[502] This portrait is copied, by the permission of John Clark Marshman, Esq., and the Messrs Longman, from that in Marshman’s Memoirs of Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, K.C.B.
[503] Captain Hunt, 78th Highlanders, “Persian Campaign.” We may remark that Captain Hunt’s conduct of the Ahwaz force was very highly praised. Sir James Outram says in his despatch to Sir Henry Somerset, “Great praise is also due to Captain Hunt, 78th Highlanders, who so successfully carried out the military operations,” and Sir Henry acknowledges this by alluding to Captain Hunt, “whose excellent disposition of his small force I have remarked with much satisfaction.” Captain Hunt also received the thanks of the Governor-General in Council. This very promising officer unfortunately fell a victim to cholera during the Mutiny, and thus, at an early age, terminated a career which must have done honour to himself and reflected credit upon his regiment.—C. M.
[504] “Of the 78th Highlanders Havelock had formed a very high estimate, and in his confidential report of that corps, made before leaving Persia, a copy of which was found among his papers, he had said:—‘There is a fine spirit in the ranks of this regiment. I am given to understand that it behaved remarkably well in the affair at Kooshab, near Busheer, which took place before I reached the army; and during the naval action on the Euphrates, and its landing here, its steadiness, zeal, and activity, under my own observation, were conspicuous. The men have been subjected in this service to a good deal of exposure, to extremes of climate, and have had heavy work to execute with their entrenching tools, in constructing redoubts and making roads. They have been, while I have had the opportunity of watching them, most cheerful; and have never seemed to regret or complain of anything but that they had no further chance of meeting the enemy. I am convinced the regiment would be second to none in the service if its high military qualities were drawn forth. It is proud of its colours, its tartan, and its former achievements.’”—Marshman’s Memoirs of Havelock.
[505] This account of the part taken by the regiment in the suppression of the Indian mutiny is compiled mainly from the admirable narrative contained in the Regimental Record Book.
[506] The garrison at Cawnpoor, under the command of Sir Hugh Wheeler, was induced to surrender, after a most heroic defence of three weeks, on promise of a safe conduct to Allahabad, and on condition that the force should march out under arms, with 60 rounds of ammunition to every man; that carriages should be provided for the conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the children; and that boats, victualled with a sufficiency of flour, should be in readiness, at the Suttee Chowra Ghât, or landing-place (on the Ganges), which lay about a mile from the British entrenchment. On the morning of the 27th of June 1857 the garrison, numbering, with women and children, nearly 800, was marched down to the landing-place; but before the embarkation was completed, a fire of grape and musketry was opened upon the boats, and a fearful massacre took place. Only 125 women and children were spared from that day’s massacre, and reserved for the more awful butchery of the 15th of July. Upwards of a hundred persons got away in a boat, but only four made good their escape, as within three days the boat was captured by the mutineers and taken back to Cawnpoor, where the sixty male occupants were shot, the women and children being put into custody with the 125 already mentioned.
Our illustration is from a photograph, and shows the Fisherman’s Temple. For full details of the Cawnpoor massacres, we may refer our readers to the volume entitled Cawnpore, by G. O. Trevelyan.
[507] See portrait on the steel plate of the [Colonels of the 78th and 79th Regiments.]
[508] “A General, and, at the time of his death, the oldest officer in the British army. He served with high distinction and without cessation from 1779 to 1814. He became a General (full) in 1837. So marked was his daring and personal valour, that he was known among his companions in arms as ‘Fighting Jack.’ General Mackenzie married Lilias, youngest daughter of Alexander Chisholm of Chisholm, and died 14th June 1860, aged 96.”—Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage. When the 78th Highlanders were received in Inverness with the utmost enthusiasm, on their return from the Indian Mutiny, General Mackenzie, verging on 100 years, appeared on his balcony to bid them welcome, and was warmly cheered by the successors of those he had so often led to victory.—C. M.