The spirit of insubordination first showed itself in the 34th Native Regiment, at Barrackpore, and the first victim was the Sergeant-Major “Hewson.” The Adjutant went at once to the rescue of his Sergeant-Major, but his horse was shot, and before he could get disengaged from his charger he was cut down; the wounded Sergeant-Major rushed to the assistance of his officer, but was felled to the earth like a bullock with the butt end of a rifle. A strong guard was looking on all the time, but would not interfere. A Sepoy, named Mungul Pandy, was the first mutineer. He was hung.
In the early part of January, 1857, placards were posted in various places, calling upon all the faithful and true believers to rise against the English infidels, and drive them from India, or destroy them root and branch, and proclaiming a holy war against us (all those who fell in such a war would be venerated as martyrs). The 34th Native Regiment, as I before remarked, appear to have been the ringleaders in this bloody revolt. The 19th Natives were en route to Barrackpore, which is about sixteen miles from Calcutta, and had arrived within eight miles, when a deputation from the 34th met them, with the proposition that they should unite, set fire to all the bungalows, surprise and massacre all Europeans, old and young, rich and poor, secure the guns, and then march into, sack, and destroy Calcutta. The 19th were hardly ripe enough for that, but they kept all knowledge of the proposal to themselves. The Government could not believe that the army would rise, but thought the disturbance only began and ended in the plot of a few bad characters; they were, however, suddenly awakened to a sense of danger.
On the 10th of May, 1857, the Mutiny burst forth in all its fury at Meerut. It was Sunday, and the cowardly brutes waited until the European troops were in church before moving. There were two splendid regiments there, besides Artillery, and if they had only been let loose, not a man of the three regiments that started the Mutiny would have lived to tell the tale. The troops in the cantonment consisted of the following:—6th Dragoon Guards, 60th Rifles, and two batteries of Bengal Artillery (all Europeans); Natives, 11th and 20th Infantry, and 3rd Cavalry. Every man, woman, and child (Europeans) that fell in their way was murdered. And, as an eye-witness of some of these scenes, I can say that every horror, making war hideous, attended this dreadful outbreak. The cry of murder from poor defenceless women and children echoed throughout the land. Death in all modes was rampant—from the sword, bayonet, water, flames, and starvation. The barbarity of these fiends has never been equalled. The number who perished during that unparalleled revolt will never be known.
The reader will ask, “What were our men doing?” Their hands were tied. They had an “old woman” in command, and he was fearful that if he let the Cavalry and Artillery loose some of the “bungalows” might get burnt. There was the whole station in a blaze, and yet not a sword was drawn to save a single life until the mutineers had thought fit to move off to Delhi! One of the officer’s wives might well exclaim, “Oh, agony! what a night! Every house in sight was blazing; shots were fired at me; some of our men at last dashed into our compound (garden). I saw the Cavalry uniform. ‘Come, come,’ I shouted, ‘and save me;’ ‘Fear nothing,’ shouted the first man, ‘No one shall injure you.’ Oh how I thanked them. If our Artillery and Dragoons had been let loose, the Mutineers would never have reached Delhi.” The three regiments of rebels at once marched off to Delhi—37 miles, and the Cavalry reached it next day at 8 a.m. The three regiments of Native Infantry at Delhi—38th, 54th, and 74th—received the 3rd Cavalry with open arms, and allowed their officers to be cut or shot down by them without attempting to defend them.
THE SCENES AT DELHI.
In describing the revolting scenes at Delhi, I will quote the words of those who had the misfortune to be there. The officers of all the regiments, viz., 38th, 54th, and 74th, and the Artillery, had the greatest confidence in their men, and at once marched them to attack the Mutineers just arrived from Meerut. But, poor deluded men, they were soon let into the terrible secret; their own men turned their arms upon them and at once shot them, or allowed the Meerut contingent to ride up to them and cut them down, exclaiming, “Feringhee! Ko! Maro, Maro!”—kill the Englishmen; kill, kill. Then the carnage commenced. What a scene! The Mutineers united to exterminate all that they could lay their hands upon, without distinction of age or sex—all that those bloody-thirsty wretches could reach were launched into eternity, for no other crime than that they had a white face. No pen can describe the awful deeds of these cowardly villains. Poor defenceless creatures were cut and hacked to pieces, after being stripped and subjected to brutality ten times worse than death. Poor women were hunted up by these fiends, and, when found, were dragged from their hiding-places and tortured. I will just give a few instances to show how they were treated. After some of these poor creatures had been subjected to worse than death, they were tied to trees in a state of nudity, old and young, their children were then tortured before them, by being cut limb from limb, one joint at a time, and the flesh was crammed down the parents’ throats; wives, and in many cases young maidens, were ravished before the eyes of husbands and fathers; they were then mutilated in a manner too horrible to relate, and burnt to death in one common pile. Others, pretty, very pretty girls, were seized, stripped naked, tied to a cart, and taken into the midst of these brutes to be violated; while many died under the brutal treatment they received. Can the reader wonder, after reading these details—which give only a very faint idea of the horrors that attended this mutiny—that our men retaliated? They would not have been human had they not, at the bare recital of such deeds, been wrought up to a state bordering on madness. British soldiers could not stand this. They crossed their bayonets and swore to give no quarter, but that they would have a life for every hair that had been dishonoured by these scoundrels! And they kept their word.
The public will never know a hundredth part of the sufferings of our poor fellow-countrywomen in that hellish Mutiny of 1857-8. The narratives of those who escaped the fiendish rage and brutality and lust that characterised the proceedings of the Mutineers during that black month of May, 1857, are enough to make one’s blood curdle in the veins—
On horror’s head horrors accumulate.
I am most happy, however, to be able to record that there were a few Natives who, in the midst of those scenes of blood, proved to the world that they still retained feelings of humanity, and who nobly stood forward to defend the defenceless (although of the same creed and caste as the bloodthirsty villains by whom those horrors were perpetrated), and some of them proved faithful to the last, even unto death. The escape of many of the fugitives was miraculous, and one can trace the hand of Providence working through it all. In some few instances they managed to cut their way through their would-be murderers with a good sword and a strong arm. In one case, a gentleman, when he found that all was lost, and that there was no mercy to be expected from the hands of those whom he had previously commanded, compelled his syce (groom), with a revolver at his head, to put his horses into his carriage, in which he immediately placed his wife and family. Armed to the teeth, he drove off along the road to Kurnaul. He had not gone far when he was summoned by a small party of the Mutineers to stop, but, handing the reins to his poor wife, he shot three of them dead and pushed on. Finding, however, that he was pursued, he at once placed his children at the bottom of the carriage, and prepared to sell his life, and the lives of those near and dear to him, dearly. Being well armed, as fast as his would-be murderers came near him he shot them dead. His wife was wounded by a shot from one of the villains, but he still kept on his way—it was life or death. One of his boys kept loading for his father, and thus this gentleman managed to bring down upwards of fifteen of his pursuers in about 12 minutes. He then thought that, as they had dropped to the rear, all might go well; so he easied his horses a little and stopped to look at his poor wife, when to his horror he found that she had been shot dead, with her babe at her breast—one ball had launched them both into eternity. In twenty miles he was six times stopped after that, but on each occasion he responded to the call by rolling his assailants over. He lived to help to storm Delhi, and there revenge his poor wife and child.