The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

Windham expected to be assailed on his left flank. But at ten o’clock the roar of cannon broke out on his right and on his front. A strong rebel force moving on the Calpee road from the north struck heavily on Windham’s front, while a yet stronger force coming in from the east threw itself on his right flank. It was in the main an artillery attack, and the rebel fire was of overwhelming fury. At the front, the 88th (the Connaught Rangers) and the Rifles, with a battery of four guns, held their own valiantly. Some companies of the 82nd and the 34th held the right flank, and here, too, the fight was gallantly sustained. Two battles, in brief, were in progress at the same moment, and at each of the assailed points the British numbered scarcely 600 bayonets, with two or three guns, while at each point the artillery fire of the enemy was of terrific severity.

For nearly five hours the tumult and passion of the battle raged. At the front the British ammunition began, at last, to fail, the native drivers deserted, and Windham found it necessary to withdraw two companies from his right flank to strengthen his front. At that moment he discovered that Tantia Topee—who up to this stage had maintained the fight chiefly with his artillery, and had with great skill gathered a heavy mass of infantry on the left flank of the British—was developing a third attack at that point. He thrust his infantry, that is, past Windham’s left, and tried to seize the town, so as to cut off the fighting front of the British from the bridge.

Two companies of the 64th were brought up from the scanty garrison at the bridge-head to check this dangerous movement; and then Windham found that the enemy had broken in on his right flank, and were in possession of the lower portions of the town!

Windham was out-generalled, and had no choice but to fall back on his entrenchments, and he had to do this through narrow streets and broken ground while attacked in front and on both flanks by a victorious enemy ten times stronger than himself in bayonets, and more than ten times stronger in artillery. Adye says that the retreat to the entrenchments “was made in perfect order, and not a man was lost in the operation”; but on this subject there is the wildest conflict of evidence. Moore, the chaplain of Windham’s force, says “the men got quite out of hand, and fled pell-mell for the fort. An old Sikh officer at the gate tried to stop them and to form them up in some order, and when they pushed him aside and brushed past him he lifted up his hands and said, ‘You are not the brothers of the men who beat the Khalsa army and conquered the Punjab!’” Mr. Moore goes on to say that “the old Sikh followed the flying men through the fort gate, and, patting some of them on the back, said, ‘Don’t run, don’t be afraid; there is nothing to hurt you.’” If there was disorder the excuse is that the men were, for the most part, young soldiers without regimental cohesion—they were mere fragments of half-a-dozen regiments—they had been for five hours under an overwhelming artillery fire, and were exhausted with want of food: and a retreat under such conditions, and through a hostile city, might well have taxed the steadiness of the best troops in the world. As a matter of fact, the men of the 64th, the 34th, and the 82nd held together with the steadiness of veterans, and their slow and stubborn retreat, their fierce volleys and occasional dashes with the bayonets, quite cooled the ardour of the mutineers as they followed the retreating British.

At one point, indeed, on the right flank of the British there was a clear case of misconduct, and the culprit was an officer. His name in all the published reports is concealed under the charity of asterisks. Campbell, in his despatch, says:—“Lieut.-Colonel * * * misconducted himself on the 26th and 27th November in a manner which has rarely been seen amongst the officers of Her Majesty’s service; his conduct was pusillanimous and imbecile to the last degree, and he actually gave orders for the retreat of his own regiment, and a portion of another, in the very face of the orders of his General, and when the troops were not seriously pressed by the enemy.”

Every man who wears a red coat and a pair of epaulettes is not necessarily a hero, and human courage, at best, is a somewhat unstable element. This particular officer had risen to high rank and seen much service, but some failure of nerve, some sudden clouding of brain, in the stress of that desperate fight, made him play—if only for a moment—the part both of an imbecile and a coward, and surrender a position which was essential to the British defence. He was court-martialled after the fight and dismissed the service.

Windham’s retreat involved the sacrifice of all the military stores in the town, a great supply of ammunition, the mess plate, and the paymaster’s chests and baggage of four Queen’s regiments, &c. Some 500 tents, as one item alone, were turned into a huge bonfire that night by the exultant rebels. But, though Windham had fallen back to the entrenchments at the bridge-head, he was as ready for fight as ever. He held a council of his officers that night and proposed to sally out under cover of darkness and fall on the enemy, a proposal which at least proves the unquenchable quality of his courage.

This plan was not adopted, but, it being discovered that a gun had been overturned and abandoned in the streets of the city, Windham sent out 100 men of the 64th, with a few sailors, to bring that gun in. It was a feat of singular daring, carried out with singular success, and this is how the story of it is told by an officer who took part in the adventure:—

We marched off under the guidance of a native, who said he would take us to the spot where the gun lay. We told him he should be well rewarded if he brought us to the gun, but if he brought us into a trap we had a soldier by him “at full cock” ready to blow his brains out. We passed our outside pickets, and entered the town through very narrow streets without a single Sepoy being seen, or a shot fired on either side. We crept along. Not a soul spoke a word. All was still as death; and after marching this way into the very heart of the town our guide brought us to the very spot where the gun was capsized. The soldiers were posted on each side, and then we went to work. Not a man spoke above his breath, and each stone was laid down quietly. When we thought we had cleared enough I ordered the men to put their shoulders to the wheel and gun, and when all was ready and every man had his pound before him I said “Heave!” and up she righted. We then limbered up, called the soldiers to follow, and we marched into the entrenchment with our gun without a shot being fired.