SIR HENRY EVELYN WOOD

It may render my narrative of the final assault more readily

comprehensible if I begin by saying that, the Malakoff being now

considered the key of the Russian position, it was determined that all

other attacks should be considered subsidiary to that which was to be

directed against it.

General Bosquet had command of all the French troops employed on the

right of the English attack. MacMahon's division was to assault the

Malakoff itself, having De Wimpffen's brigade with Camou's division in

reserve, and with it two battalions of Zouaves of the Guard. On

MacMahon's right La Motterouge's division, composed of the brigades of

Bourbaki and Picard, was to attack the curtain. It was supported by four

regiments, two of grenadiers and two of Voltigeurs of the Guard. Still

farther north was Dulac's division, supported by Marolle's brigade of

Camou's division and one battalion of Chasseurs of the Guard. These were

to attack the Little Redan. Pélissier himself took up his position in

the Mamelon, and to avoid giving warning to the enemy by any system of a

general signal, the watches of the staff and the generals were carefully

compared in order that the assault might be begun at twelve o'clock.

This hour was chosen by Pélissier in consequence of his having

ascertained that the troops on duty in the Russian trenches were

relieved at that hour, and owing to the works being cramped from the

number of traverses and blindages erected to cover their garrisons from

fire, it had become the habit for the old guard of the works to march

out before the relief marched in, and it was thus anticipated that at

twelve o'clock the works would be nearly empty. This surmise proved to

be accurate.

The French had taken great trouble to screen the concentration of their

troops from the sight of the enemy. Each division had a separate access

to the advanced trenches in which the storming parties were to assemble.

In places where the parapets, having sunk, might have disclosed to the

view of the enemy the troops moving into position, they had been

carefully raised. Cuts had been made through parapets to admit of the

supports moving forward in bodies, and to allow field-artillery

batteries, which were stationed at the Victoria redoubt and the old

Lancaster battery, to pass through to the front. These apertures had

been filled up with gabions, and carefully concealed, so that their

position remained unknown to the enemy.

General Herbillon, still encamped on the Tchernaya, was directed to

cause his force (less Camou's division called up to support La

Motterouge, and Dulac) to stand to arms at twelve o'clock, and his

command was reenforced by a brigade of cuirassiers under General De

Forton. The morning was dull and gloomy, with a cold wind which drove

clouds of dust into the air. A little before twelve o'clock all the

French storming parties were crouching ready for the order.

Bosquet himself was in the sixth parallel; MacMahon, surrounded by his

staff, was standing in the front trench with his watch in his hand. No

one spoke in this group, in which the calm faces showed no sign of the

excitement visible in the zouaves on either side of them, who, though

silent, were trembling with impatience. Close at hand there was a

corporal holding a little tricolor. Two minutes before twelve o'clock

the word was passed in an undertone, "Ready," and as the hands indicated

it was twelve o'clock, on a command from MacMahon a shout arose of

"_Vive l'Empereur_!" bugles and drums sounded the charge, and the

zouaves dashed straight at the Malakoff.

MacMahon allowed two sections to pass him, and then, followed by his

staff, climbed over the parapet, following the advanced guard. It placed

one ladder, by which the General descended into the ditch, and was, it

is said, the first up the escarp of the work. A friend of mine described

to me how he watched the tricolor on the parapet being carried slowly

along, thus indicating exactly how our allies in the body of the work

were gaining ground. The zouaves who crossed the ditch on the proper

left of the Malakoff had some difficulty in climbing up, from the height

and steepness of the escarp.

MacMahon's leading brigade crossed the short intervening space without a

shot being fired. The enemy's working parties and gunners who were

repairing damages fought bravely with picks, shovels, and hand-spikes,

but were eventually driven back. The very few Russians in the salient

were completely surprised, so much so that some of the superior officers

were found at dinner in an underground chamber of the Malakoff, and the

French without difficulty obtained absolute possession of the south end

of the work. Although the enclosure covered an area of about four

hundred yards by one hundred fifty, there was but very little open space

within it, for behind the remnants of the stone tower were rows of

traverses stretching from side to side of the work. Behind these the

Russians took post as they came up from their bombproof shelters. Every

separate parapet was fought for, hand to hand, and it was not till

Vinoy's brigade, which, entering by the Gervais battery, got behind the

traverses, turning out the regiment Grand Duke Michel, that the enemy

was finally driven from this part of the work.

The leading brigades of Motterouge's and Dulac's divisions, headed by

their chiefs, seized the curtain and the Little Redan, the latter

falling first, as St. Pol's brigade was nearer to it than Bourbaki's

brigade was to the curtain. Once inside these works from which the

Russians were easily driven, the French pressed on to the intrenchment

then being built across the rear. General PÉLISSIER now gave General

Simpson the signal to attack the Redan. At the same time the French

attacked the Malakoff, and there the fate of Sebastopol was really

decided.

The possession of this fort was strongly contested, the Russians

bringing up field-batteries; the French were also fired on heavily by

three steamers, which, circling round, fired broadsides into them, and

batteries sent shells from the north side of the harbor into the French

support. Eventually after a prolonged struggle, in which the French

captured four field-guns, St. Pol's brigade was beaten back, losing its

brigadier, and with him fell the chief staff officer of the division and

two colonels. The Russians followed up closely, and Bisson's brigade,

which for want of space in the trenches had been stationed in the

Careenage Ravine, was too far behind to afford effective aid. Bourbaki's

right being thus uncovered, he also was driven back, although supported

by Motterouge's other brigade.

After Bourbaki and St. Pol had been repulsed, the Voltigeurs and

Grenadiers of the Guard and Marolle's brigade were sent against the

curtain and Redan respectively. These they carried, but were once more

expelled from the Little Redan, Marolle and De Pontevès falling dead at

the head of their brigades, and Mellinet, Bisson, and Bourbaki being

wounded. The French still held the curtain, and Bosquet now ordered up

the two field-batteries then standing behind the Victoria redoubt. They

descended the ridge at the trot, unlimbered in front of the sixth

parallel, and, coming into action, fired with great effect on the

Russian infantry, which offered a broad target. Yet the batteries

suffered terribly; the commanding officer (Souty) was killed, and out of

the one hundred fifty men he brought down, only fifty-five returned when

the guns were dragged back by hand because they lost all their horses

except nineteen.

Bosquet, surrounded by several Russian officers, who were prisoners, and

their guards, was interrogating the captives when a shell burst over

them, killing or wounding both them and the guard--the General only

escaping. Later, when leaning on the parapet watching the progress of

the fight, he was struck in the face by a fragment of a shell. He had

just strength to send word to General Dulac to take his place, when he

fainted.

The struggle in and around the Malakoff was continued till three

o'clock, when Gortschakoff withdrew his troops from the work which they

had defended with such marvellous endurance for eleven months. The prize

was now won, but at heavy cost.

MacMahon's division, which assaulted with forty-five hundred bayonets

and two hundred officers, lost in killed and wounded just half its

strength.

Soon after the Russians had been driven from the salient of the

Malakoff, the French troops occupying it were fired on from the lower

part of the old masonry tower, which was loopholed, and inside which

five officers and sixty Russian soldiers had taken refuge. It was

impossible to dislodge them, as the only entrance was strongly blocked

on the inside. After a time some gabions were collected, and having been

placed in position close to the loopholes, were lighted, but before the

defenders could be smoked out, a mortar fired against the door blew it

away, and the Russians surrendered. The gabions burning fiercely, the

officers became alarmed lest the fire should be communicated to some of

the surrounding magazines, and an attempt was made to extinguish the

blazing fragments. As this was difficult, sappers were set to work to

dig a trench and throw the excavated earth on the fire. While the men

were digging, four wires, communicating with mines, were found and cut.

While the Russian officers were surrendering, a desperate struggle was

carried on at the far end of the Malakoff enclosure, the Russians coming

over the parapets in three heavy columns. Khrouleff, the "fighting

general," being wounded, had been replaced by General Martinau. The

combatants fought hand to hand till, Martinau, losing an arm, and his

men being out of ammunition, Gortschakoff ordered them to give up the

struggle and fall back.

Between three and four o'clock a magazine blew up near the point where

the curtain joined the Malakoff, and the division at once ran back to

the French advanced trenches. This occurred at a moment when General La

Motterouge was wounded, but his men were rallied and got back into

position ere the smoke and dust of the explosion cleared away. The flag

of the Ninety-first Regiment was buried so deep that it was not found

till next day, when it was recovered still grasped tightly in the hands

of the lifeless officer who was carrying it when the explosion took

place.

When the Russians withdrew, General MacMahon, contemplating the

possibility of further explosions from undiscovered mines, in order to

minimize possible loss of life, sent back the brigade under Colonel

Decaen, whom he ordered to hold himself in readiness, and, if Vinoy's

brigade should be blown into the air, to come forward immediately and

replace it. Then, turning to General Vinoy, MacMahon observed, "It is

possible, General, that your brigade will be blown up, but Decaen will

replace you immediately, so we shall still hold our position." MacMahon

himself remained in the Malakoff with Vinoy's brigade.

During the afternoon it was reported to General Pélissier that large

numbers of Russian troops were crossing by the floating bridge to the

north side of the harbor, but the allies did not yet feel confident that

the end had quite come. About midnight one of the maritime forts was

blown up, and explosions continued at intervals throughout the night,

fires bursting out wherever any inflammable substance remained.

At 3 A.M. on the 9th Corporal Ross, Royal Engineers, who was employed in

the advanced sap, being struck by the unusual silence within the Redan,

crept across the ditch, and, climbing over the parapet, found that the

enemy had evacuated the work.

At daylight all the Russian fleet except the Vladimir had disappeared

under water, and the last of this heroic garrison was seen forming up on

the north side of the floating bridge, which was then cut, leaving on

the southern side two hundred or three hundred men, who had remained

behind, setting fire to the houses. This was the last of the active

operations. Gortschakoff withdrew his troops, and, placing the cavalry

on the Belbeck, extended the infantry along the Mackenzie Farm heights

position, which he proceeded to fortify.

The allies were now in possession of the bloodstained ruins of

Sebastopol, and the last of the Black Sea fleet was at the bottom of the

harbor. Perhaps it was well that peace ensued. Although we might have

dislodged the Russians from their position on the heights, it would have

been difficult to obtain any further material advantage in the Crimea.

(1857) THE INDIAN MUTINY, J. Talboys Wheeler

From the time when Warren Hastings, the first English Governor-General

of India, was sent to rule there (1774), the British power in that

country grew steadily, and many annexations were made to the territory

under its control. There were frequent wars with the French, England's

rivals in India, and with the natives in different Provinces that one

after another were absorbed into the British possessions. The first

serious menace against this growing power appeared in a native movement,

the culmination of which is known as the Indian or Sepoy Mutiny.

The causes of this rising are traced to distrust and hatred of the

British rulers--feelings that caused a ferment among the Hindus and

Mahometans of India, who suspected a design for suppressing their

religions. The natives also became alarmed at the introduction of

Western ideas and improvements--new methods of education, the

steam-engine, the telegraph, etc.--portending to the Indian peoples the

substitution of a foreign civilization for their own. The truth is that

in attempting to abolish suttee and other ancient native customs, and to

introduce more enlightened practices, the British Government was acting

in the interest of general humanity.

The immediate provocation of the great mutiny among the sepoys or native

troops in the British East-Indian service is well shown, and the entire

story of the revolt is equally well told, by Mr. Wheeler. This author,

while a secretary to the Government of India in the latter part of the

nineteenth century, enjoyed peculiar advantages for study and research.

These advantages he turned to account by writing an authoritative and

interesting history of the land of his official residence.

Early in the year 1857, it is said, there were rumors of a coming danger

to British rule in India. In some parts of the country _chupatties_, or

cakes, were circulated in a mysterious manner from village to village.

[Footnote: The form of the cake conveyed information that an

insurrection was in preparation--an old custom--understood by the

natives.--ED.] Prophecies were also rife that in 1857 the East India

Company's _raj_ [rule] would come to an end. Lord Canning has been

blamed for not taking alarm at these proceedings; but something of the

kind always had been going on in India. Cakes of cocoanuts are given

away in solemn fashion; and as the villagers were afraid to keep them or

eat them, the circulation went on to the end of the chapter. Then,

again, holy men and prophets have always been common in India. They

foretell pestilence and famine: the downfall of British rule, or the

destruction of the whole world. They are often supposed to be endowed

with supernatural powers and to be impervious to bullets; but these

phenomena invariably disappear whenever they come in contact with

Europeans, especially as all such characters are liable to be treated as

vagrants without visible means of subsistence.

One dangerous story, however, got abroad in the early part of 1857,

which ought to have been stopped at once, and for which the military

authorities were wholly and solely to blame. The Enfield rifle was being

introduced; it required new cartridges, which in England were greased

with the fat of beef or pork. The military authorities in India, with

strange indifference to the prejudices of sepoys, ordered the cartridges

to be prepared at Calcutta in like manner; forgetting that the fat of

pigs was hateful to the Mahometans, while the fat of cows was still more

horrible in the eyes of the Hindus.

The excitement began at Barrackpur, sixteen miles from Calcutta. At this

station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the

regimental officers. One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar,

asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The

Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that

the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been

greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth.

Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in preparing the new cartridges,

and the man was possibly one of them. The taunt created a wild panic at

Barrackpur. Strange to say, however, none of the new cartridges had been

issued to the sepoys; and had this been promptly explained to the men,

and the sepoys left to grease their own cartridges, the alarm might have

died out. But the explanation was delayed until the whole of the Bengal

army was smitten with the groundless fear; and then, when it was too

late, the authorities protested too much, and the terror-stricken sepoys

refused to believe them.

The sepoys had proved themselves brave under fire, and loyal to their

salt in sharp extremities; but they are the most credulous and excitable

soldiery in the world. They regarded steam and electricity as so much

magic; and they fully believed that the British Government was binding

India with chains, when it was only laying down railway lines and

telegraph wires. The Enfield rifle was a new mystery; and the busy

brains of the sepoys were soon at work to divine the motive of the

English in greasing cartridges with cow's fat. They had always taken to

themselves the sole credit of having conquered India for the company;

and they now imagined that the English wanted them to conquer Persia and

China. Accordingly, they suspected that Lord Canning was going to make

them as strong as Europeans by destroying caste, forcing them to become

Christians, and making them eat beef and drink beer.

The story of the greased cartridges, with all its absurd embellishments,

ran up the Ganges and Jumna to Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, and the

great cantonment at Meerut; while another current of lies ran back again

from Meerut to Barrackpur. It was noised abroad that the bones of cows

and pigs had been ground into powder, and thrown into wells and mingled

with flour and butter, in order to destroy the caste of the masses and

convert them to Christianity.

For a brief interval it was hoped that the disaffection was suppressed.

Excitement manifested itself in various ways at different stations

throughout the length of Hindustan and the Punjab--at Benares, Lucknow,

Agra, Ambala, and Sealkote. In some stations there were incendiary

fires; in others the sepoys were wanting in their usual respect to their

European officers. But it was believed that the storm was spending

itself, and that the dark clouds were passing away.

Suddenly on May 3d there was an explosion at Lucknow. A regiment of Oudh

Irregular Infantry, previously in the service of the Mogul, broke out in

mutiny and began to threaten their European officers. Sir Henry

Lawrence, the new Chief Commissioner, had a European regiment at his

disposal, namely the Thirty-second Foot. That same evening he ordered

out the regiment, and a battery of eight guns manned by Europeans,

together with four sepoy regiments, three of infantry and one of

cavalry. With this force he proceeded to the lines of the mutineers,

about seven miles off. The Oudh Irregulars were taken by surprise; they

saw infantry and cavalry on either side, and the European guns in front.

They were ordered to lay down their arms, and they obeyed. At this

moment the artillery lighted their port fires. The mutineers were seized

with a panic, and rushed away in the darkness; but the leaders and most

of their followers were pursued and arrested by the native infantry and

cavalry, and confined pending trial. Subsequently it transpired that the

native regiments sympathized with the mutineers, and would have shown it

but for their dread of Sir Henry Lawrence and the Europeans. The

energetic action of Lawrence sufficed to maintain order for another

month in Oudh. Meanwhile the Thirty-fourth Native Infantry was disbanded

at Barrackpur, and again it was hoped that the disaffection was stayed.

The demon of mutiny was only scotched. Within a week of the outbreak at

Lucknow, the great military station of Meerut was in a blaze. Meerut was

only forty miles from Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India. There

were three regiments of sepoys, two of infantry and one of cavalry; but

there were enough Europeans to scatter four times the number; namely, a

battalion of the Sixtieth Rifles, a regiment of Dragoon Guards known as

the "Carabineers," two troops of horse-artillery, and a light

field-battery.

In spite of the presence of Europeans there were more indications of

excitement at Meerut than at any other station in the northwest. At

Meerut the story of the greased cartridges had been capped by the story

of the bonedust; and there were the same kind of incendiary fires, the

same lack of respect toward European officers, and the same whispered

resolve not to touch the cartridges, as at Barrackpur. The station was

commanded by General Hewitt, whose advancing years unfitted him to cope

with the storm which was bursting upon Hindustan.

The regiment of sepoy cavalry at Meerut was strongly suspected of

disaffection; accordingly it was resolved to put the men to the test. On

May 6th it was paraded in the presence of the European force, and

cartridges were served out; not the greased abominations from Calcutta,

but the old ones which had been used times innumerable by the sepoys and

their fathers.

But the men were terrified and obstinate, and eighty-five stood out and

refused to take the cartridges. The offenders were at once arrested, and

tried by a court-martial of native officers; they were found guilty, and

sentenced to various periods of imprisonment, but recommended for mercy.

General Hewitt saw no grounds for mercy, excepting in the case of eleven

young troopers; and on Saturday, May 9th, the sentences were carried

out. The men were brought on parade, stripped of their uniforms, and

loaded with irons. They implored the General for mercy, and, finding it

hopeless, began to reproach their comrades; but no one dared to strike a

blow in the presence of loaded cannon and rifles. At last the prisoners

were carried off and placed in a jail, not under European soldiers, but

a native guard.

The military authorities at Meerut seem to have been under a spell. The

next day was Sunday, May 10th, and the hot sun rose with its usual glare

in the Indian sky. The European barracks were at a considerable distance

from the native lines, and the intervening space was covered with shops

and houses surrounded by trees and gardens. Consequently the Europeans

in the barracks knew nothing of what was going on in the native quarter.

Meanwhile there were commotions in the sepoy lines and neighboring

bazaars. The sepoys were taunted by the loose women of the place with

permitting their comrades to be imprisoned and fettered. At the same

time they were smitten with a mad fear that the European soldiers were

to be let loose upon them. The Europeans at Meerut saw and heard

nothing.

Nothing was noted on that Sunday morning except the absence of native

servants from many of the houses, and that was supposed to be

accidental. Morning service was followed by the midday heats, and at

five o'clock in the afternoon the Europeans were again preparing for

church. Suddenly there was an alarm of fire, followed by a volley of

musketry, discordant yells, the clattering of cavalry, and the bugle

sounding an alarm. The sepoys had worked themselves up to a frenzy of

excitement; the prisoners were released with a host of jailbirds; the

native infantry joined the native cavalry, and the colonel of one of the

regiments was shot by the sepoys of the other. Inspired by a wild fear

and fury, the sepoys ran about murdering or wounding every European they

met, and setting houses on fire, amid deafening shouts and uproar.

Meanwhile there were fatal delays in turning out the Europeans. The

Rifles were paraded for church, and time was lost in getting arms and

serving out ball cartridges. The Carabineers were absurdly put through a

roll-call, and then lost their way among the shops and gardens.

Meanwhile European officers were being butchered by the infuriated

sepoys. Men and women were fired at or sabred while hurrying back in a

panic from church. Flaming houses and crashing timbers were filling all

hearts with terror, and the shades of evening were falling upon the

general havoc and turmoil, when the Europeans reached the native lines

and found that the sepoys had gone, no one knew whither.

The truth was soon told. The mutiny had become a revolt; the sepoys were

on the way to Delhi to proclaim the old Mogul as sovereign of Hindustan;

and there was no Gillespie to gallop after them and crush the revolt at

its outset, as had been done at Vellore half a century before. One

thing, however, was done. There were no European regiments at Delhi;

nothing but three regiments of sepoy infantry and a battery of native

artillery. The station was commanded by Brigadier Graves; and there were

no Europeans under his orders excepting the officers and sergeants

attached to the three native corps. Accordingly telegrams were sent to

Brigadier Graves to tell him that the mutineers were on their way to

Delhi.

Monday at Delhi was worse than the Sunday at Meerut. The British

cantonment was situated on a rising ground about two miles from the

city, which was known as the "Ridge." The great magazine, containing

immense stores of ammunition, was situated in the heart of the city. One

of the three sepoy regiments was on duty in the city; the other two

remained in the cantonment on the Ridge.

The approach to Delhi from Meerut was defended by the little river

Hindun, which was spanned by a small bridge. It was proposed to procure

two cannon from the magazine and place them on the bridge; but before

this could be done the rebel cavalry from Meerut were seen crossing the

river, and were subsequently followed by the rebel infantry. The

magazine remained in charge of Lieutenant Willoughby of the Bengal

Artillery. He was associated with two other officers and six conductors

and sergeants; the rest of the establishment was composed entirely of

natives.

Brigadier Graves did his best to protect the city and cantonment until

the arrival of the expected Europeans from Meerut. Indeed, throughout

the morning and greater part of the afternoon everyone in Delhi was

expecting the arrival of the Europeans. Brigadier Graves ordered all the

non-military residents, including women and children, to repair to

Flagstaff Tower--a round building of solid brickwork at some distance

from the city. Late detachments of sepoys were sent from the Ridge to

the Cashmere gate, under the command of their European officers, to help

the sepoys on duty to maintain order in the city.

Presently the rebel troops from Meerut came up, accompanied by the

insurgent rabble of Delhi. The English officers prepared to charge them,

and gave the order to fire, but some of the sepoys refused to obey or

only fired into the air. The English officers held on, expecting the

European soldiers from Meerut. The sepoys hesitated to join the rebels,

out of dread of the coming Europeans. At last the Delhi sepoys threw in

their lot with the rebels and shot down their own officers. The revolt

spread throughout the whole city; and the suspense of the English on the

Ridge and at Flagstaff Tower began to give way to the agony of despair.

Suddenly, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a column of white smoke

arose from the city, and an explosion was heard far and wide. Willoughby

and his eight associates had held out to the last, waiting and hoping

for the coming of the Europeans. They had closed and barricaded the

gates of the magazine; and they had posted six-pounders at the gates,

loaded with double charges of grape, and laid a train to the

powder-magazine. Messengers came in the name of Bahadur Shah to demand

the surrender of the magazine, but no answer was returned. The enemy

approached and raised ladders against the walls; while the native

establishment escaped over some sheds and joined the rebels. At this

crisis the guns opened fire. Round after round of grape made fearful

havoc on the mass of humanity that was heaving and surging round the

gates. At last the ammunition was exhausted. No one could leave the guns

to bring up more shot. The mutineers were pouring in on all sides.

Lieutenant Willoughby gave the signal. Conductor Scully fired the train;

and with one tremendous upheaval the magazine was blown into the air,

together with fifteen hundred rebels. Not one of the gallant nine had

expected to escape. Willoughby and three others got away, scorched,

maimed, bruised, and nearly insensible; but Scully and his comrades were

never seen again. Willoughby died of his injuries six weeks afterward,

while India and Europe were ringing with his name.

Still more terrible and treacherous were the tragedies enacted at

Cawnpore, a city situated on the Ganges about fifty-five miles to the

southwest of Lucknow. Cawnpore had been in the possession of the English

ever since the beginning of the century, and for many years was one of

the most important military stations in India; but the extension of the

British Empire over the Punjab had diminished the importance of

Cawnpore; and the last European regiment quartered there had been

removed to the northwest at the close of the previous year.

In May, 1857, there were four native regiments at Cawnpore, numbering

thirty-five hundred sepoys. There were no Europeans whatever, excepting

the regimental officers and sixty-one artillerymen. To these were added

small detachments of European soldiers, which had been sent in the hour

of peril from Lucknow and Benares during the month of May.

The station of Cawnpore was commanded by Sir Hugh Wheeler, a

distinguished general in the company's service, who was verging on his

seventieth year. He had spent fifty-four years in India, and had served

only with native troops. He must have known the sepoys better than any

other European in India. He had led them against their own countrymen

under Lord Lake; against foreigners during the Afghan War, and against

Sikhs during both campaigns in the Punjab.

The news of the revolt at Meerut threw the sepoys into a ferment at

every military station in Hindustan. Rumors of mutiny or coming mutiny

formed almost the only topic of conversation; yet in nearly every sepoy

regiment the European officers put faith in their men, and fondly

believed that, though the rest of the army might revolt, yet their own

corps would prove faithful.

Such was eminently the case at Cawnpore, yet General Wheeler seems to

have known better. While the European officers continued to sleep every

night in the sepoy lines, the veteran made his preparations for meeting

the coming storm.

European combatants were very few at Cawnpore, but European

_impedimenta_ were very heavy. Besides the wives and families of the

regimental officers of the sepoy regiments, there was a large European

mercantile community. Moreover, while the Thirty-second Foot was

quartered at Lucknow, the wives, families, and invalids of the regiment

were living at Cawnpore. It was thus necessary to secure a place of

refuge for this miscellaneous multitude of Europeans in the event of a

rising of the sepoys. Accordingly General Wheeler pitched upon some old

barracks which had once belonged to a European regiment; and he ordered

earthworks to be thrown up, and supplies of all kinds to be stored, in

order to stand a siege. Unfortunately there was fatal neglect somewhere;

for when the crisis came the defences were found to be worthless, while

the supplies were insufficient for the besieged.

All this while the adopted son of the former _peshwa_ [Footnote: Formerly

a chief of the Mahrattas.--Ed.] was living at Bithoor, about six miles

from Cawnpore. His real name was Dandhu Panth, but he is better known as

Nana Sahib. The British Government had refused to award him the absurd

life pension of eighty thousand pounds sterling, which had been granted

to his nominal father; but he had inherited at least half a million from

the ex-peshwa; and he was allowed to keep six guns, to entertain as many

followers as he pleased, and to live in half royal state in a

castellated palace at Bithoor. He continued to nurse his grievance with

all the pertinacity of a Mahratta; but at the same time he professed a

great love for European society, and was profuse in his hospitalities to

English officers. He was popularly known as the Raja of Bithoor.

When the news arrived of the revolt at Meerut on May 10th, Nana was loud

in his professions of attachment to the English. He engaged to organize

fifteen hundred fighting men to act against the sepoys in the event of

an outbreak. On May 21st there was an alarm. European women and

families, with all European non-combatants, were removed into the

barracks, and General Wheeler actually accepted from Nana the help of

two hundred Mahrattas and two guns to guard the treasury. The alarm,

however, soon blew over, and Nana took up his abode at the civil station

of Cawnpore, as a proof of the sincerity of his professions.

At last, on the night of June 4th, the sepoy regiments at Cawnpore broke

out in mutiny. They were driven to action by the same mad terror which

had been manifested elsewhere. They cared nothing for the Mogul, nothing

for the pageant King at Delhi; but they had been panic-stricken by

extravagant stories of coming destruction. It was whispered among them

that the parade-ground was undermined with powder, and that Hindus and

Mahometans were to be assembled on a given day and blown into the air.

Intoxicated with fear and _bhang_, they rushed out in the darkness,

yelling, shooting, and burning according to their wont; and when their

excitement was somewhat spent, they marched off toward Delhi.

Sir Hugh Wheeler could do nothing. He might have retreated with the

whole body of Europeans from Cawnpore to Allahabad; but there had been a

mutiny at Allahabad, and, moreover, he had no means of transport.

Subsequently he heard that the mutineers had reached the first stage on

the road to Delhi, and consequently he saw no ground for alarm.

Meanwhile the brain of Nana Sahib had been turned by wild dreams of

vengeance and sovereignty. He thought not only to wreak his malice upon

the English, but to restore the extinct Mahratta Empire, and reign over

Hindustan as the representative of the forgotten peshwas. The stampede

of the sepoys to Delhi was fatal to his mad ambition. He overtook the

mutineers, dazzled them with fables of the treasures in Wheeler's

intrenchment, and brought them back to Cawnpore to carry out his

vindictive and visionary schemes.

At early morning on Saturday, June 6th, General Wheeler received from

Nana a letter announcing that he was about to attack the intrenchment.

The veteran was taken by surprise, but at once ordered all the European

officers to join the party in the barracks and prepare for the defence.

But the mutineers were in no hurry for the advance. They preferred booty

to battle, and turned aside to plunder the cantonment and city,

murdering every Christian that came in their way, not sparing the houses

of their own countrymen. They appropriated all the cannon and ammunition

in the magazine by way of preparation for the siege; but some were wise

enough to desert the rebel army and steal to their homes with their

ill-gotten spoil.

About noon the main body of the mutineers, swelled by the numerous

retainers of Nana, got their guns into position, and opened fire on the

intrenchment. For nineteen days--from June 6th to the 25th--the garrison

struggled manfully against a raking fire and fearful odds, amid scenes

of suffering and bloodshed that cannot be recalled without a shudder.

It was the height of the hot weather in Hindustan. A blazing sun was

burning over the heads of the besieged; and to add to their misery, one

of the barracks containing the sick and wounded was destroyed by fire.

The besiegers, however, in spite of their overwhelming numbers, were

utterly unable to carry the intrenchment by storm, but continued to pour

in a raking fire. Meanwhile the garrison was starving from want of

provisions, and hampered by a multitude of helpless women and children.

Indeed, but for the latter contingency, the gallant band would have

rushed out of the intrenchment and cut a way through the mob of sepoys

or perished in the attempt. As it was, they could only fight on, waiting

for reinforcements that never came, until fever, sunstroke, hunger,

madness, or the enemy's fire delivered them from their suffering and

despair.

On June 25th a woman brought a slip of writing from Nana, promising to

give a safe passage to Allahabad to all who were willing to lay down

their arms. Had there been no women or children, the garrison would

never have dreamed of surrender. The massacre at Patna a century before

had taught a lesson to Englishmen which ought never to have been

forgotten. As it was, there were some who wished to fight on till the

bitter end. But the majority saw that there was no hope for the women or

the children, the sick or the wounded, except by accepting the proffered

terms. Accordingly the pride of Englishmen gave way, and an armistice

was proclaimed.

Next morning the terms were negotiated. The English garrison were to

surrender their position, their guns, and their treasure, but to march

out with their arms, and with sixty rounds of ammunition in the pouch of

every man. Nana Sahib on his part was to afford a safe-conduct to the

river-bank, about a mile off; to provide carriage for the conveyance of

the women and children, the sick and the wounded; and to furnish boats

for carrying the whole party, numbering some four hundred fifty

individuals, down the river Ganges to Allahabad. Nana accepted the

terms, but demanded the evacuation of the intrenchment that very night.

General Wheeler protested against this proviso. Nana began to bully and

to threaten that he would open fire. He was told that he might carry the

intrenchment if he could, but that the English had enough powder left to

blow both armies into the air. Accordingly Nana agreed to wait until the

morrow.

At early morning on June 27th the garrison began to move from the

intrenchment to the place of embarkation. The men marched on foot; the

women and children were carried on elephants and in bullock-carts, while

the wounded were mostly conveyed in palanquins. Forty boats with

thatched roofs, known as _budgerows_, were moored in shallow water at a

little distance from the bank; and the crowd of fugitives were forced to

wade through the river to the boats. By nine o'clock the whole four

hundred fifty were huddled on board, and the boats prepared to leave

Cawnpore.

Suddenly a bugle was sounded, and a murderous fire of grape-shot and

musketry was opened upon the wretched passengers from both sides of the

river. At the same time the thatching of many of the budgerows was found

to be on fire, and the flames began to spread from boat to boat. Numbers

were murdered in the river, but at last the firing ceased. A few escaped

down the river, but only four men survived to tell the story of the

massacre. A mass of fugitives were dragged ashore; the women and

children, to the number of a hundred twenty-five, were carried off and

lodged in a house near the headquarters of Nana. The men were ordered to

immediate execution. One of them had preserved a prayer-book, and was

permitted to read a few sentences of the liturgy to his doomed

companions. Then the fatal order was given; the sepoys poured in a

volley of musketry, and all was over.

On July 1st Nana Sahib went off to his palace at Bithoor and was

proclaimed peshwa. He took his seat upon the throne, and was installed

with all the ceremonies of sovereignty, while the cannon roared out a

salute in his honor. At night the whole place was illuminated, and the

hours of darkness were wiled away with feasting and fireworks. But his

triumph was short-lived. The Mahometans were plotting against him at

Cawnpore. The people were leaving the city to escape the coming storm,

and were taking refuge in the villages. English reënforcements were at

last coming up from Allahabad, while the greedy sepoys were clamoring

for money and gold bangles. Accordingly Nana hastened back to Cawnpore

and scattered wealth with a lavish hand; and sought to hide his fears by

boastful proclamations, and to drown his anxieties in drink and

debauchery.

Within a few days more the number of helpless prisoners was increased to

two hundred. There had been a mutiny at Fathigarh, higher up the river,

and the fugitives had fled in boats to Cawnpore, a distance of eighty

miles. They knew nothing of what had happened, and were all taken

prisoners by the rebels, and brought on shore. The men were all

butchered in the presence of Nana; the women and children, eighty in

number, were sent to join the wretched sufferers in the house near

Nana's headquarters.

Meanwhile Colonel Neill, commanding the Madras Fusiliers, was pushing up

from Calcutta. He was bent on the relief of Cawnpore and Lucknow, but

was delayed on the way by the mutinies at Benares and Allahabad. In July

he was joined at Allahabad by a column under General Havelock, who was

destined within a few weeks to win a lasting name in history.

General Havelock was a Queen's officer of forty years' standing; but he

had seen more service in India than perhaps any other officer in Her

Majesty's Army. He had fought in the first Burma War, the Kabul War, the

Gwalior campaign of 1843, and the Punjab campaign of 1845-1846. He was a

pale, thin, thoughtful man; small in stature, but burning with the

aspirations of a Puritan hero. Religion was the ruling principle of his

life, and military glory was his master passion. He had just returned to

India after commanding a division in the Persian War. Abstemious to a

fault, he was able, in spite of his advancing years, to bear up against

the heat and rain of Hindustan during the deadliest season of the year.

On July 7th General Havelock left Allahabad for Cawnpore. The force at

his disposal did not exceed two thousand men, Europeans and Sikhs. He

had heard of the massacre at Cawnpore on June 27th, and burned to avenge

it. On July 12th he defeated a large force of mutineers and Mahrattas at

Fathipur. On the 15th he inflicted two more defeats on the enemy.

Havelock was now within twenty-two miles of Cawnpore, and he halted his

men to rest for the night. But news arrived that the women and children

were still alive at Cawnpore, and that Nana had taken the field with a

large force to oppose his advance. Accordingly Havelock marched fourteen

miles that same night, and on the following morning, within eight miles

of Cawnpore, the troops bivouacked beneath some trees.

On that same night, July 15th, the crowning atrocity was committed at

Cawnpore. The rebels, who had been defeated by Havelock, returned to

Nana with the tidings of their disaster. In revenge Nana ordered the

slaughter of the two hundred women and children. The poor victims were

literally hacked to death, or almost to death, with swords, bayonets,

knives, and axús. Next morning the bleeding remains of dead and dying

were dragged to a neighboring well and thrown in.

At two o'clock in the afternoon after the massacre the force under

Havelock was again upon the march for Cawnpore. The heat was fearful;

many of the troops were struck down by the sun, and the cries for water

were continuous. But for two miles the column toiled on, and then came

in sight of the enemy. Havelock had only one thousand Europeans and

three hundred Sikhs; he had no cavalry, and his artillery was inferior.

The enemy numbered five thousand men, armed and trained by British

officers, strongly intrenched, with two batteries of guns of heavy

calibre. Havelock's artillery failed to silence the batteries, and he

ordered the Europeans to charge with the bayonet. On they went in the

face of a shower of grape, but the bayonet charge was as irresistible at

Cawnpore as at Assaye. The enemy fought for a while like men in a death

struggle. Nana Sahib was with them, but nothing is known of his

exploits. At last they fled, and there was no cavalry to pursue them.

As yet nothing was known of the butchery of the women and children.

Havelock halted for the night, and next morning marched his force into

the station at Cawnpore. The men beheld the scene of the massacre, and

saw the bleeding remains in the well. But the murderers had vanished, no

one knew whither. Havelock advanced to Bithoor, and destroyed the palace

of the Mahratta. Subsequently he was joined by General Neill, with

reinforcements from Allahabad; and on July 20th he set on for the relief

of Lucknow, leaving Cawnpore in charge of General Neill.

The defence of Lucknow against fifty-two thousand rebels was, next to

the siege of Delhi, the greatest event in the mutiny. The whole Province

of Oudh was in a blaze of insurrection. The _talukdars_ were exasperated

at the hard measure dealt out to them before the appointment of Sir

Henry Lawrence as Chief Commissioner. Disbanded sepoys, returning to

their homes in Oudh, swelled the tide of disaffection. Bandits that had

been suppressed under British administration returned to their old work

of robbery and brigandage. All classes took advantage of the anarchy to

murder the money-lenders. Meanwhile the country was bristling with the

fortresses of the talukdars; and the cultivators, deprived of the

protection of the English, naturally flocked for refuge to the

strongholds of their old masters.

The English, who had been lords of Hindustan ever since the beginning of

the century, had been closely besieged in the residency at Lucknow ever

since the final outbreak of May 30th. For nearly two months the garrison

had held out with a dauntless intrepidity, while confidently waiting for

reinforcements that seemed never to come. "Never surrender" had been

from the first the passionate conviction of Sir Henry Lawrence; and the

massacre at Cawnpore on June 27th impressed every soldier in the

garrison with a like resolution. On July 2d the Muchi Bawen was

abandoned, and the garrison and stores were removed to the residency. On

July 4th Sir Henry Lawrence was killed by the bursting of a shell in a

room where he lay wounded; and his dying counsel to those around him

was, "Never surrender!"

On July 20th the rebel force round Lucknow heard of the advance of

General Havelock to Cawnpore, and attacked the residency in overwhelming

force. They kept up a continual fire of musketry while pounding away

with their heavy guns; but the garrison held their ground against shot

and shell, and before the day was over the dense masses of assailants

were forced to retire from the walls.

Between July 20th and 25th General Havelock began to cross the Ganges

and make his way into Oudh territory; but he was unable to relieve

Lucknow. His small force was weakened by heat and fever and reduced by

cholera and dysentery; while the enemy occupied strong positions on both

flanks. In the middle of August he fell back upon Cawnpore.

During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on May 11th,

all political interest was centred at the ancient capital of the

sovereigns of Hindustan. The public mind was occasionally distracted by

the current of events at Cawnpore and Lucknow, as well as at other

stations which need not be particularized; but so long as Delhi remained

in the hands of the rebels the native princes were bewildered and

alarmed; and its prompt recapture was deemed of vital importance to the

prestige of the British Government and the reestablishment of British

sovereignty in Hindustan. The Great Mogul had been little better than a

mummy for more than half a century; and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and

puppet in the hands of rebel sepoys; nevertheless the British Government

had to deal with the astounding fact that the rebels were fighting under

his name and standard, just as Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the

days of Ahmed Shah Durani and Mahadaji Sindhia. To make matters worse,

the roads to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every

outbreak in Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers to the old

capital of the Moguls.

Meanwhile, in the absence of railways, there were unfortunate delays in

bringing up troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the

head centre. The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up by mutiny

and insurrection; and every European soldier sent up from Calcutta was

stopped for the relief of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lucknow. But

the possession of the Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation

of the empire. Sir John Lawrence, Chief Commissioner in the Punjab, was

called upon for almost superhuman work; to maintain order in a conquered

province; to suppress mutiny and disaffection among the very sepoy

regiments from Bengal that were supposed to garrison the country; and to

send reënforcements of troops and guns, and supplies of all

descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had been only

a few short years under British administration; they had not forgotten

the miseries that prevailed under the native Government, and could

appreciate the many blessings they enjoyed under British rule. They were

stanch to the British Government, and eager to be led against the

rebels. In some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous

Bengal sepoys within the Punjab, but the Imperial interests at stake

were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must regret the

painful necessity that called for such extreme measures.

On June 8th, about a month after the revolt at Delhi, Sir Henry Barnard

took the field at Alipur, about ten miles from the rebel capital. He

defeated an advance division of the enemy, and then marched to the Ridge

and reoccupied the old cantonment which had been abandoned on May 11th.

So far it was clear that the rebels were unable to do anything in the

open field, although they might fight bravely under cover. They numbered

about thirty thousand strong; they had a very powerful artillery and

ample stores of ammunition, while there was an abundance of provisions

within the city throughout the siege.

In the middle of August, Brigadier John Nicholson, one of the most

distinguished officers of the time, came up from the Punjab with a

brigade and siege-train. On September 4th a heavy train of artillery was

brought in from Firozpur. The British force on the Ridge now exceeded

eight thousand men. Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt

to breach the city walls; but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought

into position and the siege began in earnest. From September 8th to 12th

four batteries poured in a constant storm of shot and shell; number one

was directed against the Cashmere bastion, number two against the right

flank of the Cashmere bastion, number three against the Water bastion,

and number four against the Cashmere and Water gates and bastions. On

September 13th the breaches were declared to be practicable, and the

following morning was fixed for the final assault upon the doomed city.

At three o'clock in the morning of September 14th three assaulting

columns were formed in the trenches, while a fourth was kept in reserve.

The first column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier

Jones; the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or reserve, by

Brigadier Longfield.

The powder-bags were laid at the Cashmere gate by Lieutenants Home and

Salkeld. The explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and

pushed toward the Jumna Musjid. Meanwhile the first column under

Nicholson escaladed the breaches near the Cashmere gate, and pushed

along the ramparts toward the Kabul gate, carrying the several bastions

in the way. Here it was met by the second column under Brigadier Jones,

who had escaladed the breach at the Water bastion.

The advancing columns were met by a ceaseless fire from terraced houses,

mosques, and other buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day,

while attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was

struck down by a shot and mortally wounded. Then followed six days of

desperate warfare. No quarter was given to men with arms in their hands;

but women and children were spared, and only a few of the peaceable

inhabitants were sacrificed during the storm.

On September 20th the gates of the old fortified palace of the Moguls

were broken open, but the royal inmates had fled. No one was left but a

few wounded sepoys and fugitive fanatics. The old King, Bahadur Shah,

had gone off to the great mausoleum without the city, known as the tomb

of Humayun. It was a vast quadrangle raised on terraces and enclosed

with walls. It contained towers, buildings, and monumental marbles in

memory of different members of the once distinguished family, as well as

extensive gardens, surrounded with cloistered cells for the

accommodation of pilgrims.

On September 21st Captain Hodson rode to the tomb, arrested the King,

and brought him back to Delhi with other members of the family, and

lodged them in the palace. The next day he went again, with one hundred

horsemen, and arrested two sons of the King in the midst of a crowd of

armed retainers, and brought them away in a native carriage. Near the

city the carriage was surrounded by a tumultuous crowd; and Hodson, who

was afraid of a rescue, shot both princes with his pistol, and placed

their bodies in a public place for all men to see.

Thus fell the imperial city; captured by the army under Brigadier Wilson

before the arrival of any of the reënforcements from England. The losses

were heavy. From the beginning of the siege to the close, the British

army at Delhi had nearly four thousand killed and wounded. The

casualties on the side of the rebels were never estimated. Two bodies of

sepoys broke away from the city and fled down the valleys of the Jumna

and Ganges, followed by two flying columns under Brigadiers Greathed and

Showers. But the great mutiny and revolt at Delhi had been stamped out,

and the flag of England waved triumphantly over the capital of

Hindustan.

The capture of Delhi, in September, 1857, was the turning-point in the

sepoy mutinies. The revolt was crushed beyond redemption; the rebels

were deprived of their head centre; and the Mogul King was a prisoner at

the mercy of the power whom he had defied. But there were still troubles

in India. Lucknow was still beleaguered by a rebel army, and

insurrections still ran riot in Oudh and Rohilkhand.

In the middle of August General Havelock had fallen back on Cawnpore,

after the failure of his first campaign for the relief of Lucknow. Five

weeks afterward Havelock made a second attempt under better auspices.

Sir Colin Campbell had arrived at Calcutta as Commander-in-Chief. Sir

James Outram had come up to Allahabad. On September 16th, while the

British troops were storming the streets of Delhi, Outram joined

Havelock and Neill at Cawnpore with fourteen hundred men. As senior

officer he might have assumed the command; but with generous chivalry

the "Bayard of India" waived his rank in honor of Havelock.

On September 20th General Havelock crossed the Ganges into Oudh at the

head of twenty-five hundred men. The next day he defeated a rebel army

and put it to flight, while four of the enemy's guns were captured by

Outram at the head of a body of volunteer cavalry. On the 23d Havelock

routed a still larger rebel force which was strongly posted at a garden

in the suburbs of Lucknow, known as the "Alumbagh." He then halted to

give his soldiers a day's rest. On the 25th he was cutting his way

through the streets and lanes of the city of Lucknow--running the

gauntlet of a deadly and unremitting fire from the houses en both sides

of the streets, and also from guns which commanded them. On the evening

of the same day he entered the British intrenchments; but in the moment

of victory a chance shot carried off the gallant Neill.

The defence of the British residency at Lucknow is a glorious episode in

the national annals. The fortitude of the beleaguered garrison was the

admiration of the world. The women nursed the wounded and performed

every womanly duty with self-sacrificing heroism; and when the fight was

over they received the well-merited thanks of Her Majesty Queen

Victoria.

During four long months the garrison had known nothing of what was going

on in the outer world. They were aware of the advance and retreat of

Havelock, and that was all. At last, on September 23d, they heard the

booming of the guns at the Alumbagh. On the morning of the 25th they

could see something of the growing excitement in the city; the people

abandoning their houses and flying across the river. Still the guns of

the rebels kept up a heavy cannonade upon the residency, and volleys of

musketry continued to pour upon the besieged from the loopholes of the

besiegers. But soon the firing was heard from the city; the welcome

sounds came nearer and nearer. The excitement of the garrison grew

beyond control. Presently the relieving force was seen fighting its way

toward the residency. Then the pent-up feelings of the garrison burst

forth in deafening cheers; and wounded men in hospital crawled out to

join in the chorus of welcome. Then followed personal greetings as

officers and men came pouring in. Hands were frantically shaken on all

sides. Rough-bearded soldiers took the children from their mothers'

arms, kissed them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and thanked God

that they had come in time to save them from the fate of the sufferers

at Cawnpore.

Thus after a siege of nearly four months Havelock succeeded in relieving

Lucknow. But it was a reenforcement rather than a relief, and was

confined to the British residency. The siege was not raised; and the

city of Lucknow remained two months longer in the hands of the rebels.

Sir James Outram assumed the command, but was compelled to keep on the

defensive. Meanwhile reinforcements were arriving from England. In

November Sir Colin Campbell reached Cawnpore at the head of a

considerable army. He left General Windham with two thousand men to take

charge of the intrenchment at Cawnpore, and then advanced against

Lucknow with five thousand men and thirty guns. He carried several of

the enemy's positions, cut his way to the residency, and at last brought

away the beleaguered garrison, with all the women and children. But not

even then could he disperse the rebels and reoccupy the city.

Accordingly he left Outram at the head of four thousand men in the

neighborhood of Lucknow, and then returned to Cawnpore.

On November 24th, the day after leaving Lucknow, General Havelock was

carried off by dysentery, and buried in the Alumbagh. His death spread a

gloom over India, but by this time his name had become a household word

wherever the English language was spoken. In the hour of surprise and

panic, as successive stories of mutiny and rebellion reached England,

and culminated in the revolt at Delhi and massacre at Cawnpore, the

victories of Havelock revived the drooping spirits of the British

nation, and stirred up all hearts to glorify the hero who had stemmed

the tide of disaffection and disaster. The death of Havelock, following

the story of the capture of Delhi, and told with the same breath that

proclaimed the deliverance at Lucknow, was received in England with a

universal sorrow that will never be forgotten so long as men are living

who can recall the memory of the "Mutiny of Fifty-seven."

The subsequent history of the sepoy revolt is little more than a detail

of the military operations of British troops for the dispersion of the

rebels and restoration of order and law. Sir Colin Campbell [Footnote:

Died at Chatham, England, August 14, 1863.--ED.]--later made Baron Clyde

of Clydesdale--undertook a general campaign against the rebels in Oudh

and Rohilkhand, and restored order and law in those disaffected

Provinces; while Sir James Outram drove the rebels out of Lucknow, and

reëstablished British sovereignty in the capital of Oudh.

(1859) BATTLES OF MAGENTA AND SOLFERINO, Pietro Orsi

During the Crimean War (1853-1856) Austria remained neutral, while the

Italian Kingdom of Sardinia joined Great Britain, France, and Turkey

against Russia. The power of Austria still kept despotic sway over the

States of Italy, and it was the aim of Victor Emmanuel, King of

Sardinia, to throw off this hinderance to Italian liberty and union. It

was the opinion of Count Cavour, Victor Emmanuel's minister, that, by

acting with the allies against Russia, Sardinia would increase her

prestige with the European Powers, and thereby promote the movement for

independence. The success of the allies in the Crimean War confirmed the

prescience of Cavour.

Napoleon III wished to secure for France supremacy in southern Europe.

In 1855 he inquired of the Sardinian minister, "What can I do for

Italy?" The Crimean War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1856. At the

congress which concluded that peace Cavour presented the case of Italy

against Austria. Not long after this it became evident that Napoleon was

prepared to espouse the Italian cause. In 1858 it was agreed that he

should do this.

Sardinia now prepared for war. Austria sent an ultimatum demanding a

reduction of the Sardinian army to a peace footing, This demand was

refused. In January, 1859, Austria mobilized fresh troops on the Italian

frontier, and Cavour requested Garibaldi to organize a volunteer corps

to be called _Cacciatori delle Alpi_ ("Hunters of the Alps"). Still

Cavour disclaimed a warlike policy, denying that the hostile initiative

was taken by Sardinia, although in this position he was opposed by some

members of his own Parliament. Nevertheless Cavour declared: "I believe

I am justified in proclaiming aloud, in the presence of Parliament, of

the nation, and of Europe, that if there has been provocation it was

offered by Austria." As shown by Orsi, the Italian historian, the great

minister maintained this attitude as long as it was possible to hold

back from the actual conflict.

Cavour insisted that Austria must be the aggressive party, for in the

treaty with Napoleon III it had been stipulated that France would come

to the help of Sardinia only in case of the latter being attacked by

Austria. Hence Cavour was obliged to seek every means of putting his

country into the attitude of the provoked party. How many

disappointments, uncertainties, and anxieties crowded those days, from

February to the end of April, 1859! In order to understand the enormous

difficulties overcome by Cavour it would be necessary to follow

literally, day by day, the history of that period. In March he repaired

to Paris to ascertain Napoleon's action: it was too evident, however,

that French public opinion was unfavorable to war, and the Emperor was

wavering. Russia and England suggested that the question should be

solved by a congress, to which proposal Napoleon III acceded: Cavour now

believed all was lost, since Sardinia could not refuse without putting

herself in the wrong. Fortunately, the difficulty was solved by Austria

boldly insisting that Sardinia should disarm before being represented at

the congress, and on April 23d this demand was enforced by an ultimatum,

to be answered within three days.

Now ensued a genuine declaration of hostilities, and most joyfully did

Victor Emmanuel make the following announcement to his troops:

"Soldiers! Austria, who masses her armies on our frontiers and threatens

to invade our country because liberty and order rule there; because

concord and affection between sovereign and people--and not force--sway

the State; because there the anguished cry of oppressed Italy is

listened to--Austria dares to tell us, who are armed only in our own

defence, to lay down those arms and put ourselves in her power. Such an

outrageous suggestion surely merits a condign response, and I have

indignantly refused her request. I announce this to you in the certainty

that you will make the wrong done to your King and to your nation your

own. Hence mine is a proclamation of war: arm yourselves therefore in

readiness for it!

"You will be confronted by an ancient enemy who is both valiant and

disciplined, but against whom you need not fear to measure your

strength, for you may remember with pride Goito, Pastrengo, Santa Lucia,

Sommacampagna, and, above all, Custozza, where four brigades fought for

three days against the enemy's five _corps d'armée_. I will be your

leader. Your prowess in action has already been tested in the past, and

when fighting under my magnanimous father I myself proudly recognized

your valor. I am convinced that on the field of honor and glory you will

know how to justify, as well as to augment, your military renown.

"You will have as comrades those intrepid French troops--the conquerors

in so many distinguished campaigns--with whom you fought side by side at

Tchernaya, whom Napoleon III, always prompt to further the defence of a

righteous cause and the victory of civilization, generously sends in

great numbers to our aid. March then, confident of success, and wreathe

with fresh laurels that standard which, rallying from all quarters the

flower of Italian youth to its threefold colors, points out your task of

accomplishing that righteous and sacred enterprise--the independence of

Italy, wherein we find our war-cry."

The Austrian army to the number of one hundred seventy thousand

men--besides those remaining in the Lombardo-Venetian fortresses--was

commanded by General Gyulai, the successor of Radetzky, who had died the

year before, at the age of ninety-one. Gyulai meant to attack and rout

the Sardinian army before it could join its French allies. On April 29th

he crossed the Ticino; then spreading out his forces along the Sesia, he

reconnoitred as far as Chivasso. These districts abound in cultivated

rice-fields and are intersected by many canals: it was therefore easy,

by flooding the ground, to hinder the march of the Austrian troops on

Turin.

Meanwhile, the Sardinian army, composed of sixty thousand men, awaited

the arrival of the French forces on the right bank of the Po. On May

12th Napoleon III, already preceded into Italy by one hundred twenty

thousand of his men, debarked at Genoa, and on the 14th was at

Alessandria, where, near the mouth of the Tanaro, the allied armies met.

The Austrian troops covered a long tract, from Novara to Vercelli, then

extended down the line of the Sesia as far as the Po, and thence reached

the mouth of the Tanaro. Gyulai, seeing the enemy concentrated on the

right bank of the Po, believed that Napoleon. III intended crossing that

river in the direction of Piacenza--as Napoleon I had crossed in

1796--and so massed his troops to the south. At this juncture a portion

of his army encountered the French and Sardinians at Montebello, where

the extreme right wing of the allies was posted. The Austrian General

met with such a determined resistance that he imagined this must be the

centre of the enemy, and felt convinced that he had guessed the latter's

intention; he therefore caused his army to pursue its march southward.

By this movement Vercelli was abandoned by the Austrians and it was

immediately reoccupied by the Sardinians.

Napoleon now prepared a bold flank movement, by leaving the Po for the

Ticino, and to mask this manoeuvre ordered the Sardinians to make an

advance. Thus, while Victor Emmanuel, at the head of his men, flung

himself from Vercelli on Palestro--meriting, by the skill of his

military tactics, the acclamations of a regiment of zouaves whom he

headed as corporal--the French, taking ad vantage of the Alessandria,

Casale, and Novara Railway, made for the bridge of Buffalora over the

Ticino. Only then did Gyulai perceive this clever stratagem which threw

Lombardy open to the allies, and he was consequently obliged to cross

the Ticino to block the enemy's way to Milan.

On June 4th, at Magenta, nearly the whole of the Austrian army engaged

the French forces; the battle, which was most desperate, lasted all day,

and was remarkable for the prodigies of valor performed. The Austrians,

driven back into Magenta itself, maintained, even in that village, such

a stout resistance that they had to be dislodged by house-to-house

fighting.

On June 8th Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III made their triumphal entry

into Milan--now freed from the Austrian yoke. On the same day a French

corps repulsed the Austrians at Melegnano, while Garibaldi entered

Bergamo from the other side. Garibaldi, who had been the last to leave

Lombardy in 1848, was now the first to set foot in its territory in

1859. Since May 23d he had led his own Cacciatori to the Lombard shores

of Lake Maggiore, had defeated the Austrians at Varese, entered Como,

routed the enemy afresh at San Fermo, and was now proceeding to Bergamo

and Brescia, with the intention of reaching the Trentine Alps, to cut

off the enemy's retreat.

After the Battle of Magenta, Gyulai had been dismissed from the command,

and his post was assumed by the Emperor Francis Joseph himself, assisted

by the aged Marshal Hess. On the night of June 23d the retreating

Austrians crossed the Mincio, but a few hours after retraced their steps

and took up their position on the hills to the south of the Lake of

Garda. On the morning of the 24th the Franco-Sardinian army began their

march at dawn, and shortly afterward, to their great amazement,

encountered the Austrians, who they imagined had crossed the Mincio the

night before. The struggle was terrible; in fact, the line covered by

the fighting extended a distance of five leagues.

A series of hills, dominated by Solferino and San Martino, formed the

positions the Franco-Sardinian army had to assail. The French contested

Solferino with the Austrians, and, after a hotly disputed battle of more

than twelve hours, succeeded in occupying it. The Sardinians, led by

Victor Emmanuel, made a violent assault on San Martino; four times in

succession did they take it, only to lose it again, but the fifth time

they made themselves masters of it for good and all. By six o'clock in

the evening the strength of the Austrian army was everywhere broken.

Just then a frightful hurricane, heralded by clouds of dust and

accompanied by torrents of rain, burst over the two armies and thus

favored the flight of the Austrian battalions. Napoleon III now fixed

his headquarters at Cavriana, in the same house that Francis Joseph had

tenanted during the action. On that vast battlefield the combatants had

numbered three hundred thousand men--one hundred sixty thousand

Austrians and one hundred forty thousand French and Sardinians--of all

these, after that sanguinary struggle, twenty-five thousand were left

dead or wounded.

After a few days' rest the Franco-Sardinian army crossed the Mincio and

besieged Peschiera. Now there seemed a chance of the Italians fulfilling

the hope they had so long cherished, of expelling the foreigners. They

confidently awaited news of fresh feats of arms in the Quadrilateral and

of the success of the fleet sent by France and Sardinia into Adriatic

waters, but instead came the most unexpected tidings imaginable.

On July 8th Napoleon III had met Francis Joseph, and three days later

the preliminaries of peace were signed at Villafranca. By this treaty

Austria was to cede Lombardy to Napoleon, who was to relegate it to

Sardinia; the Italian States were to be amalgamated into a

confederation, under the Presidency of the Pope, but Venice, though

forming part of this same confederation, was to remain under Austrian

rule. Great indeed was the mortification of all Italy on hearing such

terms of peace announced. Cavour, who had devoted all his marvellous

talents to realizing the ideal of national redemption and had believed

his ends so nearly attained, hastened to his Prince, and, in a

melancholy interview, advised him not to accept such conditions. But

Victor Emmanuel, although it caused his very heart to bleed, signed the

treaty, adding these words: "I approve as far as I myself am concerned,"

whereupon Cavour sent in his resignation.

What was the motive that had induced Napoleon to break his lately made

promise of freeing Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic? There were many

reasons which influenced him: the sight of that immense battlefield,

strewn with the bodies of the slain, the determined resistance of the

Austrian soldiers, the difficulties which would have to be faced in the

Quadrilateral, the hostile attitude of Prussia, were all motives which

combined to sway the French Emperor's mind. But there was also another

reason which counted for much. Napoleon had been drawn into this

campaign without really knowing the state of Italian public opinion; he

wished Italy to be free "from the Alps to the Adriatic," but did not

want Italian unity; rather did he desire the formation of a confederacy

wherein France could always make her own predominance felt in the

peninsula. Scarcely had he arrived in Italy when he was forced to see

that Italian ideals were very different from what he had imagined them

to be. Trials had but ripened the virtues of prudence and wisdom in

men's minds: in 1859 the people were little likely to repeat the

blunders of 1848 or 1849, and there were now no longer discussions over

forms of government, but everywhere a unanimous resolve to rally round

the liberal monarchy of Savoy.

On the first proclamation of the war the Grand Duke of Tuscany had been

compelled to fly from his States (April 27th). Napoleon had imagined

that in this Province--the ancient stronghold of Italian

municipalism--it would be easy to form a new kingdom with a Bonaparte to

wear its crown. With this aim in view the fifth French army corps,

commanded by Prince Jerome Napoleon, had debarked at Leghorn, under the

pretext of organizing the military forces of Central Italy and harassing

the Austrians on the extreme left. But the Tuscans soon divined the real

intention of the French, and the Provisional Government in Florence,

previously instituted under Bettino Ricasoli, suddenly avowed its

intention of uniting Tuscany to Sardinia, whereupon Prince Napoleon,

seeing the true attitude of the country, found it advisable to affect to

promote the annexation.

The duchies of Parma and Modena had also been deserted by their dukes,

and the papal legates had to quit Romagna, whose inhabitants now

suddenly announced their fusion with Sardinia. Indeed this impulse for

annexation now began to spread, and to the cry of "Victor Emmanuel" the

Marches and Umbria revolted against the Pontiff, but in these regions

the movement was sanguinarily suppressed by the Swiss troops.

Napoleon III was displeased to note how all Italian aspirations tended

to unity, and thus it was that he had signed the Treaty of Villafranca.

Peace was concluded at Zurich in the November following, and there the

idea of an Italian confederation was mooted afresh.

The fugitive princes ought to have returned to their States, but how was

it possible? They certainly could not hope to be recalled by their

subjects, for the latter had expelled them; occupying their kingdoms

with troops of their own was out of the question, because they had none;

foreign aid, moreover, was not to be looked for, since Napoleon III had

established the principle of non-intervention. Then the people of

Central Italy showed themselves capable of a bold political _coup:_

under the leadership of Bettino Ricasoli, dictator in Tuscany, and Luigi

Carlo Farini--who held a similar office in Emilia and Romagna--they

declared, by means of their assembled Deputies, their earnest desire to

be incorporated with Sardinia.

The new Ministry formed at Turin, after Cavour's resignation, had

pursued its way timidly, fearing to rouse the suspicion and displeasure

of the European Powers, but at this momentous and difficult juncture

Cavour again accepted the premiership (January 20, 1860). He immediately

gave a bolder impetus to King Victor Emmanuel's policy by sending a note

to all the Powers, in which he asserted it to be now impossible for

Sardinia to offer any resistance to the inevitable course of events.

Cavour imagined that since Napoleon III had obtained the imperial throne

by a plebiscite, he would not deny the validity of such a claim in

Italy, and forthwith submitted this idea to the Emperor, who was bound

to approve of it. But the French nation was discontented, imagining that

the blood it had shed for Italy had profited nothing, and was, moreover,

very averse to the formation of a powerful kingdom beyond the Alps.

Now it was that Cavour determined on a great sacrifice. In the

convention of Plombières it had been agreed that, in the event of a

kingdom of eleven million inhabitants being established from the Alps to

the Adriatic, Sardinia would cede Savoy to France. As, however, by the

Treaty of Villafranca, Venetia had remained under the Austrian yoke, no

more had been said about cession of territory, but by the annexation of

Central Italy the number of Victor Emmanuel's subjects was now augmented

to eleven millions. In order to induce Napoleon III to approve of such

an annexation Cavour offered him Savoy, but the Emperor claimed Nice as

well, and the Minister was obliged to accede to his demands. On March

24, 1860, Savoy, the cradle of the reigning dynasty, and Nice,

Garibaldi's native Province, were ceded to France. Garibaldi, deeply

wounded in his tenderest feelings, violently abused Cavour in

Parliament, but the Chamber, although it respected the hero's emotion,

ratified the treaty which was at this crisis a necessary concession.

At the same time Parma, Modena, Romagna, and Tuscany expressed by

universal suffrage their cordial desire for union with Sardinia, and a

few days later the fusion of these provinces with the dominions of the

house of Savoy was an accomplished fact. On April 2, 1860, at the

opening of the new Parliament, Victor Emmanuel could thus sum up the

results already obtained by the nationalist party: "In a very short

space of time an invasion repulsed, Lombardy liberated by valiant feats

of arms, Central Italy freed by her people's wonderful strength, and

to-day, assembled around me here, the representatives of the rights and

hopes of the nation."

(1859) DARWIN PUBLISHES HIS ORIGIN OF SPECIES, Charles Robert Darwin

Whatever may be said of the credit due to other scientists for

investigation or discovery in natural selection, the preeminence of

Darwin in this field is undisputed. If of any scientific book it can be

said that its appearance was "epoch-making" it is true of Darwin's work

_On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the

Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life_. Not only did it

command the earnest attention of the scientific and literary world, but

it awakened the interest of thoughtful persons everywhere. Later

research and criticism have modified the effect of his conclusions and

led to new results, but the "Darwinian theory" or "Darwinism" still

holds and seems likely long to maintain a central place in the history

of modern scientific development.

Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, England, February 12,

1809. He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, an eminent physician,

naturalist, and poet, who in 1794-1796 published an important work

entitled _Zoönomia, or the Laws of Organic Life_. Charles Darwin was

heir to a fortune, and in youth the possession of ample means prevented

him from taking any deep interest in studying for a profession, although

he did study medicine and, later, for the church. But before reaching

his majority he turned to natural history. At Cambridge he enjoyed an

intimacy with the distinguished botanist Professor John S. Henslow, who

quickened the young man's enthusiasm for scientific investigation.

In his twenty-third year Darwin went as naturalist with a government

expedition to Patagonia. The voyage, in the Beagle (1831-1836), was

continued round the world. Darwin's journals of the expedition served

him in his later work, and also furnished much material for popular

information. From 1842, when he went to reside at Down, in Kent, he

devoted himself wholly to a life of scientific research and writing.

Since it is not an uncommon error to confound natural selection with

evolution, it may be well to point out that, while based on evolution,

Darwinism is distinct from it. Evolution is the development of new

organisms through heredity, variation, and adaptation. Darwinism, or the

doctrine of natural selection, as best defined in these pages by Darwin

himself, is seen to involve quite different factors from those of

evolution as thus restricted. For candor and childlike simplicity, the

writings of Darwin are especially noteworthy among the modest utterances

of great men, and nowhere are these qualities more strikingly revealed

than in the following account of the production of his principal work.

From September, 1854, I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile

of notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the

transmutation of species. During the voyage of the Beagle I had been

deeply impressed by discovering in the pampean formation great fossil

animals covered with armor like that on the existing armadillos;

secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one

another in proceeding southward over the continent; and thirdly, by the

South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos

Archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ

slightly on each island of the group, none of the islands appearing to

be very ancient, in a geological sense.

It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could

be explained only on the supposition that species gradually become

modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that

neither the action of the surrounding conditions nor the will of the

organisms (especially in the case of plants) could account for the

innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully

adapted to their habits of life--for instance, a woodpecker or a

tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I

had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could

be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavor to prove by

indirect evidence that species have been modified.

After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the

example of Lyell in geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in

any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and

nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My

first note-book was opened in July, 1837. I worked on true Baconian

principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale,

more especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed

inquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by

extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I

read and abstracted, including whole series of journals and

transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon perceived that

selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of

animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms

living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to me.

In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my

systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus's _Essay on

the Principle of Population_, and being well prepared to appreciate the

struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued

observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me

that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be

preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this

would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a

theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice that I

determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In

June, 1842, I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very

brief abstract of my theory in pencil in thirty-five pages; and this was

enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of two hundred thirty pages,

which I had fairly copied out and still possess.

But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is

astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his egg, how

I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the

tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in

character as they become modified. That they have diverged greatly is

obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed

under genera, genera under families, families under sub-orders and so

on; and I can remember the very spot in the road, while riding in my

carriage, that, to my joy, the solution occurred to me; and this was

long after I had come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the

modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become

adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.

Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views fully, and I began

at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that

which was afterward followed in my _Origin of Species_; yet it was only

an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got through

about half the work on this scale. But my plans were overthrown, for

early in the summer of 1858 Alfred Russel Wallace, who was then in the

Malay Archipelago, sent me an essay _On the Tendency of Varieties to

Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type_, and this essay contained

exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that if

I thought well of his essay, I should send it to Lyell for perusal.

The circumstances under which I consented, at the request of Lyell and

Hooker, to allow of an abstract from my manuscript, together with a

letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the same

time with Wallace's essay, are given in the _Journal of the Proceedings

of the Linnean Society_, 1858. I was at first very unwilling to consent,

as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I

did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition. Neither

the extract from my manuscript nor the letter to Gray had been intended

for publication, and they were badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on

the other hand, was admirably expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless,

our joint productions excited very little attention, and the only

published notice of them which I can remember was by Professor Haughton,

of Dublin, whose verdict was that all that was new in them was false,

and what was true was old. This shows how necessary it is that any new

view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse

public attention.

In September, 1858, I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and

Hooker to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species, but was

often interrupted by ill-health and short visits to Doctor Lane's

delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the

manuscript begun on a much larger scale in 1856, and completed the

volume on the same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten

days' hard labor. It was published under the title of the _Origin of

Species_, in November, 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected

in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.

It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly

successful. The first small edition of twelve hundred fifty copies was

sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of three thousand

copies soon afterward. Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold

in England; and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large

number. It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even

into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has

also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese, and is much

studied in that country. Even an essay on it has appeared in Hebrew,

showing that the theory is contained in the Old Testament! The reviews

were very numerous; for some time I collected all that appeared on the

_Origin_ and on my related books, and these amount (excluding newspaper

reviews) to two hundred sixty-five; but after a time I gave up the

attempt in despair. Many separate essays and books on the subject have

appeared; and in Germany a catalogue, or bibliography, on "Darwinismus"

has appeared every year or two.

The success of the _Origin_ may, I think, be attributed in large part to

my having long before written two condensed sketches, and to my having

finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an

abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts

and conclusions. I had also during many years followed a golden rule,

namely, whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought, came

across me which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum

of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such

facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than

favorable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised

against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to

answer.

It has sometimes been said that the success of the _Origin_ proved "that

the subject was in the air," or "that men's minds were prepared for it."

I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded

not a few naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one

who seemed to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and

Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to

agree. I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by

"natural selection," but signally failed. What I believe was strictly

true is that innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the minds of

naturalists ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory that

would receive them was sufficiently explained. Another element in the

success of the book was its moderate size; and this I owe to the

appearance of Mr. Wallace's essay; had I published on the scale in which

I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four or five times as

large as the _Origin_, and very few would have had the patience to read

it. I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the

theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by it, for I

cared very little whether men attributed more originality to me or to

Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I

was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity has always

made me regret, namely, the explanation, by means of the Glacial period,

of the presence of the same species of plants and of some few animals on

distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions. This view pleased me

so much that I wrote it out _in extenso_, and I believe that it was read

by Hooker some years before Edward Forbes published his celebrated

memoir on the subject. In the very few points in which we differed I

still think that I was in the right. I have never, of course, alluded in

print to my having independently worked out this view.

Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction, when I was at work on the

_Origin_, as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes

between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of

the embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was taken, as

far as I remember, in the early reviews of the _Origin_, and I recollect

expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. Within late

years several reviewers have given the whole credit to Fritz Mueller and

Haeckel, who undoubtedly have worked it out much more fully and in some

respects more correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chapter

on the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion longer; for it

is clear that I failed to impress my readers; and he who succeeds in

doing so deserves, in my opinion, all the credit.

This leads me to remark that I have almost without exception been

treated honestly by my reviewers, passing over those without scientific

knowledge as not worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly

misrepresented, bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been

generally done, as I believe, in good faith. On the whole I do not doubt

that my works have been repeatedly and greatly overpraised. I rejoice

that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many

years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly advised me

never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and

caused a miserable loss of time and temper.

Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has

been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even

when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been

my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that "I have

worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than

this." I remember when in Good Success Bay, in Terra del Fuego, thinking

(and I believe that I wrote home to that effect) that I could not employ

my life better than in adding a little to natural science. This I have

done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what they like,

but they cannot destroy this conviction.

During the last two months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a

second edition of the _Origin_, and by an enormous correspondence. On

January 1, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the

_Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,_ but it was not

published until the beginning of 1868, the delay having been caused

partly by frequent periods of illness, one of which lasted seven months,

and partly by being tempted to publish on other subjects which at the

time interested me more.

My _Descent of Man_ was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had

become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species were mutable

productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the

same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own

satisfaction, but not, for a long time, with any intention of

publishing. Although in the _Origin of Species_ the derivation of any

particular species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order

that no honorable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add

that by the work "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his

history." It would have been useless and injurious to the success of the

book to parade, without giving any evidence, my conviction with respect

to his origin.

But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of

the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work up such

notes as I possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of

man. I was the more glad to do so as it gave me an opportunity of fully

discussing sexual selection--a subject which had always greatly

interested me. This subject, and that of the variation of our domestic

productions, together with the causes and laws of variation,

inheritance, and the intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects

which I have been able to write about in full, so as to use all the

materials which I have collected. The _Descent of Man_ took me three

years to write, but then, as usual, some of this time was lost by

ill-health and some was consumed by preparing new editions and other

minor works. A second and largely corrected edition of the _Descent_

appeared in 1874.

(1860) THE KINGDOM OF ITALY ESTABLISHED, Giuseppe Garibaldi and John

Webb Probyn

After the suppression of the Italian Revolution, by Austria, in 1849,

and the restoration of Austrian power in Italy, Charles Albert, King of

Sardinia, who had headed the movement for Italian independence and had

been defeated, abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel. The new

King, as Victor Emmanuel II, succeeded to the throne March 23, 1849, the

day of his father's defeat at Novara. He was a liberal sovereign and

zealous for the cause of his country. With the aid of his great

minister, Count Cavour, he proceeded with the work of securing the unity

and freedom of Italy. In 1859 Sardinia and France, in alliance, defeated

Austria. In this war were made the substantial beginnings from which a

new Italian nationality was to be realized. Italian unity was not the

object of Napoleon III in his alliance with Italy against Austria, but

he did much to advance its prospects. He even promised the complete

liberation of Italy, but this promise he failed to fulfil, to the great

disappointment of Italian statesmen. Napoleon wished to see an Italian

confederation, with the Pope at its head, but this plan was rejected.

Sicily and Naples, in Southern Italy, were still governed by a Bourbon

prince. It was necessary to get rid of him, but Victor Emmanuel did not

desire another war. The matter was decided through the action of

Garibaldi, whose first step toward ending the last remnant of Bourbon

rule in Italy was a bold descend upon Sicily. This movement he made

against the wishes of Cavour and in furtherance of the plans of "Young

Italy." His own account of his landing at Marsala and of the Battle of

Calatafimi--regarded by him as one of the most memorable in his military

experience--is as characteristic of Garibaldi the man and writer as were

his exploits characteristic of Garibaldi the soldier.

The events that quickly followed Garibaldi's descent upon Sicily marked

the beginning of a new era in Italian history. After his victory at

Calatafimi Garibaldi moved toward Palermo, the capital. On May 24th the

Bourbon troops of Francis II, king of the Two Sicilies, marched out of

the city to meet him. By shrewd tactics Garibaldi outmaneuvre them. On

the 26th he marched on Palermo with about three thousand men, and

attacked the city on the 27th. The battle was a confused struggle of

military and civilians, many citizens of Palermo, armed with "daggers,

knives, spits, and iron instruments of any kind," taking part, in favor

of Garibaldi, in the street-fighting that accompanied the more regular

conflict. The city fell through revolt of the people and defection of

the King's troops rather than by the assaults of Garibaldi's men,

"twenty thousand soldiers of despotism" capitulating "before a handful

of citizens" self-devoted in the cause of freedom.

By June 6th Garibaldi had complete possession of Palermo; other

successes in his famous campaign of liberation followed rapidly; and his

final triumph was achieved in the later events so eloquently described

by Probyn, the historian of Italy's progress through her most important

transformations in the nineteenth century.