THE STORMING OF LUCKNOW
Sir Colin Campbell had effected the relief of the Residency of
Lucknow and the withdrawal of its garrison, and he was now free to
devote himself to the strategic prosecution of the main campaign.
Some delay had to be endured pending the return of the carriage
which had conveyed the great convoy from Lucknow to the advanced
base at Allahabad; but the interval enabled him to concert the
measures necessary for the restoration of British authority in the
Gangetic Doab and the opening of communications with Agra and Delhi.
Greathed's column on its descent from Delhi had already traversed
this region through fire and blood; but the wave of rebellion had
closed in upon its rear and obliterated every trace of its hurried
progress. Campbell had now not merely to traverse but to subdue and
occupy; and this was to be accomplished only by the methodised sweep
through the length and breadth of the Doab of columns restoring,
as they moved, the British authority, and expelling the numerous
bands of mutineers. Sir Colin with a wise perception decided on the
fort of Futtehghur as the objective point on which the columns to
be employed should converge. For various reasons the possession of
this strong place, situated as it was on the Ganges about midway
between Allahabad and Delhi, was of great strategical importance.
It was close to the town of Furrukhabad, the Nawaub of which was
a bitter rebel; and it covered the floating bridge on the Ganges
at a point where the states of Oude and Rohilcund met, from which
hostile territories the enemy were as yet free to enter the Doab and
intercept the communication by the Grand Trunk Road with Agra, Delhi,
and the Punjaub. His occupation of Futtehghur, on the other hand,
would carry with it the command of the fourth side of the Doab; while
Agra, Allahabad, and Delhi, whose respective positions dominated the
other three, were already in British possession.
Sir Colin fully recognised the strong strategic temptation, before
advancing up the Doab, to root out from Calpee the Gwalior Contingent
which he had just defeated before Lucknow, and so secure his flank
and communications. But he also realised that the Contingent had been
so cowed and weakened by its recent overthrow that many weeks must
elapse before it could rally sufficiently to venture on any serious
offensive operation. The brigade left at Lucknow under the command of
Inglis, Sir Colin judged amply sufficient to prevent the interruption
of his rearward communications; and it was with no apprehensions
on that score that he proceeded to carry out the details of his
project for the subjugation of the Doab by a concentric movement on
Futtehghur. Before the close of November Colonel Seaton had already
left Delhi in command of a column of all arms about nineteen hundred
strong, in charge of a vast convoy covering some seventeen miles of
road, and comprising carts, camels and elephants laden with tents,
stores and ammunition for the headquarter column. Marching down the
Trunk Road and sweeping the upper Doab, Seaton was the victor in two
successive sharp combats with insurgent bodies, and having reached
Bewar on December 31st he remained there until January 3rd, when he
was joined by Brigadier Walpole. From that point the united force
under Walpole was to move straight on Futtehghur, driving before it
the rebel bands from the Delhi, Agra, and Etawah sections of the Doab.
Of the two columns marching up country, one commanded by Walpole the
other by Sir Colin himself, the former had the greater distance to
travel and was therefore the earlier to move out. On December 16th
Walpole quitted Cawnpore with two thousand men consisting of two
battalions of Rifles and a strong force of cavalry and artillery.
Making a semicircular sweep to the left through the lower Doab in
the direction of Calpee, a movement in the nature of a threatening
demonstration against the Gwalior Contingent, he swung round to his
right by Akbarpore and marched up the left bank of the Jumna to
Etawah, whence he struck across to Mynpooree and, as has been said,
joined Seaton at Bewar. On December 24th Sir Colin at the head of the
main army some five thousand strong set out from Cawnpore, moving by
easy marches up the Grand Trunk Road and clearing the right bank of
the Ganges as he advanced. Thus three columns, from the north-west,
from the south, and from the south-east, were simultaneously moving
to converge on Futtehghur, driving before them the malcontents of
the Doab with intent to push them across the Ganges into Oude and
Rohilcund.
No matter how careful may be the pre-arrangements for precision in
the execution of a combined operation when the distances are wide,
as often as not there interposes some complication which detracts
from the fulfilment of the combination. Sir Colin had anticipated a
simultaneous concentric advance on Futtehghur, but events forestalled
this operation. On the 1st of January 1858 Brigadier Hope with
two infantry regiments and some cavalry and artillery reached the
point, about fifteen miles from Futtehghur, where the road crossed
the Kala Nuddee stream by a fine suspension bridge, just in time to
prevent its total destruction by the enemy who had torn up a great
part of the planking. The engineers and sailors had already repaired
the structure when in the early morning of the 2nd several rebel
battalions of the Nawaub's force under cover of a thick fog came down
to dispute the passage of the river. When the fog lifted the enemy
were seen to have occupied in great force the village of Khoodagunj,
whence they opened a vigorous musketry-fire covered by several heavy
guns, one of which, a 24-pounder, had been placed in the toll-house
commanding the bridge. Sir Colin had come up and promptly made his
dispositions to meet the enemy's rapidly developing attack. He sent
back the order for the main body to hurry up; and meanwhile he
pushed the Fifty-Third across the bridge to reinforce the pickets,
with strict orders not to advance but to remain on the defensive so
as to allow time for the cavalry, which had been sent across five
miles up stream, to get behind the enemy and cut off his retreat to
Futtehghur. One wing of the Ninety-Third was in reserve behind the
bridge; the other with some horse-artillery guns was detached to hold
a ford three miles down stream for the purpose of securing the right
flank.
Peel sent an eight-inch shell through the window of the toll-house
which burst under the enemy's big gun in that building, upsetting it
and killing or disabling most of the rebel gunners. Campbell's main
body came up, and under cover of a heavy artillery fire which soon
silenced the hostile guns, the passage of the river was accomplished.
The Fifty-Third regiment had been lying for hours under the bank of a
road which afforded inadequate cover, and had lost a good many men.
It was comprised chiefly of Irishmen,--fine stalwart fellows and ever
keen for fighting, but somewhat difficult to keep in hand when their
blood was up. When the main body began to cross, the Fifty-Third
conceived the idea that they were to be relieved; and this suspicion,
coupled with glimpses of the enemy attempting to withdraw some of
their guns, overmastered their sense of discipline. All of a sudden,
and in spite of the attempts to restrain them, they made a dash with
loud cheers and charged and captured several of the rebel guns. Sir
Colin had intended to make a waiting fight of it, to give plenty of
time for the cavalry turning movement; when the hot-headed Irishmen
interfered with this project he galloped up to the regiment in high
wrath and objurgated it in terms of extreme potency. But each volley
of his invective was drowned by repeated shouts of "Three cheers for
the Commander-in-Chief, boys!" until, finding that the men were
determined not to give him a hearing, the sternness of the commander
gradually relaxed and the veteran turned away with a laugh. He might
have made his voice heard over the cheery clamour of the Irishmen,
but that a few minutes before he had been hit in the stomach by a
spent bullet, happily with merely the momentary inconvenience of loss
of breath.
The village of Khoodagunj when attacked by the Ninety-Third and
Fifty-Third was carried with little opposition, the enemy abandoning
their guns which had been posted in and about the place and retiring
with the remainder of their artillery in good order along the road
to Futtehghur. But they had yet to experience the fierce mercies
of Hope Grant and his horsemen. Making a detour to the left, that
fine cavalry leader rode parallel with the rebels' line of retreat,
screened from their sight by groves and tall crops. Then, wheeling
suddenly to his right, he crashed in on the flank of the insurgent
force moving on a narrow front along the high road. Taken utterly
by surprise, the mutineers fled panic-stricken before this terrible
onslaught. Hope Grant's cavalry, committing ruthless havoc with
lance and sabre, maintained the pursuit for miles, capturing
guns, ammunition waggons and material of all descriptions; and
so demoralised was the foe that he never halted in his camp at
Futtehghur, but rushed across the floating bridge into Rohilcund. The
return of Grant's troopers to camp in the evening was described by
Alison's vivid pen as "a stirring scene of war." "The Ninth Lancers
came first, with three standards they had taken waving at their head;
the wild-looking Sikh cavalry rode in their rear. As they passed Sir
Colin, he took off his hat to them and said some words of soldierly
praise. The Lancers waved their lances in the air and cheered; the
Sikhs took up the cry, shaking their sabres over their heads; the
men carrying the standards spread them to the wind. The Highland
Brigade encamped close by, ran down and cheered the victorious
cavalry, waving their bonnets in the air. It was a beautiful sight,
and recalled the old days of chivalry. When Sir Colin rode back to
camp through the tents of the Highland Brigade, the cheering and
enthusiasm of the men exceeded anything I had ever seen."
Hitherto Sir Colin Campbell had been carrying on the plan of campaign
which he had formulated without interference on the part of the
Governor-General. If he had continued to have a free hand, no doubt
he would have followed up the clearance of the Doab by the immediate
invasion of Rohilcund and the destruction of the rebel power at the
important centre of Bareilly. Those objects he would have had ample
time to accomplish before the setting in of the hot season. At its
approach he would have distributed his force in quarters throughout
the recovered provinces, and while restraining the Oude insurgents
within the borders of their own territory, he would have employed
the summer in the restoration of our authority in our old provinces.
With the advent of the autumn cool weather he would have concerted a
great concentric movement on Lucknow, driving the Oude rebels from
the circumference of that territory into the heart of it, there to
be hemmed in and finally crushed. His scheme was based alike on
strict military and hygienic principles, avoiding at once a harassing
guerilla warfare and the depletion of his invaluable European army
in a hot weather campaign. The project thus outlined furnishes in
itself the fullest testimony to the scope and accuracy of Sir Colin
Campbell's strategic _coup d'œil_.
But he was now no longer free to conduct military operations in
accordance with his soldierly sense of the fitness of things.
Political considerations intervened, and Lord Canning was strongly in
favour of proceeding to the reduction of Lucknow and the subjugation
of Oude in advance of any other enterprise. Sir Colin's views, on
the other hand, were in favour of the course briefly summarised in
the preceding paragraph; but he fully realised that the decision of
the Government was paramount as regarded the future course of the
campaign. A long correspondence ensued on the subject between Lord
Canning and Sir Colin, the terms of which illustrate the cordial
relations existing between the head of the Government and his
military subordinate. Some short extracts from this correspondence
will serve to indicate its character. Lord Canning took the
initiative. In his letter of December 20th, 1857, he writes: "So
long as Oude is not dealt with, there will be no real quiet on this
side of India. Every sepoy who has not already mutinied will have
a standing temptation to do so, and every native chief will grow
to think less and less of our power.... I am therefore strongly in
favour of taking Oude in hand after Futtehghur, Mynpooree, etc.,
and when the Great Trunk Road communication shall have been made
safe." Sir Colin forwarded to his lordship a memorandum in which
it was pointed out that twenty thousand men were necessary for
the reduction of Lucknow, and thirty thousand for the complete
subjugation of the Oude province. "It is," in the words of the
memorandum, "for the Government to decide whether it be possible,
with regard to the circumstances of the Presidency, to effect the
necessary concentration of troops for this purpose." It was further
pointed out that, "If through exposure during the hot weather of
1858, the strength of the British forces in India be seriously
reduced--viz. by one-third, and less than that number could not be
reckoned on were the campaign to be prolonged throughout the year--it
will not be in the power of the Government at home to replace them."
In his reply to Sir Colin's memorandum Lord Canning was willing to
limit his demand to the capture and holding of Lucknow, without
attempting more for the present. "Paradoxical as it may appear,"
wrote his lordship, "I think it of more importance to establish our
power in the centre and capital of Oude, which has scarcely been two
years in our hands, than to recover our older possessions. Every
eye is now upon Lucknow, as it lately was upon Delhi. I grant that,
as with Delhi so with Lucknow, we may find ourselves disappointed
of a very wide-spread and immediate effect from its capture. Still
I hold that the active mischief which will result from leaving it
untaken will be incalculable and most dangerous--just as a retirement
from Delhi would have been, and scarcely less in degree." Sir Colin
replied temperately but firmly, maintaining his standpoint so far
as true military principles were concerned. "After much thought,"
he wrote, "it appears to me advisable to follow up the movement now
made by this force by an advance into and occupation of Rohilcund,
to root out the leaders of the large gatherings of insurgents which
we know to exist there, and to establish authority as is now being
effectually done in the Doab. It seems to me that if we halt in this
course to divert the only force at our command to another object,
we run no slight risk of seeing the results of our late labours
wasted, and of an autumn, perhaps a summer, campaign on the present
ground to rescue the garrisons left in Futtehghur and Mynpooree.
I come therefore to the conclusion that Oude and Lucknow ought to
wait till the autumn of 1858." The Governor-General naturally had
the last word, and his decision was for the earlier operations
against Lucknow. "I am obliged," he wrote, "to say that I hold those
operations should be directed against Lucknow at no long interval. I
believe it to be impossible to foresee the consequences of leaving
that city unsubdued." The tone of the correspondence, though
expressing divergent convictions, may be held up as a pattern of the
temper in which the interchange of opinions between the civil and
military chiefs of a great Government should be carried on.
Sir Colin lost no time in giving loyal effect to the views of
the Governor-General by pressing on the preparations for the
reduction of Lucknow. An inevitable pause in the active operations
now occurred while the siege-train at Agra was being equipped,
while reinforcements and Peel's 68-pounders were being brought
up from Allahabad to Cawnpore, and while the needful amount of
ammunition, provisions, and carriage, and the numerous requirements
of the artillery and engineer parks were being concentrated in
the same depôt. The soldiers meanwhile were in expectation of an
immediate forward movement, and they wondered exceedingly at the
incomprehensible delay which their Chief seemed to be maintaining.
Keeping his own counsel, the Commander-in-Chief awaited the
development of his plans, wholly indifferent to the abuse of the
Indian press. Pending the moment for renewed action he took post
at Futtehghur, where he could cover from above the concentration
of his resources at Cawnpore, and at once dominate the reconquered
territory and keep in check the enemy in the regions still unsubdued.
Futtehghur was an excellent strategic centre whence troops could
promptly be pushed out to points threatened by insurgents from
Oude, Rohilcund, or the trans-Jumna territory, while it covered the
long-distance transport of the siege-train from Agra to Cawnpore.
From Futtehghur movable columns were from time to time sent out
to scour the surrounding country and reduce the still insurgent
villages. Sir Colin for weeks deceived the Rohilcund mutineers as to
his intentions, and for some ten or twelve days they were kept in
position on the Ramgunga watching Walpole, whose force they supposed
to be the advanced guard of Campbell's army of invasion. When at
length, losing patience, some five thousand of them crossed into
the Doab some miles above Futtehghur, Hope made matters extremely
unpleasant for them. He overwhelmed them with gun-fire, crashed in
upon them with cavalry; and although they fought desperately, four of
their guns were taken, their camp was captured, and they were pursued
hot-foot for several miles.
Before quitting the Doab Sir Colin assigned a brigade under Colonel
Seaton to the task of holding several main positions in that
territory, to be relieved presently in some degree by a force from
the Punjaub which was being organised at Roorkee for the purpose
of invading Rohilcund from the north-west. The siege-train was now
well forward on its way to Cawnpore; the secret which Sir Colin
had rigidly kept for three weeks, was a secret no longer; and on
February 1st he left Futtehghur with his cavalry and horse-artillery,
and making forced marches reached Cawnpore on the 4th. A few days
later he made a short visit to Allahabad for an interview with Lord
Canning, who had arrived there. By the middle of February the greater
part of the army destined for the operation against Lucknow was in
_échelon_ along the road from the Ganges to the Alumbagh, covering
the advance of the vast military stores and supplies which were
constantly being brought up. Sir Colin anticipated that he should
be ready to begin operations about the 18th of February with his
own army of ten thousand men. But the Nepaulese force of some nine
thousand men with twenty-four guns under Jung Bahadoor, which had
been on the frontier of Oude since the beginning of January and had
subsequently done a good deal of sharp fighting in the eastern part
of that province, was expected to prove an important reinforcement
to Sir Colin's army. The gallant Franks was fighting his way from
south-eastern Oude with some three thousand men. The twelve thousand
additional troops which Sir Colin might look forward to obtain from
those sources would be extremely valuable, bringing up his total
strength to twenty-two thousand men. But neither body could reach
Lucknow at the earliest before the 27th. Sir Colin left the decision
to the Governor-General, whether he should proceed at once, which
he was quite ready to do holding himself perfectly able to reduce
Lucknow with the force now at his hand; or whether he should delay
operations until Franks and the Nepaulese should arrive. Lord Canning
promptly replied, "I wish," he wrote, "that the delay could have been
avoided; but I am sure that we ought to wait for Jung Bahadoor, who
would be driven wild to find himself deprived of a share in the work."
After some tentative efforts the Lucknow mutineers on the 21st made
a serious attempt on both flanks of Outram's position behind the
Alumbagh. Assailed by artillery and cavalry they accepted a defeat
after sustaining heavy loss. They came at him again on the 25th, when
they fought under the eyes of the Begum and her minister. Between
twenty and thirty thousand came into the field. But Outram handled
these masses so roughly that they gave way, and their retreat became
a headlong rout when British cavalry attacked them on both flanks.
Outram's loss was trivial; the enemy suffered heavily.
Towards the end of January the convoy of ladies from Agra had passed
safely through Cawnpore on their way down country, and a month later
Walpole rejoined the army after having given the Agra convoy escort
to Allahabad. The whole siege-train by this time had come up; the
engineer park, the commissariat supplies, the countless legions of
camp-followers. The dense battalions, the glittering squadrons, the
well-horsed batteries had traversed the bridges across the Ganges,
and were faring over the sandy plains of Oude, every man's face
set towards Lucknow. It was a great convergence. Such a force India
had never before seen. Under the Commander-in-Chief were arrayed
seventeen battalions of infantry, fifteen of which were British,
twenty-eight squadrons of cavalry, including four English regiments,
fifty-four light and eighty heavy guns and mortars; while from the
south, right across Oude, Franks with three British and six Ghoorka
battalions with twenty guns was pressing on strenuously, and from the
south-east Jung Bahadoor with nine thousand men and twenty-four guns
was marching on the common goal, to join the strange miscellaneous
force whose rendezvous was before the rebel defences of the capital
of Oude.
On February 27th Sir Colin Campbell established his temporary
headquarters at Buntera, where the Second Division had already
arrived. His force had now increased to eighteen thousand seven
hundred men with eighty heavy guns and mortars and fifty-four
field-guns; and in addition he could reckon on Franks' column and
eventually on the Nepaulese contingent under Jung Bahadoor, when his
total effective would amount to about thirty-one thousand men and
one hundred and sixty-four guns. To the command of the artillery was
assigned Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi fame: the brigade of engineers
was confided to the able charge of Brigadier Robert Napier; and the
cavalry division was placed under Brigadier-General Hope Grant. Of
the three infantry divisions, the first was under Major-General Sir
James Outram, the second under Brigadier-General Sir E. Lugard, the
third under Brigadier-General Walpole. Sir Colin had come to the
conclusion that it would be impossible to invest the city, the
circumference of which was quite twenty miles, and he determined,
therefore, to operate simultaneously upon both sides of the Goomtee.
By so doing he would be able to enfilade with his artillery fire
the enemy's triple line of works, and thus weaken the resistance
to his advance on the line of the canal and the approaches to the
Kaiserbagh, which the rebels regarded as their citadel. It was
covered by three successive lines of defence, of which the outer
conformed to the line of the canal, the second circled round the
Mess House and the Motee Mahal, and the inner one was the principal
rampart of the Kaiserbagh itself. Those lines were flanked by
numerous bastions, and rested at one end on the Goomtee, at the
other on the massive buildings of the Huzrut Gunj, all of which were
strongly fortified and flanked the street in every direction. The
artillery of the defence was believed to consist of about one hundred
and thirty guns. Apart from the normal population of Lucknow, which
was reckoned about two hundred and eighty thousand, a turbulent and
bitterly hostile community, the rebel garrison was estimated to
amount to one hundred thousand fighting men, consisting of mutineers
of the sepoy army, the Oude force, irregular regiments, and the
levies of disaffected chiefs.
On March 2nd the Commander-in-Chief, with Lugard's division,
a cavalry division, four heavy guns and three troops of
horse-artillery, moved forward to the Dilkoosha by way of the
Alumbagh and the fort of Jellalabad, sweeping aside as he marched
some trivial opposition. When all the forces had come up, his camp
in rear of the Dilkoosha extended to Bibiapore and the Goomtee on
the right, to the left as far as the Alumbagh. Franks arrived on
the 5th and his column became the Fourth Infantry Division. The
position was strongly garnished with heavy guns on the edge of the
Dilkoosha plateau to keep down the fire from the canal front and the
Martinière, and with others down on the river side on the outer flank
of the Dilkoosha park to enfilade the Martinière and command the left
bank of the Goomtee.
For the important duty of operating on the left bank the Chief had
selected Sir James Outram, who for the last three months had been
gallantly holding the Alumbagh against overwhelming odds. While he
was receiving his instructions from the Commander-in-Chief, two
cask-bridges were being thrown across the Goomtee near Bibiapore.
As by a mistake they were constructed within range of the fire from
the Martinière, Outram was ordered to cross with his division before
dawn of the 6th. Hope Grant, who was Outram's second in command and
had charge of the passage of the river, records that, "Sir Colin,
being anxious to get the division across before the enemy could
discover our position and open upon us, rode down to the river side,
and pitched into everybody most handsomely, I catching the principal
share. But this," he frankly says, "had a good effect and hastened
the passage materially--everything was got over in safety just as
daylight appeared." Sir Colin understood the art of "pitching in"
better than most people; he did not frequently resort to it, but the
impression it created was immediate and stirring.
Outram took out a very fine force consisting of the Third Infantry
Division, the Bays, and the Ninth Lancers with a body of Punjaub
horse, five field-batteries, and an engineer detachment. When about
to camp across the Fyzabad road he was threatened by a body of
rebels, who were speedily driven back into Lucknow by the field-guns
and artillery. In this skirmish fell a gallant officer, Major Percy
Smith of the Bays. During the night of the 8th, under instructions
from headquarters, Outram's people were engaged in preparing
batteries for twenty-two heavy guns which Sir Colin had sent across
for the purpose of bombarding the Chukur Kotee, the key of the
enemy's position on the left bank. The batteries opened at daybreak
of the 9th and in a few hours Outram's ardent infantry had carried
the Chukur Kotee, whereby the enemy's outer line of entrenchments on
the right bank was turned and taken in reverse, and had reached and
occupied the enclosed position of the Badshahbagh. Outram promptly
moved to the village of Jugrowlee on his extreme left a heavy battery
whose fire enfiladed the enemy's outer line on the canal.
Meanwhile the Commander-in-Chief was perfecting his dispositions.
From noon until 2 P.M. of the same day Peel's bluejackets were
pouring shot, shell, and shrapnel into the Martinière, whose fire was
replied to occasionally by a battery at the corner of that building,
and by a heavy but wild musketry-fire a bullet from which wounded
in the thigh the gallant Peel, who later, to the grief of the whole
army, died of smallpox when being carried down to Calcutta on his way
home. At two o'clock the order came for Lugard's division to advance,
and the Forty-Second and Ninety-Third swept down the slope abreast,
clearing off the enemy from the earthworks, trenches and rifle-pits
in front of the Martinière. The rebels abandoned the place in panic
and fell back hurriedly upon their first line of works whence they
opened a sharp fire. Outram's artillery at Jugrowlee had cleared
the rebels from their position at the junction of the canal with
the Goomtee, but this circumstance had not been noticed by Lugard's
people. Thereupon Lieutenant Butler of the First Bengal Fusiliers
swam the Goomtee from the left bank, mounted the parapet of the
abandoned work, and under a heavy fire signalled to the Highlanders,
who along with Wilde's Sikhs speedily relieved the daring Fusilier,
occupied the position, and swept along the line of rebel defences
till they reached the vicinity of Banks' house where they remained
for the night. Butler, having done his gallant part, swam back to his
own side, and in course of time worthily received the Victoria Cross.
The outer line of the rebel defences having been occupied in force
by his troops, the first instalment of Sir Colin's plan had been
successfully accomplished; and this, too, with little loss, owing to
the effect of Outram's enfilading fire from the left bank.
Sir Colin Campbell was unquestionably a deliberate man. This was not
so in his original nature, which was quick and ardent; but in the
course of his long military life he had seen much evil come of hurry.
Fighting man as he was, there probably never was a greater economist
of the lives of his soldiers. When absolute need was, he did not
hesitate to avert failure at the cost of men's lives, as he showed in
the long and bloody fight under the walls of the Shah Nujeef; but
whenever and wherever there was the possibility, his most earnest
anxiety was to spare his men to the utmost of his endeavour. The
chief object he had now in view was to attain the possession of
Lucknow with no more loss to his force than the ordinary risk of such
a service would justify. All his instructions, all his measures,
conduced to this end. He was a man to whom a "big butcher's bill" was
an utter abomination. And thus it was that he moved with a systematic
deliberation which rash and callous men have sneered at as slowness.
There were men about him, for instance, who would have stormed
Banks' house on the evening of the 9th. Since no heavy guns were up,
that enterprise would have cost dear in infantry-men. But the cool,
shrewd, steadfast old Chief waited till next morning, when Lugard had
his instructions to knock a breach with heavy guns in the high wall
surrounding the house; which done, the infantry entered and at noon
the building was captured and presently converted into a military
post.
The preliminaries accomplished, there was no delay in the operations.
Arrangements were at once made for prosecuting the advance on the
Kaiserbagh. On the 10th Outram had placed his heavy guns in battery
to play on that citadel and on the Mess House, on the former of
which a battery of five mortars had already opened. Hope Grant with
his cavalry scoured the ground between the Goomtee and the old
cantonments. On the morning of the 11th some of the 68-pounders and
heavy howitzers were brought up into position near Banks' house. A
gradual approach was being made towards the Begum's palace, and the
intervening gardens and suburbs were occupied by the troops designed
for the assault--the Ninety-Third, Fourth Punjaub Rifles, and some
Ghoorkas, under the command of Adrian Hope. It was Sir Colin's
design to advance successively through the courts and palaces on
either side of the Huzrut Gunj street, and profiting by the cover
thus afforded, take in reverse the enemy's second and third line of
works instead of sapping up to their front. During this progress on
his part the rebels' position would be simultaneously enfiladed from
the left bank by Outram's heavy cannon. About 4 P.M. the breach was
pronounced practicable and the assault was promptly delivered. Sir
Colin well termed it "the sternest struggle of the siege." Captain
M'Donald of the Ninety-Third was shot down just after he had led his
company through the breach in the outer rampart. About twenty paces
further the advance was arrested by a ditch nearly eighteen feet
wide and from twelve to fourteen deep. The stormers dashed into the
ditch but they could not scale its further face. Lieutenant Wood,
hoisted on the shoulders of a Ninety-Third grenadier, scrambled up
claymore in hand. He was the first to enter the inner works of the
Begum's palace, and when the enemy saw him emerge from the ditch they
fled to barricade the further accesses. Then Wood reached down and
caught hold of the men's rifles by the bends of the bayonets, so that
with assistance from below all his people finally cleared the ditch.
Barrier after barrier was then forced, and independent detachments
headed by officers pushed on into the great inner square, where the
mutineers in great strength were prepared to stand and fight. The
numbers were very unequal but the Highlanders did not care to count
heads. "The command," says Forbes-Mitchell, "was--'Keep together and
use the bayonet!' The struggle raged for some two hours from court
to court and from room to room; the pipe-major of the Ninety-Third,
John MacLeod, playing the pipes amid the strife as calmly as if
he had been walking round the officers' mess-tent at a regimental
festival." Within two hours from the signal for the assault over
eight hundred and sixty mutineers lay dead within the inner court.
The assailants were by this time broken up into small parties in
a series of separate fights. A room whose door had been partly
broken in was found full of rebels armed to the teeth. The party of
Highlanders watching the door stood prepared to shoot every man who
attempted to escape, while two of their number went back for a few
bags of gunpowder with slow matches fixed, to be lighted and heaved
in among the mutineers. Forbes-Mitchell, himself a leading figure in
the tragic scene, thus describes how the gallant Hodson met his fatal
wound. "The men sent by me found Major Hodson, who did not wait for
the powder but came running up himself sabre in hand. 'Where are the
rebels?' he asked. I pointed to the door, and Hodson, shouting 'Come
on!' was about to rush in. I implored him not to do so, saying 'It's
certain death, sir! wait for the powder.' Hodson made a step forward,
and I seized him by the shoulder to pull him out of the line of the
doorway, when he fell back shot through the body. He gasped out a few
words, but was immediately choked by blood." Placed in a dooly he was
sent back to the surgeons, but his wound was mortal. Forbes-Mitchell
adds: "It will thus be seen that the assertion that Major Hodson was
looting when he was killed, is untrue. No looting had been then
commenced, not even by Jung Bahadoor's Ghoorkas. Major Hodson lost
his life by his own rashness; but to say that he was looting is a
cruel slander on one of the bravest of Englishmen."
The ignited bags of gunpowder drove the enemy out from their lair
to be promptly bayoneted. One soldier, using butt and bayonet and
shouting "Revenge for Hodson!", killed more than half of them
single-handed. In another doorway Lieutenant MacBean, Adjutant
of the Ninety-Third, a soldier who rose from the ranks to die a
Major-General, encountered eleven sepoys and killed them all with his
claymore, one after the other. With the advent of night opposition
for the most part ceased, although numbers of rebels were still in
hiding in the dark rooms. The troops bivouacked in the courts of
the palace under cover of strong guards. Horrible spectacles were
presented with the daylight of the 12th. Hundreds of bodies lay about
smouldering in the cotton clothing which had caught fire from the
exploding bags of gunpowder, and the stench of burning flesh was
sickening. During the morning the camp-followers dragged the corpses
into the deep ditch which had been found so difficult to cross on
the previous day. The Begum's palace was recognised to be the key to
the enemy's position, and our heavy guns were promptly advanced for
the object of breaching the Imambara, which was the only building of
magnitude intervening between the Begum's palace and the Kaiserbagh.
From the early morning of the 11th Sir Colin had been at the front
superintending the preparations for the assault of the Begum Kotee.
But before that enterprise was ripe he was reluctantly summoned
from the scene of action to receive a visit from Jung Bahadoor,
who had just arrived at the Dilkoosha with the Nepaulese army after
an interminable series of delays. In the midst of the formal durbar
there occurred a striking scene. Captain Hope Johnstone, aide-de-camp
to General Mansfield, covered with powder-smoke and the dust of
battle, strode up to the Chief with the welcome tidings that the
Begum Kotee had been taken. Thereupon Sir Colin, to whom ceremonial
was detestable, seized the occasion to bring the durbar to a close,
and after announcing the news to his guest hurried to the front. Next
day the Nepaulese troops came up into position holding the line of
the canal between Banks' house and the Charbagh bridge, thus covering
the left of the main attack. On the right the Shah Nujeef had been
occupied on the evening of the 11th, on a parallel front with the
position in the Begum Kotee.
By the afternoon of the 13th the engineers had driven a practicable
way through the buildings intervening between the Begum Kotee and
the Imambara. Heavy guns were brought into action close to the
massive containing wall of the latter structure, and on the morning
of the 14th the breach was reported practicable. The storming force
consisted of Brasyer's Sikhs and the Tenth Foot, with the Ninetieth
in support. After a short but sharp struggle the garrison fled in
disorder, the Imambara was in possession of the stormers, and the
second line of the enemy's defence was thus turned. The assailants in
the ardour of their success pursued the fugitives into the buildings
intervening between the Imambara and the Kaiserbagh itself. Those
occupied, the engineers proposed to suspend active operations for
the day and to resort to the process of sap. Sir Colin himself, who
had ridden through the fire in the Huzrut Gunj and had entered the
Imambara amidst the cheers of the troops, was understood to favour
that course. But the men in the front were not to be restrained,
and under a fierce fire they forced their way into a courtyard
communicating with the Kaiserbagh, driving the enemy before them.
Reinforcements were sent for and came hurrying up. After a brief
consultation Napier and Franks resolved to push on. Franks sent his
men through Saadat Ali's Mosque into the Kaiserbagh itself. Its
courts, gardens and summer-houses were full of sepoys who from the
roofs and battlements rained down a musketry-fire on the assailants.
But the British troops fought their way into this chief citadel of
the hostile position, and after a short interval of hard fighting the
Kaiserbagh was in possession of Sir Colin's valiant soldiers. Its
fall took in reverse the third and last line of the enemy's defence.
By nightfall the palaces along the right side of the Goomtee, the
Motee Mahal and the Chattee Munzil, were occupied; as also the nearer
buildings of the Mess House and the Tara Kotee. With the capture
of the Kaiserbagh and the other buildings within the third line of
defence, Lucknow may be said to have fallen.
Mr. Russell in his _Diary in India_ has given a vivid description of
the scene in the Kaiserbagh immediately after the capture. "Imagine
courts as large as the Temple Gardens, surrounded with ranges of
palaces, with fresco paintings on the blind windows, and with green
jalousies and venetians closing the apertures which pierce the walls
in double rows. In the great courtyard are statues, fountains,
orange-groves, aqueducts, and kiosks with burnished domes of metal.
Through these with loud shouts dart hither and thither European and
native soldiers, firing at the windows, whence come occasionally
dropping shots, or hisses a musket-ball. At every door there is an
eager crowd, smashing the panels with the stocks of firelocks or
bursting the locks by discharges of their weapons. Here and there
the invaders have forced their way into the long corridors; and
you hear the musketry rattling inside, the crash of glass, and the
shouts and yells of the combatants, as little jets of smoke curl out
of the closed lattices. Lying amid the orange-groves are dead and
dying sepoys, and the white statues are reddened with blood. Leaning
against a smiling Venus is a British soldier shot through the neck,
gasping, and at every gasp bleeding to death. Officers are running to
and fro after their men, persuading or threatening in vain. From the
broken portals issue soldiers laden with loot--shawls, rich tapestry,
gold and silver brocades, caskets of jewels, arms, splendid dresses.
The men are wild with fury and lust of gold--literally drunk with
plunder. Some come out with china vases or mirrors, dash them to
pieces on the ground, and return to seek more valuable booty. Some
are busy gouging out the precious stones from stems of pipes, from
saddle-cloths, from hilts of swords, or from butts of pistols and
firearms. Many swathe their bodies in stuffs crusted with precious
metals and gems; others carry off useless lumber, brass pots,
pictures, or vases of jade and of china."
The success attained was magnificent; but, in Colonel Malleson's
words, it might, and ought to have been greater. On the 11th Outram
had pushed his advance on the left bank of the Goomtee up to the iron
bridge, to sweep which he had established a battery. On the 12th and
13th he continued to occupy his positions commanding the bridge, but
was restricted from crossing it by Sir Colin's orders. On the 14th,
the day of the capture of the Kaiserbagh, he applied for permission
to cross the bridge, which was in the vicinity of the Residency. The
presence of his division on the line of the enemy's retreat could not
but have produced important results in spreading panic and cutting
off the fugitive rebels. Outram was informed in reply by the Chief of
the Staff that he might cross the iron bridge, but with the proviso
that "he was not to do so if he thought he would _lose a single
man_." This of course was equivalent to an absolute prohibition.
The stipulation was utterly incomprehensible, and no explanation in
regard to the subject was ever made. Mr. Russell makes it clear that
the order emanated from Sir Colin himself. It is significant that his
biographer General Shadwell ignores the matter altogether, a course
which seems to savour of disingenuousness.
Already on the 14th the rebels had begun to recognise that the
game was up, and on the 15th they were streaming out of Lucknow
in thousands. Detachments of horse and foot were sent to cut off
their retreat by the Sundeela and Seetapore roads, but it appeared
that the fugitives had taken neither. Their chief exodus was by the
stone bridge, whence some twenty thousand followed the Fyzabad road.
On the 16th Outram with a brigade crossed the river and drove the
rebels out of the old Residency position. Pushing onward and taking
in reverse the iron bridge and the rebel batteries crossing it, he
opened a heavy fire on the Muchee Bawun which was followed by its
capture by the infantry, and the great Imambara later shared the same
fate. Although by the 18th most of the mutineers had been expelled
from Lucknow, it was found that a considerable body were threatening
to make a stand in the Moosabagh, a vast building on the right bank
of the Goomtee about four miles north-west of Lucknow. On the 19th
Sir Colin ordered out a column under Outram composed of an infantry
brigade and some artillery and cavalry, with instructions to make a
direct attack on the Moosabagh while Hope Grant from the left bank
of the Goomtee cannonaded it with his horse-artillery guns. A mixed
force of all arms under the command of Brigadier Campbell was put
in march with directions to intercept the retreat of the enemy when
dislodged from the Moosabagh. The dislodgment occurred so soon as
Outram's guns opened; but the expected interception of the fugitives
failed, and great masses of the rebels were allowed to escape with
comparative impunity in a northwesterly direction.
With the capture of the Moosabagh and the expulsion from the city of
the Moulvie of Fyzabad and his band of fanatics, there terminated
a series of operations which had extended over a period of twenty
days. Sir Colin's plan of turning the enemy's defensive works, and
thus promptly expelling many thousands of armed men from formidable
positions prepared with great labour and no little skill, had
been accomplished with a total loss of eight hundred of all ranks
exclusive of the Nepaulese casualties, which were reckoned at about
three hundred. To have achieved a success so great at a cost so
small, was a result of which the most exacting commander might well
have been proud.
In the course of the early operations against Lucknow Sir Colin had
the gratification of receiving a letter from the Duke of Cambridge
intimating to Sir Colin that he had recommended Her Majesty to
confer on him the colonelcy of the Ninety-Third Highlanders. "I
thought," wrote His Royal Highness, "that this arrangement would be
agreeable to yourself, and I know that it is the highest compliment
that Her Majesty could pay to the Ninety-Third Highlanders to
see their dear old Chief at their head." By the same mail there
reached the Commander-in-Chief a letter from the Queen written by
her own hand. This lofty and touching letter is printed in full
in Sir Theodore Martin's _Life of the Prince Consort_, but it is
impossible to refrain from quoting here one or two extracts. Her
Majesty wrote:--"The Queen has had many proofs already of Sir Colin
Campbell's devotion to his Sovereign and his country, and he has now
greatly added to that debt of gratitude which both owe him. But Sir
Colin must bear one reproof from his Queen, and that is, that he
exposes himself too much; his life is most precious, and she entreats
that he will neither put himself where his noble spirit would urge
him to be--foremost in danger, nor fatigue himself so as to injure
his health.... That so many gallant and distinguished men, beginning
with one whose name will ever be remembered with pride, General
Havelock, should have died and fallen, is a great grief to the
Queen.... To all European as well as native troops who have fought so
nobly and so gallantly, and among whom the Queen is rejoiced to see
the Ninety-Third Highlanders, the Queen wishes Sir Colin to convey
the expression of her great admiration and gratitude."
Sir Colin thus tersely replied:--"Sir Colin Campbell has received the
Queen's letter, which he will ever preserve as the greatest mark of
honour it is in the power of Her Majesty to bestow. He will not fail
to execute the most gracious commands of Her Majesty, and will convey
to the army, and more particularly to the Ninety-Third regiment, the
remembrance of the Queen."