The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-05 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, SEPTEMBER 5,1857.

the 16th of May. The garrison of that station, the Euro-
pean regiment having been transferred to Lucknow,
consisted of three native infantry regiments, the Ist, 53rd,
and .13th, one native cavalry corps (the 2nd), and about
fifty European artillerymen. The station is built on a
dead level, possesses no fort or place of refuge, and is in
every respect ill adapted for defence. When, therefore, the
news of the Meerut revolt reached Cawnpore, and it became
evident that that example would shortly be followed by the
native garrison there, Sir Hugh Wheeler at once turned
his attention towards the provision of a fortified position,
in which, at all events, he might await the arrival of sue-
emirs. He pitched upon the hospital barrack, in the centre
of 'the grand parade, for the purpose. He intrenched it,
armed it with all the guns of the battery, placed in it the
women belonging to the depot of her Majesty's 32nd Foot,
the ladies of the sta ion and others, and himself remained
prepared to act on the first sound of alarm as circumstances
might dictate. From the 15th of May to the sth of June
the feelings of the sepoys were manifested in an unmis-
takeable manner. The men of the 2nd Light Cavalry sent
their families to their homes. Pune/myth, or native meet•
ings in the lines, were of nightly occurrence, and some of
the men of the Ist Native Infantry showed by their insolent
gestures that the example of Meerut and Delhi had not
been lost upon them. Had the measure been possible,
Sir Hugh Wheeler would have disarmed them at once, but
with fifty Europeans to back him he was well aware that
such a proceeding would only precipitate a revolt. He
therefore carefully bided his time. In order, however, to
be quite ready for any emergency, he begged Sir Henry
Lawrence, who had about 000 Europeans to control the
whole province of Oude, to send him one company of her
Majesty's 32nd to remain at Cawnpore until reinforcements,
then on their way, should reach him. Sir Henry sent him
seventy men—all that he was able to spare, as he himself
was in a very critical position.
Matters went on in the same unsatisfactory way—con-
stant alarms and yet no actual crisis, until the end of
May, when about eighty Europeans, belonging partly to
the 84th Foot, partly to the Madras Fusiliers, reached
Cawnpore. The seventy men of the 32nd were then
returned to Lucknow.
On the 31st letters were written to Calcutta to state
that an outbreak was imminent, that it Hugh Wheeler
had no means at his disposal to put it down, that there
were from 400 to 500 women and non-combatants at the
station, and to defend these not more than 150 fighting
men. The utmost he could do would be to defend them
all in the intrenched hospital, which he hnd victualled for
three weeks, until reinforcements could arrive from Cal-
cutta. The Ist, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of June passed away ;
not one day without alarm ; and yet there was no outbreak.
On the morning of the sth an officer, the only one who,
from the first, had pooh•pooh'd the idea of an insurrection,
wrote to a friend in Calcutta, ridiculing the precautions
that had been made. In the afternoon of the same day ne
wrote to the same friend inclosll•ng his will, and stating
that the crisis had arrived or would be upon them that
evening. He, poor fellow, was one of its first victims.
The particulars of the insurrection have not yet been told.
We only know that many officers were killed on their way
to the intrenched camp, that one of the first acts of the
mutiaeers was to seize the treasure, about 160,0001. ; to
open the gaols, and let loose the prisoners. They then
gutted and set fire to the houses, murdered every Christian
they came across, and finally proceeded to attack the in-
trenched barracks.

Here, however, General Wheeler had an advantage. The
rebels had no guns. He had several, though of small
calibre, and with their assistance he would have been able
to keep any amount of insurgents armed only with old
Brown Bess at bay till the end of time.
It is at this point of the narrative that Dhoondoopunt
Nenajee, quasi Rajah of Bhitoor, appears upon the scene.
This fiend in human shape was the adopted son of the late
Peishwa. On the demiae of that functionary he applied to
the Government of India, and subsequently to the Court of
Directors, for the continuation to him of the enormous
pension assigned to the deceased. By both parties he was
refused, but Lord Dalhousie allowed him to keep six guns
at his castellated palace at Bliitoor. These guns turned
the scale against our unhappy countrymen at Cawnpore.
This man, generally styled the Nana Sahib, was well
known to the residents of Cawnpore, and in prosperous
times was always glad, or appeared glad, to receive them
at his castle, and to accompany them on their shooting ex'
cursions. He is a middle•aged man, darkeomplexioned,
and but for a dishonest expression would have been con•
sidered a goodlooking man. The writer has seen him and
shot in his company. The moment, however, that he
heard of the mutiny at Meerut, and had felt the pulse of
the troops at Cawnpore, his mind was nride up. We had
refused him his " rights "; he determined to gain them
himself or perish in the attempt. His first hostile act
was committed on the persons of fugitive ladies and
children from Futteyghur and elsewhere, about a hundred
in number. Ilhitoor is only six miles above Cawnpore,
and as they were passing the former place en route to the
latter he 'topped their boats, brought them on shore, and
remorselessly shot every one. He then tied their bodies
together and threw them into the river. This was Dhoon-
doopunt Nenajee's declaration of war against the British
Government. This occurred early in June. The revolt
broke out at Cawnpore on the sth. No sooner had
intimation of it reached the Nana than he took his guns
and joined the rebels, assuming the command in person.
Guns were procured also from other quarters of large
calibre, and with these he commenced pounding Wheeler's
intrenchment, to which, with his small calibre guns, he
could not adequately reply. Notwithstanding this, and
that in the first fortnight he lost about one•third of nis
force, Wheeler's heart never failed him. Sally after sally
did he make, and always drove the enemy before him.
Had not there been so great a crowd of ladies under his
charge he could with ease have cut his way to Allahabad.
At 100), on the Uth of June, they had but two days'

supply of food left; they had no water; their ammunition
was at its lowest ebb. From being confined, 000 in
number, in a barrack originally designed to contain about
200, and from the bodies ►ying unburied all around them,
disease in a had form had come among them, and was deci-
mating their ranks. But the heart of the gallant Wheeler
rose with the crisis. On the 211th he was determined to
make one last effort—one grand assault on the enemy's po-
sition, and to take from them the necessary supplies. lie
came out with his half-starved band, charged the enemy,
and drove them from their position; but he had no
cavalry. The enemy had been joined by a second regiment
from Oude, and the two coming upon his flanks just as he
drove the infantry before him—coming with a proportion
of twelve to one, compelled him to fight his way back. He
himself was mortally wounded, and lost many men in this
action. Its result and the death of Wheeler the next day
damped the hopes of the garrison. They had neither
food, water, nor ammunition; to remain there was to die,
In this emergency they sent Mr. Stacy, the deputy col.
lector, on the 27th of June, to treat with Nana Sahib. He
was received by that victorious leader with great civility.
The following most favourable conditions were agreed
upon :—The garrison (including women, children, and
camp followers) were to be permitted to take their arms,
property, and a lac and a half of rupees with them into
country boats provided for their reception, in which they
were to proceed to Allahabad. The ingenuity of hell never
before devised a blacker scheme of treachery than that
deliberately planned by the Nana and shared in by all the
rebels at Cawnpore, those rebels being sepoys who for
years had eaten our salt. Our poor, miserable, half-starved
countrymen were conducted faithfully enough to the boats
—officers, men, women, and children—and pushed off into
the stream in full confidence in the good faith of these
devils; but they had scarcely done so when, on a signal
given by the Nana himself, guns were opened upon them
from the bank, and out of the forty boats they embarked in
some were sunk, others set on fire, and the rest pushed over
to the Oude side, where cavalry in waiting for them, in
their eagerness to slay the Kafirs (infidels), rode their
horses belly deep into the river to meet the boats and cut
and hack at our unhappy countrymen and women, who
vainly tried to escape. One boat, however, actually did
manage to run the terrible gauntlet successfully, and got
ten miles down the river, but they were pursued, overtaken,
captured, and brought back in triumph to the barracks,
where the men were all shot, and the women reserved for
a worse fate.

Meanwhile, while unknown to the authorities at
Calcutta these fearful atrocities were being perpetrated
at Cawnpore, every effort was being made to send Euro.
peen troops up the country. As fast as they came in
from Madras, Ceylon, Burmah, the Isle of France, Persia,
and other places, they were packed into steamers and
dak garrees (post carriages), and sent oft'. But other
stations too had mutinied. l3enares had been almost, Alla-
habad entirely, in the hands of the rebels, and it was neces-
sary to settle those two places, the latter being especially ne-
cessary as the base of future operations, before any move-
ment could be made upon Cawnpore. All this was done
as quickly as possible. Colonel Neile came up to Allahabad,
and with the assistance of the hangman's rope soon
succeeded in restoring order at the station. As soon as
possible, he sent off a force of 400 Europeans and 6410
Sikhs, under Major Renaud, in the direction of Cawnpore,
and on the 10th of July General Havelock, with 1,200
Europeans, followed. I shall touch very briefly on their
subsequent operations, as they will be fully described by
your other correspondents. On the 12th General Have-
lock joined Renaud, on the 13th surprised and defeated
the rebels at Futteypore, on the Pith, again, at a nuddee
twenty miles from Cawnpore, and on the 16th at Cawn-
pore itself, after a very obstinately contested engagement,
after which the Nana, protected by his cavalry, retreated
upon Bhitoor, which is of difficult access and strongly
fortified. To complete the account of the catastrophe of
the unfortunate remnants of the Cawnpore garrison, I
may here state that the commissioner of the district re-
ported to the Government that their bodies were found
in a well in the Assembly-rooms compound, bearing upon
them marks of the most indecent and inhuman treatment
it is possible to conceive.
The following extracts from the letter of an
officer whose position enables him to have the best
information, addressed to his wife in England, con-
tains, perhaps, the most authentic list of those who
have perished. We still believe, however, that many
returned as murdered will be found to have
escaped :
- -

July 1.
A letter from Sir H. Lawrence, dated the 20th of Jane,
with news from Cawnpore, gives the following :
" Sir M. Jackson, two sisters, Mrs. Dorin, Captain
Hearsey, and Captain Orr, are safe. The Cawnpore casual-
ties are Brigadier Jack, Colonel Williams, Major Prout,
Sir G. Parker, Lieutenant Quin (sen.), Major Lindsay, and
many ladies ; among the rest, Mrs. Wiggens died from heat
and exposure. Messrs. Halliday, Reynolds, Poole, Smith,
Redrnont, Supple, Eckford, Demster, Jervis, Chalwin,
Hilleradon, and many others, killed. Lieutenant Ira:
48th, killed ; most of the Seetapore party saved. Colonel
Birch, the Christians. Gowan, and Snells, killed."
This finishes Sir H. Lawrence's letter.
The Gwalior Contingent have risen to a man. It ap-
pears Brigadier. General Ilavelock, with a force, had pushed
on from Allahabad as far as as Futteynore, sixty miles on,
and exactly halfway between Allahabad and Cawnpme.
He had expected to be opposed by rebels, but found no
enemy, so he sent on men to ascertain the truth of a report
of the fall of Cawnpore. They returned, said it was true,
that General Wheeler had been wounded in the leg on
Wednesday, the 2nd, and on the following day was mortally
wounded ; that most of the officers had been killed in the
narrow intrencbmeut which they held. Seeing all further

resistance was useless, they surrendered. Nana Sahib
barbarously murdered all the women and children, the
remnant of the Cawnpore garrison, whom it appears he
had kept as hostages.
Agra is gone, that is, the city is in the hand of the rebels.
The Europeans are, as far as we know, in the fort, which
is strong enough to hold out for some time. At Saugor th
Europeans are in the fort. Brigadier Sage, with grese
forethought, has laid in six months' provisions. At Jubbult
pore there is no fort, but the Europeans have intrenched-
themselves in the Residency under the political agent,
Erskine. Futteyghur is gone ; in fact in the central pro-
vinces we now hold Meerut, Lucknow, Agra, and Alll4llll-
- The good news is, General Havelock reports the
enemy before him are running short of caps, which they
cannot manufacture. The last accounts trom Lucknow
stated the enemy there were short of round shot, also of
powder, but of this last they continue to manufacture some
within the city walls.
The Eckford named as killed at Cawnpore must be
Ensign Eckford, of the 56th. His father, General Eckford,
was, when I last heard, at Landour, in the hills.
The Jervis, too, must be an engineer officer, as I have
heard Captain Jervis, of the 56th, came home two months
ago. The Prendergast mentioned at Agra as being killed
may possibly be Captain Prendergast, of the filth, which
corps was, I think, stationed at Agra.

Meantime active preparations were making at
Allahabad for the relief of Cawcpore. On the Ist of
July a column of Madras Fusiliers and Sikhs, under
Major Renaud, started on their way to Cawnpore, to
clear the road, a steamer, with 100 Fusiliers and two
guns, keeping abreast of the force and protecting it.
A body of irregular horse at the same time scoured
the villages on the left, and reported them empty
and the zemindars absent. Major Renaud drove all
partial opposition before him, captured several
sepoys of the oth NI., who paid the penalty of
their lives, and then made his way as far as Khaga
on the Stn. 0 the and Brigadier General Havelock
reached Allahabad from Benares, and proceeded on
the 7th to join Major Renaud, by forced marches.
He had with him about 1,300 men of her Majesty's
81th and 61th, the 13th Irregular Horse, and the
remnant of 0:ule Irregulars. On the 11th he
reached Koh, and on the 13th joined Major Renaud
at daybreak, within four miles of Futteypore. Major
Renaud had marched nineteen miles during the
night, and General Havelock twenty-four. A de-
tach►neut thrown forward to reconnoitre towards
Futteypore, where Nana Sahib was intrenched, was
met by the enemy, who marched forthwith to action.
We subjoin the brigadier's official report of the
gallant action which took place, and of the vigorous
measures with which he followed up his victory :

From Brigadier-General Havelock to the Governor.
General, from Futteypore, by telegraph, dated Allahabad,

_
kith July, 11.35 a.m.
I have to acquaint your lordship that I have this morn-
ing attacked and totally defeated the insurgents, capturing
eleven guns, and scattering their forces in utter confusion
in the direction of Cawnpore. By two harassing marches
1 joined Major Renaud's advanced column three hours
before daylight, and encamped about eight o'clock four
miles front Futteypore, where, pitching our tents, the
enemy advanced out of Futteypore and opened fire upon a
reconnaissance under Colonel Tytler.
I had wished to defer the fight until to-morrow, but,
thus assailed, was compelled to accept the challenge.
I marched with eight guns in the centre, under Captain
Maude, Roy al Artillery, forming the whole of the infantry
in quarterdistance column, in support.
Captain Mautle's tire electrified the enemy, who aban-
doned gun after gun, arid were then driven by our skir-
mishers and column through garden inclosures and the
streets of Futteypore in complete confusion.
My loss is merely nominal; nut a single European
touched. My column had marched twenty-four miles up
to the ground I write from ; Major Renaud's nineteen
miles. The conduct of the troops in sustaining the fatigue
of so long a march, and enduring the heat of a frightful
sun, is beyond praise. The enemy's strength is said to
have been two regiments of cavalry and three of infantry,

and eleven guns.
It is stated that the native irregular cavalry with the
brigadier's force behaved very badly in the action at
Futteypore, and refused either to charge or lira upon
the rebels. Several of them, it is reported, went
over to the enemy. The remainder were at once
disarmed. Upon the 15th a second battle took
place, and the intrenched position of Nana Sahib
was stormed, and on the next day General Havelock
pushed forward, attacked Nana Sahib at Cawnpore,
totally defeated him, and recaptured the city. We
subjcin the general's orders:—
From Brigadier General Havelock, Camp Kullenpore,