Victoria’s Scottish Lion

by Greenwood, Adrian; Haythornthwaite, Philip;

  Before leaving, Campbell had instructed Windham to ‘make as great show as he can of what troops he may have at Cawnpore … by encamping them conspicuously’, but not ‘to move out to attack unless compelled to do so by the forces of circumstances, to save the bombardment of the entrenchment’.19 Denied the opportunity to fight in Lucknow, Windham was, according to Lady Canning, ‘anxious to encounter what he always calls the “child killers”’.20 So, on the 26th, he ventured out with most of his garrison and, in the dry bed of the Pandoo Nuddee River, engaged the enemy. The rebels were driven back, at the cost of ninety-two British casualties. Windham captured two howitzers and a 6-pounder.

  Sadly, these mutineers were merely Tantia’s advance guard. Beyond lay another 25,000 rebels, including thousands loyal to the Nana Sahib. Windham judiciously pulled his men back west across the Calpee Road. Believing his position was ‘better defended by holding the town and its outskirts than in any other way’, he then deployed detachments around the perimeter of Cawnpore. In doing so, he spread his resources precariously thin. Expecting 1,700 men to hold a large town, a bridge and an entrenchment was unrealistic.**21

  The next day Tantia pounced, attacking along a 2-mile front. After five hours of fighting, his rebels had overrun much of the town, burning the supplies Campbell had carefully stored there, including the spare kit of the Lucknow column.*** By now Windham had lost 145 officers and men. ‘The Hero of the Redan has got in a nice mess’, one officer scoffed. ‘I imagine he will come down a peg or two in the estimation of the British public.’22

  Windham spent 28 November desperately trying to keep Tantia’s army in check. To prevent Campbell from being cut off, it was vital Windham preserve the bridge of boats over the Ganges east of the town, but without cavalry, it was hard to gauge his enemy’s deployment. Spies sent to garner information returned brutally disfigured, minus arms, ears and noses.23 Labouring under these handicaps, Windham’s efforts met with mixed success. To the west Colonel Walpole not only fought off the enemy, but captured two 18-pounders; at the Baptist Chapel near the Ganges, Tantia’s offensive was more effective. Here, Brigadier Carthew, finding himself surrounded and isolated, was forced to retreat.

  That day resulted in another 198 casualties; heinous losses for Windham’s small garrison. ‘Dhoolie after dhoolie with its red curtains down, concealing some poor victim, passed on to the hospitals’, recalled one officer. ‘The poor fellows were brought in, shot, cut, shattered, and wounded in every imaginable way; and as they went by, raw stumps might be seen dangling over the sides of the dhoolies, literally like torn butcher-meat.’24 Morale slumped as Windham’s powers of inspiration deserted him. ‘Poor man!’ wrote Captain Maude. ‘He had caught a frightful cold, and it had taken away his voice, so when he desired to be especially emphatic, a wheezy earnestness was all that could be produced.’25 Discipline collapsed, and the men ‘broke open the stores, took the wine provided for the sick, [and] smashed open the officers’ boxes’. ‘An old Sikh, who was standing at the gate of the work, lifted up his hands in wonder when he saw the men running past in disorder, and said aloud “You are not the brothers of the men who beat the Khalsa!”’26

  That evening, two British civilians on the bridge of boats spied ‘a cloud of dust on the Lucknow road. This grew into a small knot of horsemen, the central figure of which was peering across the water, as he turned his large limbed horse on the quivering planks of the bridge. The figure was Sir Colin.’27 ‘We are at our last gasp!’ exclaimed the subaltern on guard, eliciting a stern rebuke from the commander-in-chief for suggesting that Her Majesty’s troops were at their last anything.28

  While his column pitched camp 4 miles from Cawnpore, an apprehensive Campbell had ridden ahead with his staff. ‘I … reached the entrenchment at dusk, where I learnt the true state of affairs,’ he told the governor-general:

  The retreat of the previous day had been effected with the loss of a certain amount of camp equipage, and shortly after my arrival, it was reported to me that Brigadier Carthew had retreated from a very important outpost. All this appeared disastrous enough, and the next day the city was found to be in possession of the enemy at all points.29

  An immediate British offensive was out of the question. After their long march Campbell’s troops were exhausted. A disturbing proportion had fallen out. ‘When we arrived at our destination at 10 p.m., scarcely 300 out of 800 men were with the colours’, reported Munro.30 Tantia’s vandalism left them even more dejected. ‘We lost all our spare kits, and were now without a chance of a change of underclothing or socks’, complained Forbes-Mitchell. ‘Let all who may read this consider what it meant to us, who had not changed our clothes from the 10th of the month … the sight of the enemy making bonfires of our kits.’31 Much of the carriage and clothes assembled for Lucknow’s evacuees had fallen to the enemy and Campbell still had nearly 10 miles of camp followers, civilians and invalids in the open.

  Having conferred with Windham, Campbell returned to the column. At sunrise on the 29th he sent forward his heavy guns, whose slow bullocks had only just stumbled into camp. They were to deploy next to the Ganges to silence Tantia’s artillery. Next horse artillery, cavalry and infantry crossed over the river to secure the Allahabad road. With Greathed’s men guarding the bridge, at 3 p.m. the civilians began to cross. ‘As our carriage touched the bridge, sharp musketry firing commenced on the other side and we could see the flashes’, wrote Lady Inglis. ‘We were much frightened, as we thought it was an attack of our advance guard.’32 It turned out to be just a false alarm. ‘For about thirty hours the stream of men, animals and carts, the latter carrying the wounded, sick and families, went slowly on, occasionally blocked and obstructed, but finally making its way’, reported Campbell. He lodged them in the old artillery buildings, out of range of the rebels’ guns. ‘Until I am disencumbered of the women and wounded, 2,000 in number of helpless creatures,’ he wrote, ‘I can hardly do anything more than stand still.’33

  For four days Campbell sat there while the rebels continued their intermittent cannonade. Somehow Tantia’s gunners seemed to know where the commander-in-chief was quartered. Though shot punctured one of his ADCs’ tents, wounding his orderly’s horse, Campbell refused to move. A 24-pounder was brought up to reply. At last, on the night of 3 December, having received extra troops from Futtehpore, Campbell felt secure enough to send the women, children and half his wounded on to Allahabad. Their transport was by necessity rude, and the reaction of the passengers predictable. ‘Several of them were dissatisfied at not being provided with better conveyances than covered carts,’ recalled Grant, ‘but we had done our very best for them, and told them that they should be more than satisfied – they should be thankful.’34 It left Campbell with enough carriage for just two brigades.

  He could spare only a token escort but, according to Lady Inglis, ‘the number of troops constantly passing up country made the road pretty safe’.35 After four days they reached the railway station at Lohanda. It took three hours to get their luggage on board, but two hours later they were in Allahabad. ‘On nearing the Fort we were surprised at the welcome accorded us by the military who fired a royal salute from the ramparts’, wrote one of the La Martinière boys. ‘The ground in front of the fort, close to which the train halted, was crowded with the European residents, officers, ladies and soldiers; in fact almost all the inhabitants seemed to be present to receive us, standing in great array on both sides of the train, and there was loud cheering as the engine steamed in with its living freight.’36 ‘We had had a most trying and fatiguing journey,’ complained Lady Inglis, ‘but if we felt it, what must the poor sick and wounded have done?’37

  Campbell had refused to take any offensive measures until the convoy was well clear. ‘However disagreeable this may be, and although it may tend to give confidence to the enemy, it is precisely one of those cases in which no risk must be run’. he insisted.38 In the interim, Tantia’s tactics had grown bolder. On 4 December he sent fireboats to
burn the bridge (without success), and the next day unleashed a new barrage followed by an abortive infantry assault. After a week of sitting on their hands, the officers were furious. ‘Sir Colin seems to have no dash,’ complained Lieutenant Lang, ‘and we are all grumbling at his want of pluck.’39

  On the 6th, ‘having yesterday morning finally completed the arrangements for putting the remainder of the sick and wounded, 860 in number, in safety’,40 Campbell was ready to hit back. It was ‘one of those glorious days in which the European in northern India revels for a great part of the winter’, recalled Roberts, ‘clear and cool, with a cloudless sky’.41 Campbell faced an enemy split into two distinct portions. The Nana Sahib’s men held the town and the ruined bungalows of the British cantonment, while the Gwalior Contingent was camped on the plain to the west. These Gwalior troops were the most dangerous. Campbell’s aim was to separate and destroy them, but he had only 5,000 infantry, 600 cavalry and thirty-nine guns, including Windham’s troops and the new arrivals from Calcutta: Greathed’s brigade now comprised the 64th, the 2nd Punjab Infantry and some of the 8th Foot; Hope led the 42nd and 93rd Highlanders, the 53rd Foot and the 4th Punjab Infantry; Inglis was given the 23rd, 32nd and 82nd Foot; and Walpole the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the Rifle Brigade together with some of the 38th Foot. Brigadier Little continued in command of the cavalry, with Colonel Harness in charge of the engineers, while the artillery was under Major-General Dupuis.

  As at Lucknow, Campbell began with an artillery feint. At 9 a.m. Windham, in the entrenchments south-east of town, let rip with every gun he could muster, to give the impression that the British offensive would be coming from his quarter. The barrage continued for two hours while most of Campbell’s infantry gathered further west, out of sight behind buildings along the Delhi Road. While they waited, ‘Sir Colin rode up to each regiment and informed us that he had heard by telegram of the safe arrival of the women and children and the sick and wounded at Allahabad,’ recalled Gordon-Alexander.42

  Greathed now started forward towards the canal to threaten the centre of the Nana’s position. As with Windham’s bombardment, this was just a ruse to keep the enemy occupied. To Greathed’s left, Walpole’s brigade crossed the canal and headed for the western outskirts of the town, to force a wedge between the Gwalior Contingent on Walpole’s left, and the Nana’s troops on his right. To complete the manoeuvre and encircle the Gwalior troops, Hope’s brigade would make their entrance even further to the west, near the brick kilns, with Inglis’s men in support. With these tactics Campbell was committing the bulk of his force to a sweep westwards, leaving his centre and Wheeler’s entrenchment on his right scantily defended. If the rebels launched a counter-attack there, they could punch a hole in Campbell’s line and foil the whole plan.

  Forward went the 4th Punjab Infantry, supported by the 53rd, skirmishing south of the canal, while behind them marched the 93rd and 42nd, ‘as if on a review parade, no noise and no hurry, but as sure and resistless as fate’.43 In front of the colours rode Campbell, reprising his role at the Alma. ‘Directly we emerged from the shelter of the buildings which had masked our formation the piquets fell back, the skirmishers advanced at the double, and the enemy opened a tremendous cannonade on us with round-shot, shell and grape,’ wrote Forbes-Mitchell.44 Campbell expected the same stoicism from his Highlanders as he had displayed at Vimeiro nearly fifty years before. ‘I was privileged to hear the Chief use some distinctly strong language, when, as was quite natural and under the circumstances pardonable, the men would open the ranks to let a ricochet round-shot bowl harmlessly through, instead of attempting to treat it as a cricket ball,’ Gordon-Alexander recalled. ‘The Chief, thinking it was unsteadiness on the men’s part, grew more excited.’45

  As the Punjabis neared the canal they found Tantia’s guns, like the French artillery at Gamarra Mayor, focused on a small bridge, but not one to court stalemate, Captain Peel dragged up his heavy 24-pounders, ‘as if they were light field-pieces’,46 and opened fire. The enemy crumbled and there then ensued a race between the horse artillery and the infantry to reach the Gwalior camp first. But Tantia knew his enemy, and had organised a diversion of his own. In their way was a wall of ‘casks standing on end, with the heads knocked out for convenience’. ‘There is no doubt but the enemy expected the Europeans would break their ranks when they saw the rum, and had formed up their columns to fall on us in the event,’ explained Forbes-Mitchell.47 Campbell assured the Highlanders it was drugged, but the barrels were broached to be on the safe side.

  Tantia had been caught off guard. ‘We were evidently unexpected visitors,’ reported Roberts. ‘Wounded men were lying about in all directions, and many sepoys were surprised, calmly cooking their frugal meal of unleavened bread. The tents were found to be full of property plundered from the city and cantonment of Cawnpore – soldiers’ kits, bedding, clothing, and every description of miscellaneous articles.’48 Additionally, ‘above 4,000 bullocks and numerous camels rewarded the exertions of the pursuers’,49 replenishing Campbell’s reduced transport capacity.

  Brigadier Little had been ordered to cross the canal about a mile and a half to the west and then head north to cut off the mutineers’ escape down the Calpee Road but, as the Gwalior rebels fled, his squadrons were nowhere to be seen. According to Shadwell, a native guide took them the wrong way. ‘What was to be done?’ asked Roberts.

  The enemy could not be allowed to carry off their guns and escape punishment. Suddenly the old Chief announced that he had determined to follow them up himself with Bourchier’s battery and his own escort. What a chase we had! … We came up with a goodly number of stragglers and captured several guns and carts laden with ammunition. But we were by this time overtaking large bodies of the rebels, and they were becoming too numerous for a single battery and a few staff officers to cope with.50

  After a quarter of an hour, Little’s men belatedly appeared. ‘The cavalry spread like lightning over the plain in skirmishing order. Sir Colin takes the lead’, wrote Bourchier. ‘The pursuit is continued to the 14th milestone, assuming all the character of a fox-hunt.’51

  While Campbell’s manoeuvre had chased the Gwalior troops from Cawnpore, the Nana’s men remained. With the British holding the bridge of boats over the Ganges, and the southern and western outskirts of town, the Nana’s only way out was north-west along the Bithoor Road, past the Subedar’s Tank (a reservoir). Campbell handed responsibility for stopping him to his chief of staff, Major-General Mansfield. Like Sterling in the Crimea, Mansfield was Campbell’s principal confidant and liberal sympathiser, but he had no experience of brigade or divisional command in battle. So far his role had been administrative, but with the day his, Campbell could be forgiven for trusting Mansfield with a simple blocking operation.

  Mansfield sent the Rifles forward to occupy the area around the tank, while his guns rushed the nearby village of Bengalipore. The rebels responded with cannon fire from the ruined bungalows. ‘These guns might have been taken,’ Mansfield explained to Campbell, ‘but I refrained from giving the necessary order, being aware that it was contrary to your Excellency’s wish to involve troops among the enclosures and houses of the old cantonment.’ Mansfield ordered his artillery return fire, but kept his infantry back. ‘He did not think the jeu worth the chandelle,’ explained Maude, ‘deciding it was better to spare precious British life than destroy worthless mutineers … circumstances were not desperate now and perhaps it was thought that the time of the Nicholsons and Neills had passed. At any rate, Sir Colin expressed not one word of censure.’52

  With the light failing, and with Campbell off chasing the Gwalior rebels, Mansfield decided to stand his ground and avoid further offensive measures. In his mind he had done rather well: ‘At dusk I had the satisfaction of seeing large bodies of the enemy’s infantry and cavalry move round to the west of the position about a mile distant, in full retreat.’53 He did not bother pursuing them. ‘What is the use of intercepting a desperate soldiery, whose
only wish is to escape?’54 he declared. Campbell seemed very content with ‘the able and distinguished manner’ in which his chief of staff had ‘conducted the troops placed under his orders’.55 The men, however, were indignant. ‘I don’t think we are half satisfied’, complained Lieutenant Lang. ‘After a long delay and Pandy having kept us at bay for so long a time, being allowed to insult us with impunity, it is very unsatisfactory that he has escaped us with no good corporal punishment.’

  The Nana Sahib and his infantry had slipped the net, but his artillery, reliant on sluggish bullocks and elephants, could not have got far, so, after a day’s rest, Campbell sent Grant with 2,800 men to catch them. ‘On the road I questioned every native I came across’, he explained. ‘Some gave me no information at all, others said that several guns had passed two days previously; and one man told me, more particularly, that five brass guns and a 24 pounder had been conveyed.’56 Grant ordered a 25-mile forced march, running his enemy to ground at Serajghat, where they were ferrying their guns over the Ganges. He captured fifteen cannon, and a herd of draught bullocks. On the 13th his men reached Bithoor, home of the Nana, and as Grant wrote, ‘lost no time in destroying everything we could lay our hands on, belonging to the low villain, blowing up his pagan temple and burning his palace’.57

  It was vandalism borne of frustration at their failure to capture India’s bogeyman. Nevertheless, although the Nana, Tantia and most of the rebels had escaped, Campbell could feel pleased at his victory. The battle had been conducted with his usual economy. British casualties were just ninety-nine, only thirteen of them killed* – a very light bill for the defeat of 25,000 troops armed with modern weapons, especially when compared to the losses at Delhi** or the hundreds of men killed during Havelock’s numerous small actions the previous summer. ‘The battle established the right of Sir Colin Campbell to be regarded as a great commander’, admitted Malleson.58 It also silenced those who had said he should never have abandoned Lucknow. ‘Windham’s misadventure afforded a sort of ex post facto justification to Sir Colin,’ explained one civil servant, ‘and shielded him from criticism.’59