These preliminaries settled, the narrative may be proceeded with. How the troops under the commander-in-chief approached Lucknow in February, and what were the components of the army of Oude, in generals and soldiers, the last chapter shewed.
When, on the 1st of March, Sir Colin Campbell was within a few miles of Lucknow, in his camp at Buntara, he fully considered all the information obtainable up to that time concerning the defences of the city. One result of the inquiry, was to convince him that a necessity would arise for operating from both sides of the Goomtee river, whenever the actual assault should take place.[[141]] This would be necessary, or at least desirable, because such a course would enable him to enfilade (that is, attack laterally or at the extremities) many of the enemy’s newly constructed works; and because he would thus be able to cut off the enemy from their external sources of supply. It is true that he could not hope wholly to surround a city which, with its fortified suburbs, had a circuit of little less than twenty miles; still he would make an important approach towards that condition by cannonading from both sides of the river. One of his earliest preparations, therefore, had relation to the means of crossing the river; and to this end his engineers were busily engaged in fitting casks so that they might be placed across the river as a floating-bridge. The former bridge of boats, opposite some of the palaces, had been removed by the insurgents; while the iron and stone bridges were well watched by them.
On the 2d, Sir Colin marched at daybreak from his camp at Buntara, diverged from the road to the Alum Bagh, and took that which went near the Jelalabad fort towards the eastern margin of the suburbs. With a portion only of his army, he advanced to the Dil Koosha, the palace and park at the easternmost extremity of the city. The chief officers with him at the time of this advance were Generals Lugard, Adrian Hope, Hope Grant, Little, and Archdale Wilson. His main object at first, with a force of five or six thousand men, was to march to such a spot, near the Dil Koosha, as would enable him to form a camp just beyond reach of the enemy’s guns; and to protect his enormous siege-train as it gradually arrived, until the time was come for commencing active operations. Not only the siege-train, but the countless appendages of an Indian army, would equally require protection during its passage from Buntara to the Dil Koosha. Mr Russell, who accompanied this expedition in person, says that no language can correctly convey an idea of the vastness in the number of elephants, camels, oxen, horses, camp-followers, and vehicles that daily demanded the commander-in-chief’s attention at this period. ‘Who really can bring before his mind’s eye a train of baggage-animals twenty-five miles long, a string of sixteen thousand camels, a siege-train park covering a space of four hundred by four hundred yards, with twelve thousand oxen attached to it, and a following of sixty thousand non-combatants?’ Even the doolies or litter-carriages for wounded men constituted a formidable item. To each company of a regiment there were ten doolies, and to each dooly were six coolies or native porters: thus there were nearly five hundred dooly-carriers for each average regiment; and even with this large supply, if the sick and wounded in any one regiment exceeded eighty men, there would be more than the coolies could properly attend to.
The force with which Sir Colin started from Buntara brought a few guns only. These were dragged along the centre of the line of route; the infantry were on either side of them, the cavalry and horse-artillery outside all, and the baggage in the rear. Each soldier took a small quantity of food with him. The march was through a flat well-cultivated country, past the Jelalabad fort, but a mile or so distant from the Alum Bagh. The skirmishers at the head of the column, as they approached the Dil Koosha, found a body of insurgent troopers watching their progress. When the column began to close on the advance-guard, the enemy opened fire with several guns which were in position in strong bastions along the line of canal—the outermost of the three lines of defence before adverted to. This fire was heavy and well sustained. It was not difficult to capture the Dil Koosha itself; but Sir Colin’s troops were much annoyed by the enemy’s fire over the open country, until they could secure the Dil Koosha and the Mahomed Bagh as advanced pickets, with heavy guns placed in battery to oppose the enemy’s artillery. This once effected, a secure base for further operations was obtained, with the right resting on the river. It was a good day’s work, not in conquest, but in the preparations for conquest.
When Sir Colin came to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, he found that the new lines of defence, constructed since November, were vast and well planned. He further saw that no immediate attack could be successfully made upon them by infantry, without such a sacrifice of life as he had determined if possible to avoid. To fight with artillery, before sending in his foot-soldiers to fight, was his plan; and he now at once sent back a messenger to the camp at Buntara, for the rest of the troops and heavy siege-artillery to advance without delay. All during the following night was the road from Buntara to the Dil Koosha filled with an apparently endless train of soldiers, guns, commissariat-carts, beasts of burden and of draught, and camp-followers—ready to swell the large number already at the last-named place. This train was protected on either side by cavalry and horse artillery, ready to dash out against any of the enemy that should threaten interruption.
During the whole day on the 3d, the operations consisted chiefly in this bringing forward of guns and bodies of troops to positions necessary to be occupied when the regular siege began. When the remainder of the siege-train had arrived, and also General Walpole’s division, Sir Colin’s position embraced all the open ground on the southeastern margin of the city, with his right flank resting on the Goomtee, and his left in the direction of the Alum Bagh. The Alum Bagh and the Jelalabad fort were both occupied by portions of his troops, and the country between them was controlled by Hodson’s Irregular Horse; while a strong brigade of cavalry, under Brigadier W. Campbell, swept the suburbs northwest of the Alum Bagh. By this arrangement, almost the entire southern half of the city was invested by his forces. The Dil Koosha was head-quarters, surrounded by the tents in which the soldiers took their few brief hours of repose. The palace, built in an Italian style, still retained much of the splendour belonging to it in more peaceful days, when it was the ‘Heart’s Delight’ of the sensual monarch; but now it was well guarded by 42d Highlanders, ready to grapple with princelings and sepoys at any moment. From the roof of this palace could be seen the chief buildings of the city, as well as the vast defensive preparations which the enemy had made. The sepoys in the Martinière maintained a rifle-fire against such of the British as made their appearance on the flat roof of the Dil Koosha; but the distance was too great to render the fire dangerous.
The operations of the 4th were a sequel to those of the 3d—not an actual commencement of the siege, but a furtherance of the arrangements necessary to render the siege successful. The camp was extended from the Dil Koosha to Bibiapore, a house and enclosure a little further down the right bank of the river. From the glimpses obtained by the skirmishers and pickets, and from the information brought in by spies, it was ascertained that many of the inhabitants, terrified at the formidable preparations for the siege, were fleeing from the city on the opposite side; and that the ‘authorities’ were endeavouring to check this flight, wishing the inhabitants to fight for their property and their lives within the city itself. There were intelligible reasons for this on both sides. The citizens, whether their love for their native royal family was great or small, had little inclination to sacrifice their own personal interests to that sentiment; while, on the other hand, the rebel leaders cared not how many townsmen were ruined, so long as the privileges and profits of government remained with themselves, rather than reverting to the British.
It was on the 5th that General Franks joined the commander-in-chief, with that corps which now became the fourth division of the army of Oude. He had fought his way half across the province, from the Jounpoor frontier, defeating many bodies of rebels on the way, and arriving at Lucknow precisely at the time which had been agreed on. Jung Bahadoor and his large Nepaulese army did not arrive at the time specified: a want of punctuality which disturbed both the plans and the equanimity of Sir Colin. The components of the army of Oude, as laid down by the commander-in-chief on the 10th of February, were enumerated in a note at the end of the last chapter. At present, on the 5th of March, when Franks had arrived, the army before Lucknow consisted approximately of the following numbers of troops—First division of infantry, under Outram, about 5000 strong; second, under Lugard, 5400; third, under Walpole, 4300; fourth, under Franks, 4800; cavalry, under Hope Grant and other commanders, distributed among the infantry divisions; artillery, including the naval brigade, 1100; and engineers, 1700. The army of Oude was often said to consist of 30,000 troops, of whom 18,000 were British and the rest native; but such an estimate was worth little unless the exact day be named to which it applied. The army varied both by arrivals and departures.
The portion of the siege-plan connected with the left bank of the river had never been lost sight of during the preparatory operations on the right. While the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and commissariat were busily engaged in camping near the Dil Koosha, the engineers were collecting the casks, fascines of fagots, ropes, and timbers, necessary for forming a bridge, or rather two bridges, across the Goomtee, at some point below where the enemy were in greatest force. The spot selected was near head-quarters at Bibiapore, where the river was about forty yards wide. The enemy, uneasy at the proceedings of the engineers, gradually assembled in considerable numbers on the opposite bank; but as the British brought up guns to oppose them, the engineering works proceeded without much molestation. These bridges exemplified some of the contrivances which military commanders are accustomed to adopt, in the course of their onerous duties. The groundwork of each was a collection of empty beer-casks, lashed by ropes to timber cross-pieces, and floated off one by one to their positions; a firm roadway of planking was afterwards fixed on the top of the whole range from end to end. Firm indeed must the construction necessarily have been; for troopers on their horses, heavy guns and mortars, ammunition-wagons, and commissariat carts, all would have to pass over these bridges, secure so far as possible from accident to man or beast.
To Sir James Outram was intrusted the command of that portion of the army which was to cross by these bridges of casks, and operate against the city from the left bank of the Goomtee. This gallant officer had been in and near the Alum Bagh for a period of just one hundred days, from November to March, defending himself successfully against numerous attacks made on him by the enemy, as narrated in former chapters. It was right that he should now have the most important command under Sir Colin. He took his departure from the Alum Bagh—leaving that important post, which he had so long and so well defended, to the care of Brigadier Franklyn and of the 5th and 78th Queen’s regiments of foot. The force intrusted to him consisted of Walpole’s division of infantry, together with regiments and detachments from other divisions.[[142]] Franks with his division took Walpole’s place near the Dil Koosha. The plan of attack agreed upon was, that Outram, after crossing the Goomtee, should advance up the left bank; while the troops in position at the Dil Koosha were to remain at rest until it should have become apparent that the first line of the enemy’s works, or the rampart running along the canal and abutting on the Goomtee, had been turned. Sir James, arriving at the Dil Koosha from the Alum Bagh, effected his crossing safely on the 6th, and pitched his camp for the night on the left bank of the river, near the race-course. It was a formidable burden for the bridges to bear, comprising, besides the infantry and cavalry, thirty guns, and a large train of baggage and ammunition animals; nevertheless the floating fabrics bore up well, and fully answered their intended purpose. English troops of the line, Highlanders, lancers, hussars, dragoons, artillery, engineers, commissariat, horses, oxen, camels, elephants—all passed safely over, and speedily fell into orderly array on the other side of the river. This was, of course, not done without a little fighting. The enemy could not be blind to the proceeding, nor to the consequences likely to result from it. There was skirmishing in front of the Chukkur Walla Kothee, or Yellow House, a circular building on the left bank of the river; and there was much prancing about of leading personages who hastily came out of the city; but nothing disturbed Sir James from securely encamping at night.