The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

Windham was a soldier of a fine, if not of the highest type, a man of immense energy and of cool daring which, if it always saw the peril, scorned to turn aside on account of it. His sobriquet was “Redan” Windham, and no one who has read the story of how, on September 8, 1855, he led the British stormers through the embrasures of the Redan can doubt that Windham’s courage was of a lion-like quality. He was the first of the stormers of the Second Division to cross the great ditch in front of the Redan, and the first to clamber through an embrasure. When his men—young soldiers belonging to half-a-dozen separate regiments—hung back under the great ramparts of the Redan, Windham thrice ran forward alone with his brandished sword into the centre of the work, calling on the men to follow. He has told the story of how, again and again, he went back to his men, patted them on the back, and begged them to follow him.

Five times he sent to the rear for reinforcements, and it shows the coolness of the man in the hell of that great fight that, determined at last to go himself in search of additional troops, he first turned to an officer standing near and asked his name. Then he said to him, “I have sent five times for support, now bear witness that I am not in a funk”—at which the officer smiled—“but I will now go back myself and see what I can do.”

He went back, but before he could bring up new troops, the men still clinging to the Redan gave way, and the attack failed. Windham’s judgment was challenged, but he was as brave as his own sword. He no doubt had his limitations as an officer. Russell, a perfectly good critic, says that he “seemed always to have something to do in addition to something that he had done already.” There was a certain note of hurry in his character, that is, which does not add to the efficiency of a leader. His failing as an officer, Russell adds, was “reckless gallantry and dash”—grave faults, no doubt, in a general, but faults which are not without their compensations in a mere leader of fighting men. This was the man whom Campbell chose to keep the bridge at Cawnpore while he made his dash for the relief of Lucknow.

Windham’s force consisted of 500 men, made up of convalescent artillerymen, some sailors, and four companies of the 64th. Some earthworks had been thrown up to guard the bridge-head, but, in a military sense, the position was scarcely defensible. Windham’s orders were to forward with the utmost speed to Campbell all reinforcements as they came up; to keep a vigilant watch on the Gwalior contingent, and hold the bridge to his last man and the last cartridge.

Windham sent on the reinforcements for a time, loyally, but as the Gwalior contingent—which had now been joined by Nana Sahib and all his forces—began to press more menacingly upon him, he strengthened himself by holding the troops as they came up; until, at the moment when the fight commenced, he had a force of some 1700 men. On November 19, the Gwalior contingent and their allies were distributed in a semicircle round Cawnpore—the nearest body being fifteen miles distant, the main body some twenty-five miles off.

Windham, always disposed to attack rather than wait to be attacked, first formed a plan for leaping on these hostile forces in detail. He could move from the interior of the circle; they were scattered round a segment of its circumference. Windham left 300 men to hold the bridge-head, and, with the main body of his force, took a position outside the town, in readiness for his dash. Two divisions of the enemy were about fifteen miles to the north, on either side of a canal running parallel to the Ganges. Windham proposed to place 1200 men in boats on the canal at nightfall, quietly steal up through the darkness, and in the morning leap on the enemy on either bank in turn and destroy them, then fall swiftly back on his base.

It was a pretty plan, but Tantia Topee had his military ideas too. He thrust forward the Gwalior contingent along the road from the west, and on November 25 their leading division crossed the Pando River only three miles from Windham’s camp outside Cawnpore. Windham promptly swung round to his left, marched fiercely out—1200 men with eight guns against 20,000 with twenty-five guns—and fell impetuously on the head of the enemy’s nearest column. He crumpled it up with the energy of his stroke, and drove it, a confused mass, in retreat, leaving three guns in Windham’s hands.

But from a ridge of high ground Windham was able to see the real strength of the enemy. He had crushed its leading division of 3000 men, but behind them was the main body of 17,000 men with twenty guns moving steadily forward. Windham’s killed and wounded already amounted to nearly 100 men, and he had no choice but to fall back. His scanty little battery of six light guns, with undrilled gunners, could not endure the fire of the heavy artillery opposed to them.

Windham, with characteristic tenacity, would not abandon the city and fall back on his entrenchments. He took a position on open ground outside the town, across what was called the Calpee road—the road, that is, running to the north—and waited the development of the enemy’s plans. In the town were enormous stores—the supplies for Campbell’s force, with Windham’s own baggage. He ought, no doubt, to have sent all these back to the entrenchments, and he admitted afterwards that he had blundered in not doing so; and the blunder cost the British force dearly.

The morning of the 27th dawned, and Windham stood to arms. He could get no information as to the enemy’s movements. He had no cavalry, and his spies crept back to him horribly mutilated. He could only wait for Tantia Topee’s stroke. That general proved throughout the day that he had a good soldierly head, and could frame a clever and daring plan of battle.