Government Records Punjab --Mutiny Records Reports Part 1

· 1911 · Text public domain; the scan hosted non-commercially, with credit · archive.org ↗

1IJ OIS-SUTLEJ DIVISION. 8

25. At Umballa the incendiary fires began early in March,

3and continued, at intervals, until the outbreak. The sepoys

4were all along suspected, and even among themselves the

55th Native Infantry accused the 60th Regiment, and the 60th

6Regiment the 5th, while both accused the soldiers of the

7Musketry Depot. An offer of 1,000 rupees reward, made with

8your sanction, failed to discover the perpetrators. The houses

9and property of the officers and men attached to the depdt,

10or assigned to them for shelter, were especially marked out

11for destruction ; and the Government also was a heavy loser.

12Affairs remained in this unsettled state until Sunday, the

1310th of May, the ever-memorable day on which the Native

14troops at Meerut broke out into mutiny, and, after burning the

15station and massacring all the Europeans they could find,

16marched unopposed to seize the fortress and arsenal of Delhi.

17On that day the two sepoy regiments at Umballa, probably by

18concert with their comrades at Meerut, rushed out of their

19lines, broke open the bells of arms, and began to form and

20load under the direction of their Native Officers. General

21Barnard acted with promptitude, and ordered out the 9th

22Lancers and the Horse Artillery, and, while they were getting

23ready, he rode down, attended by his staff, and succeeded in

24pacifying the sepoys. The men returned to their lines, and

25restored their arms to the places where they were usually

26kept. Next day General Barnard issued an address to the

27native regiments, assuring them of his satisfaction at their

28return to duty and promising them, if they behaved well,

29that their misconduct on the 10th should be overlooked.

306. On the afternoon of the 11th May, while the horrors

31at Delhi were yet enacting, a brief telegraphic message came

32up the line from the signaller at Delhi to the signaller at

33Umballa. It conveyed the news of the seizure of Delhi by

34the mutineers, the murder of their officers by the 54th and

3588th, and the preparation for flirht made by all the Euro-

36peans who had escaped the general massacre; the same

37message was flashed along the line to the extreme frontier

38and transmitted by post to every station off the Grand Trunk

39Early symp-

40toms of dis-

41content at

42Ambéla.

43The news of

44the Delhi

45massacre,