THE DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
After the first startling outbreak at Meerut, there was no instance of
mutiny that threw consternation over a more widely spreading range of
country than that at Dinapoor. This military station is in the midst of
the thickly populated province of Behar, between Bengal and Oude; a
province rich in opium, rice, and indigo plantations, and inhabited
chiefly by a class of Hindoos less warlike than those towards the west.
The Dinapoor mutiny was the one great event in the eastern half of
Northern India during July and August; and on this account it may
conveniently be treated as the central nucleus around which all the
minor events grouped themselves. In the regions surrounding the lower
course of the Ganges, and its branch the Hoogly, the disturbances were
of minor character; but along both sides of the great trunk-road there
was much more agitation, especially after the mutiny at the station
above named. Nevertheless, it will be desirable to take a bird’s-eye
glance at Bengal and Behar generally in this chapter, in relation to the
events of July and August—keeping steadily in mind the 25th of July, as
the day on which the occurrences at Dinapoor agitated all the natives,
paralysed many of the Europeans, and led to a train of truly remarkable
proceedings in and near the town of Arrah.
First, then, for Calcutta, the Anglo-Indian capital. This city was not
afflicted by a mutiny, in the usual meaning of the term, at any time
during the year. Many reasons might be assigned for this exemption.
There were on all occasions more Europeans at Calcutta than in any other
city in India, who could have presented a formidable defence-corps if
they chose to combine for that purpose. There was the majesty of a
vice-regal court at Calcutta, not without its effect on the
impressionable minds of Asiatics. There were the head-quarters of all
authority in the city, insuring the promptest measures if exigency
should demand them. And lastly, Calcutta being the landing-place for
most of the English troops, rebel sepoys could never hope for much
chance of success in that capital. Mutiny there was not, but panic
unquestionably appeared—panic among the Europeans who did not belong to
the Company’s service, and whose imaginations were excited by the
terrible narratives brought in from the northwest, and highly coloured
during their transmission. It was an unfortunate circumstance that many
of these persons were hostile to the government of Viscount Canning; and
this hostility was especially displayed by those connected with the
press, on account of the restrictions already adverted to. Whatever may
be the varieties of opinion on the matters at issue, it is
unquestionable that difficulties were thrown in the way of the executive
by this want of accord. India has for a long period been rich in
coteries and parties. Among military men, the Queen’s officers and the
Company’s officers have had a little emulative pique; among non-military
men, there has been an envy by the non-officials of the civil servants
of the Company; and the military and the civilians have had their own
grounds for antagonism. Calcutta, above all other places, has been
marked by these sources of discord.
Towards the close of July the government deemed it prudent to ascertain
what was the state of affairs in Calcutta with reference to the
possession, sale, or concealment of arms. The Europeans in the city, in
a state of perpetual alarm, kept up by unauthenticated paragraphs in the
newspapers, had indulged a belief that the natives had lately made large
purchases of arms, as if plotting mischief. Especially was this
suspicion entertained when news arrived from Havelock and Neill that all
the Europeans at Cawnpore had been murdered; almost wild with
excitement, rage, and terror, the Calcutta community set no bounds to
their apprehensions; they would fain have shot all the natives around
them, in vague dread of some diabolical plot. Mr Wauchope, commissioner
of police, was ordered to make strict inquiry concerning the possession
of arms. He found that the sale of weapons had been very large during
three mouths, but that nearly all the purchases had been made by
Europeans, and that hardly a house in Calcutta, inhabited by Christians,
was without one or more muskets or pistols. Many arms also had been
purchased in Calcutta, and taken into the provinces for the use of
indigo-planters, zemindars, and others, who naturally wished to have
near them a few weapons at such a turbulent period. Of any considerable
purchases of arms by the native population of Calcutta there was no
proof, and the superintendent disbelieved the rumour. This was the third
time in two months that the Anglo-Indian capital had been thrown into a
paroxysm of terror on this subject; and although the panic was shewn to
be groundless, the authorities nevertheless believed it to be expedient
to cause all firearms in the city to be registered.
[Illustration:
MAJOR VINCENT EYRE.
]
No small part of the agitation at Calcutta arose from the shackles on
the press, already adverted to. Men of extreme opinions, and men of
excited feelings, longing to pour out their thoughts on paper, found
themselves less able so to do than in times gone by; there was the
seizure of their printing apparatus, the infliction of a heavy fine,
confronting them, and checking the movement of their pens. Sufficient
transpired, however, to render manifest these two facts—that the
European community at Calcutta violently hated the natives generally,
and violently opposed Viscount Canning personally. There was a very
general acquiescence in some such code of rules as the following, for
dealing with the natives—that every mutineer who had taken up arms or
quitted his ranks should be put to death; that every native, not a
soldier, who aided the mutineers, should in like manner be put to death;
that in every village in which a European had been murdered, a telegraph
wire cut, or a dâk stolen, a swift tribunal should exercise summary
justice; that every village in which a European fugitive had been
insulted or refused aid should be heavily fined; and that vengeance,
burning vengeance, was the only adequate measure to deal out to all who
had offended. The distressing tales brought by the fugitives had much
effect in keeping up the feeling denoted by such suggestions as these.
It was under the influence of the same disturbed state of the public
mind, that an address or petition was got up, condemnatory alike of
Viscount Canning and of the East India Company; it was intended to work
a considerable effect in England; but the obviously one-sided line of
argument vitiated its force and damaged its reception.
As the month of July advanced, and fugitives came in from the disturbed
provinces, arrangements were made for accommodating them at Calcutta,
and—as we have seen—for alleviating their wants. It became also a point
of much importance to provide barracks or temporary homes of some kind
for the troops expected to arrive by sea from various regions. Among
buildings set apart for this latter purpose were the Town Hall, the Free
School, the Pleaders’ Chambers in the Sudder Court, and the Lower Orphan
School at Kidderpore. Many months would necessarily elapse before troops
in large numbers could arrive; but even a single regiment would require
considerable space to house it before it could be sent up the country.
In what way, during July and August, the English troops were sent to the
seats of disturbance, has already been sufficiently noticed; some were
despatched by steamers up the Ganges to Patna, Benares, and Allahabad;
while the rest mostly went from Calcutta to Raneegunge by railway, and
thence pursued their land-journey by any vehicles obtainable.
It may here be remarked, that when Sir Colin Campbell arrived at
Calcutta, an immense amount of labour presented itself to his notice.
Before he could decide whether to advance northwest to the seat of war,
or to remain at the capital, he had carefully to examine the military
condition of India. The records of the war department were at Simla,
while the centre of authority was at Calcutta. The principal officers
were scattered throughout the disturbed districts; the desultory and
isolated struggles had relaxed the bond of military obedience; the
reinforcements as they arrived had to be fitted into their places; the
detached forces had to be brought into subordination to some general
plan; and the different branches of the service had to be brought into
harmony one with another. Hence Calcutta was for several weeks the
head-quarters of the veteran commander-in-chief, while these
all-important details of military organisation were in progress.
In the wide belt of country forming the eastern margin of India, from
the Himalaya in the north to Pegu in the south, there was no mutiny
properly so called during July and August. All the disturbances were
limited to threatening symptoms which, if not attended to, might have
proved dangerous. The nature of these symptoms may be illustrated by a
few examples. At Jelpigoree, early in July, two men were detected
tampering with the sepoys of the 73d N. I.; and a trooper of the 11th
irregular cavalry was found guilty of insubordination. At Dinagepore the
moulvies or Mussulman religious teachers began to spread seditious
rumours. At Jessore, similar Mussulman tendencies were manifested. In
the third week of July tranquillity prevailed throughout the divisions
of Aracan, Chittagong, Dacca, Assam, and Darjeeling, comprising the belt
above adverted to; and if agitation were more observable towards the
close of the month, it was traceable to news of the Dinapoor mutiny,
presently to be noticed. Early in August the Jelpigoree native troops
were found to be in a very unsettled state, ready to mutiny at any time;
and on the 15th a plot was discovered for murdering the officers and
decamping towards the west. In consequence of this, orders were sent to
Assam and Darjeeling to aid the Jelpigoree officers in case of need.
During the remainder of August, a close watch was kept on the 73d N. I.,
the chief native regiment in that part of India, sufficient to prevent
actual outbreaks; and native servants were disarmed during the Mohurrum
or Mohammedan festival, to guard against the effects of fanaticism.
Perhaps, however, the tranquillity of this eastern belt was more
efficiently secured by the near neighbourhood of half-civilised border
tribes, who had but little sympathy with the real Hindustanis, and were
willing to enter into the Company’s service as irregular troops and
armed police.
Passing westward, to the line of route along the Hoogly to the Ganges,
and the country near it, we find traces of a little more turbulency,
owing to the presence of a greater number of native troops. About the
middle of July, the Barrackpore authorities asked for permission to
disarm the villages near at hand, in order to render more effectual the
previous disarming of native troops at Barrackpore itself—treated in a
former chapter. Early in August the behaviour of the troops at
Berhampore became suspicious; they had heard of the mutiny of the 8th N.
I. at places further west, and were with difficulty kept from imitating
the pernicious example. In the middle of the month, the commissioner of
Bhagulpore deemed it necessary to detain two detachments of H.M. 5th
Fusiliers, on their way up the Ganges, at Bhagulpore and Monghir; for
the 32d native infantry, and the 5th irregular cavalry, exhibited
symptoms not to be neglected. After the occurrences at Dinapoor, the
region around Berhampore and Moorshedabad could no longer be kept in
peace while the native troops retained their arms; it was determined
therefore, by Mr Spencer the commissioner, and Colonel Macgregor the
commandant, to adopt decisive measures while there was yet time. On the
1st of August, having the aid of H.M. 90th foot, they disarmed the 63d
native infantry and the 11th irregular cavalry at Berhampore; and on the
following day they similarly disarmed all the inhabitants of that place
and of Moorshedabad. Colonel Campbell, of the 90th, who had brought that
regiment from England in splendid condition in the _Himalaya_ steamer,
and who was on his way up the Ganges to the disturbed districts, was the
officer who practically effected this disarming at Berhampore; he spoke
of the 11th irregular cavalry as one of the most superb regiments he had
ever seen, in men, horses, and equipments; they were rendered almost
savage by the skill with which the colonel managed his delicate task;
and they reproached the sepoys of the 63d for having submitted so
quietly to the disarming. A little further up the country, at
Bhagulpore, about 200 troopers of the 5th irregular cavalry mutinied on
the 14th of August, taking the road towards Bowsee, but harming none of
their officers; on the 15th they passed through Bowsee to Rownee; and on
the 18th left Rownee for Gayah—bound for the disturbed regions in the
west. At Monghir, still higher up the Ganges, a terrible commotion was
produced by this occurrence; the civil commissioner shut himself up in a
fort, with a few of H.M. 5th Fusiliers, and left the city to its fate;
but fortunately Sir James Outram was at the time passing up the Ganges
in a steamer; he rebuked this pusillanimity, and recommended the
officials to shew a bolder front.
Arriving now at the Patna and Dinapoor district, we must trace the
progress of affairs more in detail, to shew how the authorities were
placed before, and how after, the mutiny which it is the chief object of
this chapter to narrate. Patna is a large and important city, the centre
of an industrious region; while Dinapoor, in the immediate vicinity, is
the largest military station between Barrackpore and Allahabad. Mr
Tayler, civil commissioner, was the chief authority at the one place;
Major-general Lloyd was military commandant at the other; and it was
essentially necessary, for the preservation of peace in all that region,
that these two officials should act in harmony. We have already seen
(pp. 151-154) that, about the middle of June, the Patna district became
much agitated by the news of disturbances in other quarters; that the
police force was thereupon strengthened, and the ghats or landing-places
watched; that some of the Company’s treasure was removed to other
stations; that places of rendezvous were agreed upon in case of
emergency; that conspiracies among the Moslem inhabitants were more than
once discovered, in concert with other conspirators at Lucknow and
Cawnpore; and that on the 3d of July some of the fanatics murdered Dr
Lyell, principal assistant to the opium agent. We have also seen, in the
same chapter, that Dinapoor reposed upon a sort of moral volcano
throughout June; that although the native troops made loud professions
of loyalty, the Europeans were nevertheless in a very anxious
position—all living near together, all on the alert, and most of them
believing that the fidelity of the sepoys was not worth many days’
purchase. Being thus on their guard, a mutiny ought not to have occurred
at their station; but it _did_ occur, and brought disgrace to the
general who was responsible for military affairs in that division.
An intelligent clue to this whole series of transactions will be
obtained by tracing—first, the Dinapoor mutiny itself; then the mingled
disasters and successes, blunders and heroism, at Arrah; then the effect
of the mutiny on the districts of Behar north of the Ganges; and,
lastly, the effects on the wide-spreading region south of that river.
The distance between the two cities is about ten miles. The barracks of
the European troops at Dinapoor were situated in a large square westward
of the native town; beyond this were the native lines; and most western
of all, by a very injudicious arrangement, was the magazine in which the
percussion-caps were stored—a matter apparently small in itself, but
serious in its consequences, as we shall presently see. Major-general
Lloyd, commander of the station, and of a vast military region called
the Dinapoor Division, had for some weeks been an object of almost as
much anxiety to the Europeans at the station as the sepoys themselves.
He was advanced in years, infirm, and irresolute. Unable to mount his
horse without assistance, and dreading to give orders that would have
the effect of sending any European troops away from Dinapoor, he was
singularly unfitted to cope with the difficulties of those times. It
points to some great defect in military routine, when one who had been a
gallant officer in his better days was thus left in possession of a
command he was no longer fitted to wield. Towards the close of July
there were three regiments of Bengal native infantry at that station,
the 7th, 8th, and 40th. There was also the greater portion of H.M. 10th
foot, together with two companies of the 37th, and two troops of
artillery. Not a British officer, except the major-general, doubted that
these Europeans could have disarmed and controlled the sepoys, had the
attempt been made at the proper time. The Calcutta inhabitants had
petitioned the governor-general to disarm the native regiments at
Dinapoor, and the officers of the Queen’s regiments at that station had
all along advocated a similar measure; but General Lloyd, like many
other Company’s officers, was proud of the sepoys, and trusted them to
the last; and Viscount Canning placed reliance on his experience, to
determine whether and when to effect this disarming. This reliance ended
in unfortunate results.
On the 25th of July, the appearance of affairs led the major-general to
exhibit less than his former confidence in the native troops; he shrank,
it is true, from disarming them; but he sought to render their arms less
dangerous by quietly removing the percussion-caps from the magazine. Now
these caps had to be brought in front of the whole length of the sepoy
lines on the way from the magazine to the English barracks. Early in the
morning he sent the 10th and the artillery to the grand square, ready to
be moved towards the sepoy lines if disturbance should occur. Two
hackeries went down to the magazine under charge of an officer; the caps
were placed in them; and the vehicles were drawn some distance towards
the English lines. There then arose a shout among the sepoys: ‘Kill the
sahibs; don’t let the caps be taken away!’ The caps were taken, however,
and safely conveyed to the officers’ mess-room. The 10th were kept idle
in the square or in barracks all the forenoon; while the native officers
were ordered to go to the native lines, and ask the sepoys to give up
the caps already issued to them. Some of the sepoys obeyed this strange
demand—strange, because backed by no display of power; while some fired
their muskets and threatened to shoot the officers. At the sound of
these shots the 10th were ordered hastily to advance; they did so, but
only to see the rebel sepoys run off as fast as their legs could carry
them. Inexpressible was the mortification of the officers at this sight;
three entire regiments escaped across fields, with their arms and
accoutrements, to swell the ranks of the mutineers elsewhere; and so
stupid had been the orders given, that there was no force at hand to
stop them. The 10th, two companies of the 37th, and the artillery, all
were burning to castigate these men; yet was the escape so quickly and
completely effected that very few of the sepoys fell. The English
destroyed the sepoy lines, but did not pursue the mutineers, for their
perplexed commander would not permit them to leave him in danger. A
surgeon of the 10th, on seeing the officers threatened by the sepoys,
brought his hospital-guards to confront them; and even some of his
patients got upon the flat roof of the hospital, and fired at the
rebels. He then galloped off, and brought all the ladies and children to
the barracks for safety. Every man of the 10th regiment was vexed and
irritated by this day’s work; complaints against the general were loud,
deep, and many; and all the officers’ letters told plainly of the
general feeling among them. The regiment numbered little more than four
hundred bayonets; for many men were sick in hospital, and a detachment
was at Benares; but the four hundred, highly disciplined men, would not
have hesitated an instant to disarm, to fight, to pursue, the three
thousand rebels, had they been properly instructed and permitted so to
do. During eight or ten weeks the officers of that regiment had urged
the disarming of the sepoys; but their recommendations had not been
listened to, and now it was too late. The general himself, on the
forenoon of the 25th, went on board a steamer in the Ganges: ‘I had no
horse in cantonment,’ he said. ‘My stable was two miles distant; and
being unable at the time to walk far or much, I thought I should be most
useful on board the steamer with guns and riflemen.’ It is deeply to be
regretted that an old soldier should have been so placed as to find such
an explanation necessary. As a consequence of this retreat to a place of
shelter, the officers remained without commands and without a commander.
Some of the mutineers embarked in boats, with the intention of going
down the Ganges to Patna, or of crossing the river; but the detachment
of the 37th, on shore and in the steamer, killed most of them by
rifle-shots. The steamer did its work, unquestionably; but it was not
the place for a military commander at such a time.
The question at once presented itself to the minds of all—whither had
the rebels gone? Evidence was soon afforded that the direction taken was
that of Arrah, a town twenty-four miles from Dinapoor, and separated
from it by the river Sone. Arrah, as a town, was not of great
importance; but it was the chief place in the district of Shahabad, and
was surrounded by a country whence much revenue was obtained by the East
India Company. During the troubles arising out of the mutiny, the chief
authority at Arrah was the magistrate, Mr Wake—a man who, by his energy
and public spirit, proved to be eminently fitted to hold power in
perilous times. During the whole of June and July he had watched the
progress of events with an anxious eye. Very soon after the mutiny
commenced, he wrote to the authorities at Calcutta, describing the
contents of certain native newspapers published about that time, and
suggesting the propriety of curbing the licence of those productions. On
the 10th of June he announced—with something like contempt in his
manner—that most of the Europeans employed on the railway-works near
Arrah had hurried away frightened by reports of mutinous symptoms at
Ghazeepore and Buxar; and he dwelt on the pernicious effects of the
example afforded by this timidity. About a week afterwards he induced
them all to return. From time to time he applied to Dinapoor, Patna, and
Calcutta, for a small detachment of troops to protect Arrah; but none
could be afforded. He suspected some of the chieftains and zemindars
near at hand, and more than suspected numerous disbanded sepoys who were
seen in the district; to detect plots, he detained and opened letters at
the post-office; but this course met with disapproval, as commencing a
system liable to great abuse. There were two influential men in the
neighbourhood—Baboo Koer Singh, and the Rajah of Doomraon—whose conduct
Mr Wake scrutinised very closely; they professed friendship and loyalty
to the government, but he doubted them. On the 11th of July, Arrah had
become surrounded by so many disbanded sepoys, and natives ready for any
mischief, that he applied to Patna for a party of Captain Rattray’s Sikh
police, which was furnished to him.
Thus matters proceeded until the 25th of July, when rumours of something
disastrous at Dinapoor arrived. Arrah was now about to become suddenly
famous. The ‘Defence of Arrah’ was to be narrated in dispatches and
letters, in pamphlets and books, and was to cheer up many who had been
humiliated by blunders committed elsewhere. True, it was only a house
defended, not a town; it was less than a score of Europeans saved, not a
whole community; yet did it bring well-deserved praise to those
concerned in it, and encouragement to a spirited line of conduct on the
part of the Company’s civil servants elsewhere.
[Illustration:
Mr Boyle’s house at Arrah, defended for seven days against 3000
rebels.
]
On the evening of the day just named, Mr Wake received express news that
the native troops at Dinapoor had actually mutinied, or shewed symptoms
of so doing within a few hours. On the morning of the 26th, he heard
that some of the mutineers were crossing the river Sone, at a point
sixteen miles from Dinapoor, and advancing upon Arrah. His Hindustani
local police speedily ran away; but he and a trusty band of civilians
resolved to remain at their posts. They selected the bungalow of one of
their number, Mr Boyle, an engineer of the main trunk railway, and made
that their fortress. Or, more correctly, it was a building which Mr
Boyle had selected for some such purpose as this many days or even weeks
before, when the state of affairs began to look gloomy; it was a
detached two-storied house, about fifty feet square, standing within the
same compound as the bungalow inhabited by Mr Boyle; he fortified it
with stones and timber, and always kept some provisions in it. When the
other civilians learned this, some of them smiled; but the smile became
one of gratitude on the 26th of July. The Europeans who now took up
their abode in this fortified house were Messrs Wake, Boyle, Littledale,
Combe, Colvin, Halls, Field, Anderson, Godfrey, Cock, Tait, Hoyle,
Delpeiron, De Songa, and Dacosta; and a Mohammedan deputy-collector,
Syud Azimoodeen—all employed in various civil duties in or near Arrah:
not a military man among them. With them were 50 Sikhs of Captain
Rattray’s police battalion. The ladies and children had been sent away
to a place of safety. All that the defenders could bring into the house
was meat and grain for a few days’ short allowance for the Europeans,
with a very scanty supply of food for the Sikhs. As to weapons, most of
the Europeans, besides revolvers and hog-spears, had two
double-barrelled guns each, or a gun and a rifle; they had abundance of
ammunition, and wherewithal to make cartridges by thousands. Early in
the morning of the 27th, nearly the whole of the Dinapoor mutineers
marched into Arrah, released the prisoners in the jail, about four
hundred in number, rushed to the collectorate, and looted the treasury
of eighty thousand rupees. They then advanced to Boyle’s house, and kept
up a galling fire against it during the whole day, finding shelter
behind trees and adjacent buildings. And now did Baboo Koer Singh shew
himself in his true colours; he threw off the mask of friendliness, and
boldly headed the mutineers. It was afterwards ascertained that this
man, supposed to be in league with Nena Sahib, had openly become a rebel
instantly on hearing of the mutiny at Dinapoor: it was he who had
procured the boats in which they crossed the Sone; and he formed a plan
for joining the Oude insurgents after plundering the treasury of Arrah.
When in front of Mr Boyle’s house, Koer Singh and his myrmidons
endeavoured to bribe the Sikhs to desert; but these stanch fellows
remained true to their salt. On the 28th the insurgents having brought
two small cannon, the hastily defended house had then to bear a torrent
of cannon-balls as well as of musket-bullets. Thus the siege continued
day after day. The rebels even dragged one of the cannon up to the roof
of Mr Boyle’s bungalow, about sixty yards off, whence they could fire
into the defended house. ‘Nothing,’ said Mr Wake in his dispatch, ‘but
the cowardice, ignorance, and want of unanimity of our enemies,
prevented our fortification from being brought down about our ears.’ As
fast as the strength of the attack was increased, so fast did the
garrison increase their defences; to oppose a new battery, a new
barricade was raised; to defeat a mine, a countermine was run out. The
Sikhs worked untiringly, and seemed to glory in the gallant defence they
were making. When provisions began to run low, they made a sally one
night, and brought in four sheep—a precious treasure to them at such a
time. Seven whole days and nights did this continue—three thousand men
besieging seventy. On the last two days the cowards offered ‘terms,’
which were contemptuously rejected. On the 2d of August the mutineers
marched off to the west of Arrah to fight Major Vincent Eyre; how they
fared, we shall see presently; but the battle brought about the
liberation of Mr Wake and his companions. Wonderful to relate, only one
member of the garrison, a Sikh policeman, received a dangerous wound;
all the rest escaped with mere bruises and scratches. The Sikhs were
justly proud of their share in the work. During the siege, when water
ran short, they dug a well underneath the house, and continued their
labour till they came to a spring; when all was happily ended, they
requested that the well might be built into a permanent one, as a
memento of their services; and that the house itself should receive the
inscription of ‘Futtehgurh’ or ‘stronghold of victory’—requests with
which Mr Boyle was not at all unwilling to comply.
We must now direct attention again to Patna and Dinapoor, and notice the
measures taken to check if possible the triumph of the mutineers. Mr
Tayler at the one place had civil control, and General Lloyd at the
other had military control, over Arrah as well as all other towns in the
neighbourhood; and both felt that that station was placed in peril as
soon as the mutineers moved westward from Dinapoor. Some weeks earlier,
when the railway officials had hurried away from Arrah to Dinapoor in
affright, Mr Tayler rebuked them, saying that, ‘this is a crisis when
every Englishman should feel that his individual example is of an
importance which it is difficult to calculate. It is of great
consequence that Europeans should exhibit neither alarm nor panic; and
that, whenever it is practicable, they should band together for mutual
defence and protection.’ This rebuke aided Mr Wake’s advice in bringing
the railway people back to Arrah. It may here be remarked that Mr Tayler
himself was, during the early part of July, in a state of discord, not
only with the natives, but with many of the Europeans at Patna. He had
an unseemly wrangle with Mr Lowis the magistrate; and was himself
frequently reprimanded by the lieutenant-governor of Bengal. This
anarchy appears to have arisen from the fact that, at a time of much
difficulty, different views were entertained concerning the best policy
to be pursued—views, advocated in a way that much obstructed public
business.
It was about one o’clock on the 25th that the authorities at Patna heard
alarming intelligence from Dinapoor. Mr Tayler at once summoned all the
Europeans resident in the city to his house, where measures of defence
were planned in case of an attack. At three o’clock a distant firing
announced that the mutiny had taken place; and within an hour or two
came the news that the mutinous regiments had marched off towards the
west. Mr Tayler made up an expeditionary force of about 100
persons—Sikhs, Nujeebs, recruits, and volunteers—and sent it off that
same night towards Arrah, to watch the movements of the rebels. At dawn
on the following morning, however, unfavourable news came in from many
country stations; and the commissioner, uneasy about Patna and its
neighbourhood, recalled the corps. Tayler and Lloyd did not work well
together at that crisis. The commissioner wrote to the general on the
day after the mutiny, urging him to send 50 European troops either to
Chupra or to Mozufferpoor, or both, to protect those places from an
attack threatened by insurgents. To this application Lloyd returned a
somewhat querulous answer—that he had only 600 Europeans at Dinapoor;
that he was afraid of treachery on the part of Koer Singh; that he had
already been blamed by the Calcutta authorities for listening to
applications for troops to defend Patna, instead of sending them on to
Allahabad; and that he could render no aid for the purposes required. Mr
Tayler renewed the subject by announcing that he would send 50 Sikhs to
the two places named; and he strongly urged the general to send 200 men
to rout the mutineers who had gone to Arrah—proposing, at the same time,
the establishment of a corps of volunteer cavalry among the officers and
gentlemen of Patna and Dinapoor. In most of these matters Mr Tayler
appears to have judged more soundly than General Lloyd; but in one point
he was fatally in error—he believed that Baboo Koer Singh of Jugdispore
would remain faithful to the British government.
If the ‘defence of Arrah’ has acquired notoriety, so has the ‘disaster’
at that place—to which we must now direct attention. This disaster was
peculiarly mortifying to the British, as giving a temporary triumph to
the mutineers, and as involving a positive loss of many English soldiers
at a critical period. The revolt at Dinapoor having occurred on Saturday
the 25th of July, General Lloyd made no effort until Monday the 27th to
look after the sepoys; but on that day he sent a party of the 37th foot
from Dinapoor towards Arrah, for the purpose of dispersing the mutineers
assembled at that place, and for rescuing the European community hemmed
in there. The troops went in the _Horungotta_ steamer; but this
unfortunately went aground after three hours’ steaming, and the plan was
frustrated. On the evening of Tuesday the 28th, another expedition was
organised; and it was to this that the disastrous loss occurred. The
steamer _Bombay_ happening to arrive at Dinapoor in her downward passage
on the Ganges, Lloyd detained it, and arranged to send a detachment on
board. The _Bombay_ was to take a certain number of troops, steam up to
the spot where the _Horungotta_ had run aground, take in tow the
detachment from that steamer, and proceed up the river Sone to a
landing-place as near as possible to Arrah. This river enters the Ganges
at a point a few miles west of Dinapoor. Early in the morning of
Wednesday the 29th, the steamer started, and after picking up the other
detachment, the whole disembarked in the afternoon at Beharee Ghat—over
400 men in all, under Captain Dunbar.[65] The landing having been safely
effected on the left or west bank of the Sone, the troops marched to a
nullah which it was necessary to cross by means of boats. When, after a
considerable delay, this was accomplished, they resumed their march,
with a bright moon above them, a rough road beneath them, and a very few
of the enemy in sight; and the evening was far advanced when they
reached a bridge about a mile and a half short of Arrah. Here Captain
Harrison of the 37th suggested that they should halt until daylight, and
not incur the danger of entering the town by night; but Captain Dunbar,
of the 10th, who commanded the force, overruled this suggestion, under
an unfortunate impression that there would be little or no opposition.
This was the fatal mistake that wrecked the whole enterprise. The troops
arrived at Arrah at eleven at night, in black darkness, for the moon had
set; then passed through the outskirts of the town—the 10th leading,
then the Sikhs, then the 37th. Suddenly, while passing by a large tope
of mango-trees, a dreadful musketry-fire flashed out of the gloom; the
enemy, it now appeared, had been lying in ambush awaiting the arrival of
the unsuspecting force. Mr Wake and his companions were startled by the
sound of this musketry, audible enough in their beleaguered but
well-defended house; they at once inferred that something wrong had
occurred to British troops, and in this inference they were only too
correct. The suddenness of the attack, and the blackness of the night,
seem to have overwhelmed the detachment; the men lost their officers,
the officers their men: some ran off the road to fire into the tope,
others to obtain shelter; Dunbar fell dead; and Harrison had to assume
the command of men whom, at midnight and in utter darkness, he could not
see. The main body succeeded in reassembling in a field about four
hundred yards from the tope; and there they remained until
daylight—being joined at various periods of the night by stragglers,
some wounded and some unhurt, and being fired at almost continually by
the mutineers. It was a wretched humiliating night to the British. At
daybreak they counted heads, and then found how severe had been their
loss. Captain Harrison at once collecting the survivors into a body,
marched them back ten or eleven miles to the steamer. The men had fasted
so long (twenty-four hours), through some mismanagement, that they were
too weak to act as skirmishers; they defended themselves as long as
their ammunition lasted, but kept in column, pursued the whole way by a
large body of the enemy, who picked off the poor fellows with fatal
certainty. Arrived at the banks of the nullah, all organisation ceased;
the men rushed to the boats in disorder; some were run aground, some
drowned, some swam over, some were shot by sepoys and villagers on
shore. How the rest reached the steamer, they hardly knew; but this they
did know—that they had left many of their wounded comrades on shore,
with the certain fate of being butchered and mutilated by the enemy. It
was a mournful boat-load that the _Bombay_ carried back to Dinapoor on
the evening of the 30th of July. Captain Dunbar, Lieutenants Bagnall and
Ingilby, Ensigns Erskine, Sale, Birkett, and Anderson, and Messrs Cooper
and Platt (gentlemen-volunteers) were killed; Lieutenant Sandwith,
Ensign Venour, and Messrs Garstin and Macdonell (gentlemen-volunteers)
were wounded. Out of fifteen officers, twelve were killed or wounded.
The dismal list enumerated 170 officers and men killed, and 120
wounded—290 out of 415! Havelock won half-a-dozen of his victories with
no greater loss than this.
Here, then, was one disaster on the heels of another. General Lloyd’s
vacillation had permitted the native troops at Dinapoor to mutiny; and
now the unfortunate Captain Dunbar’s mismanagement had led to the
destruction of nearly two-thirds of the force sent to rout those
mutineers. Happily, Messrs Wake and Boyle, and their companions, still
held out; and happily there was a gallant officer near who had the skill
to command as well as the courage to fight. This officer was Major
Vincent Eyre, of the artillery. Being _en route_ up the Ganges with some
guns from Dinapoor to Allahabad, and having arrived at Ghazeepore on the
28th of July, he there learned the critical position of the handful of
Europeans in the house at Arrah. He applied to the authorities at
Ghazeepore for permission to make an attempt to relieve Mr Wake; they
gave it: he steamed back to Buxar, and there met a detachment of the 5th
Fusiliers going up the Ganges. Finding the officers and men heartily
willing to aid him, he formed a plan for marching a field-force from
Buxar to Arrah, and there attacking the Dinapoor mutineers and their
accomplice Koer Singh. Although dignified with the name of a
field-force, it consisted simply of about 160 men of H.M. 5th Fusiliers
under Captain L’Estrange, 12 mounted volunteers of the railway
department, and three guns; but under an able commander, it was destined
to prove more than a match for nearly _twenty times_ its number of
native troops. On the 30th of July, the morning when the detachment from
Dinapoor retreated from Arrah under such deplorable circumstances, Eyre
commenced a series of operations west of that town. He started from
Buxar, and marched twenty-eight miles to Shawpoor, where he heard of the
disaster that had overwhelmed Captain Dunbar’s party. He at once stated
to General Lloyd, in a dispatch: ‘I venture to affirm confidently that
no such disaster would have been likely to occur, had that detachment
advanced less precipitately, so as to have given full time for my force
to have approached direct from the opposite side; for the rebels would
then have been hemmed in between the two opposing forces, and must have
been utterly routed.’ Regret, however, being useless, Eyre proceeded to
carry out his own plan. Hearing that the enemy intended to destroy the
bridges _en route_, he pushed on again towards Arrah. On the 1st of
August, finding the bridge at Bullowtee just cut, he hastily constructed
a substitute, and marched on to Gujeratgunje by nightfall. Here he
bivouacked for the night. At daybreak on the 2d he started again, and
soon came in sight of the enemy, drawn up in great force in plantations
on either side of the road, with inundated rice-fields in front; they
had sallied out of Arrah to meet him. Perceiving that the enemy intended
to turn his flanks, he boldly pushed on against their centre, penetrated
it, and advanced to the village of Beebeegunje. The enemy, baffled by
his tactics, gave up their first plan, and hastily sought to prevent his
passage over a bridge near the village. In this they succeeded for a
time, by destroying the bridge. After resting his troops a while,
Eyre—seeing that the enemy had formed extensive earthworks beyond the
stream, and that they occupied the houses of the village in great
force—determined to make a detour to the right, and try to cross about a
mile higher up. The enemy, seeing his object, followed him quickly, and
attacked him with great boldness, being flushed by their recent victory
over the luckless river detachment. They were nearly 2500 strong in
mutinous sepoys alone, besides Koer Singh and his followers. After an
hour’s hard fighting, Eyre ordered Captain L’Estrange to make a charge
with infantry. Promptly and gallantly that officer obeyed the order; his
skirmishers on the right turned the enemy’s flank, the guns with grape
and shrapnell shells drove in the centre; and then the infantry
advanced—driving the enemy, panic-stricken, in all directions. Losing no
time, the major crossed the stream, and advanced through an open country
to within four miles of Arrah. Here he was suddenly brought up by an
impassable river, which cost him many hours’ hard labour to bridge
over—obtaining, fortunately, for that purpose, the aid of labourers
employed on the East Indian Railway, just close at hand. Koer Singh and
the rebels were so dismayed at these proceedings, that they left Arrah
altogether, and retreated in various directions. It seems almost
incredible, although the detailed official list places the matter beyond
all doubt, that Major Eyre, during nine hours’ severe fighting on this
day, lost only 2 killed and 14 wounded.
As a means of enabling this energetic officer to follow up his success,
a reinforcement was sent to him from Dinapoor on the 7th of August,
consisting of 200 of H.M. 10th foot. This reinforcement entered Arrah on
the next day; and a party of 100 Sikhs having arrived a day or two
afterwards, the major was enabled to lay his plans for an expedition to
Jugdispore, twelve miles distant, to which place Koer Singh and a large
number of the mutineers had retired. The enterprise was not to be
commenced without some caution; for the roads were difficult for the
passage of troops at that season of the year, and the rebel chief’s fort
at Jugdispore was represented as being very strong and well defended.
All this, however, only whetted the desire of Eyre’s troops to try their
mettle against the enemy. The force consisted of just 500 men,[66] with
three guns. On the afternoon of the 11th he took his departure from
Arrah, marched eight miles, and encamped for the night on the bank of
the Gagur Nuddee. Resuming his progress next morning, he passed over two
miles of rice-fields nearly under water, which rendered the draught of
his guns very difficult. At eleven o’clock he espied some of the enemy
in the village of Tola Narainpore, evidently preparing to resist his
passage of a river immediately beyond. After a fight of skirmishers,
Eyre opened a fire of grape which roused up a large body of the enemy
concealed behind bushes. The detachment of the 10th foot, eager to
emulate the previous heroism of their comrades of the 5th Fusiliers, and
exasperated by their previous loss under Captain Dunbar, asked to be
permitted to charge the enemy at once; Eyre consented; Captain Patterson
led them on; they rushed with a shout and a cheer, and the enemy gave
way before a charge which they found irresistible. The other infantry
came up and assisted in dispersing the enemy from another village,
Dullaur, beyond the river. This accomplished, Eyre marched a mile and a
half through thick jungle to Jugdispore, maintaining a running-fight the
whole way. The treacherous Koer Singh’s stronghold was but feebly
defended; Eyre took possession of it early in the afternoon, and with it
large stores of grain, ammunition, and warlike material. The villagers
around Jugdispore immediately sent in tokens of submission to the
conqueror. Here as in the former instance, Major Eyre suffered
wonderfully small loss; not a man of his force was killed on this 12th
of August, and only six were wounded. The enemy lost 300.
Eyre did not give Koer Singh much time to recover himself. The rebel
chief fled with a few followers to the Jutowrah jungle, where he had a
residence. Thither the major followed him on the 14th, or rather sent
Captain L’Estrange with a detachment; but all had dispersed, sepoys and
rebels alike; and L’Estrange returned after destroying residences
belonging to Koer Singh and his two brothers.
It may suffice here to mention, that, so far as concerned the region
south and southwest of Arrah, the remaining days of August were spent in
the marching of the Dinapoor mutineers from place to place, and the
plundering or threatening of many towns as they passed. The authorities
would gladly have checked the course of so many armed rebels; but it
became a question whether Eyre or any other officer was strong enough in
Europeans to do so, and whether their aid was not more urgently needed
at Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Lucknow. The mutineers marched southward of
Mirzapore into Bundelcund, with the treacherous Koer Singh at their
head. The engineers and others connected with the works for the East
Indian railway were among those most perplexed by this movement of the
rebels; because the various places occupied temporarily by those persons
were just in the way of the mutineers. A lady, wife to one of these
officials, has recorded in a letter that she and her friends received
early news on the 25th of July that something was wrong at Dinapoor;
that on the 26th the rebels themselves made their appearance; that the
family got into a boat on the Sone, with no property but the clothes on
their backs; that they immediately rowed off towards Dinapoor as the
only means of escape; and that scarcely had they embarked when they saw
bungalow’s and property of every description—belonging to individuals,
to the railway company, and to the East India Company—a prey to
devastating flames. ‘Everything we have in the world is gone,’ said the
disconsolate writer; ‘what to do, or where to go, we know not.’ It is no
wonder that the letters of such sufferers contained bitter comments on
the government and politics of India—bitter, but often unjust.
The effects of this mutiny of the Dinapoor sepoys were, as has already
been remarked, deep and wide-spreading. It is scarcely too much to say
that twenty or thirty millions of persons were thrown into agitation by
it. Along the whole line of the Ganges it was felt, from Calcutta up to
Allahabad; along the great trunk-road between these two cities, it was
felt; in the belt of country north of the Ganges; in the belt between
the Ganges and the great road; in the belt south of the great road—in
all these extensive regions, the news from Dinapoor threw Christians and
natives alike into a ferment. Some discontented natives had vague hopes
of advantage by the threatened dissolution of the English ‘raj;’ some of
the villagers dreaded the approach of marauders who made little scruple
in pillaging friend as well as foe; while all the Europeans cried out as
with one voice: ‘Send us reliable British troops.’ Viscount Canning had
none to send; and when ship-loads of troops did at length arrive at
Calcutta, they were so urgently wanted higher up the country that he
could spare few or none for regions east of Allahabad.
The revenue-officers were placed in a position of trying difficulty in
those days. Besides collecting the taxes on land, salt, &c., and keeping
the money in the local treasuries until it could be sent safely to
Calcutta, they stored up large quantities of opium at certain factories,
which were in their special keeping. The Company were the purchasers of
the opium from the poppy-growers, and the sellers of it (at a large
profit) to British merchants at Calcutta or Bombay; and during the
interval of time between the buying and selling, the opium was stored in
godowns or warehouses at certain large towns. Patna was the chief of
these towns; and thus the revenue-officers of that place were especially
interested in the maintenance of tranquillity among the native troops in
the neighbouring station at Dinapoor. Dr Lyell, as was stated in a
former page, fell a victim to Mussulman fanaticism at Patna early in
July, about three weeks before the mutiny at Dinapoor. On the very day
before his murder, anxious for the responsibility thrown upon him, he
wrote an official letter which is interesting as illustrating the matter
now under consideration. He had just succeeded the chief opium-agent,
lately deceased, and had under his charge opium to the enormous value of
_two millions_ sterling, together with other government property of a
quarter of a million. He had endeavoured to strengthen the opium godowns
by barricading the gates with timber, and raising a breastwork of chests
filled with sand on the flat roofs—fearful lest an excited rabble should
attack the place. He had less than twenty Europeans on whom he could
rely. Major-general Lloyd at Dinapoor either could not or would not
supply him with any troops; and he sent to Calcutta urgent requisitions
for British troops, Sikh police, and guns. Matters became worse; Lyell
himself was massacred, and the native troops at Dinapoor mutinied; then,
at the end of July, the revenue-officers at Patna announced to the
government that the property under their charge had accumulated to three
millions sterling, and that they could not adequately protect it unless
reinforcements were sent. This appeared so serious at Calcutta, that
arrangements were made for throwing a few British troops, and a few
reliable Sikhs, into Patna.
The region north of the Ganges and east of Oude was in a perpetual state
of flutter and uneasiness during those troubled weeks. There were few
troops, either native or British; but the rumours from other quarters,
gaining strength as they passed from mouth to mouth, occasioned great
uneasiness, especially among the Europeans engaged in indigo-planting
and other industrial pursuits. There was a small military station at
Segowlie, not far from the Nepaul frontier, under the charge of Major
Holmes; and this officer thought proper, even before the month of June
was ended, to proclaim martial law in the districts between Segowlie and
Patna. Mr Tayler, commissioner at the last-named city, thought this a
bold proceeding; but he sanctioned it on account of the disturbed state
of the country. The Calcutta government, however, considered that the
major had overstrained his authority, and rebuked him for so doing.
Before he could be informed of this rebuke, Holmes had assumed absolute
military control over all the region between Patna and Goruckpore—giving
orders to magistrates to watch the ghats or landing-places, to arrest
suspicious persons, to offer rewards for the apprehension of rebels, to
keep an eye on the petty rajahs and chieftains, to strengthen the native
police, and to act in all things subordinately to him as military
commander throughout the districts of Sarun, Tirhoot, and Chumparun.
Military men applauded this step, but the civilians took umbrage at an
assumption of power not warranted by any instructions received from
Calcutta. This energetic but hapless officer was not permitted to remain
many weeks in the position which he had taken up; his chief troops were
the 12th irregular cavalry; and these rose on the 24th of July at
Segowlie, murdered him and Mrs Holmes, as well as other Europeans, and
then bent their steps towards Azimghur. This atrocity caused great
consternation; for the 12th had been much trusted among the native
regiments, as one whose gallantry was a guarantee for its fidelity.
Gallantry was exchanged for cowardice and villainy this day. While the
major and his wife were riding out, four of the troopers came up to the
vehicle and _beheaded them both_ as they sat; this being the signal, the
rest of the regiment rose in mutiny, murdered the surgeon, his wife, and
children, plundered the treasury, and made off in the way just noticed.
When this savage act became known, and when the mutiny at Dinapoor on
the next following day was also known, nothing could exceed the
agitation among the Europeans. At Chupra, a station nearly opposite
Arrah, the Europeans at once abandoned their homes and occupations, and
ran off to Dinapoor, to be behind the shelter of a few hundred English
bayonets; this was, indeed, not to be wondered at, for Chupra itself was
threatened by the Segowlie mutineers. On the 30th, when the events at
Dinapoor became known at Calcutta, the government did all and more than
all that Major Holmes had before done; they declared martial law—not
only in the northern districts of Sarun, Tirhoot, and Chumparun, but
also in those districts of the Patna division south of the Ganges—Patna,
Behar, and Shahabad. All through the month of August, the districts
north of the river were in the state just noticed; no further mutinies
took place there, but the various stations were thrown into frequent
panics by the threatened irruption of insurgents from other quarters. It
was chiefly from Oude that these onslaughts were feared; for that
province contained more rebels than any other—more natives who, without
being actually soldiers, were quite ready to embark in any desperate
enterprise, military or marauding, against the English.
We have said that the whole region right and left of the main trunk-road
was thrown into commotion by the mutiny at Dinapoor; this was certainly
the case, if we add to the disturbing causes the revolt of one or two
minor corps within this region itself. To describe how the region is
parcelled out into divisions, districts, and collectorates, is wholly
unnecessary: few in England know, and still fewer care, much concerning
these territorial details; but if the reader will roughly mark out with
his eye a sweep of country four hundred miles long by a hundred and
fifty in width, beginning at Moorshedabad or Midnapore, and ending at
Benares, and lying on the right or south of the Ganges—he will there see
that which, in July and August, was a region of perplexity. Small
military stations, and much more numerous civil stations, dot this
space. The dispatches relating to the events of those two months spoke
of dangers and alarms at places not one half of which are known even by
name to any but persons intimately connected with India—Hazarebagh,
Sheergotty, Burhee, Ramgurh, Sasseram, Bhagulpore, Bagoda, Ranchee,
Bowsee, Gayah, Pittorea, Raneegunge, Rownee, Dorunda, Chyebassa, Rotas,
Purulia, Bancorah, Dehree, Rotasgurh—all were places either disturbed by
the visits of mutineers, or thrown into commotion lest those visits
should be made at a time when means of defence were scanty.
It not unfrequently happened, at that troubled period, that while the
British officers were making arrangements to disarm suspected regiments,
the men of those regiments anticipated that proceeding by marching off
in mutiny, of course taking their arms with them. Such happened to
Lieutenant Graham, commanding at Hazarebagh. Being at Dorunda on the
30th of July, and learning that the 8th B. N. I. were unreliable at
Hazarebagh, he marched off with a view to disarm them; taking with him
about 220 Ramgurh infantry, 30 Ramgurh cavalry, and two 6-pounder guns.
On that very day, long before he could reach Hazarebagh, the sepoys rose
in mutiny, plundered the treasury, and released all the prisoners.
Graham soon found himself in difficulties; he could not pass his guns
over the river Damoodah at Ramgurh, because his bullocks were too few
and too weak; and his Ramgurh infantry shewed signs of a disposition to
march back to Dorunda and take the guns with them. After an anxious
night, he crossed the river on the morning of the 31st, with his few
troopers; but his infantry broke their faith, and marched away with the
two guns. So far, therefore, from being able to disarm a suspected
regiment, the lieutenant had the mortification of hearing that the
regiment had mutinied, and, in addition, of seeing his own infantry
follow the pernicious example. One fact cheered Lieutenant Graham in his
anxious duty; his 30 sowars remained faithful to him. When Captain Drew,
who commanded the detachment at Hazarebagh, came to make his report, it
appeared that the men of the 8th B. N. I. numbered just 200 bayonets,
forming two companies of one of the regiments lately mutinied at
Dinapoor. When news reached the captain, on the 28th, of this last-named
mutiny, he made arrangements for removing the ladies and children from
the station, as he had seen enough to make him distrust his own men; he
also sent to Colonel Robbins at Dorunda, for the aid of Lieutenant
Graham’s Ramgurh force, and to Calcutta for any available aid in the
shape of European troops. Four ladies and six children were forwarded to
a place of safety, and Captain Drew passed the 29th in some anxiety. On
the 30th he addressed his men, praising the sepoys who in certain
regiments had remained faithful while their comrades revolted; his
native officers seemed to listen to him respectfully, but the sepoys
maintained an ominous silence. On that same afternoon the men ran to the
bells of arms, broke them open, and seized their muskets. The die was
cast. All the officers, military and civil, jumped on their horses, and
rode for twelve hours through jungle, reaching Bagoda on the trunk-road
on the morning of the 31st; after two hours’ rest they galloped forty
miles further, then took transit dâk to Raneegunge, whence they
travelled to Calcutta by railway. Meanwhile the mutineers released 800
prisoners, burned the bungalows, and pillaged the treasury of seventy
thousand rupees. Whether a bold front might have prevented all this,
cannot now be known; Captain Drew asserted that if he and the other
officers had remained, they must inevitably have been killed on the
spot.
An instructive illustration was afforded towards the close of July, of
the intimate connection between the rebel sepoys and the villages of
Behar or Western Bengal. The government issued a proclamation, offering
rewards for the apprehension of mutineers and deserters. Mr Money,
magistrate at Gayah, found by inquiries that the inhabitants of the
villages refused to aid in giving up such men; but he hit upon a mode of
ascertaining at least the connection between the sepoys and the villages
respectively. Every sepoy remitted to his village a portion of his pay,
by means of remittance-bills and descriptive rolls; each bill went to
the accountant; the receipt of the payee went back to the regiment;
while the descriptive roll was kept and filed in the office of the
magistrate, shewing the name and regiment of the remitter. Mr Money
thought it useful to collect and tabulate all these descriptive rolls
for two years; and thus was able to obtain a record of the name of every
sepoy belonging to every village within his jurisdiction. He could thus
track any rebel soldier who might return to his village in hope of
escaping punishment; for the native police, if ordered to apprehend a
particular man in a particular district would do so, although unwilling
to initiate inquiries. The matter is noted here, as shewing how closely
the ties of family were kept up by the sepoys in this regular
transmission of money from the soldier in his camp to his relations in
their village.
During the first half of the month of July, before the state of affairs
at Dinapoor had assumed a serious import, the towns and districts
recently named were troubled rather by vague apprehensions than by
actual dangers. At Gayah, the chief town of a district south of Patna,
the magistrate was in much anxiety; the native inhabitants, in part
hopefully and in part fearfully, were looking out daily for news from
the mutineers in the Jumna and Ganges regions; and he felt much doubt
whether the Company’s treasury at that place was safe. So it was in most
of the towns and stations; from Raneegunge, where the finished portion
of the railway ended (at about a hundred and twenty miles from
Calcutta), to the districts approaching Benares and Patna, magistrates
and revenue-collectors, feeling their responsibility as civil servants
of the Company, cried aloud to Calcutta for a few, even a very few,
English troops, to set at rest their apprehensions; but Calcutta, as
these pages have over and over again shewn, had no troops to spare
except for the great stations further to the northwest.
As the month advanced, these symptoms of uneasiness increased in number
and intensity; and when the isolated mutineers at Rownee, Monghir,
Hazarebagh, &c., became intensified by the more momentous outbreak at
Dinapoor, fear grew in some instances up to panic, and the Company’s
officers hastened away from stations which they believed themselves
unable to hold. But here, as elsewhere, difficulties raised different
qualities in different minds; many of these gentlemen behaved with a
heroism worthy of all praise, as Mr Wake and Mr Boyle had done at Arrah.
At some of the places not a single English soldier could be seen, or was
likely to be seen at that time; and under those circumstances it was a
fact of high importance that Captain Rattray’s battalion of Sikh police
remained stanch and true—ready to march in small detachments to any
threatened spot, and always rendering good service. When the two
companies of the 8th B. N. I. mutinied at Hazarebagh, towards the close
of the month, and when the Ramgurh force followed their example instead
of opposing them, the civilians in this wide region were really placed
in great peril; Hazarebagh wished to know what Ramgurh would do,
Sheergotty looked anxiously towards Gayah, and Raneegunge feared for the
safety of its railway station. The Raneegunge officials, after fleeing
to Calcutta, returned to their station about the middle of August, under
the protection of Sikh police. The wife of one of the civil servants of
the Company, writing from Raneegunge on the 7th of August, told of the
sad condition in which European fugitives reached that place, coming
from various disturbed districts. ‘We are overwhelmed with refugees from
all places. Some of the poor creatures have come without a thing but
what they have on, and I am obliged to give them all changes of clothes
for a time. Many came after riding seventy miles on one horse, and one
gentleman without a saddle—a doctor and two others in their
night-clothes—as they started while the wretches were firing into their
bungalows. My husband had to lend them clothes to go to Calcutta in.’
The telegraphic messages or written letters that passed between Calcutta
and the various stations in Western Bengal, in July and August, occupy a
very large space in the blue-books relating to the mutiny; they
everywhere tell of officials expressing apprehensions of being obliged
to flee unless reinforcements could be sent to them; and of distinct
replies from the governor-general that, as he had no troops to send
them, they must bear up as long as their sagacity and resolution would
permit. The Europeans at Sheergotty left that station in a body, not
because they were attacked, but because they saw no hope of defence if
enemies should approach. Many Europeans, however, similarly placed,
afterwards regretted that they had fled; instances were not few of the
moral power obtained over the native mind by men who resolutely clung to
their duty in moments of peril; while in those cases where the
abandonment took place, ‘the thieves and rabble of the neighbourhood,’
as an eye-witness remarked, ‘plundered the cutcheries and private
houses; and those who had grudges against their neighbours began to hope
and to prepare for an opportunity of vengeance.’
August found matters in an equally unsettled state. Many of the
magistrates and collectors now had a new difficulty. Mr Tayler, as
commissioner for the whole of the Patna division, ordered such of them
as were under his control to abandon their stations and come into Patna
for shelter; many were quite willing to do so; but others, resolute and
determined men, did not like this appearance of shrinking from their
duty in time of trouble. Mr Money, the magistrate of Gayah, called a
meeting of the Europeans at that station, and read Mr Tayler’s order to
them; it was decided by vote to abandon the place and its treasure, and
retreat to Patna. ‘We formed rather a picturesque cavalcade,’ said one
of the number, ‘as we wound out from Gayah; the elephants and horses;
the scarlet of the Europeans contrasting with the white dresses of the
Sikh soldiery; the party of gentlemen, armed to the teeth, who rode in
the midst; and the motley assemblage of writers, servants, and
hangers-on that crowded in the rear.’ While on the road towards Patna,
two of the gentlemen, Mr Money and Mr Hollings, feeling some humiliation
at the position they were in, resolved to march back to their posts even
if none others accompanied them. It happened that a few men of the 64th
foot had passed through Gayah a day or two before, and Mr Money was
enabled to bring them back for a short period. These two officials, it
is true, were afterwards driven away from Gayah by a band of released
prisoners, and fled to Calcutta; but their firmness in an hour of
difficulty won for them approval and promotion from the government. This
transaction at Gayah was connected with a series of quarrels which led
to much partisan spirit. Mr Tayler had long been in disfavour with Mr
Halliday, lieutenant-governor of Bengal, as an official of a very
intractable and insubordinate character; and after the issue of the
order lately adverted to, Mr Tayler was removed from his office
altogether—a step that led to a storm of letters, papers, pamphlets,
charges, and counter-charges, very exciting to the Calcutta community at
that time, but having little permanent interest in connection with the
mutiny.
As the month advanced, the government were able to send a few English
troops to some of the stations above named. When Mr Halliday had
learned, by telegrams and letters, that not a single European remained
in Sheergotty or Bagoda, and that the native troops of the Ramgurh
battalion had mutinied at Ranchee, Purulia, and elsewhere, he earnestly
begged Lord Canning to send a few troops thither, or the whole region
would be left at the mercy of marauding bands. This the governor-general
was fortunately enabled to do, owing to the arrival about that time of
troops from the China expedition.
When August ended, the Dinapoor mutineers, under Koer Singh, were
marching onwards to the Jumna regions, as if with the intention of
joining the mutineers in Bundelcund; the 12th irregulars, after their
atrocity at Segowlie, were bending their steps towards Oude; the Ramgurh
mutineers were marching westward to the Sone, as if to join Koer Singh;
while the petty chieftains, liberated prisoners, and ruffians of all
kinds, were looking out for ‘loot’ wherever there was a chance of
obtaining it. Bengal and Behar exhibited nothing that could be dignified
with the name of battles or war; it was simply anarchy, with
insufficient force on the part of the authorities to restore order.
One unfortunate result of the Dinapoor mutiny was, that the Europeans
contracted a sentiment of hatred towards the natives, so deadly as to
defeat all the purposes of justice and fairness. When Sir James Outram
was at Dinapoor, on his way up the Ganges, he found that some of the
English soldiers had murdered several sepoys against whom nothing could
be charged—in revenge for the terrible loss suffered at Arrah. Sir James
noticed in one of his dispatches, with strong expressions of regret, the
distortion of feeling thus brought about by the mutiny; distortion,
because those soldiers were not, at other times, less inclined to be
just and manly than the other regiments of her Majesty’s army. It was a
sore trial for men, when scenes of brutal cruelty were everywhere before
their eyes, coolly to draw the line between justice and vengeance, and
to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty.
-----
Footnote 65:
H.M. 10th foot, 153 officers and men.
H.M. 37th foot, 197 officers and men.
Sikhs of police battalion, 50 officers and men.
Sikhs of mutinied regiments, 15 officers and men.
———
415
Footnote 66:
H.M. 5th Fusiliers, 137 men, under Captain L’Estrange; H.M. 10th foot,
197 men, under Captain Patterson; Sikh battalion, 150 men, under Mr
Wake, of Arrah celebrity; mounted volunteers, 16, under Lieutenant
Jackson.