Immediately after the fall of Delhi, a column was sent down the grand trunk road, to relieve the fortress at Agra, and to open up communications between Delhi and Allahabad. Within a few short months peace and order were restored to the North-West Provinces, and the brigandage and anarchy which for a brief interval revived the memory of the old Mahratta days, disappeared, it is hoped for ever, from Hindustan.[31]
CHAPTER VI.—SEPOY REVOLT: NORTH WEST, CAWNPORE, LUCKNOW.—1857-58.
§1. Bengal and Lord Canning: General Neill's advance from Calcutta. §2. Sacred city of Benares: Hindu population overawed. §3. Fortress at Allahabad: treachery and massacre. §4. Cawnpore: extreme peril. §5. Story of Nana Sahib. §6. European refuge in the barracks. §7. Nana Sahib at Cawnpore: aspirations after Hindu sovereignty: delusion of General Wheeler. §8. Mutiny and treachery: barracks beleaguered by Nana Sahib. §9. First massacre at Cawnpore: massacre at Jhansi. §10. Advance of General Havelock. §11. Second massacre of women and children: the well. §12. Lucknow and Sir Henry Lawrence: May and June. §13. Siege of British Residency at Lucknow: July to September: death of Sir Henry Lawrence. §14. Havelock's advance and retreat. §15. Advance of Havelock and Outram. §16. Relief of Lucknow. §17. Sir Colin Campbell's advance: deliverance of the garrison. §18. Mutiny of the Gwalior contingent: defeated. §19. End of the mutiny and rebellion: causes.
Surprises.
The progress of events in Northern India, from the revolt at Delhi in May to the capture of the city in September, was a mystery to every Anglo-Indian. Many had foreseen that the Bengal army was in an evil way; that Bengal sepoys had been pandered until the discipline of the army had become dangerously loosened. But no one foresaw mutiny, murder, and massacre. Every fresh budget of news was consequently a surprise which baffled the oldest civilian and the most experienced general. There was much angry controversy, and much bitter recrimination; but such obsolete quarrelling may well be dropped into oblivion. The lessons which the mutiny teaches are best gathered from a plain narrative of events, not by conjectures as to plots and conspiracies which may have had no better origin than those of Oates and Bedloe.
British soldiers.
§1. Whilst Mr. John Lawrence was sending Europeans and Sikhs from the Punjab to reinforce the besiegers on the Ridge at Delhi, Lord Canning was sending similar reinforcements from Bengal to Allahabad, to relieve the beleaguered garrisons at Cawnpore and Lucknow, and to crush the growing disaffection in Oudh. Immediately after the revolt at Delhi, Lord Canning had sent telegrams and steamers to Madras and Bombay, to Ceylon, Burma, and Singapore, to send to Calcutta every European soldier that could be spared. Every local government responded to the call, and Lord Elgin, who was at Singapore pushing on a war with China, sent two British regiments, that were coming round the Cape, to the help of Lord Canning. It was a noble sacrifice. Lord Elgin's heart was in the Chinese war, but he felt as a Briton, that the suppression of a sepoy revolt in India was of far more pressing importance to the British empire than hostilities against China.
Allahabad and Cawnpore.