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1858. CAPTURE OF LUCKNOW
Rifles against cannon—The
sailors' battery—The circle narrows—The 10th in Lucknow—The Moulvie's
house—Ladies rescued—Surgeon's place in battle—Soldiers' gratitude—Martiničre—Wrecks
of victory—The city—The Residency—Isolated casualties—Flight of sepoys—
Columns in pursuit.
THROUGHOUT March 5 heavy
bombardment continued, the batteries of rebels within Lucknow replying
actively to those outside the city. On the 6th, Captain Graham's company
of the 10th occupied an intrenched position at an angle of the Mohamed
Bagh, where during the night temporary defences had been thrown up, the
task assigned to, and successfully performed, being by their rifle fire
to keep down that from rebel guns of a battery close to Begum Serai. It
became an exciting sight to watch the enemy as they moved their guns
into the several embrasures of their battery preparatory to discharging
them upon our position, and then the effect of the volley poured into
those embrasures by our men; then the burst of flame—our soldiers
instantly throwing themselves prone on the ground; the thud of round
shot upon our protecting rampart; our soldiers starting to their feet,
pouring volley after volley as before into the embrasures, while the
guns were being lowered therefrom to be reloaded. Thus the seemingly
unequal duel went on. After a time the rebel fire from that particular
point began to slacken, then ceased. The men of the 10th had done their
work right well. Other portions of our general force were engaged
elsewhere, preparatory to the grand attack about to be delivered.
Steadily during the next
two days the circle of fire narrowed around the city. On the 9th a more
than usual heavy artillery fire took place between our forces and the
enemy. The sailors' battery of 68-pounders was engaged against large
bodies of the rebels assembled among a range of ruined buildings at the
western end of the Martiničre, the men who worked the guns taking
affairs with such coolness that, in the intervals between firing,
cleaning, and loading their respective pieces, they squatted in parties
of four on the ground, and proceeded with games of cards, in which they
seemed to take as much interest as in the effect produced by their fire.
About 2 p.m., to an increased rapidity. of fire from sailors and
artillery guns was added more active pings of rifles, and somewhat later
on the position of the Martiničre was in the possession of our force.
Two more days of arduous
work by all ranks, the rebels gradually but steadily being pressed in
from their advanced positions; the siege guns opening heavily upon the
city; bodies of rebels in their endeavours at flight falling into the
hands of our troops, many of their own numbers being killed. Our force
increased by the arrival of reinforcements from Cawnpore, and by that of
10,000 Ghoorkas under Jung Bahadur, the advent of the latter causing
some interest, and not a little amusement, dirty and untidy, fiat-faced,
small-sized as they were, their guns drawn by men instead of horses,
their whole aspect more suited to dramatic effect than for such work as
was then in progress.
On March 11 the Begum
Kotee was stormed and captured by a combined force of 93rd Highlanders,
4th Sikhs, and Ghoorkas, the losses sustained by the assailants being on
the occasion very heavy in both men and officers. In the afternoon of
next day, the 10th, led by Colonel Fenwick, occupied the position thus
so gallantly won. Everywhere around signs indicated the deadly nature of
the struggle that had taken place during its assault. Bodies of
defenders, bleeding and mangled, lay in heaps ; some were being thrown
pell-mell into a V-shaped ditch, down, then up the sides of which our
troops had in the first instance to scramble, while exposed to terrific
fire by the defenders. As we entered, our artillery hastened to prepare
for its further work of bombarding at close quarters. During the night
we bivouacked within the city. On the 13th, the 10th forced its way
against severe opposition directly through the city towards the Kaiser
Bagh, while other portions of the troops were similarly at work from
other directions. Again, as night closed in after a day of most arduous
work and heavy list of casualties among our numbers, the 10th bivouacked
in streets and gardens wrested from their sepoy occupants. On the 14th
the regiment went on with its work of conquest, heavy fire from roofs
and loopholes bringing to earth, now one, then another, and another of
our men as we continued to advance. At last the Kaiser Bagh was reached;
it was quickly entered by Captain Annesly at the head of his company, by
means of a gateway first detected by Havelock, then adjutant of the
10th; thus the central point within the city, held by the rebels, was
now in the hands of our troops.
At a short distance from
that position, and partly hidden by other buildings, were the ruins of
what had until the previous day been the residence of the notorious
Moulvie,' by whose orders, in the earlier days of the mutiny, several of
our countrymen and countrywomen who had fallen into the hands of the
rebels were put to death. As our troops now entered the enclosure within
which those ruins stood, they came upon two gory heads of British
soldiers, who had during recent operations been captured by the rebels.
The Moulvie had, however, escaped, but was known to be in the still
unsubdued part of the city, whence he exerted command over the rebels
yet actively engaged against our forces.
A communication of
romantic and pathetic interest now reached the more advanced portion of
our force. It detailed the fact that two ladies 2 were in the hands of
the rebels, their lives threatened, their position in other respects one
of serious danger ; it urged those into whose hands it might fall to
press onwards to their rescue. As subsequently transpired, those ladies
were held prisoners by Wajid Ali, and by him treated with some degree of
consideration, so much so that suspicion was brought upon him in respect
to his fidelity to the rebel cause. He it was also who sent, by the hand
of his brother, to the nearest British officer, the letter alluded to.
Instantly on receipt of it, Captain McNeil and Lieutenant Bogle, at the
head of a rescue party of Ghoorkas, started under the guidance of the
bearer of the letter. The house in which the ladies were was quickly
reached; the two captives were placed in doolies, and together with
their protector escorted, not without much difficulty and risk, to the
camp of General Macgregor.
While these operations
were in progress, one or other regimental surgeon was constantly with
the fighting line, rendering what aid was practicable to those struck
down; and here it is well to mention that whenever officer or soldier
felt himself wounded, his first call was "for the doctor." Nor is it to
be questioned that the moral effect of our presence was very
considerable; the presence of a hand to succour imparted confidence.
As soon as practicable,
the wounded were withdrawn to our hospital tents, and there their
injuries more particularly attended to. While work in front was in
progress, and as a consequence that in hospital was most active, I was
on an occasion occupied during twilight in so affording aid to a wounded
soldier just brought in, myself on my knees on the ground and leaning
over him. A touch on my shoulder, and then in a soldier's voice, "Here,
sir, put that in your haversack," the action accompanying the word, and
the man passed on his way, my attention too much occupied to observe his
appearance. When work was done and I returned to my tent, I examined my
haversack; I found therein a brick of silver, of sufficient size to
make, as subsequently it did, a tea and coffee service, the donor
remaining unknown. The circumstance is noted, as in contrast to that
already mentioned, in which an officer was concerned.
A visit to the Martiničre
revealed the effects of recent operations against that building ;
statues and other works of art dilapidated, broken, and in ruins; doors
and other woodwork torn and split, walls, ceilings, corridors injured in
every possible way, large masses of debris at particular places
indicating those upon which shot and shell had been most heavily
directed. From the summit of the building we traced the route by which,
in the previous October, the relieving force had effected its advance,
together .with some of the buildings historically associated with that
gallant feat, including the Yellow House, Secundra Bagh, Mess House, and
Motee Mahal.
In our field hospital the
wreck of our "glorious victory" was to be seen in plenty; officers and
soldiers, wounded, maimed, or in various instances terribly burnt and
disfigured by explosions; many groaning in their agony, others placidly
bearing their sufferings, a few unconscious to pain, the death-rattle in
their throats—all arranged on pallets, and far less comfortably seen to
than were their comrades fortunate enough to be taken into their own
regimental hospitals.
The streets along which
the 10th had so recently forced its way to the Kaiser Bagh presented a
scene of utter devastation: walls blackened, loopholed, shattered with
shot-holes of various sizes, the buildings roofless and tenantless
except by dead bodies gashed or torn by bullets, their cotton-wadded
clothing burning, sickening odours therefrom contaminating the air;
heaps of debris everywhere, furniture, utensils and dead bodies, all
mixed up together; breaches made by heavy guns to make way for advancing
infantry, round shot by which they had been effected; domes, at one time
gilded and otherwise ornamental, but now dilapidated and charred; costly
furniture, oil paintings once of great value, ornamental glass and china
strewed about, and everywhere to be seen; ornamental garden lakes black
from gunpowder cast into them; the gardens trodden down, mosaic work of
cisterns broken into fragments. At Secundra Bagh, where on November 16
some two thousand sepoys perished at the hands of the 53rd and 93rd
Regiments, the bones of the slain, now, four months after the event, lay
in heaps, a heavy odour of decomposition pervading the enclosure.
At the Residency a deep
irregular-shaped pit immediately outside the Bailee Guard marked the
spot where, in the latter days of the memorable siege, the rebels had
prepared their mine against the defenders oi that position; inside and
close to the same entrance were the remains of the countermine by which
the operations connected with the former were detected, and itself
sprung upon the besiegers. The door of that gateway, penetrated and torn
by bullets; buildings roofless and bespattered with shot-marks,
including that where ladies and children spent the eighty-five days to
which the siege extended, and that in which Sir Henry Lawrence received
his death-wound,—the whole presenting an epitome of what war implies,
not to be forgotten.
For some time after
Lucknow was virtually in the power of our force desultory fights
continued to occur at places in and around the city. In the portions
actually held by our troops, isolated men occasionally fell by a rebel
bullet. Among other casualties, two officers had the misfortune to fall
into the hands of the sepoys, by whom they were put to death, and their
heads, so report said, borne away as trophies.
No sooner had the
principal positions held by the rebels been captured from them than
their flight from the city began, at first in small bodies, but rapidly
increasing in numbers as channels of egress became known among them.
Although without artillery, considerable numbers carried their small
arms, while others were content to abandon everything, and seek only
their own safety. One armed body of the fugitives, while endeavouring to
get away in the direction of the Alumbagh, was fallen upon by our troops
and severely dealt with; in other directions, however, the fact became
known that large bodies effected their escape without being attacked, in
places where no special difficulties intervened,—nor did explanation of
the circumstance transpire.
Several field columns
were immediately organized and dispatched along different routes known
or believed to have been taken by the escaped rebels. Years afterwards
the gallant services performed by one of those columns were detailed in
a published Biography. Other bodies found their way to the neighbourhood
of Azimghur and there united with a considerable force of their
brethren, which had on March 21 defeated a small body of British troops
at Atrowlea, obliging it to retire within entrenchments at the
first-named city. |
