Sketch-Map to illustrate Brigadier-General Havelock’s Military Operations during July and August 1857.
The numbers on the route are miles.
An incident occurred about this time which is worth recording. By some mistake a bugler sounded the “officers’ call” in rear of the 78th. The officers of the regiment immediately assembled near the general—who was standing close by—imagining that he wished to see them. On finding out the mistake, General Havelock addressed them as follows:—“Gentlemen, I am glad of having this opportunity of saying a few words to you which you may repeat to your men. I am now upwards of sixty years old; I have been forty years in the service: I have been engaged in action about seven-and-twenty times; but in the whole of my career I have never seen any regiment behave better, nay more, I have never seen any one behave so well, as the 78th Highlanders this day. I am proud of you, and if ever I have the good luck to be made a major-general, the first thing I shall do, will be to go to the Duke of Cambridge and request that when my turn arrives for the colonelcy of a regiment, I may have the 78th Highlanders. And this, gentlemen, you hear from a man who is not in the habit of saying more than he means. I am not a Highlander, but I wish I was one.”
The wounded were now gathered together and cared for, and the tired troops lay down for the night, when a crash that shook the earth woke them; Nana Sahib had blown up the great Cawnpoor magazine and abandoned the place.
The next morning a few troops were sent into the town, which was found to be entirely evacuated. The sight presented by the house of murder, and the well into which were thrown the mangled bodies of upwards of 200 women and children as yet scarcely cold, can never be effaced from the memories of those who witnessed it, and who, though fresh from the horrors of the battle-field, shuddered and wept at the revolting scene.
Mausoleum over the Well at Cawnpoor.
On the morning of the 17th, the force was joined by the camp and baggage, and encamped on the Cawnpoor parade-ground (where the 78th was last encamped in the year 1799), and on the 18th moved round to the western side of Cawnpoor, where General Havelock issued a stirring general order, his words burning with horror and righteous indignation at what had taken place at Cawnpoor. “Your comrades at Lucknow are in peril,” the order said, “Agra is besieged, Delhi still the focus of mutiny and rebellion.... Highlanders! it was my earnest desire to afford you the opportunity of showing how your predecessors conquered at Maida. You have not degenerated. Assaye was not won by a more silent, compact, and resolute charge than was the village near Jansenvoor on the 16th instant.”
On the 20th of July, Brigadier General Neill arrived from Allahabad with 270 men. Thus reinforced, Havelock began to cross the Ganges; and on the 25th, with his band of 1500, commenced his first march to relieve Lucknow, leaving General Neill to command at Cawnpoor. Though the season was that of the monsoon, and the country in a deluge, the troops took the field without tentage of any kind, getting such shelter as could be afforded by the deserted and ruined hamlets.
The strength of the 78th was 16 officers and 293 men, being the grenadiers, Nos. 3, 6, and light companies.