LUCKNOW. 2nd. to 21st. of March, 1858.
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Sir Colin Campbell, leaving a portion of his army at the Alumbagh, under Sir James Outram, commenced his march upon Cawnpore on the 27th. of November, 1857, and arrived at Bunnee that evening. On the following morning he received intelligence of the attack made upon Major-General Windham,—who had been fiercely engaged with the Gwalior rebels. That officer on the 26th. attacked one of the enemy’s Divisions, eight miles from Cawnpore, routed them and captured all but one gun. Next morning, being reinforced, they returned to the assault, forced the British within their lines at Nuwabgunge, burning down the camp of three regiments. The Rifle Brigade under Colonel Walpole, supported by the 88th. under Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, which suffered very severely, were highly distinguished. On the 28th. the renewed attempts of the enemy were triumphantly defeated.[194] Then followed the decisive battle of the 6th. of December,[195] when the Commander-in-Chief utterly routed the rebel army, which had been augmented by four regiments from Oude, and the followers of Nena Sahib, estimated at not less than twenty-five thousand men, with about thirty-six guns.
After this action Sir Colin Campbell continued at Cawnpore 574until the beginning of 1858, employed in restoring order in the stronghold of the mutiny, and in preparing to advance on Lucknow. Several assaults were made by the rebels to dislodge Sir James Outram from his position at the Alumbagh, before he could be aided by Sir Colin Campbell; especially on the 12th. and 16th. of January, and subsequent months, but they were all defeated. The first portion of the army crossed the Ganges at Cawnpore on the 4th. of February. Brigadier Franks, while on his road to Lucknow, on the 19th., defeated two separate bodies of the enemy, at Chanda and Amereepore, and on the 23rd. of that month gained a decisive victory over their united forces, when attempting to capture Badshahgunge, a strong fort near Sultanpore. In this action the enemy lost twenty-one guns and nearly two thousand men. The loss of the victors was eleven.
Being joined on this day by the siege train from Agra, and all the requisite arrangements having been completed, Sir Colin Campbell proceeded direct from Cawnpore to the Alumbagh, where the army arrived on the 1st. of March. The Divisions under Brigadier-Generals Sir Hope Grant and Walpole, who had been employed watching the mutineers, had meanwhile rejoined, and on the following morning the Dilkoosha palace was seized after a skirmish, in which a gun was captured from the enemy.[196] This palace was at once occupied as an advanced post on the right, and the Mahomed Bagh on the left, heavy guns being placed at each point to keep down the fire of the rebels. The remainder of the siege train 575and additional troops arrived on the next and succeeding days: the right of the British line now rested on Bibiapore and the river Goomtee; the left stretching in the direction of the Alumbagh. Brigadier-General Franks, C.B., joined with his division on the 5th. of March,[197] after a march of one hundred and thirty miles, during which four actions had been fought, with the small loss of thirty-seven killed and wounded. Thirty-four pieces of ordnance were captured.
Sir James Outram was withdrawn from the Alumbagh, and having crossed to the left bank of the Goomtee[198] on the 6th. of March, at once pushed on to turn the first line of the works abutting on the river, and on the morning of the 9th. attacked the position, driving the enemy before him at all points, until he was enabled to occupy the Fyzabad road, and plant his batteries so as to enfilade the works on the canal.
Meanwhile a heavy fire was kept up by the British on the Martinière, from the batteries at the Dilkoosha palace; and in the afternoon of the 9th. of March the former was stormed by the troops under Brigadiers Sir Edward Lugard[199] 576and the Honourable Adrian Hope. The regiments were the 42nd., 53rd., and 90th. Next came into operation the second part of the plan of attack against the Kaiser Bagh, which was to use the great blocks of houses and palaces extending from Banks’s house to the former as the approach, instead of sapping up towards the front of the second line of works. By these means the Commander-in-chief was able to turn towards his own left, at the same time that the enemy was enfiladed on the right by Sir James Outram’s advance. The latter had received orders to plant his guns with a view of raking the position of the rebels, to annoy the Kaiser Bagh with a vertical and direct fire,—also to attack the suburbs in the vicinity of the iron and stone bridges shortly after daybreak, and to command the iron bridge from the left banks. These instructions were carried out with the most marked success, but the enemy still clung pertinaciously to his own end of the iron bridge, on the right bank, and heavy cannonading ensued from both sides, until the bridge was subsequently taken in reverse. On the 11th. Sir Edward Lugard pressed forward in like manner. As the operation had now become one of an engineering character, the most earnest endeavours were used to save the infantry from being hazarded before due preparation was made. The chief engineer, Brigadier Napier, placed the batteries so as to breach and shell a large block of the palaces designated the Begum Kotee. At four o’clock in the morning the latter were stormed with great gallantry by the 93rd. Highlanders, supported by the 4th. Punjaub Rifles and one thousand Ghoorkas, led by Brigadier the Honourable Adrian Hope, under Brigadier-General Sir Edward Lugard’s direction. The whole block of buildings was secured by the troops, who inflicted a heavy loss on the enemy, and the attack was pronounced by Sir Colin Campbell to have been “the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.”
The chief engineer pushed forward the approach with the greatest judgment through the enclosures, by the aid of the sappers and heavy guns, the troops immediately occupying the ground as he advanced, and the mortars being moved from one position to another, as the ground was won on which 577they could be placed. The buildings to the right, and the Secundra Bagh, were taken early in the morning of the same day, without opposition, and during the night of the 12th. Sir James Outram was reinforced with a number of heavy guns and mortars, and directed to increase his fire upon the Kaiser Bagh, while the mortars placed in a position at the Begum’s house never ceased playing on the Imambarrah, the next large palace it was found necessary to storm, between the Begum Kotee and the Kaiser Bagh.
Upon Brigadier-General Franks, C.B., who had relieved Sir Edward Lugard, and the second division with the fourth, on the 12th. of March, devolved the duty of attacking the Imambarrah. For this purpose a column of attack was formed on the morning of the 14th., by Brigadier David Russell, who at the second relief of Lucknow had been severely wounded. The Maharajah Jung Bahadoor too had joined, with a force of about nine thousand men and twenty-four field guns, drawn by men, and took up his position in the British line on the 12th., and moved close to the canal on the following day. His Highness passed the canal and attacked the suburbs in his front, and considerably to the left of Banks’s house, at the request of the Commander-in-chief; his troops were thus most advantageously employed in covering Sir Colin Campbell’s left for several days, during which, from the nature of the operations, it was necessary to mass all the available strength of the British force towards the right in the joint attack carried along both banks of the Goomtee.
Early on the 14th. the Imambarrah was carried, and the Sikhs of the Ferozepore Regiment, under Major Brasyer, pressing forward in pursuit, entered the Kaiser Bagh, the third line of defences having been turned without a single gun being fired from them. Supports were quickly thrown in, and all the well-known ground of former defence and attack, the Mess House, the Tara Kotee, the Motee Mahul, and the Chutter Munzil, were rapidly occupied by the troops, while the engineers devoted their attention to securing the position towards the south and west. The doomed city was now hastily evacuated by the enemy, thousands of fugitives being seen to escape to the north and west. Flying columns were sent after them, and building after building which had been occupied as a defence, was successively taken, until all save the city itself was in the hands of the British.
A combined movement was organized on the 19th. of March. Sir James Outram moved forward directly on the Moosa Bagh, the last position of the foe on the line of the Goomtee; the latter was cannonaded from the left bank by Sir James Hope Grant, whilst Brigadier Campbell moved round the western side from the Alumbagh, preventing retreat in that direction. The rout was complete, great loss being inflicted on the enemy by all these columns.
Major-General Sir Edward Lugard was directed to attack, on the 21st., a stronghold in the heart of the city, held by the Moulvie. This he occupied after a sharp contest, and it then became possible to invite the return of the inhabitants, and to rescue the city from the horrors of this prolonged struggle. Brigadier William Campbell, of the 2nd. Dragoon Guards, attacked the enemy with his cavalry, when retreating from the city in consequence of Sir Edward’s advance, occasioning them heavy loss, and pursuing the fugitives for six miles.[200] Two days after, Sir Hope Grant defeated a strong body of rebels, twenty miles from the city, and captured their guns, and with this action the recapture of Lucknow was completed.
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