Note 506 — PART THIRD. HISTORY OF THE HIGHLAND REGIMENTS. (continued 15)

The garrison at Cawnpoor, under the command of Sir Hugh Wheeler, was induced to surrender, after a most heroic defence of three weeks, on promise of a safe conduct to Allahabad, and on condition that the force should march out under arms, with 60 rounds of ammunition to every man; that carriages should be provided for the conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the children; and that boats, victualled with a sufficiency of flour, should be in readiness, at the Suttee Chowra Ghât, or landing-place (on the Ganges), which lay about a mile from the British entrenchment. On the morning of the 27th of June 1857 the garrison, numbering, with women and children, nearly 800, was marched down to the landing-place; but before the embarkation was completed, a fire of grape and musketry was opened upon the boats, and a fearful massacre took place. Only 125 women and children were spared from that day’s massacre, and reserved for the more awful butchery of the 15th of July. Upwards of a hundred persons got away in a boat, but only four made good their escape, as within three days the boat was captured by the mutineers and taken back to Cawnpoor, where the sixty male occupants were shot, the women and children being put into custody with the 125 already mentioned.

Our illustration is from a photograph, and shows the Fisherman’s Temple. For full details of the Cawnpoor massacres, we may refer our readers to the volume entitled Cawnpore, by G. O. Trevelyan.