Barrackpore

“ Calcutta, Dumdum, Barrackpore, Berhampore.
It has been seen that Calcutta was garrisoned by a single regiment of Europeans, one wing being quartered in Fort William and the other in the arsenal at Dumdum, about seven miles off. Nine miles north of Dumdum, and sixteen miles north of Calcutta, is the pleasant station of Barrackpore, where the Governor-General has a park and country mansion, and where four sepoy regiments were cantoned with their European officers, but without European troops. ”

“ But, although the eyes of our Government were blinded, those of the King of Oudh and his agents were wide open to the importance of the occasion. The minds of the Sepoys at Barrackpore were hourly worked upon, and with such effect, that letters were despatched in shoals to every regiment in the service, giving full details, often amplified and exaggerated, of the cartridge business. Agents were also despatched, well supplied with money, to every station in India ”

“ You look put out.”
“Yes, there is very bad news, Doctor. A Sowar has just brought a letter to me from the Colonel saying that the General has got a telegram that the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore have refused to use the cartridges served out to them, and that yesterday a Sepoy of the 34th at Barrackpore raised seditious cries in front of the lines, and when Baugh, the adjutant, and the sergeant major attempted to seize him he wounded them both, while the regiment stood by and refused to aid them. The 19th are to be disbanded, and no doubt the 34th will be, too.” ”

“ The local government is carried on by nineteen functionaries; and the stranger generally meets with much hospitality and courtesy.
Three miles further down the river is Ishapore, the site of the government gunpowder works; and about five miles lower still, is Barrackpore, a military station, fifteen miles from Calcutta, with a good road between them. It is the head-quarters of the Presidency Division. At present it contains five regiments of Native Infantry; having formerly six quartered here. The cantonments are on the left bank of the Hoogly, and directly opposite to Serampore. ”

“ In the same letter he said, 'We have at Barrackpore been living upon a mine ready for explosion,' and he reported a story which had reached him from Dum-Dum of a sepoy, on his way to cook his food with his lota1 full of water, meeting a low-caste man belonging to the arsenal where the Enfield cartridges were being manufactured. ”

“ We had two hours of fat generals and yellow brigadiers clanking in and out of the room yesterday; but one visit was rather amusing. The lady was like Caroline Elliot in her young days; married to come out here; landed a month ago; is in perfect horror at India; and evidently the poor husband has lost any charm he ever might have had by his guilt in inveigling her out here. I asked if she had got into her own house yet. “I have not seen a house at Barrackpore. ”

“ The wretched man had been worked up to a pitch of madness by the sepoys of his regiment, who stood by while he attacked the Adjutant, and would have allowed him to kill their Commander, but they were too great cowards to back him up openly. Mangal Pandy was not dead. He was taken to the hospital, and eventually was tried by a Court-Martial composed of Native officers, sentenced to death, and hanged in the presence of all the troops at Barrackpore. The Native officer in command of the quarter-guard met the same fate, and the regiment was then disbanded. ”

“ It is a matter of opinion, judged differently even by military men accustomed to India and its natives, whether the proper course was on that occasion taken. The commanding officer, Lieutenant-colonel Mitchell, ordered a detachment of native cavalry and a battery of native artillery—the only troops at Barrackpore besides those already named—to be on parade on the following morning. Between ten and eleven o’clock at night, however, the men of the 19th regiment broke open the armouries or bells, took possession of their muskets and ammunition, and carried them to their lines. ”

“ Of the mutineers, 500 were made prisoners, and 350 were slain. Similarly, in 1824, the Sepoys at Barrackpore refused to embark for Burma, lest they should lose caste, but the mutiny was crushed. Again, in 1844, there had been disturbances at Ferozepore, and again in 1849 to 1850.
Notwithstanding these premonitory warnings, a false feeling of security had long been growing up. As far back as 1832, a committee, examining the condition of the native army, had been told that “The Indian army when well commanded is indomitable ”

“ No soldier will be allowed to leave barracks, except on duty, until 4 p.m. Sergeants must be posted at the gates to see that no one goes out improperly dressed. Belts must be pipeclayed. Tattoo will be sounded at 8 p.m., and patrols sent out until all men are brought to barracks. Passes are not to be given for any hour later than 10 p.m., and very sparingly. In the event of any drunkenness or outrage or breaking into houses being reported, the regiment complained of will be immediately marched two miles outside the town to Abrasia, and there quartered as long as the Army is at Cairo. ”

“ This mutiny had occupied the minds of the prisoners for many months, and was so planned that they were to attack the guards in gangs simultaneously, armed with hatchets, hoes, crowbars, and hammers, on going forth from their prisons to work; they were then to bind their victims and keep them in front, as shields, while others, with the captured arms, attacked the main body of the troops in barracks. They had arranged to treat the free population with barbarity and cruelty too fearful to mention, and to quarter the colonel and the captain alive. ”

“ At Wimbledon the ardent toiler in an evil cause had what he considered a satisfactory ten minutes with the arch-blackguard of the handful of blackguards of the Regals. By ten o’clock he was in Hounslow Barracks. “Lights out” sounded as he finished his round of the troop-rooms, but he had accomplished what of his task lay to him there. Then he spent a balefully busy half-hour in the sergeants’ mess, and by midnight he was back in Kensington Barracks. What few words had to be said to the squadron quartered there would keep till morning. ”

“ The armoury is situated near the artillery barrack, in another part of the town. About ten thousand stand of arms are kept in it, arranged in a similar manner with the arms in the Tower of London, but, if possible, with greater neatness and more fancy.
The artillery barracks are capable of containing about five hundred men, but the principal barracks are calculated to contain a much larger number; they stand in the market place, not far distant from the square in which the chateau is situated, but more in the heart of the town. ”

“ He had been studying the Irish question for a whole fortnight, and he thoroughly understood the country.
“In Ireland,” he said, “the most likely place to find a police barrack is where there are no houses. The reason for that is that the uninhabited districts of the country are those from which the people have been evicted. They naturally want to get back again, and so police barracks are built to prevent them doing so. You will always find a barrack where there are no people. A man who was greatly interested in the land question told me that the day before yesterday.” ”

“ The barracks’ officers had no control over their men, and two companies of Highlanders were sent for to take the place of our regiment at Hamilton and to escort to Edinburgh Castle those of us who had taken part in disturbance. At the Castle the men were confined to barracks for a fortnight to give the police time to work up their “case” for the court-martial, and in order to see how the wounded policemen, who were being treated in the hospital progressed. ”

“ Roger's game was spoiled by a warning communicated to the recruiting stations from the police.
[Pg 281]
THE SHE BARRACKS.
When the Richmond Barracks were built at Golden Bridge, they were intended to afford ample accommodation for more than an entire regiment. There were also barracks at Island Bridge, and the distance between both was about half a mile. The former were generally occupied by infantry, and the latter by artillery. A person in the vicinity had a large building constructed through a speculative motive of a very extraordinary kind. ”

“ Those three windows were exalted and uplifted by the right honorable gentleman into a general attack on the barracks, compelling the police, in self-defence, to fire on the people. In one sense I must say the police did not fire on the people, for no mass of people was there to fire on. I said at Nottingham, and it is the result of all the inquiry I have made, that there was not more than twenty people in the street opposite the barracks, and under these circumstances the police actually fired into the windows of the opposite house, where there were peaceful people, women, and children ”

“ Tidings of the capitulation and massacre of the garrison at Cawnpore reached Havelock on 3 July. On the 7th, leaving Colonel Neill to take care of Allahabad, he marched out to recapture Cawnpore with a force consisting of about a thousand bayonets, made up of the 64th regiment, the 78th highlanders, the 84th regiment, and the 1st Madras fusiliers, a dozen Sikhs, a handful of volunteer cavalry, and six guns. By forced marches at the hottest season of the year, he reached Futtehpore on the 12th, and signally defeated the rebels. ”

“ A recurrence of that disturbance being threatened, a detachment of the 10th was sent to Bankipore as a personal guard to the Commissioner of Behar, whose residence was at that place.
113 When the great body of the sepoys at Dinapore mutinied and fled, certain of their number were employed on various duties within the barrack ranges occupied by the British troops. Unable like their brethren to effect their escape, they laid down their arms, declaring themselves to be loyal, or “staunch,” according to the phrase of the day ”

“ And in a line with No. 2 Barrack is No. 4 Barrack, held with equal stanchness by a party of Civil Engineers who had been employed on the East Indian Railroad, and who had for their commander Captain Jenkins. Seven of the engineers perished in defence of this post.
There is nothing more to see on the maidan, and one feels his anger rising at the obliteration of everything that might help towards the localisation of associations. Let us leave the scene of the defence and follow the track of the defenders as they marched down to the scene of the great treachery. ”

“ One policeman has brought us fresh cocoa-nut milk, another sits outside pulling a small punkah, and two more have mounted guard over us. This stilted house is the barrack of eleven Malay constables. Under it are four guns of light calibre, mounted on carriages, and outside is a gong on which the policemen beat the hours.
At the river we were told that the natives would not go up the shallow, rapid stream by night, and now the corporal says that no man will carry us through the jungle; that trees are lying across the track; that there are dangerous swamp holes ”

“ If more than five men were seen together, or if anyone was heard to whisper or spit upon the floor, it was certain to be followed by one of these punishments. Frequently men sick in barracks were delirious; sometimes one or two in a barrack were crazy. These were the cause of a whole barrack of men being mounted on a horse or punished in other ways. Sometimes a guard would come in, and swear he heard some one whispering. He would make four or five men get up, with nothing but their underclothes to protect them against a climate where the thermometer stood twenty degrees below zero. ”

“ Beyond the "details" in the barracks it contains few of the rank and file, and its big square betrays little of the crowded animation of the towns nearer the fighting line, with their great parks of armoured cars, motor lorries, and ammunition waggons, their filter-carts, and their little clusters and eddies of men resting in billets. The Military Police on point-duty have a comparatively quiet time, although despatch-riders are, of course, for ever whizzing to and fro with messages from and to the Front. ”

“ MONDAY, 6.—John Longmore got in from Pitt this morning. He brings no news other than that the police intend to hold the fort as long as a man is left.
The Bremners and Sayers in the upper settlement refuse to come in, alleging that they are safer there than in barracks, but very anxious for news as to what is going on here.
Barrack square put in good shape, a large tent erected for use of women and children of Taylor settlement, and boards nailed on top of stockade to strengthen it.
All the captured cattle are being driven to Poundmaker's, where the grand stand is to be made. ”

“ Only one little scrap of green can be seen in the whole surroundings, and that is toward the west. We are in the new Artillery Barracks, which, since the beginning of the war, have been partially used as a hospital. We are taking it over in part from the French, with the understanding that later we will be in whole charge. ”

“ This was the signal for the springing up of a great excitement, during which the troops broke their ranks and threatened the Japanese officer with a murderous attack. The mutiny spread at once to another battalion occupying adjoining barracks. The mutineers then proceeded to break open the magazines and, arming themselves, they rushed out of the barracks. They thereupon posted sentinels around the barracks where the majority of the forces still remained, who began to fire aimless shots from within upon the passers-by. Meantime some of the troops ran away. ”