Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1894-12-15
j. II. MILLER & SONS.

]
II years of age hoisted Oh the top of the
Hindoo temple Oh the banks two flags,
q Hindoo and Mohammedan flag, at
which signal the boatmen and armed
natives jumped from the boats and swan
for the shore, and from inuulnerablo
guns the natives ON the bank fired CT
tho boats. and masked batteries above
and below roared with destruction, and
the boats sank with their precious car
go, and all went down save three strong
swimmers, who got to the opposite
shore. Those who struggled ont near by
were dashed to death. Mana Sahib ard
his staff with their swords slashed to
pieces General Wheeler and his staff,
who had hot got we'll away from the
shore.
l said that the young and attractive
women were not allowed to get into the
boats. These were marched away under
the guard of tho sepoys
Days of Horror.
(Which way" / inquired. ~ will
| show you," said Mr.. Lee Again we
took seats III the carriage and started for
the climax of desperation and diabolism.
Now we are on the way to summer
house. called the assembly rooms,
which had been built for recreation and
! pleasure. 1t had two rooms, each 20 by
10, and some windowless closets, and
here were imprisoned FOG helpless peo-
pie. 1t was to become the prison CT
these women and children. Some of
these sepoys got permission of Mana
Sahib to take one or more of these la
dies to their own place on the promise
they should be brought back to the sum-
mer garden next morning. A daughter
Of General Wheeler was so taken and
did not return. She afterward married
the Mohammedan who had taken her
to his tent. Some sepoys amused them
selves by thrusting children through
with bayonets and holding them up be-
fore their mothers in the summer house
All the doors closed and the sepoys
standing guard, the crowded women
and children waited their doom for IS
days and nights amid sickness and flies
and stencil and starvation.
Then Mana Sahib heard that Have
| lock was coming, and his name was
terror to the sepoys. Lest the women
and children imprisoned in the summer
house, or assembly rooms, should be lib
| Grated, he ordered that their Threats
should be cut. Tho officers were COM
manded to do the work and attempted
! it, but failed because the law of caste
would not allow the Hindoo to hold the
! victims while they We're being slain.
Then 100 men were ordered to fro
through the windows, but they fired
over the heads of the imprisoned ones,
and only few were killed. Then Mana
| Sahib was i'll rage and ordered pro-
fessional butchers from among the low
est of the gypsies to go at the work.
Five of them, with hatchets and swords
and knives began the work, but three
of them collapsed and tainted under the
ghastliness, and it was left to two
butchers to complete the slaughter.
The struggle, the sharp cut, the blind
ing blow, the cleaving through scalp
and skull, the begging for life, the
death agony of hour after hour, the
tangled limbs of the corpses, the piled
up dead-only God and those who We're
inside the summer house can ever know.
Tho butchers came out exhausted,
thinking they had done their work, and
the doors were closed, but when they
were again opened three women and
three boys were still alive. All these
Were soon dispatched, and not "a Chris
tan or a European was left in Gavin
pur. The murderers were paid 80 cents
for each lady slain. The Mohammedan
assassins dragged by tho hair the dead
| bodies out of the summer house and
threw them into we'll, by which l
stood with such feelings as you cannot
imagine But after the mutilated bodies
had been thrown into the well the rec
ord of the scene remained in hieroglyph-
les of crimson on the floor and wall
of tho slaughter house. An eyewitness
says that as he walked in the blood was
shoe deep, and ON this blood were tufts
of hair, pieces of muslin, broken combs
fragments of pinafores, children's straw
hats, a cardcase containing curl, with
the inscription, ''Ned's hair, with
love-" few leaves of an Episcopal
prayer book; also book entitled
Preparation For Death;' Bible on
the fly leaf of which was written, "For
darling mamma, from her affcctionate
daughter, Isabella Blair, =" both the one
who presented it and the one to whom
it was presented departed forever.
said, "Mr. Lee, l have heard that
indelicato things were found written ON
the walls. He answered, mo, but
these poor creatures wrote in charcoal
and scratched on the wall the story of
the brutalities they had suffered -
HaveIocLs to the Rescue.
When the English and Scotch troops
came upon the scene, their wrath was
so great that General Neill had the
butchers arrested, and before being shot
compelled them to wipe up part of the
floor of this place of massacre, this be-
ing the worst of their punishment, for
there is nothing that Hindoo so hates
as to touch blood.
When Havelock came upon the scene,
he had this order annulled. The well
was now not only full of human bodies,
but corpses piled on the outside The
soldiers were for many hours engaged in
covering the dead.
1t was about oclock in the evening
when | came upon this place in Gavin
pur. The building in which the mas
sacre took place has been torn, down and
garden of exquisite and fragrant
flowers surrounds the scene Mr. Lee
pointed out to US some 20 mounds con-
tanning bodies or portions of bodies of
those not thrown into the well. A sol
dier stands on guard to keep the foliage
and flowers from being ruthlessly pulled
] asked a soldier if might take a rose
as q .nemento, and he handed me a
cisstcr Of roses, red and white, both |
cclers suggestive to me-the red typical !
OF the carnage there enacted and the
white for the purity of those who from
that spot assembled.
But Of course the most absorbing in
Serest concentrated at tho well, into |
which hundreds of women and children