The British station at Meerut in the upper Doab, midway between the Jumna and Ganges Rivers, was one of the most salubrious in India. Established in 1804 on four miles of plain to the north of the city, it was well known for its pretty bungalows, flower-filled gardens and healthy climate. One British cavalryman, garrisoned there in the 1830s, regretted being transferred to the dusty cantonment at Cawnpore because it was not as ‘pleasant’ as Meerut.
The station was roughly divided into two halves, north and south, by the Abu Nullah watercourse. At the top of the northern sector were the north-facing European lines. They extended for two and a half miles and included, from west to east, the barracks, officers’ bungalows and parade-grounds of the cavalry, infantry and artillery. Further east still was the enclosed Artillery School of Instruction known as the Damdammah; St John’s, the largest and finest church in northern India, was on the periphery of the infantry parade-ground. Forming the southern perimeter of the European lines was the Mall, a wide tree-lined road along which the British residents took their evening promenade.
The Indian lines were to the west of the southern sector. They consisted of a main block running north–south and facing west over a large parade-ground. To the rear of the main block were the European officers’ bungalows and messes, and beyond them the Sudder Bazaar, the biggest in the cantonment, serving the Indian lines as a whole. Further east were the courts, offices and scattered bungalows of the British civil station. South of the civil station was the city of Meerut. No longer walled, it still retained a number of its original gates.
As the headquarters of both the Bengal Artillery and a division of the Bengal Army, Meerut was a key military station. Moreover, it had, in May 1857, the highest proportion of European to Indian troops of any station in India: 1:1¼. The European garrison included two British regiments: the 6th Dragoon Guards (the Carabiniers), which had recently arrived from England and contained a majority of raw recruits on part-broken horses; and the 60th Rifles, which had been in India for two years and was the only corps equipped with Enfields. The remaining European troops were gunners.
The Indian contingent was made up of three regiments: the 11th and 20th Native Infantry, and the 3rd Light Cavalry. The 11th had only been in Meerut since the beginning of May. Prior to that it had been split into two wings, one at Allahabad and the other at Mirzapur. Its commanding officer, Colonel John Finnis, had been in command for less than a year and was completely unknown to the left wing. The 20th Native Infantry had arrived in Meerut from Peshawar in January 1856. Its regular commander, Lieutenant-Colonel John Craigie-Halkett, was on leave and the regiment in the care of 37-year-old Captain John Taylor. Though Taylor had served with the regiment for eighteen years, seeing action in the First Afghan War and against the Afridi tribesmen in 1853, he may not have commanded the same respect as a more senior officer. The 3rd Light Cavalry, the senior Indian regiment at Meerut, was one of the most celebrated in the Bengal Army. Formed in 1796, it had served with distinction in numerous campaigns. For its efforts at the Battle of Delhi in 1803 the regiment had been awarded an extra jemadar and an honorary standard inscribed with the words ‘Lake and Victory’. It had been at Meerut since 1854 under the command of Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth.
Descended from the Earls of Hyndford and an heiress named Smyth, the colonel had been born in London in 1803, the eighth and youngest son of a Scottish doctor. Five of his brothers had served in India as officers and administrators before he joined the 3rd Light Cavalry as a cornet in 1820. But his career had never taken off: apart from a brief stint on the staff in 1825, he had remained a regimental officer, seeing action in a number of battles, notably Aliwal during the First Sikh War when the regiment famously charged with the 16th Lancers. Such a long-serving regimental commander was usually respected by both officers and men; not Carmichael-Smyth. ‘He was not wanting in intelligence or in zeal,’ wrote a contemporary, ‘but he lacked temper and discretion, and the unquestionable honesty of his nature was of that querulous, irritable cast which makes a man often uncharitable and always unpopular.’ In late March 1857 Carmichael-Smyth travelled from Meerut to the holy town of Haridwar in the Himalayan foothills to buy remounts at the triennial Kumbh Mela festival. When the Mela ended early because of cholera, he took a short leave in the hills. There an acquaintance told him about a recent conversation he had had with an old Indian soldier. ‘I have been 36 years in the service and am a havildar,’ said the soldier, ‘but I still would join in a mutiny and what is more I can tell you the whole army will mutiny.’ Carmichael-Smyth was much affected by this story.
At Meerut, meanwhile, the Europeans were more concerned with the onset of the burning winds than soldier unrest. In a letter of 8 April to his father, one artillery subaltern wrote:
The weather seems the great topic of conversation at present, against which I and all others are fortifying ourselves by blockading the windows with [tatties] and having punkas placed up in the rooms. We have certainly a very pleasant prospect before us for the next six months, not getting out of doors in the middle of the day, dinner at 8 o’clock in the evening (just fancy what an hour to dine at…). But it is impossible to do otherwise here, for the only time you can take any exercise is after the sun goes down, and the sun does not set now until ¼ or half past six. We rise at gun fire every morning which is now at quarter to 5, so you see we are very early.
But it was the cartridge question rather than the weather that was very much on the minds of the Indian troops. The first outbreaks of arson took place in the native lines on 13 April. Ten days later Carmichael-Smyth arrived back in Meerut and was shown a copy of the new firing drill by which cartridges were to be torn with the hand rather than the teeth. Determined to put the drill into practice, he gave orders for the regiment’s ninety skirmishers to attend a firing parade the following morning. Whether he conferred with his superiors before issuing such a contentious order is doubtful. It was the start of the hot weather, the season of reduced duties, and many officers were on leave.
Among the absentees was the station commander, Brigadier Archdale Wilson, who was recuperating from smallpox in the hills. A clever, affable and undemonstrative man, the fifth son of a well-born Norfolk clergyman and the nephew of the first Lord Berners, Wilson had done well enough at Addiscombe to gain a commission in the Bengal Artillery at the age of fifteen. Since arriving in India in September 1819, his active service had been confined to the siege of Bharatpur and some minor engagements in the Jullundur Doab during the Second Sikh War. He had spent much of his time in detached posts and on the staff: including posts as adjutant-general of the artillery and superintendent of the artillery’s main foundry at Cossipore. In 1855, thoroughly acquainted with the details of his profession, he was promoted to brigadier and given command of both the Bengal Artillery and the Meerut station. His high rank was matched by his distinctive appearance. ‘He is a tall man,’ wrote one contemporary, ‘with very large contemplative eyes, a high forehead, grizzled [grey] hair, no whiskers, but a moustache and a goat’s beard.’ In 1857 he was still only fifty-three, with a ‘spare and wiry frame’ and ‘active athletic habits’, and looked to have a successful career ahead of him. But having served for almost forty years, he wanted nothing more than to retire with his ‘dear old woman’ to the ‘heaven’ of a small cottage in Norfolk.
The other senior officers absent were Colonel Jones of the Carabiniers and Craigie-Halkett of the 20th Native Infantry. That just left Major-General William Hewitt, sixty-six, the kindly but corpulent commander of the Meerut Division, whose ‘Bloody Bill’ nickname was a relic of the 1820s. Hewitt does not appear to have been consulted about the firing parade. But Carmichael-Smyth did write to Colonel Curzon, Anson’s military secretary, on the same day to pass on the havildar’s warning that the whole native army was about to mutiny. In the light of this letter, the firing-parade order appears more reckless still.
The ninety skirmishers of the 3rd Light Cavalry were ‘more or less picked men, and quite the elite of the regiment’. Among their senior ranks were two Muslim naiks, Pir Ali and Kudrat Ali, who were almost certainly conspirators; for no sooner had Carmichael-Smyth’s order been posted than they told their fellow skirmishers that the practice cartridges had been deliberately prepared with beef and pork fat. Seemingly convinced, the whole group swore not to use the cartridges until the entire Bengal Army had accepted them. That evening five of the six troop commanders were warned that the skirmishers would not fire the cartridges for fear of getting a bad name. One of these officers informed the acting adjutant, 22-year-old Lieutenant Melville Clarke, that the men had said ‘if they fire any kind of cartridge at present they lay themselves open to the imputation from their comrades and other regiments of having fired the objectionable ones’. In other words they did not care whether the cartridges they were being asked to fire were contaminated or not; their concern was to escape social ostracization.
During the firing parade the following morning eighty-five of the ninety skirmishers refused to accept the three blank cartridges they were offered, despite Carmichael-Smyth’s assurance that they were not greased and were the same as they had been using all season. According to the colonel, none of those who refused gave any reason for doing so ‘beyond that they would get a bad name; not one of them urged any scruple of religion; they all said they would take these cartridges if the others did’. They numbered forty-eight Muslims and thirty-seven Hindus. Of the five non-commissioned officers who took the cartridges, three were Muslims and two Hindus.
Carmichael-Smyth’s action was severely criticized by one of his youngest officers, eighteen-year-old Cornet John MacNabb, who wrote:
Our Colonel Smyth most injudiciously ordered a parade of the skirmishers of the regiment to show them the new way of tearing the cartridges. I say injudiciously because there was no necessity to have the parade at all or to make any fuss of the sort just now, no other Colonel of Cavalry thought of doing such a thing, as they knew at this unsettled time their men would refuse to be the first to fire these cartridges, but that by not asking they would not give their men the chance of refusing, and that next parade season when the row had blown over they would begin to fire as a matter of course…
[They] refused to fire them as they did not want to be the first regiment who had fired… But the real case is that they hate Smyth, and, if almost any other officer had gone down they would have fired them off… The men of course had no real excuse for not doing what they were ordered, and they knew what these cartridges were made of, as they had fired them off privately in riding school since the 19th N.I. were disbanded, and they would have continued to do so if they had been left alone, instead of being paraded, and addressed, and all that humbug.
At the subsequent court of inquiry both the Indian quartermaster-havildar and his predecessor testified that the blank cartridges involved had been manufactured in the regimental magazine the previous year. They also confirmed that the paper was the same as that in use for many years, and that there was nothing in the material of the cartridges or the manner in which they had been made up that would be objectionable to either a Hindu or a Muslim. The former quartermaster-havildar, one of the five men to accept the cartridges, had even supervised their production. And yet, there was a general rumour or suspicion that there was something wrong with them. The court, made up of seven Indian officers, concluded that there was ‘no adequate cause’ for the disobedience the previous day beyond a vague rumour that the cartridges contained a suspicious material.
As a result of the court of inquiry’s findings, the eighty-five skirmishers were tried for collective disobedience by a general court martial of fifteen Indian officers. The trial began on 6 May and ended two days later. By a majority verdict of fourteen to one, all eighty-five defendants were found guilty and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The court recommended favourable consideration on the grounds of good character and the fact that the men had been misled by rumours. But the reviewing officer, General Hewitt, thought that the latter circumstance aggravated rather than mitigated the crime. He therefore confirmed the majority of the sentences, while halving those of the eleven men who had served less than five years on the basis that they had been led astray by their more experienced comrades. ‘They could not have hit upon a more severe punishment,’ wrote Cornet MacNabb to his mother, ‘as it is much worse to them than death. It is in fact 10 years of living death. They will never see their wives and families, they are degraded, and one poor old man who has been 40 years in the regiment, and would have got his pension, is now thrown back the whole of his service.’
The sentence was carried out in the early morning of Saturday, 9 May. MacNabb recorded: ‘We were paraded at 4 o’clock on foot, and marched up to the [European] Parade ground where all the troops in the station were assembled. The prisoners were escorted by a company of Rifles, and some of the 6th Dn. Guards. It is lucky that this had happened in Meerut where there are so many European troops, for if it had been at a small station I would not have given much for the officers’ lives.’ Another officer of the 3rd Cavalry, Lieutenant Alfred Mackenzie, recalled:
In sullen silence, the two native infantry corps, the 11th and 20th, and my own regiment, which was dismounted on that occasion, witnessed the degrading punishment. It would have been madness for them then to have attempted a rescue; for they would have been swept off the face of the earth by the guns of the artillery and the rifles of Her Majesty’s 60th Foot, not to speak of the swords of the 6th Dragoon Guards [the Carabiniers], all of whom were provided with service ammunition, and were so placed as to have the native regiments at their mercy.
For more than an hour the troops stood motionless, their nerves at the highest tension, while the felon shackles were being methodically and of necessity slowly hammered on the ankles of the wretched criminals, each in turn loudly calling on his comrades for help, and abusing, in fierce language, now their colonel, now the officers who composed the court-martial, now the Government.
It took two hours for the sentence to be read and the shackling completed. If the morning had not been overcast, noted Cornet MacNabb, ‘we would have been grilled’. He added: ‘The men in the ranks behaved very well, with the exception of a few who wept for their brothers and fathers among the mutineers. When the irons were put on they were marched past the whole parade and when they passed us of course they began to cry, and curse the Colonel, and threw away their boots, almost at him, but they blessed [Captain] Craigie, and called out that “they hoped he would be a Prince and a Lord”.’
The prisoners were then escorted by a company of the 60th Rifles across the two miles that separated the parade-ground from the New Gaol, a large rectangular building on the east side of the native city. There they were handed over to the civil authorities. Inexplicably, given the volatile state of the Indian troops, additional security was provided not by the 60th Rifles but by two dozen sepoys of the 20th Native Infantry. Later that day some of the officers went down to the gaol to see the prisoners and pay them their wages. ‘They say it was heart-rending to see them,’ wrote MacNabb, ‘yet they accused no one, but thanked them for coming to see them… When they were being paid, one man said, “Oh give it to my Wife”, another, “Oh give it to my Brother; what good is it to me; I am a dead man now.” ’
In the evening, some of the prisoners’ comrades sought consolation in the brothels of the Sudder Bazaar. But they were given short shrift by the prostitutes, among them a European woman called Dolly, the widow of a British sergeant, who had been cast out of cantonment society for stealing: ‘ “We have no kisses for cowards!” was the cry. Were they really men, they were asked, to allow their comrades to be fitted with anklets of iron and led off to prison? And for what? Because they would not swerve from their creed! Go and rescue them, they were told, before coming to us for kisses.’ Dolly and her fellow prostitutes could not know it, but preparations for a rising were already in hand. Soon after dark an Indian officer appeared at the bungalow of his troop commander, Lieutenant Hugh Gough, and warned him that the Indian garrison would mutiny the following day: the infantry would rise first, followed by the cavalry, who planned to release their comrades from gaol. Gough at once reported the conversation to Carmichael-Smyth, who treated the matter with ‘contempt’, reproving him ‘for listening to such idle words’. Later that evening Gough repeated the story to Brigadier Wilson, who had returned from sick leave on 2 May. Again it was given short shrift. Wilson did not even see fit to replace the Indian guard at the gaol with European troops.
Unrest was not confined to the Indian soldiers. During dinner with Colonel Custance of the Carabiniers, Mrs Elisa Greathed, the wife of the civil Commissioner of Meerut, mentioned a report that placards had been raised in the city ‘calling upon all true Mussulmans to rise and slaughter the English’. It was not taken seriously.
Sunday, 10 May 1857, was stiflingly hot. The clouds of 9 May had burst in the evening and by eight the following morning the temperature was almost unbearable. Thankfully for churchgoers, the morning service at St John’s began at seven. Lieutenant Gough remembered driving to the service ‘with young MacNabb, a very fine fellow who had lately joined us, full of bright youth and vigour’. They were wearing their summer undress uniform of white overalls and light frock-coats, and Gough, noticing that MacNabb had the wrong type of braid on his alpaca coat, advised him to alter it ‘or the colonel would find fault’. In church they sat next to Hervey Greathed, the commissioner, and his wife Elisa. Another European gentleman, already seated, recalled seeing ‘the tall, commanding presence of poor Colonel Finnis, bible in hand, marching down the aisle, and take his seat also’. After the service Mrs Greathed spoke a few words to MacNabb. Little did she know that he, Finnis and many other members of the congregation would be dead by sunset.
For most of the day, the British community sheltered from the sun’s burning rays by staying indoors: Gough played with his pet bear, Lieutenant Mackenzie read and MacNabb visited a friend in the artillery lines. The gentleman who had noticed Finnis in church, however, got little peace as his servants gave him repeated warnings ‘of what was about to take place’. He recorded: ‘The bazaars and city and roads of Meerut were full of anger. My servants rushed in and out, like people distraught, bringing me news of the impending mutinies, urging me to fly at once, saying every European would be killed at night.’ But he took no notice: ‘A fatal temerity seemed to have possessed us all, and no preparations were made of defence.’
Just after five in the afternoon a cry was raised in the Sudder Bazaar that the Europeans were coming to deprive the Indian regiments of their arms. It seems to have been started by men of the 20th Native Infantry, though sepoys from both the 11th and 20th ran back to their lines to warn their comrades. Captain Taylor, the temporary commander of the 20th, was sitting in his bungalow with a group of officers when he was told about the disturbance. He and his officers made straight for the regimental lines where they found a large crowd of sepoys outside their huts in a state of high excitement. They tried to reassure them, but at the regimental magazine they discovered a group of badmashes blocking the road to the Sudder Bazaar. Taylor ordered his élite grenadiers – none shorter than five foot nine – to disperse the unruly crowd; but they refused. The task was eventually accomplished by Christian drummers armed with staves.
Shortly before six, ignoring the pleas of their officers, members of the quarter-guard began to steal away with loaded muskets. The point of no return was reached when a sowar of the 3rd Light Cavalry galloped into the 20th’s lines and shouted that the Europeans were on their way and that if the sepoys intended to do something, they should do it at once. Their response was to break open the bells-of-arms, assisted by the rabble from the bazaar.
In the adjacent lines of the 11th Native Infantry, meanwhile, Colonel Finnis and his officers were trying to quell a similar disturbance. Ensign Everard Phillipps recorded:
We were suddenly called to the Parade ground by our colonel whom we found speaking to our men who were violently excited. We were ordered to search our lines for any arms there might be hid. While doing so we heard a great loud shouting from the 20th parade and, on going to see what was the matter, found the 20th had seized their arms and were advancing loaded upon us. We [officers] at once went towards the arms, to prevent our men getting hold of theirs, and succeeded in doing so for nearly half an hour when the fire of the 20th became too thick and near for us to remain. Some of our men entreated Colonel Finnis to let them have their arms, saying they would stand by us and drive off the 20th. The Colonel would not trust them, upon which several sepoys forced us from the parade and thus saved our lives.
As we were mounting our horses, the Colonel fell by my side, shot through the heart. The 20th afterwards put 15 bullets into him. As I mounted my horse, my servant, who was holding him, was knocked over, bullets falling as thick as peas. Had not the brutes been infernally bad shots we would all have perished.
Phillipps and the rest of the 11th’s officers managed to reach the safety of the European lines. Others were not so fortunate. Killed at the same time as Finnis were Captain Macdonald of the 20th and Mr Tregear, the inspector of education, who was visiting a friend in the lines. The sepoys responsible were mainly from the 20th’s right wing. The left wing was generally less disaffected and some of its sepoys persuaded the rest of their officers to leave. Lieutenant Humphrey had his horse shot under him but managed to hide all night in an outhouse of the hospital. Ensign Lewis was wounded and chased, but a passing carriage saved him.
Six officers left together on foot: Captain Taylor, Lieutenants Henderson, Shuldham, Pattle and Tytler, and Assistant-Surgeon Adley. After a couple of close shaves with the mob, they took refuge in a latrine in the compound of Carmichael-Smyth’s bungalow, which was to the north of the 11th’s lines. Three stayed put and were eventually rescued. But Taylor, Henderson and Pattle made the mistake of returning to their lines. Henderson was shot by a sepoy and died in the hospital. Taylor and Pattle were also wounded – the former by a butcher from the bazaar – and helped to Taylor’s bungalow by a friendly havildar. They were later joined by Captain Earle, another of the 20th’s officers, who had been hiding in the lines. Taylor gave Earle his buggy and told him to make for the bungalow of Captain Whish, the brigade-major, which was also in the native lines. But the route was blocked, so Earle headed north. Attacked several times, he got across the nullah and met European troops on the Mall. Taylor followed on foot but was killed by civilians on the road leading to the Dragoon Bridge.
Colonel Carmichael-Smyth had just finished dining with Surgeon Robert Christie and Veterinary Surgeon John Philips when Major Harriott, the judge advocate, arrived at his bungalow with news of the disturbances. Shots could be heard in the distance, so Carmichael-Smyth advised Harriott to take his buggy and head for the European lines. Christie and Philips left together in a separate buggy. As Carmichael-Smyth was preparing to leave, Captain Fairlie and Adjutant Clarke galloped up. Carmichael-Smyth told them to go to the regimental lines and order the men to stand by their horses. He did not accompany them because, as field officer of the week, his duty was to report to his superiors. Instead he mounted his horse and, accompanied by two native orderlies, rode hard for Mr Greathed’s bungalow in the civil station, close to the northern edge of the city.
Mr and Mrs Greathed had been on the verge of setting off for the evening church service when shots and smoke from the direction of the Indian lines altered their plans. As the sound of rioting got ever nearer, they acceded to their servants’ pleas and hid themselves on the rooftop terrace. When Carmichael-Smyth arrived, considerably shaken by a narrow escape from the mob, he was told nobody was at home. He next went to General Hewitt’s house, which was also in the civil station. But Hewitt had already left for the European lines, so Carmichael-Smyth headed north towards Brigadier Wilson’s bungalow. It was also empty. Wilson had been about to set off for an evening drive at six thirty when Whish, the brigade-major, arrived with the news that ‘both Native Regiments and the third Cavalry were in a state of open mutiny and were murdering every European they could meet’. Wilson had made straight for the parade-ground of the 60th Rifles, ‘having first sent orders to the Artillery and Carabiniers to harness, mount, and join me on the rifle parade as soon as possible’. Carmichael-Smyth did likewise.
Among the civilians fleeing towards the safety of the European lines was the unidentified gentleman who had noticed Finnis in church. He had been woken from an afternoon sleep by the sound of a ‘strange, rolling sea-like noise’. Wishing to show his servants a bravado he did not feel, he sat down for dinner. But shouts brought him out into the garden. ‘Frightened people were running to and fro,’ he remembered, ‘and sounds of firing distinctly heard in the direction of the Sudder Bazaar and sepoy lines. Englishmen and Ladies drove past for life, lashing their horses with fury, and I was called to by several to escape at once, as no assistance could be afforded me.’ He continued:
My stubbornness at last yielded to the earnest entreaties of my servants. I heard the yells of the murderers nearing my gate, and darting inside I tore off my clothes and put on a native dress, dashed ink into my face and hands and went out accompanied by a Seikh. Reaching a backroad, I turned about, like Lot’s wife, to gaze on the horrid scene. Burning bungalows sent their horrid brightness far up. Cattle sheds and Godown’s Commissariat were blazing away… and I fancied I could hear the crackling of the casks within… Cattle were flying wildly about – torches, held by demon hands, lighted up the work of destruction and swords reeking with the blood of Europeans were flourished aloft by fiends and shouts, never before heard out of hell, rent the air. ‘Allah-I-Allah! Mare Feringhee! [“By the help of Mohamed, let us kill the Christians!”]’ I turned from the spectacle sick at heart and made my way to the European barracks.
At a quarter to six, before any European officers had reached their lines, about fifty sowars of the 3rd Cavalry mounted their horses and headed towards the New Gaol. Most went round the north of the city; a few rode through it, via the Kamboh and Shahrah Gates, calling on the people as they passed to join them in a religious war. On arriving at the gaol they fraternized with the sepoy guard before freeing their comrades.
Meanwhile, Fairlie and Clarke had reached the regiment’s lines and sounded the assembly. The men refused to respond. A party of sowars – possibly en route to the prison – had already attempted to murder Lieutenant Mackenzie in the road outside his bungalow, but he was saved by the timely arrival of Captain Henry Craigie, who lived in the same street. They were both anxious about loved ones: Mackenzie’s sister and Craigie’s wife had already left for church together in Craigie’s carriage; there was no knowing they had arrived safely. None the less, the two officers agreed that their first duty was to their regiment, and they rode hard for the parade-ground. Mackenzie recalled:
Most of the men were already mounted, and were careering wildly about, shouting and brandishing their swords, firing carbines and pistols into the air, or forming themselves into excited groups. Others were hurriedly saddling their horses, and joining their comrades in hot haste.
Nearly every British officer of the regiment came to the ground, and used every effort of entreaty, and even menace, to restore order, but utterly without effect. To their credit be it said the men did not attack us, but warned us to be off, shouting that the Company’s Raj was over for ever. Some even seemed to hesitate about joining the noisiest mutineers; and Craigie, observing this, was led to hope that they might be won over to our side. He was an excellent linguist, and had great influence among them, and he eventually managed to get some forty or fifty troopers to listen to him and kept apart in a group. Suddenly a rumour reached us that the jail was being attacked and the prisoners released. Calling to… Lieutenant Melville Clarke and myself to come with him, Craigie persuaded the group which he had assembled to follow him, and away we went towards the jail.
The party was cheered by excited civilians who, in the gathering dusk, were unable to distinguish the three British officers who led it. It was also too dark for Mackenzie to see the severed telegraph wire that then caught him in the chest and unhorsed him. He later wrote:
Fortunately I was not hurt, and regaining my horse I remounted, and soon nearly overtook Craigie and Clarke, when I was horror-struck to see a palanquin-gharry – a sort of box-shaped venetian-sided carriage – being dragged slowly onwards by its riderless horse, while beside it rode a trooper of the 3rd Cavalry, plunging his sword into the body of its already dead occupant, an unfortunate European woman [probably Mrs Courtenay, the wife of the hotel-keeper, who was on her way to church]. But Nemesis was upon the murderer. In a moment Craigie had dealt him a swinging cut across the back of the neck, and Clarke had run him through the body. The wretch fell dead… All this passed in a second, and it was out of the power of our men to prevent it; but the fate of their comrade greatly excited and angered them. Shouts of ‘Maro! Maro’ (‘Kill! Kill!’) began to be heard among them, and we all thought the end was approaching. However, none of the men attacked us, and in a few minutes we reached the jail. The prisoners were already swarming out of it; their shackles were being knocked off by blacksmiths before our eyes; and the jail guard of native infantry, on our riding up to it, answered our questions by firing at us, fortunately without hitting any of us. There was nothing to be done but ride back to the cantonment.
On the way, Mackenzie obtained Craigie’s permission to search for his sister and Mrs Craigie. A dozen sowars volunteered to go with him. ‘Every house we passed was in flames, mine included, and my heart sank within me,’ he recalled. ‘Craigie’s house alone was not burning when we reached it – a large double-storeyed building, in very extensive grounds, surrounded, as was then usual, by a mud wall. Here I found Mrs Craigie and my sister.’ They had not made it to church. Advised to turn back by Indian servants at the regimental mess, they were driving down the road that fringed the Sudder Bazaar when a British dragoon ‘rushed out of a bye-lane, pursued by a yelling crowd’. With great courage the ladies ordered their carriage driver to stop so that the terrified Briton could clamber aboard. They set off again just in time to escape the mob, but not before the carriage hood was penetrated several times by slashing tulwars. Having returned to Craigie’s house, the ladies struggled to load his three double-barrelled shotguns; the young dragoon was in a ‘state of nervous collapse’ and could offer them no assistance. They were understandably relieved when Mackenzie and his sowars arrived. But the danger was far from over.
Mackenzie’s first act was to entrust the sowars with the ladies’ lives. ‘Like madmen they threw themselves off their horses and prostrated themselves before the ladies,’ he recorded, ‘seizing their feet, and placing them on their heads, as they vowed with tears and sobs to protect their lives with their own. Greatly reassured by this burst of evidently genuine emotion, I now ordered the men to mount and patrol the grounds, while I took the ladies upstairs, and then loaded all the guns with ball.’
Craigie, meanwhile, had returned to the parade-ground, where he and the other officers made vain efforts to return the regiment to its duty. Eventually, with the men becoming more and more uncontrollable, they retired over the Dragoon Bridge to the European lines, taking the now disgraced colours with them. But when Craigie discovered that his wife and Mackenzie’s sister were not there, he recrossed the nullah at great personal risk, still accompanied by a handful of loyal sowars. At his house, as yet unburnt, he was reunited with Mackenzie and the ladies. Mackenzie told him that the mob was becoming bolder and that their only hope was to retire to a small Hindu shrine in the grounds. Craigie agreed. With the men carrying the guns and ammunition and the ladies concealed in dark blankets, they dashed across to their new refuge.
The mob threatening Craigie’s house had been looting, burning and murdering in the bungalow area to the east of the Indian lines since the first shots were fired by sepoys of the 20th. The culprits were mainly badmashes from the bazaars, though some Indian troops were also involved. Among their victims was pretty Charlotte Chambers, twenty-three, the heavily pregnant wife of the 11th’s adjutant who had fled with his brother officers to the European lines. Unlike Craigie, whose house was opposite his, Chambers did not return to look for his wife. Lieutenant Möller of the 11th volunteered instead, and was in sight of the Chambers bungalow when he was compelled to beat a hasty retreat by a party of mutinous sowars. The stables were torched first, then the house. Mrs Craigie could hear the horses shrieking as they were burnt alive, followed by the still more awful screams of Mrs Chambers herself. She sent her servants across to see if they could save her neighbour. But she was already dead: her throat cut and her unborn child cut out and laid mockingly across her chest by a Muslim butcher whom she had recently castigated for bringing her bad meat. Three days later he was arrested in the bazaar by Lieutenant Möller and soon hanged.
Another to perish at the hands of the mob was Mrs Macdonald, the wife of the captain of the 20th who was shot by his own men. Three of her servants tried to save her and her children by dressing them in native clothes. But she was unmasked by civilians at the rear of the bungalow area and hacked to death with swords. The servants got away with the orphaned children and delivered them safely to the Damdammah the following morning. No such escape was possible for Veterinary Surgeon Dawson and his wife, who were killed, in Mackenzie’s words, ‘under circumstances of ghastly horror’. They were both in bed with smallpox when the sound of the mob roused them. Still dressed in his nightclothes, Dawson appeared on the veranda and fired his shot-gun into the crowd to keep it at bay. The mob returned fire and Dawson was riddled with bullets. ‘His wife met with a worse fate,’ noted Mackenzie. ‘The cowardly demons, afraid to touch her because of the danger of infection, threw lighted brands at her. Her dress caught fire; and she perished thus miserably.’ Also murdered, by a sword stroke that cut her skull in two, was the seven-year-old daughter of the 3rd Cavalry’s riding-master. Her parents survived.
The soldiers who died included a number of riflemen, dragoons and gunners who happened to be in the Sudder Bazaar when the outbreak occurred. A favourite venue was a stall near the kotwali known as ‘the pop shop’ where the British soldiers quenched their thirst on bottles of ginger beer and lemonade. It was here that some were set upon with swords, sticks and stones. But not all of them perished: one dragoon was saved by Mrs Craigie and Miss Mackenzie; others escaped over a wooden bridge near the Roman Catholic church.
Of the officers killed, none was more regretted than Cornet MacNabb, who had spent the day visiting friends in the artillery lines. On hearing of the disturbances, he had borrowed a horse and galloped off to his regiment. But he was waylaid by the mob and hacked to pieces. His face was so badly mutilated that Lieutenant Gough, who discovered his body in a ditch, could identify him only by his height and the non-regulation braid on his coat. Another fatality was Veterinary Surgeon Philips of the 3rd Light Cavalry. He and Surgeon Christie were attacked in their buggy near to Brigadier Wilson’s house by sowars from their own regiment. Philips was shot to death; Christie badly wounded. This was one of the few instances when mutineers penetrated the European lines to the north of the nullah. The only other murders in this area were of Sergeant Law and two of his daughters by villagers from the surrounding countryside, many of them Gujar tribesmen, who arrived to join in the mayhem at around ten in the evening. These same villagers later released the civilian prisoners from the New Gaol. Mutinous sepoys had already broken open the Old Gaol between the Sudder Bazaar and the city.
Though news of the disturbances reached the European lines shortly after six, no troops moved off for more than an hour. The cavalry were delayed because Colonel Custance felt it necessary to take a roll call and then find a staff officer who knew the ground. The infantry had to change from their white drill uniforms to service dress, be issued with extra ammunition and await the arrival of the horse artillery. It had gone seven when the column of British infantry and artillery set off for the Indian lines under the direction of Brigadier Wilson. Hewitt was also present and, as the senior officer, in nominal command; but so shaken was he by the events of the evening that he was happy to defer to Wilson.
Proceeding at a snail’s pace, the column crossed the nullah by the Dragoon Bridge and finally reached the north-west corner of the Indian parade-ground at around eight fifteen. There it was joined by the cavalry column, which had taken a more circuitous route. But there was no sign of the main body of mutineers. ‘The whole had made off and it being dark we could not follow them,’ wrote Wilson to his wife in the hills. ‘We only saw a few of the 3rd Cavalry who on our approach rode off to warn the others. We then retired and took up a position on the Mall protecting the Europeans’ Barracks and lines.’ In his official report Hewitt also cited darkness as the reason for his and Wilson’s circumspection. The only offensive action by the European troops was to fire a handful of artillery rounds into a nearby tope that was thought to contain mutineers. No bodies were found. On the way back to the Mall, however, the column picked up a number of European and Eurasian fugitives, including the three officers of the 20th Native Infantry a much more attractive proposition, they argued, because it was void of European troops and would be easy to capture. It also contained a large magazine and, more importantly, was home to the King of Delhi, who could serve as a rallying point. After a long and noisy debate, Delhi was the destination agreed upon. who had remained hidden in Carmichael-Smyth’s compound. Others survived by their own initiative. It was midnight before Captain Craigie and his party considered it safe enough to leave their sanctuary and set off for the European lines in a buggy. Even then they had to scatter a knot of mutinous sowars before reaching the safety of the European picket on the Dragoon Bridge. The Greatheds hid until morning, and owed their lives to a faithful servant who drew off the mob from their burning house while they moved from the roof terrace to the back garden.
Wilson’s column came across many European corpses, including Cornet MacNabb, but they were not recovered until the following morning. The exact number of Christians murdered at Meerut on 10 May 1857 may never be known. The official body count was forty-one Europeans: eight officers, one invalid surgeon, twelve soldiers, four male civilians, eight women and eight children. A later estimate put the total, including Eurasians, nearer to fifty.
The bulk of mutineers left Meerut during the dark hours between sunset and moonrise: from seven to nine in the evening. They moved in small groups of twenty to thirty, some in uniform, others in undress. Three miles along the Delhi road they gathered at the village of Rethanee to agree on a course of action. Most wanted to head for their homes in Rohilkhand to the east and Agra to the south. But the conspirators convinced the majority that a march to either destination without artillery would be fatal. Delhi was a much more attractive proposition, they argued, because it was void of European troops and would be easy to capture. It also contained a large magazine and, more importantly, was home to the King of Delhi, who could serve as a rallying point. After a long and noisy debate, Delhi was the destination agreed upon.
The senior commanders at Meerut were harshly criticized for their failure to pursue the mutineers. Captain Rosser of the Carabiniers is said to have volunteered to set off with a force of cavalry and horse artillery, though both Archdale Wilson and Colonel Custance denied any such offer was made. Wilson excused his inactivity on the grounds that the safety of Europeans at Meerut was his first priority and he had no way of knowing the mutineers’ destination. What he failed to mention was that both he and General Hewitt were told that Lieutenant Möller had overheard a sepoy shouting, ‘Quick, brother, quick! Delhi! Delhi!’ Wilson and Hewitt even refused to allow Möller to ride to Delhi with a warning.
Hewitt tried to evade responsibility by pointing out that Wilson was the station commander and he had let him get on with it. But the government believed Wilson’s assertion that Hewitt had asked for his advice and then acted upon it. Hewitt was relieved of his command on 2 June, though the initial order went astray and he was not actually replaced by Major-General Penny until early July. Many considered his punishment far too lenient. Sir John Lawrence told Brigadier-General Chamberlain that Hewitt had done ‘more harm than 5000 Pandees’ and, if he had been Governor-General, he would have had him arrested. Robert Vernon Smith expected a court of inquiry at the very least for such ‘pusillanimous behavour’.
Could more resolute commanders have saved Delhi and nipped the mutiny in the bud? Not according to the official inquiry that took place the following year at Hewitt’s request. In a memorandum of 20 August 1858 the chief-of-staff wrote: ‘[Wilson’s] recommendation to Major-General Hewitt to attend to the defence of the station was a wise one. To have hazarded the small amount of cavalry at his disposal in an aimless pursuit without means to support, and without a plan for the future employment of the troops, would have been rashness rather than prudent boldness.’
If Hewitt and Wilson deserved any criticism, added Mansfield, it was for their ‘treatment of the 3rd Light Cavalry’ and their ‘want of care & forethought when the signs of impending danger were visible’, such as the obvious need to place a European guard on the gaol, ‘and not for pusillanimity or want of action after it had become a reality’.
But others thought differently. Lieutenant Mackenzie of the 3rd Cavalry wrote:
The European troops, 1500 strong, were paralysed by the irresolution of their chief. Had the gallant Hearsey or Sidney Cotton [commanding at Peshawar] occupied Hewitt’s place at Meerut, it is safe to say that, in spite of the wings which fear lent to the mutineers on their flight to Delhi, few of them would have reached that haven of their hopes. The shrapnel of the artillery and the swords of the carabineers would have annihilated them… But General Hewitt… acted on the ill-starred advice of the Brigadier to withdraw the whole force to the European lines. No greater mistake from any point of view was committed.
A similar view was expressed by Lieutenant-General Sir Patrick Grant, the acting Commander-in-Chief, when he confirmed Hewitt’s removal on 6 July: ‘The Major-General’s own account of his proceedings… on the 10th of May fully proves that he is quite unequal to dealing with an emergency where decision, promptitude, and action are of the greatest consequence. Had a wing of the 60th Rifles, supported by a squadron of the 6th Dragoons and some guns, been sent in immediate pursuit of the mutineers on that occasion, Sir Patrick Grant feels persuaded that the insurrection would have been nipped in the bud.’ Mackenzie and Grant may well be right.
One question remains: was the Meerut mutiny planned in advance? Not according to India’s official historian. His version of events is that the mutiny began after a cook’s boy from the 60th Rifles started a rumour in the Sudder Bazaar that European troops were coming to disarm the natives. The rumour was believed, said General Hewitt, because the 60th Rifles were parading for evening church service. But this account can be rejected on the grounds that the story of the cook’s boy was hearsay and the church parade was not due to take place until six thirty, a full hour and a half after the rumour began. The most likely origin of the rumour was a sepoy, or sepoys, of the 20th Native Infantry: certainly the rising began in the 20th’s lines before spreading to the other regiments. The 20th’s leading role may also be connected to the appearance of a mysterious Hindu fakir at Meerut a month before the mutiny. According to a havildar, he arrived on an elephant with ten followers and stayed a number of days in the 20th’s lines before being ordered out of the station by the magistrate. During his subsequent investigation of the outbreak, Major G. W. Williams discovered that, prior to arriving at Meerut, the fakir had been seen at the musketry depot at Ambala, but despite these ‘suspicious facts’ nothing of a seditious nature was ever proved against him.
Two other events suggest that the outbreak was premeditated: the warning given to Lieutenant Gough during the evening of 9 May that the Indian troops would mutiny the following day; and the cutting of the telegraph line between Meerut and Delhi before four o’clock on 10 May. There is also evidence that, at two in the afternoon, a Kashmiri prostitute named Sophie was told by a sepoy in the Sudder Bazaar that a mutiny would occur that day. The conclusion drawn by Major Harriott, the prosecutor at the trial of the King of Delhi, was that the outbreak at Meerut did not occur on 9 May, the day the skirmishers were put in irons, because the conspirators needed time to warn the Delhi regiments. Even the hour of mutiny – five o’clock – was evidence of ‘cunning and craft’ in that the Indian lines were two miles from their European equivalent. The conspirators would have calculated on the lapse of at least one and a half hours before the Europeans could have made an appearance. By that time it would have been dark, said Harriott, and the mutineers long gone – which is exactly what happened.
The mutineers’ debate as to their eventual destination is sometimes cited as proof that the rising at Meerut was not premeditated. Yet this event is entirely consistent with the theory that only a small number of sepoys and sowars were part of the conspiracy. The pro-Delhi speakers have never been identified, but it is safe to assume that they were the self-same conspirators who had already been in contact with the Delhi troops. ‘It is very possible, indeed probable,’ wrote Sir John Lawrence, ‘that the native soldiers [at] Delhi were so far in the scheme that they had engaged to stand by their comrades at Meerut. Such, indeed, was the case all over the Bengal Presidency.’