“And now commenced a movement
of the most perfect arrangement and successful
generalship—the withdrawal of the whole
of the various forces, a combined movement requiring
the greatest care and skill. First, the
garrison in immediate contact with the enemy at the
furthest extremity of the Residency position was
marched out. Every other garrison in turn
fell in behind it, and so passed out through the
Bailie Guard gate, till the whole of our position was
evacuated. Then Havelock’s force was
similarly withdrawn, post by post, marching in
rear of our garrison. After them in turn came
the forces of the Commander-in-Chief, which joined
on in the rear of Havelock’s force.
Regiment by regiment was withdrawn with—the
utmost order and regularity. The whole operation
resembled the movement of a telescope.
Stern silence was kept, and the enemy took no
alarm.”
Lady Inglis, referring to her husband and to General
Sir James Outram, sets down the closing detail of
this impressive midnight retreat, in darkness and
by stealth, of this shadowy host through the gate which
it had defended so long and so well:
“At twelve precisely they marched
out, John and Sir James Outram remaining till
all had passed, and then they took off their hats to
the Bailie Guard, the scene of as noble a defense
as I think history will ever have to relate.”
Don’t part with your illusions.
When they are gone you may still exist but you have
ceased to live.
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
Often, the surest way to convey misinformation
is to tell the strict truth.
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
We were driven over Sir Colin Campbell’s route
by a British officer, and when I arrived at the Residency
I was so familiar with the road that I could have
led a retreat over it myself; but the compass in my
head has been out of order from my birth, and so,
as soon as I was within the battered Bailie Guard
and turned about to review the march and imagine the
relieving forces storming their way along it, everything
was upside down and wrong end first in a moment, and
I was never able to get straightened out again.
And now, when I look at the battle-plan, the confusion
remains. In me the east was born west, the battle-plans
which have the east on the right-hand side are of
no use to me.
The Residency ruins are draped with flowering vines,
and are impressive and beautiful. They and the
grounds are sacred now, and will suffer no neglect
nor be profaned by any sordid or commercial use while
the British remain masters of India. Within
the grounds are buried the dead who gave up their
lives there in the long siege.
