The month at length arrived which was to witness the great siege of Lucknow, the capture of that important city, and the commencement of a re-establishment of British influence in Oude. The city which, excepting a small portion near and around the Residency, had been wholly in the hands of the rebels since the beginning of July, was to revert to the Company’s possession in March, by a series of military operations which it is the purpose of this chapter to trace.

The extraordinary events in that city have been too frequently dwelt on in past chapters to render any lengthened notice here necessary. The reader will only have to bear in mind that Lawrence maintained the Residency intact until his death early in July; that Inglis continued the defence until September; that Outram and Havelock held the same position until November; and that from thence to March the city was wholly in the hands of the enemy—the Alum Bagh alone being held by Outram. Concerning the buildings and general arrangement of Lucknow, it may be useful here to freshen the recollection by a few descriptive details. The city lies on the right bank of the river Goomtee, which there runs nearly from northwest to southeast. All the buildings on the opposite or left bank of the river are merely suburban. After winding round the buildings called the Martinière and the Dil Koosha, the river changes its course towards the south. The southeastern extremity of the city is bounded by a canal, which enters the Goomtee near the Martinière. There is no defined boundary on the southwest, west, or northwest, the urban giving way to the rural in the same gradual way as in most English towns. Between the crowded or commercial part of the city, and the river, extends—or extended at the time of the Revolt (for it will be convenient to adopt the past tense in this description)—a long series of palaces and gardens, occupying collectively an immense area, and known by the several names of the Taree Kothee, Fureed Buksh, Pyne Bagh, Chuttur Munzil, Kaiser Bagh, Shah Munzil, Motee Mehal, Shah Nujeef, Secunder Bagh, &c. Still further in the same line, were the buildings once famous as the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, the great Emanbarra, and the Moosa Bagh. In short, for a distance of at least five miles, there was a string of royal or governmental buildings along the right bank of the river, forming a belt between it and the poorer or denser streets of the city. There was a stone bridge beyond the Muchee Bhowan, an iron bridge near the Residency, and—in peaceful times—a bridge of boats near the Motee Mehal. As to the general aspect of the city, when seen from a distance, writers have been at a loss for similes applicable to it, owing chiefly to the vast space over which the buildings are dotted. ‘If,’ in the quaint words of one writer, ‘Clapham were overrun by a Mohammedan conqueror, who stuck up domes, cupolas, and minarets on half the meeting-houses and mansions; and if that pleasant suburb, when all the trees are green, were spread for eighteen or twenty miles over a dead level surface—the aspect it would present might in some degree give one a notion of Lucknow.’

The city, in the interval between November and March, had been fortified by the rebels in great strength. Although not enclosed like Delhi by a fortified wall, its many square miles of area, full of narrow streets and high houses, and occupied by an enormous military force in addition to the ordinary population, constituted a formidable stronghold in itself. But the rebels did not neglect the usual precautions of defensive warfare. Rightly judging that the English commander would avoid a hand-to-hand contest in the streets, and would direct his attack towards the southeastern suburb, they spared no labour in strengthening that side of the city. In considering their plan of fortification, they treated the courts and buildings of the Kaiser Bagh as a sort of citadel, and interposed a triple series of obstacles between it and the besiegers. First, exterior of the three, was a line of defence extending from the river to a building known as Banks’s house, once occupied by Major Banks; the canal formed the wet ditch of this line, and within the canal was a rampart or elevated earthwork. The second defence consisted of an earthwork beginning at the river-side near the Motee Mehal, the Mess-house, and the Emanbarra. The third or interior defence was the principal rampart of the Kaiser Bagh itself. All these lines consisted of well-constructed earthen parapets or ridges, fronted by wide and deep ditches, and strengthened at intervals by bastions. Not relying wholly on these formidable lines, the enemy had loopholed and fortified almost every house and enclosure, constructed strong counter-guards in front of the gateways, and placed isolated bastions, stockades, and traverses across the principal streets. The three lines of defence all abutted at one end on the river Goomtee, and at the other on the great street or road called the Huzrutgunje; which street was among the principal of those loopholed and bastioned. It was estimated that the enemy defended their works with nearly 100 guns and mortars. The insurgent troops were variously computed at 40,000 to 80,000 in number; the estimate could not be a precise one, because it was impossible to determine how many peasants from the country or desperate characters from the city joined the regular sepoys. There is, however, reason to believe that, at the beginning of March, the city contained 30,000 revolted sepoys, 50,000 volunteers and armed retainers of chieftains, and an ordinary city population of no less than 300,000 souls. It was a terrible thought that a city should be bombarded containing so large a number of living beings; but, as one of the stern necessities of the war, it was imperative. The chieftains of Oude, and the revolted sepoys of the Company’s army, were there in great number; and until they were subdued, nothing could be effected towards the pacification of this part of India.

It may not be out of place here to notice a few of the individuals who, during the interregnum in Oude, assumed sovereign or governing power. The newly set up king was a boy of eight or ten years old, a son of the deposed king living at that time under surveillance at Calcutta. As a boy, he was a puppet in the hands of others. The prime mover in all the intrigues was his mother, the Begum Huzrut Mehal, who professed to be regent during his minority, and to be assisted by a council of state. She was a woman of much energy of character, and conducted public affairs in an apartment of the Kaiser Bagh. Morally she was tainted in full measure with oriental vices. Like Catherine of Russia she raised one of her paramours, Mummoo Khan, to the office of chief judge, and did not scruple openly to acknowledge her relations towards him. “While executing the Begum’s commands in all that related to the management of the newly formed government, he enriched himself at the expense of the people generally. The chief minister was one Shirreff-u-Dowlah, and the generalissimo Hissamut-u-Dowlah; but Mummoo Khan, held up by courtly favour, had sources of power superior to both. Another notability was a Moulvie or Mussulman fanatic who, though professing allegiance to the boy-king of Oude, was suspected of aiming at the throne himself. Most of the officers of the government purchased their places by large gifts to the Begum or her favourite, knowing that they would obtain an ample return during the anarchy of the period. The eunuchs of the royal palaces held, nominally if not really, military commands. The whole city of Lucknow, it is quite evident, was a hideous mass of intrigue, in which the various members of the royal family sought how best they could obtain power and wealth at the expense of the bulk of the people; while their ministers and officers were parasitical just so far as might be subservient to their own interests. The trading classes generally had very little reason to rejoice at the temporary cessation of the British ‘raj.’ The Begum and the Moulvie leader were regarded as the chief instruments in the opposition to the British. Every measure was resorted to that could raise the fanaticism of the native population. The English, and especially their Sikh allies, were represented as systematically murdering all who fell into their hands. On one occasion, shortly before the arrival of Sir Colin, the Begum rode through the streets of the city on an elephant, as one might imagine our Elizabeth appearing before her troops at Tilbury; and she used all her arts to induce the several chieftains to make her cause theirs.

These preliminaries settled, the narrative may be proceeded with. How the troops under the commander-in-chief approached Lucknow in February, and what were the components of the army of Oude, in generals and soldiers, the last chapter shewed.

When, on the 1st of March, Sir Colin Campbell was within a few miles of Lucknow, in his camp at Buntara, he fully considered all the information obtainable up to that time concerning the defences of the city. One result of the inquiry, was to convince him that a necessity would arise for operating from both sides of the Goomtee river, whenever the actual assault should take place.^[141] This would be necessary, or at least desirable, because such a course would enable him to enfilade (that is, attack laterally or at the extremities) many of the enemy’s newly constructed works; and because he would thus be able to cut off the enemy from their external sources of supply. It is true that he could not hope wholly to surround a city which, with its fortified suburbs, had a circuit of little less than twenty miles; still he would make an important approach towards that condition by cannonading from both sides of the river. One of his earliest preparations, therefore, had relation to the means of crossing the river; and to this end his engineers were busily engaged in fitting casks so that they might be placed across the river as a floating-bridge. The former bridge of boats, opposite some of the palaces, had been removed by the insurgents; while the iron and stone bridges were well watched by them.

On the 2d, Sir Colin marched at daybreak from his camp at Buntara, diverged from the road to the Alum Bagh, and took that which went near the Jelalabad fort towards the eastern margin of the suburbs. With a portion only of his army, he advanced to the Dil Koosha, the palace and park at the easternmost extremity of the city. The chief officers with him at the time of this advance were Generals Lugard, Adrian Hope, Hope Grant, Little, and Archdale Wilson. His main object at first, with a force of five or six thousand men, was to march to such a spot, near the Dil Koosha, as would enable him to form a camp just beyond reach of the enemy’s guns; and to protect his enormous siege-train as it gradually arrived, until the time was come for commencing active operations. Not only the siege-train, but the countless appendages of an Indian army, would equally require protection during its passage from Buntara to the Dil Koosha. Mr Russell, who accompanied this expedition in person, says that no language can correctly convey an idea of the vastness in the number of elephants, camels, oxen, horses, camp-followers, and vehicles that daily demanded the commander-in-chief’s attention at this period. ‘Who really can bring before his mind’s eye a train of baggage-animals twenty-five miles long, a string of sixteen thousand camels, a siege-train park covering a space of four hundred by four hundred yards, with twelve thousand oxen attached to it, and a following of sixty thousand non-combatants?’ Even the doolies or litter-carriages for wounded men constituted a formidable item. To each company of a regiment there were ten doolies, and to each dooly were six coolies or native porters: thus there were nearly five hundred dooly-carriers for each average regiment; and even with this large supply, if the sick and wounded in any one regiment exceeded eighty men, there would be more than the coolies could properly attend to.

The force with which Sir Colin started from Buntara brought a few guns only. These were dragged along the centre of the line of route; the infantry were on either side of them, the cavalry and horse-artillery outside all, and the baggage in the rear. Each soldier took a small quantity of food with him. The march was through a flat well-cultivated country, past the Jelalabad fort, but a mile or so distant from the Alum Bagh. The skirmishers at the head of the column, as they approached the Dil Koosha, found a body of insurgent troopers watching their progress. When the column began to close on the advance-guard, the enemy opened fire with several guns which were in position in strong bastions along the line of canal—the outermost of the three lines of defence before adverted to. This fire was heavy and well sustained. It was not difficult to capture the Dil Koosha itself; but Sir Colin’s troops were much annoyed by the enemy’s fire over the open country, until they could secure the Dil Koosha and the Mahomed Bagh as advanced pickets, with heavy guns placed in battery to oppose the enemy’s artillery. This once effected, a secure base for further operations was obtained, with the right resting on the river. It was a good day’s work, not in conquest, but in the preparations for conquest.

When Sir Colin came to reconnoitre the enemy’s position, he found that the new lines of defence, constructed since November, were vast and well planned. He further saw that no immediate attack could be successfully made upon them by infantry, without such a sacrifice of life as he had determined if possible to avoid. To fight with artillery, before sending in his foot-soldiers to fight, was his plan; and he now at once sent back a messenger to the camp at Buntara, for the rest of the troops and heavy siege-artillery to advance without delay. All during the following night was the road from Buntara to the Dil Koosha filled with an apparently endless train of soldiers, guns, commissariat-carts, beasts of burden and of draught, and camp-followers—ready to swell the large number already at the last-named place. This train was protected on either side by cavalry and horse artillery, ready to dash out against any of the enemy that should threaten interruption.

During the whole day on the 3d, the operations consisted chiefly in this bringing forward of guns and bodies of troops to positions necessary to be occupied when the regular siege began. When the remainder of the siege-train had arrived, and also General Walpole’s division, Sir Colin’s position embraced all the open ground on the southeastern margin of the city, with his right flank resting on the Goomtee, and his left in the direction of the Alum Bagh. The Alum Bagh and the Jelalabad fort were both occupied by portions of his troops, and the country between them was controlled by Hodson’s Irregular Horse; while a strong brigade of cavalry, under Brigadier W. Campbell, swept the suburbs northwest of the Alum Bagh. By this arrangement, almost the entire southern half of the city was invested by his forces. The Dil Koosha was head-quarters, surrounded by the tents in which the soldiers took their few brief hours of repose. The palace, built in an Italian style, still retained much of the splendour belonging to it in more peaceful days, when it was the ‘Heart’s Delight’ of the sensual monarch; but now it was well guarded by 42d Highlanders, ready to grapple with princelings and sepoys at any moment. From the roof of this palace could be seen the chief buildings of the city, as well as the vast defensive preparations which the enemy had made. The sepoys in the Martinière maintained a rifle-fire against such of the British as made their appearance on the flat roof of the Dil Koosha; but the distance was too great to render the fire dangerous.

The operations of the 4th were a sequel to those of the 3d—not an actual commencement of the siege, but a furtherance of the arrangements necessary to render the siege successful. The camp was extended from the Dil Koosha to Bibiapore, a house and enclosure a little further down the right bank of the river. From the glimpses obtained by the skirmishers and pickets, and from the information brought in by spies, it was ascertained that many of the inhabitants, terrified at the formidable preparations for the siege, were fleeing from the city on the opposite side; and that the ‘authorities’ were endeavouring to check this flight, wishing the inhabitants to fight for their property and their lives within the city itself. There were intelligible reasons for this on both sides. The citizens, whether their love for their native royal family was great or small, had little inclination to sacrifice their own personal interests to that sentiment; while, on the other hand, the rebel leaders cared not how many townsmen were ruined, so long as the privileges and profits of government remained with themselves, rather than reverting to the British.

It was on the 5th that General Franks joined the commander-in-chief, with that corps which now became the fourth division of the army of Oude. He had fought his way half across the province, from the Jounpoor frontier, defeating many bodies of rebels on the way, and arriving at Lucknow precisely at the time which had been agreed on. Jung Bahadoor and his large Nepaulese army did not arrive at the time specified: a want of punctuality which disturbed both the plans and the equanimity of Sir Colin. The components of the army of Oude, as laid down by the commander-in-chief on the 10th of February, were enumerated in a note at the end of the last chapter. At present, on the 5th of March, when Franks had arrived, the army before Lucknow consisted approximately of the following numbers of troops—First division of infantry, under Outram, about 5000 strong; second, under Lugard, 5400; third, under Walpole, 4300; fourth, under Franks, 4800; cavalry, under Hope Grant and other commanders, distributed among the infantry divisions; artillery, including the naval brigade, 1100; and engineers, 1700. The army of Oude was often said to consist of 30,000 troops, of whom 18,000 were British and the rest native; but such an estimate was worth little unless the exact day be named to which it applied. The army varied both by arrivals and departures.

The portion of the siege-plan connected with the left bank of the river had never been lost sight of during the preparatory operations on the right. While the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and commissariat were busily engaged in camping near the Dil Koosha, the engineers were collecting the casks, fascines of fagots, ropes, and timbers, necessary for forming a bridge, or rather two bridges, across the Goomtee, at some point below where the enemy were in greatest force. The spot selected was near head-quarters at Bibiapore, where the river was about forty yards wide. The enemy, uneasy at the proceedings of the engineers, gradually assembled in considerable numbers on the opposite bank; but as the British brought up guns to oppose them, the engineering works proceeded without much molestation. These bridges exemplified some of the contrivances which military commanders are accustomed to adopt, in the course of their onerous duties. The groundwork of each was a collection of empty beer-casks, lashed by ropes to timber cross-pieces, and floated off one by one to their positions; a firm roadway of planking was afterwards fixed on the top of the whole range from end to end. Firm indeed must the construction necessarily have been; for troopers on their horses, heavy guns and mortars, ammunition-wagons, and commissariat carts, all would have to pass over these bridges, secure so far as possible from accident to man or beast.

To Sir James Outram was intrusted the command of that portion of the army which was to cross by these bridges of casks, and operate against the city from the left bank of the Goomtee. This gallant officer had been in and near the Alum Bagh for a period of just one hundred days, from November to March, defending himself successfully against numerous attacks made on him by the enemy, as narrated in former chapters. It was right that he should now have the most important command under Sir Colin. He took his departure from the Alum Bagh—leaving that important post, which he had so long and so well defended, to the care of Brigadier Franklyn and of the 5th and 78th Queen’s regiments of foot. The force intrusted to him consisted of Walpole’s division of infantry, together with regiments and detachments from other divisions.^[142] Franks with his division took Walpole’s place near the Dil Koosha. The plan of attack agreed upon was, that Outram, after crossing the Goomtee, should advance up the left bank; while the troops in position at the Dil Koosha were to remain at rest until it should have become apparent that the first line of the enemy’s works, or the rampart running along the canal and abutting on the Goomtee, had been turned. Sir James, arriving at the Dil Koosha from the Alum Bagh, effected his crossing safely on the 6th, and pitched his camp for the night on the left bank of the river, near the race-course. It was a formidable burden for the bridges to bear, comprising, besides the infantry and cavalry, thirty guns, and a large train of baggage and ammunition animals; nevertheless the floating fabrics bore up well, and fully answered their intended purpose. English troops of the line, Highlanders, lancers, hussars, dragoons, artillery, engineers, commissariat, horses, oxen, camels, elephants—all passed safely over, and speedily fell into orderly array on the other side of the river. This was, of course, not done without a little fighting. The enemy could not be blind to the proceeding, nor to the consequences likely to result from it. There was skirmishing in front of the Chukkur Walla Kothee, or Yellow House, a circular building on the left bank of the river; and there was much prancing about of leading personages who hastily came out of the city; but nothing disturbed Sir James from securely encamping at night.

While Outram was thus crossing the river on the 6th, Sir Colin remained simply on the defensive near the Dil Koosha, deferring all active operations until the subsidiary force had got into fighting order on the left bank. The enemy maintained a continuous fire from the Martinière; but the gunnery was not good, and very little mischief was occasioned. One of the most striking circumstances connected with the position and proceedings of the commander-in-chief was that he carried the electric telegraph with him from camp to camp, from post to post. Chiefly through the energy of Lieutenant Patrick Stewart, poles were set up and wires extended wherever Sir Colin went. Calcutta, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Buntara, and the Alum Bagh, could all communicate instantly; and now a wire made its appearance through a drawing-room window at the Dil Koosha itself, being stretched over a row of poles along the line of route which the commander-in-chief and his troops had followed. Nay, the wires even followed Outram over the river, and made their appearance—for the first time in the history of Oude—on the left bank. No sooner did Sir Colin advance a few miles, than Stewart followed him with poles and wires, galvanic batteries and signalling apparatus—daring all dangers, conquering all difficulties, and setting up a talking-machine close to the very enemy themselves. It may almost literally be said that, wherever he lay down his head at night, Sir Colin could touch a handle, and converse with Lord Canning at Allahabad before he went to sleep. The value of the electric telegraph was quite beyond all estimate during these wars and movements: it was worth a large army in itself.

On the 7th, Sir James Outram, while making his arrangements on the opposite side of the river, was attacked in great force by the enemy. On the preceding day, he had baffled them in all their attempts, with a loss of only 2 killed and 10 wounded; and he was not now likely to be seriously affected even by four or five times his number. The enemy occupied the race-course stand with infantry, and bodies of cavalry galloped up to the same spot with the intention of disturbing Outram’s camp. He resisted all the attacks, chased them to a distance with his cavalry, and maintained his advantageous camping-ground.^[143] The road from Fyzabad and from the cantonment passed near his camp; and as all that region had for many months been entirely in the hands of the rebels, there was a liability at any moment of some sudden onslaught being made on him. The commander-in-chief had foreseen this, when he placed at the disposal of Outram a division strong enough to form a compact little army in itself.

The result of a careful reconnaissance made on the 8th, by Sir Colin, resulted in instructions to Outram to arrange his batteries during the night, and on the following day to attack the enemy’s position, the key to which was the Chukkur Walla Kothee. On the morning of the 9th, accordingly, Sir James made the attack with excellent effect; the enemy being driven out at all points, and the Yellow House seized. He advanced his whole force for some distance through ground affording excellent cover for the enemy. He was by that means enabled to bring his right flank forward to occupy the Fyzabad road, which he crossed by a bridge over a nullah, and to plant his batteries for the purpose of enfilading the works upon the canal. During this day’s operations, much skirmishing took place between his Sikhs and Rifles and the enemy; but the most obstinate contest was maintained within the Yellow House itself, where a few fanatics, shutting themselves up, resisted for several hours all attempts to dislodge them. They were at length expelled, fighting desperately to the last. Outram was then enabled to take the villages of Jeamoor and Jijowly, and to advance to the Padishah Bagh or King’s Garden, opposite the Fureed Buksh palace, and to commence an enfilade fire on the lines of the Kaiser Bagh defences.

While Outram was engaged in these successful operations of the 9th on the left bank of the Goomtee, a very heavy fire was kept up against the Martinière, from mortars and guns placed in position on the Dil Koosha plateau. Sir Colin had purposely deferred this assault until Outram had captured the Yellow House, and commenced that flank attack which so embarrassed the enemy. The sailors of the naval brigade were joyously engaged on this day; for the thicker the fight, the better were they pleased. They commanded four great guns on the road near the Dil Koosha; and with these they battered away, not only against the Martinière, but also against a cluster of small houses near that building. Captain Sir William Peel managed to throw not only shot and shell, but also rockets, into enclosures which contained numerous insurgent musketeers—a visitation which necessarily prompted a hasty flight. It had well-nigh been a bad day for the British, however; for Peel received a musket-ball in the thigh while walking about fearlessly among his guns; the ball was extracted under the influence of chloroform; but the wound nearly proved fatal through the eagerness of the gallant man to return to the fray. He was, however, spared for the present. The enemy resisted this day’s attack with a good deal of resolution; for they fired shot right over the Martinière towards the Dil Koosha, from guns in their bastions on the canal line of defence. When the cannonading had proceeded to the desired extent, a storming of the Martinière took place, by troops under the command of Sir Edward Lugard and other able officers. The instructions given by the commander-in-chief for this enterprise were minute and complete,^[144] and were carried out to the letter. The infantry marched forward from their camp behind the Dil Koosha, their bayonets glittering in the sun; and it was remarked that the sight of these terrible bayonets appeared to throw the enemy into more trepidation than all the guns and howitzers, mortars and rockets. A bayonet-charge by the British was more than any of the ‘Pandies’ could bear. Silently and swiftly the Highlanders and Punjaubees marched on, the former towards the Martinière, and the latter towards the trenches that flanked that building; while the other regiments of Lugard’s column followed closely in the rear. Distracted by Outram’s enfilade fire from the other side of the river, and by Lugard’s advance in front, the enemy made but a feeble resistance. The 42d Highlanders and the Punjaubee infantry climbed up the intrenchment abutting on the river, and rushed along the whole line of works, till they got to the neighbourhood of Banks’s house. Meanwhile, another body of infantry advanced to the Martinière, and captured the building and the whole of the enclosure surrounding it. All this was done with very little bloodshed on either side; for Lugard’s men, in obedience to orders, did not fire; while the enemy escaped from the walls and trenches without maintaining a hand-to-hand contest. This abandonment of the defence-works would not have taken place so speedily had not Outram’s flanking fire enfiladed the whole line; but the insurgent artillerymen found it impossible to withstand the ordeal to which they were now exposed. Sir Colin’s plan had been so carefully made, and so admirably carried out, that this capture of the enemy’s exterior line of defence was effected almost without loss.

On the 10th, while Outram was engaged in strengthening the position which he had taken up, he sent Hope Grant with the cavalry of the division to patrol over the whole of the country between the left bank of the Goomtee and the old cantonment. This was done with the view of preventing any surprise by the approach of bodies of the rebels in that quarter. An extensive system of patrolling or reconnaissance had formed from the first a part of Sir Colin’s plan for the tactics of the siege. Outram on this day brought his heavy guns into a position to rake the enemy’s lines, to annoy the Kaiser Bagh with a vertical and direct fire, to attack the suburbs in the vicinity of the iron and stone bridges, and to command the iron bridge from the left bank; all of which operations he carried out with great success. The enemy, however, still held the right end of the iron bridge so pertinaciously, that it was not until after a very heavy cannonading that the conquest was effected.

On the city side of the river, on this day, the operations consisted mainly in securing the conquests effected on the 9th. At a very early hour in the morning, while yet dusk, the rebel sepoys advanced in great strength to reoccupy the defence-line of the canal, apparently not knowing that the Highlanders and Punjaubees had maintained that position during the night; they were speedily undeceived by a volley of musketry which put them to flight. At sunrise a disposition of troops and heavy guns was made by Lugard for an attack on Banks’s house; and this house, captured about noon, was at once secured as a strong military post.

Thus did this remarkable siege go on day after day. Nothing was hurried, nothing unforeseen. All the movements were made as if the city and its environs formed a vast chess-board on which the commander-in-chief could see the position of all the pieces and pawns. Nay, so fully had he studied the matter, that he had some such command over the ground as is maintained by a chess-player who conducts and wins a game without seeing the board. Every force, every movement, was made conducive to one common end—the conquest of the city without the loss of much British blood, and without leaving any lurking-place in the hands of the enemy.

The conquest and fortifying of Banks’s house enabled Sir Colin to commence the second part of his operations. Having captured the enemy’s exterior line of defence, he had now to attack the second or middle line, which (as has been already shewn) began at the river-side near the Motee Mehal, the Mess-house, and the Emanbarra. The plan he formed was to use the great block of houses and palaces extending from Banks’s house to the Kaiser Bagh as an approach, instead of sapping up towards the second line of works. ‘The operation,’ as he said in his dispatch, ‘had now become one of an engineering character; and the most earnest endeavours were made to save the infantry from being hazarded before due preparation had been made.’ The chief engineer, Brigadier Napier, placed his batteries in such positions as to shell and breach a large block of the palaces known as the Begum Kothee. This bombardment, on the 11th, was long and severe; for the front of the palaces was screened by outhouses, earthworks, and parapets, which required to be well battered before the infantry could make the assault. The 8-inch guns of the naval brigade were the chief instruments in this formidable cannonade. At length, about four o’clock in the afternoon, Napier announced that the breaches were practicable, and Lugard at once made arrangements for storming the Begum Kothee. He had with him the 93d Highlanders, the 4th Punjaub Rifles, and 1000 Goorkhas, and was aided in the assault by Adrian Hope. His troops speedily secured the whole block of buildings, and inflicted a very heavy loss on the enemy. The attack was one of a desperate character, and was characterised by Sir Colin as ‘the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.’ From that point Napier pushed his engineering approaches with great judgment through the enclosures, by the aid of the sappers and the 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 they could be placed. Outram was not idle during these operations. He obtained possession of the iron bridge, leading over the river from the cantonment to the city, and swept away the enemy from every part of the left bank of the river between that bridge and the Padishah Bagh; thus leaving him in a position to enfilade the central and inner lines of defence established by the enemy among the palaces.

It was while these serious and important operations were in progress, on the 11th of March, that the commander-in-chief was called upon to attend to a ceremonial affair, from which he would doubtless have willingly been spared. The preceding chapters have shewn how Jung Bahadoor, descending from the Nepaulese mountains with an army of 9000 Goorkhas, rendered a little service in the Goruckpore and Jounpoor districts, and then advanced into Oude to assist in the operations against Lucknow. His movements had been dilatory; and Sir Colin was forced to arrange all the details of the siege as if no reliance could be placed in this ally. At length, however, on the afternoon of the 11th, Jung Bahadoor appeared at the Dil Koosha; he and Sir Colin met for the first time. The meeting was a curious one. The Nepaul chieftain, thoroughly Asiatic in everything, prepared for the interview as one on which he might lavish all his splendour of gold, satin, pearls, and diamonds; the old Highland officer, on the other hand, plain beyond the usual plainness of a soldier in all that concerned personal indulgences,^[145] was somewhat tried even by the necessity for his full regimentals and decorative appendages. A continuous battle was going on, in which he thought of his soldiers’ lives, and of the tactics necessary to insure a victory; at such a time, and in such a climate, he would gladly have dispensed with the scarlet and the feathers of his rank, and of the oriental compliments in which truth takes little part. A tasteful canopy was prepared in front of Sir Colin’s mess-tent; and here were assembled the commander-in-chief, Archdale Wilson, Hope Grant, a glittering group of staff-officers and aids-de-camp, a Highland guard of honour, an escort of Lancers, bands, pipers, drums, flags, and all the paraphernalia for a military show. Sir Colin was punctual; Jung Bahadoor was not. Sir Colin, his thoughts all the while directed towards Lugard’s operations at the Begum Kothee, felt the approaching ceremony, and the delay in beginning it, as a sore interruption. At length the Nepaulese chieftain appeared. Jung Bahadoor had, as Nepaulese ambassador, made himself famous in London a few years before, by his gorgeous dress and lavish expenditure; and he now appeared in fully as great splendour. The presentations, the greetings, the compliments, the speeches, were all of the wonted kind; but when Captain Hope Johnstone, as one of the officers of the chief of the staff, entered to announce that ‘the Begum Kothee is taken,’ Sir Colin broke through all ceremony, expressed a soldier’s pleasure at the news, and brought the interview to a termination. Jung Bahadoor returned to his own camp; and the commander-in-chief instantly resumed his ordinary military duties. Sir Colin was evidently somewhat puzzled to know how best to employ his gorgeous colleague; although his courtesy would not allow him to shew it. The Goorkhas moved close to the canal on the 13th; and on the following day Sir Colin requested Jung Bahadoor to cross the canal, and attack the suburbs to the left of Banks’s house. As he was obliged, just at that critical time, to mass all the available strength of his British troops in the double attack along the banks of the Goomtee, the commander-in-chief had few to spare for his left wing; and he speaks of the troops of the Nepaulese leader as being ‘most advantageously employed for several days,’ in thus covering his left.

We return to the siege operations. So great had been the progress made on the 11th, that the development of the commander-in-chief’s strategy became every hour more and more clear. Outram’s heavy fire with guns and mortars produced great effect on the Kaiser Bagh; while the Begum Kothee became a post from which an attack could be made on the Emanbarra, a large building situated between the Begum Kothee and the Kaiser Bagh.^[146] The Begum Kothee palace, when visited by the officers of the staff on the morning of the 12th, astonished them by the strength which the enemy had given to it. The walls were so loopholed for musketry, the bastions and cannon were so numerous, the ditch around it was so deep, and the earthen rampart so high, that all marvelled how it came to be so easily captured on the preceding day. The enemy might have held it against double of Lugard’s force, had they not been paralysed by the bayonet. It was a strange sight, on the following morning, to see Highlanders and Punjaubees roaming about gorgeous saloons and zenanas, still containing many articles of dress and personal ornaments which the ladies of the palace had not had time to carry away with them. Whither the inmates had fled, the conquerors at that time did not know, and in all probability did not care. It was a strange and unnatural sight; splendour and blood appeared to have struggled for mastery in the various courts and rooms of the palace, many contests having taken place with small numbers of the enemy.^[147] From this building, we have said, Sir Colin determined that progress should be made towards the Emanbarra, not by open assault, but by sapping through a mass of intermediate buildings.

The 12th was the day when the sapping commenced; but so many and so intricate were the buildings, that three days were occupied in this series of operations; seeing that it was necessary to destroy or at least to render innoxious such houses as might have concealed large bodies of the enemy. Lugard’s troops having been hotly engaged on the 11th, they were now relieved by others under Franks. The work was of formidable character; for the flat roofs of many of the houses were covered with two or three feet of earth, baked in the sun, and loopholed for musketry. Every such house had to be well scrutinised, before a further advance was made. The sappers made passages, either actually underground, or through the lower portions of the walls and enclosures surrounding the buildings. On the 13th these approaches were so far completed that a large number of guns and mortars could be brought forward, and placed in position for bombarding the Emanbarra. On this day, too, Jung Bahadoor’s troops took possession of a mass of suburban houses southward of the city, between Sir Colin’s camp and the Alum Bagh; after which the commander-in-chief paid a return visit to the Nepaulese chieftain, who strove to display still more magnificence than at the former interview.

The 14th of March was one of the busy days of the siege. The sap was carried on so successfully that the Emanbarra could be bombarded by heavy guns and mortars, and then taken. Directly this was done, Brasyer’s Sikhs, pressing forward in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, entered the Kaiser Bagh—the third or inner line of defence having been turned without a single gun being fired from it. Supports were quickly thrown in, and the British troops found themselves speedily in a part of the city already well known to Campbell and Outram during their operations of November—surrounded by the Mess-house, the Taree Kothee, the Motee Mehal, and the Chuttur Munzil. All these buildings were near them, and all were occupied by them before night closed in. As fast as the infantry seized these several positions, so did the engineers proceed to secure the outposts towards the south and west. As in many other cases when it was the lot of the English in India to fight their greatest battles, or bear their greatest sufferings, on Sundays; so was it on a Sunday that these busy operations of the 14th took place. The front walls of the Kaiser Bagh and the Motee Mehal were extensively mined; insomuch that when the artillery had effected its dread work, the infantry could approach much more safely than if exposed to the sight of sharpshooters and matchlockmen. It is true that neither English nor Highlanders, neither Sikhs nor Goorkhas, would have hesitated to rush forward and storm these buildings without a sap; but as Sir Colin was well supplied with heavy guns, he acted steadily on the plan of employing them as much as possible before sending on his men—feeling that the loss of men would be more difficult to replace than that of guns and missiles, at such a time and in such a country. In his dispatch relating to the operations of the 14th of March, he said: ‘The day was one of continued exertion; and every one felt that, although much remained to be done before the final expulsion of the rebels, the most difficult part of the undertaking had been overcome. This is not the place for a description of the various buildings sapped into or stormed. Suffice it to say that they formed a range of massive palaces and walled courts of vast extent, equalled perhaps, but not surpassed, in any capital of Europe. Every outlet had been covered by a work, and on every side were prepared barricades and loopholed parapets. The extraordinary industry evinced by the enemy in this respect has been really unexampled. Hence the absolute necessity for holding the troops in hand, till at each successive move forward the engineers reported to me that all which could be effected by artillery and the sappers had been done, before the troops were led to the assault.’

A little must here be said concerning the share which Sir James Outram had in the operations of the 12th and two following days. All his tactics, on the left bank of the river, were especially intended to support those of the commander-in-chief on the right bank. On the 12th his heavy guns, at and near the Padishah Bagh, poured forth a torrent of shot, to dislodge the enemy from certain positions near the city. His head-quarters were established under a small tope of trees near a ruined mosque; and he, as well as Lugard and Walpole, lived as simply as possible under tents. The Padishah Bagh itself—a suburban palace with beautiful saloons, halls, terraces, orange-groves and fountains—was held by H.M. 23d. The left bank of the river being occupied as far up as the iron suspension bridge, Outram planted two or three guns to guard that position from any hostile attack from the north; while two or three regiments of his own infantry, in convenient spots near the bridge, kept up a musketry-fire against such of the enemy as were visible and within reach on the opposite or city side of the river. This musketry-fire was continued all day on the 13th, while the batteries of heavy guns were being brought further and further into position. On the 14th, the same operations were continued; but the conquest of the Kaiser Bagh was so sudden and unexpected on this day, that the proceedings on the left bank of the river were relatively unimportant.

When the morning of the 15th arrived, Sir Colin Campbell felt that he might call Lucknow his own; for although much remained to be done, the conquests achieved were vast and important. The Mahomed Bagh, the Dil Koosha, the Martinière, the Secunder Bagh, the Emanbarra, the Mess-house, the Shah Munzil, the Motee Mehal, the Begum Kothee, and the Kaiser Bagh, were all in his hands—constituting by far the strongest and most important of the palatial buildings along the banks of the river. Moreover, the natives were evidently dismayed; vast numbers were leaving the city on the Rohilcund side; and spies brought information that the rebel leaders encountered much difficulty in keeping the sepoys steadily at the defence-works. The progress made by the British had surprised and alarmed the insurgents, and tended to paralyse their exertions. Some of the British officers had entertained a belief that the Kaiser Bagh was the key to the enemy’s position, whereas others had looked rather to the Begum Kothee. The latter proved to be right. The enemy had greatly relied on the last-named building; insomuch that, when it was captured, they rushed in wild confusion to the Kaiser Bagh, intent rather upon flight than upon a stubborn resistance. The garrison of the Kaiser Bagh, disconcerted by this irruption of their brother insurgents, were rendered almost unable, even if willing, to make a manful resistance. The British were almost as much surprised by the speedy capture of the Kaiser Bagh, as the enemy were by the loss of the Begum Kothee. When the great palace changed hands, the smoke and blood and cries of war were strangely mingled with the magnificence of kiosks, mosques, corridors, courts, gardens, terraces, saloons, mirrors, gilding, chandeliers, tapestry, statues, pictures, and costly furniture, in this strange jumble of oriental and European splendour.

A soldier loses all his heroism when the hour for prize and plunder arrives. Those, whether officers or spectators, who have described the scene which was presented when these Lucknow palaces were conquered, tell plainly of a period of wild licence and absorbing greed. On the one hand there were palaces containing vast stores of oriental and European luxuries; on the other, there were bands of armed men, brave and faithful, but at the same time poor and unlettered, who suddenly found themselves masters of all these splendours, with very little check or supervision on the part of their officers. At first, in a spirit of triumphant revenge, costly articles were broken which were too large to be carried away; glass chandeliers were hurled to the ground, mirrors shattered into countless fragments, statues mutilated and overturned, pictures stabbed and torn, doors of costly wood torn from their hinges. But when this destruction had been wreaked, and when the troops had forced their way through courts and corridors strewn with sepoys’ brass lotas or drinking-vessels, charpoys, clothing, belts, ammunition, muskets, matchlocks, swords, pistols, chupatties, and other evidences of precipitate flight—when this had all occurred, then did the love of plunder seize hold of the men. The Kaiser Bagh had been so quickly conquered, that the subaltern officers had not yet received instructions how to control the movements of the troops in this matter. Sikhs, Highlanders, English, were soon busily engaged. In one splendid saloon might be seen a party of Sikhs melting down gold and silver lace for the sake of the precious metals; in another, a quantity of shawls, lace, pearls, and embroidery of gold and silver, was being divided equally among a group of soldiers. In a sort of treasure-room, apparently belonging to some high personage, a few men of two British regiments found caskets and boxes containing diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, opals, and other gems, made into necklaces, bracelets, earrings, girdles, &c.; together with gold-mounted pistols, jewel-hilted swords, saddle-cloths covered with gold and pearls, gold-handled riding-canes, jewelled cups of agate and jade, japanned boxes filled with crystal and jade vessels. And, as it appeared that every one felt himself permitted or at least enabled to retain whatever he could capture, the camp-followers rushed in and seized all that the soldiers had left. Coolies, syces, khitmutgars, dooly-bearers, and grass-cutters, were seen running hither and thither, laden with costly clothing, swords, firelocks, brass pots, and other articles larger in bulk than the actual soldiers could readily have disposed of. It was a saturnalia, during which it is believed that some of the troops appropriated enough treasure, if converted into its value in money, to render them independent of labour for the rest of their lives. But each man kept, in whole or in part, his own secret.

Let us on from this extraordinary scene. The 15th was chiefly employed in securing what had been captured, removing powder, destroying mines, and fixing mortars for the further bombardment of the positions still held by the enemy, on the right bank of the Goomtee, and in the heart of the city. As the infantry and artillery could fulfil this duty, without the aid of horse, two bodies of cavalry, under Walpole and Hope Grant, were sent out to prevent, if possible, the escape of the enemy on the sides of the city not subject to immediate attack. One of these generals proceeded towards the Sundeela road, and the other to that leading to Seetapoor. Whether this flight of the enemy disappointed or not the expectations of the commander-in-chief, was a question which he kept to himself. The city, for all practical military purposes, was twenty miles in circumference; and he could not have guarded all the outlets without a very much larger army than that which was at his disposal. Like as at Sebastopol, the siege was not aided by a complete investiture of the place besieged. It is possible that the capture of the Kaiser Bagh, and the consequent flight of the enemy, occurred too early for Sir Colin to be enabled to put in operation certain manœuvres on the other side of the city. Be this as it may, large numbers of rebel sepoys, and a still larger of the regular inhabitants of the city escaped during the 14th and 15th, mostly over the stone bridge—as if hopeful of safety in Rohilcund and Upper Oude.

On the 16th Sir James Outram, after ten days of active operation on the left bank of the Goomtee, crossed over by a bridge of casks opposite the Secunder Bagh; and he then advanced through the Chuttur Munzil towards the Residency. To lessen the chance of the enemy’s retreat as much as possible, he marched right through the city, not only to the iron bridge near the Residency, but to the stone bridge near the Muchee Bhowan. All this was an enterprise of remarkable boldness, for the buildings to be successively conquered and entered were very numerous. Outram shifted his own head-quarters to Banks’s house, on the city side of the river; and it was here that he received a letter from the Begum, or mother of the young boy-king, containing some sort of proposition for compromise or cessation of hostilities. Whatever it may have been, no successful result attended this missive: the progress and conquest went on as before. His troops, as they advanced to the Chuttur Munzil, the Pyne Bagh, the Fureed Buksh, and the Taree Kothee, found all these buildings abandoned by the enemy—who had been too much dismayed by the operations of the 16th to make a bold stand. At length he approached the Residency, the enclosed spot whose name will ever be imperishably associated with Inglis’s defence of the British garrison, and in which Outram himself had passed many anxious weeks between September and November. Hardly a building remained standing within the enclosure; all had been riddled and shattered during the long period from July to November, and most of them subsequently destroyed by the enemy. Up to this time Outram’s march of the 16th through the city had been almost unopposed; but he now ascertained that the houses and palaces between the iron and stone bridges were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Hard fighting at once commenced here, in which the 20th, 23d, and 79th regiments were actively engaged. They advanced at a rapid pace from the Residency towards the iron bridge. A 9-pounder, planted to command a road by the way, fired grape into them; but it was speedily captured. By that time the large guns were brought into position, to play upon the stone bridge, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, and other structures northwest of the iron bridge. At that time Grant and his troopers were near the stone bridge on the left side of the river, while Outram’s guns were firing on it from the right bank; as a consequence, no more escape was permitted by that channel; and the fugitives therefore ran along the right bank of the river, to a part of the open country northwest of Lucknow, not yet controlled by the English. Many of the rebel sepoys resolved to make a stand at the Moosa Bagh, a building at the extreme limits of the city in this direction; but the day was too far advanced to attack them at that spot; and the troops were glad to rest for the night in the splendid saloons and courts of the Emanbarra—one of the grandest among the many grand structures in Lucknow.

While Outram was engaged in these operations on the 16th, obtaining a mastery along almost the whole right bank of the river, the enemy very unexpectedly made an attack on the Alum Bagh, which was only held by a small English force under Brigadier Franklyn. Sir Colin Campbell immediately requested Jung Bahadoor to advance to his left up the canal, and take in reverse the post from which the enemy was making the attack. The Nepaulese chieftain performed this service successfully, capturing the post and the guns, and expelling the enemy.

When the morning of the 17th arrived, the commander-in-chief found himself so undoubtedly the master of Lucknow, that he was enabled to dispense with the services of some of his gallant artillery officers, whose aid was much wanted at Futteghur and elsewhere. Still, though the great conquest was mainly effected, the minor details had yet to be filled up. There were isolated buildings in which small knots of the enemy had fortified themselves; these it would be necessary to capture. It was also very desirable to check the camp-followers in their manifest tendency for plundering the shops and private houses of the city. Sir Colin did not wish the townsmen to regard him as an enemy; he encouraged them, so far as they had not been in complicity with the rebels, to return to their homes and occupations; and it was very essential that those homes should, in the meantime, be spared from reckless looting. In some of the streets, pickets of soldiers were placed, to compel the camp-followers to disgorge the plunder which they had appropriated; and thus was collected a strange medley of trinkets and utensils, which the temporary holders gave up with sore unwillingness. Here and there, where a soldier had a little leisure and opportunity, he would hold a kind of mock-auction, at which not only camp-followers but officers would buy treasures for a mere trifle; but these instances were few, for there was not much ready cash among the conquerors. Sir Colin found it necessary to issue an order concerning the plundering system.^[148] Outram and Jung Bahadoor took part in a series of operations, on the 17th, intended to obtain control over the northwest section of the city. The one set forth from the river, the other from the vicinity of the Alum Bagh; and during the day they cleared out many nests of rebels. There was also an action on the margin of the city, in which the enemy managed to bring together a considerable force of horse, foot, and artillery; their guns were captured, however, and themselves put to flight.

Sir Colin, responsible for many places besides Lucknow, and for many troops besides those under his immediate command, now made daily changes in the duties of his officers. Major (now Lieutenant-colonel) Vincent Eyre and Major (now also Lieutenant-colonel) Turner, two of the most distinguished artillery officers, departed for Futteghur and Idrapore; and Franklyn went to Cawnpore. Inglis succeeded Franklyn at the Alum Bagh. Sir Archdale Wilson and Brigadier Russell took their departure on sick-leave.

A considerable force of the enemy still lingered around the Alum Bagh, irresolute as to any actual attacks, but loath to quit the neighbourhood until the last ray of hope was extinguished. With these rebels Jung Bahadoor had many smart contests. He had been instructed by Sir Colin to obtain secure possession of the suburbs of the city near the Char Bagh—the bridge that carried the Cawnpore road over the canal.

It was on this day, the 17th, and partly in consequence of the success attending the operations of the Goorkhas, that two English ladies, Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, were delivered from the hands of enemies who had long held them in bondage. It will be remembered that on the night of the 22d of November,^[149] the insurgents in Lucknow, enraged at the safe evacuation of the Residency by the British, put to death certain English prisoners who had long been in confinement in the Kaiser Bagh. Among them were Mr Orr and Sir Mountstuart Jackson. So far as any authentic news could be obtained, it appeared that Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson had been spared; partly, as some said, through the intervention of the Begum. During the subsequent period of nearly four months, the fate of those unhappy ladies remained unknown to their English friends. On the day in question, however (the 17th of March), Captain M’Neil and Lieutenant Bogle, both attached to the Goorkha force, while exploring some of the deserted streets in the suburb, were accosted by a native who asked their protection for his house and property. The man sought to purchase this protection by a revelation concerning certain English ladies, who, he declared, were in confinement in a place known to him. Almost immediately another native brought a note from Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, begging earnestly for succour. M’Neil and Bogle instantly obtained a guard of fifty Goorkhas, and, guided by the natives, went on their errand of mercy. After walking through half a mile of narrow streets, doubtful of an ambush at every turning, they came to a house occupied by one Meer Wajeed Ali, who held, or had held, some office under the court. After a little parleying, M’Neil and Bogle were led to an obscure apartment, where were seated two ladies in oriental costume. These were the prisoners, who had so long been excluded from every one of their own country, and who were overwhelmed with tearful joy at this happy deliverance. It was not clearly known whether this Meer Wajeed Ali was endeavouring to buy off safety for himself by betraying a trust imposed in him; but the two English officers deemed it best to lose no time in securing their countrywomen’s safety, whether he were a double-dealer or not; they procured a palanquin, put the ladies into it, and marched off with their living treasure—proud enough with their afternoon’s work. When these poor ladies came to tell their sad tale of woe, with countenances on which marks of deep suffering were expressed, it became known that, though not exposed to any actual barbarities or atrocities, like so many of their countrywomen in other parts of India, their lives had been made very miserable by the unfeeling conduct of their jailers, who were permitted to use gross and insulting language in their presence, and to harrow them with recitals of what Europeans were and had been suffering. They had had food in moderate sufficiency, but of other sources of solace they were almost wholly bereft. It was fully believed that they would not have been restored alive, had the jailer obeyed the orders issued to him by the Moulvie.

After a day of comparative repose on the 18th, a combined movement against the Moosa Bagh was organised on the 19th. This was the last position held by the enemy on the line of the Goomtee, somewhat beyond the extreme northwest limit of the city. Outram moved forward directly against the place; Hope Grant cannonaded it from the left bank; while William Campbell, approaching on the remote side from the Alum Bagh, prevented retreat in that direction. Some said the Begum was there, some the Moulvie or fanatic chieftain; but on this point nothing was known. All that was certain was that several thousand insurgents, driven from other places, had congregated within the buildings and courts of the Moosa Bagh. Outram’s troops started from the Emanbarra on this expedition early in the morning; he himself joined them from Banks’s house, while Sir Colin rode over to see in person how the work was effected. Opposite the Moosa Bagh, which was a large structure surrounded by an enclosed court, was the residence of Ali Nuckee Khan, vizier or prime-minister to the deposed King of Oude; and in other parts of the vicinity were numerous mansions and mosques. If the rebels had held well together, they might have made a stout resistance here, for the buildings contained many elements of strength; but discord reigned; the Begum reproached the thalookdars, the thalookdars the sepoys; while the Moulvie was suspected of an intention to set up as King of Oude on his own account. Outram’s column was to make the direct attack; Hope Grant’s cavalry and horse-artillery were to command certain roads of approach and exit on the river-side; while William Campbell’s cavalry, aided by two or three infantry regiments, were to command the opposite side. The contest can hardly be called a battle or a siege; for as soon as the rebels clearly ascertained that the British were approaching, they abandoned court after court, house after house, and escaped towards the northwest, by the only avenue available. Although they did not fight, they escaped more successfully than Sir Colin had wished or intended. Whether the three movements were not timed in unison, or whether collateral objects engaged the attention of Brigadier Campbell, certain it is that few of the enemy were killed, and that many thousands safely marched or ran out. The open country, covered with enclosures and cornfields, enabled the sepoys better to escape than the British to pursue them. A regiment of Sikhs was sent to occupy the Moosa Bagh; and now was Lucknow still more fully than before in the hands of the commander-in-chief.

On the 20th, further measures were taken, by proclamation and otherwise, to induce the peaceful portion of the inhabitants to return to their homes. This was desirable in every sense. Until the ordinary relations of society were re-introduced, anything like civil government was simply impossible; while, so long as the houses, deserted by their proper inhabitants, served as hiding-places for fanatics and budmashes, the streets were never for an instant safe. Many officers and soldiers were shot by concealed antagonists, long after the great buildings of the city had been conquered. Moreover, the Sikhs and Goorkhas were becoming very unruly. The plunder had acted upon them as an intoxicating indulgence, shaking the steady obedience which they were wont to exhibit when actively engaged against the enemy. Even at a time when Sir Colin was planning which of his generals he could spare, for service elsewhere or for sick-leave, and which regiments should form new columns for active service in other districts—even at such a time it was discovered that bodies of the enemy were lurking in houses near Outram’s head-quarters, bent upon mischief or revenge; and there was much musketry-fire necessary before they could be dislodged. The ‘sick-leave,’ just adverted to, was becoming largely applied for. Many officers, so gallant and untiring as to be untouched by any suspicion of their willingness to shirk danger and hard work, gave in; they had become weakened in body and mind by laborious duties, and needed repose.