If there be one name that stands out in brighter colours than any other connected with the mutiny in India, perhaps it is that of Henry Havelock. There are peculiar reasons for this. He came like a brilliant meteor at a time when all else was gloomy and overshadowed. Anson had died on the way to Delhi; Barnard had died in the camp before that city; Reed had retired, broken down by age and sickness; Wilson had not yet shewn whether he could work out victory at the great Mogul capital; Wheeler was falling, or had fallen, a miserable victim to the treachery of Nena Sahib; Henry Lawrence was no more; Hewett and Lloyd were under a cloud, for mismanagement as military commanders—all this had rendered the British nation grieved and irritated; and men fiercely demanded ‘Who’s to blame?’—as if it were necessary to seek relief by wreaking vengeance on some persons or other. It was a crisis that pressed heavily on Viscount Canning; but it was at the same time a crisis that insured fervid gratitude to any general who could achieve victories with small means. Such a general was Havelock. The English public knew little of him, although he was well known in India. Commencing his career as a soldier in 1816, Henry Havelock had borne his full share in all a soldier’s varied fortune. He went to India in 1823; engaged in the Burmese war in 1824; took part in a mission to the court of Siam in 1826; was promoted from lieutenant to captain in 1838; took an active share in the stirring scenes of the Afghan campaign, which brought him a brevet majority, and the order of C. B.; acted as Persian interpreter to generals Elphinstone, Pollock, and Gough; fought at Gwalior in 1843; became brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1844; fought with the bravest in 1845 at Moodkee, Ferozshah, and Sobraon; and in 1846 received the appointment of deputy adjutant-general of the Queen’s troops at Bombay. An Indian climate during so many years having told—in its customary sad way—on his constitution, Henry Havelock returned for a sojourn in England. Returning to Bombay in 1851, he became brevet colonel; and in after years he was appointed quarter-master-general, and then adjutant-general, of the whole of the Queen’s troops in India. When the war with Persia broke out, he took command of one of the divisions in 1857; and when that war was ended, he returned to Bombay. All this was known to official persons in India, but very few of the particulars were familiar to the general public in the home-country; hence, when Havelock’s victories were announced, the public were surprised as if by the sudden appearance of a great genius. That he bore so heavy a responsibility, or suffered such intense mental anxiety, as Wheeler at Cawnpore, Inglis at Lucknow, or Colvin at Agra, is not probable; for he had not hundreds of helpless women and children under his charge; but the astonishing victories he achieved with a mere handful of men, and the moral influence he thereby acquired for the British name throughout the whole of the Doab, well entitled him to the outburst of grateful feeling which the nation was not slow to exhibit. The only danger was, lest this hero-worship should render the nation blind for a time to the merits of other generals.

Neill and Havelock, who worked so energetically together in planning the relief of Lucknow, were brought from other regions of India to take part in the operations on the Ganges. Neill, as colonel of the 1st Madras European Fusiliers, accompanied that regiment to Calcutta, and thence proceeded up the country to Benares, where his contest with the rebels first began. Havelock, landing at Bombay from Persia, set off by steam to go to Calcutta; he was wrecked on the way near Ceylon, and experienced much perilous adventure before he could proceed on his journey. At Calcutta—where he arrived, in the same steamer which brought Sir Patrick Grant, on the 17th of June—he received the appointment of brigadier-general,^[57] to command such a force as could be hastily collected for the relief, first of the Europeans at Cawnpore, and then of those at Lucknow; and it was towards the close of June that he made his appearance at Allahabad.

Sufficient has been stated in former chapters to shew what was the state of affairs at that time. Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra, and Delhi were either in the hands of the rebels, or were so beset by them that no British commander was able to assist his brother-officers. Oude, the Doab, and Rohilcund were in deplorable anarchy; and it depended either upon Viscount Canning at Calcutta, or Sir John Lawrence at Lahore, to send aid to the disturbed districts. Lawrence, as we have seen, and as we shall see again in a future chapter, with admirable energy and perseverance, sent such assistance as enabled Wilson to conquer Delhi; while Canning, under enormous difficulty, sent up troops to Allahabad by scores and fifties at a time, as rapidly as he could collect them at Calcutta.

Brigadier Neill preceded Havelock in the operations connected with the repression of the mutiny in the Doab and adjacent regions. His own regiment, the 1st Madras European Fusiliers, had been ordered to proceed to Persia in the spring, but had received counter-orders in consequence of the sudden termination of the war in that country. While at Bombay, uncertain whether commands might be received to proceed to China, the regiment heard the news of a revolt among the Bengal troops; and very speedily, both Persia and China were forgotten in matters of much greater exigency and importance. After making the voyage back from Bombay to Madras, the regiment proceeded to Calcutta, and the men were then sent up the country as rapidly as possible to Benares, some by road and the rest by steamers. Neill himself reached that city on the 3d of June, and was immediately engaged, as we have already seen (p. 154), in disarming a mutinous regiment, and in maintaining order in the vicinity. After six days of incessant work at Benares, the brigadier, hearing of the mutiny at Allahabad, started off on the 9th to render service in that region. With what a powerful hand he put down the rebels; with what stern and prompt firmness he retained possession of that important city, the ‘key to Upper India’—has already been briefly shewn.^[58] The various corps of the Madras Fusiliers reached Benares and Allahabad by degrees; and fragments of other European regiments were sent up as fast as possible, as the nucleus of a little army forming at Allahabad.

The 1st of July may be taken as the day that marked the commencement of General Havelock’s career in relation to the Indian Revolt. He and his staff arrived at Allahabad on that day, after a rapid journey from Calcutta. A few hours before his arrival, the first relieving column had been sent off by Neill towards Cawnpore: consisting of 200 Madras Fusiliers, 200 of the 84th foot, 300 Sikhs, and 120 irregular cavalry, under Major Renaud; and a second, of larger proportions, was to follow in a week or ten days’ time. The immediate object held in view, in the march of both columns, was to liberate Sir Hugh Wheeler and his hapless companions at Cawnpore; and, if this were accomplished, the second work to be done was to advance and relieve Sir Henry Lawrence and the British at Lucknow. It was not at that time known that, before the second column could start from Allahabad, both Wheeler and Lawrence had been numbered with the dead. Neill superseded the officer previously in command at Allahabad; Havelock superseded Neill in command of the relieving force; we shall have to speak of Outram superseding Havelock; and we have already spoken of Patrick Grant superseding Reed, and of Colin Campbell superseding Grant. All these supersessions were in virtue of military routine, depending either on seniority, or on the exercise of a right to make appointments. If these various officers had been unsuccessful, the system of supersession would have been attacked by adverse judges as the cause of the failure; but there was so much nobility of mind displayed by four or five of the gallant men here named, that the vexation often caused by supersession was much alleviated; while the nation at large had ample reason to admire and be thankful for the deeds of arms that accompanied generosity of feeling.

On the 3d, an auxiliary force under Captain Spurgin, left Allahabad for Cawnpore, irrespective of the two columns. It consisted only of 100 Madras Europeans armed with rifles, 12 artillerymen, and two 6-pounder guns; it went by steamer up the Ganges, partly in order to control the mutineers on the banks, but in part also on account of the paucity of means for land-conveyance. No steamer had had much success in that part of the Ganges; and hence great interest was felt in the voyage of the Brahmaputra. As a first difficulty, the engineers, having no coals, were obliged to forage for wood every day on shore. On the second day of the trip, this foraging had to be protected by half the force, against a body of 500 insurgents on the Oude bank, provided with a large piece of ordnance; the wood was not obtained without a regular battle, in which 50 English ‘thrashed’—to use a very favourite term among the soldiers—just ten times their number of rebels, and captured their gun. On they went, struggling against the rapid stream of the Ganges, and never making more than two miles an hour. The enemy hovered on the banks, and sent several round shot into the little iron steamer—a sort of irritation that kept the crew and soldiers well on the alert. Day after day passed in this way, Captain Spurgin timing his movements so as to accord with the march of the land-columns. The steamer reached Cawnpore on the 17th, just a fortnight after the departure from Allahabad—a degree of slowness not altogether dependent on the difficulty of the navigation, but partly due to the necessity of not advancing more rapidly than the columns could fight their way on shore.

The dismal news gradually reached Allahabad that some dreadful calamity had occurred at Cawnpore. This information led Havelock to modify his plans and quicken his movements; and, full of heart, he transmitted to Calcutta the telegram already quoted, to the effect that ‘1000 Europeans, 1000 Goorkhas, and 1000 Sikhs, with 8 or 10 guns, will thrash everything.’ Among the troops he collected was a handful of volunteer cavalry, consisting chiefly of officers who had been left without command by the mutiny of their respective native regiments, or had narrowly escaped massacre; the number amounted only to a score; but it comprised just the sort of men who would be ready for any enterprise at such a time.

Major Renaud had every reason to be satisfied with the gallantry of the Madras Fusiliers—to which corps he belonged—and of the other troops who aided in forming his small column, in various minor operations during the first nine days of the march from Allahabad. He everywhere pacified the country by punishing the ringleaders in mutiny and rebellion wherever and whenever they fell into his hands. Suddenly, however, he found himself placed in an awkward position on the 10th. Cawnpore had fallen; the British at that station had either been killed or thrown into prison; and the rebel force thus freed from occupation had rapidly pushed down to the vicinity of Futtehpoor—a town which had been in the hands of the rebels since the 9th of June (see p. 172). That force was at least 3500 strong, with 12 guns; whereas Renaud had at that time only 820 men and 2 guns. General Havelock, becoming aware of this state of things, saw that his force ought to join that of Renaud as quickly as possible. He marched twenty miles on the 11th, under a frightful sun, to Synee; then, after resting a few hours, he and his troops resumed their march at eleven o’clock in the evening, overtook Renaud during the night, and marched with him by moonlight to Khaga, five miles short of Futtehpoor. His little army consisted of about 2000 men, made up of a curious collection of fragments from various regiments; and as it was destined to achieve great results with limited resources, it may be interesting to tabulate the component elements of this admirable little band.^[59] Havelock’s information proved to be better than that of the enemy, for when he sent forward Colonel Tytler with a reconnaissance, the enemy supposed they had only Renaud’s small force to contend with; they fired on the colonel and his escort, and pushed forward two guns and a force of infantry and cavalry. When the enemy began to cannonade his front and threaten his right and left, Havelock saw that the time was come to undeceive them: he would have preferred to give his worn-out soldiers a few hours’ rest; but this was not now to be thought of, as, to use his own words, ‘it would have injured the morale of the troops to permit them thus to be bearded.’ The work before him was sufficiently formidable; for there was only the main trunk-road by which to approach Futtehpoor easily; the fields on either side were covered with a depth of two or three feet of water; there were many enclosures of great strength, with high walls; and in front of the city were many villages, hillocks, and mango-groves which the enemy occupied in force. Havelock placed his eight guns on and near the main road, protected by 100 riflemen of the 64th; the infantry came up at deploying distance, covered by rifle-skirmishers; and the cavalry moved forward on the flanks. The struggle was literally decided in ten minutes. The enemy saw a few riflemen approach; but they knew little of the Enfield rifle; and were panic-stricken with the length and accuracy of its range; they shrank back in astonishment; and then Captain Maude, who had dashed over the swamps with his artillery, poured into them a fire so rapid and accurate as to complete their discomfiture. Three guns were abandoned at once, and Havelock steadily advanced, with the 64th commanding the centre, the 78th the right, the 84th and the Sikhs the left. He drove the enemy before him at every point, capturing their guns one by one; the garden enclosures, the barricades on the road, the city wall, the streets of Futtehpoor, all were gained in turn. The enemy retreated right through the city, till they reached a mile beyond it; but they then attempted to make a stand. This attempt gave Havelock some trouble, because his infantry were almost utterly exhausted by fatigue, and because the few irregular horse shewed symptoms of a tendency to go over to the enemy unless narrowly watched. Again the guns and rifles came to the front, and again they attacked in a manner so irresistible as to put the enemy effectively to flight. Havelock thus became master of Futtehpoor, and parked 12 captured guns. It was with a justifiable pride that the general, in sending his list of ‘casualties,’ remarked that it was ‘perhaps the lightest that ever accompanied the announcement of such success. Twelve British soldiers were struck down by the sun, and never rose again;’ but not one was either killed or wounded in the action; his casualties, 6 killed and 3 wounded, were among his native troops. The truth seems to be, that the enemy were dismayed, first by finding that Havelock had joined Renaud, and then by the wonderful range of the Enfield rifles. ‘Our fight was fought neither with musket, nor bayonet, nor sabre, but with Enfield rifles and cannon; so we took no prisoners. The enemy’s fire scarcely reached us; ours, for four hours, allowed him no repose.’ It was with good cause that he thanked and congratulated his troops on the following day, in a ‘morning order,’ short but pithy.^[60]

While encamped at Kullenpore or Kullianpore, on the 14th, to which he had marched after a sojourn at Futtehpoor sufficient to afford his troops that rest which had become absolutely necessary, Havelock sent off a brief telegram, announcing that his capture of artillery at Futtehpoor would enable him to substitute nine excellent field-guns for six of lighter calibre, and also to bring into action two light 6-pounders.

This, then, was the brigadier-general’s first victory over the rebels; it elated his own troops, and checked the audacity of those to whom he was opposed. Neill, meanwhile, was anxiously watching at Allahabad. He had worked hard to organise and send off the first portion of the force under Renaud, the second under Spurgin, and the third under Havelock. He had received from Renaud, on the 4th of the month, information which rendered only too probable the rumour that an act of black treachery on the part of Nena Sahib at Cawnpore had been followed by a wholesale destruction of hapless fugitives in boats on the Ganges. Neill was thus especially anxious that Renaud should advance at once with the first column, and Spurgin with the detachment up the river; but Havelock saw reason why those officers should somewhat delay their advance until he could come up to them, in order that all might if possible enter Cawnpore together.

Havelock, after marching and resting on the 13th and 14th, came up again with the enemy on the 15th. When approaching the small stream called the Pandoo Nuddee, it became important to him to ascertain what was the state of the bridge which carried the high road over that river, at a spot about twenty miles from Cawnpore. The stream was too deep to be fordable at that season: hence the importance of obtaining command of the bridge. His intelligencers ascertained that the enemy intended to dispute his passage at the village of Aong, four miles short of the Nuddee; by means of two guns commanding the high road, skirmishers on the right and left of those guns, and cavalry to hover on the flanks of any advancing force. This information being obtained, Havelock sent forward his skirmishers on the right and left of the road; then his volunteer cavalry on the road itself; then the ten guns in line, mostly on the left of the road; and then the infantry in line—the 64th and 84th on the right flank; the 78th, Fusiliers, and Sikhs, on the left. The struggle ahead was not a severe one, for the enemy receded as the British under Colonel Tytler advanced; but Havelock was much harassed by the attempts of the hostile cavalry to get into his rear and plunder his baggage: attempts that required much exertion from his infantry to resist, seeing that the thickly wooded country interfered with the effect of cannon and musketry. The enemy after a time abandoned guns, tents, ammunition, and other materials of war, and made a hasty retreat through the village.

This difficulty over, Havelock prepared for another struggle at the Pandoo Nuddee, which it was necessary for him to cross as speedily as possible. He rested and refreshed his troops for a few hours, and advanced the same afternoon, on a fiercely hot July day. The enemy had not destroyed the bridge, but had placed two guns in épaulement to command it at the opposite side of the stream. Captain Maude disposed his artillery so as to bring a converging fire upon the two guns of the enemy; while the Madras Fusiliers commenced a fire with Enfield rifles to pick off the gunners. The two guns were fired directly down the road at the advancing British column; but after Maude had somewhat checked this fire, the Fusiliers gallantly closed, rushed upon the bridge, and captured both guns—an exploit in which Major Renaud was wounded. The mutineers precipitately retreated. Thus did the brigadier-general achieve two victories in one day—those of Aong and Pandoo Nuddee. True, the victories were not great in a military sense; but they were effected over a numerous force by a mere handful of troops, who fought after wearying marches under a solar heat such as residents in England can with difficulty imagine. Havelock had only 1 man killed during these two actions; 25 were wounded. The loss of the enemy was at least ten times greater; but the chief result of the battles was the dismay into which Nena Sahib was thrown.

General Havelock, like other commanders at that critical time, found the native Bengal troops in his force not to be trusted. Their conduct in presence of the enemy on the 12th excited his suspicion; it was, indeed, worse than doubtful; and on the 14th he found it necessary to disarm and dismount his sowars of the 13th Irregulars and 3d Oude Irregulars—at the same time threatening with instant death any one of their number who should attempt to escape. One of the officers at Allahabad who joined the volunteer cavalry, and had opportunity of observing the conduct of the irregulars at the battle of Futtehpoor, wrote thus concerning it: ‘On seeing the enemy, Palliser called to the men to charge, and dashed on; but the scoundrels scarcely altered their speed, and met the enemy at the same pace that they came down towards us. Their design was evident; they came waving their swords to our men, and riding round our party, making signs to them to go over to their side. When our men thus hung back, a dash out would certainly have ended in our being cut up.’ During a subsequent skirmish, ‘our rear-men turned tail and left us, galloping back as hard as their horses could go; and we were forced to commence a regular race for our necks.... I write this with shame and grief; but it was no fault of Palliser’s or ours.’ Havelock saw the necessity of disarming and dismounting such fellows.

The scene of operations now approaches Cawnpore, that city of unutterable horrors! It was a desperate struggle that Nena Sahib made to retain the supremacy he had obtained at Cawnpore. He probably cared little for kings of Delhi or for greased cartridges, provided he could maintain a hold of sovereign power. When he had broken faith with Sir Hugh Wheeler, and had carried his treachery to the extent of indiscriminate slaughter in the Ganges boats, he naturally hoped to become leader of the rebellious sepoys. In this object, however, he did not wholly succeed; he and his immediate followers were Mahrattas; the mutineers were mostly Hindustanis; and the latter made little account of the Nena’s claim to sovereignty. Had the issue depended upon the infantry sepoys, who were in chief part Hindoos, and who chiefly looked for plunder, his projects might speedily have come to an end; but the cavalry sepoys, being mostly Mohammedans, and exhibiting a more deadly hatred towards the British, more readily joined him in a combined plan of operations, and drew the sepoys to act with them. Leaving Delhi to be held by the large body of mutineers, Nena Sahib took upon himself the office of crushing any British force that might make its appearance from Allahabad. When he heard that Renaud had started with his little band, he got together a force of sowars, sepoys, Mahrattas, artillery, and rabble; having motives of fear as well as of self-interest to induce him to prevent the advance of his opponent. Not knowing that Renaud had been joined by Havelock, the Mahratta chieftain sent bodies of troops sufficient, as he believed, to check the advance; but when the gallant general swept everything before him, the arch-fiend of Bithoor saw that the matter was becoming serious. He had had experience of the indomitable resistance, under accumulated suffering, of the hapless Sir Hugh Wheeler and his companions; but now a British general had to be encountered in the open field. So far as is known, it appears that as soon as he heard of the passage of the Pandoo Nuddee by Havelock, Nena Sahib ordered the slaughter of all the captives yet remaining alive at Cawnpore—in order either that the dead might tell no tales, or that he might wreak vengeance on the innocent for the frustration of his plans. Having committed this bloody deed, he went out with an army, and took up a position at Aherwa, the point at which the road to the cantonment branches out from the main trunk-road to Cawnpore city. Nena Sahib commanded five villages, with numerous intrenchments, armed with seven guns; and in the rear was his infantry. Havelock, after advancing sixteen miles from the Pandoo Nuddee to Aherwa during the night of the 15th, and after measuring the strength of this force, saw that his troops would be shot down in alarming numbers before the guns could be silenced and the intrenchments carried; he resolved, therefore, on a flank-movement on the enemy’s left. As a preliminary, he left his camp and baggage under proper escort at Maharajpoor, a few miles in the rear; and gave his sunburnt and exhausted troops two or three hours’ rest in a mango-grove during mid-day of the 16th, until the fierce heat should have somewhat abated. The hour of struggle having arrived, Havelock quietly wheeled his force round to the left flank of the enemy’s position, behind a screen of clumps of mango. When the enemy detected this manœuvre, great sensation was displayed; a body of horse was soon sent to the left, and cannon opened fire in that direction. Then came a series of operations in which the superb qualities of British infantry were strikingly displayed. Villages were attacked and captured one after another, by fragments of regiments so small that one marvels how the enemy could have yielded before them. One such exploit is thus narrated in Havelock’s own language: ‘The opportunity had arrived, for which I have long anxiously waited, of developing the prowess of the 78th Highlanders. Three guns of the enemy were strongly posted behind a lofty hamlet, well intrenched. I directed this regiment to advance; and never have I witnessed conduct more admirable. They were led by Colonel Hamilton, and followed him with surpassing steadiness and gallantry under a heavy fire. As they approached the village, they cheered and charged with the bayonet, the pipes sounding the pibroch. Need I add that the enemy fled, the village was taken, and the guns captured?’ After three or four villages had thus changed hands, the enemy planted a 24-pounder gun on the cantonment road in such a position as to work much mischief upon Havelock, whose artillery cattle were so worn out with heat and fatigue that they could not drag the guns onward to a desired position. The Nena appearing to have in project a renewed attack, Havelock resolved to anticipate him; he cheered on his infantry to a capture of the 24-pounder; they rushed along the road amid a storm of grape-shot from the enemy, and never slackened till they had reached the gun and captured it. Especially was the 64th, led by Major Stirling, conspicuous in this bold enterprise. The enemy lost all heart; they retreated, blew up the magazine of Cawnpore on their way, and then went on to Bithoor.

Thus was fought the battle of Cawnpore, the conquest of which place had for so many weeks been anxiously looked forward to by the British. True, they had heard, and under too great a variety of detail to warrant disbelief, that Sir Hugh Wheeler and his gallant companions had been most treacherously murdered by the ruthless chieftain of Bithoor; but yet a hope clung to them that some of their compatriots at least might be alive at Cawnpore. On this 16th of July, Havelock’s small force was lessened by the loss of 6 killed and 98 wounded or missing—a loss wonderfully slight under the circumstances, but serious to him. Captain Currie of the 84th received a wound so desperate that he sank under it in a few hours; Major Stirling was slightly wounded; Captain Beatson, attacked with cholera on the morning of the fight, held up with heroic bearing during the whole day, but died soon afterwards. The enemy lost seven guns on this day, of which three were 24-pounders.

Some of the Europeans bore an almost incredible amount of hard labour on this day of fierce July heat. One, a youth of eighteen who had joined the volunteer cavalry, had been on picket all the preceding night, with no refreshment save biscuit and water; he then marched with the rest sixteen miles during the forenoon; then stood sentry for an hour with the enemy hovering around him; then fought during the whole afternoon; then lay down supperless to rest at nightfall, holding his horse’s bridle the while; then mounted night-guard from nine till eleven o’clock; and then had his midnight sleep broken by an alarm from the enemy. It was on this occasion, too, that Lieutenant Marshman Havelock, son of the general, to whom he acted as aid-de-camp, performed a perilous duty in such a way as to earn for himself the Victoria Cross—a badge of honour established in 1856 for acts of personal heroism. The general thus narrated the incident, in one of his dispatches: ‘The 64th regiment had been much under artillery-fire, from which it had severely suffered. The whole of the infantry were lying down in line, when, perceiving that the enemy had brought out the last reserved gun, a 24-pounder, and were rallying round it, I called up the regiment to rise and advance. Without any other word from me, Lieutenant Havelock placed himself on his horse, in front of the centre of the 64th, opposite the muzzle of the gun. Major Stirling, commanding the regiment, was in front, dismounted; but the lieutenant continued to move steadily on in front of the regiment at a foot-pace, on his horse. The gun discharged shot until the troops were within a short distance, when it fired grape. In went the corps, led by the lieutenant, who still steered steadily on the gun’s muzzle until it was mastered by a rush of the 64th.’ It is difficult for civilians adequately to comprehend the cool courage required in an act like this; where a soldier walks his horse directly up in front of a large piece of cannon which is loaded and fired at him and his comrades as rapidly as possible.

What the British troops saw when they entered Cawnpore, has already engaged our attention (pp. 142-145). None could ever forget it to their dying day. It was on the 17th of July that Havelock, after a night’s rest for his exhausted troops, entered the city, and learned the hideous revelations of the slaughter-room and the well. What steps were immediately taken in Cawnpore, has been noticed in the chapter just cited; and the dismal story need not be repeated. The general could not wait to attend to those matters at that time; he had still to learn what were the movements of Nena Sahib after the battle of the preceding day—whether the Mahratta intended or not to make a stand in his palace at Bithoor. Sending forward part of his troops therefore on the afternoon of the 17th, he found the enemy in a very strong position. Their force consisted of the insurgent 31st and 42d Bengal infantry from Saugor, the 17th from Fyzabad, sepoys from various other regiments, troops of the cavalry regiments, and a portion of Nena Sahib’s Mahrattas—about 4000 men in all. The plain in front of Bithoor, diversified by thickets and villages, had two streams flowing through it, not fordable, and only to be crossed by two narrow bridges. The enemy held both bridges, and defended them well. The streams prevented Havelock from turning the enemy’s flanks; and when his infantry assaulted the position, they were received with heavy rifle and musketry fire. After an hour of very severe struggle, he effected a crossing, drove them back, captured their guns, and chased them towards Sorajpore. He had no cavalry to maintain a pursuit—indeed the want of cavalry was felt sadly by him in every one of his battles. This contest cost the enemy about 250 men, the British about one-fifth of the number; in this last-named list was included only one officer, Captain Mackenzie of the 78th Highlanders, who was slightly wounded.

Here, then, was one part of the enterprise accomplished. Cawnpore had been recaptured, and the road cleared of rebels between that place and Allahabad. It was on the 30th of June that Renaud had left the last-named place with the first division, and on the 3d of July that Spurgin had set off with the detachment by steamer. It was on the 7th that Havelock had placed himself at the head of the second division, and marched forth to overtake the two others—carrying with him the recollection of a scowl from many of the Mussulman inhabitants of the city. He had seen, as he went along, evidences of Renaud’s stern energy, in the number of rebellious sepoys hanging from gibbets and trees by the roadside. He and his troops had made ordinary Indian marches the first three or four days, in alternate rain and fierce heat, and within sight of destroyed bungalows and devastated homesteads; but when the news from Renaud arrived, forced marches were made. Then came the battle of Futtehpoor on the 12th, that of Aong on the morning of the 14th, that of Pundoo Nuddee on the afternoon of the same day, that of Cawnpore on the 16th, and that of Bithoor on the 17th—five victories in six days, spreading the fame of Havelock far and wide throughout the surrounding districts. The future tactics had then to be resolved upon. Cawnpore had been recovered, although the garrison could not be saved; but there was another British garrison, another group of suffering British women and children, to be thought of—at Lucknow. The general well knew how desperate was the work before him, with the reduced and sickened force at his command; but he was not the man to shrink from making an attempt, at least, to relieve Brigadier Inglis and his companions. Feeling the urgent need of more troops, and the imperative necessity of holding Cawnpore safely while he himself advanced into Oude, Havelock had already sent to Allahabad, requesting Neill to come if possible in person to Cawnpore, and to bring reinforcements with him. It was easier for Neill to respond to the first of these two appeals than to the second; he would have gone anywhere, borne any amount of fatigue, to share in the good work; but he found himself already reduced to so few troops at Allahabad as to be barely able to maintain that place. Nevertheless, after counting heads and measuring strength, he ventured to draft off 227 men of the 84th foot from his little force; he started them forth on the 15th, partly by bullock-trains, to reach Cawnpore on the 20th. He himself set out on the 16th—the day of the battle of Cawnpore—leaving Allahabad under the command of Captain Drummond Hay of the 78th Highlanders, until Colonel O’Brien could arrive. After a rapid journey, Neill reached Cawnpore, took military command of that place and its neighbourhood, and assisted Havelock in the preparations necessary for crossing the Ganges into Oude. One great necessity was perceived on the instant by both generals; English soldiers, with all their good qualities, are prone to drink; and Havelock soon found, to use his own words, that ‘half his men would be needed to keep the other half from getting drunk’ if they had easy access to liquor; he therefore bought up all spare beverages in Cawnpore, and placed them in the hands of the commissariat. A calamity much grieved the little army at this time. Major Renaud, who had so successfully brought forward the first column from Allahabad, sank under the effects of a wound he had received. A bullet had hit him above the knee, forcing part of the scabbard of his sword into the wound, and causing much suffering; amputation seemed to afford some relief, but only for a time; he died soon after the arrival of Neill, who had highly valued him as a trusty officer in his own Madras Fusiliers.

Glancing at a map, we see that the high road from Cawnpore to Lucknow is broken at its very commencement by the river Ganges, which, at this point, varies from five hundred to two thousand yards in width. There is, of course, no bridge here; and as the stream is usually very rapid, the transport of troops necessarily becomes slow, difficult, and dangerous work. Havelock began to cross on the 20th of July, but many days elapsed before the task was completed. The Brahmaputra steamer, which brought Spurgin’s detachment to Cawnpore on the 17th, was, with a few open boats, the only available resource for this work. By the 23d, about 1100 of his troops had crossed over into Oude—every boat-load having to battle against a broad and swift current. All possible baggage was left behind, each man taking with him a very small supply of clothing and food.

On the 20th, Havelock sent a short telegram to the commander-in-chief—announcing that Nena Sahib’s followers appeared to be deserting him; that he had fled from Bithoor; that the British had re-entered that place on the 19th; and that the palace had been reduced to ashes, and 13 guns captured. On the next day a further communication was sent to the effect that three more guns, and a number of animals, had been brought along from Bithoor, and that the magazine had been blown up. Subsequent events proved that the Nena, though forced to flee, still retained a body of troops under his command.

When the brigadier-general, on the 23d of July, had so far succeeded in transporting his gallant little army over the majestic Ganges; and when his sanguine hopes had led him to believe that he could conquer Lucknow in two or three days, then arose in his mind the important strategic question—What next? Should he remain in Oude after the capture of Lucknow, and effect the thorough reconquest of that province; or should he hastily recross the Ganges, march to Agra, liberate Colvin and the other Europeans in the fort, pick up any available force there, and advance to aid in the siege of Delhi? Sir Patrick Grant, who was commander-in-chief at that time, was solicited by telegram for an answer to this query. He strenuously recommended that Havelock, once in Oude, should remain there if possible. ‘If he merely relieves the beleaguered garrison of Lucknow, and, after accomplishing that object, instantly recrosses the Ganges into our own provinces, it will be thought and believed throughout India that he had signally failed to reconquer Oude, and that he was driven out of the province by force of arms. The insurgents, though beaten before Lucknow, would assuredly collect again, and follow up the retiring army, prevent supplies from coming into camp, and reduce our troops to great straits and hazards when recrossing the Ganges—the passage of which, even when wholly unopposed, the brigadier-general describes as having been a very difficult and tedious operation.’ This exactly coincided with Havelock’s own view; and he therefore turned a deaf ear to all applications for aid made to him by the commanders at Agra and Delhi.

It was not until the 25th that Havelock, after seeing his army safely across the river, made the passage himself from the Doab into Oude. Neill, with a very small number of troops, prepared to hold Cawnpore safely during Havelock’s absence. He re-established British power throughout the place; offered government rewards for bringing in captured rebels and public property; appointed Captain Bruce to the post of superintendent of the police and intelligence departments; purchased troop-horses in the neighbouring districts; and made arrangements for keeping the road open and unmolested between Cawnpore and Allahabad. All this he did, besides taking care of Havelock’s sick and wounded, with a force of only 300 men—such was the result of the bravery of a soldier and the skill of a commander, when combined in the same person.

When Havelock had advanced six miles from the Ganges, at a place called Mungulwar, he was met by a messenger who had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the insurgents at Lucknow, and had brought a plan of that city prepared by Major Anderson, together with some brief but valuable information from Brigadier Inglis. The details were partly written in Greek character, as a measure of precaution. Havelock now saw the full importance and difficulty of the work before him. His own little band was reduced to 1500 men, supported by 10 badly equipped and manned guns. On the other hand, he learned that the enemy had intrenched and covered with guns the long bridge across the Sye (Saee) at Bunnee, and had made preparations for destroying it if the passage were forced. Nor was his rear less imperiled than his front; for Nena Sahib had collected 3000 men and several guns, with which he intended to get between Havelock and the Ganges, to cut off his retreat. Nothing but the anxious dangers and difficulties of the Europeans at Lucknow would have induced the gallant man to advance under such perilous odds. He said in one of his dispatches to the government on the 28th: ‘The communications convince me of the extreme delicacy and difficulty of any operation to relieve Inglis; it shall be attempted, however, at every risk.’ Could he have known how anxiously the beleaguered British in the Residency at Lucknow was looking for him, his heart would have bled for them; Major Anderson had sent him a military plan, but the messenger was too much imperiled to bring any lengthened narrative.

The battle of Onao or Oonao was one of the most surprising of the series in which Havelock was engaged. His passage towards Lucknow was disputed on the 29th by the enemy, who had taken up a strong position. Their right was protected by a swamp which could neither be forced nor turned; their advanced corps was in a garden enclosure which assumed the form of a bastion; and the rest of their force was posted in and behind a village, the houses of which were loopholed and defended by 15 guns. The passage between the village and the town of Onao was very narrow; but along this passage the attack had to be made—because the swamp precluded an advance on the one flank, while the flooded state of the country equally rendered the other impassable. The attack was commenced by the 78th Highlanders and the 1st Fusiliers, who, with two guns, soon drove the enemy out of the bastioned enclosure; but when they approached the village, they were exposed to a hot fire from the loopholed houses. A party of the 84th foot advanced in aid; and then a determined struggle ensued; the village was set on fire, but still the enemy resisted with a bravery worthy of a better cause. At length the passage between the town and the village was forced; and then the enemy were seen drawn up in great strength in an open plain—infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Nevertheless Havelock attacked them, captured their guns, and put the horse and foot to flight. During all this time a large detachment of Nena Sahib’s troops, under Jupah Singh, threatened the left flank of the British, in the not unreasonable hope of being able to annihilate such a handful of men. No sooner had Havelock given his troops two or three hours’ rest, than he advanced from Onao to Busherutgunje. This was a walled town, with wet ditches, a gate defended by a round tower, four pieces of cannon on and near the tower, loopholed and strengthened buildings within the walls, and a broad and deep pond or lake beyond the town. Havelock sent the Highlanders and Fusiliers, under cover of the guns, to capture the earthworks and enter the town; while the 64th made a flank movement on the left, and cut off the communication from the town by a chaussée and bridge over the lake. His few horse could do nothing for want of open ground on which to manœuvre; but his guns and his infantry soon captured the place and drove the enemy before them. In these two battles on one day, he had 12 killed and 76 wounded; while the enemy is supposed to have lost half as many men as Havelock’s whole force. He also captured 19 guns, but as he had no gunners to work them, or horses to draw them, they were destroyed—two by spiking, and seventeen by shot. In a dispatch relating to this day’s hard work, the general, after describing the brief but desperate contest among the loopholed houses, said: ‘Here some daring feats of bravery were performed. Private Patrick Cavanagh, of the 64th, was cut literally in pieces by the enemy, while setting an example of distinguished gallantry. Had he lived I should have deemed him worthy of the Victoria Cross; it could never have glittered on a more gallant breast.’ This mode of noticing the merit of private soldiers endeared Havelock to his troops. Cavanagh had been the first to leap over a wall from behind which it was necessary to drive the enemy; he found himself confronted by at least a dozen troopers, two or three of whom he killed; but he was cut to pieces by the rest before his comrades could come to his aid.

It must have been with a pang of deep regret that the general, hitherto successful in every encounter, found it necessary, on the 31st of July, to make his first retrograde movement. He never scrupled to attack thousands of the enemy with hundreds of his own troops, in open battle; the odds, whether five to one or ten to one, did not deter him; but when his whole force, his miniature army of operations, became reduced to little more than the number for one full regiment, the question arose whether any men would be left at all, after fighting the whole distance to Lucknow. He had no means for crossing the Sye river or the great canal, as the enemy had taken care either to destroy or to guard all the bridges; and in every military requirement—except courage—his force was becoming daily weaker. Besides officers and men who had been killed or wounded in fair fight, numbers had been struck down by the sun; while others, through exposure to swamps and marshes, had been seized with cholera, diarrhœa, and dysentery; insomuch that Havelock was losing at the rate of fifty men a day. In addition to all this, as he could leave no men behind him to keep open the communication with Cawnpore, he was obliged to take all his sick and wounded with him. His little band being now reduced by battle and disease to 1364 men, he determined on receding two short marches, to wait until reinforcements of some kind could reach him. Colonel Tytler, his quartermaster-general, strongly confirmed the necessity of this retreat. He saw no possibility of more than 600 men reaching Lucknow alive and in fighting condition; and they would then have had two miles of street-fighting before reaching the Residency. He recommended a retreat from Busherutgunje to Mungulwar; and this retreat was made under the earnest hope that aid would arrive soon enough to permit an advance to Lucknow within a week—aid most urgently needed, seeing that the garrison at that place was becoming very short of provisions. The troops, of course, were a little disheartened by this retrograde movement. They rested in Busherutgunje from the early morning of the 30th to the afternoon, when they received the order to retreat. It was not till after the reasons were explained to them, that his gallant companions in arms could at all reconcile themselves to this order from the general. They marched back that evening to Onao, and the following morning to Mungulwar.

The month of August began under dispiriting circumstances to Havelock. His chance of reaching Lucknow was smaller than ever; although greater than ever was the need of the garrison at that place for his assistance. He sent back his sick and wounded from Mungulwar to Cawnpore, across the Ganges, and committed them to Neill’s keeping. He explained to that general the reasons for his retreat, and asked for further reinforcements if such were by any means obtainable. Neill was able simply to send a few dozens of men, bringing Havelock’s effective number up to about 1400. With these he set about reorganising his little band during the first three days of the month—counting each man as if he had been a gem above price. Every native had been got rid of; all his troops were British; and therefore, few as they were, he felt entire reliance on them. On the 4th he sent out his handful of volunteer cavalry to reconnoitre the Lucknow road, to see what had become of the enemy. The troopers dashed through Onao without interruption; but on approaching Busherutgunje they saw ample evidence that the enemy were endeavouring to block up the line of communication, by occupying in force a series of hamlets between the town and the lake beyond it. The cavalry, having thus obtained news critically important to the general, galloped back the same evening to Onao, where they were joined by Havelock and his force from Mungulwar. After a night’s bivouac at Onao, the British marched forth in early morn, and met their old enemy for a second time at Busherutgunje. Havelock, after a reconnaissance, resolved to deceive the enemy by a show of cavalry in front, while he sent round guns and infantry to turn their flanks. This manœuvre completely succeeded; the enemy were surprised, shelled out of the town, and pursued by the bayonet and the rifle through the whole of the hamlets to an open plain beyond. They suffered much, but safely drew off all their guns except two. Though a victory for Havelock, shewing the high qualities of his men, it was not one that cheered him much. The enemy were still between him and Lucknow, and he would have to encounter them again and again, with probably great reinforcements on their side, ere he could succeed in the object he had at heart. The morning of the 6th of August rose gloomily to him; for he was forced to a conclusion that an attack on Lucknow was wholly beyond his force. He returned from Busherutgunje through Onao to his old quarters at Mungulwar; and when encamped there, wrote or telegraphed to the commander-in-chief that he must abandon his long-cherished enterprise until strengthened. All his staff-officers joined in the opinion that to advance now to Lucknow would be ‘to court annihilation,’ and would, moreover, seal the doom of the heroic Inglis in that city—seeing that that officer could not possibly hold out without the hopeful expectation, sooner or later, of relief from Cawnpore. ‘I will remain,’ added Havelock in his notification, ‘till the last moment in this position (Mungulwar), strengthening it, and hourly improving my bridge-communication with Cawnpore, in the hope that some error of the enemy may enable me to strike a blow against them, and give the garrison an opportunity of blowing up their works and cutting their way out.’ Havelock’s army now only just exceeded 1000 effective men—a number absurd to designate as an army, were it not for its brilliant achievements. Between Mungulwar and Lucknow it was known that there were three strong posts, defended by 50 guns and 30,000 men. Every village on the road, too (this being, in the turbulent province of Oude), was found to be occupied by zemindars deadly hostile to the British. Neill had only 500 reliable troops at Cawnpore, of whom one-half were on the sick-list. Who can wonder, then, that even a Havelock shrank from an advance to Lucknow at such a time?