At last we are in possession of detailed accounts of the attack 
and fall of Lucknow. The principal sources of information, in a 
military point of view, the dispatches of Sir Colin Campbell, have 
not yet, indeed, been published; but the correspondence of the 
British press, and especially the letters of Mr. Russell in The 
London Times,’ the chief portions of which have been laid before 
our readers, are quite sufficient to give a general insight into the 
proceedings of the attacking party. 

The conclusions we drew from ‘the telegraphic news, as to the 
ignorance and cowardice displayed in the defense,” are more than 
confirmed by the detailed accounts. The works erected by the 
Hindoos, formidable in appearance, were in reality of no greater 
consequence than the fiery dragons and grimacing faces painted 
by Chinese “braves” on their shields or on the walls of their cities. 
Every single work exhibited an apparently impregnable front, 
nothing but loopholed and embrasured walls and_ parapets, 
difficulties of access of every possible description, cannon and 
small-arms bristling everywhere. But the flanks and rear of every 
position were completely neglected, a mutual support of the 
various works was never thought of, and even the ground between 
the works, as well as in front of them, had never been cleared, so 
that both front and flank attacks could be prepared without the 
knowledge of the defense, and could approach under perfect 
shelter to within a few yards from the parapet. It was just such a 

No. 22986, May 6, 1858.— Ed. 

conglomerate of intrenchments as might be expected from a body 
of private sappers deprived of their officers, and serving in an 
army where ignorance and indiscipline reigned supreme. The 
intrenchments of Lucknow are but a translation of the whole 
method of Sepoy warfare into baked clay walls and earthen 
parapets. The mechanical portion of European tactics had been 
partially impressed upon their minds; they knew the manual and 
platoon drill well enough; they could also build a battery and 
loophole a wall; but how to combine the movements of companies 
and battalions in the defense of a position, or how to combine 
batteries and loopholed houses and walls, so as to form an 
intrenched camp capable of resistance—of this they were utterly 
ignorant. Thus, they weakened the solid masonry walls of their 
palaces by over-loopholing them, heaped tier upon tier of 
loopholes and embrasures, placed parapeted batteries on their 
roofs, and all this to no purpose whatever, because it could all be 
turned in the easiest possible manner. In the same way, knowing 
their tactical inferiority, they tried to make up for it by cramming 
every post as full of men as possible, to no other purpose than to 
give terrible effect to the British artillery and to render impossible 
all orderly and systematic defense as soon as the attacking columns 
fell upon this motley host from an unexpected direction. And 
when the British, by some accidental circumstance, were compelled 
to attack even the formidable front of the works, their construc- 
tion was so faulty that they could be approached, breached and 
stormed almost without any risk. At the Imambarrah this was the 
case. Within a few yards from the building stood a pucka 
(sun-baked clay) wall. Up to this the British made a short sap 
(proof enough that the embrasures and loopholes on the higher 
part of the building had no plunging fire upon the ground 
immediately in front), and used this very wall as a breaching 
battery, prepared for them by the Hindoos themselves! They 
brought up two 68-pounders (naval guns) behind this wall. The 
lightest 68-pounder in the British service weighs 87 cwt., without 
the carriage; but supposing even that an 8-inch gun for hollow 
shot only is alluded to, the lightest gun of that class weighs 50 
cwt., and with the carriage at least three tuns. That such guns 
could be brought up at all in such proximity to a palace several 
stories high, with a battery on the roof, shows a contempt of 
commanding positions and an ignorance of military engineering 
which no private sapper in any civilized army could be capable of. 

Thus much for the science against which the British had to 
contend. As to courage and obstinacy, they were equally absent 

from the defense. From the Martiniére to the Mousabagh, on the 
part of the natives, there was but one grand and unanimous act of 
bolting, as soon as a column advanced to the attack. There is 
nothing in the whole series of engagements that can compare even 
with the massacre (for fight it can scarcely be called) in the 
Secunderbagh during Campbell’s relief of the Residency. No 
sooner do the attacking parties advance, than there is a general 
helter-skelter to the rear, and where there are but a few narrow 
exits so as to bring the crowded rabble to a stop, they fall 
pell-mell, and without any resistance, under the volleys and 
bayonets of the advancing British. The “British bayonet” has done 
more execution in any one of these onslaughts on panic-stricken 
natives than in all the wars of the English in Europe and America 
put together. In the East, such bayonet-battles, where one party is 
active and the other abjectly passive, are a regular occurrence in 
warfare; the Burmese stockades in every case furnished an 
example.” According to Mr. Russell’s account, the chief loss 
suffered by the British was caused by Hindoos cut off from 
retreat, and barricaded in the rooms of the palaces, whence they 
fired from the windows upon the officers in the court-yards and 
gardens. 

In storming the Imambarra and the Kaiserbagh, the bolting of 
the Hindoos was so rapid, that the place was not taken, but simply 
marched into. The interesting scene, however, was now only 
commencing; for, as Mr. Russell blandly observes, the conquest of 
the Kaiserbagh on that day was so unexpected that there was no 
time to guard against indiscriminate plunder. A merry scene it 
must have been for a true, liberty-loving John Bull to see his 
British grenadiers helping themselves freely to the jewels, costly 
arms, clothes, and all the toggery of his Majesty of Oude. The 
Sikhs, Ghoorkas and camp-followers were quite ready to imitate 
the example, and a scene of plunder and destruction followed 
which evidently surpassed even the descriptive talent of Mr. Rus- 
sei. Every fresh step in advance was accompanied with 
plunder and devastation. .The Kaiserbagh had fallen on the 14th; 
and half an hour after, discipline was at an end, and the officers 
had lost all command over their men. On the 17th, Gen. Campbell 
was obliged to establish patrols to check plundering, and to remain 
in inactivity “until the present license ceases.” The troops were 
evidently completely out of hand. On the 18th, we hear that there 
is a cessation of the grosser sort of plunder, but devastation is still 
going on freely. In the city, however, while the vanguard were 
fighting against the natives’ fire from the houses, the rearguard 

plundered and destroyed to their hearts’ content. In the evening, 
there is another proclamation against plundering; strong parties of 
every regiment to go out and fetch in their own men, and to keep 
their camp-followers at home; nobody to leave the camp except on 
duty. On the 20th, a recapitulation of the same orders. On the 
same day, two British “officers and gentlemen”, Lieuts. Cape and 
Thackwell, “went into the city looting, and were murdered in a 
house;”’ and on the 26th, matters were still so bad that the most 
stringent orders were issued for the suppression of plunder and 
outrage; hourly roll-calls were instituted; all soldiers strictly 
forbidden to enter the city; camp-followers,. if found armed in the 
city, to be hanged; soldiers not to wear arms except on duty, and 
all non-combatants to be disarmed. To give due weight to these 
orders, a number of triangles for flogging were erected “at proper 
places.” 

This is indeed a pretty state of things in a civilized army in the 
nineteenth century; and if any other troops in the world had 
committed one-tenth of these excesses, how would the indignant 
British press brand them with infamy! But these are the deeds of 
the British army, and therefore we are told that such things are 
but the normal consequences of war. British officers and 
gentlemen are perfectly welcome to appropriate to themselves any 
silver spoons, jeweled bracelets, and other litthe memorials they 
may find about the scene of their glory; and if Campbell is 
compelled to disarm his own army in the midst of war, in order to 
stop wholesale robbery and violence, there may have been military 
reasons for the step; but surely nobody will begrudge these poor 
fellows a week’s holiday and a little frolic after so many satignes 
and _privations. 

The fact is, there is no army in Europe or America with so 
much brutality as the British. Plundering, violence, massacre— 
things that everywhere else are strictly and completely banished — 
are a time-honored privilege, a vested right of the British soldier. 
The infamies committed for days together, after .the storming of 
Badajos and San Sebastian,**' in the Peninsular war, are without a 
parallel in the annals of any other nation since the beginning of 
the French Revolution; and the medieval usage, proscribed 
everywhere else, of giving up to plunder a town taken by assault, 
is still the rule with the British. At Delhi imperious military 
considerations enforced an exception; but the army, though 
bought off by extra pay, grumbled, and now at Lucknow they 
have made up for what they missed at Delhi. For twelve.days and 
nights there was no British army at Lucknow—nothing but a 

lawless, drunken, brutal rabble, dissolved into bands of robbers, 
far more lawless, violent and greedy than the Sepoys who had just 
been driven out of the place. The sack of Lucknow in 1858 will 
remain an everlasting disgrace to the British military service. 

If the reckless soldiery, in their civilizing and humanizing 
progress through India, could rob the natives of their personal 
property only, the British Government steps in immediately 
afterward and strips them of their real estate as well. Talk of the 
first French Revolution confiscating the lands of the nobles and 
the church! Talk of Louis Napoleon confiscating the property of 
the Orleans family! Here comes Lord Canning, a British 
nobleman, mild in language, manners and feelings, and confis- 
cates, by order of his superior, Viscount Palmerston, the lands of a 
whole people, every rood, perch and acre, over an extent of ten 
thousand square miles.*** A very nice bit of loot indeed for John 
Bull! And no sooner had Lord Ellenborough, in the name of the 
new Government, disapproved of this hitherto unexampled 
measure,” than up rise The Times and a host of minor British 
papers to defend this wholesale robbery, and break a lance for the 
right of John Bull to confiscate everything he likes. But then, John 
is an exceptional being, and what is virtue in him, according to 
The Times, would be infamy in others.” 

Meanwhile—thanks to the complete dissolution of the British 
army for the purpose of plunder—the insurgents escaped, 
unpursued, into the open country. They concentrate in Rohilcund, 
while a portion carry on petty warfare in Oude, and other 
fugitives have taken the direction of Bundelcund. At the same 
time, the hot weather and the rains are fast approaching; and it is 
not to be expected that the season will be so uncommonly 
favorable to European constitutions as last year. Then, the mass of 
the European troops were more or less acclimated; this year, most 
of them are newly arrived. There is no doubt that a campaign in 
June, July and August will cost the British an immense number of 
lives, and what with the garrisons that have to be left in every 
conquered city, the active army will melt down very rapidly. 
Already are we informed that re-enforcements of 1,000 men per 
month will scarcely keep up the army at its effective strength; and 
as to garrisons, Lucknow alone requires at least 8,000 men, over 
one-third of Campbell’s army. The force organizing for the 

a E. L. ENenborough’s speech in the House of Lords on May 7, 1858, The 
Times, No. 22988, May 8, 1858.— Ed. 

campaign of Rohilcund will scarcely be stronger than this garrison 
of Lucknow. We are also informed that among the British officers 
the opinion is gaining ground that the guerrilla warfare which 1s 
sure to succeed the dispersion of the larger bodies of insurgents, 
will be far more. harassing and destructivé of life to the British 
than the present war with its battles and sieges. And, lastly, the 
Sikhs are beginning to talk in a way which bodes no good to the 
English. They feel that without their assistance the British would 
scarcely have been able to hold India, and that, had they joined 
the insurrection, Hindostan would certainly have been lost to 
England, at least for a time. They say this loudly, and exaggerate 
it in their Eastern way. To them the English no longer appear as 
that superior race which beat them at Moodka, Ferozepore and 
Aliwal.°* From such a conviction to open hostility there is but a 
step with Eastern nations; a spark may kindle the blaze. 

Altogether, the taking of Lucknow has no more put down the 
Indian insurrection than the taking of Delhi. This: Summer’s 
campaign may produce such events that the British will have, next 
Winter, to go substantially over the same ground again, and 
perhaps even to reconquer the Punjaub. But in the best of cases, a 
long and harassing guerrilla warfare is before them—not an 
enviable thing for Europeans under an Indian sun.