The Heroic Garrison

by V. A. Stuart

  Sir James Outram, still anxious to render possible the evacuation of the women, children, and wounded, ordered stretchers to be constructed, which would be light enough for two men to carry and considered a new plan, put forward by Brigadier Inglis, for the capture of the Iron Bridge. He had informed Inglis and Havelock that he had virtually made up his mind to leave the 90th Regiment, with the old garrison, to hold the Residency and to fight his way to the Alam Bagh with the rest of the force and the 470 women and children who had survived the siege, and Havelock—somewhat against his better judgment—had agreed. An inspection of the Commissariat Stores, however, revealed that a large supply of grain had been laid in by Sir Henry Lawrence, when he had provisioned the Residency for the anticipated siege, which—owing to Lawrence’s premature and sudden death—had not been included in the inventory. Part of this stock, buried in a dried-out swimming pool, had not as yet been touched.

  The discovery that, far from being in imminent danger of starvation, the garrison had sufficient provisions to sustain it at full strength for six to eight weeks—or even longer, if supplies were strictly rationed—caused Outram to revise his plan of action. The urgent, underlying reason for evacuation had now been removed and, it being evident that even a limited removal to the Alam Bagh would be fraught with peril for the women and children, he decided, instead, to remain in Lucknow with his entire force until Sir Colin Campbell could advance to his relief.

  Communication with the Alam Bagh was established by means of a wooden semaphore and cossids were sent through the enemy lines to Cawnpore to advise the commander-in-chief of this decision. Outram wrote on October 7: “It will be impossible to carry off the sick, wounded, women and children amounting to 1,500 souls.Want of carriage alone . . . renders the transport through five miles of despoiled suburb an impossibility.”

  He added: “The force at Lucknow is now besieged by the enemy, but we have grain and gun-bullocks and horses upon which we can subsist for another month . . . although we have no hospital comforts and little medicine . . . Our losses in killed, wounded and missing since the force crossed the Ganges has been very heavy—256 killed and 700 wounded and 16 officers missing.”

  This message, written partly in Greek characters, was addressed to Captain Bruce at Cawnpore, for transmission to Sir Colin Campbell by telegraph and, in a separate note to Bruce, Outram urgently requested that reinforcements and supplies should be sent to the Alam Bagh. “A wing of European infantry and two guns at Busseratgunj and Bunni would secure the whole road for the safe convoy of provisions to Alam Bagh,” he suggested and then, with the threat to Cawnpore itself in mind, he warned Bruce to obtain more guns if he could and to send out spies to report on the movements of the Nana and Tantia Topi, with the Gwalior troops.

  He had done all he could; now he must concentrate on the defense of the Residency. A strong system of earthworks, barricaded houses, and gun batteries, linked to smaller outposts, formed an inner and an outer ring of defense. Havelock was given command of the outer ring, defended by regiments of the force he had commanded in Oudh, and Inglis, promoted to acting Brigadier General, retained command of the original Residency entrenchment and his old garrison, which was strengthened by Barrow’s Volunteer Cavalry and detachments of the Artillery, Madras Fusiliers and the 78th Highlanders.

  Inglis’ command included the north-west face, from the Redan and the post known as Innes’, the Sheep and Slaughter Houses and Gubbins’ House on the west, and terminated at Anderson’s Post, which was immediately to the rear of the Cawnpore Battery and the now barricaded Cawnpore road on the south-eastern side. Of the two, Havelock’s was by far the more demanding, since all his posts were bordering those of the enemy and under constant attack by artillery and infantry, with mines and saps dug beneath them. He was responsible for the three riverside palaces— the Terhee Kothee, Furhut Baksh, and Chutter Munzil—and eastward as far as the advanced Garden Post held by the 90th and, in addition, for the new post set up by the 78th Highlanders on the south front, which was known as Lockhart’s, after its commander.

  From his new residence in Ommaney’s House, an inspection of all the posts in the palaces entailed a walk of over two miles, but Havelock made it daily, leaving the house at daybreak with his surviving staff and conscientiously visiting every post before reporting to Outram and breaking his fast. The palaces provided ample accommodation for his troops and for the native camp followers, but much had still to be done to fortify and strengthen the occupied buildings. The indefatigable Captain Crommelin, chief engineer to the Oudh Field Force, was disabled by a wound, and Havelock, who had for so long depended on Crommelin’s skilled services and advice, missed him sorely, for he had never been more greatly needed. Heavy losses had been inflicted on the rebels and their gun positions driven back over 1,000 yards by the various sorties made by the garrison, but during the early part of October, they concentrated on waging subterranean warfare, directing their efforts mainly against the 78th’s new post, where they exploded a number of mines.The Highlanders, under the guidance of Crommelin’s successor, Lieutenant Hutchinson, were compelled to countermine, sinking their first 500-foot-long shaft while still engaged in barricading their post. Brayser’s Sikhs, who were holding the area between the Paen Bagh and the Khas Bazaar, also came under this form of attack, and both they and the Highlanders soon became expert at the laborious task of digging galleries in order to intercept and destroy those of the enemy, rivaling in skill the more experienced men of the old garrison.

  Gun batteries from across the river pounded the newly fortified defensive positions and in the rabbit-warren buildings of the Chutter Munzil there was constant danger from exploding mines, but Havelock refused to let this deter him from his duty, and his small, erect figure, plodding resolutely over the rubble of damaged buildings, became a familiar and welcome sight to the men under his command. His soldiers, as devoted to him as ever, nevertheless began to notice a change in their courageous little general—a lack, not of physical effort or resolution, but rather of heart. He had been greatly saddened by the losses his Field Force had sustained and, in particular, by the death of his nephew, Bensley Thornhill—who had survived the massacre of the wounded by only three days. He was anxious concerning his son Harry and the other wounded members of his personal staff, and his health—for so long strained by the rigors of the campaign in Oudh—was beginning to fail. He tired easily and lost weight and, apart from his conscientious round of his command, spent most of his time reading books on military history. Now it was Outram who was the leader, he who inspired the men’s cheers when he made his tours of inspection and he who—even more regularly than Havelock—visited the hospital, accompanied by the old garrison’s heroic chaplain, the Rev. James Harris.

  There was increasing reason for optimism. Communication with both the Alam Bagh and Cawnpore was established on a more or less regular basis and, on October 9, he received confirmation of the fall of Delhi and news of the dispatch from there of a small but well-equipped force under Brigadier Greathead, whose ultimate destination was Lucknow. Regiments of defeated sepoys from Delhi were also reported to be making for Oudh, but no intelligence was received of any threatening move toward Cawnpore by the Gwalior Contingent, although Colonel Wilson, commanding the Cawnpore garrison, warned that the Nana had returned to Bithur to gather troops. On October 18, Wilson attacked and dispersed this gathering and the Nana again fled into Oudh. In response to Outram’s request, Major McIntyre was reinforced at the Alam Bagh, two companies of infantry, fifty cavalrymen and two guns being sent on from Cawnpore, together with the supplies for which the isolated garrison commander had asked.

  In Lucknow itself, rationing was strict; tea, coffee, milk, and tobacco unknown luxuries, but the defenders remained cheerful and uncomplaining, even when their rations once again had to be reduced. Outram made strenuous efforts to open up communications with the surrounding country, in the hope of obtaining supplies of fresh meat and vegetables, but the blockade was vi
gilantly maintained and all attempts to negotiate with merchants in the city met with failure. Inevitably, the general health of the garrison suffered; while none starved, almost all suffered from boils and ulcers, many were debilitated and, with chapattis—small cakes, made of unleavened flour—constituting their staple diet, outbreaks of diarrhea and dysentery became increasingly common.

  In one of his reports, Outram wrote: “Never could there have been a force more free from grumblers, more cheerful, more willing.Among the sick and wounded, this glorious spirit is, if possible, still more conspicuous than among those fit for duty. But . . . it is a painful sight to see so many poor fellows maimed and suffering and denied those comforts of which they stand so much in need.Yet it . . . makes me proud of my countrymen to observe the heroic fortitude and hearty cheerfulness with which it is borne.”

  Yet, for all their fortitude, the wounded suffered and died in ever increasing numbers. In addition to the top floor of Martin Gubbins’shell-scarred white mansion, a large room in the Begum’s Kothee was appropriated for the accommodation of wounded officers, but they gained little from the change, although the women billeted there nursed them with the most devoted care. No amputation cases survived for more than a few days; gangrene invariably appeared, the wounds did not heal, and even the loss of a finger could lead to death from infection. Some of the private soldiers moved to the hot but open sheds in Horse Square, or placed in tents pitched near the main hospital, recovered better than those kept within its tainted walls, where cholera and dysentery took heavy toll, even of the unwounded. Ironically supplies of arrowroot, sago, and the tobacco, which might have mitigated much of the suffering, were at the Alam Bagh, four miles distant . . . as remote from the Residency garrison as if they had been four hundred miles away.

  Yet news from the outside world, as it filtered through, kept morale high.The garrison learned that the King of Delhi and his Begum had surrendered themselves as prisoners and that the treacherous princes had been executed.A letter, received by Out-ram, described Delhi as a city of the dead. “Our road ...lay through the Lahore Gate and passing along the Chandni Chouk not a sound was heard, save the deep rumble of our gun-wheels or the hoarse challenge of a sentry on the ramparts. Here might be seen a house gutted of its contents, there a jackal feeding on the half-demolished body of a sepoy; arms, carts, shot, dead bodies lay about in the wildest manner. Outstretched and exposed to the public gaze lay the bodies of the two sons and the grandson of the wretched King; they had been captured and executed the day before near Hymayoun’s tomb . . .”

  Of even greater importance to the Lucknow defenders was the report of Greathead’s victory over the rebels at Bulandshahr and speculation as to when his column might reach Lucknow became increasingly optimistic . . . until it was learned that appeals from Agra had caused him to abandon his initial plan and make a forced march to the relief of the garrison there. Hopes were dashed but rose again when a cossid from Agra brought word of a second decisive victory and a promise that the Movable Column—now commanded by Colonel Hope Grant of the 9th Lancers—would resume the march southward through the Doab within a day or two.They had marched 66 miles and fought two actions in the space of forty hours; nine miles of the route had been covered at a trot by cavalry and artillery, through high crops and plowed fields, and men and horses were exhausted. Nevertheless, after a 48-hour rest, their ammunition replenished from the Fort, on October 14 the column left Agra, made up by reinforcements to almost its original strength of 930 European and 1,860 native troops.

  Lady Outram had taken refuge in the Fort at Agra, and the general was greatly relieved to learn that she was safe; he was still more elated when the messenger he had dispatched to find the column en route returned to Lucknow to inform him that Hope Grant—after clearing Mynpuri of rebels on the nineteenth—had been at Bewar, the junction of the Agra, Fategarh, and Cawnpore roads, on the twenty-first. He replied to Outram’s message, assuring him that he would continue his advance with all possible speed and that he expected to join forces with the commander-in-chief at Cawnpore during the first week of November.

  Outram, aided by his two brigadiers, prepared detailed plans for the relief of the Residency and sent these, by native messengers, to the Alam Bagh for dispatch to Sir Colin Campbell. Morale among both British and loyal native defenders was now higher than it had ever been, and Outram ordered a parade of the loyal sepoys, at which he thanked them publicly for their services. Of the 765 who had remained with the original garrison, 133 had been killed and 230 had deserted during the early part of the siege.The survivors were rewarded by promotion and the promise of pensions; Ungud, the brave messenger, who had maintained contact with Havelock’s Field Force in Oudh at the risk of his life, received a subedar’s pension and the assurance that the payment promised him by Brigadier Inglis would be met in full.The Bengal Army pensioners, who had answered Sir Henry Lawrence’s appeal to return to the Colors and serve in Lucknow’s defense, were told that their pensions would be doubled, and to their venerable leader, Subedar Runjeet Singh, the general gave a personal assurance that he would receive the Company’s Order of Merit.

  The sepoys cheered him and only a few of the 32nd—wearily loading and firing their borrowed Enfield rifles with homemade bullets from the mold fashioned by a staff officer named North—grumbled at the notice taken of the natives. “Bloody black bastards!” a corporal complained, coughing earth from his lungs as he emerged from a mining tunnel deep beneath the Chutter Munzil. “There the sods go, as usual, petted and rewarded, while the likes of us get nothing! Not even a smoke or a chew of plug ...”

  On the whole, however, the rewards were approved of even by the European private soldiers, and those who bore resentment swiftly forgot it when the latest news of Hope Grant’s gallant column spread like wildfire throughout the old and new garrisons. The women, crouched in their tyekhanas and behind bullet-scarred barricades or toiling in the hospitals, gathered to pray for deliverance and wept for the children who had not lived to see it.

  “They are coming!” they told each other joyfully. “Soon it will be over—soon we shall be safe!”

  On October 26, the relief column had entered Cawnpore, after fighting a running battle with isolated enemy forces endeavoring to flee across the Ganges to escape retribution . . . and the Nana’s troops were said to be among them, although one report suggested that he was making for Kalpi, with the object of joining forces with Tantia Topi and the Gwalior Contingent. Hope Grant’s column consisted of Her Majesty’s 9th Lancers and the 8th and 75th Foot—battle-hardened veterans of the siege and recapture of Delhi—two troops of the Bengal Horse Artillery, Blunt’s and Remington’s, Bourchier’s Field Battery, and detachments of Punjab cavalry and infantry, the former with squadrons commanded by Watson, Probyn, and Younghusband, and a squadron of Hodson’s Horse, of which Hugh Gough—late of the 3rd Light Cavalry from Meerut—was in command.

  By October 30, four companies of the 93rd Highlanders and some other infantry detachments had arrived to reinforce them— pushed up-country ahead of him by the commander-in-chief— and Hope Grant crossed the river into Oudh. He reached Bunni Bridge on the 31st and, while there, was informed that Sir Colin Campbell was at Cawnpore. On November 2, the Movable Column advanced to Buntera, a village only six miles from the Alam Bagh, and won its first victory against the besiegers of Lucknow. On the 6th, an advance party was sent to the Alam Bagh. It brought away the sick and wounded and dispatched them, under strong escort, to Cawnpore.

  Then, on instructions from Sir Colin Campbell, Hope Grant halted at Buntera to await his coming with, it was confidently expected, wings of various infantry regiments and a siege train manned by the two hundred–strong Naval Brigade under the command of Captain William Peel, Royal Navy, captain of H.M.S. Shannon.

  Sir Colin Campbell, reviewing the situation on the morning of November 3, found himself facing a dilemma. Reliable intelligence gathered for him by Captain Bruce revealed the position of Cawnpore as
one of extreme danger. The Gwalior Contingent, numbering five thousand men, with sixteen guns of heavy caliber and twenty-four field guns, was at Kalpi only forty miles distant, on the other side of the Jumna.The Nana, with his own followers and remnants of sepoy regiments from Delhi—amounting in all to a further five thousand—was on his way to Kalpi and the commander-in-chief was aware that, as soon as he advanced to the relief of Lucknow, an attack on his base at Cawnpore was virtually certain.With 60,000 rebel troops surrounding Lucknow, he could not divide his force—the most he could afford to leave as a holding force in Cawnpore were 500 British and 550 Madras infantry and gunners.

  Sound military strategy demanded that he secure his base before attempting to reach Lucknow, but this could only be done by meeting and defeating the Gwalior Contingent and, since all the boats he would require if he were to cross the Jumna were in the hands of the rebels, the Nana and Tantia Topi could avoid coming to action for as long as seemed to them desirable. In the meantime, Lucknow might fall from lack of food . . .