SIEGE OF DELHI. 30th. May to 14th. September, 1857.

Sunday, the 10th. of May, 1857, will never cease to be remembered in India. An outbreak, for some time contemplated, broke out at Meerut in the afternoon of that day. A century had elapsed since Clive’s celebrated battle of Plassey, the forerunner of so many victories gained in India, by the valuable co-operation of the Native troops, when the latter, forgetful of their former glories and of their loyalty, burst out into mutiny, with the view of overthrowing British supremacy in the East; the outbreak of Vellore, in the Madras Presidency, in 1806, having been the only exception to the long-continued fidelity of the Sepoy soldier. During the operations against Persia the Court of Delhi had entered into correspondence with the Shah, and Dost Mahomed, the Sovereign of Cabool, had been urged to invade the Punjab when, by the secession of the Bengal native army, the time should be opportune. The grievance of the greased cartridges was indeed urged, but the combination had been for some time forming, and the name of the King of Delhi, over eighty years of age, was imagined to be a “tower of strength” in the endeavour to be made to restore the supremacy of the Mogul dynasty.

547There is no doubt the rebellion was prematurely commenced; but scenes of the most heart-rending descriptions occurred, and several officers, ladies, and even children fell victims to the brutality of the Sepoys. Outbreaks occurred at Allahabad, Jhansi, Azimghur, Bareilly, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Benares, and other places; the European women and children being, in many cases, murdered, and the several mutinous regiments all made for Delhi, hastening thither, as a central point, from all quarters, and committing the greatest outrages.

When the mutineers had seized Delhi, and proclaimed a descendant of the Mogul as king, their next object was to gain the chief magazine in that city. After a gallant defence it was exploded by order of Lieutenant Willoughby, who died of his wounds. Sculley and Buckley were the two gunners, and the former, who fired the train, escaped, together with the other heroes Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor.

At this momentous period the Commander-in-Chief in India was General the Honourable George Anson, who had proceeded to Simla to escape the heat of the plains. Immediately upon receiving intelligence of the mutiny, he hurried to Umballa, and collecting all the available troops,^[176] marched on Delhi, but died of cholera at Kurnaul on the 27th. of May. His successor was Major-General Reed, who on the day following quitted Rawul Pindee, and arrived early in June at the camp of Major-General Sir Henry Barnard, K.C.B., at Aleepore, where a numerous force had been collected.

While Brigadier-General Archdale Wilson hastened with a body of troops from Meerut to join the former, the mutineers from Delhi attempted to intercept his march. He was attacked on the 30th. of May at Ghazee-ood-deen-nuggur, when seven 548hundred British soldiers defeated a disciplined force more than seven-fold their number. This is considered as the commencement of operations before Delhi.

On the following day (Whit-Sunday) the attack was renewed, and the enemy was again repulsed, twenty-six guns being captured. The 6th. Dragoon Guards and first battalion 60th. Rifles have reason to be proud of their deeds performed this day. No further opposition was encountered, and Brigadier-General Wilson joined Sir Henry Barnard at Aleepore. The united forces commenced their march shortly after midnight, and Brigadier-General Reed being unable from sickness to proceed with the army, the command devolved on Major-General Sir Henry Barnard.

At dawn on the 8th. of June the British arrived before Badlee-ke-Serai, a fortified position, when the enemy opened fire. Brigadier Hope Grant, C.B., with his column, consisting of portions of the 9th. Lancers, 6th. Dragoon Guards. 75th., first battalions 60th. and 87th. were highly distinguished. On the regimental colour of the 75th. appeared the Royal Tiger, gained in former fields in India, and they added to their well-earned reputation by charging the enemy with the bayonet, who abandoned the whole of his guns.

This entrenched position being carried, Sir Henry Barnard divided his army into two columns, one of which proceeded along the main trunk road under Brigadier-General Wilson, while the other marched under his own command to the site of the Delhi cantonments, before they were burnt. Here on an eminence the mutineers were posted, which position was taken by Sir Henry Barnard, the enemy being forced to abandon their guns; while this rapid flank movement to the left, by Brigadier Wilson’s column forcing its way through gardens with high walls, compelled the foe to take refuge in Delhi, the two commanders meeting at a place named Hindoo’s Rao’s House.

In these actions the Ghoorkas, evinced that gallantry which was so prominent during every subsequent encounter with the enemy.

After these events the British army took up a position before Delhi. The force at this period comprised the following 549Queen’s regiments:—two squadrons of the 6th. Dragoon Guards (Carabineers), the 9th. Lancers; head-quarters and six companies of the 60th. Rifles; head-quarters and nine companies of the 75th. Regiment; in addition to these were three troops of horse artillery; a company of foot artillery, a detachment of sappers and miners, the first Bengal Fusiliers; and the head-quarters and six companies of the second Fusiliers, and the Sirmoor battalion.

A strongly-built residence, named Hindoo Rao’s House, on the top of a high eminence about half a mile in advance of the camp, offered an excellent position for bombarding the town, and from the three batteries erected thereon a constant fire of shot and shell was kept up. Between Hindoo Rao’s House and the Grand Trunk Road the ground was rough and rocky, covered with brushwood and enclosed gardens, over which the Sepoys frequently crept up in skirmishing order, availing themselves of the shelter thus afforded, but they were always repulsed by the guides and riflemen, being at times pursued nearly to the city walls. Every mutineer who was captured was at once shot or bayoneted.

The lines of defence were gradually advanced, and the rebels were driven from the Subzee Mundee, formerly used as a market for vegetables, and the Serai, a large building in front of it, which the British strongly fortified, together with the Pagoda opposite the Moree Gate.

Early in June cholera appeared in the camp; this added to the trials of the troops; there being in consequence of the small force scarcely any rest by night, as the limited numbers barely admitted of relief, lessened as they were by those required for picket duty. Fighting by day, and being on the alert for a renewal of the conflict by night, occasioned great fatigue, and shewed what British troops can endure; besides which the ammunition supplies were not very plentiful for heavy ordnance.^[177] Another large Serai, 550near the Ajmeer Gate, was gallantly taken on the 17th. of June, by a body of troops under Major Tombs, of the artillery.

In consequence of a prophecy that the 23rd. of June, the centenary anniversary of Plassey, was to be fatal to British rule in India, a determined effort was made by the mutineers on that morning, who advanced from the city in large bodies, and attacking the batteries, kept up a sustained and vigorous fire throughout the day. Their prophets proved false, for the enemy was beaten as usual.

This victory of the 23rd. of June occasioned much rejoicing in the camp. Frequent skirmishes occurred towards the end of the month, and during July. The besieging force had now been strengthened by a wing of the 8th. Foot and of the 61st. Regiment.

Early in July Sir Henry Barnard died of cholera, when the command devolved on Major-General Reed, who, although the senior, had relinquished it to him upon the decease of General Anson. Reed, on account also of ill-health, was soon compelled to give over the command to Brigadier-General Wilson. The 8th. and 61st. Regiments suffered severely from cholera, attributed to their long march during the height of the rainy season. The former, in four months, from July to October, lost one hundred and thirty-three men, and the deaths in the latter during the same period amounted to two hundred and forty-six.

A sortie was made by the enemy on the 9th. of July. During the forenoon of the 14th. another attack occurred in which Brigadier-General Chamberlain, the Adjutant-General, was severely wounded; Captain Norman, of the 31st. Native Infantry (frequently thanked in the dispatches for his services), the second in the department, was appointed to carry on the duties of this arduous office. On the 18th. and 23rd. other sorties took place, and the rebels were again repulsed.

Two dense columns of the enemy attempted, on the 31st. of July, to gain the rear of the British camp, but the bridges having been destroyed, they were unable to cross the canal, and after a brisk cannonade the troops returned to 551the city. An attack sustained with great determination occurred on the 1st. of August, the anniversary of the great Mahomedan festival, commemorating Abraham’s sacrifice, not of Isaac, but of Ishmael, when the mutineers received a severe punishment. Brigadier Showers, on the 12th. of that month, succeeded in capturing four of the enemy’s guns. Four days previously Brigadier-General Nicholson reached the camp in advance of his column, which had been employed in disarming rebellion in the Punjab;^[178] his force consisting of two thousand five hundred men, Europeans and Sikhs, was a welcome addition to the army before Delhi.

Brigadier-General Nicholson gained a brilliant victory over the enemy at Nujjuffghur, twenty miles from Delhi, on the 55225th. of August, and thus prevented an attack upon the rear of the British camp.

For some time the siege train from Meerut had been anxiously expected, and on the morning of the 4th. of September it arrived.

A crisis was now fast approaching; fifty-four siege guns were placed in position in several batteries, and on the 11th. of September an incessant fire was opened, and sustained, upon the line of defence between the Water and Cashmere Gates. The latter was in ruins on the 13th., and shortly after three o’clock on the following morning, the assaulting columns prepared to advance. There were four columns of attack; Brigadier-General Nicholson commanded the first; Brigadier-General Jones the second; Brigadier Campbell the third; and Major Reid the fourth. There was also a fifth reserve column under Brigadier Longfield.

It being necessary to blow open the Cashmere Gate, in order that the attacking force might effect an entrance into the city, this desperate duty was performed by Lieutenants Home and Salkeld,^[179] of the Engineers. The latter died of his wounds, and the former was shortly afterwards killed by 553an explosion, whilst blowing up a fort abandoned by the rebels in Bolundshuhur.

Brigadier Nicholson with the first column of attack, consisting of three hundred men of the 75th., two hundred and fifty of the 1st. European Bengal Fusiliers, and five hundred of the 2nd. Punjab Infantry was ordered to assault the breach in the Cashmere Curtain Gate. A portion escaladed the left face of the bastion of the gate, while the remainder, covered by the fire of the 60th., rushed up the breach made upon their left of the gate. After reaching the Cabool Gate, so destructive a fire was opened by the enemy, that the advancing troops were compelled to desist. Their gallant commander, Nicholson, whilst inducing the men to renew the attempt, here fell mortally wounded, and died nine days afterwards. Colonel Herbert, of the 75th., was previously wounded on the glacis, and the command of this portion of the assaulting column devolved on Captain William Brookes, of that regiment.

Brigadier William Jones with the second column, composed of the 8th., 2nd. European Bengal Fusiliers, and 4th. Sikh regiment of infantry (the storming party consisted of seventy-five men of these corps, and the assault was led by Brevet-Major R. S. Baynes, of the 8th. Foot, who was dangerously wounded), covered by the fire of the skirmishers of the 60th. Rifles, advanced through the breach in the bastion at the Water Gate, and gained possession of the walls as far as the Cabool Gate without meeting any check. Upon reaching the latter the troops turned one of the guns immediately on the Lahore Gate, from which the foe was firing grape and round shot.

Colonel George Campbell, of the 52nd. Light Infantry, proceeded with the third column of assault, consisting of two hundred and forty of the 52nd., five hundred of the 1st. Punjab Infantry, and two hundred and sixty of the Kumaon battalion, and when the Cashmere Gate had been blown open by the explosion, the stormers rushed in, and in a short time the column gained possession of the main guard, where so many murders had occurred at the outbreak of the mutiny and at once advanced to the attack of the great mosque, the 554Jumma Musjid, situated about the centre of the city. When almost close to the mosque, it was found that there were no means of gaining an entrance, the force being without powder-bags or artillery; and having to sustain a concentrated musketry fire from the surrounding houses, the column was eventually compelled to withdraw.

Major Reid, of the Sirmoor Battalion, who led the fourth column (consisting of fifty men of the 60th. Rifles, two hundred Sirmoor Battalion, one hundred and sixty 1st. Fusiliers, two hundred Guides, twenty-five Coke’s Corps, sixty-five Kumaon Battalion, eighty 61st. Regiment,—seven hundred and eighty in all), was severely wounded; his fall checked the advance of the Goorkhas; Captain D. D. Muter, of the 1st. battalion of the 60th., succeeded to the command; and the rush of the Rifles and Fusiliers placed them for a moment in possession of the breastwork at the end of the Serai of Kishengunge, but being unsupported, were unable to maintain the position, under the heavy flanking fire to which they became exposed.

Meanwhile the cavalry brigade (consisting of two hundred of the 9th. Lancers, and four hundred and ten Natives from the Guides, 1st., 2nd., and 5th. Punjab Cavalry, and Hodson’s Horse; with three guns of the first Troop Horse Artillery, and four guns of the second, under Major Toombs), commanded by Brigadier Hope Grant, forming in front of the walls, proceeded to the Cabool Gate, and although exposed to a heavy fire, did excellent service by preventing the mutineers, who came out in great numbers through the gardens, from attacking the British batteries. During the operation on the 14th. of September the casualties amounted to eleven hundred and seventy killed, wounded, and missing.

Lieutenant-Colonel Deacon, of the 61st., succeeded in capturing the magazine in the city of Delhi, on the 16th. of September. Not a word was spoken, not a trigger pulled, until the stormers and the support had reached the summit of the breach and the magazine yard, when a cheer and a charge were given and made, on which the enemy, taken most completely by surprise, fled precipitately, throwing down the port-fires at their guns. Several of them were bayoneted close to 555the breach, the others were closely pursued by the 61st. and the 4th. Punjab Infantry. A party under Lieutenant-Colonel Rainey, of the former (under the guidance of Captain H. W. Norman, Assistant-Adjutant-General), having passed through the magazine, turned to their left, and spiked a gun, which was in position on the eastern wall of the city, and which was pointed at the College Garden Battery; here the enemy fought desperately. Assistant-Surgeon Reade and Colour-Sergeant Mitchell, both of the 61st., also spiked a gun. One hundred and seventy guns, together with stores of all descriptions, were found in the magazine. During the fore and afternoon attacks were made by the rebels, which were repulsed on every occasion by the troops then within the walls, under Lieutenant-Colonel Farquhar, of the Belooch Battalion.

A determined opposition was kept up for a few days in the city, and only slow progress was made; but on the morning of the 20th., possession was secured of the Lahore Gate, and the troops then advanced upon the other bastions and gates, until the entire defences of the city were acquired. The enemy, unable to withstand the uninterrupted and vigorous fire from the guns and mortars, from the first entrance of the city by the British, and the steady and persevering advance of the troops, at length took to flight, abandoning their camp, property, and several of their sick and wounded, besides the greater portion of their field artillery; some four or five thousand fled across the bridge of boats into the Doab, or country between the Jumna and the Ganges, and the rest along the right bank of the former river.

After the gate of the palace had been blown in, it was occupied by the troops about noon on Sunday, the 20th. of September, and the head-quarters of Major-General Wilson were established therein the same day. The rapid advance upon the Jumna Musjid by Major Brind, of the artillery, with a detachment of fifty men of the 8th. Foot, and twenty of the 1st. Bengal European Fusiliers, under the command of Captain Bannatyne, of the former regiment, an entrance into which was forced about an hour and a half prior to the assault upon the palace, contributed towards the success of the 556operations, and the complete occupation of the city. At sunrise on the 21st. a royal salute proclaimed that Delhi was again under British rule; the aged Sovereign, after a trial, being sent a prisoner for life to Rangoon.^[180]

When the capture of Delhi was completed, a flying column, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel E. H. Greathed,^[181] consisting of the 9th. Lancers, 8th. and 75th. Regiments, the 2nd. and 4th. Punjab Infantry, two hundred of Hodson’s Horse with the 1st., 2nd., and 5th. Punjab Cavalry and Horse Artillery, proceeded on the morning of the 23rd. of September, from Delhi in a south-easterly direction upon Bolundshuhur and Allyghur, with a view of cutting off the mutineers on the right bank of the Jumna, in their endeavour to pass the river into the Doab. At Bolundshuhur, on the 28th. of September, the column defeated a body of the enemy, and afterwards destroyed the fort of Malaghur; here, Lieutenant Home, who shared in the blowing open of the Cashmere Gate at Delhi, met an accidental death by an explosion of gunpowder. While on the march along the Great Trunk road to Allyghur, the rebels were again encountered and scattered.

Pursuing this successful course the troops arrived at Agra, after a night march from Hattrass; fatigued as they were, and while preparing to encamp, an attack was suddenly made upon them on the 10th. of October, by a numerous body of the enemy. In the action which ensued, the 9th. Lancers were specially mentioned. Lieutenant-Colonel Cotton, commanding at Agra, at once repaired to the camp, and assumed the command, but Lieutenant-Colonel Greathed was not aware of his presence for some time. The attack was soon overpowered, and turned into a complete rout, notwithstanding several ineffectual attempts to make a stand, and the pursuit was continued during the rest of the day for a distance of eleven miles, the whole of the enemy’s guns, twelve in number, being captured. This was effected under the rays of an Indian sun, and with comparatively small loss, but the casualties of the enemy were immense.

Lieutenant-Colonel Greathed having crossed the Jumna was joined, on the 14th. of October, by Brigadier Hope Grant,^[182] who, as senior officer, took the command. After dismantling the fort of a rebel Rajah of Mynporee, who did not attempt any resistance, the column put to flight a body of fugitives from Delhi, killing many of them. Possession was gained of the fort of Jhujjur by Brigadier Showers, on the 17th. of October, which is regarded as the close of the operations against Delhi. Brigadier Grant, continuing his march, arrived at Cawnpore on the 28th. of October, and on the 30th. crossed the Ganges, reaching the vicinity of the Alumbagh on the 8th. of the following month.

The troops engaged at Delhi were—Artillery (European and Native); 6th. Dragoon Guards; 9th. Lancers; 1st. and 2nd. Hodson’s Horse; and 1st., 2nd., and 5th. Punjaub Cavalry; 8th., 52nd., 60th., 61st., and 75th. Royal Bengal Fusiliers; Bengal Sappers and Miners; 32nd. Bengal Infantry; 1st., 2nd., 4th. and 24th. Punjaub Infantry; 2nd. and 3rd. Ghoorkas; 4th. Sikh Infantry; 27th. Bombay Light Infantry; Irregular and Guide Cavalry and Infantry; and the Belooch Battalion.

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