The 16th of August 1857 – The Battle of Bithur

Following the third battle at Basharatganj, Havelock made the decision to return to Cawnpore. The move, at the time was not universally understood and had Neill frothing with rage. However, it was the only move Havelock could do. He had secured the lines of communication as far as Allahabad, the rebels were no longer willing to face him in the field and for a time, he had taken some of the flack from the residency at Lucknow. Encumbered as he was with sick and wounded men, falling back on Cawnpore and waiting for reinforcements was the only possible option he had open. Even if he had callously abandoned his sick and wounded and marched forward towards Lucknow, he was rapidly running out of ammunition and with his force so decimated in numbers, he would have been leading his men to destruction. So following the last battle, he withdrew back over the Ganges.

“The Brigadier-General commanding congratulates the troops on the result of their exertions in the combat of yesterday. The enemy were driven, with the loss of 250 killed and wounded, from one of the strongest positions in India, which they obdurately defended. They were the flower of the mutinous soldiery, flushed with the successful defection at Saugor and Fyzabad: yet they stood one short hour against a handful of soldiers of the State, whose ranks had been thinned by sickness and the sword.
May the hopes of treachery and rebellion he ever thus blasted; and, if conquest can now he achieved under the most trying circumstances, what will be the triumph and retribution of the time when the annies from- China, from the Cape, and from England, shall sweep through the land? Soldiers! in that moment your labours, your privations, your sufferings, and your valour -will not be forgotten by a grateful country. You will be acknowledged to have been the stay and prop of British India in her severest trial.” (Sir Henry Havelock, field force orders, 16th of August, 1857)

1st Madras Fusiliers
Corporal John Shannon – severely wounded in the left ankle

Privates
Byrne, Michael – wounded, died of wounds on the 24th of August
Curren, Michael – killed in action
Driscoll, John – wounded, died of cholera on the 31st of August
Flannigan, Patrick – slightly wounded
Flynn, John – slightly wounded
Griffin, Andrew – slightly wounded
Hurley, Jeremiah – severely wounded in both buttocks
Kelly, Maurice – killed in action
McFarlane, James – killed in action
McIniry, John – killed in action
Paffreeman, Joseph – killed in action
Pevney, Henry Andrew. – dangerously wounded. Died of wounds, 27th of August
Thompson, George- killed in action

“I like my temporary appointment of Aide-de-Campe, and I get on very well with General Havelock. We crossed over here on the 13th and on the 16th gave the rebels another thrashing at Bithoor distant from Cawnpore 10 miles. In my regiment out of 250 we have had 8 killed and several wounded. We have had a good deal of sickness and lost poor Chisholm from cholera. I am one of the very few who have been alright. In 35 days I have been under fire 9 times and most fortunately never been hit, yet the grape as come rattling down about me like hail.” (Lt. Hargood, 1st Madras Fusiliers)

At the Battle of Bithur, Lieutenant Chisholm had carried the colours of the 1st Madras Fusiliers – it would be the last time this would be done until after the Relief of Lucknow.

64th Foot
There are no names listed for this action in The Casualty Roll for the Indian Mutiny.

78th Highlanders
Captain A. McKenzie – slightly wounded
Private George Johnston – dangerously wounded. Died of wounds 19/8/1857

84th Foot
Sergeant Edward Pollard – wounded

Privates
Atkinson, Benjamin – killed in action
Casey, Patrick -mortally wounded
Tobin, Richard – wounded

The total casualties for the Battle of Bithur were 49 killed and wounded, including 7 men of the Ferozepore Regiment.

“This brief campaign, extending from the 12th of July to the 16th of August, has no parallel in the military history of British India. On no former occasion had European troops been required to march and fight in circumstances so adverse, under a deadly sun or amidst torrents of rain, often fasting for twenty-four hours, and generally without tents, with no bed after their victories but the saturated ground, and no shelter but that which the trees afforded, carrying with them their sick and their wounded, and all their supplies, and suffering more from pestilence than from the weapons of the enemy. It was under all these disadvantages that, in this brief period of five weeks, they had fought nine actions against overwhelming odds, with troops disciplined, and for the most part armed, like themselves, and had been everywhere victorious, without a single check. A large portion of the Fusiliers consisted of raw recruits, who had never before heard the whistle of an enemy’s bullet, but such marching and such fighting had turned the survivors into hardy veterans ready for any exigency. So great was the confidence the men had acquired in themselves, in their comrades, and in their leader, that they never considered a discomfiture possible, and never marched to action without the confident assurance of victory. These men have truly been described, by one or the officers who served under him, as “Havelock’s Ironsides.” (‘Memoirs Of Sir Henry Havelock’)

Many of the men who died during the campaign were laid to rest in hasty graves and the map between Allahabad and Cawnpore remains the resting place of the long-forgotten dead.

To understand the magnitude of what Havelock was facing in regards to the men who were sick with cholera, the list for the 1st Madras Fusiliers paints a grim picture. Unless otherwise stated, the men died at Cawnpore.

1st Madras Fusiliers

Died of Cholera

Lieutenant Thomas Alexander Chisholm – August 19th, Bithur
Sergeant Major Thomas Johnstone, August 10th at Mungalwar

Sergeants
Brayshay, John – August 24th
Knox, William, July 16th
Hurst, John, July 16th
Fitzgerald, Patrick, July 16th
Hanlow, Brian, July 27th
Connor, Jeremiah, July 27th
Green, John, July 27th

Corporals
Palfrey, Joseph, July 28th
Calliman, Patrick, July 28th

Drummer George Hatherill – of dysentery – August 31st
Half-pay Drummer William Duffy – of fever – September 14th

Privates
Atkinson, William, July 28th
Bailey, Thomas – of dysentery – August 31st
Barry, David, 23rd July
Baxter, Benjamin, August 9th at Mungalwar
Beith, John, July 28th
Bellamy, John – death by accidental drowning at Cawnpore, September 19th
Bruce, James, August 3rd
Corby, Stephen, July 28th
Cronley, Darby, August 3rd at Mungalwar
Dewar, William- September 4th
Dutchfield, William, August 2nd
Franklin, Patrick, July 31st
Hurley, Michael, August 19th
Keevan, George, – of dysentery – September 11th
Goodman, William died of drowning, at Cawnpore on the 11th of August
Gibbons, Timothy, August 1st at Mungalwar
Gleaves, John, July 30th, Bashiratganj
Johnston, William, July 26th
Ligan, James. August 10th at Mungalwar
Lindsey, Thomas, July 29th, Bashiratganj
Masterson, James, July 28th
Maundsley, Edward – of dysentery – September 11th
McCarthy, Thomas, August 22nd
McLoughlin, Thomas, August 12th
McGrath, Joseph, – of dysentery – August 25th
McGrath, Patrick, August 2nd
Mears, Henry, at Bashiratganj
Murphy, John, August 9th
Murphy, Thomas – of dysentery – August 29th
O’Kelly, Timothy, July 28th
Ryan, William – of dysentery – September 13th
Sims, Thomas, July 28th
Smith, James, July 28th
Smith, James, alias William Owen, July 31st
Stapleton, Joseph, August 12th

64th Regiment of Foot
Private Patrick Carey
Private Carey was wounded by a musket ball; the battle in which this occurred is unclear. His case, however, reflects what many of the wounded endured.
The musket ball “…struck him, while in the erect position, on the right thigh, on its posterior surface, about five inches below the superior spinous process of the ilium; the ball, it is stated, still remains in the thigh. After being wounded, he remained at the village of Amoo for three days, with his thigh bound up tightly (he states ) with short splints placed around the limb; on the fourth day, he was removed to the hospital at Cawnpore. Eighteen days after the wound was inflicted he had a long splint put on, and was placed on a hard mattress; he remained in hospital at Cawnpore twenty- four days, and was then carried to Allahabad, the journey occupying eight days; he remained in hospital at Allahabad for one month, and was then conveyed to Calcutta in a steam vessel; he remained in hospital at Calcutta for two months and eight days; the splint was removed after he had been in hospital at Calcutta one month; and on his embarking for England, on January 8th, 1858, he was able to move about tolerably well with the aid of crutches; he states that during the voyage home he gained strength in the limb very rapidly.” He was invalided on the 22nd of December 1858, as he was no longer able to walk without crutches or sticks.

^{Sources:
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My Journal, or What I Did and Saw Between the 9th June and 25th November, 1857: With an Account of General Havelock’s March from Allahabad to Lucknow. By a Volunteer. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1858.
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