The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-05-18
LIEUT.. GRANTS CHANCE.
II Was offered at Odds Of Fifty to
One and Was Promptly
Accepted.
Capturing a Manipur Fort With
Only Eighty Men and
Routing 1000.
An Incident of the Recent Rebellion and
Massacre In Her Majesty's East
ern Possession.

The true story Of Lieutenant Grant is
lmost too good a story to be true, and
reads like one of those Mr.. Rudyard Kip
ling invents, says Richard Harding Davis
in Harper's Weekly. Its scene is laid in
Mr.. Kipling's " territory, and it deals
with dacoits and jungles, and the little dar-
ing Goorkhas of whom Mr.. Kipling is SO
fond, and with native princes and rajahs
and hand-to-hapd fighting and the glory
Of the British arms.
In the early part of April the Associated
press. under the unfamiliar date line OF
Calcutta, told of massacre in Manipur,
wherever that may be, where semi-barba-
rous native Indians rose against the repre-
sentatives of the empress of India and
killed them treacherously while they were
negotiating terms of peace. and trying to
put the right rajah on the throne from
which troops of the wrong rajah had driven
him. The news was partly rumor, partly
horrible fact, and the names of many com
m%issiOners and officers were given as
dead and as butchered after death.
And at the end Of each newspa-
per account was the brief statement:
"Lieut. Grant. who loft Tamur for Manipur
with eighty men, has not yet been heard
from. He is believed to be dead" 1t was
= most unimportant ending and an anti
climax. Nobody but the Grants, of Grant,
In tho Highlands of Scotland, who "raised
The Black Watch knew or cared about
this unidentified and unknown Lieut.. Grant.
What was one lieutenant and eighty men
to three commissioners and colonies and
the commissioners wives and the picked
troops of the Forty fourth Gookhas?
But on the days following came fuller
and moro accurate accounts of the massa-
ere; and it was told how the Nanipuri had
shslled the Resiaency with the same cannon
the empress of India had sent them as a
token of her royal good feeling; and how
the young officers and Mrs. Grimwood had
escaped in the night, and travelled on foot
by Jungle paths for 1a0 miles, living
on reefs, to be rescued at the
las, q !, BY BY Capt s'anro cow an;. h and: 7 M iqr-
Grimwood's husband and the others who
had left the Residency to arbitrate had
been cut into quarters, and thrown into the
moat for the parish dogs to mangle as they
pleased. 1t read like a page from the his
tory of the Sepoy mutiny.. like q modern
VRI6lOU OF JIG l6ITlbl kCS vi Sd"AlRo1Cs
Delhi, and Lucknow, and it was a blow at
the British rule in India, and a trial to the
hearts of every one who read it whether he
read it in English or translated into a
foreign tongue. But there was one saving
clause, one paragraph that lightened the
rest for every one who read it, for Lieuten-
ant Grant, the unknown, marching, I'M
conscious of masacres. between Tamur n
Manipur. had at last been heard from"
His paragraph came at the end, as it
had on the day before, modestly,
rs become his rank, behind
the colonies and commissioners. "Lleuten-
ant Grant," it read, with so men, has de-
feated 1900 Manipuri, and has taken Fort
.Thobal." Now nobody knew whether Fort
Thobal was bristling with cannon or a mud
embankment, but every one could appre-
clate that 80 into 1900 goes fifty times, and
that Lieutenant Grants chance was only
one in fifty when he charged up the wall of
Fort Thobal, and drove the Manipuri across
and over the other side. And all over the
world. thanks to ~telegraphs and cablss, the
name and fame of Lieutenant Grant became
m~omentous and familiar. not only in the
clubs of London, but in the elevated cars OF
New York, and atbreakfast tables from Par.
is to Portland, Oregon. Bor if allthe worle
lover a lover, it loves a hero next, and the
ehanoe that came to Lieutenant Grant, and
the way he rose to it, became a brilliant spot
in the gloomy tale of treachery, butchery
and laundering of the Manipuri massacre
Lieut.. Grant held Fort Thobal for three
days, and then repulsed the Manipuri AGAR
at Alongtaing III a fight that lasted three
long hot hours, during which the Senaputty
prince and his two commanders were killed
and the Manipuri were driven off into thu
jungle by Lieut.. Grant mon of the Secont
Burmahs.
Gen. Sir Frederick Roberts, the com,
mander-in-chief of the Indian army, ha
----.-AIA- T .n-A n I VA fNrart yuhJal
is as it should be. and Punch has given hin
a full page all to himself; it is also as i
should be that Lieut.. Grant is as handsoin
as his portrait shows him to be, and that h
is OILY 80 years old. cit is tn
boys-the raw boys-who do tn
fighting, "Mulvaney says; land though Lieut.
Grant is no raw recruit, he is q boy in years
and the Second Burmahs are but newl.
formed. Now, while the home government
sends out more commissioners to deter
mine who blundered and who should b
punished. let us hope that some other boar
of investigation and inquiry will do NOR
for Lieut.. Grant than congratulate him
and that he may go to Simla On leave, an
ride with all the pretty girls, and wear COG
things. and drink the wine of praise an
approval, and keep out of the clutches c
Mrs. Hanksbec. And in time he may &c
his regiment and become a X. c. Wh
knows?
IA II lHS ilooiWAlloA LIB lhtltIs lIleub.
Gen. ID. G. S. st. j. Grant, who is now i
London, goes to all of his many clubs tha
the members may say, "Ah, Grant. fin
boy. that of yours; ought to be proud c
him. And then the gener;
says, "Pooh. pooh! only did his duty an
then goes home and tells HIS wife every
thing they say.
Perhaps this may seem to you u great de;
of bother about one young man; but do ne
think of what he did, bat what he migf
have done. He might have said: II ha,
no instructions to take Fort Ihobal. | ha,
no right to risk nv mems lives at odds {
fifty to one. | ought to make a masterl
detour and show my trategic %knowleda
and leave Fort Thobal and the 1000 Man
puri alone" Who would have blamed hin
Fabian would have done it. But Lieutenai
Grant walked right up the mud wall al
over the other side. 1t was his chance, yt
see, and he took it; and it teaches the NOR
that when one's chance comes it is mu'
better to be reported as heard from
than ''missinp.s