The Tale of the Great Mutiny

by W. H. Fitchett

On the morning of the 28th, Windham, still bent on “aggressive defence,” sallied out to fight the enemy in the open—or rather on either flank. On the left front the Rifles and the 82nd, under Walpole, thrashed the enemy in a most satisfactory manner, capturing two 18-pounders. On the right, the 64th and the 34th, under Carthew, fought for hours with desperate courage. General Wilson, in particular, led two companies of the 64th in a very audacious attempt to capture a battery of the enemy. Wilson himself was killed, and two officers of the 64th—Stirling and McCrae—were each cut down in the act of spiking one of the enemy’s guns, and the attempt, though gallant as anything recorded in the history of war, failed.

When evening came the British had fallen back to their entrenchments, upon which a heavy fire, both of artillery and small arms, was poured. The enemy was in complete possession of the town, and, planting some guns on the bank of the river, tried to destroy the bridge. “The dust of no succouring columns,” says Alison, “could be seen rising from the plains of Oude, and the sullen plunge of round shot into the river by the bridge showed by how frail a link they were bound to the opposite bank, whence only aid could arrive.”

Suddenly at this dramatic moment Campbell himself—who had pushed ahead of his column—made his appearance with his staff on the scene. Says Alison:—

The clatter of a few horsemen was suddenly heard passing over the bridge and ascending at a rapid pace the road which leads to the fort. As they came close under the ramparts, an old man with grey hair was seen to be riding at their head. One of the soldiers recognised the commander-in-chief; the news spread like wildfire: the men, crowding upon the parapet, sent forth cheer after cheer. The enemy, surprised at the commotion, for a few moments ceased their fire. The old man rode in through the gate. All felt then that the crisis was over—that the Residency saved, would not now be balanced by Cawnpore lost.

A characteristic incident marked Campbell’s arrival. A guard of the 82nd held a hastily constructed tête de pont which covered the bridge, and its officer, in answer to Campbell’s inquiry as to how matters stood, replied with undiplomatic bluntness that “the garrison was at its last gasp.” At this announcement the too irascible Sir Colin simply exploded. “He flew at the wretched man,” says Lord Roberts, “as he was sometimes apt to do when greatly put out, rating him soundly, and asking him ‘how he dared to say of Her Majesty’s troops that they were at the last gasp!’” This, in Campbell’s ears, was mere egregious and incredible treason!

With the arrival of Campbell and his convoy, and the splendid little fighting force he commanded, the story of what happened at Cawnpore becomes very pleasant reading. On the morning of the 30th, the further bank of the Ganges was white with the tents and black with the masses of Campbell’s force. With what wrath Campbell’s soldiers looked across the river and saw all their baggage ascending, in the shape of clouds of black smoke, to the sky may be guessed, but not described. Many wrathful camp expletives, no doubt, followed the upward curling smoke!

Peel’s heavy guns were swung round, and opened in fierce duel with the enemy’s battery firing on the bridge. One of the first shots fired from one of Peel’s 24-pounders struck the gun which Nana Sahib had at last got to bear upon the bridge, and dismounted it. An 8-inch shell next dropped amongst a crowd of his troops, and they quickly fell back. Then the British troops commenced to file across the river, still under the fire of the enemy. The enemy’s advance batteries were quickly driven back, and the great convoy began to creep over the bridge.

For thirty-six hours the long procession of sick and wounded, of women and children, of guns and baggage crept across the swaying bridge. On the night of the 29th, the mutineers tried to interrupt the process by sending down fire-rafts upon the bridge. Tried earlier, the scheme might have succeeded, or tried even then with greater skill and daring, it might have had some chance of success; as it was, it failed ignobly, and the endless stream of non-combatants was brought over the river into safety. Campbell, for all his fire of courage—and it may be added of temper—had an ample measure of Scottish coolness, and he kept quietly within his lines for five days till his helpless convoy had been despatched under escort to Allahabad, and was beyond reach of hostile attack. Then, with his force in perfect fighting form, he addressed himself to the task of crushing the enemy opposed to him.

His own force, steadily fed by reinforcements, by this time numbered 5000 infantry, 600 sailors, and 35 guns; that of the enemy amounted to something like 25,000 men with 40 guns. Nana Sahib, with his mass of somewhat irregular troops, occupied the left wing between the city and the river; the Gwalior contingent, still formidable in numbers and military efficiency, occupied the town as a centre, and formed the enemy’s right wing, thrust out into the plain towards the canal. It was a very strong position. The enemy’s left, perched on high wooded hills, was covered with nullahs and scattered buildings. An attack on their centre could only be made through the narrow and crooked streets of the city, and was therefore almost impossible. But their right lay open to Campbell’s stroke, and if turned it would be thrust off the Calpee road, its only line of retreat.

Campbell’s strategy was simple, yet skilful. Alison, indeed, says, somewhat absurdly, that it will “bear comparison with any of the masterpieces of Napoleon or Wellington.” Kaye, too, says that the plan of this battle “establishes the right of Sir Colin Campbell to be regarded as a great commander.” Whether these somewhat high-flown eulogiums are justifiable may perhaps be doubted; but Campbell’s plan certainly succeeded. Campbell, in brief, fixed the attention of the enemy on their left wing—the one he did not mean to attack—by opening on it on the morning of the 6th with the roar of artillery. He paralysed the centre with a feigned infantry assault, under Greathed. Then by a swift and unexpected attack he shattered the enemy’s right wing, at once smiting it in front and turning its flank.