HKB
[Sidenote: The greased cartridges]
Some time previously rumors had been circulated concerning a danger to British rule in India. Mysterious little cakes were circulated far and wide. Lord Canning, the new Governor-General, was blamed for not taking alarm. A dangerous story got abroad early in the year. The Enfield rifle had been introduced. Its cartridges were greased with animal lubricants. The fat of pigs was hateful to Mohammedans, while that of cows was still more of an abomination in the eyes of the Hindus. At Barrackpore, near Calcutta, where Sepoys were stationed, a Laskar reviled a Brahmin as defiled by the British cartridges. The whole of the Bengal army was seized with horror. The British authorities claimed that none of the greased cartridges had been issued to the Sepoys. The story of the greased cartridges ran up the Ganges to Benares, Delhi and Meerut. It was soon noised abroad that the bones of cows and pigs had been ground to powder and thrown into wells with flour and butter in order to destroy the caste of the Hindus so as to convert them to Christianity.
[Sidenote: Hindu soldiers demur]
In March, incendiary fires broke out at Barrackpore. The Sepoys from the Nineteenth Regiment refused to receive the cartridges dealt out to them. There was only one white regiment in the 400 miles between Barrackpore and Patna. After remonstrances had been made by the English officers, the Sepoys returned, but there still remained disaffection at Benares, Lucknow, Agra and other places. When it was believed that the excitement was allayed another outbreak occurred at Lucknow. Lawrence's energetic measures maintained order in Oude. The mutiny was only scattered, however. Within a week Meerut, thirty-eight miles northeast of Delhi, and the largest cantonment in India, was in a blaze. The story of the greased cartridges had been capped by that of the bone dust. Some eighty-five of a regiment of Sepoy cavalry refused to take the cartridges and were marched off to the guard-house. During the afternoon of the following Sunday, when the European officers were preparing for church, the imprisoned Sepoys were liberated with others. They shot down every European they met.
[Sidenote: The Indian mutiny]
The mutiny became a revolt. The rebellious Sepoys marched on Delhi. When the rebel troops came up from Meerut the English officers prepared to meet them. Their Sepoys joined the mutineers. The revolt spread throughout Delhi. In despair, Willoughby blew up the fort with 1,500 rebels who were assaulting it. Only four of his command escaped. Willoughby himself died six weeks afterward, while India and Europe were ringing with his name. Fifty Englishmen whom the rebels had captured were butchered in cold blood. Delhi on Monday evening was in rebel hands. The remaining officers on the Ridge fled for their lives. Their subsequent suffering was one of the harrowing features of the great convulsion. The revolution at Delhi opened Lord Canning's eyes. He telegraphed for regiments from Bombay, Burma, Madras and Ceylon.
[Sidenote: Lahore mutineers foiled]
On May 11, the news of the outbreak at Meerut was brought to the authorities at Lahore. Meean Meer is a large military cantonment five or six miles from Lahore, and there were then some four thousand native troops there, with only about thirteen hundred Europeans of the Queen's and the Company's service. There was no time to be lost. A parade was ordered on the morrow at Meean Meer. On the parade-ground an order was given for a military movement which brought the heads of four columns of the native troops in front of twelve guns charged with grape, the artillerymen with their port-fires lighted, and the soldiers of one of the Queen's regiments standing behind with loaded muskets. A command was given to the Sepoys to stack arms. Cowed, they piled their arms, which were borne away at once in carts by the European soldiers. All chances of a rebellious movement were over for the moment in the Punjab.
[Sidenote: Situation at Lucknow]
[Sidenote: Massacre of Jhansi]