The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-06 00:00:00

Ntfraturt. The Defence of Lucknotc. By a Staff Officer. London : Smith and Elder. WHEN the history of the great rebellion in India is written by its Napier, there will be D a more thrilling chapter than that which details the defence of Lucknow. In the annals of war there is not to be found a more ferocious siege, a more determined defence. That a few hundred Englishmen and women, deci mated by sickness and shut up in a confined and feeble position, should have held their own unaided for eighty-seven days, surrounded by a bloodthirsty populace, and attacked day and night by a numerous and well-disciplined army whose sharpshooters swept the position from neighbouring houses—who possessed a powerful artillery, planted round at short dis tances, in some places actually within fifty yards of the defences, and who brought every means that engineering skill possesses to effect a breach—who four times assaulted and attempted to escalade the weakened defences of the garrison, to be met on each occasion with equal skill and baffled at each attempt by superior bravery—is one of those enigmas in the history of war which sets all rules at defiance, and proves how superior to art is undaunted courage. Here was a position which, according to all the rules of war, should have fallen in a week. An army of fanatics, steeped to the shoulders in the blood of our countrymen, surround and besiege, batter and assault incessantly for eighty seven days and nights a few acres of sand bags, defended by some thirty guns and some three hundred Englishmen. After struggles of which the fame shall be impe rishable, this handful of brave men, who by dint of superhuman effort have hurled back the prodigious masses of the enemy on each assault, though weakened for want of food, and ex hausted by watching and labour, maintain to the last the honour of their arms and the glory of their country, and in the end force their freedom from the foe. Rarely has the history of war given us such a tale of suffering forti tude which so excites our sympathies, so commands our admiration. It will be in the memory of our readers that the outbreak at Meerut and the seizure of Delhi was followed on the 30th of May, 1857, by the revolt of the native troops at Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence, after a vigorous effort to drive the rebels out of the city, commenced at once to fortify the Residency and the Muchee Bhawun, a garrison post about three quarters of a mile distant. Sir Henry had resolved so to prepare for an insurrectim in the town that he should have a fortified post to fall back on. For the first fortnight in June the most vigorous exertions were made to put the Residency and the Muchee Bhawun it a state of respectable defence. Ammunition and provisions were rapidly collected and stored, batteries were traced, guns mounted, and everything prepared for the worst. He had not long to wait. The events then taking place at Cawnpore, and the revolt of the troops at Fyzabad, hastened a catastrophe which every one foresaw. On the 30th of June a rebel army was heard of encamped a few miles beyond Lucknow. Sir Henry Law rence resolved to attack them. Ile moved out of his intrenchments the following morn mg. encountered the enemy in force at the villago of Kocaralee, was worsted in the battle that ensued, and compelled to retreat within 111,4 lines. From that day the siege and de fence of Lucknow commenced. The rebels, following close on Sir Henry Lawrence, swarmed round the Residency, threw up a howitzer battery, and opened a bombardment that never fairly ceased till the retreat under Sir Colin Campbell in the November fol lowing. The first blow to the garrison was the death of Sir Henry an the morning of the 4th of July. He had received his death wound on the 2 nd, according to the Staff Officer, under the following circumstances : About eight a.m. Sir Henry returned to the Residency, and being much fatigued, lay down on his bed. Soon after an eight•inch shell from the eight•inch howitzer of the enemy entered the room at the w indow, and exploding, THE PRESS, MARCH 6, 1858. a fragment struck the Brigadier-General on the upper part of the right thigh near the hip, inflicting a fearful woun4. Captain Wilson, who was standing alongside the bed with one knee on it at the time, reading a memoran dum to Sir Henry, was knocked down by filling bricks and slightly wounded in the back by a piece of shell. Sir H. Lawrence's nephew, Mr. Lawrence, had an equally nar row escape, being on another bed close by : he was not hurt; the fourth individual in the room was a native servant, who lost one of his feet by a fragment of the shell. It was at once pronounced that Sir Henry Law rence's wound was mortal, and his sufferings were great. After forty-eight hours' intense suffering this great and gond man breathed his last, to the profound grief of the whole garrison. There was no time, however, for mourning. The rebels were pouring in " a perfect hurricane " of round shot, jinjal and musketry," and at times the lire was " terrific." Their marksmen, too, were good ; they had loopholed every house within fifty yards of the defences, and threw in such a storm of shells and carcases, and logs of wood shod with iron, that a head or a hand dare not be exposed for a moment by day. For ten days this hurricane of fire lasted, an assault was made and repulsed, and then the attack subsided into a regular siege and a determined defence. The confusion consequent upon so unexpectedly sudden a siege soon settled down, but the garrison were lamentably weak and ill provided either with stores or clothing. The appearance of the officers was soon scarcely in accordance with the regulations : Owing to the necessity for blowing up the Muchee Rhawun, the officers brought in with them nothing but the clothes they wore. Many others in this garrison had lost everything when their bungalows in cantonments were burnt ; and a few better off had shared their wardrobes with them. As time went on, however, clothes wore oat, and there were no means of providing others; and by this time officers might have been seen wearing the most ex traordinary costumes ; few, if any, had any semblance of a military uniform, and very many were in shirts, trousers, and slippers only ; one gallant civilian having found an old billiard•table cloth, had contrived to make himself a kind of loose coat out of it, while an officer wore a shirt made out of a floor-cloth. All carried muskets, and were accoutred like the soldiers. On the 20th of July the enemy sprung their first mine against the Redan battery, and then under a terrific fire of musketry and round shot made their first serious assault. They were repulsed with loss, and, disheartened at the result, contented themselves for some days with vigorous mining. The incessant hard ships of the defence now began to tell upon the garrison, while the close confinement and the scanty and unwholesome food seriously affected the health of the women and children. On the sth of July the Staff Officer writes, sick ness was " spreading rapidly" among the gar risen, painful boils broke out upon the body, fever and dysentery struck down the men, while smallpox and want of nourishing food destroyed the children and sick. The supplies were rapidly diminishing, and the stench of the dead bullocks and horses, which they had neither time nor strength to drag away or to bury, was " frightful," and so deadly at one particular spot that no man kept guard there without suffering fever. Their hopes of relief were dying out. On the 29th of July the sound of heavy firing in the direction of Cawnporo revived for a day their spirits, but it drifted away, and no help came. What would they have done if at that moment they had been teld that two months more must elapse before relief would reach them ? And so the days passed; hoping against hope, suffering every privation, men and women lived and. laboured on, sternly resolved. Each day passed away, writes the Stall Officer, much like its predecessor, with the same amount of cannonading and musketry fire. Each night brought the funeral of sonic dear friend or cherished companion. The rebels sprung mines and made desperate assaults, to be countermined and repulsed. At one time they breached the wall, but it was speedily retrenched ; at another, they effected a lodg ment so close to our lines that they thrust in bamboos with lighted straw at one end, in the vain hope of firing what they dare not seize. In less than twenty-four hours they were driven out, their bamboos burned, and their guns spiked. Courage and endurance, how ever, have their limits. The terrible inequality of foree which existed was beginning to have effect about the middle of September. The provisions were failing, and the garrison, never 231 disheartened, were becoming so thinned with death and sickness that an end of the drama was rapidly anproachitig. The sufferings of all—of the sick and wounded and of the women—were beyond endurance, while the rebels, slowly but surely, were closing in upon the defences. At last, on the 22nd of September, intelligence reached them that Outrank and Havelock had crossed the Ganges. The effect was electrical. The hopes of all revived, the sick and wounded brightened up, and the most intense excitement reigned throughout the garrison. The next day the sound of guns was heard in the direction of Cawnpore. "About eleven a.m. nearly all " sourAl of firing had ceased, but increased agi " tation was visible among the people in tho " town, in which two large fires were seen. " An hour later, the sound of musketry and " the smoke of guns was distinctly perceived " within the limits of the city " All the garrison was on the alert, and the excitement amongst many of the officers and soldiers was quite painful to witness. At 1.30 p.m. many of the people of the city commenced leaving, with bundles of clothes, Sze., on their heads, and took the direction of cantonments across the different bridges. At 2 p.m. armed men and sepoys commenced to follow them, accompanied by large bodies of irregular cavalry. Every gun and mortar that could be brought to bear on the evidently retreating enemy was fired as fast as possible for at least an hour and a half. The enemy's bridge of boats had evidently been destroyed and broken away, for many were seen swimming across the river, most of them cavalry, with their horses' bridles in their hands. Strange to relate, during all this apparent panic the guns of the enemy in position all round as kept up a heavy cannonade, and the matchlockmen or riflemen never ceased firing from their respective loopholes. At 4 p.m. report was made that some officers dressed in shooting-coats and solah caps, a regiment of Ewe. peens in blue pantaloons and shirts, and a bullock bat tery were seen near Mr. Martin's house and the Motee Muhal. At 5 p.m. volleys of musketry, rapidly growing louder, were heard in the city. But soon the firing of a Minis ball over our heads gave notice of the still nesr3r approach of our friends, of whom as yet little or nothing had been seen, though the enemy were to be seen firing heavily on them from many of the roofs of the houses. Five minutes later, and our troops were seen fighting their way through one of the principal streets, and, though men fell at almost every step, yet nothing could withstand the headlong gallantry of our reinforcements. Once fairly seen, all our doubts and fears regarding them were ended; and then the garrison's long pent-up feelings of anxiety and suspense burst forth in a succession of deafening cheers. From every pit, trench, and battery—from behind the sandbags piled on shattered houses—from every post still held by a few gallant spirits—rose cheer on cheer— even from the hospital ' Many of the wounded crawled forth to join in that glad shout of welcome to those who had so bravely come to our assistance. It was a moment never to be forgotten. Soon all the rearguard and heavy guns were inside our position, and then ensued a scene which baffles description. And so ended the second act of the siege of Lucknow. The Staff Officer does not bring us down further; hut we commend his diary, if it be necessary to commend the diary of such days, to the attention of our readers, not for its vivid descriptions or its brilliant antitheses, but for its unostentatious relation of facts, re• corded with a degree of distinctness that vouches for the authenticity of the writer's statements. The Life and Times of Aaron Burr, Vice- President of the United States.. By J. Parton. London : Sampson Low and Co. THE subject of this American biography is familiar to us by the tradition of his appear ances in London society, as well as by the allusions to him in the writings of Dumont, Bentham, and some letters of Charles Lamb. Ho was an extraordinary person, though not of the kind fitted for hero-worship. Many of the statements in this large volume, and not a few of its incidents, deserve to be held in English opinion as " coarse " and " vulgar;" but as an American piece of biography, and as a contribution to the " domestic history of the Americans " in past times, the book has some literary value. It testifies strongly to the ex aggeration of character and vulgar violence of manners which are apt to spring up in a mere democracy. In a mixed Constitution ambi tion is regulated by established rules, and the presumption of gross obtrusiveness is repres sed. In the canvassing for power to which a community like that of the United States is subjected there is danger of society being vitiated by what Dryden in one of his dramns has called that sewn Which bubbles npmost when a nation boils. 1 MP