TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE.
No other events connected with the Revolt in India made so deep an
impression on the public mind, or produced so utter an astonishment and
dismay, as those relating to Cawnpore—the treachery of an arch-villain,
and the sufferings that resulted therefrom. The mystery that for so many
weeks veiled the fate of the victims heightened the painful interest;
for none in England knew how the troubles in May gave rise to the
miseries in June, and these to the horrors of July, until nearly all
were dead who could faithfully have recorded the progress of events. Now
that the main incidents are known, they come upon the reader almost with
the force of a tragic drama; associating themselves in succession with
five scenes—the intrenchment, the boats, the ghat, the house of
slaughter, the well—the intensity deepening as the plot advances towards
its end.
So unutterably revolting were the indignities to which some of the
unfortunates were subjected, at Cawnpore as at other places, that no one
dared to speak or write fully of them; even men, hardy and world-worn
men, almost shrank from whispering the details to each other. Vague
generalities of language were employed, in sheer dismay lest the use of
precise words should lift too high the veil that hid the hideous scene.
So much was this felt, so much were the facts understated, that persons
of unblemished moral character almost regretted the reticence of the
press. A nobleman held in very high estimation, the Earl of Shaftesbury,
on one occasion expressed at a public meeting a wish that the daily
journals would proceed one stage further in making the mournful tale
known: on the ground that Englishmen, by learning more of the real
truth, would appreciate more fully the sufferings of our countrymen and
countrywomen, the heroism and Christian patience with which those
sufferings were borne, and the necessity for (not vengeance, but)
retributive justice on those who had ordered and executed the devilish
barbarities. It is not a trifling compliment to the delicacy of the
English press, that a Christian nobleman should thus have suggested less
scruple, less reserve, in the treatment of a most trying subject. In
every narrative of these mournful events, the reader feels, and must
continue to feel, that the _worst_ is left unsaid.
The first matters to treat are—the locality in which, and the native
chieftain by whom, these wrongs were inflicted. Cawnpore, a terrible
word to English readers, is the name both of a district and of its chief
town. The district, a part of the Doab or delta between the Ganges and
the Jumna, is included within the government of the Northwestern
Provinces. The city of Cawnpore is on the right bank of the Ganges,
about two hundred and seventy miles below Delhi; and the river flows
down nearly a thousand miles below this point to Calcutta; the
land-distance, however, from Cawnpore to Calcutta is between six and
seven hundred miles. The Ganges here is sometimes more than a mile in
width at and soon after the rainy season, and is at such time very
difficult to be crossed by bodies of troops. Cawnpore is an important
city to the British in India, both commercially and in a military sense.
The ghat or landing-place, in peaceful times, is a scene of great
liveliness and bustle. When Skinner was there, ‘Every description of
vessel that can be imagined was collected along the bank. The pinnace,
which with its three masts and neat rigging might have passed for a
ship; budgerows, the clumsiest of all clumsy things, with their sterns
several times higher than their bows; the bauleahs, ugly enough, but
lightly skimming along like gondolas compared with the heavy craft
around them; the drifting haystacks, which the country-boats appear to
be when at a distance, with their native crews straining every nerve
upon their summits, and cheering themselves with a wild and not
unfrequently a sweet song; panswees shooting swiftly down the stream,
with one person only on board, who sits at the head, steering with his
right hand, rowing with his foot, and in the left hand holding his pipe.
A ferry-boat constantly plying across the stream adds to the variety of
the scene, by its motley collection of passengers—travellers, merchants,
fakeers, camels, bullocks, and horses—all crowded together. The vessels
fastened to the shore are so closely packed, that they appear to be one
mass, and, from their thatched roofs and low entrances, might easily
pass for a floating village.’ Cawnpore is (or rather was) remarkable in
its military arrangements. The cantonment, six miles long by half a mile
broad, often contained, before the Revolt, a native population of fifty
thousand persons, besides sixty thousand in the city itself,
irrespective of military and Europeans. The native infantry of the
station encamped here in the cool part of the year, when there were
regular streets and squares of canvas stretching over an immense space;
each regiment was provided with its bazaar; in the rear and far beyond
the lines, were the bivouacs of every kind of camp-followers, in immense
numbers. All these, with many hundred bungalows or lodges of officers
and European residents, gave great animation to the cantonment. The
bungalows, though tiled or thatched, were here, as in other parts of
India, large and commodious; each standing pleasantly in the midst of
its compound or enclosure, richly planted with grapes, peaches, mangoes,
shaddocks, plantains, melons, oranges, limes, guavas, and other fruits
especially acceptable in a hot climate. There was accommodation for
seven thousand troops, but the number actually stationed there was
generally much less. In accordance with the Company’s regulations, the
English military officers, whether of European or native regiments,
always resided within the cantonment where their services were required;
while the civilians, although residing chiefly in the suburbs, had their
offices and places of business within the city itself. There were thus,
to some extent, two sets of English residents.
The next point to render clear is, the position of the man who so
fatally influenced the affairs at Cawnpore in the summer months of 1857.
Nena Sahib was his name to an English eye and tongue, and as Nena Sahib
he will ever be execrated; but that was his titular or honorary, not his
real name, which appears to have been Dhundu Punt or Dhoondhoopunt. When
called the Nena or Náná, the Nena Sahib, the Peishwa, the Maharajah, the
Nena Bahadoor, he was recognised by one of his oriental titles of
honour. Let him to us be the Nena Sahib. There was a motive, however
inadequate in the estimate of persons possessing a spark of human
feeling, for the black treachery and monstrous cruelty of this man. He
had a quarrel with the East India Company: a quarrel which the Company
had nearly forgotten, but not he. The disagreement arose out of the
prevalent Eastern custom of adoption, in default of legitimate male
heirs. Bithoor, a town six or eight miles from Cawnpore, and within the
same district, had long been the residence of the chief of the Mahrattas
or Peishwa, with whom, as with other native princes, the Company had had
many negotiations and treaties. Bithoor itself, a town of about fourteen
thousand inhabitants, possesses numerous Hindoo temples, and several
ghats or flights of steps giving access to the Ganges, to which the
Brahmins and their followers frequently resort for the purpose of ritual
ablution. The place is not without fortification, but it does not take
rank among the strongholds of India. The last chief, Maharajah Bajee Rao
Peishwa, died in 1851; and in consequence of that event, a jaghire or
estate, near the town, which had been bestowed upon him during pleasure
by the Company, lapsed to the government, and was subjected to the
general regulations in force in Cawnpore. Being sonless, he had adopted
a son, or indeed two sons—not merely to inherit the vast wealth which
belonged to him independently of the arrangements with the Company, but
also to perform certain filial duties which high-caste Hindoos deem it
necessary to their religion that a son should perform. This adoption was
legal so far as concerned the Peishwa’s personal property; but the
Company would not admit its validity in relation to a pension of £50,000
per annum which he had been in the habit of receiving. A slight
obscurity in the wording of an official document led to some doubt on
this matter. On the 1st of June 1818, Sir John Malcolm, on the part of
the Company, signed a treaty with Bajee Rao, granting a pension to the
rajah _and his family_. This has since been interpreted, by the Bithoor
intriguers, as a perpetual grant _to the heirs_; but there is abundant
evidence that Sir John and the Company meant the pension to be for Bajee
Rao’s life only, to be shared by his family then living. Nine years
afterwards, namely, in 1827, Bajee Rao adopted two children, Suddchoo
Rao and Dhundu Punt, the one four years and the other two years and a
half old; they were the sons of two Brahmins, natives of the Deccan, who
had come to reside at Bithoor about a year before. There is no evidence
that Bajee Rao ever considered these two adopted sons, or either of
them, entitled to a continuance of the Company’s pension; although
Dhundu Punt may very possibly have thrown out frequent hints, to sound
the Company on this subject. It has been supposed that when the old King
of Delhi was reproclaimed after the Meerut outbreak, he offered to
acknowledge the Nena Sahib, Dhundu Punt, as the proper successor of the
Peishwa of Bithoor, on condition of receiving his aid and allegiance.
This was probably true, but would not suffice, without the incentive of
private animosity, to account for his subsequent actions. So little was
known of him in England when the Revolt began, that doubt prevailed
whether he was really the adopted son of Bajee Rao; some writers
asserting that that honour had been conferred upon another Dhundu Punt,
and that the Nena himself was the eldest son of the rajah’s subadar,
Ramchunder Punt.
If hatred ruled his heart during the six years from 1851 to 1857, he
must indeed have been a consummate hypocrite; for the English were
always courteously received by him at his petty court, and generally
came away impressed in his favour—impressed, however, at the same time,
with a conviction that he entertained a sort of hope that the Queen of
England would graciously befriend him in his contest with the Calcutta
government, the Court of Directors, and the Board of Control, all of
whom disputed his adoptive claims. He had a curious taste for mingling
the English with the oriental in his palace at Bithoor. An English
traveller, who visited him a few years before the Revolt, and was
received with an amount of flattery that appeared to have a good deal of
shrewd calculation in it, found the rooms set apart for him decked with
English furniture arranged in the most incongruous manner—a chest of
drawers and a toilet-table in the sitting-room; a piano and a card-table
in the bedroom; tent-tables and camp-stools in the same room with
elegant drawing-room tables and chairs; a costly clock by the side of
cheap japan candlesticks; good prints from Landseer’s pictures, in
juxtaposition with sixpenny coloured plates of Wellington and Napoleon;
sacred prints, and prints of ballet-girls and Epsom winners—all kinds
were mingled indiscriminately, as if simply to make a show. The guest
was most struck by the oriental compliments he received from the Nena,
and by the odd attempt to provide English furniture where English habits
and customs were so little known; yet there were not wanting dark tints
to the picture. He heard rumours ‘that two women of rank were kept in a
den not far from my apartments, and treated like wild beasts; and that a
third, a beautiful young creature, had recently been _bricked up in a
wall_, for no other fault than attempting to escape.’ An agent of the
Nena, one Azimullah, resided some time in London, about the year 1855;
he came to England to advocate the Nena’s claims, and managed to
ingratiate himself with many persons moving in the upper circles of
society, by his manifest abilities, his winning grace, his courtesy to
all with whom he came into relation. Yet there were strange fits of
moody silence observable in him; and when the failure of his mission
became evident, he was heard to throw out dark mysterious threats, which
were disregarded at the time, but were brought vividly to recollection
afterwards, when the deeds of his master forced themselves into notice.
It will presently be seen that Nena Sahib, whatever were his thoughts at
the time, did not depart, when the Revolt commenced, from his usual
demeanour towards the English; he was courteous to them, and was always
courteously saluted by them when he rode past.
How interesting it is—nay, how affecting—to trace the mode in which the
unfortunate Europeans at Cawnpore became gradually shut out from
communication with the external world; neither knowing what was
occurring east and west of them, nor able to communicate news of their
own sufferings! In May, messages and letters passed to and from them; in
June, authentic intelligence was superseded by painful rumours; in July,
a deadly silence was followed by a horrible revelation.
[Illustration:
NENA SAHIB. From a picture painted at Bithoor in 1850, by Mr Beechy,
portrait-painter to King of Oude.
]
When the Meerut and Delhi outbreaks occurred, the attention of the civil
and military authorities was turned to the importance of securing
Cawnpore: because of its native troops, its store of ammunition, its
large treasury, its considerable English population, and its position on
the Ganges and the great road. Sir Henry Lawrence, knowing that Sir Hugh
Wheeler’s force in European troops was weak, sent him fifty English
infantry in the third week in May, and also sent the aid (aid as it was
hoped to be) of two squadrons of Oude irregular horse. But Lucknow could
ill spare these armed men, and hence the telegrams already briefly
adverted to. First, Lawrence to Canning: ‘Cawnpore to be reinforced with
all speed. When may her Majesty’s 84th be expected?’ Then Canning to
Lawrence: ‘It is impossible to place a wing of Europeans at Cawnpore in
less time than twenty-five days.’ Then Wheeler to Canning: ‘All is quiet
here, but impossible to say how long it will continue so.’ Next a
telegram from Benares, announcing that every possible exertion would be
made to send on troops to Cawnpore as fast as they came from Calcutta.
Then, on the 25th, Wheeler telegraphed to Canning: ‘Passed anxious night
and day, in consequence of a report on very good authority that there
would be an outbreak during one or the other. All possible preparations
to meet it, but I rejoice to say that none occurred.’ On this, Lawrence
sent his earnest message recommending the establishment of ekah
dâks—anything at any expense—to carry troops on to Cawnpore. Towards the
close of the month, about seventy men of the Queen’s 84th reached the
city; and Sir Hugh telegraphed ‘All quiet:’ at the same time making very
evident the existence of anxiety on his mind concerning his prospects.
The governor-general telegraphed to him: ‘Your anxious position is well
understood; and no means have been neglected to give you aid.’ On
another day Sir Hugh telegraphed: ‘All quiet still, but I feel by no
means certain it will continue so. The civil and military are depending
entirely upon me for advice and assistance.’ He announced to Lawrence
that he had been obliged to send irregular cavalry to clear the roads of
insurgent ruffians; and added, ‘Europeans are arriving but very slowly
here.’ The dilemma and doubt were painful to all; for Viscount Canning
had few troops to send up from Calcutta, and no facilities for sending
them rapidly; while, on the other hand, he did not know that death had
cut off General Anson ere an advance could be made to Delhi and Cawnpore
from the northwest. Hence such telegrams as the following from Canning
to Anson: ‘Cawnpore and Lucknow are severely pressed, and the country
between Delhi and Cawnpore is passing into the hands of the rebels. It
is of the utmost importance to prevent this, and to relieve Cawnpore;
but nothing but rapid action will do this.... It is impossible to
overrate the importance of shewing European troops between Delhi and
Cawnpore.’ Sir Hugh Wheeler’s anxieties did not relate wholly to
Cawnpore; he knew that a wide region depended on that city for its
continuance in loyalty. By the 2d of June only ninety European troops
had reached him. On the next day he telegraphed that the population was
much excited, and that unfavourable reports were coming in from the
districts between Cawnpore and Lucknow. To make matters worse, Lawrence
was becoming weak at the last-named place, and Wheeler sent him
fifty-two of his highly cherished English troops—a number that shews how
precious, from its scarcity, this military element was regarded by the
two commanders. ‘This leaves me weak,’ said Wheeler; and well might he
say so. Then occurred the cutting of the telegraph wires on all sides of
Cawnpore, and the stoppage of the dâk-runners. After this, all was doubt
and mystery, for it was only by stealthy means that letters and messages
could leave or enter that city. By degrees there reached the Company’s
officers at Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares, indirect news telling of
disaster—of a rebellious rising of the native troops at Cawnpore; of the
mutineers being aided and abetted by the Nena Sahib of Bithoor; of all
the Europeans taking refuge in an intrenched barrack; of the forlorn
band being regularly besieged in that spot; of terrible sufferings being
endured; and of the soldiers and civilians, the women and children,
being brought to death by numerous privations. The commissioner at
Benares, when these rumours of disaster reached him, telegraphed to
Calcutta: ‘May God Almighty defend Cawnpore; for no help can we afford.’
And so it was throughout June—Benares, Allahabad, Lucknow, Agra, all
were equally unable to send aid to the beleaguered garrison. Gradually
the messages became fewer, and the rumours darker; escaped fugitives and
native messengers came in stealthily to one or other of the neighbouring
towns; and men talked of a massacre at Cawnpore of English fugitives
from Futtehgur, of another massacre of English in boats bound for
Calcutta, of women and children placed in confinement, and of Nena
Sahib’s cruelty.
Such was the condition of Cawnpore as viewed from without, by those who
could necessarily know but little of the truth. Let us now enter and
trace the course of events as experienced by the sufferers themselves.
There is abundant evidence that, previous to the actual outbreak at
Cawnpore, the native troops—consisting of the 1st, 53d, and 56th B. N.
I., and the 2d native cavalry—were much agitated by the rumours of
mutiny elsewhere; and that the European inhabitants felt sensibly the
paucity of English soldiers at that place. A lady, the wife of the
magistrate and collector of Cawnpore—one of those who, with all her
family, were barbarously slaughtered in cold blood a few weeks
afterwards—writing to her friends on the 15th of May, said: ‘Cawnpore is
quiet, and the regiments here are stanch; but there is no saying that
they would remain long so if they came in contact with some of their
mutinous brethren. We have only about a hundred European soldiers here
altogether, and six guns.... Down-country, from Meerut to Dinapore,
there is but one regiment of Europeans, of which we have a hundred.’
Nevertheless, although the sepoys at Cawnpore were restless, an
impression prevailed that, even if they joined in the mutiny, and
marched off to Delhi, they would not inflict any injury on the military
commander, Sir Hugh Wheeler, or the other English officers, who were
much respected by them. The general thought it right to obtain correct
though secret information from spies who mixed among the men in the
cantonment; and these spies reported that the three infantry regiments,
except a few refractory sepoys, appeared well disposed towards the
government; whereas the 2d native cavalry, discontented and surly, had
sent their families to their homes, to be out of danger, and were in the
habit of holding nightly meetings or _punchayets_ (a kind of jury of
five persons, one of the Hindoo institutions of very ancient formation),
in their lines, to concert measures of insubordination. These troopers
endeavoured to bring over the foot regiments to a scheme for rising in
revolt, seizing the government treasure, marching off to Delhi, and
presenting that treasure to the newly restored Mogul as a token of their
allegiance. The European inhabitants were numerous; for they comprised
not only the officers and civilians with their families, but European
merchants, missionaries, engineers, pensioners, &c., and also many
nonresidents, who had either come to Cawnpore from parts of the country
supposed to be less protected, or had been stopped there on their way
up-country by the mutineers in the Doab. These, relying on the report
concerning the apparently favourable feeling among the native infantry,
made no immediate attempt to quit the place. Sir Hugh Wheeler, however,
did not deem it consistent with his duty to remain unprepared. Cawnpore
is built on a dead level, without stronghold or place of refuge, and
could not long be held against a rebel besieging force; the cantonment
was at a considerable distance; and the general resolved on making some
sort of defensive arrangement irrespective both of the city and the
cantonment. He secured sufficient boats to convey the whole of the
Europeans down the Ganges if danger should appear; and he formed a plan
for protection at night in an intrenched position. This stronghold, if
so it may be called, afterwards rendered memorable as ‘the
Intrenchment,’ was a square plot of ground on the grand military parade,
measuring about two hundred yards in each direction; within it were two
barrack hospitals, a few other buildings, and a well; while the boundary
was formed by a trench and parapet or breastwork of earth, intended to
be armed and defended in case of attack. The intrenchment was entirely
distinct both from the city and from the cantonment, and was further
from the Ganges than either of them, about a quarter of a mile out of
the Allahabad and Cawnpore high road. On the side of it furthest from
the river were several barracks in course of construction. It was not
intended that the European civilians should at once enter the
intrenchment, but that they should regard that spot as a place of
shelter in time of need. Sir Hugh brought into this place a supply of
grain, rice, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, rum, beer, &c., calculated at
thirty days’ consumption for one thousand persons. He gave orders to the
assistant-commissary to blow up the magazine if a mutiny should take
place; while the collector was instructed to convey all the Company’s
cash, estimated at ten or twelve lacs of rupees, from the treasury in
the city to the cantonment—an instruction which, as we shall see, he was
able only to obey in part. As another precaution, the executive
commissariat and pay-officers, with all their records and chests, were
removed into bungalows adjacent to the intrenchment. There is reason to
believe that the ringleaders among the native troops sought to terrify
the rest into mutiny by representing that the digging, which had been
seen actively in progress at the intrenchment, was the beginning of the
construction of a series of mines, intended to blow them all up.
One of the most painful considerations associated with these events in
May was, that the heartless man who afterwards wrought such misery was
trustingly relied upon as a friend. The magistrate’s wife, in a series
of letters before adverted to, wrote under date May 16th: ‘Should the
native troops here mutiny, we should either go into cantonments, or to a
place called Bithoor, where the Peishwa’s successor resides. He is a
great friend of C——‘s [the magistrate’s], and is a man of enormous
wealth and influence; and he has assured C—— that we should all be quite
safe there. I myself would much prefer going to the cantonment, to be
with the other ladies; but C—— thinks it would be better for me and our
precious children to be at Bithoor.’ Again, on the 18th: ‘If there
should be an outbreak here, dearest C—— has made all the necessary
arrangements for me and the children to go to Bithoor. He will go there
himself, and, with the aid of the rajah, to whose house we are going, he
will collect and head a force of fifteen hundred fighting-men, and bring
them into Cawnpore to take the insurgents by surprise. This is a plan of
their own, and is quite a secret; for the object of it is to come on the
mutineers unawares.’ Here, then, in the month of May, was Nena Sahib
plotting with the English against the mutineers. It was on the 20th that
Sir Hugh, rendered uneasy by the symptoms around, sent to Lucknow for
three hundred European soldiers; but as Sir Henry Lawrence could hardly
spare one-sixth of that number, arrangements were made for accommodating
as many English families as possible in the cantonment, and for fitting
up the intrenchment as a place of refuge. On the 21st, the magistrate,
with Wheeler’s consent, wrote to the Nena, begging him to send the aid
of a few of his Mahratta troops. The native soldiers being hutted in the
cantonment, and the few English soldiers barracked in the intrenchment,
it was speedily determined that—while the English officers should sleep
at the cantonment, to avoid shewing distrust of the native troops—their
wives and families, and most of the civilians, should remain at night in
the intrenchment, under protection of English soldiers. On the first
night of this arrangement, ‘there were an immense number of ladies and
gentlemen assembled in the intrenchment; and oh! what an anxious night
it was! The children added much to our distress and anxiety,’ said the
lady whose letters were lately quoted; ‘it was some hours before I could
get them to sleep. I did not lie down the whole night. Extraordinary it
was, and most providential too, that we had a thunderstorm that night,
with a good deal of rain, which cooled the air a little; had it not been
for this, we should have suffered much more.’ An English officer, in
relation to this same night, said: ‘Nearly all the ladies in the station
were roused out of their houses, and hurried off to the barracks. The
scene in the morning you can imagine. They were all huddled together in
a small building, just as they had left their houses. On each side were
the guns drawn up; the men had been kept standing by them all night
through the rain, expecting an instant attack. There are few people now
in the station but believe this attack had been intended, and had merely
been delayed on finding us so well prepared.’ On the last day of the
month—a day that seems to have ended all communication from this hapless
lady to her friends in England—she wrote: ‘We are now almost in a state
of siege. We sleep every night in a tent pitched by the barracks, with
guns behind and before. We are intrenched, and are busy getting in a
month’s provisions in case of scarcity. For the first four or five
nights, we scarcely closed our eyes.... Last night, the sepoys of the
1st regiment threatened to mutiny, and poor Mrs Ewart was in dreadful
distress when Colonel Ewart went to sleep in the lines, according to
orders; and he himself fully expected to be killed before morning; but,
thank God, all passed off quietly. The general remains in the barracks
day and night, to be at hand if anything should happen. We still pass
the day at the Ewarts’ house; but at night every one returns to the
barracks, which is a wretched place.... Poor Mrs —— has quite lost her
reason from terror and excitement. Oh! it is a hard trial to bear, and
almost too much; but the sight of the children gives us strength and
courage.’
Colonel Ewart, mentioned in the above paragraph, and Major Hillersdon,
were the commandants of the 1st and 53d native regiments, respectively;
they lived in pleasant bungalows outside Cawnpore; but at this perilous
time they slept near their men in the cantonment, while their families
took refuge within the intrenchment. Mrs Ewart—destined, like the
magistrate’s wife, to be in a few weeks numbered among the outraged and
slaughtered—wrote like her of the miseries of their position, even at
that early period of their privation. Speaking of the interior of the
intrenchment, she said: ‘We have a tent, which is, of course, more
private and comfortable for the night; and at present there is no
occasion to spend days as well as nights there, though many people do
so. This is fortunate, since the weather is fearfully hot. God grant
that we may not be exposed to such suffering as a confinement within
that intrenchment must entail; even should we be able to bear it, I know
not how our poor little ones could go through the trial.’ The general
feelings of the English in the place towards the close of May cannot be
better conveyed than in the following words: ‘We are living face to face
with great and awful realities—life and property most insecure, enemies
within our camp, treachery and distrust everywhere. We can scarcely
believe in the change which has so suddenly overcast all the pleasant
repose and enjoyment of life. We are almost in a state of siege, with
dangers all around us—some seen, some hidden.... Major Hillersdon joins
us daily at our four o’clock dinner, and we stay together till half-past
seven, when we go to our melancholy night-quarters, behind guns and
intrenchments. My husband betakes himself to his couch in the midst of
his sepoys; and you can fancy the sort of nights we have to pass. These
are real trials, but we have not experienced much actual physical
suffering yet.’ In another letter she further described the intrenchment
and barracks as they were at night: ‘We returned to those melancholy
night-quarters. Oh, such a scene! Men, officers, women and children,
beds and chairs, all mingled together inside and outside the barracks;
some talking or even laughing, some very frightened, some defiant,
others despairing. Such sickening sights these for peaceful women; and
the miserable reflection that all is caused not by open foes, but by the
treachery of those we had fed and pampered, honoured and trusted, for so
many years.’ Colonel Ewart, in probably the last letter received from
him by his friends in England, wrote on the 31st: ‘The treasury,
containing some ten or twelve lacs of rupees, is situated five miles
from the cantonment. It has hitherto been thought inexpedient to bring
the treasure into the cantonment; but the general has now resolved on
making the attempt to-morrow. Please God, he will succeed. He is an
excellent officer, very determined, self-possessed in the midst of
danger, fearless of responsibility—that terrible bugbear that paralyses
so many men in command.’ This was the character generally given to Sir
Hugh Wheeler, who was much liked and trusted. The state of suspense in
which the officers themselves were placed, not knowing whether revolt
and outrage would speedily mark the conduct of regiments that had up to
that moment remained faithful, was well expressed in a letter written by
one of the infantry officers: ‘I only wish that I might get orders to go
out with my regiment, or alone with my company, against some of the
mutineers; so that we could put the men to the test, and see whether
they really mean to stick to us or not, and end this state of suspense.’
Numerous scraps of local information, portions of letters, diaries,
conversations, and scarcely intelligible messages, in English,
Hindustani, and Persian, help to make up the materials out of which
alone a connected narrative of the events at Cawnpore can be prepared.
These would all have been very insufficient, had it not fortunately
happened that an officer of the Company, an educated man, lived to
record upon paper his experience of four weeks spent in the
intrenchment, and three subsequent weeks of imprisonment in the city.
This was Mr Shepherd, belonging to the commissariat department. How his
life was saved, and how those dear to him were savagely butchered, will
be seen further on; at present, it will suffice to remark that he lived
to prepare, for the information of the government, a record of all he
knew on this dreadful subject; and that the record thus prepared
contains more information than any other brought to light amid that
dismal wreck of human hopes and human existence.
When the month of June opened, symptoms became so unfavourable that the
non-military Christian residents thought it expedient to move from the
city, and obtain shelter in the English church and other buildings near
the intrenchment. Day after day small portions of cash, and Company’s
papers of various kinds, were brought by the commissariat officers to
head-quarters. The collector, acting on Sir Hugh’s instructions, had
endeavoured to bring the Company’s treasure from the city to the
intrenchment; but he met too much opposition to enable him to effect
this, save in part; and the aid of three or four hundred men was
obtained from Nena Sahib, to guard the treasury and its contents. What
was passing through the heart of that treacherous man at the time, none
but himself could know; but the English officers, whether forgetful or
not of his grudge against the Company, seem to have acted as though they
placed reliance on him. On the 3d, it being thought improper to keep any
public money under the sepoy guard at the office, the commissariat
treasure-chest, containing about thirty-four thousand rupees in cash,
together with numerous papers and account-books, was brought into the
intrenchment, and placed in the quarter-guard there. In short, nothing
was deemed safe by Wheeler and the other officials, unless it was under
their own immediate care.
[Illustration:
The Intrenchment at Cawnpore.
]
On the 5th of June arrived the crisis which was to tax to the utmost the
firmness and courage, the tact and discrimination, the kindness and
thoughtfulness, of the general on whom so many lives now depended. He
had appealed, and appealed in vain, for reinforcements from other
quarters: no one possessed troops that could readily be sent to him; and
he had therefore to meet his troubles manfully, with such resources as
were at hand. At two o’clock in the morning, after a vain attempt to
draw the native infantry from their allegiance, the 2d cavalry rose in a
body, gave a great shout, mounted their horses, set fire to the bungalow
of their quarter-master-sergeant, and took possession of thirty-six
elephants in the commissariat cattle-yard. The main body then marched
off towards Nawabgunge; while the ringleaders remained behind to assail
once more the honesty of the infantry. The 1st regiment N. I. yielded to
the temptation, and marched out of the lines about three o’clock; but
before doing so, the sepoys shewed a lingering affection for the English
officers of the regiment; those officers had for some time been in the
habit of sleeping in the quarter-guard of the regiment, to indicate
their confidence in the men; and now the men begged them—nay, forced
them—to go into the intrenchment, as a means of personal safety. An
alarm gun was fired, and all the non-combatants were brought from the
church-compound into the intrenchment—a necessary precaution, for
burning bungalows were seen in various directions. A few days
previously, a battery of Oude horse-artillery had been sent from Lucknow
by Lawrence to aid Wheeler at Cawnpore; and this battery was, about
seven o’clock on the eventful morning of the 5th, ordered with a company
of English troops to pursue the two mutinous regiments. But here a
dilemma at once presented itself. Could the 53d and 56th regiments be
relied upon? Sir Hugh thought not; and therefore he countermanded the
order for the pursuit of the other two regiments. The wisdom of this
determination was soon shewn; for about ten o’clock the whole of the
native officers of the 53d and 56th came to the general and announced
that their hold over the fidelity of the men was gone. While they were
yet speaking, a bugle was heard, and the two regiments were seen to
march off to join their companions at Nawabgunge; any attempt on the
English being checked by the pointing of a gun at them. The apparently
faithful native officers were directed to organise a few stragglers who
had not joined the mutineers; they left the intrenchment for this
purpose, but did not return: whether they joined in the revolt, or went
quietly to their own homes to avoid the resentment of the sepoys, was
not fully known. As soon as possible, carts were sent to the cantonment
to bring away the sick from the hospital, and such muskets and other
property as might be useful. In consequence of this, the two hospitals
or barracks in the intrenchment became very much crowded, many of the
people being compelled to sleep in the open air through want of room.
All the civilians were then armed, and directed what they should do for
the common good. The Oude artillery, shewing signs of being smitten by
the prevailing mania for revolt, were disarmed and dismissed that same
evening.
[Illustration:
Plan of Sir H. Wheeler’s Intrenchment at Cawnpore. From an official
survey.
]
The scene must now be shifted, to shew Nena Sahib’s share in the work.
Rumours came to the intrenchment that when the rebels reached
Nawabgunge, he quitted Bithoor and came out to meet them; that he placed
himself at their head; that they all went together to the treasury; that
he carried off a large amount of government treasure on the government
elephants; and that he gave up the rest to the sepoys as a prize.
Thereupon the papers were burnt, and the treasury and the collector’s
office destroyed. The sepoys guarding the magazine would not allow that
building to be blown up by the government officer; the mutineers brought
as many country carts as they could procure, and carried off a
considerable quantity of baggage and ammunition. All then marched off to
Kullianpore, being one stage on the road to Delhi, except a few troopers
who remained to finish the work of destruction among the bungalows. The
Oude artillery, lately disarmed and dismissed by Wheeler, now went to
Nena Sahib, and laid before him a plan for attacking the intrenchment,
concerning which they were able to give much information. They reported
that the cantonment contained many guns, and much powder and ammunition,
with which the intrenchment might safely be attacked. There was another
fact favourable to the rebels. One end of the great Ganges Canal enters
the river near Cawnpore; and it had been contemplated by the government
to send a large store of shot and shell by that canal up to Roorkee,
through Allygurh and Meerut; but as the Doab and Rohilcund were in too
disturbed a state to permit this, thirty-five boats laden with shot and
shell were this day lying in the canal near the cantonment. This large
store of ammunition the rebel artillerymen suggested should be at once
seized; and the advice was acted on. A native inhabitant, who afterwards
gave information to the English, said that when the Nena openly took
part with the rebels, he released four hundred prisoners in the town,
whose fetters he ordered to be knocked off; ‘and having opened the door
of the armoury, he gave the order that whatever prisoner was willing to
follow him should arm himself with gun, pistol, or sword, as he liked
best’—a story highly probable, though not within the power of Mr
Shepherd to confirm. Before the Nena finally committed himself to a
course of rebellion and war, the 1st native infantry made their head
subadar a general; and the general then promoted all the havildars and
naiks to be subadars and jemadars.
Two officers of the 56th regiment were fortunate enough to be away from
Cawnpore and the cantonment altogether, on the day of the mutiny. They
had been sent with two hundred men to Ooral, a village or town at some
distance, on the 2d of June. When that regiment mutinied at the
cantonment, and when the news of the mutiny reached Ooral, the two
hundred did not long delay in following their example. The officers,
seeing their danger, at once galloped off, taking nothing with them but
the clothes on their backs, and their swords and revolvers. Their tale
was as full of adventure as many that have already occupied these pages.
They found their way to Calpee, to Humeerpoor, to various places; they
met with two brother-officers escaping from mutineers at Humeerpoor; the
four rowed boats, swam rivers, entered villages where they were
plundered of their weapons and clothes, roamed through jungles, fed on
chupatties and water when they could obtain such fare, picked up bits of
native clothing, encountered friendly Hindoos at one time and marauding
enemies at another. Of the two officers from Cawnpore, one died mad in
the jungle, from heat, thirst, and suffering; but the other, Ensign
Browne, joined the body of English troops at Futtehpoor, after
thirty-seven days of wandering. All the other English officers of the
four native regiments appear to have been at or near Cawnpore at the
time of the outbreak; and all were called upon to bear their bitter
share in the woes that followed—woes rendered more distressing by
falling equally on innocent women and children as on themselves—nay,
much more heavily.
The sun rose upon an anxious scene on the 6th of June. Sir Hugh Wheeler
and nearly all the Europeans—men, women, and children—military,
civilians, and servants—were crowded within the intrenchment; while the
rebel troops, four regiments and an artillery battery, had not only
abandoned their allegiance, but were about to besiege those who were
lately their masters. The rebels brought into requisition all the
government work-people and the bullocks, in the town and cantonment, to
drag guns into position near the intrenchment, and to convey thither a
store of powder and ammunition. They brought six guns (two of them
18-pounders) to bear in a line, and opened fire about ten o’clock in the
forenoon. Instantly a bugle sounded within the intrenchment; and every
man, from the highest officers down to the clerks and the drummers, flew
to arms, and took up the position assigned to him. There was only a
breast-high earthen parapet, bounded by a small trench, between the
besiegers and the besieged: hence there was nothing but indomitable
courage and unceasing watchfulness that could enable the English to hold
their own against the treacherous native troops. Here, then, were nine
hundred persons[17] hemmed into a small space, forming their citadel,
while the surrounding country was wholly in the hands of the rebels. Out
of the nine hundred, barely one-third were fighting-men; while
considerably more than one-third were women and children, to be fed and
protected at all hazards. The few guns within the intrenchment answered
those from without; but all the men not employed with those guns
crouched down behind the breastwork, under the hot wind and scorching
sun of a June day, ready to defend the spot with musketry if a nearer
attack were made. The rebels did not attempt this; they adopted the
safer course of bringing up their guns nearer to the beleaguered place.
Sir Hugh Wheeler had eight pieces of ordnance—two brass guns of the Oude
battery, two long 9-pounders, and four smaller; he had also a good store
of ammunition, buried underground, and had thus a defensive power of
some importance. On the other hand, his anxieties were great; for one of
the two buildings (they had been used as hospitals for European troops)
was thatched, liable to be fired by a chance shot; the commissariat
officers were unable to bring in more supplies; the shelter was
direfully insufficient for nine hundred persons in a fierce Indian
climate; and the women and children could do little or nothing to assist
in the defence of all.
The native informant, above adverted to, states that when Nena Sahib
found the mutineers about to depart to Delhi, ‘he represented to the
native officers that it would not be correct to proceed towards Delhi
until they had entirely destroyed the officers and European soldiers,
and women and children of the Christian religion; and that they should,
if possible, by deceiving the officers, accomplish this grand object, or
they would be good for nothing.’ Such words were certainly consistent
with the machinations of a villain who sought a terrible revenge for
some injury, real or pretended; but they do not the less illustrate the
remarkable subtlety and secretiveness of the Hindoo character, so long
concealing a deadly hatred under a friendly exterior. This same native,
who was in Cawnpore at the time, further said: ‘In the city it was as if
the day of judgment had come, when the sepoys of the infantry and the
troopers of the cavalry, the jingling of whose sword-scabbards and the
tread of whose horses’ feet resounded on all sides, proceeded with guns
of various sizes, and ammunition, from the magazine through the suburbs
of Cawnpore towards the intrenchment.’ In relation to the conduct of
native servants of the Company on that day, Mr Shepherd said: ‘None of
the native writers, Bengalees and others in government offices or
merchants’ employ, went into the intrenchment; they remained in the
city, where they appear to have received much annoyance from the
mutineers; and some had to hide themselves to save their lives. The
(native) commissariat contractors’ [those who supplied provisions and
stores for the troops, ordered and paid for by the head commissary] ‘all
discontinued their supplies from the 6th; or rather, were unable to
bring them in, from the way the mutineers surrounded the intrenchment on
all sides, permitting no ingress or egress at any time except under
cover of night.’ Those natives must, in truth, have been placed in a
perplexing position, between employers whom they wished to serve but
could not, and rebels who sought to tamper with their honesty.
Another day broke, revealing a further strengthening of the rebels’
attack. They increased their number of guns, four of which were
24-pounders; and with the shot from these guns not only were many
valuable men struck down, but the walls and verandahs of the hospitals
pierced, spreading terror among the helpless inmates. There was but one
well within the intrenchment; and so hot was the fire from without,
that, to use the words of Mr Shepherd, ‘it was as much as giving a man’s
life-blood to go and draw a bucket of water; and while there was any
water remaining in the large jars, usually kept in the verandah for the
soldiers’ use, nobody ventured to the well; but after the second day,
the demand became so great that a bheestee bag of water was with
difficulty got for five rupees, and a bucket for a rupee. Most of the
servants deserted, and it therefore became a matter of necessity for
every person to fetch his own water, which was usually done during the
night, when the enemy could not well direct their shots.’ What was the
degree of thirst borne under these circumstances, none but the forlorn
garrison could ever know. As there was no place under which to shelter
live cattle, some of the animals were let loose, and others slaughtered;
entailing a necessary exhaustion of meat-rations after three or four
days. The commissariat servants, however, now and then managed to get
hold of a stray bullock or cow near the intrenchment at night, which
served for a change. Not only was it difficult to obtain suitable food
to eat, but the native servants took every opportunity to escape, and
the cooking was in consequence conducted under very sorry conditions.
The tale of accumulated suffering need not, and indeed cannot, be
followed day by day: several days must be grouped together, and the
general character of the incidents noted—so far as authentic recitals
furnish the materials. Meat, as has just been intimated, soon became
scarce; hogsheads of rum and malt liquor were frequently burst by
cannon-balls, but the supply still remained considerable; chupatties and
rice were the chief articles of food for all. The English found their
troubles increase in every way: the rebels at first fired only cannon on
them; but by degrees, after burning the English church and all other
buildings around and near the intrenchment, the sepoys masked themselves
behind the ruined walls, and kept up an almost incessant fire of
musketry, shooting down many who might have escaped the cannon-balls.
There were seven unfinished barracks outside the intrenchment, three of
them at about a furlong distance. These were scenes of many an exciting
encounter. Captain Moore of the 32d foot, a gallant and intrepid
officer, often encountered the rebels near those places. He would send
some of his men, with field-telescopes, to watch the position of the
enemy’s guns, from the roof of one of the barracks, as a guidance for
the besieged; and as soon as these men were attacked, a handful of
gallant companions would rush out of the intrenchment, and drive off the
assailants with a fire of musketry. The enemy having no cannon on this
side, a sort of drawn battle ensued: the besiegers holding three or four
of the barracks, and the besieged maintaining a hold of the three
nearest to the intrenchment After a while, the enemy brought one gun
round to this quarter; but twenty English made a sortie at midnight on
the 11th, spiked the gun, and returned safely. Whenever fighting on
anything like terms of equality took place, the European troops proved
themselves a match for many times their number of natives; but any
daring achievements for effectual liberation were rendered nugatory by
the presence of so many helpless women and children, whose safety was
the first thought in the minds of the men, whether civilians or
military. Numbers of the poor creatures died within the first week, from
illness, heat, fright, want of room, want of proper food and care. In
the obituary of many an English newspaper, when news of the terrible
calamity had crossed the ocean, might be read that such a one, probably
an officer’s wife, had ‘died in the intrenchment at Cawnpore;’ what that
intrenchment meant, few readers knew, and fewer knew what sufferings had
preceded the death. The dead bodies were thrown into a well outside the
intrenchment, lest they should engender disease by any mode of burial
within the crowded and stifling enclosure; and even this sad office
could only be rendered under a shower of shot and shell. ‘The distress
was so great,’ says Mr Shepherd, ‘that none could offer a word of
consolation to his friend, or attempt to administer to the wants of each
other. I have seen the dead bodies of officers, and tenderly brought-up
young ladies of rank (colonels’ and captains’ daughters), put outside
the verandah amongst the rest, to await the time when the fatigue-party
usually went round to carry the dead to the well; for there was scarcely
room to shelter the living.’
During all these days, Cawnpore itself, and the country between it and
the intrenchment, became prey to a marauding host of sepoys, liberated
prisoners, and ruffians of every kind. The native before adverted to,
one Nujeer Jewarree, referring to this period, said: ‘In whatever shop
the sepoys entered to ask for sugar or rice, they plundered everything
belonging to the citizen that they could find; so much so, that plunder
and oppression were the order of the day. Every violent man did what
came into his mind; and the troopers got possession of a note, the value
of which amounted to twenty-five thousand rupees, belonging to
Eman-u-Dowlah and Bakir Ali. One troop, or thereabouts, left the
cantonment and proceeded to the buildings in which the civil and revenue
and judicial courts were held, and commenced firing them. In the city
and gardens there was so much villainy committed that travelling became
dangerous, and to kill a man was quite easy. They (the marauders)
committed deeds of oppression and plundered each other; some forcibly
cut the grain out of the fields, and others were occupied in picking up
plundered property. He then spoke of the houses and offices of certain
English merchants and traders—Greenway, Crump, Mackintosh, Reid,
Marshall, Kirk, &c.—and of the ‘lacs’ of treasure that were plundered
from each; too vaguely estimated to be relied on in detail, but
evidently denoting a scene of unscrupulous pillage. Another native,
Nerput, presently to be noticed more particularly, said: ‘Zemindars of
the neighbourhood are fighting among themselves in payment of old
quarrels; sepoys, making for their homes with plundered treasure, have
been deprived of their plunder, and, if any opposition is made,
immediately murdered. Such few Europeans as had remained beyond the
intrenchment, were caught and put to death.’
The native authority just referred to states (although the statement is
not confirmed by Mr Shepherd), that on the 9th of June Sir Hugh Wheeler
sent a message to Nena Sahib, demanding why he had thus turned against
the English, who had hitherto been treated by him in a friendly spirit;
and why he was causing the death of innocent women and children—to which
the Nena gave no other reply than from the cannon’s mouth.
One day was so much like another, after the actual commencement of the
siege, that the various narrators make little attempt to record the
particular events of each. Every day brought its miseries, until the cup
nearly overflowed. The food was lessening; the water was difficult to
obtain; strength was sinking; lives were being rapidly lost; the
miscreant rebels were accumulating in greater and greater number outside
the intrenchment; the two buildings were becoming every day more and
more riddled with shot; the wounded had their wretchedness increased by
the absence of almost everything needful to the comfort of the sick; the
hearts of the men were wrung with anguish at seeing the sufferings borne
by the women; and the women found their resolution and patience terribly
shaken when they saw their innocent little ones dying from disease and
want.
A scene was presented on the 13th that filled every one with horror. The
officers and their families had hitherto lived chiefly in tents, within
the intrenchment; but the rebels now began to fire _red-hot_ shot, which
not only necessitated the removal of the tents, but ignited the
thatch-roof of one of the two hospitals. This building contained the
wives and children of the common soldiers, and the sick and wounded. The
flames spread so rapidly, and the dire confusion among the wretched
creatures was such, that forty of the helpless invalids were burned to
death before aid could reach them. The rebels appeared to have
calculated on all the men within the intrenchment rushing to save the
victims from the flames, leaving the besiegers to enter with musket and
sword; and so threatening was the attack, so close the approach of the
enemy, that the Europeans were forced to remain watchful at their frail
earthen defence-work, despite their wish to rescue the shrieking
sufferers in the hospital. Nearly all the medicines and the surgical
instruments were at the same time destroyed by the fire, affording a
hopeless prospect to those who might afterwards fall ill or be wounded.
The rebels by this time amounted to four thousand in number, and their
attacks increased in frequency and closeness; but the besieged had not
yielded an inch; every man within the intrenchment, a few only excepted,
was intrusted with five or six muskets, all of which were kept ready
loaded, to pour a fire into any insurgents who advanced within
musket-shot. Bayonets and swords were also ready at hand, for those who
could use them. The condition of every one was rendered more deplorable
than before by this day’s calamity; the fire had wrought such mischief
that many of the men, who had until then occasionally sheltered
themselves under a roof for a few hours at a time, were now forced to
remain permanently in the open air, exposed to a fierce Indian sun at a
date only one week before the summer solstice. That many were struck
down by _coup de soleil_ at such a time may well be conceived. The poor
ladies, too, and the wives of the soldiers, were rendered more desolate
and comfortless than ever, by the destruction of much of their clothing
during the fire, as well as of many little domestic comforts which they
had contrived to bring with them in their hurried flight from their
homes in the city or the cantonment.
What transpired outside the intrenchment, none of the captives knew; and
even at later times it was difficult to ascertain the real truth. The
native chronicler already referred to speaks of many deeds of cruelty,
but without affording means of verification. On one day, he says, a
family was seen approaching from the west in a carriage; the husband was
at once killed; the others, ‘one lady and one grown-up young lady and
three children,’ were brought before the Nena, who ordered them to be
instantly put to death. ‘The lady begged the Nena to spare her life; but
this disgraceful man would not in any way hearken to her, and took them
all into the plain. At that time the sun was very hot, and the lady
said: “The sun is very hot, take me into the shade;” but no one
listened. On four sides the children were catching hold of their
mother’s gown and saying: “Mamma, come to the bungalow and give me some
bread and water.” At length, having been tied hand to hand, and made to
stand up on the plain, they were shot down by pistol-bullets.’ This
story, touching amid all its quaintness of recital, was probably quite
true in its main features. Another lady, whom he calls the wife of Mukan
Sahib, merchant, and who had been hiding for four or five days in the
garden of her bungalow, ‘came out one evening, and was discovered. She
had through fear changed her appearance by putting on an Hindustani
bodice, and folding a towel around her head. She was taken before the
Nena, who ordered her to be killed. The writer of this journal having
gone in person, saw the head of that lady cut off, and presented as a
nazir (gift of royalty).’ There can be no question that the vicinity of
Cawnpore was at that time in a frightful state. Not only were mutinous
sepoys and sowars engaged in hostilities against the ‘Feringhees,’ whom
they had so lately served, and whose ‘salt’ they had eaten; but many of
the ambitious petty rajahs and chieftains took advantage of the anarchy
to become leaders on their own special account; plunderers and released
prisoners were displaying all their ferocious recklessness; while timid,
sneaking villagers, too cowardly to be openly aggressive, were in many
instances quite willing to look complacently at deeds of savage
brutality, if those deeds might leave a little _loot_, or plunder, as
their share. Consequently, when any English refugees from other towns
passed that way, their chance of safety was small indeed.
Before tracing the course of events in the intrenchment during the third
week in June, we must advert to another calamity. The griefs and
sufferings endured by the English soldiers and residents at Cawnpore did
not fill up the measure of Nena Sahib’s iniquity. Another stain rests on
his name in connection with the fate of an unfortunate body of fugitives
from Futteghur. It is an episode in the great Cawnpore tragedy; and must
be narrated in this place, in connection with the events of the month.
Futteghur, as will be seen by reference to a map, is situated higher up
the Ganges than Cawnpore, near Furruckabad. Practically, it is not so
much a distinct town, as the military station or cantonment for the
place last named. Furruckabad itself is a city of sixty thousand
inhabitants; handsome, cleaner, and more healthy than most Indian
cities, carrying on a considerable trading and banking business, and
standing in the centre of a fertile and cultivated region. It has no
other fortifications than a sort of mud-fort connected with the native
nawab’s residence. When this nawab became, like many others, a
stipendiary of the modern rulers of India, the British built a military
cantonment at Futteghur, about three miles distant, on the right bank of
the river. Towards the close of May, Futteghur contained the 10th
regiment Bengal native infantry, together with a few other native
troops. Among the chief English officers stationed there, were General
Goldie, Colonels Smith and Tucker; Majors Robertson, Phillot, and Munro;
Captains Phillimore and Vibert; Lieutenants Simpson, Swettenham, and
Fitzgerald; and Ensigns Henderson and Eckford. The troops displayed much
insubordination as the month closed; and on the 3d of June the symptoms
were so threatening, that it was deemed prudent to arrange for sending
off the women and children for safety to Cawnpore—in ignorance that the
Europeans in that city were in a still more perilous state. Boats had
already been procured, and held in readiness for any such exigency. On
the next day the 10th infantry exhibited such ominous signs of mutiny,
that a large party of the English at once took to their boats. After a
short voyage, finding the natives on the banks of the Ganges likely to
be troublesome, the fugitives resolved on separating themselves into two
parties; one, headed by Mr Probyn, the Company’s collector, and
consisting of about forty persons, sought refuge with a friendly
zemindar named Herden Buksh, living about twelve miles from Futteghur,
on the Oude side of the river; while the other party proceeded on the
voyage down the Ganges to Cawnpore. This last-named party amounted to
more than a hundred and twenty persons, nearly all non-combatants;
missionaries, merchants, indigo planters, estate stewards, agents,
collectors, clerks, shopkeepers, schoolmasters, post and dâk agents—such
were the male members of this hapless band of fugitives; most of them
had wives; and the children far exceeded the adults in number. It is
pitiable, knowing as we now know the fate that was in store for them, to
read such entries as the following, in a list of the occupants of the
boats—‘Mr and Mrs Elliott and five children;’ ‘Mr and Mrs Macklin and
eight children;’ ‘Mr and Mrs Palmer and nine children.’
So few persons survived from Futteghur, that it is not certain at what
places and on what days they separated into parties; nor how many lives
were lost on the way; but there is evidence that while some pursued
their way down the Ganges without much interruption until they reached
Bithoor, others went back to Futteghur. This retrograde movement was due
to two causes; for while, on the one hand, the officers trusted to a
report that the sepoys had returned to a sense of their duty; Herden
Buksh, on the other, was threatened by the Oude mutineers if he
harboured any of the English. We will follow the fortunes of this second
party. From about the 12th to the 18th of June there was a lull in the
station; but on the last-named day the 10th infantry broke out in
earnest, and being joined by the mutinous 41st from the other side of
the Ganges, seized the treasure and threatened the officers. There were
about a hundred Europeans now in the place; and as the river was at the
time too low to render a boat-voyage to Cawnpore safe, it was resolved
to defend a post or fort at Futteghur, and there remain till succour
arrived. Out of the hundred there were scarcely more than thirty
fighting-men, so numerous were the women and children; nevertheless,
Colonel Smith, of the 10th, organised the whole, and prepared for the
worst. He had a fair store both of ammunition and of food within the
fort. Until the 4th of July they maintained a manly struggle against the
mutineers, holding their fort until they could hold it no longer.
Colonel Tucker and one of the civil officers were shot in the head while
acting as artillerymen; General Goldie was slightly wounded, as was
likewise one of his daughters; and many other casualties occurred. The
besieged had great difficulty in making a covered-way to protect their
servants, to enable them to pass to and fro with the meals for the
ladies and children, who were collected in a room or godown overlooked
by a two-storied house held by the insurgents. Then commenced a voyage
full of miseries, in boats that contained all the Europeans still
remaining at that spot. First the rebels fired on the boats as they
rowed along; then one of the boats ran aground; then a boatful of rebels
approached, and the ladies in the stranded boat jumped overboard to
avoid capture. Death by bullets, death by drowning, took place every
hour; and the fugitives were thrown into such dire confusion that none
could help the rest. Some crept on shore, and wandered about the fields
to escape detection; others found shelter under friendly roofs; one
boat-load succeeded in prosecuting their voyage down to Cawnpore, or
rather Bithoor.
There were thus two sets of Futteghur fugitives; one that reached the
clutches of the Nena towards the middle of June; the other, much
smaller, that was spared that fate until the middle of July. So complete
was the destruction of both, however; so sweeping the death-stroke
hurled against them by Nena Sahib, that the details of their fate have
been but imperfectly recorded. Towards the close of June, Mr Court and
Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received information touching the events at
Cawnpore from a native named Nerput, an opium _gomashta_ or agent at the
last-named city; he gave them or sent them a narrative written in
Persian, portions of which were afterwards translated and published
among the official papers. Nerput was one of the few who wrote
concerning the arrival of the first party of Futteghur fugitives at
Cawnpore. Under the date of June the 12th he said: ‘Report that
Europeans were coming in boats to relieve Cawnpore; and two companies
sent westward to make inquiries. They found that a hundred and
twenty-six men, women, and children, were in boats, sick.’ Another
narrative of the Futteghur calamity simply states, that when the unhappy
fugitives arrived at the part of the Ganges opposite Bithoor, Nena Sahib
‘stopped their boats, brought the fugitives on shore, and shot every
one. He then tied their bodies together, and threw them into the river.’
A native resident at Cawnpore, who was examined a few weeks afterwards
by Colonel Neill concerning his knowledge of the atrocities committed by
the rajah, and of the sufferings borne by the English, gave an account
of the Futteghur catastrophe corresponding nearly with those derived
from other quarters. He states that on the 12th of June, just as the
customary daily cannonading of the intrenchment was about to recommence,
a report came in that Europeans were approaching from the west.
Immediately a troop of cavalry and two companies of infantry were sent
to reconnoitre (probably to the vicinity of Bithoor). There were found
three boats, containing about a hundred and thirty men, women, and
children. ‘The troopers seized them all and took them to the Nena, who
ordered that they should all be killed; and sundry Rampoorie troopers of
the Mussulmans of the 2d Cavalry, whom the Nena kept with him for the
express purpose, killed them all. Among them was a young lady, the
daughter of some general. She addressed herself much to the Nena, and
said: “No king ever committed such oppression as you have, and in no
religion is there any order to kill women and children. I do not know
what has happened to you. Be well assured that by this slaughter the
English will not become less; whoever may remain will have an eye upon
you.” But the Nena paid no attention, and shewed her no mercy; he
ordered that she should be killed, and that they should fill her hands
with powder and kill her by the explosion.’
The fate of the second party of fugitives from Futteghur will be noticed
presently. We must return now to the unfortunate occupants of the
intrenchment at Cawnpore.