Chawa Ghat, 27th December 1857

Around the 19th of December, Yule received intelligence that the Dacca rebels were threatening Jalpaiguri from the northeast. Then at Nathpur, Yule wasted no time – he marched 64 miles in 36 hours (with the detachment of the 5th and the sailors) to reach Kishanganj, from whence he proceeded, on the 22nd of December, to Titalia. Here, he received a despatch from Jalpaiguri that he should take his position on the Darjeeling road and wait for further intelligence. However, when none was forthcoming, Yule decided to act on his own volition. For the Dacca rebels to reach Jalpaiguri or Darjeeling, they would need to cross the Teesta River, but as the river was treacherous, deep and difficult to cross, Yule surmised they would try to take advantage of Chawa Ghat, the only safe crossing on their route. The ghat has also been left unguarded. As such, Yule decided he would occupy it instead and wait for the Dacca rebels.
As he approached the ghat through the jungle, an advanced guard reported that the rebels were indeed there, on the left bank – however, their position had been chosen carefully, and Yule had no possibility, with his small force, to attack them. So, instead of forcing the fight, he decided he would block them on the road. What he did not calculate, however, was that the rebels had seen him too. During the night, they broke camp and marched along a secluded path, and, instead of crossing the Teesta as Yule expected, they forded the easier Mahananda River and made for the Darjeeling road, thus outmanoeuvring their adversary. By evening, with still no rebels in sight, Yule finally decided to let his men return to their camp to eat, something they had been unable to do in the past 12 hours of vigil. They had hardly left the road when the Dacca rebels were spotted coming out of the jungle, a short distance from the position where Yule had spent the entire day. Realising he could still catch them, Yule sent his advanced party in pursuit, but they were hardly fast enough. The Dacca rebels rushed across the road and into the open country just as light was fading – Yule’s men fired one volley, but the rebels disappeared into the jungle, leaving Captain Burbank and the sailors searching for them in vain for the next 3 hours. Any other man might have conceded defeat, but not George Yule. The wily nature of the Dacca rebels raised his resolve to be done with them once and for all. So now he took up the chase in all its earnestness.

Holding the inner line of communication and marching in parallel to the Dacca rebels, Yule and his men skirted the forests on the edge of the Nepal frontier to guard from incursions into EICo territory and forced them to cross into Nepal. Then, continuing on with his parallel course, always remaining in British territory, Yule crossed the Kusi River at Nathpur. The rebels were now only 50 miles distant from him at Chatra. On the 11th of January 1858, a reinforcement of Major Richardson and his Bengal Yeomanry Cavalry and a detachment of troops sent by Jung Bahadur of Nepal joined Yule – the idea now was to take the Dacca rebels at Chatra. To do so, Yule intended to attack them from two sides, one side carried by him, the other by the Nepal troops. Unfortunately, the commander of the Nepal troops emphatically stated that his men were raw recruits and that any attempt to divide the force at this point would only lead to disaster. Frustrated, Yule agreed and placed the Nepal troops to guard the road while he and the remaining men would take Chatra. On the 21st of January, with his plans in place, Yule advanced. To his disgust, the Dacca rebels had once again outfoxed him. Taking the only road left open to them, which ran westwards into Oudh, they had taken the advantage of darkness and disappeared. Pursuit was impossible, and the remainder of the two companies of the 73rd Regiment, Bengal Infantry would never be heard from again.

^{Sources:
Behan, T. L. Bulletins and Other State Intelligence for the Year 1858. Parts I & II. London: Harrison & Sons, London Gazette Office, 1860.
Danvers, F. C., Harriet Martineau, Monier Monier-Williams, Steuart Colvin Bayley, Percy Wigram, Brand Sapte, et al. Memorials of Old Haileybury College. London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1894.
Great Britain Parliament. Further Papers (Nos. 6 and 8) Relative to the Mutinies in the East Indies. London: Harrison and Sons, 1858.
Khan, Muinuddin Ahmad. “The Sepoy Mutiny and the Muslim Community in Bengal.” Bengal Muslim Research Institute UK, accessed May 26, 2026. http://www.bmri.org.uk.
Malleson, G. B. History of the Indian Mutiny, 1857-1858, Commencing from the Close of the Second Volume of Sir John Kaye’s History of the Sepoy War. Vol. II. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1879.}