numerous cavalry, drove from a position skilfully selected and strongly entrenched a body of 5,000 native troops, trained and disciplined by our own officers. "Perhaps "Perhaps in no action that ever was fought," says the author of "The Indian Mutiny," "was the superior power of arrangement, moral force, personal daring, and physical strength of the European over the Asiatic more apparent. The rebels fought well; many of them did not flinch from a hand-to-hand encounter with our troops; they stood well to their guns, served them with accuracy; but yet, in spite of this, of their strong position, of their disproportionate excess in number, they were beaten."

Sites of Battles

It was at the crisis of the last charge in the battle of Cawnpore that "Havelock's eyes were gladdened by a sight which seemed to be a glorious response to all the dreams of his youth and all the prayers of his manhood. The infantry prepared to advance right upon the death-dealing battery of the enemy, the 64th Foot, led by Major Sterling, in front. At this moment the general's aide-de-camp, 'the boy Harry,' wheeled his horse round to the centre of the leading regiment, and rode straight upon the muzzle of the 24pounder which was making deadly gaps

in our advancing column. It was a

moment of rapture to the white-haired veteran, compensating him for all disappointments and delays, for all unjust supersessions, for all professional discouragement, when he saw that last battery carried, and knew his son was safe."*

Havelock says, as we saw in a previous chapter, † of this incident, in a letter to his wife: "I never knew so brave a youth as Harry . The grape was deadly, but he calm as if telling George stories about India."

Bandan

Buberoo

Moudha

Ghatumpore

Excutab

Kurrah

Nuwabgung
LLAHABAD

Sorson

Pandoo

Bthoor

Atherwa CAWNPORE
Munghowar
Onao

Maharajpore

Futtehpore

Weonse

Bahadoorpore Kags

Roy Bareilly

Manikpora

ཕ

Moan

Bunnoo

dellalabad

LUCKNOW

Between the 7th and the 16th of July, Havelock, with his army, had marched 126 miles under a deadly sun and fought four actions. But there was no time to rest; intelligence had reached him that Nana Sahib was established at Bithoor, with forty-five guns and 5,000 troops. It was a desperate position. Havelock had lost 100 men at Cawnpore, his force was small and exhausted, and for the first time in his life he gave way to gloomy forebodings. But not for long; and rousing himself, he cried gaily, "If the worst comes

of

to the worst, we can but die with our swords in our hands!" Nana Sahib's forebodings were gloomier, for he fled from Bithoor without striking a blow, and the general, on the 19th of July, occupied the city without resistance. Returning to Cawnpore, the little army 1,500 had just a few hours' breathing-time, and then on the 21st they crossed the Ganges and commenced their march to Lucknow, from whence the disastrous news of the death of Sir Henry Lawrence had just arrived. But obstacles arose. On the 29th of July the enemy had taken up a strong position at the town of Onao, but after a desperate encounter they were put to flight and their guns taken; later on that same day another brilliant victory was gained at Busserut Gunge. But the two battles cost him eighty-eight men; the heat was terrible; cholera had broken out among his men; Lucknow was far away; the sick and wounded could not be carried forward, and there was no force to send them back to Cawnpore; the reinforcements for which he had so earnestly begged were not forthcoming. A crisis had come, and the way in which Havelock met it is perhaps the most conspicuous of all his heroic deeds-he calmly contemplated the position. To turn back was to leave the British in Lucknow to perish, to mar the prospects his brave men had of distinction, perhaps to bring upon himself such criticism as should outweigh all that his past reputation had achieved. To go forward was to court destruction, and in case of failure to rally together all the wavering and scattered chiefs, and strengthen the hands of the besiegers of the Residency. So he fell back upon Onao, and then upon Munghowar, whence he forwarded his sick and wounded to Cawnpore, and where he was joined by reinforcements generously sent by the gallant General Neill. The reinforcements were altogether inadequate ; nevertheless Havelock set forth a second time towards Lucknow, a second time encountered the enemy at Busserut Gunge, and a second time came to a crisis. For cholera, a greater foe than the Sepoy, again arrested his march, and Havelock with great grief and reluctance abandoned the hope of relieving Lucknow, and fell back upon Cawnpore.

It was well he did, notwithstanding the sacrifice it was to his own military ardour, and the temporary discontent of his men, who could not understand their gallant leader turning back. But there was probably more real heroism in retreating than in advancing. And, as we have said, it was well he turned back, for Nana Sahib had returned to Bithoor with a large force, and was threatening Cawnpore (in which was General Neill with his impoverished force) from all directions. Havelock marched against Bithoor, fought a desperate battle at fearful odds, and in one short hour drove from one of the strongest positions in India the flower of the mutinous soldiery.

"With the battle of Bithoor the general's first campaign for the relief of Lucknow may be said to have closed. With it also terminated his independent command and the freedom of acting in his own individual and unfettered judgment. This brief campaign, extending from the 12th of July to the 16th of August, has no parallel in the history of British India. On no former occasion had European troops been required to march and fight in circumstances so adverse, under a deadly sun or amidst torrents of rain, often fasting for twenty-four hours, and generally without tents, with no bed after their victories but saturated ground, and no shelter but that which the trees afforded, carrying with them their sick and wounded and all their supplies, and suffering more from pestilence than from the weapons of the enemy. It was under all these disadvantages that, in the

brief period of five weeks, they had fought nine actions, against overwhelming odds, with troops disciplined and for the most part armed like themselves, and had been everywhere victorious without a single check. A large portion of the Fusiliers consisted of raw recruits, who had never before heard the whistle of an enemy's bullet, but such marching and such fighting turned the novices into hardy veterans, ready for any exigency. So great was the confidence the men had acquired in themselves, in their comrades, and in their leader, that they never considered a discomfiture possible, and never marched to action without the confident assurance of victory. These men have truly been described by one

of the officers who served under him as Havelock's Ironsides.""

When Havelock returned from Bithoor to Cawnpore, almost the first news that reached him was that he was superseded! The Government of India had thought fit to deprive him of his command in the very midst of his victorious career. When it was too late, a storm of indignation was aroused in England; and in India the Government strove diligently to prove that it was not because Havelock failed to relieve Lucknow that the supersession was made, although all the world knew it was in consequence of their having neglected to supply him with reinforcements that he failed.

To most men this treatment would have been a crushing blow, which would have issued in a sullen cessation of effort; but not so with Havelock. He bore it like a man, and a Christian, and a soldier, and his deep sense of duty prevented him from slackening his ill-requited labours.

A right noble man and a hero among heroes was he who was appointed to "the military command of the united Dinapore and Cawnpore divisions," the latter being the old military circle in which the sphere of the general's operations lay. Sir James Outram was a man of noble qualities in every respect, and one whom Havelock could appreciate, and by whom he felt certain his own position would be appreciated, as we shall see in the sequel it was. He was an officer of the Bombay Presidency, "and had been employed," says Kaye, "for a quarter of a century in various military and diplomatic duties, which he had executed with so much zeal and success as to secure the confidence of the public authorities both in England and the East. Eighteen years before this period he had attracted the admiration of India by the pursuit of Dost Mahomed after the capture of Cabul. General Outram's chivalrous bearing in the field had procured for him throughout India the title of the Bayard of the East, but he was as much distinguished by his high sense of honour as by his courage. His valour was conspicuous in the campaign which terminated in the annexation of Scinde, though he reprobated the policy in which the war originated. But when the prize-money came to be distributed he refused to accept his share of it, as having been acquired in a quarrel which he deemed unjust, and he divided the whole amount, about £3,000, among the different benevolent institutions in India."

Of a piece with this noble conduct was his treatment of Havelock. When reinforcements arrived, and the attempt to relieve Lucknow was made possible, Sir James Outram sent his first communication to Havelock in these terms:-" I shall join you with the reinforcements. But to you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil capacity as Commissioner, placing my military service at your disposal should you please, serving under you as a volunteer."

The only Division order issued by Sir James before the occupation of Lucknow was as follows:

"The important duty of first relieving the garrison of Lucknow has been entrusted to Brigadier-General Havelock, C.B., and Major-General Outram feels that it is due to this distinguished officer, and the strenuous and noble exertions which he has already made to effect that object, that to him should accrue the honour of the achievement. MajorGeneral Outram is confident that the great end for which General Havelock and his brave troops have so long and so generously fought will now, under the blessing of Providence, be accomplished.

"The Major-General, therefore, in gratitude for and admiration of the brilliant deeds in arms achieved by General Havelock and his gallant troops, will cheerfully waive his rank on the occasion, and will accompany the force to Lucknow in his civil capacity as Chief Commissioner of Oude, tendering his services to General Havelock as a volunteer.

"On the relief of Lucknow the Major-General will resume his position at the head of the force."

Never before was so remarkable an order issued to any army by its commander. The days of chivalry can furnish no parallel to it. There is a grandeur in the very simplicity and frankness with which his self-sacrifice was made, while the act itself revealed a nobleness of character, a true greatness of soul, that win our unbounded admiration. To waive his rank and move on with the column as a spectator would have shown great self-denial, and elicited the applause of the world; but not satisfied with this, Outram joined the Volunteer Cavalry, and though covered with well-earned laurels stood ready, as it were, to begin his career anew. All his illustrious deeds in the field which have rendered his name immortal grow dim before the glory of this one act. When they shall be forgotten, it shall remain the best eulogium that could be pronounced on his name. Men by their illustrious deeds often excite the admiration of the world, but few ever win its affections. Decorations and external honours may dazzle and attract the eye, but they do not gain the heart. "Outram has won the love," says Mr. Headley, an American writer, in his " Biography of Havelock," "of all true men in both hemispheres, and sits enthroned where outward signs of greatness pass but for little."

And so it was that Havelock was enabled to complete that series of brilliant exploits which have made his name memorable in our military annals. Gallantly he led forth his men again to victory. Skirmishes with the enemy, the battle of Munghowar, wearisome marches in one continuous deluge of rain, only seemed to fix more deeply the one object before them; the battle of Alumbagh, at which the flower of the enemy was collected, was fought and won; and then came the struggle, almost unparalleled, when, through a storm of shot and missiles pouring down from the loopholed houses on either side, the Residency was entered and Lucknow was relieved. "Then," says an eye-witness, garrison's long pent-up feelings of anxiety and suspense burst forth in a succession of deafening cheers. From every pit, trench, and battery-from behind the sandbags piled on shattered houses-from every post still held by a few gallant spirits-rose cheer on cheer; even from the hospital many of the wounded crawled forth to join in that glad shout of welcome to those who had so bravely come to our assistance. It was a moment never to

"the

be forgotten. The delight of the ever-gallant Highlanders, who had fought twelve battles to enjoy that moment of ecstacy, and in the last four days had lost a third of their number, seemed to know no bounds."

Only a few days after the rescue had been accomplished, Havelock was taken. ill. It was a wonderful series of feats that he, with his shattered constitution, had performed. For six weeks he hardly put off his clothes, and throughout that time had been harassed by the enemy, exposed to almost constant rains, and beset with disease and death. His illness was the result of long fatigue and exposure, and the taxing of his powers to the very utmost of human endurance. Soon it assumed more serious symptoms, and Havelock felt that his end was near.

In a doolie, placed inside a common soldier's tent, lay the dying general, his eldest son, notwithstanding his own serious wounds, attending him night and day with almost womanly tenderness. Calm, peaceful, and happy the Christian soldier lay, his "warfare accomplished;" and when his comrade in arms, Sir James Outram, came to bid him farewell, Havelock said to him, "I have for forty years so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear." He did face it without fear. "Come, see how a Christian can die," he said to his son, and then his spirit passed calmly baek into the hands of Him who gave it.

The next day, near to the Alumbagh, they laid him in the grave. Around

it stood the Iron chief, Sir Colin Campbell, and Outram, the Bayard of India, and Inglis, the noble defender of Lucknow, and many of the brave men who had followed him in all that wondrous "march of fire." And "as long," it has been well said, "as the memory of great deeds, and high courage, and spotless self-devotion is cherished among his countrymen, so long will Havelock's lonely tomb in the grave beneath the scorching Eastern sky, hard by the vast city, the scene alike of his toil, his triumph, and his death, be regarded as one of the most holy of the many spots where our patriot soldiers lie."