But this treacherous murderer of women and children soon began to find out his mistake. He had a mere handful of men in front of him, but even these he could not subdue. He moved about Cawnpore in great pomp, having now under his command a strong force of disloyal troops that had been well drilled by us, and often led on to victory.[16] And these poor deluded creatures believed that our ray (or reign) in India was over, and all that they had to do was to destroy us, root and branch, and “all the yellow-faced, narrow-minded people would be sent to hell.” But the heroic defence that Gen. Wheeler was making in an old open intrenchment, exposed to a burning sun in June, nearly drove this black-hearted coward mad. This little band of heroes held out until the 26th of June, repulsing with great slaughter all attempts to defeat them by force of arms, when, having nothing to eat or drink, Gen. Wheeler accepted the Nana’s terms of peace, and laid down his arms, having received a faithful promise that not a hair of their heads should be touched, but that the General and his officers, all his men, the women and children, should be sent on to Allahabad in boats, and they were all taken down to the boats, but here a crime was committed that stands unparalleled in the annals of Indian history. The party arrived at the water’s edge, and embarked in large country boats, each sufficient to carry forty or fifty people. Then a wholesale butchery commenced. As they put off, masked guns opened upon them with grape, canister, shot and shell, together with volley after volley of musketry. Some of the boats took fire, and many of the women jumped into the water, in order to avoid being burnt to death; then the Sowars (Cavalry soldiers) waded in and cut the poor things down! There were fifteen boat loads, consisting mostly of helpless wounded men, women, and children. About 115 women and children escaped this massacre, to be tortured for a few days more, and then to receive treatment worse than death.
THE MASSACRES.
The few men who escaped, including General Wheeler, were dragged ashore and thrown into prison Some of the women could not, and would not, be separated from their husbands, exclaiming “If my husband is to die, I will die with him.” That fiend Nana ordered his soldiers to separate them, but it could not be done except by killing them. The minister or chaplain requested permission of Nana to pray with them. It was granted; his bonds were partially loosened, and, as soon as he had ended, the whole were shot down, those who gave signs of any life remaining being cut and hacked to pieces with swords. After this the women and children were taken to Nana Sahib’s house, which was afterwards the scene of a fearful massacre. They were kept here until the defeat of Nana Sahib’s troops by the army under Sir Henry Havelock, and subsequent investigation revealed the horrible fact that, immediately upon the result of the action becoming known to Nana Sahib, the whole of the women and children detained by him, with such other Europeans as could be found secreted within the city, and several Bengalese residents who had become obnoxious to the Mohammedans by their connection with the Europeans, were put to death under circumstances of revolting barbarity. The courtyard of the building in which the women and children had been confined appeared to have been the principal scene of slaughter; and, when entered by our men, it was covered, to the height of two inches, with blood, and with the tattered remains of female apparel. The walls, too, were covered with splashes of blood, and on one of the pillars the victims of the fell deed had written in letters of blood—“Avenge us, fellow-countrymen.” But there was no need for this exhortation. Our men were already fully aroused, and were determined to exact the utmost vengeance. Of upwards of 200 innocent and helpless women and children that had been confined in the Subada Kothee, not one remained alive at the close of that day!
THE WELL AT CAWNPORE.
A GREAT COMPANY OF CHRISTIAN PEOPLE,
The following description of the scene which met the horrified gaze of our soldiers, when they entered the city, I take the liberty of transcribing:—“Accustomed as those stern men had been to scenes of blood and the devastating ravages of war, the sack of towns, and the carnage of the battle-field, the spectacle that now met their gaze unmanned the strongest in the ranks. Before them lay a paved court, strewn with the wrecks of women’s clothing and children’s dresses, torn and cut into ragged and bloody fragments, as if hacked from the persons of the living wearers! Gory and dishevelled tresses of human hair lay trampled among the blood that had yet scarcely congealed upon the pavement! Exclamations of horror subsided into deathlike stillness, as the men rushed across that slippery court into the building before them. Traces of brutal violence, of savage and ferocious murder, told in each apartment the fearful history of the preceding night; but not one living being was there to disclose the awful secret yet to be revealed, or indicate the spot in which the survivors (if any there were) of an evident massacre had taken refuge. At length the fearful truth was realised; a huge well in the rear of the building had been used by the murderers as a fitting receptacle in which to hide their martyred victims from human eyes; and here, yet reeking with blood, stripped of clothing, dishonoured, mutilated, and massacred, lay the bodies of 208 females and children of all ages—the dying and the dead festering together in that hideous well! There lay the hapless mother and her innocent babe; the young wife and the aged matron; girlhood in its teens, and infancy in its helplessness—all—all had fallen beneath the dishonoured tulwars of the Mahratta destroyer, and his fierce and cowardly accomplices in crime. Upon the walls and pillars of the rooms in which this astounding act of pitiless barbarity had been perpetrated were the marks of bullets, and of cuts made by sword-strokes—not high up as if men had fought with men, but low down, and about the corners, where the poor crouching victims had been cut to pieces! On those walls, in some places nearly obliterated by the blood that yet clung congealed in all directions, were discovered short scraps of pencil-writing, and scratches upon the plaster. In one apartment was a row of women’s shoes and boots, with bleeding amputated feet in them! On the opposite side of the room, the devilish ingenuity of the mocking fiends was shown in a row of children’s shoes, filled in a similar way!”
One deed of heroism that has been recorded deserves mention here. A daughter of General Wheeler’s was taken off by a sowar and put into his house along with his wife, near the church. This girl remained till nightfall; and when he came home drunk and fell asleep, she took a sword and cut off his head, his mother’s head, two children’s heads, and his wife’s head, and then walked out into the air; and when she saw other sowars, she said, ‘Go inside and see how nicely I have rubbed the rissaldar’s feet.’ They went inside, and found them all dead. She then jumped into a well and was killed.
THE RE-CAPTURE OF DELHI.