BOOK IX. Chapter III. 1857. July 29. while attack off. his brain then conceived was very daring. But it had this great merit that, if successful in every detail, the enemy would be destroyed. He conceived in a word the idea of amusing the enemy with a cannonade, whilst he should send the 64th to cut off the enemy from the causeway. When Endeavours, he should consider that movement sufficiently ing in front, pronounced, he would storm the town with the to cut them 78th and the Madras Fusiliers, and catch the enemy between two fires. He succeeded in all, except in the most decisive of his combinations. He poured a tremendous fire on the town, whilst the 64th made a flank movement to his right; then, when he deemed the moment to have arrived, he sent on his remaining infantry at the main gate. But-one of the chains in his scheme had snapped. The 64th had not reached the causeway-and the main body of the enemy escaped across it. Forces the fails to cut position, but them off. It Result of the day's fight Still their loss that day had been severe. was computed that not less than four hundred of them had been killed or wounded. On the British side eighty-eight had been placed hors de combat -but two battles had been gained! But the thoughts of the General that night were not consoling. It was not that alone, or even mainly, his losses in the fight had been heavy. Sickness also had done its work. On the morrow of the two battles he could not, deducting the necessary guards, place in line more than eight hundred and fifty infantry. He knew that in front of him were places to be traversed or stormed, the means of defence of which exceeded those of ing. Consideraforced them tions which selves upon his notice. BOOK IX. Chapter III. 1857. July 30. Dominating force of those considerations. Havelock falls back on Onáo. 496 REASONS AGAINST ADVANCING FURTHER. the places he had already conquered. Then, he had no means of carrying his sick. He could not leave them. He could not leave behind a sufficient force to guard them. But perhaps his strongest difficulty lay in the fact that every step forwards would take him further from his base, and he had information that that base was threatened. Náná Sáhib, in fact, had no sooner heard of the onward move of the British, than he sent a considerable body of cavalry across the river to cut off their communications with Kánhpúr. Such arguments as these were sufficient to make even Havelock hesitate. But with them came the other consideration,-the possibility, notwithstanding all these obstacles, of success. But he could not help putting to himself this pertinent question :--What sort of success would it be? If, on the morrow of his first march he could bring only eight hundred and fifty infantry into line, how many would he be able to muster on the morrow of the fourth? This question was answered by the General's own QuartermasterGeneral in a telegram sent to the Commanderin-Chief. "We could not hope to reach Lakhnao," telegraphed Lieutenant-Colonel Fraser Tytler, on the 31st, "with six hundred effective Europeans; we had then to pass the canal, and force one and a half mile of streets"—and this in face of some thousands of trained and disciplined soldiers, and an armed and countless rabble! I do not think the soldier lives who would fail to justify the resolution at which Havelock arrived HAVELOCK'S LETTER TO NEIll. 497 the following morning, to fall back on Mangalwár, and to ask for reinforcements. From Mangalwár it would be possible to send the sick and wounded to Kánhpúr without permanently weakening his force. He effected this movement the following day without haste, and in the most perfect order. He did not march before 2 P.M. and then retired only to Onáo. The following morning (31st) he fell back on Mangalwár. Thence he despatched his sick and wounded into Kánhpúr, and a letter to General Neill, stating that he had been forced to fall back, and that to enable him to reach Lakhnao it was necessary that he should receive a reinforcement of a thousand men and another battery of guns. BOOK IX. Chapter III. 1857. July 30. Kánhpúr. Neill received this letter the same day. He Neill at had assumed command at Kánhpúr on the 24th, and in a few hours the troops there had felt the effect of his vigorous and decided character. Neill was a very remarkable man. By the law of desert he stands in the very front rank of those to whom the Indian mutiny gave an opportunity of distinction. It is impossible to put anyone above him. Not only did he succeed in everything he undertook, but he succeeded when the cases were all but desperate. He succeeded because he Character of dared; because he threw into all he attempted General the energy of one of the most determined cha- Neill. racters ever bestowed on man. Such a man could not fail and live. His whole soul was in his profession. He had made his regiment, the Madras Fusiliers, equal to any in the world. At Banaras he had, by his vigour and decision, Brigadier. BOOK IX. Chapter III. 1857. July 24. It displays itself in vigorous action. crushed an outbreak, which, had it been successful, would have raised all the country to the north-west and to within a hundred miles of the capital. The same qualities displayed at Alláhábád had saved that important fortress. In the moment of success, when men had begun to stake all their hopes on his advance to Kánhpúr, he was suddenly superseded by Havelock. And now, second to that general, he was at Kánhpúr commanding there a few invalids, with the commission to finish the fortified work on the river, to erect têtes de pont-so that on the subsiding of the waters a bridge of boats might be establishedand to send on to his senior officer all the reinforcements in men and material he might receive. Neill, I have said, assumed command on the 24th of July. He had been but ill-satisfied with the state of affairs, as he found them, at Kánhpúr. The location of the troops appeared to him faulty; the camp pitched without method or arrangement; no effectual steps taken to put a stop to the plundering in the city-a plundering carried on by our European and Sikh soldiers. But on the 24th he was master and could remedy these evils. His first act on the 25th was to appoint a superintendent of police; to re-establish authority and order in the city and bazaars; to put a stop to plundering. He announced his assumption command, and notified the carrying out of the of measures above stated in a telegram the same • Private Journal of Brigadier-General Neill, unpublished. SENDS GORDON TO CLEAR THE RIVER. 499 day to the Commander of the Forces, Sir Patrick Grant. The spirit of the man showed itself in the all but concluding words of this telegram: "All well here. I will hold my own against any odds." BOOK IX. Chapter III. 1857. July 25. He was a bold man who would thus write under Boldness of his resolves. existing circumstances. Not only was Neill aware that Náná Sáhib, distant from him but twenty-four miles, was threatening to cross the river and to attack him, but he had received information that the mutinous 42nd Native Infantry were within eight miles of the station, and that other native regiments were gradually collecting on the right bank of the Jamná with the avowed intention of making a dash on Kánhpúr. But Neill was not disturbed. "If the 42nd are within reach," he recorded in his journal on the 30th, "I will deal them a blow that will astound them." With the levies of Náná Sáhib he did deal. On the 31st Sends Cap- tain John clear the he despatched a party of fifty Fusiliers and twenty- Neill meanwhile had been receiving small reinforcements. He was daily expecting half a battery (Olpherts's), with which to reinforce Havelock; but unfortunately there was a deficiency of gunpowder-and no gunpowder could be ex |