The 12th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry (Hote Ka Paltan)
The regiment was raised in 1763 as the 15th Battalion, at Monghyr, by Captain John White
Battle Honours: “Carnatic,” “Laswarri,” “Ferozeshur,” “Sobraon.”
In 1857, the left wing mutinied at Jhansi on the 5th of June; the right wing followed later at Nowgong, on the 10th of June. The men in Nowgong were a divided group – those who mutinied outright and those of the right wing, who faithfully followed their officers from one doom to the next until they were unable to serve their purpose any longer. The left wing joined the forces of the Rani of Jhansi and the Tantia Tope and fought through the Central India Campaign of 1858 until the rebel army was defeated and dispersed at the Battle of Gwalior. Their last show of resistance would come in April 1858 when, defiant to the last, the remainder of the left wing, 12th BNI, were fighting at the Fort of Sumpter. Not a man of them survived.
The men of the right wing who did not accompany Scot and their officers made their way to Cawnpore and formed, at least for a brief time, a part of the Nana Sahib’s army. However, it seems their heart was never in the work, and many of the men simply melted away, back to their homes.
Their Officers
In the 1829 list of the 12th Regiment Native Infantry then stationed at Nuseerabad, the following names appear:
Kirke and Remington were still with the regiment in 1857, stationed in Nowgong. While Major Kirke would die on the road and be buried by his men and Remington would escape, R.V. Powys would be killed in Jhansi by the left wing of the 12th BNI. How fickle is the nature of man.
Of the Nowgong officers, the following died:
- Colonel Henry Kirke, sunstroke. He was the son of Lieutenant Colonel John Kirke, of the Royal Sherwood Foresters, previously Captain in the 24th Light Dragoons. His eldest brother, John, of the 11th Light Dragoons, died at Meerut in 1825, and another, James, of the Royal Artillery, died in Jersey in 1833. He married Margaret Blair, daughter of Colonel Blair, on 10 July 1830 in Meerut. They had 6 children.
- Captain Ewart, sunstroke
- Lieutenant James Henry Barber, sunstroke. Eldest son of Capt. Barber, of Merton Abbey, Surrey.
- Lieutenant Townsend, Artillery, killed
- Surgeon Thomas Mawes, sunstroke
- Sergeant Major, possibly Lucas, name not mentioned by Scot, died of sunstroke. As he had behaved rather shamefully, forcing his little daughter to carry his sword, Scot probably left out his name out of consideration to his surviving family.
Those Who Survived:
Captain Patrick G. Scot
Lieutenant Jackson
Lieutenant Remington
Lieutenant William C.L. Ryves — long thought dead, he had been sent out with a detachment to Jhansi before the mutiny at Nowgong. On the road, his men mutinied and robbed the officer of all he possessed and then attempted to force him to join them on their march to Jhansi. He put his spurs to his horse and galloped off — fast enough that his pursuers eventually gave up — he first put in at Gwalior, and when that station mutinied, he rode off to Agra.
Ensign Franks
Sergeant Rait — Scot had seen him fall down drunk and presumed he had died; however, later in the narrative, Scot found out the man had simply collapsed, quite senseless, and when he had come around, found his way to an empty police station, where he laid down for a long sleep. When he awoke, he made his way to Kabrai, where he chose to remain.
Mrs. Jane Mawe— wife of Dr. Mawe and their daughter, Lottie.
Mr. Smalley— Bandmaster, 12th BNI. Mrs. Smalley died of sunstroke; he was separated from his infant son, who subsequently died of hunger and exposure
Bugler Roderick and family — he reached Banda in safety, but his mother died of sunstroke.
Mr. Langdale — writer to Captain Scot. Mr. Langdale was the man who went for a walk on the evening of the mutiny and simply kept on going, never returning to Nowgong. He would eventually meet up with the rest of the party — his poor wife died on the roadside, and he chose to remain Kabrai instead of following Scot. Having walked most of the distance barefoot, having given his shoes to his wife, he was in no shape to walk any further. He had previously done service with the 3rd Light Dragoons together with his brother. Both had seen service in Afghanistan, the Sutlej, and Punjab. His brother was Riding Master W. Langdale of the 3rd Cavalry stationed at Meerut, whose daughter Sophia was killed by a sowar as she lay on a charpoy outside their home on the 10th of May.
Mr. Patrick Johnson — writer to Lieutenant Jackson. Suffering from a rupture, he remained in Kabrai.
The Bandsmen
“Ere I left Banda fourteen drummers of the 12th NI and our artillery bugler with their families, (forty-one persons in all), reached Banda. The Nawab gave us the strictest order in the city that if anyone molested them he would blow him from a gun, he also gave a drummer some money. I have written to him to request him to advance them money (which I should be responsible for) as this is the rainy season, and there are no tents for the men and their families. I think it better to let them remain under the Nawab’s protection. Four of the bandsmen are missing and one man remained at Nowgong; I saw him there on the 13th and ordered him to go with some men of ours to Mahoba. He disobeyed me. The widow of a drummer long deceased and her three children, I have not been able to learn anything about. I think they went to Jhansie with the rebels…I know that three of the four Christian drummers that I had put down as missing were not left behind; they left us on the 19th, seeking, I suppose, some way of their own to escape by.” (P.G. Scot)
Of one bandsman who Scot names George Dick, an African, was beheaded, much to Scot’s horror on the 14th of June. According to the statement of Sergeant Kirchoff, who joined up with the Nowgong fugitives on the 15th of June, there were 20 bandsmen present. It was a Mr. John Nimrod who had disobeyed Scot at Nowgong – according to Lieutenant Jackson the man excused himself “voluntarily.” His is not the only case of a bandsman joining the side of the rebels in 1857.
Civilians
“A Mr. Stuart (Sturt), an assistant patrol, who had escaped from the Jhansie district arrived at Mahoba a couple of days before the party, and hearing that they were at Chinmore, joined them there, but returned with them on the 15th….” (Statement by Sergeant Kirchoff).
This is one of the vagaries of the statements relating to the fugitives of Nowgong. Mr. Stuart or Sturt as he appears in another narrative is one of those figures who joins the party and then disappears, according to Scot, he preferred to take his chances on his own, rather than continue risking his life following Scot through the countryside.
Mr. Henry A. Carne, Collector of Mahoba, escaped and remained under the protection of the Charkhri Estate, then under Raja Ratan Singh. The Raja protected Carne to the best of his abilities, even refusing to give him up in the face of attack from none other than Tantya Tope himself in December 1857 and again in January 1858. The attack, however, was unsuccessful, even though the Raja lost 24 guns and some 3 lakhs from his treasury. Tope had to break off the attack as he had received news that Jhansi was under siege (by the British, this time) — and Raja Ratan Singh took advantage of the situation. Disguised as a Bundlea peasant, Carne was smuggled out of Charkhri and on to Panna, which he reached in safety. The Raja “was rewarded with a land grant in perpetuity of the value of 20,000Rs per annum, a khilat, a hereditary salute of 11 guns, and the privilege of adoption, which was later confirmed by the sanad of 1862, married and had issue. He died 1860.”
The son of Captain John Carmin Carne, a pensioner of the Bengal Artillery who died in Serampore in 1824, his grandfather had been John Carne, an agent to the East India Company, and his sons were agents to the Peninsular and Oriental and Royal Mail Steamship Companies.
Sergeant Kirchhoff — he was attached to the Canal Department under the orders of Captain Dunlop, of Jhansi. He and his wife joined Scot a Mahoba.
Mrs. Tierney and two children. Most likely either an Anglo-Indian or Indian lady, she remained with her children at Kabrai with Langdale, Johnson and the sergeant. This distinction is significant – like Mrs. Mutlow at Jhansi, Mrs. Tierney would have been able to blend in with the local population, and although it may sound unkind, Scot understood her chances of surviving were better when she stayed at Kabrai rather than continuing on with him and his party. Mrs. Mutlow left a statement which was then taken up by Noah Alfred Chick, but Mrs. Tierney disappears after Nagode, mentioned by Langdale as simply the female who the Raj Dur provides with a palki for the journey.
Mr. Henry Kirke, son of Major Kirke. He would have a career in the army, dying a Colonel in 1889 in Darjeeling. His wife, unusually, was one Miss Rosalie Hunter, daughter of William C. Hunter of Virginia, U.S.A.
Mrs. Lucas and 2 children – it can be presumed they survived, as their deaths are nowhere mentioned. However, following the death of the Sergeant-Major, they disappear from existence.
Sources:
Chick, Noah Alfred, comp. Annals of the Indian Rebellion, 1857-58. Calcutta: Sanders, Cones and Co., 1859.
Great Britain Parliament. Further Papers (No. 4) Relative to the Mutinies in the East Indies. London: Harrison and Sons, 1857.
Scot, P. G. Personal Narrative of the Escape from Nowgong to Banda and Nagode. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable, 1857.
Mutiny Reflections 