuries, and the natives exhibit much tact in defending them. As long as guns attack from a safe distance, such strongholds may be long defended; but a storming by British bayonets utterly paralyses the garrisons. Sir Hugh bent his attention towards Saugor also, which had for many months been invested by a large body of the enemy. With the second brigade of the Central India Field-force, reinforced by the 3d Europeans and the 3d native cavalry from the Poonah division, he laid his plans for an effective relief of that place. General Whitlock, with a Madras column, was also bound for Saugor; but it was expected that Rose would reach that place before him.
In another region, much nearer Calcutta, a small military affair presented itself for notice. Just before the commencement of the new year, Sumbhulpore was relieved from a trouble that had pressed upon it, in the presence of a miscellaneous body of rebels. A small force of less than 300 troops, consisting of Madras native infantry, Ramgurh infantry, and Nagpoor irregular cavalry, made a forced march from Nagpoor to Sumbhulpore; and on the 30th of December Captain Wood marched out with this force to chastise a body of rebels encamped in a gorse-land near the city. The victory was speedy and decisive, and was rendered more valuable by the capture of three native chieftains who had been leaders in the rebellion. The rebels were not sepoys, but escaped convicts.
The large and important regions of Nagpoor and Hyderabad exhibited nearly the same features at the beginning of the year as they had done during the summer and autumn. Containing very few pure Hindustanis of the Brahmin and Rajpoot castes, and being within comparatively easy reach of the trusty and trusted native troops of the Madras presidency, they were seldom disturbed by symptoms of mutiny. The British commissioners or residents had, it is true, much to render them anxious; but the perils were not so great as those which weighed down their brother-officials in other regions. The Deccan, or Hyderabad, or the Nizam’s Country—for it was known by all three names—had from the first been more troubled by marauders than by regular military mutineers. The villages of Mugrool, Janappul, Sind Kaid, Rungeenee, and Dawulgaum, mostly distant about twenty or thirty miles from Jaulnah, were infested during January by predatory bands of Rohillas and Bheels, who alarmed the villages by acts of plunder, dacoitee, and cruelty. They even went so far as to plunder the treasure-chest of a regiment of the Hyderabad Contingent, while on the way from Aurungabad to Jaulnab, and barely two miles from the last-named place. The officer commanding at Jaulnah sent a small force in pursuit; but the marauders, here as elsewhere, were swift of foot, and made clear off with their booty. These Bheels, a half-savage mountain tribe, gave annoyance in more districts than one. Captain Montgomery, superintendent of police at Ahmednuggur, a city between Jaulnah and Bombay, found it necessary to go out and attack a strong body of them, who held a position in a jungle twelve miles from Chandore. He had with him a miscellaneous force of Bombay native troops; but after three successive attempts he was beaten back from the enemy’s position, and wounded, as well as three of his officers.
The Nagpoor force, though never very closely in league with the mutineers further north, contrived to rouse suspicion and bring down punishment early in the year. The Nagpoor irregulars had been disarmed by Brigadier Prior very early in the history of the Revolt; but Mr Plowden, commissioner of the Nagpoor territory, believing that they might be trusted, advised that their weapons should again be given to them. The conduct of the men throughout the rest of the year justified this reliance; but, with the strange inconsistency that so often marked the proceedings of the natives, they stained the first month of the year with a deed of violence. On the 18th of January, at Raeepore, a place on the road between Nagpoor and Cuttack, a party of Mussulman gunners in the Nagpoor artillery suddenly rose, murdered Sergeant-major Sidwell, and called on the 3d Nagpoor irregular infantry to assist them in exterminating the Europeans. Either the 3d were innocent in the matter, or their hearts failed them; for they not only remained firm, but at once assisted in disarming the gunners. On the 22d, Lieutenant Elliott, deputy-commissioner, rode into Raeepore, and immediately brought the gunners to trial; all but one were found guilty, and were hung that same evening, amid frantic appeals to their comrades to save them for the sake of their common faith—an appeal to which the infantry did not respond.