Siege of Cawnpore
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| Siege of Cawnpore | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Indian Rebellion of 1857 | |||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||
| United Kingdom | Indian Mutineers | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| General Sir Hugh Wheeler
Brigadier Alexander Jack Major Edward Vibart Captain John Moore, 32nd |
Nana Sahib | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| around 1200 soldiers and civilians | around 10,000 sepoys, local citizens and mercenaries | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| majority of the defenders | unknown | ||||||
The Siege of Cawnpore was an event in the Indian rebellion of 1857 against the rule of the British East India Company and, some historians argue, one of the most heroic defences in the history of war, alongside the Siege of Lucknow, Rorke's Drift and The Alamo.
The siege proved to be one of the key episodes in the unsuccessful rebellion and its outcome incited a bloodthirsty vengeance and resolve amongst the British known as the "Devil's Wind" by native Indians, who were brutalised in retaliatory attacks for the remaining duration of the war.
Contents |
[edit] Outbreak and Siege
In June of that year, as native Indian garrisons in Oudh rose in rebellion, sepoys under General Hugh Wheeler in Cawnpore, (now Kanpur) also rebelled — apparently with the support and approval of a local prince Nana Sahib, who in prior years had been dispossessed of his title and was denied his adopted Father's company pension. Immediately prior to the uprising, up to a thousand British troops, their families, civil servants, the elderly, local workers and loyal sepoys had taken refuge in an entrenchment composed of two barracks surrounded by a mud wall. Wheeler's choice of this location to make a stand remains controversial and almost inexplicable given the availability of relatively safer and more defensible structures in Cawnpore.
The British held out in their makeshift fort for three weeks with little water, suffering from exposure to the intense summer heat. Subjected to almost constant bombardment and sniping, Wheeler's force and the civilians in the entrenchment suffered appalling casualties, most in the full view of screaming women and children. Wheeler's repeated messages to Sir Henry Lawrence in Lucknow for help could not be answered as that garrison was itself under siege.
On June 11 a large party of fugitives (mostly women, children, civil servants and missionaries) who had sailed down the Ganges from Fatehgarh and were subsequently captured by Nana Sahib's forces, were butchered just south of the entrenchment and their remains dumped back into the river. This was not to be the last massacre associated with Cawnpore.
One of the driving forces of the rebellion was a prophecy that apparently predicted the downfall of Company rule in India exactly one hundred years after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. In an effort to ensure this, on June 23, the 100th anniversary of the battle, the mutineers launched their feircest attack on the entrenchment. the result was over 25 mutineers dead and twice that number wounded, with very few casualties inflicted on the defenders.
Most likely as a direct result of false intelligence given by a captured Eurasian Civil Servant named Jonah Shepherd, who crept out of the entrenchment on June 24 with the aim of learning the disposition of the Nana's forces, on June 25, Nana Sahib offered a surrender under terms, and Wheeler had little choice but to accept. Nana Sahib promised safe passage to the Satichura Ghat, a dock on the Ganges from which the British could depart.
There were incidents from the start of the exodus as the survivors from the entrenchment made their way to the river. During the march to the boats, a number of loyal sepoys who had stood by the British were taken from the column and murdered in cold blood by mutineers. Any British officer or soldier that attempted to help them was also put to death. Once at the dock, confusion mounted as the surviving British tried to board the boats that were to take them downriver. Though controversy surrounds what happened next, as the British boarded the boats, their pilots fled, setting fire to the boats, and the rebellious sepoys opened fire on the British. The result was a massacre at the river's edge in which many of the surviving British, including General Wheeler, were killed.
One boat with over a dozen wounded men initially escaped, however, this boat later grounded, was caught by mutineers and pushed back down the river towards carnage at Cawnpore. The female occupants were removed and taken away as hostages and the men, including the wounded and elderly, were hastily put against a wall and shot.
[edit] Bibi-Ghar
The surviving women and children were led to Bibi-Ghar (The House of Ladies) in Cawnpore. Here, the survivors eked out a nightmare existence. Several weeks later, as a British relief force finally approached the city and believing that they would not advance if there were no hostages to save, the decision was made by Nana Sahib to kill these witnesses of the earlier massacre at the river. On July 15, after the sepoys refused to carry out the order to kill the wives and children of officers that they had known so well before the mutiny, four butchers from the local market were sent into the Bibi-Ghar where they hacked the hostages apart with cleavers and hatchets. The victims' bodies and remains were then dragged into the courtyard and were thrown down a nearby well; some still living.
[edit] Relief and Retribution
The British, under Sir Henry Havelock, took Cawnpore two days later and soon discovered the remains of the entrenchment, the blood-soaked house, the well, and its contents. The rage of the British troops at the massacre of women and children, and possibly their guilt over arriving to late to save them, only fueled the resolve to give no quarter to mutineers or anyone suspected of being a mutineer or sympathizer. Remember Cawnpore! became a war cry for the British soldiers for the rest of the conflict.
For those sepoys captured at Cawnpore, the British employed extreme, and one may say ironic, measures. Sepoys and accused supporters of the rebellion were taken to the Bibi-Ghar and forced to lick the bloodstains from the walls and floor. Pork and beef was then forced down the prisoners throats in order to break their caste before they were summarily executed, some by being tied across the mouths of cannon that were then fired; an execution method initially used by the mutineers on English or European civilians who were taken as prisoners in and around Cawnpore.
[edit] Survivors and Aftermath
Only four men eventually escaped alive from the horrors of Cawnpore, aboard the single boat that managed to get away during the massacre at Satichura Ghat; two Privates named Murphey and Sullivan, Lieutenant Delafosse and Captain Mowbray Thomson. After the boat grounded, Thompson led a small group of soldiers against the pursuing sepoys. They soon fell back to a ruined temple but were forced to abandon this position and were chased back to the boat. On finding it had been pushed back towards Cawnpore the small group of fugitives jumped into the Ganges and swam for their lives, escaping both sepoys and crocodiles. They were then taken in by a loyal Indian Raja and spent several weeks recouperating, eventually making their way back to Cawnpore which was, by that time, back under British control. Murphey and Sullivan both died shortly after from Cholera, Delafosse ironically went on to join the defending garrison during the Siege of Lucknow, and Thomson took part in rebuilding and defending the entrenchment under General Windham, eventually writing a firsthand account of his experiences entitled The Story of Cawnpore (London) 1859.
Jonah Shepherd was finally rescued when Havelock's army entered Cawnpore. He spent the next few years after the rebellion attempting to put together a list of those killed in the entrenchment. However, the loss of his entire family and the horrors he had endured during his time in the entrenchment and captivity had taken their toll, and he eventually retired to a small estate north of Cawnpore in the late 1860s.
Another survivor was Amy Horne, a 17 year old Eurasian girl. She had fallen from her boat and had been swept downstream during the riverside massacre. Soon after scrambling ashore she met up with Wheeler's youngest daughter, Margaret . The two girls hid in the undergrowth for a number of hours until they were discovered by a group of mutineers. Margaret was taken away on horseback, never to be seen again, and Amy was led to a nearby village where she was taken under the protection of a rebel leader in exchange for converting to Islam. Just over 6 months later she was rescued by highlanders from Sir Colin Campbell's column on their way to relieve Lucknow.
Unlike many leaders of the rebellion, Nana Sahib disappeared. By 1859 he had fled to Nepal and his ultimate fate was never known. Up until 1888 there were rumours and reports that he had been captured and a number of individuals turned themselves in to the British claiming to be the aged Nana. As the majority of these reports turned out to be untrue further attempts at apprehending him were abandoned.
