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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 he endured pending the return of the
carriage which had conveyed the great convoy from Lucknow to the
advanced base at Allahabad; hut 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 wbich 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 j 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 Be
war 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 Bouth-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 Eohilcund.
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 bis 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.
Feel 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, hut 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, hut rushed across the floating
bridge into Bohilcund. 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’ceil.
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 20 th, 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 lea-sung 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 hut firmly, maintaining his standpoint so
far as true military principles were concerned. “After much thought,” he
wrote, “it appeal's 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 he 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 om 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 dep6t. 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 ho 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. Ho
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 Boorkee for the purpose of
invading Bohilcund 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 ichebn along the road from the
Canges 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 he 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 mea 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 southeast 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 Goom-tee. By so doing he would he 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 Mo tee 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 Dil-koosha 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. eclgo of the Dilkoosha plateau to keep down the
fire from the canal front and the Martiniere, and with others down on
the river side on the outer flank of the Dilkoosha park to enfilade the
Martiniere 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
Martiniere, 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,” ho 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 Martini&re, whose fire
was replied to occasionally by a battery at the comer 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
Martiniere. The rebels abandoned the place in panic and fell back
hurriedly upon their first line of works whence they opened a sharp
fire. Outranks 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 hill” 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 Goorkhas, 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 bad 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 hut 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 Begums 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 AJi’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-hall. 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 ihe 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.” |
