Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
tessellated pavement: "In three graves within this enclosure lie the
remains of Major Edward Vibart, 2nd Bengal Cavalry, and about seventy
officers and soldiers, who, after escaping from the massacre at
Cawnpore on the 27th June 1857, were captured by the rebels at
Sheorapore, and murdered on the 1st July." The inmates of these graves
were originally buried elsewhere, and were removed hither when the
enclosure was formed. In another part of the enclosure is a raised
tomb, the slab of which bears the inscription: "This stone marks a spot
which lay within Wheeler's intrenchment, and covers the remains and is
sacred to the memory of those who were the first to meet their death
when beleaguered by mutineers and rebels in June 1857." Two only lie in
this grave, Mr. Murphy and a lady who died of fever. These two perished
on the first day of the siege and had the exclusive privilege of being
decently interred within the precincts of the intrenchment. After the
first day of the siege there was scant leisure for funeral rites. To
find the last resting-place of the remaining dead of this siege, we
must quit the enclosure and walk across the _maidan_ to a spot among
the trees by the roadside under the shadow of No. 4 Barrack. There was
an empty well here when the siege begun; three weeks after, when the
siege ended, this well contained the bodies of 250 British people. With
daylight the battle raged around that sepulchre, but when the night
came the slain of the day were borne thither with stealthy step and
scant attendance. Now the well is filled up, and above it, inside a
small ornamental enclosure formed by iron railings, there rises a
monument which bears the following inscription: "In a well under this
enclosure were laid by the hands of their fellows in suffering the
bodies of men, women, and children, who died hard by during the heroic
defence of Wheeler's intrenchment when beleaguered by the rebel Nana."
Below the inscription is this apposite quotation from Psalm cxli. 7:
"Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and
cleaveth wood upon the earth. But mine eyes are unto Thee, O God the
Lord." At the corners of the flower-plot are small crosses bearing
individual names. One commemorates Sir George Parker, the cantonment
magistrate; a second, Captain Jenkins; a third, Lieutenant Saunders and
the men of the 84th Regiment; a fourth, Lieutenant Glanville and the
men of the Madras Fusiliers; and here, too, lies stout-hearted yet
tender-hearted John MacKillop of the Civil Service the hero of another
well, that from which the team of buffaloes are now drawing water to
make the mortar for the Memorial Church. Thence was procured the water
for the garrison and it was a target also for the rebel artillery, so
that the appearance of a man with a pitcher by day and by night the
creaking of the tackle, was the signal for a shower of grape. But John
MacKillop, "not being a fighting-man," made himself useful as he
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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