The tragedy at Cawnpore might have been averted had not reinforcements been delayed by two mutinies lower down the Grand Trunk Road: at Benares on 4 June and Allahabad two days later. Benares was one of the oldest, richest and most beautiful cities in India. Famous for its silks and shawls, embroidery and filigree, it was also a centre for banking and the trade of precious stones. But its chief draw lay in its status as one of India’s seven most sacred cities, the home of Shiva the destroyer and the centre of brahmanical learning. Every year thousands of Hindus flock to Benares to bathe in the holy water of the Ganges, or ‘river of life’. According to Hindu theology, the Goddess Ganges – or Ganga as she is more commonly known – is the mother goddess of the whole continent. To bathe in her waters is an experience akin to entering heaven, and to die immersed in them is to receive moksha, or final spiritual liberation. A visitor in the 1840s noted: ‘The ground is covered with buildings even to the water’s edge, and some of the ghats, which are constructed of large blocks of red-chunar stone, have a flight of thirty or forty steps leading down to the river. Here a most animated scene generally presents itself. Men and women, boys and girls, may be seen bathing early in the morning, and evening, and, during the cold season, also in the middle of the day.’
Reports of the mutinies further north had made the large ‘ruffian population’ of Benares, many of whom openly carried arms, even more volatile than usual. Fearing a civil uprising, the commissioner, Henry Tucker, and the temporary station commander, Colonel Patrick Gordon of the Ludhiana Regiment of Sikhs, were all for evacuating the garrison to the nearby stronghold at Chunar. But their proposal was vetoed by the judge, Frederick Gubbins, and the magistrate, Francis Lind, on the grounds that it would jeopardize the road, river and telegraph communications between Calcutta and upper India. The garrison at that stage was composed of Gordon’s Sikhs, the 37th Native Infantry under Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Spottiswoode,* a wing of the 13th Irregular Cavalry and a half-battery of European foot artillery. Colonel Gordon was convinced his Sikhs would remain loyal but had ‘misgivings’ about the 37th. As for the irregular cavalry, they had let it be known that they would be passively faithful, but ‘could not be trusted to charge or fire upon mutineers on the cartridge question’. Lind took this to mean they were at heart as mutinous as the sepoys.
Matters came to a head when news of the Azimgarh mutiny reached Benares during the afternoon of 4 June. By now the European garrison had been reinforced by one hundred and fifty men of the 10th Foot, sent up from Dinapore in Bihar, and about sixty of the 1st Madras Fusiliers, who had recently arrived from the rail terminus at Raniganj by bullock-train. The latter had been joined the day before by their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel James Neill. Born in Ayrshire in 1810, the son of a British officer, Neill was educated at Ayr Academy and Glasgow University before joining the 1st Madras European Regiment (later Fusiliers) at the age of sixteen. A fiercely ambitious man, he had spent many years on the staff, most recently as adjutant-general of Madras troops serving in the Second Burma War. Forced to leave Burma owing to ill-health, he arrived in Britain in June 1854 and immediately volunteered for service in the Crimean War. He was eventually appointed second-in-command of the Anglo-Turkish contingent, but did not reach Constantinople until the summer of 1855 when the war was as good as over. Frustrated by this near miss, he was delighted to get another chance to prove himself in battle in May 1857, just six weeks after his return from Britain, when his regiment was ordered to Calcutta. Recently returned from the Persian War, it contained nine hundred healthy and battle-hardened veterans, ‘fully equal to any regiment’.
A religious zealot who believed himself destined for great things, Neill could be utterly ruthless if crossed. At Calcutta railway station, for example, he prevented a train from leaving without a detachment of his men by threatening to shoot the station-master. Once up-country, away from central authority, he was in a position to carry out such threats. Yet to women he could be tender and chivalrous, while those who served under him were struck by his overriding concern for their welfare. ‘He was the finest-looking man I ever saw,’ wrote a member of his staff, ‘great shaggy moustache and eye-brows, and he feared nobody… He was the sternest and, at the same time, kindest and best-hearted of men.’
Neill had arranged to leave Benares for Cawnpore with a detachment of his regiment in the afternoon of the 4th. But he was stopped by Brigadier George Ponsonby, the 67-year-old station commander, who had only been in his new post for a matter of days. Ponsonby told Neill that he needed every European he could muster to disarm the 37th Native Infantry, the most suspect regiment at Benares, the following morning. Neill agreed with the course of action, but wanted it to be immediate and Ponsonby eventually agreed. The intention was for the disarmament parade to take place at four o’clock with all the Europeans, Sikhs and irregular cavalry in attendance. But so hurried were the preparations that none of the supporting troops was in position by the time Colonel Spottiswoode began to order his men, by companies, to lodge their muskets in their bells-of-arms. He had got as far as No. 6 Company – and was convinced that the regiment contained a majority of loyal sepoys – when two or three voices called out, ‘Our officers are deceiving us, they want us to give up our arms, that the Europeans who are coming up may shoot us down!’ To calm the men, Spottiswoode galloped away to prevent the advancing Europeans from coming any closer. As he returned, shots rang out from the direction of No. 2 Company (fired, in the first instance, by the pay-havildar), causing the men to rush towards the bells-of-arms to rearm themselves.
Once in possession of their muskets, the mutineers opened up on the nearby European troops, who replied with rifle and artillery fire. Several Europeans were hit. They were joined on the dusty ground by Brigadier Ponsonby who, though unscathed, was suffering from the effects of the burning sun. He at once ‘declared himself quite unfit for anything’ and begged Colonel Neill, the next senior officer, to take command. Neill did so, ordering the European and Sikh troops to charge the 37th’s line. In the confusion, sowars of the 13th Irregular Cavalry shot in the direction of the Sikhs, who faced about and returned fire. One Sikh attempted to murder Colonel Gordon, but a faithful havildar intervened, receiving the bullet in his arm. Assuming the Sikhs had mutinied, the European gunners opened fire on them, causing the whole regiment to scatter.
The mutineers at once fled the station in the direction of Oudh. But elements from all three native regiments remained loyal, including more than two hundred Sikhs – some of whom formed the treasury guard – and fourteen sepoys of the 37th who were guarding the paymaster’s compound. Lieutenant Glasse, the adjutant of the Sikhs, thought that the fidelity of the treasury guard, in particular, was proof that the regiment had ‘no design of joining the plans of the mutineers’. But he was also prepared to concede that ‘a certain number out of such a body, comprising, as it did, several Poorbeahs in the superior ranks, must have cherished a mutinous spirit’. In a similar vein some of the loyal sepoys of the 37th told Spottiswoode that the ‘majority of the men were entirely ignorant of the intentions of the turbulent characters’ and that more would have remained loyal if they had not been shot at indiscriminately. As proof of this, the company on detached duty at Chunar stayed loyal even after hearing of the mutiny at Benares. The detachment of two companies of Sikhs at Jaunpur, on the other hand, rose up and murdered their European officer when they received the news.
The mutiny at Benares is yet another example of how a disgruntled minority was able to manipulate the majority by playing on their fears and credulity. The cry that Europeans were coming to do them harm was repeated in many other mutinies. It had probably been agreed by conspirators beforehand as the best way to win over waverers. But the fact that so many were convinced is yet more evidence of a breakdown of trust between the officers and their troops. The confidence of the 37th in Spottiswoode cannot have been helped by his absence for twenty of the previous twenty-two years on furlough and detached duty with the Stud Department. Canning, however, was convinced that the whole affair had been mismanaged. ‘It was done hurriedly and not judiciously,’ he informed Vernon Smith. ‘A portion of a regiment of Sikhs was drawn into resistance who had they been properly dealt with would I fully believe have remained faithful.’ Ponsonby, he continued, had ‘lost his head & his nerve’, while Neill was ‘out of his element’.
The mutiny at Benares and the subsequent unrest in the outlying districts unleashed a terrible European backlash. Rows of gallows were erected the day after the rising and were soon filled with scores of suspected rebels. Colonel Neill has generally been blamed for this indiscriminate bloodshed. But he left for Allahabad on 9 June and was not responsible for some of the harsher sentences, including the hanging of ‘some young boys, who, perhaps, in mere sport had flaunted rebel colours and gone about beating tom-toms’. The real culprits were the civilian officials who had been empowered by a recent piece of legislation, Act XIV of 6 July 1857, to execute any Indian even suspected of fomenting rebellion. The Act not only made the crime of ‘exciting mutiny or sedition in the army’ punishable by death; it also gave courts martial the power to try civilians and the supreme and local governments the authority to appoint special commissioners to try, ‘with absolute and final power of judgement and execution’, any ‘crime against the state’ or any offence ‘attended with great personal violence’. At the same time volunteer hanging parties were roaming the Benares area with one gentleman executioner boasting of the ‘artistic manner’ in which he had strung up his victims in ‘the form of a figure of eight’.
*
About 70 miles up-river from Benares, at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, lies the city of Allahabad. It too was a popular pilgrim destination, though the city itself had little to recommend it apart from ‘a few brick buildings without any kind of ornament’. Yet its ‘lofty and extensive’ fort, sited on the tongue of land formed by the meeting of the two great rivers, was of immense strategic and logistical importance. It not only commanded the navigation of both rivers but also the passage of the Grand Trunk Road, and contained the second largest magazine in India. It was, in effect, the gateway to the Doab.
News of the mutiny at Benares reached Allahabad on 5 June. That same day an order was received from General Wheeler at Cawnpore ‘to man the fort with every available European, and make a good stand’. The authorities had already ordered all women and children into the fort, along with a hundred male volunteers. The only other Europeans in the fort were sixty artillery pensioners, sent over from Chunar, and a handful of Commissariat and magazine sergeants. The rest of the fort’s garrison was made up of four hundred Sikhs of the Ferozepore Regiment, recently arrived from Mirzapur, and a company of the 6th Native Infantry. The majority of the 6th were in their lines, three miles to the north, with a battery of Indian artillery. Also in the vicinity, guarding the approaches to the station, was a squadron of the 3rd Oudh Irregular Cavalry sent down by Sir Henry Lawrence to assist the civil authorities.
When the news came in from Benares, Colonel Simpson of the 6th sent two of his companies and two guns to guard the bridge-of-boats over the Ganges in case the mutineers attempted to enter the Doab. He was not in the least bit concerned about his own men, who, only a day earlier, had been congratulated by the Governor-General for offering to serve against the Delhi rebels. When the general order containing Canning’s response was read out at a parade in the early evening of 6 June, the sepoys of the 6th responded with ‘European cheers’ and declared their readiness to die for the ‘Kampani Bahadoor’. Three hours later they were murdering their officers.
The mutiny was started by the companies on duty at the bridge-of-boats. Shortly before nine a sepoy appeared in the regiment’s lines and told his comrades ‘that the Europeans were coming to disarm them’. Soon after, the detachment and the guns arrived without orders from the ghat and the regiment erupted. Five officers, including the adjutant, were shot down on the parade-ground. The fort adjutant and an engineer officer were also killed. But the most tragic murders were of seven rosy-cheeked ensigns, fresh from England, who were awaiting postings to various regiments. Four were shot down as they left the 6th’s mess house; the other three made it to the quarter-guard, where they were discovered and bayoneted. However one, a sixteen-year-old named Arthur Cheek, did not die immediately. Though severely wounded he managed to drag himself to a ravine, where the only sustenance was water from a stream. Five days later, barely alive, he was found by some civilian rebels and incarcerated with a Christian convert. Tormented by a severe stomach wound, he called out continually for water; yet he still found the strength to shore up his companion’s crumbling faith. ‘Oh my friend,’ he declared, ‘whatever may come to us, do not deny Lord Jesus.’ His faith seemed to have been rewarded on 16 June when the two of them were handed over to the authorities at the fort. But it was too late for Cheek, who died that evening ‘from exposure and the long neglect of his wounds’.
The fort had been saved on the 6th by the presence of the invalid artillerymen and the ‘cool courage’ of Lieutenant Brayser, the commandant of the Sikh detachment, who managed by force of personality to prevent his wavering troops from joining the rising. With their loyalty assured, it was possible to disarm and expel the company of the 6th. Yet outside the fort the disorder spread unchecked. No sooner had the Indian troops risen than they were joined by the mainly Muslim population of the city who, roused by a handsome young maulvi named Liaqat Ali, indulged in an all-night orgy of death and destruction. The gaol was opened, the treasury plundered, the telegraph wires torn down, and the railway works destroyed. Those Europeans and Eurasians unfortunate enough to stumble into the path of the mob were instantly butchered. ‘Foremost in the commission of these atrocities were the pensioners,’ read one contemporary account. ‘These men, unable from their infirmities to fight, were not thereby precluded from inflicting tortures of the most diabolical nature.’
Many of the mutinous sepoys left Allahabad the following morning: some for their homes, some to serve the King at Delhi and some to Cawnpore. This absence of a common purpose emphasizes the extent to which this and other mutinies took many sepoys by surprise. One Eurasian drummer, who was forced to accompany a jemadar and two hundred sepoys to Cawnpore, wrote later: ‘I saw one or two native officers crying, and heard them say that three or four budmashes [badmashes] had ruined the regiment. I heard that many of the sepoys were sorry, and some of them went direct to their homes. The havildar-major was at first sorry, but said it could not be helped, and therefore persuaded the men to go to Delhi.’
Even with the bulk of the mutineers gone, the British remained shut up in the fort, allowing Maulvi Liaqat Ali to rule the city in the name of the King of Delhi. According to one Indian witness, he ‘began to make appointments of Kotwal, Tahsildar, Thanadar and officers of the army’, while the green flag of Islam was raised over the kotwali. Yet the Muslim gentry of the city refused to join the Maulvi’s jihad: the Shias because, according to their religion, a jihad had to be led by a ‘Prophet and Imam’; whereas the Sunnis were kept back ‘on the ground that it was a political rebellion and not a Jihad or a religious war’.
The Maulvi’s brief rule was brought to an end shortly after the arrival of Colonel Neill with fifty-four of his Madras Fusiliers on 11 June. Neill had sent Lieutenant Arnold and fifty men on ahead and they reached Allahabad during the evening of 7 June. But the bridge-of-boats was in rebel hands and Arnold was forced to wait two days for a river-steamer before he could cross the river and enter the fort. Even then the situation was desperate, with the garrison short of food and most of the Sikh troops permanently drunk on plundered liquor. Neill’s appearance, after an exhausting two-day journey in burning heat, could not have been more welcome. ‘Thank God, sir,’ said the sentry on the gate, ‘You’ll save us yet.’
And so he would – but first he had to regain his strength. ‘I was quite done up by my dash from Benares, and getting into the Fort in that noonday heat,’ he informed his wife. ‘I was so exhausted for days, that I was obliged to lie down constantly… For several days I drank champagne and water to keep me.’ Yet his incapacity did not prevent him from directing the bombardment and recapture of the rebel-held suburb of Darya Ganj and the nearby bridge-of-boats on 12 June. A day later he drove the rebels out of a village on the left bank. On the 14th, however, he could do ‘little or nothing’ as ‘all the soldiers, Europeans and Sikhs, were drinking to excess’. His solution was to get Lieutenant Brayser to convince his Sikhs that there would be more opportunity for plunder if they camped outside the fort; he also arranged for the Commissariat to buy up the excess liquor. A day later, with the women and children packed off to Calcutta in a steamer, he was able to resume his attacks on the rebel villages.
On 16 June, deserted by most of his followers, the Maulvi left the city with a small escort for Cawnpore. The following day, the magistrate proceeded to the kotwali and resumed his old authority. The British were back in control, and their retribution was, if anything, even more brutal than it had been at Benares. Hundreds of suspected rebels were hanged and ‘some on slight proofs of criminality’. ‘God grant I may have acted with justice,’ wrote Neill on 17 June. ‘I know I have with severity, but under all the circumstances I trust for forgiveness. I have done all for the good of my country, to re-establish its prestige and power, and to put down this most barbarous, inhuman insurrection.’ The civil authorities were every bit as brutal. On 20 June the Commissioner of Allahabad authorized a subordinate to ‘arrest all suspected and suspicious persons, and in case of their offering resistance to slay them’. The inevitable result of devolving too much power was its abuse. A private letter, written from Allahabad on 6 July, stated that an unnamed civil officer ‘has adopted a policy of burning villages, which is, in my opinion, the most suicidal and mischievous that can be devised; it prevents the possibility of order being restored; the aged, women and children are sacrificed, as well as those guilty of rebellion’. The letter continued: ‘Cultivation is impossible; a famine is consequently almost certain. The sternest measures are doubtless necessary, and every possible endeavour should be made to apprehend and punish those actually engaged in plunder or rebellion, but here there seems to be no discrimination.’
Part of the problem, according to the same anonymous correspondent, was the number of ‘lawless and reckless Europeans’ at Allahabad. He added: ‘One of them cocked his pistol at Captain Brasyer in the fort: the ruffian was as likely as not to have pulled the trigger, and in that case, as Captain Brasyer himself observed to me, his Sikhs would have slain every European in the fort. This was before Colonel Neill took the command: if it had happened in his time, the probability is that the offender would have been tried and hanged.’
When Canning learnt of the indiscriminate spirit of revenge that was abroad in upper India, he issued his infamous ‘Resolution’ of 31 July. It was, in effect, a series of guidelines on how the civil authorities were to adminster Act XIV. Its main aim was to distinguish between sepoys from regiments that had mutinied and committed bloodshed, and those who were apprehended unarmed and whose regiments were innocent of atrocities. Canning wanted deserters or mutineers in these last categories to be tried by formal military tribunals. He also wanted provision to be made for those who could prove they were not present when a particular murder or outrage took place. The Resolution was never intended for public consumption. But inevitably a copy found its way into the Calcutta and English newspapers. It was savaged in both countries. The editor of one English-language Indian paper wrote: ‘Lenity towards any portion of the conspirators is misplaced, impolitic and iniquitous, and is calculated to excite contempt and invite attack on every side, by showing to the world the Government of India… allows the blood of English and Christian subjects of Her Majesty to flow in torrents, and their wives, sisters and daughters to be outraged and dishonoured without adequate retribution.’ The Times in London was less hysterical but censorious all the same. ‘It really is a most amiable and beautiful document,’ stated its facetious leader. ‘We presume it must be called the “Clemency of CANNING”, though it is our own private belief that the suggestion, as well as the composition, is due rather to the other members of the Government. It is a series of resolutions of the most humane and considerate character, taken in Council, and proclaimed to the whole world, in the form of a letter to the Civil Authorities of the North-West Provinces of Bengal. The humanity and consideration are for the sole benefit of the mutineers.’ Thus was coined the unfair epithet, ‘Clemency Canning’, which would distort the posthumous reputation of a first-rate Governor-General. Yet the newspapers were simply reflecting the dominant mood of public opinion in England which, outraged by the sufferings of friends and relations, was demanding a ruthless policy of vengeance and reprisal. Canning, on the other hand, was all too aware of the danger of alienating ordinary Indians at a time when the outcome of the rebellion was still in the balance. ‘As long as I have breath in my body,’ he told Lord Granville, ‘I will pursue no other policy than that which I have been following – not only for the reason of expediency… but because it is just. I will not govern in anger.’
He was preaching to the converted. Of the ‘Clemency’ Resolution, Granville wrote: ‘I never liked any document so much. I would have gone to India and back, and considered that I had done my duty gloriously by the simple penning of and issuing it.’ In response to hostile press reports, Granville used the opportunity of a dinner at the Mansion House to make a speech in Canning’s favour. But his fellow Cabinet members were not so quick to defend the Governor-General. Canning complained to Granville: ‘From nobody but yourself, Vernon Smith and [the Duke of] Argyll, have I had a helping hand since troubles began… Palmerston has never uttered a word of defence or approval. I am inclined to think he did not approve, at the time, of what was done about the China force, but if so he ought to have told me.’
If the home government as a whole was less than supportive, Queen Victoria was the opposite. In response to a long letter from Canning explaining his policy of moderation, she replied:
Lord Canning will easily believe how entirely the Queen shares his feelings of sorrow & indignation at the unchristian spirit shown – alas! also to a great extent here – by the public towards Indians in general & towards Sepoys without discrimination. It is however not likely to last and comes from the horror produced by the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated against the innocent women & children which really makes one’s blood run cold. For the perpetrators of these awful horrors no punishment can be severe enough &, sad as it is, stern justice must be dealt out to all the guilty ones.
But to the native at large, to the peaceable inhabitants, to the many kind & friendly ones who have assisted us, sheltered the fugitives & been faithful and true – these should be shown the greatest kindness. They should know there is no hatred of brown skin.
Colonel Neill, meanwhile, was devoting only part of his energies at Allahabad to rooting out rebels. Of more concern to him was the plight of the Cawnpore garrison, and he did everything in his power to speed up its relief. He was frustrated by the Commissariat Department’s inability to replace the supplies and transport that had been plundered or driven off during the brief period of rebel rule at Allahabad. On 23 June he informed Calcutta that it would be at least another four days before he was ready to depart for Cawnpore with a lightly equipped force of four hundred European infantry, three hundred Sikhs, a hundred cavalry and two guns. But a sudden attack of cholera in the fort deprived Neill of no less than seventy men and it was not until 30 June that the column, under the command of Major Renaud of the Madras Fusiliers, finally departed. Captain Spurgin with a hundred infantrymen and two 6-pounders left on 1 July aboard a steamer with instructions to rescue as many sick, wounded, women and children from Wheeler’s entrenchment as possible. If Cawnpore had already fallen – which of course it had – Spurgin was to link up with Renaud. Neill later exonerated the Commissariat for the delayed departure of the relief force, noting that the officer in command had done all he could to solve the supply problem. Yet the lack of camp-followers and doolie-bearers, so necessary for the movement of any European army in India, was caused by the ferocious British response to the rising for which Neill himself was partly responsible. ‘Everywhere,’ wrote Kaye, ‘the terror-stricken Natives stood aloof from the chastising Englishmen.’
Neill had perhaps learnt from his mistakes because his instructions to Renaud were remarkably restrained. ‘Attack and destroy all places en route close to the road occupied by the enemy,’ he wrote, ‘but touch no others; encourage the inhabitants to return, and instil confidence into all of the restoration of British authority.’ Only those suspected of being rebels – particularly sepoys from mutinous regiments who were not able to give a good account of themselves – were to be executed. But mistakes were inevitable. One officer who followed in Renaud’s wake recalled:
In the first two days of our march towards Cawnpore we passed several dead bodies hanging from trees by the road-side. These had been executed by Renaud’s men, presumably for complicity in the mutiny; but I am afraid some innocent men suffered; a comrade who ought to know said that ‘Renaud was rather inclined to hang all black creation’. In every case, where the feet were near the ground, pigs (either wild or belonging to the villagers) had eaten the lower parts of the bodies; the stench from the latter, in the moist still air, was intolerable.
By now Neill, much to his fury, had been superseded as commander of the Cawnpore relief force by the man destined to become the greatest British hero of the mutiny: Brigadier-General Henry Havelock. Born in Sunderland, the son of a rich shipowner who later fell on hard times, Havelock had planned to become a lawyer and, after leaving Charterhouse, trained for a time in a special pleader’s office. But when his father cut off his allowance, he asked his elder brother, who had done well at Waterloo, to arrange a commission for him in the 95th Foot.
Even in the army, Havelock’s diligence and scholarly instincts were evident: he was determined to master the science of war and his laborious study of the campaigns of Marlborough, Frederick the Great and Napoleon so exasperated his fellow subalterns that they used to throw his books out of the window. When his father lost the remnants of his fortune in 1823, Havelock decided to transfer to a regiment bound for India, where hard-up officers had a better standard of living and a better chance of promotion. Typically, before leaving, he enrolled in the Oriental Institute to learn Persian and Hindustani. Once in India he further isolated himself from his fellow officers by his increasingly radical religious beliefs. He had always regarded himself as a ‘Christian’ soldier and the first troops he commanded in battle, during the First Burma War, were known as ‘Havelock’s Saints’. In 1829 he married the daughter of Dr Marshman, the famous Baptist missionary, and thereafter devoted much time to the ‘spiritual welfare of his men’, holding religious meetings, preaching sermons and giving Bible lessons.
Unable to buy promotion, it took Havelock twenty-three years to become a captain. The logjam was broken by his daring exploits in the First Afghan and Gwalior Wars, which won him a CB and promotion without purchase to lieutenant-colonel. Havelock’s reputation as a staff officer par excellence resulted in successive appointments as quartermaster-general and adjutant-general of the Queen’s troops in India. His first operational command, that of a division in Sir James Outram’s Persian Expeditionary Force, did not arise until late 1856. But Havelock did well during his brief stint in Persia, and it was he who planned the successful capture of Mohamerah on the Euphrates. The Indian government was particularly fortunate that the war ended when it did, for it not only released much needed European reinforcements but also commanders of the experience and talent of Outram and Havelock to fight the mutineers.
Havelock reached Calcutta on 17 June aboard the same ship that brought Sir Patrick Grant, the acting Commander-in-Chief, from Madras. The coincidence was to Havelock’s advantage because Grant, an old comrade-in-arms, at once told Canning: ‘Your Excellency, I have brought you the man.’ Years earlier Lord Hardinge had remarked: ‘If India is ever in danger, the Government have only to put Havelock in command of an army, and it will be saved.’ India was in danger, and Havelock was given the Cawnpore relief force. As well as the troops under Renaud and Spurgin, the command included a new column being formed at Allahabad from an artillery battery and two infantry regiments that had served under Havelock in Persia: the 64th Foot and 78th Highlanders. He was instructed, ‘after quelling all disturbances at Allahabad, to lose not a moment in supporting Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, and Sir Hugh Wheeler at Cawnpore’, and to ‘take prompt measures for dispersing and utterly destroying all mutineers and insurgents’. The situation was too fluid for his instructions to be more precise and, in any case, Grant had ‘entire confidence in his well-known and often proved high ability, vigour and judgment’.
Some were not so sure. ‘An old fossil, dug up and only fit to be turned into pipe-clay,’ declared one critic. Havelock’s age and appearance did not help. He was sixty-two years old, barely five feet high, with a pinched, leathery face and hair that had long since gone white. He wore an old-fashioned beard and insisted on dining with all his medals ‘as if he carried his money tied up in a bunch on his shoulders’. And yet he retained an alertness and vigour that inspired confidence. ‘General Havelock is not in fashion,’ wrote Lady Canning, ‘but all the same we believe he will do well. No doubt he is fussy and tiresome, but his little, old, stiff figure looks as active and fit for use as if he were made of steel.’ Havelock was content to put his trust in the Lord. ‘May God give me wisdom to fulfil the expectations of Government,’ he wrote to his wife, Hannah, ‘and to restore tranquillity to the disturbed provinces.’ But it was worldly, logistical difficulties that preoccupied him most as he left Calcutta by horse-dâk on 25 June: in particular the scarcity of guns, European artillerymen and draught animals.
On 30 June, after a punishing five-day journey, Havelock reached Allahabad and relieved Neill of his command. He intended to advance with the new column as soon as it was ready, while Neill remained behind as commander of the Allahabad garrison. But within twenty-four hours came the catastrophic news, in the form of a message from Sir Henry Lawrence, that Cawnpore had already fallen. At first it was not believed, but confirmation arrived in the early hours of 3 July. At dawn Havelock telegraphed the acting Commander-in-Chief: ‘The news of the entire destruction of the Cawnpore force confirmed by cossid who, carrying letters from Lucknow to Allahabad, witnessed it.’ The response was addressed to Neill. ‘If you are satisfied of the truth of the account given by the cossid,’ wrote Grant, ‘you should halt Renaud’s force until Havelock’s column can support him.’ Neill was not satisfied, but he no longer gave the orders. ‘General Havelock has halted Renaud’s force,’ he informed Grant. ‘I would not, as it is strong enough for anything that could be brought against it; and if the report is true, should move on steadily to [Fatehpur], to be there overtaken by the General.’ As it happened Renaud, in the face of conflicting orders,* decided to continue his advance. By 10 July he had reached Arrahpur, just ten miles from Fatehpur. There he learned that Havelock’s column was within five miles and would join him the following morning. But he was determined to press on and relieve Fatehpur, which, an Indian spy had assured him, was being held by only a few rebel matchlockmen. In truth a powerful rebel army, led by Brigadier Jwala Prasad, was rapidly approaching Fatehpur from Cawnpore.
Nana Sahib’s raj had got off to a good start on 27 June, the day of the ghat massacre, with a grand review on the plain near Savada House. He praised his advisers, in particular Azimullah Khan and Jwala Prasad, by saying that ‘it was to their wisdom that so easy a conquest was owing’. Bala congratulated the troops and promised them a reward of a lakh of rupees. In response the artillery gave the Nana the twenty-one-gun royal salute that the British had so long denied him.
On 1 July, the Nana returned to Bithur for his coronation. That afternoon he was seated on the throne of the Peshwas, sacred marks were fixed to his forehead, and salutes were fired. By his order, two proclamations were read out to joyous crowds in the illuminated cities of Bithur and Cawnpore. One declared that ‘as… the yellow face and narrow-minded people have been sent to hell and Cawnpore has been conquered, it is necessary that all the subjects and landholders would be as obedient to the present Government as they have been to the former one’.
But real power still lay with the rebel troops at Cawnpore who were, according to one loyal Indian’s diary, growing increasingly anxious about their lack of financial reward and the approach of European troops. In his memoir Nanuk Chund wrote:
4th July – The sepoys complain that the Nana has taken away all their treasure and gone and quartered himself at Bithoor, and they will not suffer such treatment, but will make him feel the consequences…
5th July – The Nana is still at Bithoor. Teeka Singh, subadar, the general of the cavalry regiment, and several sepoys… have gone to Bithoor to fetch the Nana.
7th July – There is a great commotion to-day in the rebel army, and the sepoys… declare that if the Nana does not come back to-day, they will release the Nunny Nawab from confinement, and place him on the guddee. The rebel force further declares that their enemy (the British) is about to come up, and it is necessary to go up to Bithoor, and bring the Nana away by force.
8th July – The goinda have come in and reported that Europeans and Seikhs and artillery have left Allahabad, and would come in shortly… The rebels are in great alarm. Baba Bhut, Jwala Pershad and Azeemoollah are doing their best to get ready the magazine, carriage, and supplies.
10th July – My servant came from Cawnpoor and stated… that he had certain news that the Nana had returned to the city and the camel-sowar had returned and reported that Europeans were coming up… and had reached Moorutgunge; also that the Europeans hang people as they come along…
If Nanuk Chund’s information was impeccable, his recollection of dates was sometimes a little hazy, The rebel army – about 3,500 strong* under Jwala Prasad, with Teeka Singh commanding the cavalry and Tatya Tope the Commissariat – actually left Cawnpore on 9 July. The following day it was in striking distance of Fatehpur. Unaware of the danger, Major Renaud was closing in on the city from the opposite direction.
Only General Havelock could avert a catastrophe. His column of 1,185 men and six guns had finally left Allahabad on 7 July in pouring rain. The sun came out the following morning and for the next three days the column proceeded by regular marches, its commander not wanting to overwork his men until they were acclimatized to the heat. But all this changed on 10 July, when Havelock learnt that Renaud was in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by a vastly superior rebel force. He at once ordered his troops to press on, and, after a series of heroic forced marches in blistering heat, they caught up with Renaud on the road to Fatehpur in the early hours of 12 July. ‘We drew up in line by the side of the road to receive them,’ recalled one of Renaud’s officers. ‘Up came the brave band, the 78th Highlanders playing on their bagpipes the “Campbells are coming”, while all along our line a cheer arose as we welcomed them.’ The combined force of 1,403 Europeans, 560 Indians and eight guns then continued on to Betinda, four miles from Fatehpur, where it camped on an open plain. ‘Arms were piled on line, ground was taken up for each corps, and the weary, wayworn men, overcome by oppressive heat and brilliant sunshine, lay down in groups.’
Lieutenant-Colonel Fraser-Tytler, the deputy quartermaster-general, and the volunteer cavalry were sent ahead to reconnoitre. Near the bridge on the outskirts of the city they were confronted by the mounted vanguard of the Nana’s army. ‘We retired slowly along the road,’ recalled one officer volunteer, ‘the cannon balls flying on each side of us.’ As they neared the camp, closely followed by the rebel army, the alarm was sounded. ‘The troops all fell out so quickly and steadily,’ wrote another volunteer, ‘it was quite charming to see them. The camp was beautifully laid out, the guns in the centre of the road, and the troops on both sides, so they had only to move from their tents to come to the front. Out they came eager for the fray, like so many bull dogs, and as jolly as possible, although just off a long march.’
Convinced they only had Renaud’s small force to contend with, the rebel commanders hastened to attack without properly deploying their troops. Two guns and some cavalry and infantry were pushed to the front in an attempt to outflank the British position. Havelock made no countermoves beyond posting three hundred men of the 64th, armed with Enfield rifles, in an advanced copse. ‘But the enemy maintained his attack,’ reported Havelock, ‘with the audacity which his first supposition had inspired and my inertness fostered. It would have injured the morale of my troops to permit them thus to be bearded, so I determined at once to bring on an action.’
The eight British guns, mostly 9-pounders under Captain Francis Maude, R.A., were deployed in the centre of the line, protected by a hundred riflemen of the 64th. The rest of the infantry was formed slightly to the rear in quarter-distance columns, while the volunteer horse and loyal members of the 13th Irregular Cavalry guarded the flanks. Opening fire at a range of 800 yards, the British artillery soon disabled the forward rebel battery. As the supporting rebel infantry fell back in confusion, the British guns were limbered up and moved forward. This prompted the sepoys to turn and reform, while a large body of rebel cavalry advanced down the road. Again the guns were deployed, and one salvo was enough to scatter the rebel horse and foot.
The sepoys tried to make a stand at their principal battery on the road further back. But Maude, rehitching his guns to their bullocks, was dogged in his pursuit through the increasingly swampy terrain. Once in range he engaged the enemy guns. To their rear was a large body of infantry and in its midst, gesturing frantically, was one of their commanders on a richly caparisoned elephant. Fraser-Tytler urged Maude to knock him over. ‘Accordingly, I dismounted,’ wrote Maude, ‘and laid the guns myself, a nine-pounder, at “line of metal” (700 yards range) and, as luck would have it, my first shot went in under the beast’s tail and came out of his chest, of course rolling it over, and giving its rider a bad fall… It was said at the time that the man on the elephant was Tatya Tope, who afterwards showed some courage and a great deal of military aptitude, giving us a lot of trouble. But his fall that day certainly completed the panic of the enemy.’
On seeing one of their commanders fall, the rebels abandoned their guns and fell back. ‘In succession they were driven by skirmishers and columns from the garden enclosures,’ wrote Havelock, ‘from a strong barricade on the road, from the town wall, into and through, out of and beyond, the town.’ About a mile from Fatehpur they attempted to make a final stand. By now the British troops were in ‘such a state of exhaustion’ that Havelock ‘almost despaired’ of being able to drive the enemy further. To keep up the pressure the ninety-five irregular sowars under Lieutenant Palliser were pushed to the front. But they showed their true colours when confronted by just thirty mutineers of the 2nd Cavalry, instantly recognizable in their French-grey tunics. ‘On seeing the enemy,’ recalled an officer present, ‘Palliser called the men to charge, and dashed on; but the scoundrels scarcely altered their speed, and met the enemy at the same speed that they came down upon us.’ He added:
[The rebels’] design was evident. They came waving their swords to our men, and riding round our party making signs to them to come over to their side. We could not dash out upon them, as we were only four [Europeans] to their thirty [riders]… One or two [rebels] came in at us, and one or two blows were exchanged. Palliser was unseated by his horse swerving suddenly, and then the row commenced. The 2nd Cavalry tried to get at him, and his Native officers closed round him to save him, and they certainly fought like good men and true – the few of them.
By the time the main body of the enemy’s cavalry appeared, most of Palliser’s rear files had turned tail and the few who had been prepared to fight had no option but to follow.
The damage of this minor reverse was repaired by Maude’s guns and the riflemen of the Madras Fusiliers. ‘Their fire soon put the enemy to final and irretrievable flight,’ recorded Havelock, ‘and my force took up its present position in triumph.’ But even in victory the British took no prisoners. Maude was passing the elephant he had killed with a roundshot when he saw a fusilier walk up to a badly wounded sepoy and cock his rifle. ‘The poor creature joined his hands together, crying piteously “ Amân! Amân! (Pardon!)” ’, recalled Maude. ‘I added an entreaty that a wounded man should not be shot. But [Captain] Beatson overruled me, saying sternly that there would be “no mercy shown in that campaign”. Accordingly the fusilier promptly blew the man’s brains out.’
That night Havelock wrote to his wife: ‘One of the prayers oft repeated throughout my life since my school days has been answered, and I have lived to command in a successful action. The enemy sallied forth and insulted my camp… We fought, and in ten minutes’ time the affair was decided. But away with vainglory! Thanks to Almighty God, who gave me victory. I captured in four hours eleven guns, and scattered the whole enemy’s force to the winds.’
In fact Havelock had captured ten guns and two mortars, and routed a numerically superior force at a cost of just five dead, four wounded and four missing. It was a stunning victory due in no small part to the fact that two of Havelock’s partial regiments – the 1st Madras Fusiliers and the 64th Foot – were equipped with the new Enfield rifle, the weapon whose greased cartridges were supposed to have sparked the mutiny in the first place. Even the columns made up of other units were preceded by skirmishers armed with the Enfield. The rifle was accurate up to 800 yards, four times the effective range of the Brown Bess musket, and the advantage it gave British troops was as much psychological as tactical. The other key factor was the mobility and accuracy of the British artillery, which was able to provide the advancing infantry with constant close support. The combined effect of the disciplined British cannon and rifle fire was to disrupt the enemy formations before they got anywhere near close-quarter fighting. Havelock wrote later: ‘In [the first] ten minutes the affair was decided.’
On 14 July, after a day’s rest, Havelock’s column marched unopposed to Kalyanpur, where his Indian irregular cavalry were disarmed and dismounted. In addition to their disgraceful behaviour at the Battle of Fatehpur, they had created a panic during the march from Fatehpur by trying to drive off the baggage animals. The European troops got their own back by looting the sowars’ private property.
The following day the column fought and won two minor engagements en route to the Pandu Nadi River, 22 miles from Cawnpore. During the first, an assault on a strongly entrenched position at the village of Aong, Major Renaud was badly wounded in the thigh and died after his leg was amputated below the knee. The second took place at the stone bridge over the Pandu Nadi with Captain Maude and the riflemen of the Madras Fusiliers again to the fore. Havelock’s casualties were one killed, one mortally wounded (Renaud) and twenty-three wounded.
On 16 July a 16-mile march under a blazing sun brought the British column to the village of Maharajpur, within six miles of Cawnpore. There Havelock discovered that the rebels had taken up a strong position two miles ahead at Aherwa, where the Grand Trunk Road forked with the road that led to the cantonment. ‘His entrenchments cut and rendered impassable both roads,’ noted the British commander, ‘and his guns, seven in number, two light and five of siege calibre, were disposed along his position which consists of a series of villages… It was evident that an attack in front would expose the British to a murderous fire from [the Nana’s] heavy guns sheltered in his entrenchment. I resolved therefore to manoeuvre to turn his left.’
Having paused for a couple of hours’ rest at Maharajpur, the column resumed its march up the Grand Trunk Road at one thirty in the afternoon, ‘dreadfully tired, and with the sun fearfully bright’. Captain Maude recalled:
We had not gone five hundred yards before the men began to fall out, lying down on the right and left of the road. Several of them died from sunstroke; others, who were not able to stagger back to the baggage, were cut to pieces by the enemy’s cavalry, who had come down between us, when we made our flank movement. When we came within about a mile of their position, we moved off the road to the right, and though we were a little too near them when we executed this movement, and so lost several men of our column by the fire of their heavy guns, yet we succeeded in turning their left flank, and as soon as we had done so we came into action, at nine hundred yards’ range, and commenced to engage the guns upon their left.
Havelock now ordered his troops to attack the rebel left in echelon of regiments, screened by riflemen skirmishers. The 78th Highlanders were the first into action, as Havelock, anxious to test their mettle, gave them the task of capturing three rebel guns that were ‘strongly posted’ in a village to the left of the cantonment road. ‘As they approached the village,’ wrote their admiring commander, ‘they cheered and charged with the bayonet, the pipes sounding the pibroch; need I add that the enemy fled, the village was taken, and the guns captured?’ After a short pause while the Highlanders reformed, the general pointed to the neighbouring village where the bulk of the rebels had rallied and shouted, ‘Now, Highlanders, another charge like that wins the day!’ They responded with a roar and, supported by the 64th, drove the rebels from their formidable central position. Here the exhausted Scots were halted and it was left to the 64th, 84th and Sikhs to race on and take the village of Aherwa and three guns on the extreme right of the rebel front. In all these assaults the infantry were greatly assisted by accurate counter-battery fire from Maude’s guns, one cannonball actually slicing a piece out of a rebel gun muzzle ‘like a scoop of cheese’.
With the rebels in full retreat, Havelock ordered Captain Lousada Barrow and his seventeen volunteer horsemen to harry them. As the volunteers moved forward, they were confronted by a far larger body of rebel horse, mainly 2nd Cavalry, who were covering the fleeing sepoys. Undeterred, Barrow and his men made straight for the enemy sowars, causing them to turn and fly. ‘Give point, lads,’ shouted Barrow, ‘damn cuts and guards!’ On they galloped in pursuit, emptying a dozen rebel saddles before their own casualties – one killed, one wounded and four horses disabled – forced them to rein in. As they rode back the British infantry greeted them with a cheer and Havelock exclaimed: ‘Well done, gentlemen Volunteers, I am proud to command you.’
But the battle was far from over. A large number of rebels had rallied for a second time in a village between the Grand Trunk Road and the Cawnpore road. By now the artillery cattle were so exhausted that Maude’s guns were left on the Grand Trunk Road near the centre of the original rebel position while the infantry advanced alone. Leading them was the familiar small but spry figure of Havelock. ‘Come, who’ll take this village?’ he challenged. ‘The Highlanders or 64th?’ The response was inevitable as the two regiments charged together and cleared the village. On reforming, the infantry columns were amazed to see the whole rebel army drawn up in battle array on either side of a 24-pounder sited on the Cawnpore road. As the enemy drums and horns sounded their defiance, the rebel commander could be seen riding among his troops, exhorting them to one last effort. It was none other than Nana Sahib himself, desperate to do all he could to prevent his ten-day-old raj from coming to a premature end.
Havelock at once ordered his weary troops to lie down as a rider was dispatched to bring forward the artillery. ‘Whilst in this position,’ wrote Major Bingham of the 64th, ‘we were exposed to a dreadful fire from the guns in our front, 24 pounders and some 9 pounders as well as a heavy fire of musketry on our right flank and rear, a 24 pounder shot struck my regiment and killed and wounded seven men. We were therefore ordered to retire nearer to the village which we had just taken and to lie down under shelter of an embankment; which we did. The wounded men’s groans were dreadful to hear.’ Yet still there was no sign of artillery support. Maude explained why:
Just then there came an order for us to ‘advance’. This, with our tired bullocks and men, the fearfully heavy ground in front of us, and also in view of our previously received order, I at first hesitated to do. I turned to Stuart Beatson, who was lying on one of my wagons, and asked him what he advised. He said he ‘thought it would be better to wait a little’, but at that moment Hargood came up with a pressing order to advance to the succour of the infantry, saying that he thought he could pick out a fairly good bit of road. So we limbered up and plunged into the sodden ground. If the cavalry, who were close to us, had possessed one atom of dash, they could have taken the whole of our eight guns at that moment without losing a dozen men. However, as it was, we most providentially arrived in time to prevent an attack upon our tired handful of infantry by the whole force of the enemy, who, seeing them without artillery, and lying down, were re-forming in beautiful order. On our again coming up with the force, we were loudly cheered by them, and the whole line advanced at that moment.
Havelock’s report of the battle paints a slightly different picture. ‘My artillery cattle wearied by the length of the march could not bring up the guns to my assistance, and the 1st Madras Fusiliers, 64th, 84th and 78th Detachments, formed in line, were exposed to a heavy fire from the 24-pounder on the road. I was resolved this state of things should not last, so calling upon my men, who were lying down in line, to leap on their feet, I directed another advance. It was irresistible. The enemy sent round shot into our ranks, until we were within three hundred yards, and then poured in grape with such precision and determination as I have seldom witnessed.’ But gallantly led on by Major Stirling and Lieutenant Harry Havelock,* the general’s son and aide-de-camp, the 64th charged and captured the 24-pounder. On seeing this the rebels ‘lost all heart, and after a hurried fire of musketry gave way in total rout’. Only now did four of Maude’s guns appear to hasten the rebels’ departure with a ‘heavy cannonade’. If Havelock was unimpressed by Maude’s tardy arrival, he made no specific criticism in his report. Fortunately his infantry had had the dash and discipline to get him out of a hole, just as Barnard’s had done at Badli-ki-Serai. Both battles had been won largely by the bayonet, proof that not all British victories in the Indian mutiny were due to the tactical use of artillery and long-range rifle fire. The close-quarter nature of the fighting at Cawnpore was reflected in the relatively heavy British casualties: six men killed (including Captain Currie, the commanding officer of the 84th) and one hundred and two wounded. The 64th Foot was the worst hit, with three officers and thirty-two men wounded, most of them during the final charge against the 24-pounder.
That night the weary British troops bivouacked without food or tents on the battlefield with the roofless artillery barracks of Wheeler’s entrenchment dimly visible in the distance. An elated Havelock slept among his troops, ‘my waterproof coat serving me for a couch on the damp ground’. He had good reason to be pleased. In nine days he and his men had marched 126 miles at the hottest time of year, won four pitched battles against superior numbers and captured twenty-four guns and mortars. With Cawnpore in their grasp, all thoughts now turned to the captive women and children.
Shortly before Nana Sahib’s return to Cawnpore on 6 July the captives had been moved to an outbuilding in Sir George Parker’s wrecked compound known as the Bibigarh. As the name suggests, it had originally been built for an officer’s bibi, but at the time of the rising it was occupied by the magistrate’s babu. No doubt Azimullah and his fellow rebel leaders enjoyed the cruel irony of incarcerating British women and children in the former house of an Indian mistress. A more practical reason was that it was not far from the Old Cawnpore Hotel, which had been earmarked as the Nana’s new headquarters.
Built round a central courtyard, the Bibigarh was a single-storey building that consisted of two main rooms, 10 feet by 24 feet, with square pillars and cusped arches that looked out on to an inner veranda. It also had a number of smaller rooms, including four sleeping rooms off the two main rooms, and a complex of servants’ quarters where the sepoy guard lived. The Bibigarh provided ample space for a babu and his family, but was hopelessly inadequate to house the ever growing number of Christian women and children. For since 27 June the original number had been swelled by captured fugitives from Vibart’s boat and a second flotilla from Fatehgarh to more than two hundred, the majority of them children. The only males in captivity were a handful of boys under the age of thirteen, three senior officials from Fatehgarh who had been kept alive as potential bargaining chips, an indigo planter and his son, and six Christian drummers of the 6th Native Infantry. According to Jonah Shepherd, who was being held in a separate location, the captives received ‘only a small quantity of dhall and chuppatties daily for food for the first few days, after which a little meat and milk for the children was allowed, as also clean clothes were issued from those forcibly taken from the washermen of the station’. They were also allowed a sweeper woman and a bhisti. Yet the conditions in which they lived were still pitiful by European standards. Shepherd wrote:
It is not easy to describe, but it may be imagined, the misery of so many helpless persons, some wounded, others sick, and all labouring under the greatest agony of heart for the loss of those, so dear to them, who had so recently been killed (perhaps before their own eyes), cooped up night and day in a small low pukka-roofed house, with but four or six very small rooms, and that in the hottest season of the year, without beds or punkhas, for a whole fortnight, watched most carefully on all sides, by a set of unmannerly, brutish, rebellious sepoys.
Many Britons were convinced that some women were raped. Yet, according to one of the captive drummers, John Fitchett, they were not ‘ill-treated or disgraced in any way’, though they resented being made to take the air on the veranda because ‘people came to look at them’. The only other indignity that Fitchett could recall was two different ladies being taken to the stables of the Old Cawnpore Hotel each day to grind gram. Even this was not particularly objectionable because they often managed to smuggle back some ground gram to give to the children. If the captives suffered physically during their time at Savada House and the Bibigarh, it was mainly through neglect. Wounds were treated with cold water and at least ‘two or three women and children died daily’. The situation improved a little after Nana Sahib returned to Cawnpore and appointed an Indian doctor to attend the captives. But he could not prevent cholera and dysentery from claiming at least fourteen lives by 11 July. The daily supervision of the captives was the responsibility of a Muslim woman named Hossaini Khanum, the servant of the Nana’s favourite courtesan Adla. One of four slave girls owned by Baji Rao II, she was now about thirty, tall and fair-skinned. Most people called her the ‘Begum’, on account of her imperious manner, and she is said to have made the prisoners’ lives a misery. It was she who selected the women to grind gram; yet she was also responsible for improving the food and serving out ‘fresh clothes’, presumably on the Nana’s orders.
The fate of the prisoners was sealed by Havelock’s rapid advance. When news of the first British victory at Fatehpur reached Cawnpore on 13 July, Bala Rao hurried down to the rebel camp with reinforcements. But he was wounded in the shoulder during the reverse at Aong on 15 July and in the afternoon returned to Cawnpore, where he persuaded the Nana to hold an immediate council of war. It was attended by all his senior advisers and those who had lent money to the rebel cause. A great many schemes for checking the advance of the British were proposed: some suggested abandoning Cawnpore and joining forces with the rebel Nawab of Farrukhabad further north; others wanted to make a stand at Bithur; but the majority, ‘either more courageous or desperate’, wanted to fight it out at Cawnpore. This last option was eventually adopted. On the question of what to do with the prisoners, most of the Nana’s advisers – including Bala, Baba Bhutt, Azimullah Khan and Tatya Tope – were in favour of murdering them. Why? Because it was assumed that ‘if they were left alive, they would reveal everything, and thus everyone concerned in the rebellion at Cawnpore would be known’. Even the Nana could see the logic of this argument and, reluctantly, he gave the necessary orders.
The first to die were the two colonels and magistrate from Fatehgarh,* who are said to have told the Nana that they would ‘have the fort of Allahabad given up’ to him if he spared their lives. It was about four thirty in the afternoon when they, the indigo planter and his son, and the fourteen-year-old grandson of Rose Greenway were led outside the gate of the Bibigarh and shot by a squad of sepoys. Half an hour later, according to John Fitchett, the Begum ‘told the ladies they were to be killed by the Nana’s orders’. One of them went straight to Jemadar Yusuf Khan of the 6th Native Infantry, the commander of the sepoy guard, and asked him if the Begum were telling the truth. He replied that he had ‘not received any orders, that she was not to be afraid’. Soon after one of his sepoys told the Begum that her orders ‘would not be obeyed’, and who was she to give orders anyway. Outraged, she went straight to the Old Cawnpore Hotel to consult with the Nana. While she was away the sepoys on guard – mainly men of the 1st and 6th Native Infantry – ‘took counsel and decided that they would not lift their hands against women, though they would kill every man’. They later told Fitchett that ‘they intended to save the ladies, in order that their own lives might be saved’.
The Begum returned with Tatya Tope, and his threat to have the sepoys blown from guns if they did not obey the Nana’s orders seemed to do the trick. First Fitchett and the Christian drummers were removed from the house and placed in a nearby shed. Then the sepoys made a half-hearted attempt to drag the hysterical women and children into the yard. When that failed it was decided to shoot them through the shutters. At least one volley was fired into the packed room by a squad of sepoys, though a bugler insisted it was aimed at the ceiling. Sickened by their task, the sepoys would do no more. So the Begum sent word for her lover, Sarvur Khan, to bring his own execution squad. Sarvur, a burly member of the Nana’s personal bodyguard, was the half-caste son of a Pathani prostitute and a soldier of the 87th Foot. The identity of his father was unknown because his mother had serviced most of the regiment, including the sergeant-major’s cook, and Sarvur never forgave the British for the shame he had to endure as a child. Now was his chance for revenge. The sun was almost setting when Sarvur, wearing his red bodyguard’s uniform, arrived at the Bibighar with four companions. Two of them were Muslim butchers wearing white aprons: both tall and about forty years old; one stout with a small beard and a dark, pockmarked face. The other two were Hindus in the Nana’s employ, both dressed in white: one was named Souracun, a Brahman from an Ooghoo village, ‘about 35 years of age, fair and tall’ with ‘a beard, a flat face, black eyes’; the other was about ten years older with a sallow complexion. All five were carrying tulwars.
John Fitchett saw them enter the Bibighar and, in the doorway, cut down the lady who had spoken to the jemadar (possibly Mrs Moore, the wife of the gallant captain). As they moved into the room and out of sight, ‘fearful shrieks’ could be heard coming from the building. The scene inside the Bibighar as the executioners went methodically about their work is almost too awful to contemplate. One of the Hindus later boasted that some had tried to save themselves by clinging to his feet and pleading for mercy; but he had shown them ‘no pity’. Some may even have offered resistance. Yet, according to Fitchett, none of them tried to escape. At one point during the killings, Sarvur broke his sword and had to replace it with another from the nearby hotel. This too broke in a ‘few minutes’ and he had to fetch a third. Finally, after more than half an hour of butchery, the blood-spattered murderers left the building and locked the doors.
But not all their one hundred and ninety-seven victims* were dead. Some, despite horrific sword wounds, took a long time to die. Fitchett, who was just 15 yards from the main house, recalled that the ‘groans lasted all night’. In the morning the four sweepers who lived in the compound were ordered to throw the bodies into a dry well near the house. They were dragged out one by one, stripped of their clothes and tipped down the well as a huge crowd of city people and villagers looked on from the wall of the compound. Six were found to be still alive: three women and three boys between the ages of five and seven. The women, one of whom was a ‘very stout’ Eurasian who had been wounded in both arms, ‘prayed for the sake of God that an end might be put to their sufferings’. But as no one was prepared to act without the Nana’s say-so, the women were propped against a bank near the well while a messenger was sent to the Old Cawnpore Hotel. Eventually word came back that all were to be disposed of. By this time the three little boys, with nowhere to go, were running hysterically round the well. So one of the sweepers walked up, grabbed the youngest and tossed him over the parapet. The other two soon followed, as did the three conscious women. ‘No one said a word or tried to save them,’ recalled Fitchett, who was watching from a distance of a hundred paces. They simply stared as the six were buried alive in a mountain of naked corpses.
When news of the defeat at Aherwa reached Cawnpore during the evening of 16 July, the ‘entire population was so panic-struck that, leaving house and property, every man that had a hand in the rebellion took to his heels’. Some ‘crossed over to Lucknow from Bithoor Ghat, others went towards Delhi, and the most part of the city hid themselves in the neighbouring villages, where they were nicely robbed by the zemindars’. Many sepoys ‘paid a rupee a head to the ferry to cross the river, on the banks of which they pitched away their muskets, coats, pantaloons, etc., and dispersed in different directions’. The Nana himself fled with the remnants of his army to Bithur, but not before ordering his rearguard to blow up the Cawnpore magazine. It did so as it abandoned the city during the early hours of 17 July, and so violent was the explosion that John Sherer, the former Magistrate of Fatehpur who was accompanying Havelock’s column, ‘experienced a slight shock, like a weak electric current, and then the mighty thunder broke in the distance, and seemed to roll towards us and around us’.
Later that morning Havelock and his troops marched the short distance to Cawnpore. At the entrance to the cantonment the vanguard came across a filthy, bearded man stumbling up the road in chains. It was none other than Jonah Shepherd, the sole male Eurasian survivor of the siege, who had been abandoned by his gaolers during the night. He provided the first authentic account of the garrison’s treacherous demise, prompting an officer of the Madras Fusiliers to write home: ‘The frightful massacre that was reported to have taken place, I am grieved to say, is too true.’ Before long the column was looking aghast at the ruins of Wheeler’s entrenchment. ‘It is a couple of oblong buildings,’ wrote Lieutenant Grant of the volunteer cavalry, ‘in one of them the roof is completely fallen in and both are battered with round shot… The ground inside and out is strewed with broken bottles, old shoes, pieces of chairs, and quantities of paper, books, letters, and other documents. It was a melancholy sight and the suffering must have been more than humanity could bear.’
But it was not long before the locals revealed the location of a far greater crime: the Bibighar. Major Bingham of the 64th, one of the first officers to visit the charnel-house, noted in his diary:
The place was literally running ankle deep in blood, ladies’ hair torn from their heads was lying about the floor, in scores, torn from them in their exertions to save their lives no doubt; poor little children’s shoes lying here and there, gowns and frocks and bonnets belonging to these poor, poor creatures scattered everywhere. But to crown all horrors, after they had been killed, and even some alive, were all thrown down a deep well in the compound. I looked down and saw them lying in heaps. I very much fear there are some of my friends included in this most atrocious fiendish of murders. A Mrs Lindsay, her daughter and son who was in the 1st Regt Bengal N.I.… This is a sight I wish I had never seen.
Bingham’s worst fears were realized when a scrap of paper written by one of the Misses Lindsay was found in the Bibighar. It read:
Mamma died, July 12th.
Alice died, July 9th.
George died, June 27th.
Entered the barracks, May 21st.
Cavalry left, June 5th.
First shot fired, June 6th.
Uncle Willy died, June 18th.
Aunt Lilly died, June 17th.
Left barracks, June 27th.
With emotions running high among Havelock’s troops, few were able to retain a sense of perspective. A notable exception was John Sherer, the new Magistrate of Cawnpore, who later insisted that most British descriptions of the Bibighar ‘were exaggerated’. He explained:
The whole of the pavement was thickly caked with blood. Surely this is enough, without saying ‘the clotted gore lay ankle deep’, which, besides being most distressing, was absolutely incorrect. Then, as to what was lying about, most of us thought it wonderful that the small litter we saw could be the traces of the numbers who had been shut up there. There is no question in my mind that when the bodies were taken away the place had been tidied a little, and painful objects had been removed. There were certainly a few odds and ends of clothing, some lumps of hair, some little shoes, straw hats, and so on. Of mutilation, in that house at least, there were no signs, nor at that time was there any writing on the walls… From this dreadful place we passed down the garden to the narrow well into which so many of the bodies… had been thrown. I say many, because the receptacle was far too small for all, and there can be no doubt that bodies were dragged across the open space to the river, which was at no great distance. Indeed we were told as much at the time. When we got to the coping of the well and looked over, we saw, at no great depth, a ghastly tangle of naked limbs. I heard a low cry of pain, and saw Bews almost crouching with a sickening anguish. There is no object in saying more.
Sherer was also anxious to dispel the rape rumours. There was, he wrote in his official report, no clear evidence of ‘dishonour’. Major G. W. Williams, the commissioner of military police who took numerous witness statements, was also convinced that none of the Bibigarh inmates was violated before being killed. The question of rape was very much on Canning’s mind during the summer of 1857, and he asked William Muir, John Colvin’s intelligence chief, to investigate. After exhaustive inquiries, Muir reported in December that there was no definite proof that any Europeans had been raped. Various reasons were put forward by the officials whom Muir consulted. Edward Reade, a member of the Sudder Board at Agra, argued: ‘The natives of India, both Hindoos and Mahomedans… have a repugnance to sexual connection with European females. During 30 years of Indian experience, the only instances that have come to my knowledge have been a few cases of voluptuaries sated with oriental beauty seeking for variety. If it were otherwise would not Indian gold easily procure from England and France any number of fallen creatures… Indian lust is almost always the lust of bloodshed and plunder only.’ C. B. Thornhill, the Inspector-General of Prisons of the North-Western Provinces, pointed out that ‘Hindoos would regard connexion with a Christian as involving loss of caste and that the feelings of the Mahomedans would lead them to veil such an act with the closest secrecy.’
Muir was not convinced by these arguments. While he agreed with Thornhill that Hindus risked becoming outcastes if they slept with European women, and that Muslims would never have ‘done so in the unconcealed manner which has been supposed at home’, he added that there was ‘nothing in the habits or tenets of the Mussulman population which would prevent them from taking females seized at the general outbreak to their homes with sinister designs’. Nor did he accept Reade’s point that European females were ‘repugnant to the oriental taste’:
I do not myself allow the natives of this country credit for dislike or insensibility towards the European complexion; and, even if admitted, it might not prove a conclusive argument in the present question; because it is apparently one of the current theories that dishonour was done not to gratify passion, but to inflict shame and degradation upon the English name. But the object of the mutineers was, I believe, not so much to disgrace our name, as to wipe out all trace of Europeans, and of everything connected with foreign rule… There was cold and heartless blood thirstiness at the farthest remove from the lust of desire.
But as far as the retained honour of the Bibighar captives was concerned, Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson* had an even simpler explanation. ‘Such was the loathsome condition into which, from long destitution and exposure, the fairest and youngest of our women had sunk,’ he wrote, ‘that not a sepoy would have polluted himself with their touch.’
At the time Havelock’s troops were only too willing to believe that European females had been raped. But even if they had been disabused of that notion, the brutal murder of women and children was more than enough to fill them with a fierce desire for vengeance. None was more zealous in this regard than the recently promoted Brigadier-General James Neill. Ordered up to Cawnpore by General Grant, he arrived with two hundred European reinforcements on 20 July to a less than cordial reception. Havelock was aware that Neill had been criticizing his generalship in letters to the Commander-in-Chief and, on first meeting him at Cawnpore, said sternly: ‘Now General Neill, let us understand each other; you have no power or authority whilst I am here, and you are not to issue a single order.’
Fortunately the two were not together at Cawnpore for long, because Havelock, having secured Bithur, was anxious to push on to Lucknow. Nana Sahib, wrote Sherer, had ‘found it impossible to get any of the soldiers to rally round him’. Instead they had ‘abused him and Baba Bhutt in open terms, clamouring with threatening gestures for money, and so off, helter-skelter, for [Fatehgarh]’. During the evening of 17 July the Nana had escaped with his family across the Ganges. When Major Stephenson reached Bithur with a detachment two days later, he found it deserted. So he set fire to part of the Nana’s palace and blew up his powder magazine before returning to Cawnpore with sixteen captured guns. ‘We looted a good deal,’ wrote one British officer. ‘One man of mine (my own servant) got six hundred rupees; I have a chair and a silver plate, which I hope I shall be able to keep.’
On 20 July Havelock began the laborious task of ferrying the bulk of his small force over to the Oudh bank. By 25 July the operation was complete and Havelock had also crossed over, leaving a furious Neill and three hundred troops in a new entrenchment sited to the north of the Ganges Canal. Neill took his anger out on captured rebels, as he wrote:
Whenever a rebel is caught he is immediately tried, and unless he can prove a defence he is sentenced to be hanged at once; but the chief rebels or ringleaders I first make clean up a certain portion of the pool of blood, still two inches deep, in the shed where the fearful murder and mutilation of women and children took place. To touch blood is most abhorrent to high-caste natives, they think that by doing so they doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so…
The first I caught was a subadhar, a native officer, a high-caste Brahmin, who tried to resist my order to clean up the very blood he had helped to shed; but I made the Provost-Marshal do his duty, and a few lashes soon made the miscreant accomplish his task. Which done, he was taken out and immediately hanged, and after death buried in a ditch at the roadside.
But for some officers this gruesome ordeal was not degrading enough. ‘We made the Nana Sahib’s Collector prisoner,’ wrote Major Bingham. ‘We broke his caste. We stuffed pork, beef and everything which could possibly break his caste down his throat, tied him as tight as we could by the arms and told the guard to be gentle with him… The guard treated him gently. I only wonder he lived to be hung which I had the sincere pleasure of witnessing.’ Liberal administrators in India, including Lord Canning himself, thought this humiliation of high-caste prisoners was going too far. But their counterparts in Britain, replete with exaggerated accounts of rebel atrocities, were not so sensitive. ‘It is rumoured,’ wrote Robert Vernon Smith to Canning, ‘that your Government has disapproved of Neill’s defilement of the Brahmin mutineers, by making them wash up the blood of their victims, before they were hung. It seems to me a proper characteristic punishment without being brutal or offensive.’
Most Britons in India were of a similar opinion, particularly those troops who passed through Cawnpore and saw the Bibighar in person. Second-Lieutenant Arthur Lang of the Bengal Engineers was typical. ‘I felt as if my heart was stone and my brain fire, and that the spot was enough to drive one mad,’ he wrote in his journal in late October. ‘All these fiends will never be repaid one-tenth of what they deserve… Every man across the river whom I meet shall suffer for my visit to Cawnpore. I will never again, as I used to at Delhi, let off men, whom I catch in houses or elsewhere.’ After viewing the remnants of the entrenchment, with the ‘blood, brains and hair’ of Wheeler’s son still smeared on a barrack wall, Lang was more furious still. ‘I felt that I could vow my life to revenge,’ he wrote, ‘to take blood from that race every day, to tear all pity from one’s heart.’
Queen Victoria’s chief emotion, on learning of the atrocities, was one of compassion for the victims. ‘We are in sad anxiety about India, which engrosses all our attention,’ she wrote to her uncle Leopold from Balmoral in early September. ‘Troops cannot be raised fast or largely enough. And the horrors committed on the poor ladies – women and children – are unknown in these ages… There is not a family hardly who is not in sorrow and anxiety about their children, and in all ranks – India being the place where every one was anxious to place a son!’