A Soldier's Experience; or, A Voice from the Ranks: Showing the Cost of War in Blood and Treasure. A Personal Narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from the Standpoint of the Ranks; the Indian Mutiny, and Some of its Atrocities; the Afghan Campaigns of 1863Gowing, T. (Timothy)
History
A Soldier's Experience; or, A Voice from the Ranks: Showing the Cost of War in Blood and Treasure. A Personal Narrative of the Crimean Campaign, from the Standpoint of the Ranks; the Indian Mutiny, and Some of its Atrocities; the Afghan Campaigns of 1863
Gowing, T. (Timothy)
Crimean War, 1853-1856 -- Personal narratives
In describing the revolting scenes at Delhi, I will quote the words of
those who had the misfortune to be there. The officers of all the
regiments, viz., 38th, 54th, and 74th, and the Artillery, had the
greatest confidence in their men, and at once marched them to attack the
Mutineers just arrived from Meerut. But, poor deluded men, they were
soon let into the terrible secret; their own men turned their arms upon
them and at once shot them, or allowed the Meerut contingent to ride up
to them and cut them down, exclaiming, "Feringhee! Ko! Maro,
Maro!"--kill the Englishmen; kill, kill. Then the carnage commenced.
What a scene! The Mutineers united to exterminate all that they could
lay their hands upon, without distinction of age or sex--all that those
bloody-thirsty wretches could reach were launched into eternity, for no
other crime than that they had a white face. No pen can describe the
awful deeds of these cowardly villains. Poor defenceless creatures were
cut and hacked to pieces, after being stripped and subjected to
brutality ten times worse than death. Poor women were hunted up by these
fiends, and, when found, were dragged from their hiding-places and
tortured. I will just give a few instances to show how they were
treated. After some of these poor creatures had been subjected to worse
than death, they were tied to trees in a state of nudity, old and young,
their children were then tortured before them, by being cut limb from
limb, one joint at a time, and the flesh was crammed down the parents'
throats; wives, and in many cases young maidens, were ravished before
the eyes of husbands and fathers; they were then mutilated in a manner
too horrible to relate, and burnt to death in one common pile. Others,
pretty, very pretty girls, were seized, stripped naked, tied to a cart,
and taken into the midst of these brutes to be violated; while many
died under the brutal treatment they received. Can the reader wonder,
after reading these details--which give only a very faint idea of the
horrors that attended this mutiny--that our men retaliated? They would
not have been human had they not, at the bare recital of such deeds,
been wrought up to a state bordering on madness. British soldiers could
not stand this. They crossed their bayonets and swore to give no
quarter, but that they would have a life for every hair that had been
dishonoured by these scoundrels! And they kept their word.
The public will never know a hundredth part of the sufferings of our
poor fellow-countrywomen in that hellish Mutiny of 1857-8. The
narratives of those who escaped the fiendish rage and brutality and lust
that characterised the proceedings of the Mutineers during that black
month of May, 1857, are enough to make one's blood curdle in the veins--
On horror's head horrors accumulate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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