Sultanpore occupied an important position in relation to the rest of Oude; being on the same river (the Goomtee) as Lucknow, and on the high road from Allahabad to Fyzabad. It was evident that this place, from the relative positions of the opposing forces, could not long remain at peace. The rebels endeavoured to regain possession of it after their defeat; while Sir Hope Grant resolved to prevent them. They returned to the Goomtee, and occupied many villages nearly opposite the city. On the 24th of August, Grant made preparations for crossing the river and attacking them. This plan he put in execution on the following day; when twelve hundred foot and two guns effected the passage, and seized three villages immediately in front. The rebels, however, maintained a position from which they could send over shot into the British camp; this lasted until the 29th, when they were driven from their position, and compelled to retire towards Sassenpore, where they reassembled about seven thousand of their number, with eight guns.
The first days of September found this body of rebels separating and recombining, lessening and augmenting, in a manner that renders it difficult to trace the actual movements. The real mutinous sepoys, the ‘Pandies’ of the once mighty Bengal army, were now few among them; and the fluctuating numbers were made up chiefly of the adherents of the rebellious thalookdars and zemindars of Oude—the vassals of those feudal barons—together with felons and scoundrels of various kinds. On one day they appeared likely to retire to Amethee, the stronghold of a rebel named Lall Madhoo Singh; on another, they shewed symptoms of marching to Mozuffernugger, a place about ten miles from Sultanpore; while on a third, some of them made their appearance at a town about twenty miles from Sultanpore on the Lucknow road.
At this time (September) the position of the British in Oude, so far as concerned the possession of actual governing power, was very singular. They held a belt of country right across the centre of the province from east to west; while the districts north and south of that belt were either in the possession of rebels, or were greatly troubled by them. The position was thus clearly described by the Lucknow correspondent of the Bombay Gazette: ‘The districts in our possession lie in a large ellipse, of which Lucknow and Durriabad are foci, the ends of one diameter being Cawnpore and Fyzabad. These cities are situated almost due east and west. Our civil jurisdiction extends, on the average, twenty-five miles all round Lucknow, and not much less round Durriabad. Our line of communication is uninterrupted from Cawnpore to Fyzabad, which latter borders on the Goruckpore district.’ North of this belt or ellipse were various bodies of rebels under the Begum, Mummoo Khan, Feroze Shah, Hurdut Singh, and other leaders; while south of the belt were other bodies under Beni Madhoo, Hunmunt Singh, the Rajah of Gonda, &c. Irrespective of these, were Nena Sahib and some of his relations who, though not to be encountered, were known to be still in the northeast of Oude, near the Nepaul frontier. Sir Hope Grant had immediate control over both banks of the Goomtee, near Sultanpore, and was preparing for a decisive advance against the rebels as soon as he was joined by Brigadier Berkeley, who was sent from Allahabad on an expedition presently to be noticed.
The portion of Oude nearest to Rohilcund, where the energetic Moulvie had lately lost his life, was kept for a long time in a state of anarchy by a combination of rebel chieftains, who declared hostility against the Rajah of Powayne for having betrayed and killed the Moulvie. They at first quarrelled a good deal concerning the possession of the effects of the deceased leader; but the Begum put in a claim, which seems to have been acceded to. Although the authorities at Lucknow could not at this time spare a force to rout out the insurgents on this side of Oude, the service was rendered from Rohilcund, as will be shewn shortly.
In a district of Oude between Lucknow and the Rohilcund frontier, a gallant affair was achieved by Mr Cavanagh, who had gained so much renown by carrying the message from Sir James Outram at Lucknow to Sir Colin Campbell’s camp. Being appointed chief civil officer of the Muhiabad district, he arranged with Captain Dawson and Lieutenant French to defend the district from rebels as well as they could, by the aid of a few native police and sowars. On the 30th of July a body of 1500 insurgents, with one gun, made a sudden attack on a small out-station defended only by about 70 men. The place was gallantly held until Cavanagh and French reached it. One bold charge sent the rebels fleeing in all directions; and the district was soon pacified. Mr Cavanagh had the tact to win over several small zemindars to the British cause, by threatening to punish them if insubordinate, and by undertaking to aid them if they were attacked by rebel bands; they combined to maintain four hundred matchlockmen at their own expense in the British cause. Many of the petty rajahs and zemindars had themselves been more than suspected; but the civil authorities were empowered to win them over, by an indulgent forgetfulness of their past conduct.
Interior of Hindoo Rajah’s House.
On another side of Oude, near Allahabad and the apex of the Doab, there were many bold and reckless thalookdars, who held out threats to all of their class who dared to profess friendship to the English. A loyal thalookdar, Baboo Rampursand Singh, was attacked by a number of these confederated chieftains with their retainers at Soraon; they took him and his family prisoners, destroyed his house, and sacked the village. As this course of proceeding would have deterred friendly thalookdars from a persistence in their loyalty, and still more certainly deterred waverers from making a choice adverse to the rebel cause, means were taken to check it. Brigadier Berkeley was placed in command of a ‘Soraon Field-force,’ hastily collected, comprising 200 of H.M. 32d foot, the 7th Punjaub infantry, about 150 other infantry, two troops of Lahore light horse, a detachment of Madras cavalry, detachments of horse and foot artillery, and nine guns and mortars. The brigadier set out for Allahabad, where the force had been collected, crossed the Ganges, marched to the Oude frontier, and came in sight of a body of rebels on the 14th of July, at the fort and village of Dehaign—one of the small forts in which Oude abounded. The rebels retired into the fort on his approach, allowing his skirmishers to take easy possession of the village. He encircled the fort with cavalry, and placed horse-artillery to watch any outlets of escape. A firing by heavy guns was not satisfactory to him, owing to the fort being completely hidden by trees and thick scrubby jungle; and he therefore resolved on storming the place by his infantry. The assault was speedily and thoroughly successful. About 250 of the rebels were killed in the fort and ditch; and about as many more were chased through the jungle and cut down by the cavalry and horse-artillery. The place was not properly a fort; it was a large area of jungle surrounded by a dilapidated earthen wall and ditch, and fenced with a thorny abattis, having a brick house in the centre. The rebels being driven out, Brigadier Berkeley caused the jungle to be cut, the walls to be levelled, and the house destroyed. After resting on the 15th, Berkeley proceeded on the 16th to the fort of Tiroul, seven miles north of Soraon. He found this fort in the middle of an impenetrable thorny jungle, through which a few paths were cut in directions known only to the natives; it was surrounded by a very thick thorny abattis; and it had walls, bastions, ditches, escarps, like a miniature fortress, with a stronghold in the centre to which the garrison could retire when closely pressed. There were only three guns on the bastions, but the walls were loopholed for musketry. So thick was the belt of trees and jungle around, that the brigadier could scarcely obtain a sight of the fort; he therefore deemed it prudent to employ his mortars and a 24-pounder howitzer before sending in his infantry to assault. This succeeded; the enemy evacuated the place during the night, leaving behind them their three guns and gun-ammunition. The infantry were on the alert to assist, but the enemy left them nothing to do. Fort Tiroul was then destroyed, as fort Soraon had been. The former was rather a superior example of an Oudian fort; although the walls and bastions were only of earth, they were of such considerable thickness, and were aided so greatly by loopholed parapets, ditches, breastworks, rifle-pits, thorny abattis, zigzag intrenchments, and thick jungle—that the enemy might have made a tough resistance to an infantry attack, if they had not been frightened out by shells and balls. By a somewhat similar train of operations, Brigadier Berkeley captured and destroyed a fort at Bhyspoor; and having thus finished the work intrusted to him, he returned with his temporary ‘Soraon Field-force’ to Allahabad. After a brief interval, he was again sent forth, to demolish other Oudian forts at places accessible from Allahabad, of which one was at Pertabghur; and then to advance to Sultanpore, to aid Sir Hope Grant. The two generals would then command a semicircle of country, within which most of the rebels in the eastern half of Oude would be enclosed; and an advance of other columns from Lucknow would completely hem them in. There were many symptoms, at the end of the month, that numerous zemindars and thalookdars were only waiting for a decent pretext, a decisive success of the British, to give in their adhesion.
The banks of the Ganges nearest to the province of Oude, even so low down as Allahabad, where the governor-general and the commander-in-chief were residing, required close watching; they were infested by bands of rebels, some of whom devastated the villages, while others sought to cross the Ganges into the Doab; and carry mischief into new districts. Towards the close of July—to cite one among many instances—it became known that the rebels had collected many boats on the Oude side of the river, ready to cross over into the Doab if the fortune of war should render this desirable. The authorities at once sent up the Jumna steamer, with a party of 130 Sikhs and two guns. At Manickpore and Kunkur, some distance up the river, they found more than twenty boats, which they succeeded in destroying; but the two forts were well armed with guns and rebels, and could not be safely attacked at that time—another and stronger expeditionary force was required to effect this. In August, and again in September, small forces were sent up from Allahabad by river, which had the desired effect of checking these insurgents.
Viscount Canning and Sir Colin Campbell both remained at Allahabad throughout the period to which this chapter relates—where, indeed, they had long been located. It was convenient for each in his special capacity, owing to its central situation. Sir Colin needed to be informed daily of the proceedings of all the brigades, columns, forces, and detachments which were out on active service. Gladly would he have kept them all under cover until the rainy season had passed; but the exigencies of the service prevented this: some troops were necessarily in the field—in Behar, in Oude, in Rohilcund, in Bundelcund, in the Mahratta states, in Rajpootana; and these, whether their number were few or many, were all working to one common end. At no other city could Sir Colin receive news from all those regions more promptly than at Allahabad. Again, Viscount Canning found it necessary to be in intimate communication with the commander-in-chief, in relation to all projects and arrangements involving military operations, on which the ultimate pacification of India so much depended. It was desirable, also, that he should be near Oude, the affairs of which were far more delicate than those of any other Indian province. Many events were likely to arise, concerning which the electric telegraph, though instantaneous, might be too curt and enigmatical, and which would be much better settled by a personal conference with the chief to whom the government of the Anglo-Indian empire was consigned.