Something had already been done in Central India before Colin
Campbell set foot on Prinsep's Ghat on the strand of Calcutta. On the
12th of July, 1857, there left Aurungabad for Mhow a little column
under the command of Brigadier C. S. Stuart, consisting of half of
the Fourteenth Dragoons, the Third Hyderabad Cavalry, Woolcombe's
battery, the Twenty-Fifth Bombay Native Infantry, and detachments
of Bombay and Madras sappers. On August 2nd this force relieved
Mhow, but remained there doing nothing until after the middle of
October. On the 21st of that month, accompanied by Colonel Durand,
the acting Resident at Mhow, and strengthened by the Eighty-Sixth
regiment, Hungerford's battery and sundry details including a small
siege-train, the column, now bearing the title of the Malwa Field
Force, marched on Dhar and on the 25th prepared to bombard that
strong fort. Its garrison abandoned it during the night of the
31st. The main body marched northward on Mundasore on the 8th of
November, while Major Orr's column of the Hyderabad Contingent moved
on Mahidpore, where the fugitives from Dhar had been joined by the
Mahidpore Contingent, which had killed the Europeans attached to
it. Orr overtook the mutineers at Rawul, and inflicted on them a
severe defeat with the loss of all their guns. On the morning of
the 21st the Field Force took up a position between Mundasore and
Neemuch, where it was attacked in force but routed its assailants
with heavy loss, and the cavalry drove them into Mundasore sabring
them as they fled. On the 23rd the column pushed on to Neemuch, where
it was known that the British people of that station had been shut
up in the fort for months surrounded by about ten thousand of the
enemy. They had beaten off two desperate attacks, but provisions
and ammunition were running short, and word had come from the fort
that they could not hold out many days longer. While on the march
the rear of the column was harassed by troops from Mundasore, and
presently there became visible in front a large mass of cavalry
and two bodies of infantry which had come out from Neemuch to
resist the British advance. Those Rohillas were exceedingly daring
and stubborn, and fought to the last gasp. They held with extreme
obstinacy the village of Ghorariah, from which they maintained a
constant heavy fire. As the night closed in the village became one
great blazing fire; death stared its occupants in the face; yet they
clung to it throughout the night. In the morning the place was a
mere shell into which was being poured a stream of heavy missiles,
yet the garrison held out until after mid-day, when at length some
two hundred and fifty survivors came out and surrendered. With the
storm of Ghorariah and the relief of Neemuch, Durand, scanty as the
force at his disposal was, had succeeded in crushing the rebellion
in the Malwa country and in cutting off the disaffected troops of
Holkar from the supports on which they had rested. Leaving the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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