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t will be remembered that in the beginning of the year,
when the Commander-in-Chief was desirous of effecting the settlement of
Rohilcund before proceeding to the final reduction of Lucknow in the
autumn, the Governor-General had evinced his preference for postponing
operations in Rohilcund and for proceeding as early as possible to the
conquest of the capital of Oude. That great task had uow been
accomplished, and it was the opinion of the sagacious veteran that, Oude
having been entered and Lucknow in British possession, it was the wise
and proper course to proceed to the subjugation and settlement of the
great province of which Lucknow was the centre, before committing the
British arms to a campaign beyond the boundaries of that province. But
now again Lord Canning differed from his military subordinate. “I feel,”
he wrote to Sir Colin, “the full force of the reasons which you have
urged in favour of limiting active operations in the field to Oude for
the present, and of making clean work of that province while we are
about it.” But he argued that, unlike Oude the inhabitants of which had
been and still were bitterly hostile, Rohilcund contained a “numerous
well-affected population.” The argument had a real weight, but was
somewhat belated. If Sir Colin had been permitted to settle Rohilcund in
the beginning of the year, the numerous “well-affected population” of
that province, on behalf of whom Lord Canning was now suddenly so
solicitous, would have escaped several months of anarchy and disorder.
Sir Colin, disciplined soldier as he was, bowed to the
superior authority and promptly set about the preparations for the
Rohilcund campaign. Napier’s engineers established a secure military
position for the troops appointed to garrison Lucknow. To Hope Grant was
given the command of the Lucknow field-force, inclusive of the troops
available for the garrison of Lucknow and for operations in the
districts; a formidable force the infantry alone of which comprised
eleven regiments, with a siege-train, nine batteries, and adequate
cavalry. Lugard led a column of all arms into the disturbed Azimghur
district beyond south-eastern Oude, which with local reinforcements was
to constitute the Azimghur division. On April 8th Walpole’s column, in
which marched one Punjaub and three Highland regiments with a strong
artillery force and two cavalry regiments, started on its road for
Rohilcund by way of Sandeela, Ehooyah, and the Ramgunga river. Sir
Colin’s plan for the invasion of Rohilcund was based on the projected
advance of two columns from opposite points ; Walpole’s force marching
up from Lucknow, and a fine body of troops collected at Roorkee by the
exertions of Sir John Lawrence, consisting of four infantry regiments,
the Mooltan Horse, a field-battery and two 18-pounders under the command
of Brigadier-General John Jones. Those columns, sweeping the country
during their respective onward movements, were destined to converge on
Bareilly the capital of the province, which thus became the objective
point of this strategical combination.
Sir Colin Campbell had a high opinion of Walpole, which
the latter had certainly justified at Cawnpore and throughout the recent
operations against Lucknow. In the course of his march towards Rohilcund,
some fifty miles from Lucknow there was reached the jungle-fort of
Rhooyah. The Rajah in possession refused to surrender. Walpole then
ordered an attack without having previously reconnoitred the position;
and the attack was unfortunately delivered against the strongest face of
the paltry place. The garrison took advantage of this folly to make an
obstinate defence, with the result of heavy losses among the assailants
and of their failure to carry the fort. Several officers of distinction
fell; but the most grievous loss was the death of that noble soldier
Adrian Hope, the heroic leader of the Highland Brigade. The feeling
against Walpole throughout the column was so strong as almost to
endanger discipline, and to this day his name is execrated by the
survivors of that time. From Rhooyah Walpole advanced to Allehgunj after
having defeated at Tirsa a large body of the enemy, whom he pursued with
artillery and cavalry, capturing their guns and camp and saving from
destruction the bridge of boats, whereby he was enabled to cross to the
right bank of the Ramgunga. He encamped at Inigree two miles in advance
of Allehgunj to await the arrival of the Commander-in-Chief.
Brigadier-General Jones began his march from Roorkee on the 17 th of
April In the course of his advance after crossing the Ganges he had
several sharp engagements with rebel bodies resulting in the capture of
twenty-three guns. In the last week of April he reached Moradabad, where
he halted in a position whence he should be able to time his arrival at
Bareilly simultaneously with that of Walpole’s column from Lucknow.
A siege-train of twenty-eight guns and mortars commanded
by Lieutenant Tod Browne and escorted by two infantry regiments and a
squadron of cavalry, had left Cawnpore on April 15th, and moved up by
the usual stages to Futtehghur. Three days later, having assured himself
that the arrangements for the efficient maintenance of the Lucknow
garrison were complete, Sir Colin went to Cawnpore with Mansfield,
headquarters having preceded them to that station. They started next day
for Futtehghur and moving rapidly reached that place on the 24th. Next
day the artillery-park and siege-train crossed the Ganges by the bridge
of boats commanded by the guns of the fort, and on the 27th Sir Colin
and his staff joined Walpole’s column at Inigree. The advance on
Bareilly began on the following morning. The route was across the
Ramgunga at Bajpoorea Ghat through Jellalabad to Shahjehanpore, a large
town which the enemy were known to hold in force, but which when entered
on May 1st was found deserted and the cantonment destroyed. A detachment
of all arms under Colonel Hale of the Eighty-Second was placed in the
jail and its enclosure as the most defensible position, and the army
resumed its march on the 2nd. A considerable detachment from the Meerut
division joined at Meranpore Kuttra on the same day.
It had been commanded by General Penny, a gallant officer
who had fallen in a night skirmish, and the command had now devolved
upon Brigadier Richmond Jones. Thus reinforced Sir Colin’s force
continued its advance on Bareilly, from which place on the 4th it was
distant one march. Next morning the column moved on Bareilly.
At the sixth milestone the troops halted for the baggage
to close up. At 6 A.M. the force was formed in order of battle and
advanced against the enemy who, full of confidence, had come out from
the city and taken up a position on the hither bank of the Nerkuttea
nullah with that stream in their rear. Sir Colin advanced in two lines,
the Highland Brigade leading supported by the Fourth Punjaub Infantry
and the Belooch battalion, with a heavy field-battery in the centre on
the road,—the front and flanks covered by horse-artillery and cavalry.
The second line had the duty of protecting the baggage and siege-train,
a necessary precaution against the enemy’s numerous and daring cavalry.
The strength of the British column amounted to seven thousand six
hundred and thirty-seven men, with nineteen gun3 apart from the
siege-train.
About 7 A.M. the enemy opened fire from guns commanding
the approach to the bridge. The British cavalry rode out on both flanks
covering the horse-artillery, until the latter unlimbered and replied so
sharply to the enemy that they fled across the stream abandoning such of
their guns as were on the near side of the bridge. Meanwhile the
infantry, along with the heavy field-battery, moved rapidly forward in
line. As the mullah was approached the left wing halted on its right
bank while N
the right crossed the bridge and continued its advance
for some distance in the direction of the town; but the progress was
slow partly on account of the great heat, partly because the enemy’s
position was masked by dense groves. As the heavy guns crossed the
bridges and were brought up, they opened fire on the hostile line
holding the suburbs and ruined cantonments. About 11 A.M. a fierce
onslaught, described by Sir Colin as “the most determined effort he had
seen during the war,” was delivered by a body of Ghazees or Mussulman
fanatics. The Fourth Punjaub Rifles were in broken order in the
irregular cavalry lines when the Ghazees, numbering about one hundred
and thirty, caught the Sikhs at a disadvantage and rushed upon them.
Brandishing their swords, with heads low covered by their shields, and
uttering wild shouts of “Been! Been!” they fell on with furious
impetuosity and hurled the Punjaubis back on the Forty-Second
Highlanders. Sir Colin had formed up the latter regiment, with strong
warnings on his part to the young soldiers to be steady and hold their
ground against the impending assault, hut it was barely ready to meet
the whirlwind of the charge when the Ghazees were upon the bayonets.
Giving ear to the injunctions of their veteran commander to trust to the
bayonet and to keep cool, the Forty-Second never wavered; but some of
the fanatics swept round its flank and fell upon its rear. A brief but
bloody hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and in a few moments every Ghazee
was killed right in the very ranks of the Highlanders. Colonel Cameron
of the Forty-Second was dragged from his horse by three men and would
certainly have been slain but for the timely and gallant interposition
of Colour-Sergeant Gardiner who bayoneted two of the fanatics. General
Walpole was wounded and escaped with his life only by the promptitude
with which the Black Watch used the bayonet. When the Ghazees had been
exterminated the Highlanders and Punjaubis advanced into the
cantonments.
Almost simultaneously with the onslaught of the Ghazees a
large body of rebel cavalry swept in upon the flank of the baggage -
column, cutting down camels, camel-drivers and camp-followers in all
directions. The confusion for the moment amounted almost to a panic. Mr.
Russell of The Times had an extremely narrow escape. He was very ill and
was being carried in a dooly. In the alarm caused by the rush of the
enemy’s horsemen he had left his dooly and mounted his horse undressed
and bareheaded as he was. “Several of the enemy’s sowars” writes
Forbes-Mitchell, “were dodging through the camels to get at him. We
turned our rifles on them, and I shot down the one nearest to Mr.
Russell just as he had cut down an intervening camel-driver and was
making for The Times correspondent; in fact, his tulwar was actually
raised to swoop down on Mr. Russell’s bare head when my bullet put a
stop to his proceedings. I saw Mr. Russell tumble from his saddle at the
same instant as the sowar fell; and I got a rare flight, for I thought
my bullet must have struck both. However, I rushed to where Mr. Russell
had fallen, and I then saw from the position of the slain sowar that my
bullet had found its proper billet, and that Mr. Russell had been struck
down with sunstroke, the blood flowing freely from his nose,”
The wild dash of rebel cavalry was sharply checked by the
fire of Tombs’ guns, and their rout was soon completed by the
Carabineers and the Mooltanee Horse. The cantonments and civil lines
were occupied in force. The action had lasted for six hours; the sun’s
rays were oppressive, and a hot wind intensified the distress so greatly
that several fatal cases of sunstroke occurred. The trophies of the day
consisted of seven guns, and several more were found abandoned in the
town when the column finally entered it. Owing to the prudence with
which the troops were handled Sir Colin’s casualties were remarkably
few. His halt outside the city enabled Khan Bahadoor Khan, the rebel
commander, quietly to withdraw his trained forces under cover of
darkness, leaving only a rabble to maintain a show of resistance while
he marched away to Pileebheet, thirty-three miles north-east of
Bareilly. When on the morning of the 6th the British forces opened fire
on the city, they met with no reply. But the sound of artillery was
heard from the further side of Bareilly—the guns of the force which
Brigadier John Jones had brought forward from Moradabad having
encountered and defeated some opposition by the way. He took up
positions in the city and opened communication with Sir Colin. On the
7th Bareilly was entirely occupied by the united force.
On the same day tidings reached Sir Colin that the
detachment under Colonel Hale left to hold Shahjehan-pore was surrounded
in its position by a force several thousand strong, which had been
brought up from Mohumdee by the Fyzabad Moulvie and the local Bajah
within twenty-four hours after Sir Colin had quitted Shahjehanpore on
the morning of the 2nd. Since the 3rd the rebels had bombarded the
position incessantly, Hale steadfastly maintaining a gallant resistance.
Sir Colin promptly despatched to his support a column of all arms under
Brigadier-General John Jones, which left Bareilly on the 8th and reached
the vicinity of Shahjehanpore on the 11th. The enemy, consisting chiefly
of great masses of horsemen, was encountered in fair fight and was
defeated with the loss of a gun. Jones then pressed forward, passed
through the town and crossing the parade-ground reached the jail where
for eight days Hale had been stoutly holding his own against heavy odds.
But now Jones in his turn found himself compelled to accept the
defensive until reinforcements should arrive. To the standard of the
Moulvie, meanwhile, there rallied contingents from far and near. In his
camp were the Begum of Oude, the Prince Feroze Shah, and a body of
warlike followers sent by the Nana Sabib; not to speak of budmashes and
freebooters from the Nepaul frontier to the Doab. On the 15th the
Moulvie attacked Jones with his whole force. The rebels fought with
ardour and persistency, but they achieved no success. Jones, for his
part, destitute as he was of cavalry, could do no more than maintain the
defensive and abide in his position the arrival of reinforcements.
So far as the occupation of Bareilly and the dispersion
of the main body of insurgents were concerned, Sir Colin had brought the
Rohilcund campaign to a satisfactory conclusion. Having thereby secured
the re-establishment of British authority vested in Mr. Alexander the
Civil Commissioner, he considered himself in a position to break up the
Rohilcund force.
The Second and Fourth Punjaub Infantry regiments, which
had served with great distinction during the past year, were despatched
on their return to the Punjaub. A force consisting of a troop and
battery of artillery, the Second Punjaub Cavalry, the Forty-Second,
Seventy-Eighth and Ninety-Third Highlanders, and the Seventeenth Punjaub
Infantry, was chosen to constitute the garrison of Bareilly. General
Walpole was nominated as divisional commander of the troops in Kohilcund.
On the 15th Sir Colin, with Tombs’ troop of horse-artillery, part of the
siege-train, the Ninth Lancers, a Punjaub Cavalry regiment, the
Sixty-Fourth Foot, the Belooch battalion, and the artillery-park,
started from Bareilly and moved in the direction of Futtehghur,
believing that he might now safely betake himself to some central point
on the great line of communication, whence he might direct the general
campaign. But at Faridpore on the 16th he received a message from Jones
at Shahjehanpore asking for assistance. Sir Golin hastened towards
Shahjehanpore, sheltering his men from the terrific heat under the
groves by the wayside. As he approached the town on the 18th, he swept
aside a hostile force threatening him with a demonstration, and
traversing the city effected a junction with Jones. An engagement
occurred in the afternoon in which the enemy displayed more than
ordinary skill and courage, and although in the end they were repulsed
no attempt was made to pursue them. Sir Colin waited until the arrival
of Brigadier Coke’s column, which, while it was on the march to
Pileebheet he had recalled to Shahjehanpore. Coke arrived on the 22nd,
and on the evening of the 23rd Sir Colin, having given Jones orders to
attack the enemy next morning, left Shahjehanpore with his staff and a
small escort, and proceeding by double marches reached Futtehghur on the
morning of the 25th, where he remained until June 5th, once more in
direct communication with Lord Canning at Allahabad, and in a position
to exercise a more active supervision over the columns operating in
Oude, Behar, and Rundelcund.
Brigadier-General Jones in accordance with his
instructions advanced upon the Moulvie’s position at Mohumdee, which
fell into his hands; but the rebels crossed the Goomtee too promptly to
admit of his cavalry capturing their guns. A few weeks later the Moulvie,
one of the most bitter and stubborn antagonists of the British rule, met
his death by the treachery of one of his own countrymen, the Rajah of
Powain. The Rajah’s brother shot him dead; the Rajah himself cut off the
Moulvie’s head, and wrapping it in a cloth carried it to Shahjehanpore.
He entered the magistrate’s house, opened the bundle and rolled the
bloody head at the feet of the official. On the day following it was
exposed to view in a conspicuous part of the town, “ for the information
and encouragement of all concerned.”
Sir Colin left Futtehghur on June 5th, having made the
necessary arrangements regarding the troops he could spare to support
Sir Hugh Rose’s advance on Gwalior, and having satisfied himself that
affairs in Rohilcund and the Doab were progressing favourably. Since the
settlement of the early spring the latter territory had remained
undisturbed save by a few casual irruptions. Sir Colin proceeded
directly to Allahabad where he remained during the hot weather in the
house which Lord Canning had prepared for him. There awaited him in
Allahabad a letter from Lord Derby, then Prime Minister, in which his
lordship intimated that he “had been honoured with the Queen’s commands
to signify to you her Majesty’s unqualified approval of the
distinguished services you have rendered to her Majesty and to the
country as Commander-in-Chief of the armies in India. . . . Her Majesty
deems the present a fitting moment for marking her high sense of your
eminent and brilliant services by raising you to the dignity of a peer
of the United Kingdom by such title as you may think it proper to
assume.” Sir Colin, with his innate modesty of character, at first
shrank from the proferred honour. He was, in the words of Sir William
Mansfield, “much disposed to run restive at being put into such strange
harness; but he is now reconciled, and, I think, very much pleased.” His
constant friend the Duke of Cambridge suggested that he should be called
up by the title of “Lord Clyde of Lucknow.” But he modestly wrote in
reply, “ I have thought it proper not to add the word 'Lucknow,’ as the
baronetcy of the late Sir Henry Havelock was distinguished in that
manner. It would be unbecoming in me to trench, as it were, on the title
of that very distinguished officer.” Ultimately, at the suggestion of
Lord Derby, he took the title of “Lord Clyde of Clydesdale.” But he was
curiously reluctant to make use of his new title. Not one of his letters
to his intimate friends has the signature of “Clyde.” They uniformly
bear his initials "C. C.” or “ C. Campbell ”—a retention of the
simplicity which had been a marked feature of his character in the days
of his comparative obscurity.
To accompany Ms peerage the grant of an annuity of £2000
was made to him by the East India Company -one of the last acts of that
body before its extinction by Act of Parliament. On the 14th of May he
had been gazetted to the rank of full General.
An old Ninety-Third man still to the fore, tells a genial
little anecdote about Lord Clyde when he first met Ms favourites after
having been raised to the peerage. He had a great regard for worthy old
Pipe-Major John MacLeod of that regiment. When Sir Colin took what he
believed to be his final tarewell of the Ninety-Third when he left the
Crimea in May, 1856, the last man he shook hands with was John MacLeod.
When the Mauritius on the . third anniversary of the Alma reached
Calcutta with the Ninety-Third aboard, the first man to recognise Sir
Colin as he came alongside in a dinghy was John MacLeod, who electrified
his comrades with the shout, “Lord save us! wha could hae believed it?
Here’s Sir Colin himsel’” “Aye, aye, John," replied Sir Colin, “it’s
just me, able to go through another campaign with you. Little did I
think, when we last parted, that I should hear your pipes on the plains
of India!” When he met the regiment for the first time after becoming
Lord Clyde, he as usual called the pipe-major to the front. After the
customary greetings John came to attention, saluted and said, “I beg
your pardon, Sir Colin, but we dinna ken hoo tae address you noo that
the Queen has made you a lord!” The old Chief replied, with just a touch
of sadness in his voice,—“Just call me Sir Colin, John, the same as in
the old times; I like the old name best. Except yourselves of the
Ninety-Third there are but few now alive in whom I take interest enough
to care how they call me.”
After a good deal of fighting in the Azimghur district
with Koer Singh, Sir E. Lugard and Brigadier Douglas had followed that
notable rebel across the Ganges. An attempt, however, to dislodge him
from his native jungles of Jugdeespore, resulted in a serious
discomfiture. In the hope of effecting a surprise a small force of one
hundred and fifty British infantry, fifty men of the Naval Brigade, and
one hundred and fifty Sikhs penetrated into the jungle, where they
encountered the enemy at dawn of April 23rd. The rebels were on the
alert; a panic ensued, the guns were abandoned, and most of the
Europeans were killed or died of sunstroke. With the co-operation of the
Dinapore Brigade Lugard now approached Jugdeespore through the open
country on the western side instead of taking the direct route through
the jungle. The rebel force covering Jugdeespore was taken by surprise
and driven in; and on the 9th of May the Jugdeespore stronghold was
captured. It was ascertained that Koer Singh had died of his wounds, and
his followers were now discouraged. Lugard succeeded in defeating and
dispersing the main rebel force, and the guns lost by the Arrah
detachment were recovered. It was an unsatisfactory and harassing
warfare, in which the rebels played the part of guerillas. No longer
formidable as a military body, they kept the province in a state of
anarchy and confusion; and they gave no rest to the troops, many of whom
fell victims to the deadly effect of exposure in the unhealthy season. |
