18. The Relief of Lucknow

Wilson could not know it, but the relief of Lucknow was no longer the responsibility of Brigadier-General Havelock alone. On his return to Cawnpore from Bithur in mid August, Havelock learnt from a copy of the Calcutta Gazette, dated the 5th, that he had been superseded by Major-General James Out-ram of the Bombay Army. As the commander of the combined Dinapore and Cawnpore Divisions and Lawrence’s successor as chief commissioner of Oudh, Outram was Havelock’s military and political superior.

Fortunately Outram was a man of great experience and tact. Born in 1803, the younger son of a Derbyshire civil engineer, he had arrived in India four years after Waterloo as an ensign in the Bombay infantry. But his zeal and aptitude for languages were quickly noticed, and at the age of twenty-three, after just six years’ service, he was given command of a corps of Bhils, the wild, rapacious tribes who inhabited the Bombay province of Khandesh. Having subdued the more unruly tribes, he quickly gained their trust by his acceptance of their rough sense of justice and honour. It helped that he was powerfully built and afraid of nothing. On one occasion, having shot a tiger that had sprung on him, he is said to have declared: ‘What do I care for the clawing of a cat!’

He acted as both soldier and ‘political’ during the First Afghan War, protecting Nott’s line of march through the Bolan Pass in 1842. Sir Charles Napier, on succeeding him as the senior military and political officer in Sind that year, declared: ‘Gentlemen, I give you the “Bayard of India”, sans peur et sans reproche.’ The epithet stuck. A year later Outram returned to Sind to act as Napier’s right-hand man, and his brilliant defence of the Residency at Hyderabad earned him a CB and a lieutenant-colonelcy. From then until the outbreak of war with Persia in 1856 he was given a succession of important political appointments, including Resident and later Chief Commissioner of Oudh. His successful handling of the Persian campaign, however, had reminded the authorities of his military talents, and Canning toyed with various appointments before putting him in charge of the vast swathe of country between the Presidency Division and Lucknow. ‘Outram’s arrival was a godsend,’ wrote Canning in a private letter. ‘There was not a man to whom I could with any approach of confidence entrust the command in Bengal and the Central Provinces.’ Lady Canning was not so impressed by the unprepossessing figure who stayed at Government House for five days in early August. ‘He is a very common looking little dark Jewish bearded man,’ she recorded, ‘with a desponding slow hesitating manner, very unlike descriptions – or rather the idea raised in one’s mind by the old Bombay name the “Bayard of the East”… He is not the least my idea of a hero.’

Outram finally reached Cawnpore on 15 September. In a gesture of extraordinary generosity, he immediately announced his intention to waive his right to military command so that Havelock could complete the task for which he and his brave troops ‘have so long and gloriously fought’. He would accompany the relieving force in a purely civil capacity and, if Havelock wished to make use of his military talents, he was prepared to serve under him as a volunteer. Only when Lucknow had been relieved would Outram ‘resume his position at the head of the forces’. Havelock was quick to acknowledge Outram’s generosity, expressing the hope that his men would strive to ‘justify the confidence thus reposed in them’. But his gratitude soon gave way to anger when it became clear that Outram was not content to take a back seat. According to Havelock’s son and aide-de-camp, Outram continued to issue orders as ‘though he had never resigned in the first place’, which meant that ‘no one in the force knew who actually was commanding’. The result was ‘a hesitancy, tardiness and inexactness of execution [of orders] which put everything into confusion’. When Havelock senior raised the issue, Outram insisted that he had no intention of interfering; yet, after a pause of a couple of hours, he continued to issue directions ‘on all sides’. Havelock never regained his self-confidence:

His false position preyed upon him night and day [wrote his son]… In place of being prompt, deciding and unhesitating he appeared to vacillate and falter, often when asked for orders saying ‘You had better go to Sir James first’… He sacrificed his fame as a soldier to his desire to avoid the appearance of returning Sir James’s professed generosity (which I will not undertake to say was not bona fide in intention, at the same time as it was fatally mischievous in practice) with coldness and ingratitude.

Nevertheless Havelock’s force, which had shrunk to less than seven hundred effectives by the middle of August, now stood at almost 3,200 men, most of them European.* It was divided into three brigades – two of infantry and one of artillery – with the 1st Brigade commanded by Brigadier-General Neill, the 2nd by Colonel Hamilton of the 78th Highlanders and the 3rd by a Major Cooper. The headquarters of the 64th Regiment was detailed to protect Cawnpore.

On 19 September the main body of troops began to cross into Oudh by the newly completed bridge-of-boats. That same day, a Company pensioner called Ungud arrived in camp with a message from Brigadier Inglis at Lucknow, dated 16 September. Sealed in a tiny piece of quill and written in Greek, it read: ‘The enemy have continued to persevere unceasingly in their efforts against this position, and the firing has never ceased night and day… [We] have been living on reduced rations, so I hope to be able to get on pretty well until the 18th proximo. If you have not relieved us by that time, we shall have no meat left, as I must keep some bullocks to move my guns about the position… I am most anxious to hear of your advance to reassure the native soldiers.’ The previous message, also delivered by Ungud, had been more pessimistic still. ‘I hope to be able to hold on to the 20th–25th [September],’ wrote Inglis. ‘I must be frank and tell you that my force is daily diminishing from the enemy’s musketry fire and our defences are daily weaker. Should the enemy make any really determined effort to storm this place I shall find it difficult to repulse him.’

This was no exaggeration. Since the death of Sir Henry Lawrence in early July, the Residency compound had been under constant attack. A number of sorties were made – notably one on 7 July, when twenty rebel snipers were killed in a house opposite the Cawnpore Battery – but this did little to lessen the intensity of the enemy fire. All rebel attempts to storm the compound, however, had been beaten off with heavy casualties.* British hopes were first raised in late July, when Ungud brought news that Havelock had retaken Cawnpore from Nana Sahib and was preparing to march on Lucknow. But they were dashed a couple of weeks later when word arrived that Havelock had withdrawn across the Ganges. The garrison’s spirits were then at their lowest: snipers, shellfire, disease and hunger were carrying off more than twenty people a day. ‘The heart aches while watching for relief,’ wrote one tormented soul, ‘but none comes. Will Cawnpore be repeated at Lucknow? Alas, it seems so! Our number is visibly decreasing.’ Many of those dying – inevitably – were children. ‘Mrs Clark’s infant died today,’ noted Kate Bartrum in her diary on 3 August. ‘Her other little child was taken care of by Mrs Pitt, but notwithstanding the tender care which was taken of him, he sank from exhaustion and died about a fortnight after.’ Five days later she recorded that ‘poor Mrs Kaye has lost her child, such a sweet little thing it was petted and loved by all in the room’. Mrs Bartrum’s own baby son had also been taken ill, but he gradually recovered. ‘If I could only get him good food and fresh air,’ she wrote on the 12th, ‘I think he would get quite well again.’

On 16 August, replying to Havelock’s suggestion that the garrison should try to cut its way out, Inglis wrote:

I have upwards of 120 sick and wounded, and at least 220 women, and about 230 children, and no carriage of any description, besides sacrificing twenty-three lacs of treasure, and about thirty guns of sorts… I shall soon put the force on half rations, unless I hear again from you. Our provisions will last us then till about the 10th of September. If you hope to save this force, no time must be lost in pushing forward. We are daily being attacked by the enemy, who are within a few yards of our defences. Their mines have already weakened our post, and I have every reason to believe they are carrying on others; their 18-pounders are within 150 yards off… My strength now in Europeans is 350 and about 300 natives, and the men dreadfully harrassed [sic]… Our native force, having been assured on Colonel Tytler’s authority, of your near approach some twenty days ago, are naturally losing confidence; and if they leave us, I do not see how the defences are to be manned.

Havelock’s response of 29 August was hardly encouraging: ‘I can only say do not negotiate, but rather perish sword in hand. Sir Colin Campbell, who came out at a day’s notice,… promises me fresh troops and you will be my first care. The reinforcements may reach me in from twenty to twenty-five days, and I will prepare everything for a march on Lucknow.’

Meanwhile the garrison continued to lose men and three deaths were particularly grievous: Major Banks, acting chief commissioner, shot by a sniper at Gubbins’s post on 21 July;* Major Bruère, commanding the loyal detachment of 13th Native Infantry, mortally wounded by a musket-ball on 4 September; and Captain Fulton, the intrepid engineer, decapitated by a roundshot on 14 September. Bruère’s death was much lamented by his sepoys, who, in contravention of their caste rules, insisted on carrying his remains to the grave.

Good news finally reached the garrison late on 22 September in the form of a reply to Inglis’s letter of the 16th. Written by Outram on the 20th, it stated: ‘The army crossed the river yesterday, and all the material being over now, marches towards you to-morrow, and with the blessing of God will now relieve you… I beg to warn you against being enticed far from your works. When you see us engaged in the vicinity, such diversion as you could make without in any way risking your position should only be attempted.’ When word leaked out, the garrison was in a fever of anticipation. ‘Such joyful news!’ wrote Kate Bartrum, whose doctor husband was with Havelock’s force. ‘A letter is come from Sir J. Outram, in which he says we shall be relieved in a few days: everyone is wild with excitement and joy. Can it really be true? And shall we meet once more after these weary months of separation? Distant firing has been heard all day.’

It was Havelock’s men nearing the city. On the 19th his advance guard had driven a strong rebel force out of some sand-hills close to the bridgehead. Two days later – 20 September having been taken up with ferrying Major Eyre’s battery of heavy guns across the river – the advance began. Once again the rebels were massed at the village of Mangalwar; but this time Havelock chose to outflank them on the left, marching his infantry through a swamp and on to hard ground to the rear. The ploy was successful and successive bayonet charges by the 90th Light Infantry and 78th Highlanders drove the rebels out of Mangalwar. A charge by the volunteer cavalry, headed by Outram, completed the rout. ‘We followed across country,’ wrote one officer, ‘and the rain now commenced again and came down in torrents… The whole country off the road appeared under water and we knew the enemy were in front of us and in full retreat. Shoes, camels with ammunition, hackeries (country carts) loaded with grain strewed the road and showed unmistakeably the hurry Pandy was in.’

Havelock’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant William Hargood, had delivered a message to the volunteer cavalry shortly before their charge and decided to accompany them. ‘It was most exciting,’ Hargood informed his parents,

80 horsemen going at full gallop amongst the scoundrels, cutting right and left. We killed about 150, but the ground was so bad that hundreds escaped by hiding themselves in the grass, which was 6ft high. Sergeant Mahoney of my Company, who is acting Sergeant Major of the Cavalry, particularly distinguished himself. He cut down three of the mutineers who were carrying the Regimental Colours of the 1st B.N.I. and, notwithstanding he had two fingers cut off, persisted in riding another charge, and would not get off his horse, [but] fell from it in a fainting fit. He is to have the Victoria Cross.

So close was the pursuit by Outram and the volunteer cavalry that the rebels fled through the nearby villages of Unao and Bashiratganj without making any effort to defend them. That night, Havelock bivouacked his men in a large stone serai at Bashiratganj, having reached in a day the furthest point of his two previous incursions.

On 22 September, after an uneventful march of 16 miles in pouring rain, the column reached the village of Banni on the River Sai. Once again the rebels made no attempt to hold this naturally strong position, neglecting even to destroy the large stone bridge. Their intention became clear the following morning, when Havelock’s troops found them occupying a strong position five miles from Lucknow, their left resting on a walled enclosure known as the Alambagh (‘Garden of the World’) and their centre and right behind a chain of hillocks. As Havelock’s leading brigade, the 2nd, advanced along the Grand Trunk Road between two swamps, it sustained a number of casualties from accurate cannon fire, one of the first balls knocking over three officers of the 90th Light Infantry. But once into the open ground beyond, the brigade was able to deploy, while Neill’s 1st Brigade made a flanking movement through ditches, swamps and heavy ground to the left of the rebel line. Having driven the enemy from a succession of villages, Neill’s men attacked and took the Alambagh, the key to the rebel position, at the point of the bayonet. Then Outram and the cavalry pursued the fleeing rebels to within sight of Lucknow’s minarets and domes. Their advanced position, however, had to be abandoned when it was heavily shelled with guns brought out from the city.

Most of Havelock’s men were anxious to press on and finish the job. Not their commander. ‘The troops had been marching for three days under a perfect deluge of rain, irregularly fed, and badly housed in villages,’ he wrote later. ‘It was thought necessary to pitch tents and permit them to halt on the 24th.’ The only threat that day – other than rebel artillery fire – was from a large force of rebel cavalry that used the long grass as cover to make a surprise attack on the baggage-train to the rear. The sowars were eventually driven off by the baggage-guard from the 90th Light Infantry, but not before inflicting a number of casualties and causing considerable alarm. That night all the baggage and wounded were placed in the Alambagh under a guard of two hundred and fifty men.

The final assault began on the morning of the 25th. With Outram leading from the front, the 1st Brigade drove the rebels from a succession of gardens and walled enclosures until it reached the Charbagh Bridge over the canal. Protected by an earthen parapet and six guns, the bridge appeared all but impregnable. But Harry Havelock was convinced it could be taken and, without consulting his father, he gave the necessary order. He, Fraser-Tytler and twenty-six men of the 1st Madras Fusiliers dashed on to the bridge; all but Havelock and a private were disabled by a hail of grapeshot and musket-balls. Fortunately the supports were close behind and the bridge was captured. One officer, who crossed the bridge minutes later with the 2nd Brigade, recalled that the ‘dead and dying lay so thick it was impossible to avoid treading on them’.

Havelock and Outram had already discussed what to do next. ‘From this point the direct road to the Residency was less than two miles,’ recalled Havelock, ‘but it was known to have been cut by trenches, and crossed by palisades at short intervals, the houses, also, being all loopholed. Progress in this direction was impossible, so the united column pushed on, detouring along the narrow road which skirts the left bank of the canal.’ A little way beyond the bridge to La Martinière, the column turned left towards the Residency, passing between the European barracks and the Sikandarbagh. No serious opposition was encountered until the lead troops reached a narrow bridge over a nullah, commanded by two guns and a large force of rebels in the adjacent Kaisarbagh.* Scores of men fell as they attempted to cross over, but those who made it were able to cover their comrades from the relative safety of the buildings opposite the Farhatbaksh Palace. It was here, just half a mile from the Residency, that Havelock and Outram held a council of war. The light was failing, and Outram, weak with loss of blood from a flesh wound to the arm, suggested occupying the nearby Moti Mahal for a few hours so the rearguard could close up. But Havelock would not have it. He explained later:

I esteemed it to be of such importance to let the beleaguered garrison know that succour was at hand, that with [Outram’s] ultimate sanction I directed the main body of the 78th Highlanders and the regiment of Ferozepore to advance. This column rushed on with a desperate gallantry led by Sir James Outram and myself and Lieutenants Hudson and Hargood of my staff, through streets of flat-roofed loopholed houses, from which a perpetual fire was kept up, and overcoming every obstacle, established itself within the enclosure of the Residency.

Hargood was the first to reach the Baillie Guard Gate. ‘How I escaped,’ he wrote, ‘I cannot tell, as I was a conspicuous mark being on horse-back.’ Brigadier-General Neill, the scourge of Allahabad and Cawnpore, was not so lucky. Just beyond the archway that led to the Khas Bazaar, he reined in his horse and sent his aide-de-camp after a half-battery that had gone down the wrong road. As he waited he was shot in the head by a sepoy on top of the arch.

Meanwhile, the garrison was busy clearing the earth barricade from behind the Baillie Guard Gate so that the relieving force could gain entry. Mrs Harris, who was in Dr Fayrer’s compound near by, recalled:

We had no idea they were so near, and were breathing the air in the portico as usual at that hour, at five p.m., speculating where they might be now, when suddenly, just at dusk, we heard a very sharp fire of musketry close by, and then a tremendous cheering; an instant after, the sound of the bagpipes, then of soldiers running up the road. Our compound and verandah filled with our deliverers, and all of us shaking hands frantically and exchanging fervent ‘God bless yous!’ with the gallant men and officers of the 78th Highlanders. Sir J. Outram and staff were next to come in, and the state of joyful confusion was beyond description. The big, rough, bearded soldiers were seizing the little children out of our arms, kissing them with tears running down their cheeks, and thanking God they had come in time to save them from the fate of those at Cawnpore.

Among the excited crowd that gathered near the Baillie Guard Gate was Mrs Bartrum. ‘The noise, confusion, and cheering, were almost overwhelming,’ she wrote later. ‘My first thought was of my husband, whether he had accompanied the reinforcement, and I was not long left in suspense, for the first officer I spoke to told me he was come up with them… I ran out with baby amongst the crowd to see if I could find him, and walked up and down the road to the Baillie guard gate, watching the face of every one that came in; but I looked in vain… I was told that my husband was with the heavy artillery and would not be in till next morning.’

In fact, the majority of Havelock’s troops were still out in the streets of Lucknow. Some spent the night on the ground between the Baillie Guard Gate and the Farhatbaksh Palace and rejoined their comrades the following morning. But by noon there was still no sign of the rearguard – the heavy guns and some of the wounded – so Outram, who had resumed command, sent a detachment of four hundred and fifty men to find them. They were discovered safe and well in the walled passage fronting the Moti Mahal and moved that night to the Residency compound and the Farhatbaksh Palace. Many casualties did not make it. Abandoned by their doolie-bearers in the last desperate dash down the Khas Bazaar, they were murdered where they lay. Only a handful survived, thanks to the gallantry of three surgeons: Anthony Home and William Bradshaw of the 90th Light Infantry, and Robert Bartrum of the 3rd Oudh Irregular Cavalry.* These three, helped by some bearers and a small escort of soldiers, managed to move at least twenty wounded men to the safety of a nearby house that they defended until it was set on fire. They then moved the wounded to a shed and remained there, under fire, for a further twenty-two hours until rescued.

All the while, Kate Bartrum waited anxiously for her husband’s arrival. Of 26 September she wrote: ‘Was up with the daylight, and dressed myself and baby in the one clean dress which I had kept for him throughout the siege until his papa should come. I took him out and met Mr Freeling who told me that dear Robert was just coming in, that they had been sharing the same tent on the march, and that he was in high spirits at the thought of meeting his wife and child again. I waited, expecting to see him, but he did not come… In the evening I took baby up to the top of the Residency, to look down the road, but I could not see him coming and returned back to my room disappointed.’ By 27 September Kate was sick with worry. ‘This afternoon,’ she recalled, ‘Dr Darby came to me: he looked so kindly and so sadly in my face, and I said to him, “How strange it is my husband is not come in!” “Yes,” he said, “it is strange!” and turned round and went out of the room. Then the thought struck me: something has happened which they do not like to tell me!’

Her worst fears were realized on 28 September when two of her husband’s servants arrived with the ‘sad news that their master was killed’. Next day Dr Bradshaw visited her and explained that her husband had died trying to save the wounded. ‘It made me almost forget my own sorrow to hear him spoken of in such high terms of praise,’ she remembered. ‘His was a glorious death: coming to the rescue of his wife and child, he fell at his post doing his duty. Dr B. told me that as he was going across the courtyard with my husband, he said to him, “Bartrum, you are exposing yourself too much!” “Oh,” he answered, “there is no danger;” when he was suddenly struck in the temple and fell across his companion, saying, “It is all up with me,” and died instantly.’ Kate Bartrum gained some temporary comfort in the knowledge that her husband would live on in her infant son of the same name. Tragically he fell ill and died in Calcutta in February 1858, a few days short of his second birthday and the day before he and his mother were due to leave India for ever.

In just two days of fighting – 25 and 26 September – the relieving force had suffered 535 casualties, of whom 11 officers and 185 men were killed, including two brigade commanders, Neill and Cooper. These heavy losses, Outram informed Sir Colin Campbell on 30 September, made it impossible to return to Cawnpore with the 1,500 sick, wounded and non-combatants. ‘Want of carriage alone,’ he wrote, ‘rendered the transport through five miles of disputed suburb an impossibility.’ Earlier that month Canning had told Outram that his main objective was to rescue the garrison. If that could best be achieved by retiring to Cawnpore, then he was at liberty to do so; alternatively he could stay at Lucknow if he could ‘hold it securely’. Either way he should not expect ‘early reinforcements’ because the China regiments were yet to arrive in any strength. With these considerations in mind, Outram decided to stay at Lucknow and reinforce the original garrison so that it was in a position to ‘make an active defence’, ‘repel attacks by sorties’ and ‘prevent the enemy occupying the whole of their old positions’. To this end, his men had occupied a chain of palaces from the Residency to near the Kaisarbagh – including the Tehri Kottee (‘Crooked House’), Chattar Manzil and Farhatbaksh – and had carried out a series of successful raids. The small garrison at the Alambagh, he added, was strong enough to hold out until relieved.

For the non-combatants, the news was bitterly disappointing. ‘Everyone is depressed,’ noted Colonel Case’s widow, ‘and all feel that we are in fact not relieved. The fighting men we have are too few for our emergency, and too many for the provisions we have in the garrison.’ Many of the defenders, on the other hand, thought they owed their lives to Havelock and Outram. ‘But for their timely arrival,’ wrote L. E. R. Rees, ‘our native troops, who had up to that time behaved nobly and adhered to us with exemplary fidelity, would certainly have abandoned us… Our houses had already been perforated with cannon balls. The Cawnpore battery was one mass of ruins, the outpost at Innes’s house was partly roofless, and the other garrisons were as badly off. From one alone, the brigade mess, 435 cannon balls that had fallen within it were actually counted.’

If the relieving troops were disappointed to find themselves besieged, they did not show it. The discovery of a network of deep mines under the Residency compound, ready to be blown, convinced many that they had arrived in the nick of time. All, in any case, had confidence in their commanders, particularly Outram. ‘A more gallant fellow never trod this earth,’ wrote one officer. ‘Rash perhaps & a little uncertain, but brave & generous & never so happy as when under fire. He is a man of first rate ability & I should say the best General we have.’

Colonel Greathed’s mobile column, meanwhile, had crossed the Hindan at the site of Wilson’s first victory at Ghazi-ud-din-Nagar on 24 September. Two days later it sacked the Gujar village of Dadri as retribution for its inhabitants’ attacks on loyal Indians. Already Fred Roberts had formed a low opinion of his commander, describing him in a letter to his father as a ‘muff of a fellow’ who ‘knows nothing’. He added: ‘I am very jolly. In my appointment, 150 Cavalry are attached to me, and with these I go ahead of the Column scouring the whole country. Our present destination is Agra, but we have one or two small Rajahs and Forts to walk into on the road.’ The first local chief to be dealt with was Walidad Khan, a partisan of the King of Delhi, whose forces were defeated at Bulandshahr on 28 September. A couple of days later Lieutenant Home, VC,* of the Bengal Engineers was accidentally killed as he supervised the destruction of Khan’s fort at nearby Malagarh.

Greathed was at Bryjgarh on 8 October when he received an ‘urgent call for assistance’ from Agra, where ‘a combined attack by insurgents from Gwalior, Mhow and Delhi was imminent’. Orders were issued for the column to march that night, with the cavalry and horse artillery setting the pace. But having covered three quarters of the 48 miles, the mounted portion learnt that the column’s presence was no longer urgently required at Agra because the rebels, on hearing of the column’s approach, had retired. So the horsemen waited for the infantry to come up and together they entered Agra during the morning of 10 October. Fred Roberts recalled:

The European residents who had been prisoners within the walls of the fort for so long streamed out to meet and welcome us, overjoyed at being free at last. We presented, I am afraid, but a sorry appearance, as compared to the neatly-dressed ladies and the spick-and-span troops who greeted us, for one of the fair sex was overheard to remark, ‘Was ever such a dirty-looking lot seen?’ Our clothes were, indeed, worn and soiled, and our faces so bronzed that the white soldiers were hardly to be distinguished from their Native comrades.

Not all the inhabitants of the fort were disappointed with the column’s appearance. ‘The spectacle was imposing from the impression it gave of strength and power,’ remembered Mark Thornhill, ‘but it had nothing of the show and glitter of a review… In short, it was the reality of war – not its dress rehearsal.’

When Greathed asked the authorities at Agra what had become of the rebels, he was told they had withdrawn across the Kari Naddi, a river 13 miles to the south, and were heading towards Gwalior. And yet, according to Mark Thornhill, the senior military and civil officers had ignored reports from many ‘reliable’ natives that the rebel army of 2,000 men ‘was still on our side of the Kari Naddi, and much nearer to us than the authorities had any idea of ’. They had also ignored the warnings of the militia commander, an officer of the ‘highest character’, who had ‘expressed his opinion that the enemy were near, and that his position was unsafe’. Fred Roberts wrote later:

We were then not aware of what soon became painfully apparent, that neither the information nor the opinions of the heads of the civil and military administration at Agra were to be relied upon. That administration had, indeed, completely collapsed; there was no controlling authority; the crisis had produced no one in any responsible position who understood the nature of the convulsion through which we were passing; and endless discussion had resulted (as must always be the case) in fatal indecision and timidity.

The consequences were soon apparent. Greathed had chosen the abandoned brigade parade-ground, about a mile from the fort, as the column’s campsite. But trusting Agra’s intelligence, he decided to wait until nightfall to post pickets. It was a mistake because for three days the rebel army had ‘bivouacked within a mile and a half of the fort, concealed in the gardens and among the high crops that enclosed the parade-ground’. At nine in the morning, as the column’s cooks were preparing breakfast, four Muslim ‘fanatics’ entered the camp and began beating drums. A cavalry sergeant confronted one, and was immediately cut down with a tulwar. Two more British NCOs were seriously wounded before the four rebels were cornered and killed. ‘At this moment,’ recorded a British trooper, ‘the enemy who were lying in ambush in the high standing corn, called bugra, opened a cannonade from three batteries on to the camp.’ This caused a great crowd of onlookers – fort inhabitants and townspeople – to flee from the parade-ground in terror. They met the column’s heavy baggage moving in the opposite direction. ‘Instantly,’ wrote Fred Roberts, who was on his way from the fort to the scene of the action, ‘elephants, camels, led horses, doolie-bearers carrying the sick and wounded, bullocks yoked to heavily-laden carts, all becoming panic-stricken, turned round and joined in the stampede.’ Having struggled through this seething mass – ‘by dint of blows, threats and shouts’ – Roberts could scarcely believe his eyes.

Independent fights were going on all over the parade-ground. Here, a couple of Cavalry soldiers were charging each other. There, the game of bayonet versus sword was being carried on in real earnest. Further on, a party of the enemy’s Cavalry were attacking one of Blunt’s guns (which they succeeded in carrying off a short distance). Just in front, the 75th Foot (many of the men in their shirt-sleeves) were forming square to receive a body of the rebel horse. A little to the left of the 75th, Remmingon’s troops of Horse Artillery and Bourchier’s battery had opened fire from the park without waiting to put on their accoutrements… Still further to the left, the 9th Lancers and Gough’s squadron of Hodson’s Horse were rapidly saddling and falling in. On the right the 8th Foot and 2nd and 4th Punjab Infantry were busy getting under arms, while beyond, the three squadrons of Punjab Cavalry, under Probyn and Younghusband, were hurrying to get on the enemy’s flank.

The rebel cavalry, three hundred in number, had hoped to make a surprise flank attack but they were met by the 9th Lancers and, after a brief fight, fled. By now the 3rd Europeans and a battery of guns had arrived from the fort. The latter ‘opened fire on the rebel guns in the gardens and silenced them, while the Sikhs and English infantry charged the battery at the [nearby Wrestler’s] Tomb’ where the main body of rebels was drawn up. ‘As our men charged and our cannon shot began to fall,’ recalled Mark Thornhill, ‘the rebel infantry lost heart, as had previously their cavalry. When their guns were taken they turned and fled… back through the village and across the fields beyond, till they reached the Gwalior road; along it they continued their flight, carrying one or two of their guns with them.’ Fred Roberts was with the pursuing cavalry:

It was a most exciting chase. Property of all sorts and descriptions fell into our hands, and before we reached the Kari Naddi we had captured thirteen guns, some of them of large calibre, and a great quantity of ammunition. The enemy’s loss on this occasion was not very great, owing to the extraordinary facility with which Native troops can break up and disappear, particularly when crops are on the ground…

There is no doubt that the enemy were almost as much taken by surprise as we were… Their astonishment first became known when they were repulsed by the 75th Foot, and were heard to say to one another, ‘ Arrah bhai! Ye Diliwhale hain! (I say, brother! These are the fellows from Delhi!)’

Greathed’s column remained at Agra for four days. Colonel Fraser, Colvin’s successor, was anxious for it to follow the routed rebels at least as far as Dholpur in case they tried to regroup. But Greathed refused: his orders were to pacify the Doab and, if possible, assist the relief of Lucknow. He left Agra on 14 October and four days later, at Mainpuri, was superseded by Brigadier Hope Grant, who had arrived from Delhi to take command of the column. Having destroyed the fort of the rebel Raja of Mainpuri, Hope Grant pushed on to Bewar, where, on 21 October, he was handed a letter from Sir James Outram at Lucknow, written in Greek, ‘begging that aid might be sent as soon as possible, as provisions were running short’. The column set off at once for Cawnpore, arriving on 26 October. Next day Hope Grant received an order from Sir Colin Campbell, the new Commander-in-Chief, to advance into Oudh and make contact with the small garrison in the Alambagh. Campbell would join him there.

Since arriving in India on 13 August, Sir Colin had been kicking his heels at Government House while reinforcements slowly appeared. This gave Canning the opportunity to compare his strengths with those of his predecessor, General Grant.

I think [wrote Canning on 23 August] that Sir Patrick Grant was a better man for the work actually in hand, and for any that will have to be done up to the time when the Commander in Chief will take the field. When that day comes I shall be glad that Sir Colin is here. Grant is admirable in the way of preparation and organisation. He knows the army and all its machinery thoroughly, what to look for, and what to guard against. The two months which I have had of him have been invaluable, and I should have liked to keep him for a month or two more, but as a leader in the field Sir Colin inspires me with more confidence.

Lady Canning, expecting a dour Scot, was pleasantly surprised. ‘We find him very amiable and cheerful,’ she wrote in August, ‘an endless talker and raconteur. He will be sure to fight well, but when will he have the opportunity? The 14,000 men from England will not arrive for long & there is no sufficient force for him to take the field. Only detachments & reinforcements go up now.’ Yet Campbell’s enforced stay at Calcutta was not entirely fruitless. He helped to speed up supplies for the expected troops – including Enfield ammunition, remounts, tents and transport – and was chiefly responsible for the establishment of a bullock train between Raniganj and Allahabad. He also formed movable columns of six hundred men – infantry and artillery – to provide security along the Grand Trunk Road.

By the first week in October, the gloom at Calcutta had been partially dispelled by the news from Delhi and Lucknow and the arrival of troops from the China expedition: the 23rd Fusiliers, the 93rd Highlanders, the 82nd Foot, two companies of Royal Artillery and one company of sappers. Around the same time a company of Royal Artillery and five hundred men of the 13th Light Infantry sailed in from the Cape. But the danger was far from over: Kunwar Singh and the Dinapore mutineers were still at large; recent mutinies had occurred at Jabalpur and Nagode in central India; and much of Bundelkhand, Oudh and the North-Western Provinces was still in rebel hands. Campbell’s priority, however, was the relief of Lucknow, and with this in mind he sent all new troops up the Grand Trunk Road by bullock-train. They followed in the wake of the Naval Brigade – formed from, and using the guns of, the China force’s warships (HMSs Shannon and Pearl) – which had set off from Calcutta under the command of Captain William Peel, VC,* the late Prime Minister’s son, in August. Campbell himself did not leave for Cawnpore until 27 October, by which time elements of eight more infantry regiments had arrived from England.

Having narrowly avoided capture near Shergati in Bihar, by sepoys of the 32nd Native Infantry who had mutinied in mid October, Campbell and his chief of staff, Major-General William Mansfield, reached Cawnpore on 3 November. There they received the alarming intelligence that Tatya Tope and the 5,000-strong Gwalior Contingent, which the pro-British Maharaja Scindia had kept quiet at Gwalior city until early September, were marching towards Kalpi, just 45 miles to the south-west. Even Outram was of the opinion that Campbell should consider Lucknow of secondary importance since it was ‘so obviously to the advantage of the state that the Gwalior rebels should be first effectually destroyed’. But the Commander-in-Chief did not agree. For him the relief of Lucknow was of vital strategic and symbolic importance: it would strike a blow at the new epicentre of the rebellion and it would prevent another Satichaura Ghat. According to Fred Roberts, Havelock himself had warned that his food ‘will only last till the 10th November, by which date unless we relieve them, they will either starve or give themselves up’.

On 9 November, leaving Major-General Charles Windham, a Queen’s officer of Crimean fame, and five hundred soldiers to guard Cawnpore, Campbell set off to join the force that Hope Grant had led into Oudh at the end of October. He found it camped on a sandy plain four miles beyond Banni. The following morning, as he was making arrangements for the relief of the wounded at the Alambagh, Campbell was surprised by the arrival of a European gentleman from Lucknow, disguised as an Indian. His name was T. Henry Kavanagh and he was carrying a vital message from Sir James Outram.

A tall, well-built, garrulous Irishman of thirty-six, Kavanagh had become Sir Henry Lawrence’s chief clerk in March 1857. Yet his spendthrift ways had almost cost him his job, and he saw the siege as an ideal opportunity to redeem his reputation. He had, for example, taken an active role in the dangerous counter-mining operations that were orchestrated by the late Captain Fulton. When word reached the Residency on 9 October that a force under Sir Colin Campbell was on its way to Lucknow, Kavanagh leapt at the chance to win fresh laurels. ‘I had,’ he wrote, ‘some days previously witnessed the drawing of plans… to assist the Commander-in-Chief in his advance upon the Residency. It then occurred to me that some one of intelligence, with the requisite local knowledge, ought to attempt to reach His Excellency’s force beyond, or at the Alam Bagh, because the plans would be of little use without some one to explain them.’ That someone was him. Having persuaded Outram’s spy, Kanauji Lal, to incur the additional risk of taking along a second courier, and a European at that, Kavanagh went to speak to Sir James himself. At first Outram tried to talk him out of it, emphasizing the ‘impossibility of any European being able to escape through the city unmolested’. But Kavanagh was so ‘earnest’ in his ‘entreaties to be allowed to go’ that Outram ‘yielded’ on condition that he was satisfied with his disguise. That evening, dressed in Indian clothes and with his exposed skin dyed black, he walked into Outram’s quarters and sat down without permission. ‘Questions and answers were exchanged without detecting the disguise,’ recalled Kavanagh, ‘although my plain features were known to every one of the outraged officers.’ Even Outram, when he entered the room, ‘took some time’ to recognize Kavanagh.

I regarded this first step in the adventure as presaging success [wrote Kavanagh], and was glad to lay hold on any little thing to keep up my confidence. I was daubed once more by the General himself, and, considering where I was going to, there was extraordinary hilarity in the whole proceeding, which was most beneficial to my nerves. My turban was readjusted; my habiliments subjected to close inspection; and my waistband adorned by a loaded double-barrelled pistol… which was intended for myself should there be no possibility of escaping death at the hands of the mutineers.

But those in the know were not sanguine about the Irishman’s chances. ‘Noble fellow!’ said Captain Hardinge as he passed Kavanagh out of the picket on the River Gumti, ‘you will never be forgotten!’

Putting on a bold front by keeping to the main streets, and telling all who inquired that they were on their way to their homes in the city, Kavanagh and Kanauji Lal made it to the outskirts of Lucknow without incident. Five miles on, however, they realized they had taken a wrong turn and were in Dilkusha Park, which was crawling with armed rebels. They eventually found their way out and began walking in the direction of the Charbagh Bridge. But when they ordered an old peasant they came across to show them the way, he ‘ran off screaming, and alarmed the dogs of the village, which made us run quickly into the canal’. After the alarm had subsided, they continued on to another village, where Kavanagh, now desperate, ‘entered a wretched hut, and groping in the dark for an occupant, pressed the soft thigh of a woman, who started, but heeded my earnest whisper to be quiet’. She woke her mother, who put Kavanagh on the right road.

By now Kavanagh was ‘tired and in pain’ from his swollen feet, but Kanauji Lal persuaded him not to make for the Alambagh because it was surrounded by rebels. Instead they headed straight for Campbell’s camp on the Bunni road. En route, in a mango grove, they were stopped by a squad of sepoys. ‘It was an anxious moment,’ recalled Kavanagh. ‘[Kanauji Lal] lost heart for the first time, and threw away the despatch entrusted to him for Sir Colin Campbell. I drew their attention to his fright, and begged they would not terrify poor travellers, unaccustomed to being questioned by so many valorous soldiers.’ Kavanagh explained that they were on their way to a nearby village to inform a friend of the death of his brother. The sepoys believed the story and even gave them directions. A couple of hours later, having crossed a muddy swamp by moonlight, Kavanagh and Kanauji Lal were startled by an abrupt, ‘Who comes there?’ They had reached the British lines – and safety.

Kavanagh was escorted to the Commander-in-Chief’s tent. At the entrance he asked ‘an elderly gentleman with a stern face’ for Sir Colin Campbell. ‘I am Sir Colin Campbell!’ came the abrupt reply. ‘And who are you?’

By way of response, Kavanagh took off his turban and produced a note of introduction from Sir James Outram. ‘This, sir, will explain who I am, and from where I came.’

As Campbell read it, he kept raising his eyes to look at his bizarrely attired visitor. ‘It is true?’ he asked.

‘I hope, sir,’ replied Kavanagh, ‘you do not doubt the authenticity of the note?’

‘No! I do not!’ said Campbell sharply. ‘But it is surprising. How did you do it?’

Kavanagh pleaded exhaustion and said that he would be only too happy to tell his story after he had rested. Once alone, Kavanagh knelt and thanked God for his deliverance. The worst was over and he could now look forward to the fruits of his enterprise.* ‘The most delicious visions of the future lingered in my mind,’ he wrote. ‘For less than this, names have descended from age to age as if never to be obliterated.’

Kavanagh’s intelligence allowed Campbell to put the finishing touches to his plan of attack. Outram had advised him not to enter the city by the Charbagh Bridge, as he and Havelock had done, but to march south-east of Lucknow to the Dilkusha, cross the canal north of the Dilkusha near the Martinière, and then advance through the palace area to the Residency. Campbell issued his orders accordingly.

On 12 November Campbell marched his army to the Alambagh, where he deposited his heavy baggage. Two days later, armed with Outram’s map and with Kavanagh at his side, he began his advance on Lucknow with a force that now numbered 4,700 men and forty-nine guns and mortars. The rebel defenders were thought to number 30,000, though only a fraction were professional troops. Light opposition was encountered in the Dilkusha, and it was swiftly brushed aside. The Martinière too was taken with barely a fight. That evening the rebels attempted a counter-attack across the Dilkusha Bridge but were beaten back with heavy losses.

Most of the 15th was taken up with preparing the final advance. The heavy baggage and stores were brought up, and the Dilkusha was turned into a general depot with five field guns, three cavalry squadrons and an infantry regiment to protect it. Next morning, having feinted an attack over the canal from the left of his position, Campbell’s advance guard crossed on the right and headed straight for the Sikandarbagh, a large fortified garden, about a mile in front. But as it moved down a lane that ran parallel to the Sikandarbagh’s east wall, it was checked by fire from three directions: on the right from the garden itself; on the left and left front from a serai and some barracks; and in front from the mess house, Kaisarbagh and other buildings.

The threat from the left was removed when the 93rd Highlanders took the serai and the barracks. But the position of the force was still critical, and Campbell decided that the Sikandarbagh – 130 yards square with loopholed walls 20 feet high and flanked at the corners by circular bastions – had to be taken before the advance could continue. It was while reconnoitring the garden that the Commander-in-Chief called out, ‘I am hit.’ Luckily for him it was a spent bullet that had just passed through and killed a British gunner before striking Campbell on the thigh, causing a severe bruise. Soon after two heavy guns opened fire on the south-east corner of the wall – the point selected by Campbell – and within half an hour a breach 3 feet square and 3 feet from the ground had been made in the masonry. The order was then given to storm the breach, and men from three regiments – the 93rd Highlanders, 4th Punjab Infantry and 53rd Foot – vied to be first through it.

A Highlander was the first to reach the goal [wrote Fred Roberts], and was shot dead as he jumped into the enclosure; a man of the 4th Punjab Infantry came next, and met the same fate. Then followed Captain Burroughs and Lieutenant Cooper of the 93rd, and immediately behind them their Colonel (Ewart), Captain Lumsden of the 30th Bengal Infantry, and a number of Sikhs and Highlanders as fast as they could scramble through the opening. A drummer-boy must have been one of the first to pass that grim boundary between life and death, for when I got in I found him just inside the breech, lying on his back quite dead – a pretty, innocent-looking, fair-headed lad, not more than fourteen years of age.

Arthur Lang was with a party that leapt over a loopholed mud wall, cheering and shouting, ‘Remember Cawnpore!’, and smashed a way through the gateway on the south side with axes. ‘Such a sight of slaughter I never saw,’ he recalled. ‘In the open rooms right and left of the archway Pandies were shot down and bayoneted in heaps… It was a glorious sight to see.’ Roberts estimated that there were 2,000 rebels in the Sikandarbagh, adding:

They were now completely caught in a trap, the only outlets being by the gateway and the breach, through which our troops continued to pour. There could therefore be no thought of escape, and they fought with the desperation of men without hope of mercy… Inch by inch they were forced back to the pavilion, and into the space between it and the north wall, where they were all shot or bayoneted. There they lay in a heap as high as my head, a heaving, surging mass of dead and dying inextricably entangled. It was a sickening sight… The wretched wounded men could not get clear of their dead comrades, however great their struggles, and those near the top of this ghastly pile of writhing humanity vented their rage and disappointment on every British officer who approached.

Eventually the mass of bodies was set on fire, ‘and to hear the living… calling out in agony to be shot was horrible even in that scene where all men’s worst passions were excited’. In each corner tower ‘a few desperate men’ continued to hold out ‘and lives were being thrown away in attempting to force little narrow winding staircases where men were determined to hold out as long as possible’. Lang was almost killed when the muzzle of a musket was pressed against his chest, but he sprang back before it could be fired. He wrote:

The same man held out for two hours up his staircase, and when his ammunition was done, appeared on the roof at top, and with fury, hurled his tulwar down amongst us, and fell amongst a volley of bullets. Sixty or more were taken alive and put up in a line, and they got no mercy, being caught when our fellows’ blood was so much up; they got kicked and spat at and pricked with swords, and always with ‘Cawnpore, you scoundrels’, and then they were all shot: a great many were 1st N.I., the bad regiment at Cawnpore.

Not all the victims were men. ‘I saw the body of a woman lying with a cross-belt upon her and by her a dead baby also shot with two bullet wounds in it,’ wrote Lieutenant Fairweather of the 4th Punjab Infantry. ‘The poor mother had tied the wounds round with a rag… [Ensign] McQueen told me he had seen a Highlander bayonet another woman and on his upbraiding him for such a brutal act, the man turned upon him like a madman and for a minute he almost expected to be run through with his bayonet himself.’

That afternoon, with the Sikandarbagh in British hands, the advance on the Residency continued. For a time it appeared as if the Shah Najaf – with support from rebel guns at the Kaisarbagh, the mess house and across the river – would not be taken before nightfall. Scores of men were killed and wounded as they tried to move up the narrow lane to the large enclosure, including Sir Archibald Alison, Campbell’s aide-de-camp, who lost an arm. Eventually the order was given for the 93rd Highlanders to withdraw. But before it could be obeyed, Brigadier Adrian Hope found a gap in the Shah Najaf’s walls and discovered that its defenders were on the point of leaving. The order was rescinded, and Campbell and his staff ate their ‘scratch dinner’ within the enclosure’s walls. Most of the troops bivouacked on the ground.

After a night of little sleep, the assault was resumed and the mess house and Moti Mahal were taken after more hard fighting. Outram’s men, meanwhile, had occupied the buildings between the Moti Mahal and the Chatter Manzil. A junction was imminent. Roberts was looking over the western wall of the Moti Mahal with Norman, the acting adjutant-general, when he spotted Outram and Havelock. He wrote:

I had never before met either of them… [Outram] was then fifty-four years of age, strong and broad-shouldered, in no way broken down by the heavy load of responsibility and anxiety he had had to bear, or the hardships he had gone through. Havelock, the hero of a hundred fights, on the contrary, looked ill, worn and depressed, but brightened up a little when Norman told him he had been [knighted].

Campbell received the two heroes of Lucknow on sloping ground near the mess house. But their discussion did not last long because the guns from the Kaisarbagh were tearing up the ground around them. Campbell confined himself to saying that the troops would be withdrawn from Lucknow as soon as the women and children had been escorted out, and he expressed his ‘thankfulness that the relief of the garrison had been accomplished’. Then Outram and the weary Havelock returned to the Residency compound, accompanied by Roberts and Norman. As they passed through the shot-battered Bailie Guard Gate, the two young officers ‘could not resist stopping to speak to some of the Native officers and sepoys, whose magnificent loyalty throughout the siege was one of the most gratifying features of the Mutiny’.

Outram and Havelock tried to persuade Campbell to attack the Kaisarbagh and take the whole city. But mindful of the small force he had left at Cawnpore and the casualties he had already incurred – 45 officers and 496 men – Campbell decided to confine his operations to the rescue of the garrison. Roberts approved. ‘Every man was on duty day and night,’ he wrote, ‘and had he listened to these proposals, and allowed himself to be drawn into complications in the city, it is more than probable that those he had come to succour would have been sacrificed.’ The first step was to evacuate the women and children and, during the afternoon of 19 November, they were led under fire to the blood-streaked Sikandarbagh, where they were ‘regaled with tea and bread and butter, a luxury indeed, after siege fare’. After dark they set off again towards the Dilkusha. The journey was not without its alarms for the recently widowed Kate Bartrum, who was travelling in a doolie with her infant son.

We had been going on for a long time, when I thought it was remarkably quiet, for I could not hear the tramp of the doolie bearers behind, and I looked out and found I was quite alone in an open plain. I asked the bearers whither they were taking me, when they said they had lost their way. It immediately occurred to me that they were taking me to the sepoys: I sprang out of the doolie, and ran with my child in my arms, screaming across the plain until I heard voices answering. I knew not whether they were friends or foes: but still I ran on and met a party of our own men.

They too had lost their way and only knew that enemy pickets were close by. So together they retraced their steps and eventually found their way to the British camp in the Dilkusha, where, ‘wearied and exhausted with fatigue and terror’, Mrs Bartrum sat on the ground and burst into tears. ‘I had been on my feet with my baby in my arms for upwards of three hours,’ she remembered, ‘walking through deep sand and wet grass, and my dress had become so coated with mud, that it was with difficulty I could get on.’ A friendly officer took her to a large tent, where she was given ‘some milk for baby, and a delicious cup of tea, and then we lay down upon the ground and slept till morning’.

During the next three days ‘everything that was worth removing and for which carriage could be provided was brought away’ from the Residency compound. The booty included ‘jewels and other valuables belonging to the ex-royal family, twenty-five lakhs of treasure, stores of all kinds, including grain’ and a large quantity of obsolete guns. The troops were finally withdrawn from the Residency and the buildings nearby at midnight on the 22nd. ‘Not a sound was heard,’ wrote Lieutenant Montagu Hall, ‘not a bayonet clashed, and we filed out of the Hirun Kanah without a word spoken. We found the rest of our force (Outram’s) covering the rear, and marched along in the dark. We passed the [Sikandarbagh] as we knew by the smell, which was something fearful, and then past the 9th Lancers. There they sat like statues. It is impossible to believe horses could be so still, not a sound to be heard, not a movement to be seen. I never was more struck with the perfection to which drill, discipline and training can be carried, than I was on that night. At last we find ourselves in a large park, the Martinière grounds, and here we were halted till morning.’

Sir Henry Havelock did not enjoy his knighthood for long. Suffering from dysentery, he had been carried to the Dilkusha in a doolie and placed in a small tent. There his son Harry, his wounded arm in a sling, tended him and read him passages and verses from his hymn book. Havelock knew the end was near and kept muttering, ‘I die happy and contented.’ At dawn on 24 November he called for his son. ‘Harry,’ he said, smiling, ‘see how a Christian can die.’ He died in his son’s arms.

On 27 November, leaving Outram and 4,000 troops to garrison the Alambagh until enough reinforcements had arrived to retake Lucknow, Campbell set off for Cawnpore with the balance of his force: 3,000 fit men encumbered by half that number of women, children, sick and wounded. A day later he received an alarming message from General Windham in Cawnpore, dated the 26th, stating that he was being attacked by a large rebel force and required immediate assistance. Two more letters followed, the last with the disheartening news that Windham had withdrawn with most of his men into the entrenchment, leaving the city and the cantonment in the possession of the rebels. Campbell hastened his men forward and crossed the bridge-of-boats, which was still intact, on 29 and 30 November, taking up a position to the south-east of the city between the river and the Grand Trunk Road. For the next few days, while arrangements were being made to send the women, children and wounded to Allahabad,* Campbell remained on the defensive. Then, on Sunday, 6 December, he struck.

The rebels numbered about 13,000 men and were divided into two distinct bodies: on the right, covering the line of retreat to Kalpi, were the Gwalior Contingent and the mutinous regiments that had been stationed in Bundelkhand, central India and Rajputana; on the left, holding the city and the ground between it and the Ganges, were the troops loyal to Nana Sahib, both regular and irregular. Tatya Tope was in overall command, with Bala Rao leading the Nana’s troops. The Nana himself was keeping his distance to the north-west of Bithur.

As the centre and left of the rebel position was protected by the city and broken ground, Campbell feinted an attack there before advancing on the right. The ruse worked. The 4th Punjab Infantry and 53rd Foot won a bridgehead across the canal near the brick-kilns, south-east of the city, enabling two fresh brigades to march down the Kalpi road towards the rebel camp. A few shots were fired and then the British charged. ‘We were evidently unexpected visitors,’ wrote Fred Roberts, ‘wounded men were lying about in all directions, and many sepoys were surprised calmly cooking their frugal meal of unleavened bread. The tents were found to be full of property plundered from the city and cantonment of Cawnpore – soldiers’ kits, bedding, clothing.’ The fleeing rebels were pursued by cavalry and horse artillery for 14 miles down the Kalpi road. Roberts, who rode with them, remembered: ‘The sepoys scattered over the country, throwing away their arms and divesting themselves of their uniform, that they might pass for harmless peasants. Nineteen guns, some of them of large calibre, were left in our hands.’ Bala Rao, meanwhile, had withdrawn the Nana’s troops in the direction of Bithur. On 8 December, after a brief skirmish with Hope Grant’s flying column, many escaped across the Ganges to Oudh. The Nana and his entourage went with them. For one British officer, the defeat of the Gwalior Contingent was a turning point. ‘Our star was in the ascendant,’ he wrote, ‘and the attitude of the country people showed that they understood which was the winning side.’

Having narrowly failed to capture the self-styled Peshwa, Grant proceeded to Bithur, where he promised his men a share in whatever treasure they could dredge from the Nana’s wells. For two weeks they laboured in the freezing waters, bringing out two million rupees in ammunition boxes, the Peshwa’s silver howdah and a never-ending stream of precious objects. Yet they never received a penny for their efforts because Calcutta decided that most of the treasure was loot and had to revert to the state. ‘We even had to pay from our own pockets for the replacement of our kits,’ wrote one bitter soldier, ‘which were taken by the Gwalior Contingent when they captured [Windham’s] camp.’

Fred Roberts took the opportunity to visit the Nana’s palace, finding it in ‘good order’, and in one of the rooms discovered a bundle of Azimullah’s letters from Lucie Duff Gordon and his Brighton fiancée. ‘Such rubbish I never read,’ he wrote. ‘How English ladies can be so infatuated. Miss — was going to marry Azimula, and I have no doubt would like to still, altho’ he was the chief instigator in the Cawnpore massacres. You would not believe them if I sent home the letters.’