The Indian Mutiny of 1857/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LEAGUER OF AGRA.
In the eighth chapter I have given a brief account of the risings at Fírúzpur, at Áligarh, at Bulandshahr, at Itáwah, at Mainpurí, and of the consequent movements at Agra. I have shown how, in consequence of the rising at Mathurá, on the 30th of May, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-west, Mr Colvin, had caused the sipáhís of the 44th and 67th N. I. to be disarmed (May 31); how he had directed the raising of volunteers; how, on the 14th of June, the sipáhís of the Gwáliár contingent had mutinied at Gwáliár; and how the English men and women who had survived the massacre consequent upon that mutiny had found refuge at Agra; and, finally, how it was not until the end of June that Mr Colvin had deemed it wise that the Europeans and Eurasians should abandon their houses in the station and take up their abode in the fort of red sandstone built by Akbar in 1565-73. He did not move thither himself till the 4th of July following. I propose now to take up the story, briefly, from that date.
Mr Colvin's order to concentrate the resources in men and supplies of the English at Agra, within the fort, had not been issued a day too soon. Indeed it is to be regretted that it was not issued earlier, and that, when issued, it was accompanied with restrictions. Mr Raikes, a member of the Civil Service occupying a high position at Agra, records that the order directing the move to the fort forbade the transfer to that place of refuge of 'any property beyond the sort of allowance which a French Customs House officer at Calais or Marseilles passes under the term of a sac de nuit.' This extraordinary prohibition, adds the same authority, entailed 'the loss and destruction of books, furniture, archives, records, public and private, and the ruin of hundreds of families.' The victualling of the fort proceeded, however, with great energy.
By the end of June Agra was completely isolated. The entire country between the Jamnah and the Ganges was 'up,' whilst to the west of the former river Bundelkhand was surging with rebels; Rájpútána and Central India had become difficult to hold. Communications with the north, south, west, and east had been severed. In fact, in what direction soever Mr Colvin might turn his glance the horizon was gloomy in the extreme.
Nor was the position mended by the news which reached him on the 2d of July. This was to the effect that a strong rebel force had reached Fathpur-Síkrí, twenty-three miles from Agra. To meet these he had within the fort the 3d European regiment and one battery of European artillery. But he had also native allies upon whom he believed rather fatuously that he could rely. These were a body of 600 Karáulí matchlockmen, commanded by Saifullá Khán, a native official of high character, some levies from Bhartpur, and a detachment of the Kotá contingent. Mr Colvin at once brought the last named within the cantonment, whilst he placed the others at Sháhganj, four miles on the road to Fathpur-Síkrí, to watch the movements of the rebel force at that place.
The following day, the 3d, Mr Colvin being ill, a council of three gentlemen, Mr Reade, the senior member of the Board of Revenue, Major Macleod of the Engineers, Military Secretary to Mr Colvin, and Brigadier Polwhele, commanding the troops, was appointed to administer affairs. These gentlemen at once took active measures for the public safety. Some of these may sound strange, but they were probably justified under the circumstances. For instance, dreading lest the rebels might enter the station, and let loose upon it a number of hardened criminals, they conveyed the prisoners in the gaol across the Jamnah, and released them. Then they broke down the pontoon bridge communicating with the fort, they brought in all the native Christians, they directed that the Karáulí and Bhartpur levies should be required to give up their guns, two in number, and they directed the officer commanding the Kotá contingent to march against the rebels. These orders sufficed to clear the air. The Bhartpur and Karáulí men, angered by the removal of their guns, removed themselves from the scene. It was the best course for the English they could adopt, for an open enemy is better than a pretended friend. Similarly with the Kotá contingent. No sooner did the men composing it receive the order to advance than they shot down the English sergeant in charge of their military stores, and firing hastily at their European officers, rushed off to join the enemy they had been directed to combat. They did not, happily, effect their full purpose, for whilst a loyal gunner named Mathurá managed unseen to spike their guns, their English doctor, Mathias by name, calm and collected amid dangers, strewed in the sand their powder, ammunition, and case-shot. A party sent out from Agra brought the guns into the fort.
On the evening of the 4th, Mr Colvin entered the fort and resumed authority. The next day, the 5th, the rebels marched in from Fathpur-Síkrí and took up a position at the village of Sassiah, some five miles from the fort. They were reported to consist of 4000 infantry, 1500 cavalry, and eleven guns. Brigadier Polwhele, after providing for the defences of the fort, could take into the field against them 568 English infantry, a battery with sixty-nine Englishmen, including officers, and fifty-four native drivers, fifty-five mounted militia, and fifty English volunteers, mostly officers, making a total of 742 Englishmen, besides the officers of the European regiment and the staff. It was a force sufficient, if well handled, to drive the rebel force to Jericho.
Believing that he could so handle it, Polwhele marched from the fort at one o'clock, and proceeded to Sháhganj. There he halted till his reconnoitring parties should come in. These arrived at half-past two with the information that the rebels were still halted at Sassiah. Towards that village Polwhele then moved. When within half-a-mile from it the enemy's left battery opened fire.
There is only one true method of fighting Asiatics. That mode is to move straight on. To play the game of an artillery duello with them, when they have nearly double the number of guns and the advantage of position, is simply madness. The experience of a hundred years would have been reversed if Polwhele, pushing on against the village of Sassiah, had failed to drive the rebels from it. But he did nothing of the sort. Far from profiting from the teachings of history, he tried a plan in which he was bound to be beaten. He halted his infantry, and made them lie down, whilst he engaged in an artillery duello with his six guns against the enemy's eleven. His men were in the open, the rebels were protected by the village of Sassiah. The logical consequences followed. Although the British guns were directed by two of the most gallant and skilled officers the splendid Bengal Artillery ever produced, Captain D'Oyley commanding half the battery on the right, Captain Pearson the other half on the left, the larger calibre of the enemy's guns asserted its superiority. They had, moreover, the exact range. In a short time they succeeded in exploding two tumbrils, and in inflicting considerable damage among the drivers and horses of the British. Vainly did D'Oyley and Pearson send messages to Polwhele to tell him that a persistance in those tactics would exhaust their ammunition without securing for him any corresponding advantage. Polwhele heeded not. Eyre, at Árah, had been in a position somewhat similar, but the moment he had realised that pounding with guns would not win the day against an enemy strongly posted, he had tried the never-failing British charge. But Polwhele would not. Probably he was hampered by the considerations which hampered Lawrence at Chinhat. The infantry he had with him constituted the sole means at his disposal for the defence of the fort. At all events he persisted in waiting until another tumbril had been exploded by the enemy's fire, and until their cavalry, gathering courage from his inactivity, charged Pearson's half-battery. Cool and collected, Pearson awaited their approach, whilst the company of the Europeans nearest to him rose to their feet, their muskets levelled. A simultaneous fire, well directed, from the guns and the infantry sufficed to ward off the attack, and to send the survivors reeling back to the place whence they had ridden. A similar attempt threatened against D'Oyley's half-battery was defeated by the volunteer horsemen. These, eighteen in number, charged the 200 of the rebels, and though they lost one-third of their number, they forced the rebels to retire.
Two hours and a half had now elapsed. The rebels still occupied their unthreatened position. The English had effected nothing to drive them from it. D'Oyley reported to the Brigadier that his ammunition was all but exhausted. Then, and then only, did the Brigadier issue the order which, given two hours and a half before, could scarcely have failed to achieve success. He ordered the line to advance. The line did advance, and, despite the fire from men stationed in most advantageous positions in Sassiah, the men fought their way into the village. They even captured and spiked one of the enemy's guns. But in advancing to and in taking the village the British losses had been heavy. D'Oyley was mortally wounded.[1] Major Thomas of the Europeans met the same fate. Several men were killed, but at last the village was gained. It required but the support of the guns to complete the victory, but by this time every round had been fired away. In his anxiety for the safety of his men Polwhele had prematurely, and despite of repeated warnings, exhausted the one means by which he could assure success.
For the rebels were not slow to recognise the cause of the silence of the British guns. They at least had ten, and still some, though not an abundance, of ammunition. They at once made a demonstration with the three arms against the village. Polwhele could not defend it with infantry alone, and he ran a great risk of being cut off from the fort. Under those circumstances, he had no other course but to retreat. The retreat was effected in good order; the infantry, though savage with their commander, to whose fatal tactics they rightly attributed the loss of the day, preserving their traditional calmness, and repulsing every attack. Fortunately, before the retreat was concluded, the rebels likewise fell short of gun ammunition.
In this fight the British had lost forty-five men killed, and 108 wounded, and missing. They had, also, left one gun on the ground, though they recovered it a day or two later. The rebels signalised their triumph by setting fire to every building within their reach. They then returned to Sassiah, took a hasty meal, and set off for Dehlí. Arriving there, on the 8th, they were greeted with a grand salute as 'the victors of Sassiah.'
For the English the blow was severe. Though the rebels had departed, their allies, the rabble and the gaol-birds, finished what they had begun. They ruthlessly plundered the city, the cantonments, and the civil lines, burning the materials they cared not to take away. The following morning the town-crier, by order of the Kotwál, proclaimed the inauguration of the rule of the Mughal.
Of Polwhele's battle it only remains to be said that it should stand out in history as a warning of the manner in which Europeans, or, I would rather say, the British race, should not fight Asiatics. From the date following that on which it was fought began, for the English at Agra, that long and tedious life in the fort, which was terminated only by the arrival of a force, under Greathed, on the 10th of October, made disposable by the fall of Dehlí.
In the interval, September the 9th, Mr Colvin died. He was succeeded temporarily, and until the orders of the Government of India should be known, by the senior Civil servant, Mr E. A. Reade, a man of lofty character — the type of a hard-working, unselfish English gentleman. More than two months later (September 30th), the Government, thinking that the times required a soldier rather than a civilian at the head of affairs, nominated Colonel Hugh Fraser of the Engineers to be their Chief Commissioner for Agra and its dependencies. Colonel Fraser held the office till the 9th of February following.
The slight sketch I have given of the proceedings at Agra, till the fall of Dehlí had released avenging columns to reconquer the North-west, will probably have brought home to the mind of the reader that, to the north and north-west of Allahábád, Dehlí was the central point, the place upon the occupation of which the fate of the towns and districts in those provinces, the fate of Central India, the fate of the Panjáb itself, depended. The whole of the North-west, including Bundelkhand and Rohilkhand, had risen because Dehlí was held by the rebels. The assertion in that Imperial city of the rule of the Mughal was the cause: — insurrection all over the country was the consequence. The truth of this axiom was felt more clearly every day by those who were responsible for the maintenance of British authority in the provinces and districts which remained loyal Equally was it felt by the native princes who adhered to the British connection, by those who had shaken it off, and by the watchers of the atmosphere. If the British should be compelled to abandon their position before Dehlí, it would be scarcely possible to prevent a tremendous conflagration. Most certainly the Panjáb would have risen. In that event, most probably, the districts to the north-west and west of Allahábád would have been completely severed, for a time, from the British.
Dehlí being thus the centre of the situation, the point on the possession of which depended the fate of the surrounding districts, it becomes me, before detailing the result of the struggle before its walls, to take a bird's-eye view of the provinces and districts in which its influence had made itself the most felt. I propose, therefore, to glance at the events which had occurred in the Ságar and Narbada territories, in Central India, in Rájpútána, in the districts dependent upon Mírath, in Rohilkhand, and, finally, in the Panjáb, before I describe the 'crowning mercy' which was vouchsafed to the British arms in the city which had become the kernel and focus of the revolt.
- ↑ Overcome by the intense pain of the wound, he turned to the man nearest him and said, 'They have done for me now; put a stone over my grave, and say that I died fighting my guns.'