When this disarming of the native troops at the surrounding forts had been effected, the authorities at Peshawur continued to look sharply after the native troops at this important station. The disarmed 5th irregular cavalry, having refused to go against the 55th at Murdan, were at once and successfully disbanded. By a dexterous manœuvre, the troopers were deprived of horses, weapons, coats, and boots, while the mouths of cannon were gaping at them; they were then sent off in boats down the Indus, with a hint to depart as far as possible from any military stations. The authorities in the Punjaub, like Neill at Benares and Allahabad, believed that mercy to the sepoys would be cruelty to all besides at such a time; they shot, hanged, or blew away from guns with terrible promptness, all who were found to be concerned in mutinous proceedings. On one occasion a letter was intercepted, revealing the fact that three natives of high rank (giving names) were to sit in council on the morrow to decide what to do against the British; a telegraphic message was sent off to Sir John Lawrence, for advice how to act; a message was returned: ‘Let a spy attend and report;’ this was done, and a plot discovered; another question brought back another telegram: ‘Hang them all three;’ and in a quarter of an hour the hanging was completed. The importance of retaining artillery in European hands was strongly felt at Peshawur; to effect this, after many guns had been sent away to strengthen the moving column, a hundred and sixty European volunteers from the infantry were quickly trained to the work, and placed in charge of a horse-battery of six guns, half the number on horseback, and the other half sitting on the guns and wagons—all actively put in training day after day to learn their new duties. Fearful work the European gunners had sometimes to perform. Forty men of the 55th regiment were ‘blown from guns’ in three days. An officer present on the occasion says: ‘Three sides of a square were formed, ten guns pointed outwards, the sentence of the court read, a prisoner bound to each gun, the signal given, and the salvo fired. Such a scene I hope never again to witness—human trunks, heads, arms, legs flying about in all directions. All met their fate with firmness but two; so to save time they were dropped to the ground, and their brains blown out by musketry.’ It sounds strangely to English ears that such a terrible death should occasionally be mentioned as a concession or matter of favour; yet such was the case. Mr Montgomery, judicial commissioner of the Punjaub, issued an address to one of the native regiments, two sepoys of which had been blown away from guns for mutinous conduct. He exhorted them to fidelity, threatened them with the consequences of insubordination, and added: ‘You have just seen two men of your regiment blown from guns. This is the punishment I will inflict on all traitors and mutineers; and your consciences will tell you what punishment they may expect hereafter. These men have been blown from guns, and not hanged, because they were Brahmins, and because I wished to save them from the pollution of the hangman’s touch; and thus prove to you that the British government does not wish to injure your caste and religion.’ The treachery and cruelty of the mutinous sepoys soon dried up all this tenderness as to the mode in which they would prefer to be put to death. We have seen Neill at Cawnpore, after the revelation of the horrors in the slaughter-room, compelling the Brahmin rebels to pollute themselves by wiping up the gore they had assisted to shed, as a means of striking horror into the hearts of miscreant Brahmins elsewhere.
In addition to the severe measures for preserving obedience, other precautions were taken involving no shedding of blood. A new levy of Punjaubee troopers was obtained by Edwardes from the Moultan region; the disarmed sepoys were removed from their lines, and made to encamp in a spot where they could be constantly watched; a land-transport train was organised, for the conveyance of European troops from place to place; the fort was strengthened, provisioned, and guarded against all surprises; the artillery park was defended by an earthwork; and trusty officers were sent out in various directions to obtain recruits for local irregular corps—enlisting men rough in bearing and unscrupulous in morals, but who knew when they were well commanded, and who had no kind of affection for Hindustanis. Thus did Cotton, Edwardes, Nicholson, and the other officers, energetically carry out plans that kept Peshawur at peace, and enabled Sir John Lawrence to send off troops in aid of the force besieging Delhi. Colonel Edwardes, it may here be stated, had been in Calcutta in the month of March; and had there heard that Sikhs in some of the Bengal regiments were taking their discharge, as if foreseeing some plot then in preparation; this confirmed his predilection for Punjaub troops over ‘Poorbeahs.’ The activity in raising troops in the remotest northwest corner of India appears to have been a double benefit to the British; for it provided a serviceable body of hardy troops, and it gratified the natives of the Peshawur Valley. This matter was adverted to in a letter written by Edwardes. ‘This post (Peshawur), so far from being more arduous in future, will be more secure. Events here have taken a wonderful turn. During peace, Peshawur was an incessant anxiety; now it is the strongest point in India. We have struck two great blows—we have disarmed our own troops, and have raised levies of all the people of the country. The troops (sepoys) are confounded; they calculated on being backed by the people. The people are delighted, and a better feeling has sprung up between them and us in this enlistment than has ever been obtained before. I have also called on my old country, the Derajat, and it is quite delightful to see how the call is answered. Two thousand horsemen, formerly in my army at Moultan, are now moving on different points, according to order, to help us in this difficulty; and every post brings me remonstrances from chiefs as to why they have been forgotten. This is really gratifying.’ It may be here stated that Sir John Lawrence, about the end of May, suggested to Viscount Canning by telegraph the expediency of allowing Bengal sepoys to retire from the army and receive their pay, if they preferred so doing, and if they had not been engaged in mutinous proceedings—as a means of sifting the good from the bad; but Canning thought this would be dangerous east of the Sutlej; and it does not appear to have been acted on anywhere.
These exertions were materially aided by the existence of a remarkable police system in the Punjaub—one of the benefits which the Lawrences and their associates introduced. The Punjaub police was of three kinds. First was the military police, consisting of two corps of irregular infantry, seven battalions of foot, one regiment cavalry, and twenty-seven troops of horse—amounting altogether to about thirteen thousand men. These men were thoroughly disciplined, and were ready at all times to encounter the marauding tribes from the mountains. Then came the civil police, comprising about nine thousand men, and distributed over nearly three hundred thannahs or subordinate jurisdictions, to protect thirty thousand villages and small places: the men were armed with swords and carbines. Lastly were the constabulary, thirteen hundred men in the cities, and thirty thousand in the rural districts; these were a sort of watchmen, dressed in a plain drab uniform, and carrying only a staff and a spear. This large police army of more than fifty thousand men was not only efficient, when well officered, in maintaining tranquillity, but furnished excellent recruits for regiments of Sikh and Punjaubee soldiers.
Sir John Lawrence issued a vigorous proclamation, encouraging the native troops to remain faithful, and threatening them with dire consequences if they revolted; but from the first he relied very little on such appeals to the Bengal troops. Leaving this subject, however, and directing attention to those events only which bore with any weight on the progress of the mutiny, we shall now rapidly glance at Punjaub affairs in the summer months. Many struggles took place, too slight to require much notice. One was the disarming of a native regiment at Noorpore. Another, on June 13th, was the execution of twelve men at Ferozpore, belonging to the 45th N. I., for mutiny after being disarmed.
It was early in June that the station at Jullundur became a prey to insurgent violence. On the 3d of the month, a fire broke out in the lines of the 61st native infantry—a bad symptom wherever it occurred in those days. On the following night a hospital was burned. On the 6th, the 4th regiment Sikh infantry marched into the station, as well as a native troop of horse-artillery; but, owing to some uneasiness displayed by the Bengal troops, the Sikh regiment was removed to another station—as if the brigadier in command were desirous not to offend or irritate the petted regiments from the east. At eleven o’clock at night on the 7th, the close of a quiet Sunday—again Sunday!—a sudden alarm of fire was given, and a lurid glare was seen over the lines of the 36th native infantry. The officers rushed to their respective places; and then it was found that the 6th native cavalry, wavering for a time, had at last given way to the mutinous impulse that guided the 36th and 61st infantry, and that all three regiments were threatening the officers. The old sad story might again be told; the story of some of the officers being shot as they spoke and appealed to the fidelity of their men; of others being shot at or sabred as they ran or rode across the parade-ground; of ladies and children being affrighted at the artillery barracks, where they had been wont to sleep for greater security. The mutineers had evidently expected the native artillery to join them; but fortunately these latter were so dove-tailed with the European artillery, and were so well looked after by a company of the 8th foot, that they could not mutiny if they would. All the Europeans who fled to the artillery barracks and lines were safe; the guns protected them. The mutineers, after an hour or two of the usual mischief, made off. About one half the cavalry regiment mutinied, but as all confidence was lost in them, the rest were deprived of horses and arms, and the regiment virtually ceased to exist. The officers were overwhelmed with astonishment and mortification; some of them had gone to rest on that evening in perfect reliance on their men. One of the cavalry officers afterwards said: ‘Some of our best men have proved the most active in this miserable business. A rough rider in my troop, who had been riding my charger in the morning, and had played with my little child, was one of the men who charged the guns.’ This officer, like many others, had no other theory to offer than that his troopers mutinied in a ‘panic,’ arising from the sinister rumours that ran like wildfire through the lines and bazaars of the native troops, shaking the fidelity of those who had not previously taken part in any conspiracy. It was the only theory which their bitterness of heart allowed them to contemplate with any calmness; for few military men could admit without deep mortification that they had been ignorant of, and deceived by, their own soldiers down to the very last moment.
While a portion of the 6th cavalry remained, disarmed and unhorsed but not actually disbanded, at Jullundur, the two regiments and a half of mutineers marched off towards Phillour, as if bound for Delhi. At the instant the mutiny began, a telegraphic message had been sent from Jullundur to Phillour, to break the bridge of boats over the Sutlej, and thereby prevent the rebels from crossing from the Punjaub into Sirhind.
Unfortunately, the telegraphic message failed to reach the officer to whom it was sent. The 3d regiment Bengal native cavalry, at Phillour, might, as the commanding officer at that time thought, have been maintained in discipline if the Jullundur mutineers had not disturbed them; but when the 36th and 61st native infantry, and the 6th cavalry were approaching, all control was found to be lost. The telegraphic wires being cut, no news could reach Phillour, and thus the insurgents from Jullundur made their appearance wholly unexpected—by the Europeans, if not by the troopers. The ladies and families were at once hastened off from the cantonment to the fort, which had just before been garrisoned by a hundred men of H.M. 8th foot. The officers then went on parade, where they found themselves unable to bring the 3d regiment to a sense of their duty; the men promised to keep their hands clear of murder, but they would not fight against the approaching rebels from Jullundur. The officers then returned to the fort powerless; for the handful of Europeans there, though sufficient to defend the fort, were unable to encounter four mutinous regiments in the cantonment. In a day or two, all the ladies and children were sent off safely to the hills; and the cavalry officers were left without immediate duties. The tactics of the brigadier at Jullundur were at that crisis somewhat severely criticised. It was considered that he ought to have made such arrangements as would have prevented the mutineers from crossing the Sutlej. He followed them, with such a force as he could spare or collect; but while he was planning to cut off the bridge of boats that spanned the Sutlej between Phillour and Loodianah, they avoided that spot altogether; they crossed the river six miles further up, and proceeded on their march towards Delhi—attacked at certain places by Europeans and by Sikhs, but not in sufficient force to frustrate their purpose.
Although belonging to a region east of the Punjaub, it may be well here to notice another of the June mutinies nearer the focus of disaffection. One of the regiments that took its officers by surprise in mutinying was the 60th B. N. I.; of which the head-quarters had been at Umballa, but which was at Bhotuck, only three marches from Delhi, when the fidelity of the men gave way. One of the English officers, expressing his utter astonishment at this result, said: ‘All gone! The men that we so trusted; my own men, with whom I have shot, played cricket, jumped, entered into all their sports, and treated so kindly!’ He thought it almost cruel to subject that regiment to such temptation as would be afforded by close neighbourhood with the mutineers at Delhi. But, right or wrong, the temptation was afforded, and proved too strong to be resisted. It afterwards became known that the 60th received numerous letters and messages from within Delhi, entreating them to join the national cause against the Kaffir Feringhees. On the 11th of June, the sepoys suddenly rose, and fired a volley at a tent within which many of the officers were at mess, but fortunately without fatal results. Many of the officers at once galloped off to the camp outside Delhi, feeling they might be more useful there than with a mutinous regiment; while others stayed a while, in the vain hope of bringing the men back to a sense of their duty. After plundering the mess of the silver-plate and the wine, and securing the treasure-chest, the mutineers made off for Delhi. Here, however, a warm reception was in store for them; their officers had given the alarm; and H.M. 9th Lancers cut the mutineers up terribly on the road leading to the Lahore Gate. Of those who entered the city, most fell in a sortie shortly afterwards. At the place where this regiment had been stationed, Umballa, another death-fiend—cholera—was at work. ‘We have had that terrible scourge the cholera. It has been raging here with frightful violence for two months (May to July); but, thank God, has now left us without harming the Sahibs. It seemed a judgment on the natives. They were reeling about and falling dead in the streets, and no one to remove them. It is the only time we have looked on it as an ally; though it has carried off many soldiers, two native officers, and six policemen, who were guarding prisoners; all fell dead at the same place; as one dropped, another stepped forward and took his place; and so on the whole lot.’ It was one of the grievous results of the Indian mutiny that English officers, in very bitterness of heart, often expressed satisfaction at the calamities which fell on the natives, even townsmen unconnected with the soldiery.
Jelum, which was the scene of a brief but very fierce contest in July, is a considerable town on the right bank of the river of the same name; it is situated on the great line of road from Lahore to Peshawur; and plans have for some time been under consideration for the establishment of river-steamers thence down through Moultan to Kurachee. Like many other places on the great high road, it was a station for troops; and like many other stations, it was thrown into uneasiness by doubts of the fidelity of the sepoys. The 14th regiment Bengal native infantry, about three-fourths of which were stationed at Jelum, having excited suspicions towards the end of June, it was resolved to disarm them; but as no force was at hand to effect this, three companies of H.M. 24th foot, under Colonel Ellice, with a few horse-artillery, were ordered down from Rawul Pindee. On the 7th of July the English troops arrived, and found the native regiment drawn up on parade. Whether exasperated at the frustration of a proposed plan of mutiny, or encouraged by their strength being thrice that of the English, is not well known; but the 14th attacked the English with musketry directly they approached. This of course brought on an immediate battle. The sepoys had fortified their huts, loopholed their walls, and secured a defensive position in a neighbouring village. The English officers of the native regiment, deserted and fired at by their men, hastened to join the 24th; and a very severe exchange of musketry soon took place. The sepoys fought so boldly, and disputed every inch so resolutely, that it was found necessary to bring the three guns into requisition to drive them out of their covered positions. At last they were expelled, and escaped into the country; where the British, having no cavalry, were unable to follow them. It was an affair altogether out of the usual order in India at that time: instead of being a massacre or a chasing of treacherously betrayed individuals, it was a fight in which the native troops met the British with more than their usual resolution. The loss in this brief conflict was severe. Colonel Ellice was terribly wounded in the chest and the thigh; Captain Spring was killed; Lieutenants Streathfield and Chichester were wounded, one in both legs, and the other in the arm; two sergeants and twenty-three men were killed; four corporals and forty-three men wounded. Thus, out of this small force, seventy-six were either killed or wounded. The government authorities at Jelum immediately offered a reward of thirty rupees a head for every fugitive sepoy captured. This led to the capture of about seventy in the next two days, and to a fearful scene of shooting and blowing away from guns.
On the same day, July 7th, when three companies of H.M. 24th were thus engaged at Jelum, the other companies of the same regiment were engaged at Rawul Pindee in disarming the 58th native infantry and two companies of the 14th. The sepoys hesitated for a time, but seeing a small force of horse-artillery confronted to them, yielded; some fled, but the rest gave up their arms. Two hundred of their muskets were found to be loaded, a significant indication of some murderous intent.