The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-21 00:00:00

OPERATIONS IN O UDE.

(From the Times' Special Correspondent.) •
THE CAMP, PURSAIDEPORE, Nov. 14.

Since the despatch of my last letter the steps for
the re-establishment of British rule in Oude have
been affording daily proofs of the sagacity with
which they were taken. Amethie menaced by
three columns, at once surrendered without a blow.
The neighbouring talookdars have hastened to make
sub Mission, and to-day -Beni Madho, whose strong-
holds we are rapidly approaching,. has sent in to
know what terms he may expect in case he yields
to the Queen's authority. These results may not
be appreciated at home by those who have not con-
sidered the subject, and who do not understand the
country or the people with whom we have to deal,
but the Government will no doubt acccept them
with profound satisfaction, for they will lead tothe
speedy pacification of the whole of this great pro-
vince. We must not be disappointed if desperate
rebels still continue to escape our columns and to
create sporadic troubles here and there, but these
will soon become mere matters of police. The sove-
reignty of India belongs to him who can establish
his thanniahs, or police stations, over the country,
and we are rapidly re-creating those substantial
tokens of our victories. But Oude is a country
nearly as large as Ireland. It contains a popula-
tion of nearly s,ooo,ooo,—warlike, turbulent, and
trained to arms. It is the mother of the Sepoys of
Bengal.. Its surface consists of a- great plain, inter-
sected by rivers, full of swamps, and covered with
dense jungles wherever the labour of man has not
redeemed the soil from trees and thorns and pre-
pared it for fertile crops. In those jungles hun-
dreds of thousands of armed men could easily lie
concealed, not, indeed, in great bodies, but in
numbers sufficiently great to permit the coalition of
two or three parties to take place at any moment
for the purposes of guerilla warfare. The crops of
one kind or another, in their rich succession, could
yield them food. The commissariat of the
Sepoy is at hand in every field and in every
pool of water. But it is only with the per-
mission of the chiefs who keep the jungle paths,
and whose forts lie hid in their recesses, that men
could find harbour and refuge in those natural
asylums. The great Duke has given us a receipt
for getting rid of jungles, and attacking forts and
fortresses thereon, characterised by his own peculiar
simplicity and grandeur. He proposed it appears by
kpassage in the last volume of his correspondence
and despatches to cut the jungle away inch by inch.
Well, if we adopted that plan and worked night and
day for the next five-and-twenty years, we might
expect Oude to be tolerably well cleared up to the
Terai, except in places where the shoots had sprung
up again from the stubborn roots. In the Jugdes-
pore jungle a square mile was considered enormous
progress in the four-and-twenty hours, with thou-
sands of coolies at work. As to the Terai itself, no
amount of labour that England could pay for would
clear away the giant forests which clothe the lower
slopes of the Himalayas and melt away into
dismal swamps, and wastes of poisonous vegeta-
tion. If those Oude populations were fairly
driven to hopeless resistance their efforts, thoug,h
powerless against our rule, would be mighty in
their influence on our finance, ani Oude would not
be worth keeping on such terms. It is, therefore, a
very great achievement for our Generals to have
effected not only the reduction of the forts of some
of the principal chiefs, but to have gained the as-
sistance of those chiefs, in dismantling their own
forts, disarming their own adherents and tenantry,
and pacifying, their own districts.
As great misconception has existed, or has been
*affected, in India with respect to our operations
during the last summer, it may be as well to state
what the nature of these operations really was, and
with what view they were undertaken. Oude had al-
ready been traversed by the columns under Franks,
Lugard, and Grant, but they had made no perma-
nent impression. Their course had been compared
to that of cannon-balls, irresistible as they pass and
leaving no trace behind, but cannon-balls do leave
impressions, and the better image is that of the ship
clearing the waters which, closing around it, soon
efface all traces of the laboured wake. It became
evident that the system of military promenades
would produce no permanent effect, but up to
the fall of Luqknow the Commander-in-Chief had
no troops available for the establishment of mili-
tary posts, which were obviously necessary to
utilise our toilsome marches, and to maintain our
grip of the country. The capture of Lucknow and
the re-establishment of our authority in its neigh-
bourhood, permitted the authorities to strengthen
the hands of our generals by the enrolment of regi-
ments of military police, which would allow the
Conimander-in•Chief to place at the disposal of his
lieutenants European soldiers, who would other-
wise have been employed on duties of police.
While Major Bruce was organising this force of
police our soldiers were not inactive, though it was
absolutely essential to give them as little to do as
possible during the fervid heats of summer. But
_Maim Sing, besieged by his countrymen at Fyza-
bad, became importunate for help. This great
chief, whose family by force, fraud, and purchase
had in two generations become proprietors of vast
extents of territory and thousands of villages, ren-
dered good service in the early part of the outbreak
by sheltering all British fugitives whom he could
get at, but for a long time subsequently he endea-
voured to pursue a doubtful neutrality, and obsti-
nately refused to come in to our camp. He actually
fought against our garrison at Lucknow, and per-
haps what he saw there satisfied him that the " gora
logue" could not be beaten. In June he declared
openly for the " white people," and the rebels at
once attacked him, shut him up, and by the middle
of July had reduced him to straits in his fortress
of Shahgunj. It became a point of honour and of
policy on our part to extricate our ally. On the
22d of July Sir Hope. Grant was ordered to ad-
vance from Nuwabgunj, a post 20 miles north-east
of Lucknow, established early in May, and to move
on Shahgunj.- It was in the middle of the rains.
At the same time Brigadier Berkeley crossed the
Ganges and established a post at Soraon. A
general movement of troops followed. The 88th
Regiment were sent from Cawnpore to Lucknow,
the `79th Regiment from Futtehguhr, took the
place, the Bth Regiment from Agra occupied
Futtehguhr, and the sth Fusiliers marched from
Calpec to Allahabad. The Oude police took the
place of the British troops who had marched to
Shahgunj, but the disturbances in Behar and Azim-
ghur detained in those districts troops originally
intended to operate in Oude, so that for some time
Brigadier Berkeley was unable to make a forward
movement from Sortion, and was obliged to content
himself with taking Ticoul and Dehayn . At last
the Ist Sikhs reached Allahabad, and Berkeley
moved up to Pertabghur, near which, owing to the
beginning of the illness which has unfortunately
proved fatal to a very able officer, he handed over
the command of the column to Brigadier Pinckney.
In Behar the operations which were carried on were
so far successful that by the third week in October
the province might be considered perfectly clear of
he enemy. In Bundelcund the enrolment of a mili-
tary police similar to that of Oude has as yet been
unsuccessful, and portions of the province are dis-
turbed, although great progress has been made in
restoring it to order. The navigation of the Jumna
has been opened, Calpee is garrisoned, Jaloun is
held, and Liddell's column has been clearing the
country between the Dessein and the Betwa. Gen.
Whitlock operated to the west from Banda, and
Brigadier-General Napiettook the fort of Pouree,
whither he moved to assist Brigadier Smith, de-
tached from the Rajpostana field force. In Oude
the left bank of the Gogra was cleared, and, with
the exception of the Byswarra country, there was
no body of rebels in Oude beyond the force at
Mithowlee and the westward. It was intended
that Brigadier Troup should drive Khan Ali Khan
across: the Gogra, establish him at Seetapore, and
reduce the country around him, but for the pre-
sent that part of the combination is defeated or
deferred. Brigadier Troup has been held in check,
near Sectapore, by a great concentration of all
the rebels in the west of Oude, who have availed
themselves of his deficiency in cavalry to haraiss
1,!.P flanks and rear and to attack his baggage.
Two regiments of cavalry have beennrdered to his
assistance, and the moment they reach him the gal-
lant officer will, no doubt, make a signal example
of Prince Feroze Shah and Khan Bahadore Khan,
with their ally of Mithowlee. But the • successes
gained by this column in action with the enemy
have not been fruitless, and its position prevents
their getting into Rohilcund, and trying to raise
disturbances in that province, which has been much
denuded of troops. In the west of Onde Barker
and Hale have swept the enemy from the open,
and have taken Rooeah, Sundee, Biswah, and
other places, gradually clearing the 'banks of the
Ganges, and restoring the civil power in the dis-
trict between Lucknow and the frontier of Rohil-
eund. Our posts were tolerably close around the
disturbed districts when the Commander-in-Chief
took the field. Simultaneously almost the whole of
our troops made a forward movement. Brigadier-
General Dowslas drove the rebels out of the Jug-
,'
despore jungle, hunted them- into the Kymore hills,
slew upwards of 1,204).ef them, and occupied their
fastnesses.; thus restoring the important country
about Arrah, Dinapore, and Patna, to peace and
security. Brigadier Kelly watched the right bank
of the Gogra, and swept the country between Azim-
ghur and Panda. Brigadier Wetherall, advancing
on the left flank of the chief, stormed Rampore
Kusieah, while Majorßulwer pushed out to Poorwa,
where, with: 2,000 men, of whom only 400 or 500
were British troops, he repulsed Beni Madho, at the
head of 15,000 men. Brigadier Evelegh has now
joined that force, and is on the west of the jungles

of Shunkcrpore, waiting to co-operate from that
side should it be necessary to force Beni. Madho
to submission. The Commander-in-Chief pushed
on towards Amcthie from the south, while
Sir Hope Grant swept down upon that for-
tress from Shunkerpore, and Brigadier Wetherell
moved from the south-east. So admirably was
the combination timed that the three columns
pitched their tents before the place at three differ-
ent sides almost to a minute of each other. The
details of the subsequent events will be learned by
those who may take the trouble of reading the nar-
rative of our operations which follows this brief
resume. Already our enemies are reduced to three
manageable bodies—one in the Setapore district,
one in the Salone district, and the third at the other
side of the Goomtee, and notably in the Buraech
division. Of Central India Ido not speak, as I
know nothing of the movements of that military
ignis fatuus, Tantia Topee, except that he has suc-
ceeded in crossing the Nerbudda, but there appears
to be no reason to apprehend much mischief; his
fangs have been drawn or filed down pretty closely.
Of course we cannot expect in every part of such
a multiplicity of operations an equal measure of
uniform success.
The story of Lord Mark Kerr's march against
Mahomed Hoosein and Ram Bux at Judgespore,
on the river Manova, in the Goruckpore district, is
as follows :—On the 26th of last month his lord-
ship, in compliance with orders he had received,
left his quarters at Hurriah, with 250 of her Ma-
jesty's 13th Light Infantry, one troop Yeomanry
Cavalry, one troop 6th Madras Cavalry, 50 sailors,
50 Madras Infantry, two guns, and a rocket car-
riage, and arrived before the enemy's position at
daybreak. To his astonishment he discovered, on
driving in the enemy's pickets, that he was in
front of a fortification with faces 200 yards long
by 150 broad, with regular curtains and bastions.
Our guns opened on the place and shelled it as
well as they could, but they were only 12-pounder
howitzers and could not make much impression on
the walls. Ram Bux, with a large party, how-
ever, made a bolt from the fort and was chased
across the river by the cavalry, but just as Lord
Mark, finding it useless to continue his fire, began
to prepare for his march back (as it would have
been contrary to orders to attack a fort with a
column unassisted by heavy guns), Mahomed Hoo-
sein, with two 9-pounders emerged from the
jungle in his rear, and threw himself across the
road to Hurriah, opening at the same time a smart
fire on the party. The column threw out a line
of skirmishers of the 13th -Light Infantry, under
cover of which they retired by echellons of
companies, and crossed the river with the guns,
although menaced by Ram Bux's people in
doing so. The road to Hurriah, on the other bank
of the Manova, was gained, and our force re-
turned to their camp with 18 casualties, having
driven off their assailants by the fire of the skir-
mishers of the rear guard, and by the front shown
by the cavalry. Reinforcements will soon be
poured into the district to dispose of Ram Bux and
his followers, and Brigadier Kelly will also be put
into a condition which will enable him to clear the
banks of the Gogra very effectually. The effect of
the affairs at Poorwah, Biswah, Rampore Kusseah,
and Simree has been most beneficial, and, as there
will be but little or no fighting now, I may as well
give the details of one of those fights which hap-
pened nearest to our column, being anticipated by
the last mail and telegrams in all that I had to say
respecting the others. I do so the more readily
because. Brigadier Wetherall's affair at Rampore
Kusseah has been made the subject of some anim-
adversions. It seems that the gallant officer who
took the place so bravely should, in the opinion of
some, have waited for the advance of -Sir Hope
Grant, with whose aid he could undoubtedly have
made the victory over the enemy much more com-
plete. Allowances, however, must be made for the
natural desire of officers in command of columns to
do whatever they can single-handed, and mono-
polise the glory. Brigadier Wetherall wrote, in-
deed, to Sir Hope Grant to ask for his assistance,
but, finding he could do the work himself, and that
the General would not be up till next morning, he
pushed on to the attack, in which, indeed, his lead-
ing files were already implicated. By the reports
received Rampore Kusseah must have been a very
formidable place to attack. It consisted of a very
strong entrenchment, constructed across the neck
of a bend of the river Saee, with a line of six bas-
tions, connected by curtains, of a total length of
700 yards, within which was a sort of citadel in
the midst of the densest jungle. Part of the works
was swept by the fire of our outworks on the other
side of the river. The approach to the place was
most difficult, the jungle thick and swampy, and in
one place it was necessary, to construct a causeway
before the troops could advance. The column ar-
rived before the place at 10 a.m. on the 3d of Nov.
It consisted of her Majesty's 79th Regiment, under
Col. Taylor, C.B. ; the Belooch Battalion, Col. Far-
quhar ; the 9th Punjab Infantry, Capt. Thelwall
two native cavalry regiments,Middleton'stroop,and
Le Mesurier's battery of Royal Artillery, two 8-inch
howitzers, and two 8-inch mortars. Inside the
works were 4,000 of the enemy, most of them sepoys
of the 17th, 28th, and 52d Native Infantry, many
of them dressed in red and wearing our uniform
and carrying our arms. The heavy guns were put
in position and played on the place soon after 10
o'clock, and under the fire the wing of the 9th
Punjaub Infantry, under Captain Thelwall, ad-
vanced towards the works near the river. Here
they were received by a heavy fire of grape, and
Captain Thelwall, thinking he saw an opportunity
of gaining great success by a rapid rush, instead of
falling back on his supports, gave the word to his
Sikhs to charge, and in a minute those hardy sol-
diers dashed into the intrenchment through the
embrasures, capturing two guns, which they at
once turned against the flying enemy. The sepoys
rallied, and seeing that the Punjaubees were few
in number, made an attempt to drive them out, but
two companies of the 79th and four companies of
the Belooch battalion came up to the assistance of
their comrades, and the attack was repulsed. Just
as the reinforcements entered the place a large
mine, containing B,ooolb. of powder, said to be the
principal magazine, blew up and hurled some of our
men into the air. As the body of a native was
observed flying up in the blast, it is supposed that
the mine was fired by a fusee. Colonel Farquhar
was at the same time so severely wounded that his
leg had to be amputated. But the enemy, who made
one more attempt to recover their work, were now
beaten, with the loss of 300 men, and fled through
the jungles. The cava7ry pursued them as well as
they could, but no guns could be sent after them.
In the pursuit Dr. Clement Smith received a very
severe wound in the arm from a sepoy armed with
a tulwar, and several of our cavalry were killed
and wounded. Inside the work the captors found
17. guns and 5 mortars, both- mostly of small
calibre, though there were some good Pieces of
brass and iron ; all of them were burst or rendered.
unserviceable. In addition they discovered a foun-
dry for casting cannon, an establishment for making
gun-carriages, English circular saws included, and
a laboratory for gunpowder. The colours of the 52d
N.I. were taken by Duffadar Wallee Mahomed
Khan, who slew the bearer in single combat. Bri-
gadier Wetherell speaks in the highest terms of
Capt. Thelwall, Col. Taylor, Col. Farquhar, Major
Le Mesurier, Capt. Briggs, and• other officers, and
of the conduct of the men (about 3,000) under his
command. Our loss was—H.M.'s 79th, 2 killed 7
wounded; Belooch Battalion, 1 officer wounded, 1
killed, 14 wounded ' • 9th Punjab N. 1., 4 killed, 30
wounded; Ist Punjab Cavalry, 7 killed, 5 wounded,
and one officer wounded. It will be seen from this
that the heat of the fighting was borne by the
Punjabees, and that the pursuit of the enemy by
cavalry is a very dangerous service. Indeed, in
every action of the campaign this has proved to be
the case. When brought to bay the enemy fight
individually like tigers, and some of our very best
officers have fallen in conflict with isolated Sepoys
or matchlockmen. As to the other matter alluded
to, I must express a doubt whether it is good po-
licy always to send the Punjabees to the front,
however agreeable it may be to save our men from
needless exposure. The Sikhs and Punjabees are
quite vain enough at present, and it is not politic
to give ground for the reflections which may arise
in their minds if they see that they, in most cases,
are selected for forlorn hopes, assaulting - columns,
and long marches..
I must now take up my story at the point where
my last letter was brought to a close—the camp at
Beylah, which the Commander-in-Chief reached by
a forced ride on the morning of the 2d Nov. Here
it was necessary to halt for some days, in order to
allow the columns under Sir H. Grant and Wether-
all to close up, as well as to give time for testing
the effect of the proclamation on the neighbouring
districts. The principal enemy of the Government
in this quarter was Rajah Lall Madho Singh of
Amethie, a Raj poot of ancient family and large pos-
sessions. His case was rather peculiar as regards his
claims to consideration. At the annexation, or rather
after it, when that most fatal and pernicious resettle-
ment of Oude took place, in which our officers played
with estates and titles as if they were footballs, we
took from the Rajah a very large portion of terri-
tory and gave it to rival claimants. The Rajah, no
doubt, was incensed against us, but still, when the
mutiny and revolt broke out, he received the Eng-
lish refugees from Salon, and sheltered and for-
warded them, men, women, and children in safety
to Allahabad. While he was doing this the Go-
vernment was busy confiscating his property. If
I am rightly informed, the authorities, without any
proof, took it for granted that the Rajah was a
rebel, and seized'upon several lacs of rupees which
he had at Benares, and to his applications for re-
dress he received in reply a summons to come in
and surrender himself. Taking the :circumstances