CAWNPORE.
CAWNPORE, January 14, 1890.
At ten this morning we arrived here, and have seen all the places where
such frightful massacres took place during the Sepoy rebellion of 1857.
Mr. Lee, who now keeps a hotel here, acted as our guide, and pointed out
the various localities. He was a non-commissioned officer, and
accompanied General Havelock's army, which arrived two days after the
massacre, and inflicted upon the rebels the terrible retribution of
fastening several hundred of them in front of the big cannon and blowing
them into pieces.
Mr. Lee pointed out the exact spot where these executions took place,
and showed how the poor wretches were fastened to the mouths of the
cannon. It will be remembered that General Wheeler, commanding the
British troops, after defending the fort for weeks against a great army
of rebels, was induced to surrender under promise of protection from
Nana Sahib, who collected the prisoners on the banks of the Ganges and
had them massacred. Only four escaped. General Wheeler was seventy-two
years of age, married to a native woman, and had by her seven children.
He believed that Nana Sahib would keep faith with him, but he and all
his officers were collected on some steps leading down to the water of
the Ganges, and at a signal from Nana they were all shot down and
killed. One of General Wheeler's daughters committed suicide by jumping
into a well, and another married a native and is now alive here.
When the rebellion was conquered Nana Sahib could not be found, but Mr.
Henry Balantine, now U. S. Consul at Bombay, states that the monster
escaped to one of the countries in the north part of India and died
there of cholera. Murphy, one of the men who escaped in a boat, had a
singular fate. After the rebellion he was made custodian of the public
buildings here; but one day he killed a native and was obliged to leave
for China, and has never been heard of since.
Like many other places in India, Cawnpore is fearfully dusty, the hotel
very poor, and one is glad to get away.