A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year Part 61

1857

[Sidenote: Chinese war ships sank]

[Sidenote: a.s.sault on Fatshan]

The reverses of the Persians brought the Shah to terms. A treaty of peace was presently concluded in which all claim to Herat was abandoned by Persia. Early in the year the British expedition in China resumed hostilities. Commodore Elliot with five gunboats and a host of small boats destroyed a fleet of forty armed junks. Next an attack was delivered on the Chinese headquarters at Fatshan. A flotilla of English small boats cut their way through the long line of war junks, and a landing party under Commodore Harry Keppel attacked the main position. The Commodore's boat was sunk and several others had to be abandoned. A number of the Chinese junks were burned. Keppel's force was found too small to capture Fatshan. Sir Michael Seymour decided to postpone further hostilities until the arrival of the promised reinforcements that were to come after Lord Elgin. When these troops failed to arrive in good time, Lord Elgin went to Calcutta himself to hasten their despatch. There he found affairs of far more serious import than those in China.

[Sidenote: Murmurs in India]

[Sidenote: The greased cartridges]

Some time previously rumors had been circulated concerning a danger to British rule in India. Mysterious little cakes were circulated far and wide. Lord Canning, the new Governor-General, was blamed for not taking alarm. A dangerous story got abroad early in the year. The Enfield rifle had been introduced. Its cartridges were greased with animal lubricants.

The fat of pigs was hateful to Mohammedans, while that of cows was still more of an abomination in the eyes of the Hindus. At Barrackpore, near Calcutta, where Sepoys were stationed, a Laskar reviled a Brahmin as defiled by the British cartridges. The whole of the Bengal army was seized with horror. The British authorities claimed that none of the greased cartridges had been issued to the Sepoys. The story of the greased cartridges ran up the Ganges to Benares, Delhi and Meerut. It was soon noised abroad that the bones of cows and pigs had been ground to powder and thrown into wells with flour and b.u.t.ter in order to destroy the caste of the Hindus so as to convert them to Christianity.

[Sidenote: Hindu soldiers demur]

In March, incendiary fires broke out at Barrackpore. The Sepoys from the Nineteenth Regiment refused to receive the cartridges dealt out to them.

There was only one white regiment in the 400 miles between Barrackpore and Patna. After remonstrances had been made by the English officers, the Sepoys returned, but there still remained disaffection at Benares, Lucknow, Agra and other places. When it was believed that the excitement was allayed another outbreak occurred at Lucknow. Lawrence's energetic measures maintained order in Oude. The mutiny was only scattered, however. Within a week Meerut, thirty-eight miles northeast of Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India, was in a blaze. The story of the greased cartridges had been capped by that of the bone dust. Some eighty-five of a regiment of Sepoy cavalry refused to take the cartridges and were marched off to the guard-house. During the afternoon of the following Sunday, when the European officers were preparing for church, the imprisoned Sepoys were liberated with others. They shot down every European they met.

[Sidenote: The Indian mutiny]

The mutiny became a revolt. The rebellious Sepoys marched on Delhi. When the rebel troops came up from Meerut the English officers prepared to meet them. Their Sepoys joined the mutineers. The revolt spread throughout Delhi. In despair, Willoughby blew up the fort with 1,500 rebels who were a.s.saulting it. Only four of his command escaped. Willoughby himself died six weeks afterward, while India and Europe were ringing with his name.

Fifty Englishmen whom the rebels had captured were butchered in cold blood.

Delhi on Monday evening was in rebel hands. The remaining officers on the Ridge fled for their lives. Their subsequent suffering was one of the harrowing features of the great convulsion. The revolution at Delhi opened Lord Canning's eyes. He telegraphed for regiments from Bombay, Burma, Madras and Ceylon.

[Sidenote: Lah.o.r.e mutineers foiled]

On May 11, the news of the outbreak at Meerut was brought to the authorities at Lah.o.r.e. Meean Meer is a large military cantonment five or six miles from Lah.o.r.e, and there were then some four thousand native troops there, with only about thirteen hundred Europeans of the Queen's and the Company's service. There was no time to be lost. A parade was ordered on the morrow at Meean Meer. On the parade-ground an order was given for a military movement which brought the heads of four columns of the native troops in front of twelve guns charged with grape, the artillerymen with their port-fires lighted, and the soldiers of one of the Queen's regiments standing behind with loaded muskets. A command was given to the Sepoys to stack arms. Cowed, they piled their arms, which were borne away at once in carts by the European soldiers. All chances of a rebellious movement were over for the moment in the Punjab.

[Sidenote: Situation at Lucknow]

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of Jhansi]

At three stations--Lucknow, Jhansi and Cawnpore--the mutiny was of political importance. The city of Lucknow, the capital of Oude, extended four miles along the right bank of the river Goomti. The British Residency and other princ.i.p.al buildings were between the city and the river. The Residency was a walled inclosure, and near it stood a castellated structure, the Muchi Bowun. Since the affair of May 3, Sir Henry Lawrence had been making preparations for a defence in case of insurrection. The native force consisted of three regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, all Sepoys, and there was a European force of 570 men with sixty artillerymen. Lawrence brought all the European non-combatants within the Residency walls, and established a strong post between the Residency and the Muchi Bowun to command the two bridges which led to the cantonments.

The outbreak began on May 30, when the insurgents rushed to the bridges, and, being repulsed by Lawrence, made off to Delhi. At Jhansi, the garrison of fifty-five men was butchered in cold blood.

[Sidenote: Defence of Cawnpore]

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of Cawnpore]

[Sidenote: Englishwomen spared]

At Cawnpore, on the Ganges, fifty-five miles southwest of Lucknow, the tragedy was even more terrible. Cawnpore had been in the possession of the English for more than fifty years. In May, sixty-one artillerymen and four Sepoy regiments were there. Sir Hugh Wheeler, the commandant, prepared for the coming storm. He took some old barracks and there quartered the white women, children and invalids. He accepted from the Nana, who professed great friendship, 200 Mahrattas and two guns. On the night of June 4, the Sepoy regiment at Cawnpore broke out in mutiny. The Nana overtook them on the road to Delhi and soon returned with them to Cawnpore. Sir Hugh was taken by surprise on the morning of the 6th, when he received a message from the Nana, announcing that his men were about to attack the Englishmen.

Sir Hugh prepared for the defence of the barracks. The mutineers first rifled the city and cantonment, and murdered all the English who came in their way. At noon they opened fire on the intrenchments. From the 6th to the 25th of June, the inmates struggled against fearful odds. Though starving, they resisted successfully. On June 25, Wheeler received a proposal that safe pa.s.sage would be given to Allahabad to those who were willing to lay down their arms. An armistice was proclaimed, and next morning terms were negotiated. The English were to capitulate and march out with their arms and sixty rounds of ammunition for each man, to the river a mile away, where boats would be furnished for all. The next morning they marched down to the boats--the men on foot, the wounded and non-combatants on elephants and bullocks. They were all huddled together on board the boats. Suddenly, at the sound of a bugle, a murderous fire was opened on them. The women and children, one hundred and twenty-five in number, were hurried off to prison, and the men were ordered to immediate execution. All was soon over. Nana was proclaimed Peishwa. English reinforcements were coming from Allahabad. Nana hastened back to Cawnpore.

There, within a few days, more than two hundred English were taken prisoners. The men were all butchered, and eighty women and children were sent to join those in a house near the Nana. Great excitement prevailed in England, where it was believed that these women were subjected to all manner of outrage and made to long for death as an escape from shame. As a matter of fact the royal widows of the Nana's adoptive father did their utmost to protect the captive Englishwomen. They threatened to throw themselves and their children from the palace windows should any harm befall the English ladies. Thanks to them no worse indignity than the compulsory grinding of corn was inflicted on the white women. Meanwhile, Colonel Mill was pushing up from Calcutta. In July, he was joined at Allahabad by a column under General Havelock.

[Sidenote: Havelock to the relief]

[Sidenote: Englishwomen slaughtered]

[Sidenote: Capture of Cawnpore]

In July, Havelock left Allahabad for Cawnpore with 2,000 men, Europeans and Sikhs. He burned to avenge the ma.s.sacre of Cawnpore. On the 12th and 15th of July he inflicted three defeats on the enemy. When within twenty miles of Cawnpore, having halted for the night, he heard that the women and children at Cawnpore were still alive, and that the Nana had taken the field to oppose him. He broke camp and marched fifteen miles that night. In the meantime, the crowning atrocity was committed at Cawnpore. The defeated rebels had returned to the Nana. On receiving the tidings of their repulse, he ordered the slaughter of the 200 women and children. They were hacked to death with swords, bayonets, knives and axes. Their remains were thrown into a well. At 2 p.m. Havelock toiled on with a thousand Europeans and three hundred Sikhs, and without cavalry and artillery, to meet the 5,000 rebels. Failing to silence the enemy's batteries, Havelock ordered a bayonet charge. Nana Sahib with his followers took flight. He was never heard from again. The next morning Havelock marched into the station at Cawnpore, and there found the well filled with mangled human remains. On July 20, having been reinforced by General Neill, whom he left in charge at Cawnpore, Havelock set out for the relief of Lucknow.

[Sidenote: The defence of Lucknow]

[Sidenote: Havelock captures Bethan]

The entire province of Oude was in a state of insurrection. The English had been closely besieged in Lucknow since the last day of May. The garrison had held out for two months against fifty thousand Hindus. On July 4, Sir Henry Lawrence was killed by a sh.e.l.l which burst in his room. Two weeks later, the rebels, learning of the advance of Havelock to Cawnpore, attacked the Residency with overwhelming force, but the garrison at last compelled them to retire. By the middle of August, Havelock advanced toward Bethan with 1,500 men. He met the enemy in force, and overcame him with a bayonet charge. The Mahratta palace was burned. This ended Havelock's first campaign against Lucknow. Without cavalry for the pursuit of the enemy, he fell back to Cawnpore.

During the months which followed the outbreak at Delhi, all political interest was centred in that ancient capital of Hindustan. Its recapture was vital to the re-establishment of British sovereignty. In the absence of railways the British were slow to cope with the situation. Every European soldier sent for the relief of Delhi from Calcutta was stopped en route. On June 8, a month after the affair at Delhi, Sir Henry Barnard took the field at Alipano, ten miles away. He defeated the mutineers, and then marched to the Ridge and reoccupied the old cantonment, which had been abandoned.

[Sidenote: Defence of Delhi]

[Sidenote: Delhi recaptured]

On June 23, the enemy made a desperate a.s.sault, and not long afterward repeated the attempt. Reinforcements came from the Punjab. The British now had 8,000 men. With their fifty-four guns they could sh.e.l.l the besiegers.

At last, at 3 a.m. on September 14, three columns were formed for a sortie, with one in reserve. They rushed through the broken walls, and the first and second columns met at the Kabul Gate. Six days of desperate fighting followed. On September 20, the gates of the old fortified palace were broken open, but the inmates had fled. Thus fell the imperial city. The British army lost 4,000 men, among them Brigadier-General Nicholson, who led the storming party. The great mutiny at Delhi was stamped out, and the British flag waved over the capital of Hindustan. This was the turning point of the Sepoy mutiny.

[Sidenote: British vengeance]

[Sidenote: Delhi princes murdered]

The capture of Delhi was followed by acts of barbarous retribution. Hindu prisoners were shot from the mouths of cannon. Hodson, of "Hodson's Horse,"

a young officer who had once been cashiered for high-handed conduct in India, offered to General Wilson to capture the king and the royal family of Delhi. General Wilson gave him authority to make the attempt, but stipulated that the life of the king should be spared. By the help of native spies Hodson discovered that when Delhi was taken the king and his family had taken refuge in the tomb of the Emperor Hoomayoon. Hodson went boldly to this place with a few of his troopers. He found that the royal family of Delhi were surrounded there by a vast crowd of armed adherents.

He called upon them all to lay down their arms at once. They threw down their arms, and the king surrendered himself to Hodson. Next day the three royal princes of Delhi were captured. Hodson borrowed a carbine from one of his troopers and shot the three princes dead. Their corpses, half naked, were exposed for some days at one of the gates of Delhi. Hodson committed the deed deliberately. Several days before, he wrote to a friend to say that if he got into the palace of Delhi, "the House of Timour will not be worth five minutes' purchase, I ween." On the day after the deed he wrote: "In twenty-four hours I disposed of the princ.i.p.al members of the House of Timour the Tartar. I am not cruel; but I confess that I do rejoice in the opportunity of ridding the earth of these ruffians."

[Sidenote: The Princess of Jhansi]

[Sidenote: An Amazon's death]

The mutineers had seized Gwalior, the capital of the Maharajah Scindia, who escaped to Agra. The English had to attack the rebels, retake Gwalior and restore Scindia. One of those who fought to the last on the mutineers' side was the Ranee, or Princess of Jhansi, whose territory had been one of the British annexations. She had flung all her energies into the rebellion. She took the field with Nana Sahib and Tantia Topi. For months after the fall of Delhi she contrived to baffle Sir Hugh Rose and the English. She led squadrons in the field. She fought with her own hand. She was foremost in the battle for the possession of Gwalior. In the garb of a horseman she led charge after charge, and she was killed among those who resisted to the last. Her body was found upon the field, scarred with wounds enough to have done credit to any hero. Sir Hugh Rose paid her a well-deserved tribute when he wrote: "The best man upon the side of the enemy was the woman found dead, the Ranee of Jhansi."

[Sidenote: Relief of Lucknow]

Lucknow was still beleaguered. Late in September, Havelock had prepared for a second attempt to relieve that place. Sir Colin Campbell had reached Calcutta as Commander-in-Chief. Sir James Outram had come to Allahabad on September 16. He joined Havelock with 1,400 men. With generous chivalry the "Bayard of India" waived his rank in honor of Havelock. "To you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow," he wrote. "I shall accompany you, placing my military service at your disposal, as a volunteer." On September 20, Havelock crossed the Granges into Oude with 2,500 men. Having twice defeated the enemy, on September 25 he cut his way through the streets of Lucknow. Late in the day he entered the British cantonments. The defence of the Residency at Lucknow was a glorious episode in British annals. It has been sung in immortal strains by Alfred Tennyson. The fort.i.tude of the garrison was surpa.s.sed only by the self-sacrificing conduct of the women who nursed the wounded and cared for all. They received the thanks of Queen Victoria for their heroic devotion. For four months the garrison had watched for the succor which came at last. The surrounding city remained for two months longer in rebel hands. In November, Sir Colin Campbell with 2,000 men took charge of the intrenchments at Cawnpore, and then advanced against Lucknow with 5,000 men and thirty guns. He defeated the enemy and carried away the beleaguered garrison with all the women and children.

[Sidenote: Cawnpore rises again]

[Sidenote: Death of Havelock]

Still the British were unable to disperse the rebels and reoccupy the city.

Sir Colin Campbell left Outram with 4,000 men near Lucknow. He himself returned to Cawnpore. On approaching that city he heard the roll of a distant cannonade. Tantia Topi had come again to the front. He had persuaded the Gwalior contingent to break out in mutiny and march against Cawnpore. General Windham resisted his advance. The whole city was in the hands of the rebel Sepoys, but the bridge of boats over the Ganges was saved to the British. Sir Colin Campbell marched over it, and in safety reached the intrenchment in which Windham was shut up. He routed the Gwalior rebels and drove them out of Cawnpore. General Havelock the day after he left Lucknow succ.u.mbed to dysentery. Throughout the British Empire there was universal sorrow that will never be forgotten so long as men recall the memory of the mutinies of Fifty-seven. Havelock's victories had aroused the drooping spirits of the British nation.

[Sidenote: Aftermath of the Mutiny]

[Sidenote: Rose's brilliant campaign]