A Mutineer or a Prisoner?

One man, Sergeant-Major Robert Gordon, had a different fate. He was not killed at Shajahanpore, nor did he join the fugitive party. Instead, he was made a prisoner by the men of the 28th Regiment. His tale would not be told until after the capture of Delhi in September.

“On the 31st of May about half past seven in the morning, as I was sitting making out Mess Bills in my own bungalow, I heard a row in the Regiment, got up, ran out and enquiring the reason from the Pay Havildar of the Grenadier Company, he told me he did know what was up, that the men were running to the Kotes for their arms. My mali (gardener) came running to me and told me that they had been killing all the officers in the church. I went up to the top of my own bungalow, hid myself between the roof and the thatch, remained till evening when all was quiet, came down, and called one of the sepoys of the regiment, told him that I was here and that if they wished to take my life, that they might do so. I threw myself on their mercy.
The whole regiment came to my bungalow on account of the villagers who were plundering everything. I went out and sat down in front of the regiment and waited till they had loaded the Magazine tents and their property on camels and then marched with them. I saw Captain James lying dead on the parade, no one else. The Subadar Senior took command of the regiment; his name was Gunsam Singh. I had been five years with the regiment and think the reasons the sepoys sparing me was that they were very fond of me.
We marched to Bareilly, stayed some days there, had the inner fly of my own staff tent to live in; a sepoy was put over me to protect me and was told to allow me to go nowhere alone that I might not come to harm.”

The 28th BNI arrived in Bareilly after the mutiny there, and Gordon, being placed under close guard, never ventured into the station. Seeing there was nothing for them in Bareilly, they marched onwards to Moradabad, where they fell in with the Bareilly regiments – here they removed Gunsam Singh from command and elected Balab Khan as their new leader. Calling himself a general, although Gordon believed he had in fact only served in a native artillery battery. The Nawab of Rampore, quite worried about this mutinous regiment passing through his lands, quickly appeased the new general by presenting him with an elephant and a decorative howdah for him to sit upon. As it was, the nawab had little to fear – the 28th rather believed, when they encamped on a plain near his fort, that he in fact intended to attack them. Gordon noticed that desertions were becoming more frequent – the further the men got away from Shajahanpore and their native Oudh, the less inclined they appeared to go to Delhi. As such, the officers tried to maintain discipline – uniforms were still being worn on sentry duty, and the lines were being protected. At Moradabad, they were joined by the mutinous headquarters of the 29th BNI, and the march to Delhi continued.

“We went on to Gurhmucktesur, were two or three days there, crossed in three or four boats, a guard had been sent to secure them. Several alarms took place that the Meerut troops were coming down. Looted Haupper and came to Delhi. The sepoys hired a bylee in Bareilly, in which I travelled. The regiment marched into Delhi through the city and encamped outside the walls. The first day I was with the regiment, then I was sent to the Kotwal (police station) under a guard of recruit sepoys. I was there from the 1st of July to the storming of Delhi. There were four prisoners besides myself, three clerks from Moradabad and one Powell, superintendent of post offices. They spoke English, but only two were half-castes.”

The 28th was not happy that Gordon had been taken from them and several times during his captivity, entreated the Kotwal to release him to their camp – each time, they were refused. The prisoners remained in the kotwali for the next two months; no one was allowed to speak to them, and as such, Gordon had no idea what the state of affairs was outside these four walls. The day before Delhi was taken – the 13th of September – suddenly things changed.

“A havilidar and guard of the 29th Regiment came and took me away to the camp outside, they left the other prisoners. Their object was to put me in the battery outside the town to work the guns the next morning, but in the morning, the English made their attack. I was on my way under the guard of one man to the battery. I was about opposite the Lahore Gate when I heard the English had stormed Delhi. The sepoys took me back to the Lines, which were filled with sepoys. I sat down in the tent. The sepoys did not seem afraid and were going about as usual. I was there three or four days.”

On 21 September, Gordon suddenly woke up at 3 in the morning to find there was scarcely anyone left in the camp – they had all run off. Gordon, not knowing what to do, tried to follow them, but he was caught up in a mob of people, all struggling to leave Delhi. In his confusion, not knowing the way to the British camp, Gordon gave himself up to a sowar, whom he surmised belonged to an irregular regiment and asked him to take him to his commanding officer. “I was called to him; two gentlemen were there. I give myself up, saying who I was, I could not escape before because I did not know where the European Camp was, thought they were all in Delhi, and did not dare go there for fear of the Natives.”

He was undoubtedly lucky, for the sowar happened to belong to Hodson’s Horse that had gone in pursuit of the Delhi princes. Lieutenant Coghill recalled the scene,

“Hodson only had 100 men and they had about 10,000 men, but thinking he was the advance guard, they gave up their arms, the three Princes, the Band of Christian Drummers of the 28th Native Infantry and the English Sergeant Major of the 28th who was formerly an artilleryman and during the siege pointed the enemies guns on us calling himself Sheikh Abdullah and dressing like a sepoys. The band was killed on the spot.”

Where Coghill could surmise that Gordon was the Englishman that was reportedly seen on the ramparts is anyone’s guess, but Hodson decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, ordered him shackled in irons, and if things had gone his way, he was to be blown away from a gun as a traitor. Before anything quite so drastic could happen, Hugh Gough took down the man’s deposition but only recalled the fact many years later – here Gordon admitted he had in fact served the guns, but from fear for his life and not as a mutineer. This made his position hardly favourable, but when Captain Frederick Charles Maisey, Deputy Judge Advocate General to the Delhi Field Force, took over the case, he based it on Gordon’s statement as given to Lieutenant Waterfield on 22 September, related above. Gordon did not mention he had served the guns at all, but had remained a close prisoner from July until September. Maisey did not for a moment believe he was employed as an artilleryman by the rebels, regardless of what the officers who met Gordon thought.
Maisey was very thorough in his investigation. While Gordon remained a prisoner, he hunted down witnesses and evidence. The first piece was a letter sent to Hervey Greathed from Delhi, stating that a European from Bareilly was manning the guns on behalf of the rebels. Maisey correctly refuted the document for its vagueness and the fact that the writer could not be found. However, he did have an order, written in the vernacular, that ordered the release of an English bugler who had converted to Islam and was calling himself Sheikh Abdullah. Yet this did not prove that the Englishman referred to was in fact Gordon.
Three shopkeepers from Delhi testified they did know the Abdullah mentioned and he had come in with the Bareilly troops, and further claimed they saw him escorted daily to the batteries and back again at night, but Maisey was inclined to view their testimony with suspicion. Two dhoolie bearers testified to the same, but as it was, none of the witnesses actually saw Gordon at the guns.
As such, no one could quite decide what to do with Gordon.
He remained a prisoner in Delhi until his case was brought to the attention of Sir Colin Campbell, who recommended Gordon be sent to England and discharged from the service. The reasoning was quite clear – it could not be ascertained for sure that Gordon had not acted on the side of the mutineers, nor could it be determined that he hadn’t; as such, it was undesirable to retain him in the service of the army. Lord Canning agreed, adding he was quite certain Gordon must remain confined or else there was a good chance he would never leave India at all. A year after Maisey gave his verdict, Gordon was sent back to England, where he arrived on 5 July 1859. He was given £1 16s and 6d as marching money and sent on his way. What happened to him afterwards is anyone’s guess.

This was by far not the only mutiny that day as Bareilly fell.