The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-16 00:00:00

to transport with us. Sir James Outram closed up
this day without annoyance from the enemy.
I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's
most obedient humble servant,
C. CAMPBELL, General, Commander-in-Chief.

ENTRY OF HAVELOCK'S FORCE INTO
LIICKNOW.
The following letter is from a medical officer in
Havelock's relieving force. We extract from it an
account of the attack upon the wounded of the
relieving force at the entry into Lucknow.
"Late on the evening of Sept. 24, the orders
came out, stating dryly and concisely that the
wounded were to be left at Alumbagh, and the
army in the morning should march on Lucknow.
We marched about 8 next morning, and a quarter
of a mile from our camp we were fairly in action.
The shot passed over and about us in a perpetual
hum or scream. Luckily they were mostly high.
As it was, no human beings could live in it, and
advance ; so the column lay down till the artillery
had silenced them, and we then got amongst some
gardens, with the walls loopholed. We were here
shot down like so many sheep, till one man broke
through the wall. On every side of me men were
falling. Well, by this time the had stormed
and taken a battery which was cutting up our army.
Here we lost another officer and many men. We
had now overcome the first opposition ; and in a
little time we stormed the bridge over the canal,
and found ourselves at the entrance of Lucknow.
We skirted the suburbs for five miles, shooting
great numbers of the insurgents and losing men
ourselves. Our route was quite different from what
they expected, and accounted for our being able to
force our way. As it was, we found numbers of
sepoys in the houses by the way, and killed great
numbers. By this time it was two o'clock, and we
had arrived at about a mile from the Residency.
Now commenced the hardest part. The enemy had
possession of a bridge, which we had to cross. On
the bridge was a battery of three guns, and there
were at different points three other batteries, all
bearing on us. The houses, gardens, and buildings
all about me were full of the enemy, and we were
in such a fire f I was with the wounded of the
—, about 300 yards from the bridge battery.
They fired around of grape at us from one gun, and
killed eight of my dooley bearers. Altogether I
lost 84 dooley bearers that day—killed and wound-
ed. This out of 394. Of course many wounded
soldiers were killed in the palanquins. All round
me were people falling ; the shot was tearing huge
branches off trees ; throwing up mud in our faces..,
After a while we had the order to advance ; the old
thing did it—the bayonet, and a cheer sent the
sepoys where such things did not. disturb them.
About four in the afternoon the —, now become
the rear-guard, got into comparative safety in a
large building. There we passed the night, and a
night of great horror it was, for the wounded of
nearly all the regiments were here ; we had of the
-- 140. Remember the whole army was under
3,000, and we had at the lowest calculation opposed to
us 40,000 men, fighting behind loopholed walls with
great numbers of guns, whilst we were in the streets
(ea very large town, and were ,being shot down by
unseen enemies. I consider our achievement of that
day the rashest in history, at the same time the
most wonderful. At daybreak the enemy got our
range in the building, and kept pouring their shot
and shell into us, killing numbers. One poor fel-
low, an assistant-surgeon in the artillery, was anxi-
ous for me to assist him in an operation. I was on
my way with him to do it • the shot were whistling
all about us. I said, ' *ell, Bertram, I wish I
could see my way out of this.' Oh,' he said,
there's no danger whatever.' Next minute he was
shot dead beside me. Two minutes before he spoke
of the pleasure he expected in rejoining his wife and
child at Lucknow. Our situation was now very
critical. The enemy were pressing very close, and
kept up a storm of shot, shell, and musketry on us.
We were cut off from the main body of the army by
about a mile, and they could not help us, as they
themselves were fighting hard. At last the colonel
came to me, and told me that his arrangements
were perfected ; he would give me a guard of 150
men, and with them I was to get the wounded into
the entrenched camp as I best could. I got the
wounded ready in a string, and after a long breath
I left the building. For 200 yards the enemy did
us no harm, but here we had to cross a deepish river
—it took me nearly up to my chest ; and such a fire
we got into here. Some of the wounded were
drowned, some killed, but most got across ; and
on we went to a atreet where we were promised
comparative safety. Our escort preceded us, firing
all the way ; but they had really no chance, they
were shot down right and left. When I got to the
entrance of the street 1 found a number of them
lying dead, and most of the others had rushed on
for their lives. On looking round I found that the
palanquin bearers were being killed from the walls,
and the remainder flung down the wounded, and
no menace or entreaty could prevail on them to lift
them again. I tried to gets few wounded together,
but the Sepoys had gathered round us oft every house
top, and had nothing to do but bring us down at their
leisure. All hope seemed gone ; as a last resource I
ran with 4 others into a small one-storied house, 3
rooms on a floor, all doors and windows. Other
fugitives now joined us, soldiers from the escort
who had escaped, and two badly wounded officers.
The Sepoys now commenced yelling fearfully. I
calculated their numbers at from 500 to 1,000.
Their leaders tried to get them to charge down on
us, but as often as they came on we gave them a
volley, and off went the curs ; then they began
their yelling again, and reviled us in Hindostauee,
telling us that in a few minutes we should massa-
cred ; they were not more than five yards off, but
round the corner, and sheltered from our fire. At
this time we expected instant death ; it seemed
incredible that ten effective men could resist 1,000,
who were firing a fearful hail of shot through the
windows. Three of our number inside were struck
down wounded, and this diminished our fire. The
sepoys all this time were massacring the wounded
men in the palanquins (we rescued two more
wounded men) ; perhaps, they killed forty by firing
volleys at the palanquins. The rebels now gave
up the attempt to storm us, but crept up to the
windows and fired in on us, so we had to lie down
ou the giesund, for a time, and let them fire over
s using
the
es d
ebay digging us ; there was no door to the doer-way, so we made
a
the floor with
by oustrriea sd e ofd u scud b
clothes to hold.
the sand we also piled up the dead so as to ob-
struct men rushing ou us. My duti, s, as the only
lei wounded officer, were to direct and encourage
the men—as a surgeon to dress the wouudel—as
abla n
a man, to use a riflo belonging to a wounded man
when he fell. After a while we saw that the enemy ,
were tired of rushing on us ; we Lad killed over 20
of them, and must have wounde 1 many more ; this
damped them. We now told off one man to fire from
each wiedow and three from the door. My post was
at a window. I had my revolver, but only five shots
left in it. I had no second, and, worst of all, no fresh
charges. I must tell yo u that an eastern window me ans
a lattice work. At this I kept watch and ward.
After a time a sepoy crept up very cautiously, to
fire as usual through the window, quite uncon-
scious that at this time a Feringhee had him
covered with a revolver. When he got about three
yards from me I shot him dead, and another, who
was coming up, was shot by one of the men. For
nearly an hour now they were very quiet, only
firing at a distance. All at once we heard in the
street a dull, rumbling noise, which froze me to the
very heart. I jumped up and said, Now, men,
now or never. Let us rush out and die in the open
air, and not be killed like rats in a hole. They are
bringing a gun on us.' The men were quite ready ;
but we now saw that it was not a gun, but some-
thing on wheels, with a heavy planking in front
too thick for our shot to enter. They brought it
to the very window I was firing at. I could touch
it, but my shots were useless. To shorten my
story, after an hour they set the house in flames,
and we were enabled to escape by breaking through
into the second room, which opened into a large
square, where we found a shed, with large doer-
ways at intervals—into this we got, carrying our
wounded, who, strange to say, were the only ones
hurt. Three of them were mortally wounded
whilst we were carrying them ; we sound men did
not get a scratch. It was a complete surprise to
the enemy; they expected us by the door, and not
the way we came, so the pleasure of shooting us as
we ran from the burning house was denied them,
and when they did see us they, with at least 600
men, only shot three already wounded men. It
was now three in the afternoon, and our position
seemed hopeless. We thought up to this time that
the general would never leave us without succour,
but now we thought that the sepoys must have
quite hemmed in our army. Imagine our horror
when we found that the shed we were in was loop-
holed everywhere ; it had been used the day before
as a place to fire on our army from, and the sepoys
came creeping up now to the loopholes, firing in
suddenly and off again. We now put a mart at
every loophole as far as they would go ; elen
wounded were put to watch, and this soon checked
the b Ail, brave sepoy, for whom one British soldier
is an object of terrible dread. We soon had a
worse alarm ; the sepoys got ou the roof, bored holes
through it, and fired down on us. The first two
shots were fired at me, the muzzles of the pieces
being, perhaps, four feet from me, and neither
shot hurt me beyond a lit of stuff from the roof
being sent- with ferce into my face, and a trifling
hurt in my hand. Nothing more wonderful in the
way of narrow escapes was ever seen. This could
not last, so we bored through t'ie wall of the :lied
into the court-yard behind, and two of us went
cautiously out to reconnoitre. For some time the
Sepoys did not see us, as it was getting dark. About
fifty yards off was a mosque, with no one in it, as I