The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

934 to the kill, and in an instant they were over the mound and into the village. There was not a shot fired or a shout uttered, for the men were very fierce, and the slaughter was proportionate. " I've just got three of 'em out of one house, sir," said a 78th man, with a grin, to me, as 1 met him at a turn of the village. The English force were now fairly within the enemy's lines, and they went forward, taking gun after gun, and driving everything before them ; but meantime the enemy's cavalry and a portion of their infantry had moved round, and part of our artillery had to turn round and hold them in check. At one time, indeed, our small handful of troops were completely surrounded. The mutineers fought fiercely and well, and if there had only been a head to guide them we must have fought hard to save even our bare lives; but unity of purpose prevailed over multitudes. One by one their positions were carried, and the final advance of the 64th, when they charged and took a heavy gun that had up to that time been playing on our troops with murderous effect, finally settled the busi• nese. After that there was no more regular opposition, and, just as night set in, the English force formed up and bivouacked on the plain, juet beyond the grand parade ground of Cawnpore. Instances of the cool courage of our men are related : The enemy's horse got off comparatively scatheless, besides creeping round to our rear and cutting up our wounded men. They made a dash at a small handful of our skirmishers—about a dozen of the Fusiliers, who with their officer, Seton, had got separated from the rest. Seton called his men round him and formed a square. The cavalry dashed at them, swerved off from a cool, steady fire, every bullet of which brought down a man, and the little party rejoined their regiment unhurt. A man of the 64th, early in the fight, had his leg shat tered by a round shot ; and as be lay there on the ground, the horsemen came down to cut him up. Lying on his back, he shot the first—they drew back—he loaded again, and shot a second—they began to move, he loaded again, and shot a third—whereupon the troopers went off and left the wounded man in his glory. This man's leg was amputated next morning, and he is now rapidly re covering. The hope that they would be in time to save the lives of the poor women and children was horribly dispelled. Nana Sahib had murderel the whole of them that very day when he had found the fight going against him. Some officers of the force visited the place wherein the fearful tragedy of the day before had been enacted : It was a native house of the bettermost kind, having rooms on either side, round an inclosed inner courtyard, where those unfortunate ladies and soldiers' wives and their children had been confined, and it was told to me as an actual and literal fact that the floor of the inner room was two inches deep in blood all over—it came over men's shoes as they stepped. Tresses of women's hair, and children's shoes, and articles of female wear, broad hats and bonnets, books, and such like things, lay scattered all about the rooms. There were the marks of bullets and sword cuts on the walls—not high up, as if men had fought, but low down, and about the corners, where the poor crouching creatures had been cut to pieces. The bodies of the victims had been thrown indiscriminately down a well just behind the house, and were then) to be seen a mangled heap, with an arm or leg protruding here and there. Another officer writes Camp, Cawnpore, July 22. I have been to see the place where the poor women and children were imprisoned and afterwards butchered. It is a small bungalow close to the road. There were all sorts of articles of women and children's clothing. Ladies' hair, evidently cut off with a sword, back combs, &c. There were also parts of religious books. Where the massacre took place it is covered with blood like a butcher's slaughterhouse. One would fancy nothing could be worse than this, but in the well at the back of the house are the bodies and limbs of the poor things. I looked down and saw such a sight as I hope never to see again. The whole of the bodies were naked, and the limbs had been separated. I thought of the two Mrs. and the three poor girls, and felt very sad. By all accounts the women were so ill treated that death, even such a death, must have been welcome to them. 1 will not enter into more details. I have told you enough to cause you to make allowance if I can write savagely. I have looked upon death in every form, but I could not look down that well again. Some mournful memorials were discovered among the shreds of clothes and wearing apparel. Two scraps of paper spotted with blood were found to contain the following notes in pencil, and written by different hands : Mania died July 12th ; Alice died July Ath ; George, June 27th. Entered the barracks August 21st. Cavalry left June sth. First shot tired June dth. Uncle Willy died June 18th ; Aunt Lilly, June 18th. Left barracks June 27th. Made prisoners as soon as we were at the river. The other is in the following words : We went into the barracks on the 21st of May, the 2nd Cavalry broke out at two o'clock on the morning of the sth of June, and the other regiments went off during the day. The next morning, while we were all sitting out in front of the barracks, a 24. pounder came flying along, and hit the intrenchment, and from that day the firing went on till the 25th of June; then the enemy sent a treaty which THE PRESS, SEPTEMBtR 26, 1857. the general agreed to, and on the 27th we all left the B. to go down to A. in boats. When we got to the river the enemy began firing on us, killed all the gentlemen and some of the lathes, set fire to the boats ; some were drowned, and we were taken prisoners And taken to a house, put all in one room. Of the above sad relics, it is believed that the first was written by a Miss Caroline Lindsay, eldest daughter of Mr. George Lindsay, sad that the journal was kept up to the last day. Concerning this and the previous horrible massacre, it has transpired that four officers and men escaped from the destruction of the boats, and that four women have escaped from the latter massacre. The following account from an Eurasian, whose life was spared, gives us some clue to the conduct of Nana Sahib and troops at the time of the surrender of Cawnpore : Every officer and soldier, and every merchant, writer, or Christian drummer, &c., that had gone into the intrench ments here under General Wheeler on the 4th of June, has been killed. The cannonading of the enemy was very very severe. Twelve guns, taken from our magazine, were brought to play upon us. They had a very large quantity of powder at their disposal, for the magazine was not blown up, and thirty boats of ammunition reached the enemy by the Ganges canal just in time for them to annoy us. The artillery barracks, where we were intrenched, have been scattered to atoms by the 24-pounder balls that were incessantly fired by the enemy, and many died under the walls. Day and night the guns were kept playing upon us without ceasing for a moment, and the musketry of the enemy poured millions of balls upon us up to the 25th of June—that is for twenty days. The enemy made several attempts to charge upon us ; three times they surrounded us on all sides under cover of the compound walls of bungalows in our vicinity, and sounded their bugles to charge, but were driven back by our artillery firing canister upon them. We had only six small guns with us, and not a single howitzer. Had we even had one 24. pounder a great deal could have been done, or had our general taken up his position in the magazine we might all have escaped the very severe calamity that has befallen upon this station, for without guns the enemy could not have done anything. On the 24'.h of Jnne I was sent out as a spy, on certain conditions, and as I was dressed like a common Chinaman I was not killed; for I was taken prisoner almost as soon as I came out of the intrenchment, but kept in confinement until the day of my trial, when fetters were put on me. After I came out on the 24th it appears the rebel Itsjah sent a letter to our general the day after, offering to let him and all his people go to Allahahad, on conditio a that he would give up all his treasure, ammunition, .Cc., and vacate Cawnpore within three days. This was accepted by the general, and the usual oaths were taken that no treachery would be used. The Rajah supplied twenty-four boats and gave carriage to the river side. On the morning of the 27th our people went on board the boats—(Oh ! how I felt, when in confinement I heard that the English were going in safety. I could not keep my secret, and told the subadar of the prison guard that I was a Christian, and nearly lost my life by this exposure ;)—but had not time to let the boats go, when the enemy fired cannon upon them, and upset some; others they set fire to. Only one boat I are told managed to get away, but was afterwards picked up at a shot t distance and brought back. About 150 women and children, and about 100 European soldiers and officers and men of all classes were taken alive. The former were kept as prisoners up to the 16th of July, but the men (among whom was our poor Daniel) had their hands tied behind them, were killed with swords and mus kets, and thrown into a ditch. The women received parched grain for a few days, but afterwards they got dall and chupaties in small quantities. The rascals had bad motives for sparing them so long. At the time of their being murdered (on the 10th inst.) I am told that a number jumped alive into the well that was intended to receive their corpses rather than be butchered and insulted so unmercifully as the hardhearted brutes were using them. Of course there are many conflicting reports where the truth is so difficult to extricate from the mass of exaggeration and misstatement, but the great fact remains that these women and children were mas sacred in cold blood by that villain Nana Sahib. An officer writes from Benares As for news, it is no use mentioning what the papers will have, ♦iz., that Havelock has just destroyed lihitoor and taken thirteen more guns there, and is en route to Lucknow, crossing the Ganges to-day. All the women were killed by the Nana in batches, so many a day. He violated all he could first, and sent the rest naked into his camp for the men ; at Jhansi they tied the husbands to trees while the same atrocities were in process, and tore the children limb by limb. They've made mothers kill their own children, and that sort of thing. Poor old (a civilian) was daintily stabbed on six bayonets, and carried round kicking, and then killed. It is as well to tell these things, which don't half come up to the un tellable atrocities of the way in which ladies were tortured and exposed, because the more you all know in England the better, as for want of cavalry these wretches get very little cut up now, and they must be punished afterwards in cold blood. Another writer gives some melancholy details from the very spot : I have not been able to glean much information regard ing the noble Wheeler's gallant defence of Cawnpore. but thelinclosed little scraps of paper which I found &along the clothes of our murdered countrywomen will tend to throw some little light on the matter. I also found in the heap of bloodstained clothes three daguerreotype portraits which I retain and intend to advertise them hereafter. As soon as we reached Cawnpore after the battle we were met by a man who rushed towards us much excited—he had the appearance of a regimental cook—he proved to be a clerk of the commissariat department. He had volunteered to leave the intrenchrnent, and endeavour to gain some infor ination for Sir H. Wheeler as to the probability of relief being at hand or not; the rebels seized hint, tried him as a spy, and condemned him to three years' hard labour in irons. Accordingly he was confined with about 300 natives (most of them imprisoned for their inability to supply the Nana with funds), who, when they heard the victorious shouts of our army, made a rush at their guards, over powered them, and escaped. Poor fellow ! (Mr. S.) he had left all his family (nine) in the intrenchment, and they have, with the rest of our people, been cruelly butchered. It is a most affecting sight to see the poor fellow searching about the place where the bodies of our countrywomen were found, I suppose hoping to find some trace of his slaughtered family. He roams listlessly about, no one speaking to him or offering to sympathise with him, for we all feel that it would be almost a mockery to offer con• solation. Many people say that Wheeler should have gone into the magazine instead of intrenching himself where be did; that he would then have prevented the rebels getting the ammunition and guns. The Artillery Hospital which Wheeler defended is fearfully battered ; the rebels had guns bearing upon every inch of it, and at last I believe brought a 24 pounder to bear upon the well, which was the only one they had ; numbers were shot trying to get water from the well, and at last it was found impossible to get what was life itself, " water." It must have been at this time that the Bbitoor traitor's proposal (that Wheeler should evacuate Cawnpore and retire to Allahabad under his protection) was accepted. We know what sort of pro tection the villains showed them. All but our women and children (who were made prisoners) were treacherously butchered as soon as they had fairly placed themselves in the power of the wretches.—Letier from Cawnpore. This account is believed to be substantially correct. From a document discovered in a native doctor's house at Cawnpore the names of all the prisoners under his charge between the 7th and 15th July are found to be carefully registered. There were 163 from Cawnpore and 47 from Futtehghur. Of these some 32 died from cholera before the fatal 15th. or the ultimate movements of General Havelock no detailed account has yet reached us. On the 20th, Colonel Neill, with three companies of the 84th and some of his own Madras Fusiliers, joined him at Cawnpore, and on the some day Bhitoor was entered, blown up and burned, and thirteen heavy guns taken. Leaving Neill as brigadier-general in charg3 of Cawnpore, Havelock crossed the Ganges at the head of 1,000 men, fought the bloody but successful battle of Oonao on the 29th, and carried the position at Bupeer-ul-Gunge the same dey, with the loss of eighty-eight killed and wounded. - - On Saturday, August 1, General Neill telegraphed to the Governor-General, dated Cawnpore, 29th July, 1857, as follows : Havelock's forced march at five a.m. to-day, found strong post of enemy, captured three brass guns, lost one officer killed, three wounded ; slaughtered many of the enemy. In about an hour after, enemy in force with many cavalry advanced to meet them, were soon routed, with the loss of all their guns, twelve in number; total, fifteen brass guns taken. The enemy numbered at least thirteen thousand. The force rested a little, when it pushed on to Basanagunge, near which the enemy is said to be in force. All is well here. The Nana is about twenty miles off, on the Oude side. If he passes near Bintoor, as he threatens, we shall give a good account of him here. The following iq an extract of a letter from an officer with General Havelock's force : Camp, Ist August.—We marched from the river on the 29th, and fought three actions with the enemy on the road, who were strongly posted with heavy guns, and lots of cavalry and infantry, among the gardens and inclosures. We took all their guns, defeating them with great loss, and halted at a village called flupeer-ul-Gunge ' where we en camped, or rather bivouacked, for none of us have any tents. We were at it from five a.m. to six p.m. The heat was intense. The mutineers have blown up the bridge at Bunnoo, and we have returned to our old ground to remain until arrangements can be made for a forward movement. I am much disappointed, for I hail hoped to have been at Lucknow by this time, but I suppose there is some good reason for the delay. The garrison at Lucknow are all safe, and can hold for some time longer. We have lost nearly 100 killed and wounded ; on the three actions I had one killed and seven wounded. Thank God all of us officers escaped, although we had to stand the brunt of the enemy's fire, which was heav y , and from heavy guns, 24, 18, and 12-pounders. These twenty total guns taken, and most of them all hours—it was quite amusing to see the villains come out so cocky with our horse field batteries. No time for more. " We have returned to our old ground " may be in terpreted that Havelock, finding the rebels very strong in his front, with cholera breaking out in his little force, weakened by his losses, and encumbered by the guns he had captured, retreated to Cawnpore to place both his sick and his trophies iu safety, and