On 30 June 1857 during the retreat from Chinhut, India  Lieutenant Cubitt saved the lives of three men of the 32nd Regiment at the risk of his own.

	The Residency, Taken in Front, and Showing the Room in Which Sir Henry Lawrence was Killed, Lucknow. Albumen silver print 23.6 x 28.7 cm.
St. Peter's Churchyard, Frimley, Surrey, England. Headstone.

Formerly occupied by Sir Henry Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Oudh, at the outbreak of the mutiny, the Residency became the last defended place for the British. The building was crammed with soldiers and civilians. "There is not one hole or corner where one can enjoy an instant's privacy," wrote one lady in her journal. The posed figure on the far right stands in front of the room where Lawrence was killed.

The church yard and Residency in the distance.

Interior of the Secundra Bagh after the Slaughter of 2,000 Rebels by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Regiment. First Attack of Sir Colin Campbell in November 1857, Lucknow.

Located on the outskirts of Lucknow, it was the scene of intense fighting in November, 1857. Following the action, the British dead were buried in a deep trench but the Indian corpses were left to rot. Later, the city had to be evacuated and was not recaptured until March 1858 and it was shortly afterwards that Beato probably took this photograph. As one contemporary commentator described it: "A few of their [rebel] bones and skulls are to be seen in front of the picture, but when I saw them every one was being regularly buried, so I presume the dogs dug them up." A British officer, Sir George Campbell, noted in his memoirs Beato's presence in Lucknow and stated that he probably had the bones uncovered to be photographed. However, William Howard Russell of The Times recorded seeing many skeletons still lying around in April 1858

Photographic views of Lucknow taken after the Indian Mutiny, Albumen silver print 26.2 x 29.8 cm. The image was taken by Felice Beato, an Italian by birth, who visited India during the period of the Indian Mutiny or First War of Indian Independence; he may have been and was commissioned by the War Office in London to make documentary photographs showing the damage to the buildings in Lucknow following the two sieges. It is known that he was in Lucknow in March and April of 1858 within a few weeks of the capture of that city by British forces under Sir Colin Campbell. His equipment was a large box camera using 10" x 12" plates which needed a long exposure, and he made over 60 photographs of places in the city connected with the military events. Beato also visited Delhi, Cawnpore and other 'Mutiny' sites where he took photographs.

CHARGE OF THE HIGHLANDER AT CAWNPORE. PART OF GEN. HAVELOCK'S COLUMN.

click on picture to make it larger.

On September 25th after bloody fighting Havelock’s forces battered their way through to the Residency. “The half-famished garrison” wrote Havelock, “contrived to regale me not with beef cutlets but mock turtle soup and champagne”. Unfortunately the force they had brought to Lucknow was not strong enough to break out again
 

Chronological Dates of the Indian Mutiny.

The Massacre at Cawnpore

It was Cawnpore that came to symbolize the horror of the mutiny for the British and without doubt what transpired there in the summer of 1857 was a major factor in the thirst for vengeance which seemed to drive the British troops as they fought to reverse the mutineers initial successes. Till the end of the mutiny, British troops going forward with the bayonet shouted "Cawnpore! Cawnpore!" as their warcry and punishments meted out to captured mutineers were executed with Cawnpore in mind.

Cawnpore was a major crossing point of the Ganges and an important junction where the Grand Trunk Road and the road from Jhansi to Lucknow crossed. In 1857 it was garrisoned by four regiments of native infantry and a European battery of artillery and was commanded by General Sir Hugh Wheeler. Wheeler had served in India most of his life, had an Indian wife and a gross overconfidence in the loyalty of the sepoys under his command. When the news of Meerut reached Cawnpore nothing happened and Wheeler felt it inappropriate to disarm his sepoys. His trust in his men would surely be returned in kind and, after all, hadn't he always been stern but fair with them? For a week life continued as normal but the British and Indians started to look apprehensively at each other. Wheeler was not so blind that he neglected to take any precautions whatsoever and outside the city around a complex of two barracks he built a fortified position as a possible refuge for the European community in the eventuality that trouble should in fact break out. He didn't really think it would be needed though and consequently didn't fortify it very strongly or provision it very thoroughly.

It was then that Nana Sahib, the dispossessed heir to the throne of the Mahrattas, appeared. Years before the British had abolished the title of Peshwa, the last of the great Hindu dynasties and the rulers of the now defunct Mahratta confederacy.  Nana Sahib, carrying the Peshwa bloodline, was simply the Maharajah of Bithur, a dusty little statelet not far from Cawnpore. He had been refused a pension by the British and if this had embittered him he took pains not to show it. He came to Cawnpore with his personal guard and offered Wheeler his assisstance. Wheeler declined Nana Sahib's offer to take the English ladies under his protection and instead suggested that Nana Sahib add his men to the guard on Cawnpore's treasury. This he promptly did. In early June Wheeler's informants indicated that a rising was in danger of breaking out at any minute and all the Europeans made for the entrenchment. Almost simultaneously the sepoys rose, released the convicts in the town jail, brushed past Nana Sahib's men, looted the treasury and started down the road to Delhi. Not far from Cawnpore they turned round and came back and soon Nana Sahib was leading them. We do not know if he had been in league with the sepoys from the start or if he simply took an opportunistic chance of recovering his family's past power. His choice, however, would ensure him pride of place in the Victorians' rogues' gallery.

By June 25th, the ammunition was almost gone and starvation confronted the garrison. The Nana offered terms of surrender. A written treaty was drafted and accepted by which the British were to surrender their guns and treasure and then march out of the entrenchment with with their hand arms and 60 rounds of ammunition each. The Nana was to provide boats to transport the women, children and the sick. On June 27th what remained of the garrison marched out towards the landing-stage. By 9a.m. All were embarked in large clumsy vessels. Suddenly, and without warning a shot was heard. Fearful of treachery, and with nerves shattered by three weeks of siege, the British immediately opened fire. The Nana’s men replied with grapeshot and ball and the little fleet was soon ablaze. Of those who survived this last battle the men, 60 in number were killed by the Nana’s troops. Women and children were first imprisoned in a house but on July 15th news reached Cawnpore that the British were approaching the city. Nana Sahib ordered all remaining prisoners to be killed. Towards evening five British men, fugitives from elsewhere were taken out and shot, then a party of sepoys was detailed to execute the 210 women and children. Unable to bring themselves to commit such cold-blooded murder the sepoys fired high. Butchers were then summoned from the bazaar and together with the Nana’s troops went in to finish the job with knives. It was not efficiently done. A few were still alive in the morning among them children. The victims were dragged out and thrown down a nearby well. Some sepoys stated that children, still alive were killed first, others that they were tossed still alive into the well. It was this atrocity above all which inflamed British feelings when the relief forces under General Havelock arrived to begin the assault two days later. When Havelock’s forces entered the town on December 17th they still hoped to being relief to the women and children imprisoned there instead they found a slaughterhouse. The British left the house untouched and filled in the well only partially so that they could stand as terrible reminders to new troops from England that their duty must be sustained by a desire for revenge. Revenge was not confined to the soldiers. At Cawnpore, Brigidier-General James Neill Issued an order on July 25th that every captured rebel whether proved guilty or not, “will be taken down to the house and made to clean up a small portion of the bloodstains, the task to be made as revolting to his feelings as possible, after which the culprit will be immediately hanged”.
 

Unlike Lucknow, the siege of Cawnpore was not a protracted affair. It lasted just over three weeks, but it took place in June when the Indian sun is at its most merciless. The entrenchment had almost no shade and contained only one serviceable well. This, the only source of water was in an extremely exposed position, covered by enemy fire. Many men died trying to get water. Inside the position were about a thousand Britons, including 300 women and children. Ammunition, at least, was plentiful but the food supply was dangerously small. The mutineers never actually took the place by storm though they made a few half-hearted attacks. They could, however, cover almost every inch of the entrenchment with their muskets and kept up a constant stream of fire into the British position. The British could get no rest and their movement was severely restricted. Still they held on, hoping for relief from Lucknow to the north-east or Allahabad downstream on the Ganges. They waited in vain and every day the number of dead and wounded increased. Some went mad from the heat or the tortures of thirst and when Wheeler's son was killed by a roundshot, the general seemed to give up all hope. On June the 25th Nana Sahib sent a message to Wheeler offering safe conduct to the Ganges for all inside the entrenchment and boats to take them down to Allahabad. The negotiations took place outside the entrenchment on the 27th and Wheeler had little choice but to accept. Though the British in their colonial wars sometimes did fight to the last man, it was usually when they were overrun and had no choice. The women and children, moreover, must have weighed heavily on Wheeler's mind. One last concession he won, however; the British troops would be allowed to take their sidearms and sixty rounds apiece.

This is a scene after the relief of the barracks. The relieving forces shown are from the 1st Madras Fusiliers.

Nana Sahib sent some elephants and palanquins to assist the British in their ignominious withdrawal. They were followed by a crowd of sepoys and the ubiquitous sightseers that attend any event in India. At the ghat, the steps leading down to the water where Hindus take their ritual baths, a fleet of country boats awaited. Painfully the British loaded the women, children and wounded into the wooden craft. The last man aboard was a Major Vibart, helped up solicitously by the sepoys formely under his command. Barely had his feet touched the deck when things started to go wrong. The Indian boatmen, instead of pushing-off, jumped overboard and made for the shore. The British opened fire on them. Perhaps it was all a terrible mistake, but from prepared positions on the riverbanks the sepoys showered the boats with a storm of grapeshot and musketry. Women screamed, the boats caught fire, the river turned red and corpses floated downstream. Indian cavalry troopers rode into the shallows and slashed at the wounded with their sabres. Only one boat managed to extricate itself and carrying a few survivors drifted away. Days later, after a nightmarish journey, they came across a British outpost upstream from Allahabad and the only four men to escape from Cawnpore found safety.

The surviving men back at what later became known as the 'Massacre Ghat' were immediately put to the sword. The women and children were led away to the aptly named Bibi-Ghar ( the house of the women) a former residence of a British officer's Indian mistress. On July 15th, a group of men, including the town butchers, entered the Bibi-Ghar armed with knives and hatchets and hacked all the women and children to pieces. Their bodies were thrown down a well.

When news of the slaughter at the Bibi-Ghar reached Britain, it sent a shiver of horror through the nation. In Victorian Britain women and children had achieved an elevated status and it was a widely held belief that they had a right to special protection. It was during the reign of Victoria that the idea of 'women and children first' in a shipwreck became the norm and parliamentary legislation had ensured that women and children were protected from the worst abuses of the factory system. The seeming treachery of Nana Sahib at the massacre ghat was nought when measured against the unspeakable atrocities of the Bibi-Ghar. Vengeance was required and even more stern-faced than the Old Testament judges of the Bible, the British wanted more than just an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. When the British later pushed up the valley of the Ganges and Cawnpore once more fell into their hands, they took their sepoy prisoners to the Bibi-Ghar and forced them to lick the blood-encrusted floors clean. Then they were taken out and hanged. Regiments newly arrived from Britain were routed through Cawnpore and shown round the site of the massacre. If it was intended to stiffen the troops resolve and harden their hearts against the mutineers it was probably unnecessary. Their hearts were hard enough already.

Nana Sahib disappeared to some unknown fate and despite great efforts the British never captured him. As late as the end of the 19th century reports would come in that some zealous subaltern in some remote corner of India had arrested him. They were all cases of mistaken identity though and his ultimate end remains a mystery.

Another Point of view.

The seeds of unrest:

The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. Did they not, in India, to borrow an expression of that great robber, Lord Clive himself, resort to atrocious extortion, when simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity? While they prated in Europe about the inviolable sanctity of the national debt, did they not confiscate in India the dividends of the rajahs, who had invested their private savings in the Company's own funds? While they combated the French revolution under the pretext of defending "our holy religion," did they not forbid, at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in India, and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming to the temples of Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and prostitution perpetrated in the temple of the Juggernaut? These are the men of "Property, Order, Family, and Religion."

-Karl Marx, The New-York Daily Tribune. 22 July, 1853.