The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-27 00:00:00

CAWNPORE.

We take the following interesting narrative of
events at Cawnpore from letters published in the
Calcutta Englishman
" CAMP; OAWNPORE, Nov. 30.
" We arrived here on the 28th in time to prevent
a second massacre ; the Gwalior troops were attack-
ing the place, and it seems the affair was mis-
managed. Our positions without the entrenched
camp were deserted without fighting on our side.
Two of our guns were nearly taken ; the Naval
Brigade, being without support, were obliged to
leavethem ; the sudden advance of the enemy seems
to have frightened our people. Windham, however,
drove them off, and took some guns ; the brutes,
hearing of his (to them) unexpected arrival, bolted,
but about 2,000 are said to be in the city, which we
are shelling to-day—this is sad disappointment to
us. We expected to get a few comforts on reach-
ing Cawnpore, and now we cannot get anything ;
the rebels have possession of all. One of the mer-
chants, who brought things down to Cawnpore, has
lost all his property, 10,000 rupees' worth. The
enemy, it is said, are entrenching themselves close
to the city—pluck is it not ? Our position is pre-
carious, with all the sick, wounded (1,500 ours
alone), and ladies and children. The Chief, I be-
lieve, will wait here for reinforcements, and get the
ladies off to Allahabad at once. Ours is an immense
camp, th© followers, I may say, innumerable. Our
line of march extended eight miles, and the rear
guard, since leaving Lucknow, always came up next
morning. Since my last to you we have been
doing gaeatuPlitelia fn the newspapers. We came
back faster than we went from Alumbagh to Cawn-
pore in two marches ; our last was 30 miles on the
28th, from 7 a.m. to —. I cannot tell you when
the rear got in, but we in the advance got in at
7 p.m., and tired and hungry we were, but the
Chief ordered the troops to push on, as we could
hear heavy firing at Cawnpore, and a message had
arrived to say the Gwalior force had suddenly
attacked the place. I have been in a hard-fought
battle, that much I can say, for the Sepoys defended
Secundra, most obstinately to the last, so much so
that it was the opinion of all that, though we
could take Lucknow, it would be with heavy loss
—a loss which cannot easily be replaced, and
would have placed us in the power of the Gwalior
force, which,
by-the-bye, they must have cal-
culated on—hence this attack on Cawnpore. Now
I will give an account of our doings. On the
12th inst. we reached Alumbagh (i. e. in our up-
ward journey). Next day (13th) a column went
to attack Jellahabad, which we found deserted,
and blew up the old fort ; 14th, marched onwards
cautiously, making a long round, so as to avoid
their batteries, &c. Near Lucknow the enemy
eppeared—i. e
. at a place called Dill Khoosa,
four miles distance. Here our fighting com-
menced. The Artillery came into action first,
when the enemy's guns were silenced. Our in-
fantry and cavalry cleared the ground, but Jack
Pandies ran so fast that we did not come up to
them. The Dill Khoosa, which is a fine-looking,
palace, in which the rebels were, was finely bat-
tered by our guns. Next the enemy made a
stand in the Martiniere School ; their round shot
here killed a good number of our men, Many a
round shot and bullet passed over my head. It was
a mercy to us the brutes had no shells, as their
practice was good. We fired at the School, in
which we could see the Jacks scudding along ; it
is greatly injured ; daylight let in many places.
Here some guns were taken by us, but, as usual,
our infantry and cavalry could not come up to
charge the brutes, but kept up a running fire at
them, and deadful potting from behind walls, &c.
By 4 p.m. the school was clear, but the enemy oc-
cupied a village close by till near dark, when we
took the place at the point of the bayonet, and set
fire to it. The next day we occupied our ground,
and had skirmishes with the enemy ; we were a
couple of miles from the Residency, and all day
de ayed to throw dust in their eyes. The Chief
determined on making a round again to get at it.
Had we gone straight me, we would have found
them well prepared to meet us. Next day we
started on our grand excursion ; I cannot forget
the caution and silence of that day ; the
canal was crossed without opposition (it was our
great sticking point in the straight course). On
the Lucknow side the enemy
were seen moving on
as we advanced. All went on well till we reached
Secundra, about a mile from the Residency. It is
another palace building With strong pucke walls,
and here the cepoys fought better than ever they
did in their lives, but of course the brutes knew they
were behind strong
walls, and had no means of
escape, as there was only one gate, and that
towards us. Our guns fired boa-,
making breaches,
and trying to silence three
guns which were doing
us great mischief with round shot. Had they had
shells our loss would have been double. The infan-
try were all lying down and I.itig—a constant blaze
on both sides was kept UP. When breaches were
made, our men went in with cheers, and Jack
Sepoys were slaughtered wholesale—in two places
they lay five feet high ; some escaped by means of
a rope ladder ; 1,700 and odd were counted of their
dead, and burned in this place. Our loss was 450
killed and wounded. Poor Capt. Hardy was killed,
Lieut. Ford wounded, and three gunners killed,
and two mortally wounded ; fighting did not cease
till dark. About 5 p.m. another large building
was taken ; Peel's brigade breached the place.
Captain Peel got a gun up to 10 feet of the wall,
but suffered greatly ; he offered the Victoria Cross
to his 'pen if they brought the gun up. Sikhs and