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We have destroyed the Bridge of Boats on the Ganges over which Havelock could move northwards to relieve Lucknow.
Havelock is collecting boats and ferries to get his force across the river which during this season is about a mile wide.
Mother of all rivers, Ganges, will save us.
After Havelock took over Cawnpore (Kanpur), the retribution were swift.
The picture of the makeshift gallow is below the Havelack letter.
You can see the makeshift gallow and the part of the Bibighar.
Havelock’s forces entered Kanpur where English flags were again hoisted.
The nationalists got the information that Havelock’s troops were now inexorably marching towards Kanpur. Nana Sahib went out himself with some 5000 men— horse, foot and artillery to block the advance of the enemy. Nana had chosen his position well— it was 7 miles from Kanpur on the G T Road.
His left was covered by the river Ganges and on the right was the mud wall of the railway embankment. His centre was at a small village where he dug in a 24-pounder and a 6-pounder. The centre was divided from his left by the road to the cantonment. Nana’s position was strong. His left on the riverside which being broken and knee deep in mud was considered as impassable by a military force. He therefore concentrated all his defenses on the right-this proved to be a fatal error for Havelock came to know through his spies that Nana’s left was the weakest.
Havelock decided to leave behind all his heavy equipment, including some medium and heavy guns, field hospital, baggage etc at Maharajpur. This was necessary to sneak in his Highlanders through the riverbed. It was a desperate gamble for if anything went wrong, he would be cut off from his military supplies. But the attack was successful and the Highlanders broke through Nana’s defenses.
Pushed to a corner, Nana took the desperate measure of ordering his guns, including the 24-pounder to unleash on his own left flank. This no doubt killed some of his own forces, but it blocked the British advance, at least for a while. A deadly battle ensued but by evening the nationalists realized that they could not halt the enemy’s advance any longer. Nana’s guns were captured.
And by nightfall all was over and the road to Kanpur lay wide open.
I am in the state of fugue when I write this.
I heard the news of carnage at Bibighar; I had to check it twice and thrice to even believe that such a thing had happened.
Illustration of the Bibighar. You can even see the hint of blood on the ground.
I know all about the atrocities committed by British, the Hodgeson’s horses, and the burning of the villages and the lashes and all of that, but NOTHING, I mean absolutely NOTHING justifies this event.
Sepoys refused to undertake this task and the crazed lover of Begum was called in but I think Sepoys should have done more to stop this from happening.
As Subedar said, this is wrong in all respect. Bala Rao and Nana Sahib should not have let this happen. This is the lowest point of the uprising and I hope we never ever see this again.
If Bala Rao ordered this, he should be removed from giving any orders. And as for Surav Khan who did this, hope British find him soon, because if we do, he might encounter fate worse than what he would if British caught him.
This is the darkest hour of the uprising, and the lowest moment of the rebellion.
These are difficult times for all of us but lets pray to god that we don’t loose our sould during the process.
Here are some pictures from the event.
Inside of the Bibighar:
The well:
The plan of the Bibighar
The cries inside the Bibighur had stopped in the morning. The victims were on this day thrown into a dry well. It is said that some were still alive when they were thrown in.
The news of the British advance reached Kanpur in the afternoon.
After the loss at Fatehpur, Bala Rao returned to Kanpur. There was a meeting held at the Noor Mohammed’s hotel and the fate of prisnors at Bibighar was discussed.
It was at this meeting that a decision was taken to kill all the captives incarcerated in Bibighur for eighteen days now and the order to the effect was conveyed at sundown to the sepoys of 6th BNI who were guarding the prisoners, to shoot them.
First, the male prisoners were taken out and shot-there were five of them, the two Colonels, the magistrate from Fatehgarh, Mr Greenway, a merchant and his son.
The sepoys, however, refused to kill the women and children and instead fired their muskets through the windows of the building upwards into the ceiling. The ladies inthe charge of Hussainee Khanum called the Begum.
Seeing that the sepoys had refused, the Begum took over. She marshalled five men to accomplish this task. Two were Muslim butchers by trade, two were Hindu peasants and the fifth was Sarvur Khan, the Begum’s lover.
These men carried out their job most thoroughly. Sarvur Khan emerged with his sword broken at the hilt. He got a replacement but came out again to find a substitute as this too had shattered. The doors of Bibighur were shut until well after the sunset.
I am shocked and in disbelief that this happened.
This massacre was wrong in all respect. This was wrong from moral point of view, it was wrong from military point of view, this was certainly wrong for the cause.
I am not surprised that Sepoys would not undertake such task.
This notorious event will have a long term reverberation and will taint the uprising for ever.
After their defeat in the Battle of Fatehpur, Jwala Prasad’s forces had regrouped at Aong, 30 miles from Kanpur. Nana Sahib’s brother Bala Rao and two battalions had joined them
Havelack confronted the combined forces of Jwala Prasad and Bala Rao at Aong amid walled gardens and groves and the outcome was not pleasant.
Once again , though numerically much stronger, the sepoys were defeated. Their rank broke and they pushed back a further seven miles to Pandu river. Normally a tiny stream, Pandu river had now swollen due to monsoon rains.
The river was spanned by a masonry bridge, which was of crucial importance to Havelock’s forces as this was the last obstacle on the way to Kanpur.
In a fierce attack, Havelock’s Highlanders seized this bridge before it could be blown up by the sepoys. It was in this battle that Bala Rao was badly injured in his shoulders. He returned to Kanpur in a nasty mood.
Today, Nana Sahib is sending reinforcement of 2 battalions to fight the Havelock offensive.
Bala Rao, his brother, will also join Jwala Prasad to keep the British away from Cawnpore (Kanpur).
Hope it will be enough. After the loss at Fatehpur, we are all concerned and very tense.
Its also pouring out here; Indian monsoon is here in all its glory.
Got to dry my boots and get ready for tomorrow!
In Tope we trust. Click for a larger picture.
Nana Sahib also announces double pay for the sepoys.
May be we will get new uniforms too; I am sick of this red british uniform that is just not right for Indian weather.
This day Nana Sahib issued a proclamation from Kanpur.
(The following extract is taken from the correspondence of Nana Sahib)
This paper has been printed by order of Nana Sahib Peshwa, 13th zeiroe, and add1273, Higree,8 (July 6, 1857)”
The proclamation read as follows:
” A traveller just arrived at Kanpur from Calcutta, had heard that previous to the distribution of the cartridges, a council had been held for the purpose of depriving the Hindustanees of their faith and religion. The members of the council came to the decision, since it was a matter of affecting religion, it would be right to have seven or eight thousand European soldiers that fifty thousand Hindustanees might be destroyed, and all the rest become Christians.
This resolution was sent to Queen Victoria, and received her approval. Again another council was held , Read the rest of this entry »
The entrenchment at Kanpur was duly vacated by the garrison which according to one estimate now amounted to not more than 350 persons of whom majority were women and children and a good number of non-combatants. By 8, in the morning, they had reached the Sati Chaura Ghat adjacent to the Fishermen’s Temple. The news had spread like wildfire throughout the city. “The hat men are leaving” was the cry that reverberated and echoed in the skies of Kanpur. The city had at long last been liberated and there was wild enthusiasm amongst the whole populace who had assembled in thousands on the river bank to see the white men depart.
Nana Sahib had sent sixteen elephants including his personal elephant Airawat ,about two dozen bullock carts, and more than a hundred palanquins to the Entrenchment. Nana’s personal elephant was to carry General Sir Hugh Wheeler and his family. Everyone went to see the grand spectacle. The atmosphere was like that of a carnival with everyone dressed in their most colourful clothes. The sepoys looked smart in their red and blue uniforms, plumed headgear — . after all it was their day-it is they who had brought it about.
But there were other sepoys whose uniforms was not familiar to the local people. Who were they and what brought them to Kanpur? These were the 6th BNI from Allahabad and 37th BNI from Varanasi who had been driven away from their stations by Col Neill of Madras Fusiliers. These are the same sepoys who had been disarmed on the parade ground and then fired upon by the British troops Many of them died in the shooting and many were wounded. The wounded sepoys were immediately dispatched by the British soldiers and a great majority managed to escape. to their homes. But when they reached their village they found to their horror that everything had been burnt down and gruesome sights awaited them as they beheld the charred and blackened skeletons of their near and dear ones hanging from the nearby trees - a sight they would never be able to erase from their memory. So, they had come to Kanpur, their hearts burning with a fearful hatred.
Everything went off without hitch till the last moment. In fact some of the sepoys were sorry to see their erstwhile masters depart. Suddenly pandemonium broke out; screams and war cries rent the air On a bugle call, the boatmen of 28 boats jumped into the river. Soon the thatched roofs of boats were in fire, heavy musketry fire started followed by salvoes from the artillery. The departing British had been caught in an ambush Almost all the men were killed. Later we came to know that a few had managed to escape. Among the male survivors of the Kanpur garrison, were privates, Sullivan and Murphy and two officers, Captain Mowbray Thomson and Lieutenant Delafosse.
About a hundred and ten women and children were fished out of the bloody waters and removed to the Bibighar, a commodious building patterned on a harem.
The Barracks of General Wheeler
A treaty was signed this evening which stipulated “That the garrison should give up their guns, ammunition, and treasure; should be allowed to carry their muskets and sixty rounds of cartridges with them; that the Nana should provide carriage for the sick, wounded , women and children, to the river’s bank , where boats should be in readiness to convey all to Allahabad.”
Another emissary of Nana, Mrs Jacobi, the wife of a watchmaker, visited the entrenchment today. She bore back the message that the besieged had agreed to surrender.
The besieged British garrison at Kanpur has been confined to the two barracks called Wheeler’s Entrenchment since June 6,1857. They are in a bad state. Many have lost their lives and even half ration is coming to an end with hardly any stock of food left.
Nana Sahib has sent a letter to General Wheeler through an aged wealthy widow named Mrs Greenway, who had been his prisoner. The letter mentions that “All soldiers and others unconnected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie, who would lay down their arms and give themselves up, will be spared and sent to Allahabad.”. There was no signature but the writing is that of Azimullah Khan.
We are told Gen Wheeler consulted his officers on what course of action was to be taken and there was much debating amongst the officers. Captain Moore made a strong argument for surrender. According to him, out of fifty nine artillerymen, all but four or five have fallen at their guns, half of the force have already been killed within the entrenchment and the suffering of ladies and children was becoming unbearable. We knew that the enemy was ready to capitulate
Picture of Cawnpore (Kanput) before the rebellion started.
Tatya Tope needs no introduction to our fellow mutineers.
Tatya’s father, Pandurang Rao Tope was an important noble at the court of the Peshwa Baji Rao-II. He moved his family with Peshwa to a twon called Bithur where Tatya became the cloeset friend of Nana Saheb.
In 1851, when Lord Dalhousie deprived Nana Saheb of his father’s pension, Tatya Tope saw the injustice of it and became a sworn enemy of the British.
In Cawnpore (Kanpur) he has established Nana Saheb’s authority and has became the Commander-in-Chief of his revolutionary forces.
In Tatya we Trust: victory will be ours soon.
Its been a week or more since General Wheeler and 1000 other Britishers have cordoned themselves in Cawnpore. We also know full well that he is also guarding 12 lakh rupees.
Nana Sahib in Cawnpore is the right person for the right job. Cownpore (kanpur) has rebeled with full support and approval of the Nana Sahib.
General Hugh Wheeler, and up to a thousand British troops, their families, have taken refuge in an entrenchment composed of two barracks surrounded by a mud wall. We will trust Nana Sahib to deal with them.