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1858-1859. DINAPORE - PLYMOUTH
Record of
events—Various—Proclamation—Parliamentary debates—Sikhs—Ghoorka "allies
"—Rainy season—Last of H.E.I.C.—Rebel forces—Native comments— Warrant
for A.M.D.—Subjects of talk—The drama ended—Personal chagrin— Farewell
service—March away—Parisnath—Raneegunge—Embark and sail— Order by
Government—On board ship—England.
A PERIOD of rest in
cantonments had become a matter of necessity to restore physical
efficiency to our regiment, worn out as men and officers were by service
in the field. The ordinary duties incidental to barrack existence in
India were performed by all, our spare time devoted to current records
of events announced from day to day by the newspapers. A few examples
now follow.
No sooner had our force
departed from Jugdispore than the rebels returned to their former
positions in the extensive jungle by which that place is, surrounded.
Among the proceedings taking place elsewhere was the defeat, by Sir Hope
Grant, of a strong rebel force at Nawabgunge. In the vicinity of
Shahjehanpore, the Moulvie already mention was killed by the troops of a
Rajah' who had risen against his authority. Gwalior had been
re-captured; the Ranee of Jhansi killed while leading her troops at that
place against the Central India Force. Reports of disaffection in
certain Bombay regiments. In our own near neighbourhood, a threatened
outbreak by the prisoners in Patna gaol led to the dispatch thither of
two companies of the 10th. The rebels had collected in a body of
considerable strength at Chuprah, from which position they were
committing depredations on trading boats on the Ganges; a portion of the
35th was accordingly dispatched against them. Another party of rebels
threatening Bulliah, a detachment of the 10th proceeded by steamer
towards that place. Various lines of communication were kept open by
parties of troops placed at suitable points along them. The position at
Arrah was so strengthened as to be secure against attack. The arrival of
a small kind of gunboat intended for use on rivers was in its way
important, as indicating the introduction of a new means of attack.
At this time the issue of
certain Proclamations by Government seemed to attract much attention
among the rebels still in the field; the tenor of the one an invitation
to them to lay down their arms, the other in effect confiscating the
property of landowners in Oude, with a few exceptions. "It is all very
well," said they, "to invite us to come in, lay down our arms, and
accept forgiveness; but why make the offer if you have the power to
subdue us?" "Hitherto, if we committed murder, robbery, or burnt houses,
we were hanged, imprisoned, or put on the roads for life; now we have
done all these things, and we are invited to accept forgiveness. Truly
this is a great raj; may it live for ever! . . ." Adverting to the first
of those Proclamations, Lord Canning had expressed himself: "It is
impossible that the justice, charity, and kindliness, as well as the
true wisdom which mark these words, should not be appreciated." That is
the way they were so. The second was at once called "the Confiscation
Proclamation"; its almost immediate effect, an outbreak of hostility
among chiefs who were otherwise more or less ready to remain passive if
not actually favourable to existing law. At a subsequent date it was
cancelled.
The debates in Parliament
on these dispatches and many other comments on them were daily perused
with great interest, not only by ourselves, but, as we learnt, by the
rebels still in arms, the several views expressed by them somehow
reaching cantonments.
The publication of
orders, in which it was considered that services performed by the Sikhs
were referred to in exaggerated terms as compared with the purely
British, produced for the time being one effect to which allusion may
here be made. "Why," said a very intelligent officer of that
nationality, who was well known to most of us in cantonments, "you admit
yourselves that we saved India for you; if we can do that for you
foreigners, why should we not take the country for ourselves?" At the
very time he spoke there were 82,000 Sikh troops in British employ. It
was therefore not altogether subject of surprise to learn, as we did,
that a mutinous plot had been discovered in the 10th Sikh Infantry at
the distant station of Dhera Ishmail Khan.
Nor were matters
satisfactory on the part of the Ghoorkhas, recently our "allies." The
circumstance transpired that correspondence had been discovered between
some of the higher authorities of Nepaul and the Royal family of Oude;
that Jung Bahadur had expressed himself dissatisfied with degree of
acknowledgment awarded by the Indian Government for services rendered by
himself and by his troops.
With the advance of the rainy season sickness and death made sad havoc
among our ranks. Meanwhile a state of unrest among the general
population became more and more apparent, fanned as it was by reports
circulated among them that large reinforcements from England would
speedily arrive. Nor was that unrest confined to the non-military
sections; some of the remaining sepoys believed to be "staunch" were
said to have been detected in treasonable correspondence with their
brethren in open rebellion; that representatives of mutineers had taken
service in the ranks of the police force.
The 1st of November,
1858, began an era memorable in the history of India. On that day was
read at every military station throughout the country the Proclamation
by the Queen, declaring the transference to Her Majesty of the governing
power hitherto exercised by the Honourable East India Company, the 10th
Regiment and other troops occupying our present station being paraded at
the civil station of Bankipore to impart additional splendour to an
otherwise imposing ceremony. The Proclamation was read by the
Commissioner of the district, an immense concourse of natives being
present on the occasion.
With reference to the
portions of that Proclamation in which, under certain specified
conditions, pardon and amnesty are offered to rebels, the Punjabee
newspaper of October 30 publishes a return of the army still opposed to
us in Oude alone, comprising, according to figures there given, 79
chiefs, with an aggregate of 271 guns, ii 66o cavalry, 242,100 infantry,
or 253,760 men in all; an imposing force indeed, considering that the
suppression of the outbreak is declared to have been accomplished.
From the rebels still in
the field, various comments on the terms so offered reached our
cantonments. They considered that for crimes committed the sepoys
deserved punishment by death, nor could they understand the exemption to
that penalty now expressed. "As an earthquake"—according to their
"prophets" - "has three waves, so will there be three shocks to British
power in India: one we have just had; a second will occur a few years
hence; the last after a longer interval, when the British position in
India will vanish."
The arrival of papers
with a new warrant for the Medical Department of the Army naturally
enough was of considerable interest to those of us who belonged to that
branch of the military service. As expressed in my diary at the time:
"Most liberal it is, wiping away at one swoop the grievances under which
the Department has laboured, and making it, as it ought to be, one of
the best, if not the very best, in the Army." The great importance of
the duties pertaining to that department in relation to individual needs
and general rnilitaryefficiency of a force was then prominently in my
view from actual experience.
Shortly after the
Proclamation by Her Majesty was read, a counter document of similar
nature was issued by the Begum of Lucknow; but the latter produced
little if any effect upon the rebels or their chiefs, numbers of both
"coming in" one after another to make their submission. An attempt was
made by a leading journal to ascertain the number of persons who, being
convicted of crimes against the State, had suffered the penalty of
death. They were, according to that paper, as follows, from the outbreak
of the Mutiny, namely:—By military tribunal, executed by hanging, 86; by
civil tribunal, 300; the number shot by musketry, 628; blown from guns,
1,370; making a total of 2,384. The deposed King of Delhi recently
passed our station by steamer, en route to Calcutta, and finally to
Rangoon, there to spend the remaining portion of his life. The event
gave rise to comment in respect to the action of the old king against
the Indian Government, including his correspondence with the Shah of
Persia in 1856; his reputed sanction of atrocities at Delhi in May, '57;
his correspondence with Lucknow, etc. Another subject of talk was the
reported escape of the Nana, the truth of which was soon thereafter
confirmed. Lastly, the publication of correspondence between Colonel
Edwards, Sir John Lawrence, and the Viceroy, in respect to that portion
of the Proclamation which related to native customs, religious and
otherwise, afforded ample subject to discuss in our social coteries.
In the early days of 1859
came the welcome orders that all detached parties of the 10th should
rejoin Headquarters, for the purpose of volunteering preparatory to the
departure of the regiment for England. Other orders directed various
reductions to be made in military establishments now in India; among
them the withdrawal of several time- expired regiments, and the return
to their respective ships of the Naval Brigades temporarily employed;
that regiments still in the field should proceed to quarters; brigadiers
commanding columns cease to hold appointments as such—thus declaring in
effect that the campaign connected with the great Mutiny was ended. But
the facts were well known that bodies of rebels and mutineers were in
the field, special forces actually employed against them; that bodies of
disaffected had taken refuge in Nepaul. These and various other
incidents were looked upon as so many supplements to the great drama at
the end of which official orders declared that we had arrived.
Now there occurred an
event the outcome of which to several men who, like myself, had held
distinct charges of troops on active service, was much chagrin and
disappointment; namely, our supersession in promotion by four officers,
personally good, but who, though in the Crimea, had neither there nor
elsewhere held equivalent positions. Some little time thereafter there
appeared in a service journal I a leading article "On the partiality and
injustice to the Department exhibited in the late promotions." This was
the first outcome of a warrant regarding which first impressions were as
already recorded.
At last came orders for
the 10th to prepare for an early march towards the port of embarkation
for England, and that meantime volunteering should be open to soldiers
desiring to prolong their service in India. All such orders were obeyed
with the greatest possible alacrity. The usual formalities on similar
occasions being attended to, 141 of our men availed themselves of the
option thus given them, and so ceased to belong to the corps in which
they had performed much excellent work under very trying circumstances.
On an intervening Sunday a farewell sermon was preached to the regiment
in our garrison church, and as I noted at the time, "strange as it
seems, some of the soldiers were visibly affected thereby"; but as I
have had numerous opportunities of seeing, soldiers of the period now
referred to, notwithstanding the undoubted roughness of the great
majority, had in their numbers many men keenly sensitive to the finer
impulses of our common human nature.
Before daylight on
February io, our regiment began its march, "played out" of Dinapore by
the band of the 19th Foot. Eight days thereafter we encamped in near
vicinity of Gyah, a place sacred to Buddhists, and interesting in other
ways. Two days more and we were on the Grand Trunk Road. Soon at the hot
wells of Burkutta, the water of which, clear and having a slight odour
of sulphur, is said to have many medicinal virtues.
In observing the
necessary custom on a march, of halting on the seventh day, an
opportunity was afforded those of us interested in such matters, to
ascend the hill of Parisnath. Occupying the eastern tableland of the
Vindyha range, itself 4,449 feet in height, like Mount Aboo on the west
of the same range, its summit is covered with small Jain temples. Its
sides are clothed with dense forests of sal (Vateria indica).
In the course of our
march, several trains of camels or kafilats, with their Cabulee drivers,
were met, as they were on their return journey from Calcutta to
Affghanistan. In accordance with the custom of the time, they had begun
their journey from Cabul eight months previous, and hoped to return at
the end of four more, thus completing it in one year. These kafilats
brought with them for sale in India, and Calcutta more especially, fruit
of different kinds, spices, skins, asafoetida, and salep; with the
proceeds of the sale of which they purchased and carried back with them
bales of cotton goods, and others of European manufacture. These
caravans, including camels, drivers, and "followers," presented a
picturesque and patriarchal scene, as in long lines they seemed to glide
along the road. Arrived at Raneegunge, our camp was pitched for the last
time. There a delay of several days took place, while arrangements were
in progress for embarkation; hurried journeys by rail to and from
Calcutta being made by those of us whose duty it was to carry those
arrangements into effect. A series of coal-mines situated not far from
our camp were being worked; but the industry was, comparatively
speaking, in its infancy.
In the early morning of
St. Patrick's Day, the regiment, stepping out cheerfully to the familiar
music appropriate to the occasion, and dear to Irish soldiers, marched
away from camp to railway station; thence proceeded by train to Howrah,
then by river steamer to the ship King Philip, and so embarked. On the
second day thereafter our ship, taken in tow by a river tug, began her
homeward voyage. As we glided past Fort William, a Royal salute, fired
from its ramparts, was a gratifying compliment paid by order of
Government to the departing regiment for services performed by it during
a most eventful episode in India's history. Wearied and worn out as our
men were as a result of those services, no cheer was raised in response
to the unusual compliment being paid to them.
The order by Government
so alluded to was in these terms:-"The Calcutta Gazette Extraordinary,
Friday, March 18, 1859. No. 360 of 1859. Notification. Fort William,
Military Department. The 18th March, 1859.—Her Majesty's 10th Regiment
of Foot is about to embark for England. His Excellency the
Governor-General cannot allow this regiment to pass through Calcutta
without thanking the officers and men for all the good service which
they have rendered in the last two eventful years : first, in the
outbreaks at Benares and Dinapore; next, as a part of the Column under
their former Commander, Brigadier- General Franks; and more lately in
the harassing operations conducted by Brigadier-General Sir E. Lugard
and Brigadier Douglas on either bank of the Ganges. The Governor-General
in Council desires, in taking leave of the 10th Regiment, to place on
record his cordial appreciation of their valuable services. The regiment
will be saluted by the guns of Fort William on leaving Calcutta. By
order of his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India in
Council.— R. J. H. Birch, Major-General, Secretary to the Government of
India."
[Subsequently the
officers of the 10th, including myself, received among us nine
promotions and honorary distinctions for the services above alluded to.]
During the homeward
voyage several deaths occurred among our men, exhausted as so many of
them were by fatigue and exposure on service. Perhaps it was that the
incidents of that service had to some extent affected the feelings
heretofore so often manifested by soldiers in presence of death among
their comrades; at any rate, it became a source of regret to some of our
numbers to observe now the indifference shown on such occasions; indeed,
scarcely was the solemnity of committing a body to the deep finished
than games, songs, music, or dancing were resumed by parties of the men.
The long rest afforded by the voyage did much to restore health to men
and officers, and in other ways was beneficial to us all.
As we neared England a
pilot boarded our ship. He had with him a bundle of papers, from which
we learned, among other matters, of the occurrence of war in the
Quadrilateral, full details being given of the great battles of Magenta
and Solferino. In the accounts contained in the same papers of the state
of public affairs preceding that campaign, a probable explanation was
afforded of the suddenness with which active measures against the
mutineers had ceased, and considerable forces withdrawn from India. At
Gravesend, on July 13, the regiment transhipped to the Himalaya/i, and
so was conveyed to Plymouth, there to be quartered in the Citadel. A few
days thereafter,' I had the happiness of being with my beloved wife and
children, grateful in spirit to Providence that life was preserved
through the arduous ordeal now relegated to the past. |
