The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1895-01-10
NUMBER 46.
yards from the gate. Long grass now,
but then blood-spattered, bullet scar
red opening in the wall


red opening in the wall.
AS we stood there, although the scene
was thirty-seyen years ago, saw them
come in-.Havelock pale and sick, but
triumphant, and Outram, whom all the
equestrian statues in Calcutta and Eu-
rope can not too grandly present.
what then happened?'' said to my
escort. "Oh," he said, s'that is impos-
sible to tell. The earth was removed
from the gate, and soon all the army of
relief entered, and some of us laughed,
and some cried, and some prayed, and
some danced. Highlanders SO dust COW
cred and enough blood and wounds on
their faces to make them unrecogniza-
BILE snatched the babes out of their
mothers arms and kissed them and
passed the babies along for other sol
diers to kiss, and the wounded men
crawled out of the hospital to join in
the cheering, and it was wild jubilee
until, the first excitement passed, the
story of how many of the advancing
army had been slain on the way began
to have fearful effect, and the story of
suffering that had been endured in
side the fort, and the announcement to
children that they were fatherless, and
to wives that they were widows; sub
merged the shouts of joy with wailing
of agony. @
''But were you not embarrassed by
the arrival of Havelock and fourteen
hundred men who brought no food
with them?' He answered.: "Of course
we were put on smaller rations imme-
diately in order that they might share
with us, but we knew that the coming
of this reinforcement would help us
to hold the place until further relief
should come. Had not this first relief
arrived as it did, in day or two at
most and perhaps in any hour the be-
seigers would have broken in, and our
end would have come. The Sepoys had
dug six mines under the residency, and
would soon have exploded all" !"
After we had obtained few bullets
that had been picked out of the wall
and piece of bombshell we walked
around the eloquent ruins, and put our
hands into the scars of the shattered
masonry and explored the cemetery in
side the fort, where hundreds of the
dead soldiers await the coming of the
Lord of Hosts at the last day, and we
could endure no more. Ny nerves were
all a-tremble, and my emotions were
wrung out, and said, s'Let us CO." /
had seen the residency at Lucknow the
| day before with beloved missionary,
and he told me many interesting facts
concerning the besiegement of that
| place, but this morning l had seen it in
| company with one who in that awful
| 1857 of the Indian mutiny with his own
! fire had fought the besiegers, and with
his own ear had heard the yell of the
miscreants as they tried to storm the
walls, and with his own eyes had wit
| messed scene of pang and sacrifice and
! endurance and bereavement and Prov
ess and rescue which has made all this
| Lucknow fortress and its surroundings
| the Mount Calvary of the nineteenth
century.
On the following day, about four
miles from the residency, / visited the
grave of Havelock. The scenes of hard
ship and self-sacrifce through which he
| had passed were too much for mortal
endurance, and a few days after Have
lock left the residency which he had
relieved he lay in tent a-dying, while
| his son, whom / saw in London on my
way here, was reading to the old hero
the consolatory Scriptures. The tele-
graph wires had told all nations that
Havelock was sick unto death. He had
received the message of congratlation
from Queen Victoria over his triumphs
and had been knighted, and such re-
ception as England never gave to any
man since Wellington came back from
/ Waterloo awaited his return. But he
! will never again see his native land.
He has led his last army and planned
| the last battle. Yet he is to gain an
other victory. He declared it when in
his last hours he said to Gen. Outram:
Il die happy and contented. I have
for 40 years SO ruled my life that when
death came l might face it without
fear. To die is to gain" Indeed this
was no new sentimentality with
him. He once stated that in
boyhood with four companions he
was accustomed to seek the .seclu-
sion of one of the dormitories for pur-
poses of devotion, though certain in
those days of being branded as Meth
odists and canting hypocrites." He
had in early life been immersed in q
| Baptist church. He acknowledged
God in every victory and says in one Of
his dispatches that he owes it ITO the
power of the Enfield rifle in British
hands, to British pluck and to the bless
ing of Almighty God on a most right
eous cause" He was accustomed to
spend two hours every morning in
prayer and Bible reading, and if the
army was to march at o'clock he
arose for purposes OF religious devotion
at 6 o'clock, and if the army was to
march at o'clock he arose at 4.
! Sir Henry Havelock, the son in whose
arms the father died, when / came
through London invited three of the
heroes of Lucknow to meet me at hi.
table and told me concerning his father
some most inspiring and Christian
things. He said: "My father knew mo-
what fear was He would say to m,
in the morning as he came out of hi