The 14th of June
On the 14th of June, the Gwalior Contingent rose as one body and to a man in rebellion. It was, by all indications, a “well-organised operation which enabled the leaders of the revolt to capture the entire establishment of the contingent intact and with minimal bloodshed.” However, the bloodthirsty elements of the Contingent did murder seven officers, six sergeants and pensioners, three women and three children, their leaders were able to restrain them from committing any further atrocities. Macpherson observed,
“Against our rule, the contingent apparently acted as one man. They were so much divided as to the slaughter of the officers that 4 out of 7 infantry regiments, 2 out of 4 Batteries of Artillery and the 2 Regiments of Cavalry, excepting a party at Gwalior, killed none...It does not appear to have been their plan to murder the women and children – at least the next day, they sent off, after very insulting treatment, those who survived to the Maharaja.” Many of the English officers were aided by the sepoys themselves – “The cantonment guards favoured or actively aided the escape of several officers and their families. Thus, of the 2nd regiment, 3 men escorted Lieutenant and carried his wife in a litter 7 miles to the residency. And the guards of the 1st regiment over the family of its absent commandant behaved admirably. The rear-guard of the 4th regiment protected most faithfully captains Murray and Meade and their families while a party of the 2nd came to destroy them.”
The same was the behaviour of the Gwalior regiments at Neemuch and Seepree. The idea generally was to spare their officers’ lives but make their expulsion from Gwalior so uncomfortable they would not entertain any idea of remaining or, for that matter, coming back. Macpherson further testifies that after the initial wave of murder was over, the drive to kill was apparently no longer their goal. When he left on the 15th to proceed to Agra, they pursude and attack on him were but half-hearted. On the very day of the mutiny, while making his way from the Residency to Phoolbagh Palace under an escort of Scindia’s horsemen, a band of ghazis (partly consisting of men of the Contingent) surrounded his carriage and pleaded with the guard to be allowed to kill Macpherson. The guard brushed them off, stating they were taking him as a prisoner to Scindia. Macpherson would have the ill luck to meet with the same band of ghazis at the village of Hingora when taking with him to Dholpur the women and children who had survived the massacre. The leader of the band, one Jahagir Khan, “protested he did not wish to injure” them. “He came to visit us, arrayed in green with beads fingered in ceaseless prayer. But in concert with him, a body of plunderers were assembled to attack us in the ravine fringing the river.” Although still eager that the English leave the Gwalior territory as quickly as possible, they were no longer keen to attack them – Jahangir Khan did not oppose Macpherson’s crossing at the Chambal River on the road to Dholpur and it would appear he was acting on the orders of the rebel leaders in the Gwalior Contingent.
The policy of the rebel leaders had been from the first to maintain the Contingent as a whole and not allow for any dissolution of the men into individual bands under a single officer. They could hope to ensure against such a possibility first and foremost by keeping under check the Wahhabi elements present within the Contingent from acting in a chaotic manner and by controlling their habit of joining roaming bands of ghazis, which would undermine the contingent as a whole. However, it would appear that within 24 hours of the rebellion, hundreds had indeed thrown off the allegiance to turn into ghazis, led by a person who was no longer a contingent officer, as in the case of Jahangir Khan. This was precisely what the leaders were trying to avoid – and they only just managed to keep the fanaticism under control by discouraging wanton bloodshed. Once again, it can be seen that although the policy of the rebel leaders to keep killing at a minimum was met with a general acceptance by the men now under their control, in Sipree when the men of the 3rd Regiment on the 17th and 18th of June saved the English, the men accused their officers of accepting bribes from the English in exchange for their lives, and promptly turned them out of the regiment. However, on the whole, it was widely accepted by Hindus and Muslim sepoys alike that they would avoid murdering the English. This says much in favour of the rebel leadership in the Gwalior Contingent. Yet what happened when mutiny finally broke on Gwalior is another matter altogether.
Sources:
Intelligence Branch, comp. The Revolt in Central India 1857-59. Simla: Government Monotype Press, 1908.
Khan, Iqtidar Alam. “The Gwalior Contingent in 1857-58: A Study of the Organisation and Ideology of the Sepoys Rebels.” Social Scientist 26, no. 1/4 (January–April 1998): 53–75. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3517581.
Luard, C. E., and Dwarka Nath Sheopuri, comps. Gwalior State Gazetteer. Vol. I, Text and Tables. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1908.
Macpherson, Samuel Charters. Memorials of Service in India: From the Correspondence of the Late Major Samuel Charters Macpherson, C.B. Edited by William Macpherson. London: John Murray, 1865.
Thornton, Thomas Henry. General Sir Richard Meade and the Feudatory States of Central and Southern India: A Record of Forty-Three Years of Service. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1898.
Mutiny Reflections 