SKIRMISHES BETWEEN THE TWO ARMIES. 183 solid masonry. BOOK XIV. 1858. May. Skirmishes between the two armies. On the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th, constant skirmishes occurred between the two armies, the enemy being the attacking party. On all these occasions they were repulsed, but the British suffered much from the sun, as well as from the incessant toil, anxiety, and heat. On the 19th a mortar battery, established on the right front of the British position, opened on the town. On the 20th a detachment from Colonel Maxwell's Maxwell brigade, consisting of two companies of the 88th, Sir Hugh. one hundred and twenty Sikhs, and the Camel corps, crossed the river, and joined Sir Hugh Rose. On the 21st the batteries from Maxwell's camp opened on the fort and town. On the 22nd Sir Hugh determined to deliver his long-meditated blow. reinforces plan of Sir Hugh had, from the first, determined that The British whilst Maxwell's batteries should shell Kálpi, he attack. would clear the ravines and the other obstacles and attack the left face of the fort. Resolved to keep his men for this great blow, he had contented himself with simply repulsing the attacks I have mentioned. But when he received information that the rebels were meditating an attack on the 22nd, which should be fatal to one of the contending parties, he, now ready for them, resolved to second their views. The rebels had prepared a plan so skilful, that, The rebel if carried out with courage and resolution, it attack. plan of BOOK XIV. 1858. May. The rebels open the battle, and attack the British left, seemed to offer several chances in its favour. Whilst making, with great demonstrations, a false attack on the British left, they were to steal up the ravines with their main body, and try and overwhelm the right, weakened, they hoped, by detachments sent to support the left. It must be understood that the British force occupied the ground situated between the river Jamná and the road running from Kálpi to Bandá, that its right rested on the ravines near the river, whilst its left nearly touched that road. In pursuance of their plan, the rebels marched out in masses at 10 o'clock on the 22nd along the Bandá road, and threatened the British left, opening fire simultaneously with their guns on its centre. This attack, headed by the nawáb of Bandá and by Ráo Sáhib, nephew of Náná Sáhib, though intended only as a feint, soon made itself felt, and the British left became heavily engaged. Still Sir Hugh, confident as to the real object of the enemy, did not move a man from his right. He contented himself with replying to their guns with his guns in a style which soon forced the rebels to limber up and fall back. The attack on his left not only continued, but became very real indeed, but still Sir Hugh did not move a man from his right. It was well he did not. Suddenly, as if by magic, the whole line of ravines became a mass of fire; the enemy's left batteries opened, and their infantry, climbing from below, poured in an overwhelming musketry-fire British right. on the right of the British line. The suddenness of the attack, their superior numbers, and with great severity. Maintaining that attack they sud denly direct their main energies against the CRITICAL POSITION OF THE BRITISH. 185 the terrible heat of the day gave the rebels a great advantage. Another point, too, was in their favour. Many of the Enfield rifles had become clogged by constant use in all weathers, and the men, after a few discharges, had found it very difficult to load them. The sun, too, BOOK XIV. The 1858. May. confidence of the rebels increases. Brigadier had struck down an unusual number of the Europeans. When, then, the rebels, starting up in great numbers from the ravines, poured in volleys which the British reply to only feebly, when they saw that each discharge from the thin red line became weaker than that preceding it, they began to gain a confidence they had never felt before. They pressed on with loud yells, the British falling back, until they approached the British light field-guns and mortar-battery. Then it was that Brigadier C. S. Stuart, dis- Gallantry of mounting, placed himself by the guns, and bade 0. S. Stuart. the gunners defend them with their lives. The 86th and 25th Native Infantry, in thin extended line, disputed step by step. Still the rebels pressed on, and it seemed as though from their very numbers they must prevail, when Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh to whom news of the attack had been conveyed, the Camel brought up the Camel corps at their best pace; critical then, dismounting the men, and leading them for- moment, ward himself at the double, charged the advancing foe, then within a few yards of the British guns. For a moment the enemy stood, but only for a moment. A shout, a dash forward from the whole line, and they went headlong into the ravines below. Not only was the attack on the right repulsed, but the victory was gained! The attack and gains brings up corps at the the day. BOOK XIV. 1858. May. The rebels evacuate Kálpi. Trials to which the English troops were subjected during this campaign. on the left collapsed when that on the right failed, and the guns, gaining the rebels' flank, inflicted great loss on them as they fled. Sir Hugh followed them up so closely, that he cut off a number of them from Kálpi. The fire from Maxwell's batteries made those who reached that fort feel that it was no secure place of refuge. They evacuated it accordingly during the night. The rest of their force, pursued by the horse artillery and cavalry, lost their formation and dispersed, losing all their guns and baggage. Even the ráni of Jhansi, who fled with them, was compelled to sleep under a tree! The position of the troops, their sufferings, the feelings that animated them, are thus graphically described by an eye-witness who, throughout its duration, took part in the campaign, and who subsequently gave to the world an eloquent record of the achievements of his comrades. "This was," writes Dr. Lowe,* "a hard day's work, and a glorious victory won over ten times our numbers under most trying circumstances. The position of Kálpi; the numbers of the enemy, who came on with a resolution and a display of tactics we had never before witnessed; the exhausted, weakened state of the general's force; the awful suffocating hot winds and burning sun, which the men had to endure all day, without time to take food or water, combined to render the achievement one of unsurpassed difficulty. Every soul engaged in this important action * Lowe's Central India during the Rebellion of 1857-58. Book XIV. 1858. May. suffered more or less. Officers and men fainted away, or dropped down as though struck by lightning in the delirium of a sun-stroke; yet all this was endured without a murmur, and in the Their uncool of the evening we were speculating upon the murmuring capture of Kálpi on the morrow." Before daybreak the following morning, Sir Hugh marched on that place. His 1st brigade, under Brigadier C. S. Stuart, he sent through the ravines, following the course of the Jamná, whilst he led the 2nd himself, along the Kálpi road. As Colonel Maxwell's batteries still continued to shell the fort and the villages in front of it. the two brigades advanced, however, these villages were abandoned by the rebels, and it soon became apparent that no serious resistance was contemplated. When the two brigades, having overcome all obstacles in their path, united near the town, and advanced into it, they were not opposed; the rebels had fled, quitting for ever the arsenal which had served them so long and so well.+ * Brigadier C. Steuart, it had stood them. After C.B., commanding the 2nd enumerating the quantities brigade, had reported sick of ammunition, lead, iron, after the battle of Kúnch, brass, gun carriages, gunand the command had de- moulds, &c., found in the volved upon Lieutenant- fort, Dr. Lowe adds:-" The Colonel Campbell, 71st High- enemy had erected houses landers. and tents in the fort, had their smiths' shops, their carpenters' shops. Their foundries for casting shot and shell were in perfect order, clean and well con The following description, given by an eye-witness, proves how the rebels had used the position of Kálpi, and the good stead in which endurance. |