Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Indian Mutiny Medal awarded to Private John Bannister, 32nd Light Infantry, who was among those massacred at Cawnpore in June 1857: his letters home from India - which were discovered in the 1970s and copies of which are now held at the National Army Museum - constitute one of four major written sources from other ranks serving in his regiment in India in the period 1840-60

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (J. Bannister, 32nd L.I.), extremely fine £4000-5000

A detachment of the 32nd under Captain John Moore, with two Lieutenants and 81 N.C.Os and men, was stationed at Cawnpore. Almost all were massacred. Medals to these poor unfortunate men, however, are very rare and it is probable that for the most part they remained unclaimed and were eventually returned to be melted down. Some 12 examples are known to have survived to the 32nd Foot.

John Bannister was born in Sedgley, near Wolverhampton, in 1822, and worked as a coker before enlisting in the 9th Foot in April 1841.

Here, then, the commencement of his letters home, to his mother, often grim reading in view of the prevailing conditions he would encounter on reaching India in early 1842. One of his first letters refers to the ‘great slaughter of all the 44th Regiment of Foot and a great many of the 9th being killed at Kabul’, in addition to reporting on depleted ranks as a result of illness and disease; he was himself admitted to hospital on several occasions. In fact, Bannister quickly regretted his choice of career: ’There is no chance of me enlisting again and I have had a belly full of soldiering.’

Actively employed in the Sutlej Campaign, he was present at Moodkee, Ferozeshuhur - where he was wounded - and Sobraon (Medal & 2 clasps), following which he transferred to the 32nd Light Infantry, where he joined an unusually literate band of comrades: Corporal John Ryder (Four Years in India); Private Henry Metcalfe (The Chronicle of Private Metcalfe), and Private Robert Waterfield (The Memoirs of Private Waterfield).

In March 1848, Bannister wrote: ‘The least crime which you may commit is punishable with a severity that is the way a poor soldier gets for fighting for his country.’ Discipline was indeed of a harsh nature, Bannister citing the story of a young artilleryman who was shot by firing squad for striking an Assistant Surgeon. He was too ill to walk and the firing party failed to kill him, so a Provost finished him off with a pistol shot which ‘scattered the poor fellow’s brain upon the plain.’

Bannister was next actively employed in the Punjab Campaign, being present at the siege of Mooltan and at the battle of Goojerat (Medal & 2 clasps). He concluded in a letter home in May 1849: ‘The campaign has been a very hard one but, the pride of the world, we have now taken for our country the Punjab and the five rivers. The British flag is flying over Mooltan.’

The 32nd Light Infantry next moved to Peshawar on the North-West Frontier - ‘the worst station in India for everything’ - from whence, in 1852, Bannister and his comrades participated in one of the early punitive expeditions against the tribes of the Swat Valley (Medal & clasp); he suffered a foot injury and was admitted to hospital for some months.

Remaining in India, Bannister’s last surviving letter home was written from Kausuli in the Himalayan foothills in June 1854, by which time his contempt for soldiering was patently clear. His words in respect of persuading his young nephew to pursue an alternative career - as quoted above - were to prove curiously prophetic, for such was the fate that awaited Captain John Moore and his small detachment of the 32nd at Cawnpore in the summer of 1857.

Cawnpore - mayhem and massacre

Cawnpore (now Kanpur) was a strategic garrison town on the Grand Trunk Road that guarded the approaches to Oudh. With rumours of mutiny rife, approximately eight to nine hundred residents entered the entrenchment at Cawnpore consisting of 300 military personnel, together with 300 women and children. The balance was made up of merchants, business owners, Civil Servants, domestic servants and the Eurasian community.

The India Office holds the complete Nominal Roll of Officers, Non Commissioned Officers, Men, Women and Children of the 32nd Light Infantry, composing the Depot at Cawnpore, dated Lucknow 1st October 1857. It lists 84 officers and men - Bannister among them - many of whom were sick or convalescents, 42 wives and 54 children. Of Bannister’s precise fate, we shall never know, but it is likely he participated in a number of gallant sorties under Captain John Moore during the ensuing siege.

On 5 June 1857, the 2nd Bengal Cavalry mutinied at Cawnpore. The garrison’s three native infantry regiments followed suit next day, and a deputation of mutineers rode out to the estate of Dhondu Pant, who was shortly to become infamous in Victorian Britain as the arch-fiend Nana Sahib. With amazing self-assurance, the British at Cawnpore, who politely referred to him as the Maharajah of Bithur (a title not recognised at Calcutta), believed that Nana Sahib would assist them in maintaining law and order. Nana Sahib however was a bitter and ambitious man. He was an adopted son of the last Peshwa of Bithur, Baji Rao II, and dreamt of enjoying the same elevated position in the world as his father. Quickly persuaded that he had nothing to gain by continuing to support the British, he was advised by Azimullah, his agent who had represented his interests in London, that he ought not to go to Delhi, the hub of the rebellion where he, a high born Brahmin, would be subordinate to the decrepit Mohammedan king. It would be far wiser to rally around him the Cawnpore regiments, quickly dispose of Wheeler and the other eight or nine hundred occupants of his pitiful entrenchment, and establish a new independent kingdom from which he might hold sway over vast tracts of India.

Thus, on 6 June Wheeler was informed that his entrenchment would soon be under attack by rebel forces fighting in the name of Nana Sahib. At first, however, the majority of mutineers of the Cawnpore Division seemed more interested in lording it about the city than striking a blow at their former masters. Nevertheless those who did take turns in the batteries and firing their muskets soon began to inflict fearful damage and terrible suffering on Wheeler’s people. It soon became apparent that Wheeler, who at over seventy and already in poor health, lacked the energy to visit the outposts, organize raiding parties and generally attend to day to day running of the defence. The decapitation of his favourite son, Lieutenant Godfrey Wheeler, by a roundshot and the physical effects of the searing heat further sapped the will of the old General and shortly the onerous burden of executive command devolved on John Moore.

Following the appearance of green standards in the enemy lines calling the Mohammedans to join their Hindu brethren in their great enterprise, the enemy launched their first general assault on the 11th, after five days of incessant bombardment. The 2nd Cavalry attacked dismounted ‘but after the loss of two of their number they concluded that enough had been done to sustain the credit of their branch of the service, and retired to console themselves for their repulse in the opium shops of the suburbs’. A native infantry regiment came on next supported by the ‘rabble of the bazaars’. Men and women inside the shattered barracks fell to their knees in prayer, some wrote their names on the walls, while outside officers and men ably supported by the gentlemen of the Railway Service and other civilian volunteers under Moore’s direction, punished the half-hearted attempt with sizeable loss. Nonetheless European casualties continued to mount on an hourly basis especially from the fire of Nana Sahib’s seemingly limitless supply of artillery plundered from the Cawnpore arsenal. A large part of the entrenchment was exposed to musket fire and the mere act of obtaining a drink of water by day from the well frequently proved fatal. W. J. Shepherd, a half-caste employed in the Commissariat Office, recalled one of Moore’s men, a dangerous looking Private of the 32nd, threatening to run through his sickly brother with a bayonet unless he assisted him in drawing water, which, after the brickwork frame and machinery had been shot away, meant hauling up the heavy bucket by hand from a depth of sixty feet.


On the 14th, the garrison suffered a serious setback when the roof of the thatched barrack was set on fire destroying the few medical supplies, as well as the jackets of the soldiers of the 32nd who could afterwards be seen poking through the ashes looking for lost medals. Moore immediately determined to ‘give the enemy an early and a convincing proof that the spirit of our people was not broken by this great calamity’. ‘At the dead of night ensuing he stole out from the entrenchment with fifty picked men at his heels in the direction of the chapel and the racket-court. Beginning from this point, the party hurried down the rebel lines under favour of the darkness, doing whatever rapid mischief was possible. They surprised in untimely slumber some native gunners, who never waked again; spiked and rolled over several twenty-four pounders; gratified their feelings by blowing up a piece which had given them special annoyance; and got back, carrying in their arms four of their number and leaving one behind.’ Unfortunately the sortie failed to interrupt the Nana’s artillery programme.

At the start of the defence rations had been unwisely squandered. Private soldiers had been seen consuming champagne, jam, tins of herrings and salmon, and bottles of rum. The luxuries, placed in the food store principally by a regimental officer who had little faith in Sir Hugh as a caterer, ran out all too quickly, and the daily ration was soon limited to half a pint of split peas and flour cooked into a kind of porridge. Dog and horse flesh were keenly sought and when a sacred bull presented itself in front the entrenchment it was met with a storm of lead. ‘To shoot down this pampered monster, the fakeer of the animal world, was no considerable feat for the marksmen who could hit a black buck running at a distance of a hundred and fifty paces. The difficulty consisted in the retrieving of the game, which lay a full three hundred yards from our rampart, on a plain swept by the fire of the insurgents. Inside our place, however, courage was more plentiful than beef; eight or ten volunteers professed themselves ready to follow Captain Moore, who was first at any feast which partook of the nature of a fray. The party provided themselves with a rope which they fastened round the legs and horns of the beast, and dragged home their prize amidst a storm of cheers and bullets, alive but not unscathed.’

But generally morale was at a low ebb and in their despair some members of the garrison attempted suicide. The temperature never dropped below 120°. ‘Faces that had been beautiful,’ wrote Lieutenant Mowbray Thomson, ‘became chiselled with deep furrows. Some were slowly sinking into the settled vacancy of look which marked insanity.’ All now were in ‘tattered clothing, begrimed with dirt, emaciated in countenance’. Yet Moore, in whom ‘hope shone like a pillar of fire when it had gone out in all others’, continued to give encouragement to these sorry people, in addition to carrying out his dangerous duties in the outposts, and attending to his responsibilities as a husband and father of two young children forced to endure ‘the horrors of a nightmare’. Moore’s wife was one of the several celebrated heroines of the siege. Malleson records how her ‘splendid courage and fortitude endeared her to every man, woman and child within the entrenchment’ and Trevelyan harps on ‘When the viscissitudes of battle called her husband to the outposts, Mrs Moore would step across with her work, and spend the day beneath a little hut of bamboos covered with canvas, which the garrison of Barrack Number Two had raised for her in their most sheltered corner. Seldom had fair lady a less appropriate bower.’

On the night of 22 June, the eve of the centenary of the battle of Plassey, the rebels occupying the half built barracks close to the entrenchment seemed more numerous and restless than usual. All night long attacks were launched against the adjacent defences. At one critical point Lieutenant Thomson sent to Moore’s headquarters for reinforcement, ‘but Moore replied that he could spare nobody except himself and Lieutenant Delafosse. In the course of a few minutes the pair arrived, and at once sallied forth armed, one with a sword, and the other with an empty musket. Moore shouted out, “Number One to the front!” and the enemy, taking it for granted that the well-known word of command would bring upon them a full company of Sahibs with fixed bayonets and cocked revolvers, broke cover and ran like rabbits.’ As expected Nana Sahib mounted his biggest attack yet next day, and a large number of rebels succeeded in gaining possession of three of the empty barracks and attempted to dislodge Moore from the rest. But once again Moore proved equal to the occasion and ‘with twenty-five men he advanced, under cover of a discharge of grape, and after a desperate contest expelled the rebels from the barracks they had seized’.

During the third week of the siege, an enemy spy entered the entrenchment disguised as a water carrier. Shortly afterwards the spy reported to Nana Sahib that the British were low on food and much reduced in numbers, and therefore might be willing to surrender. A short letter, offering safe passage to Allahabad was duly drawn up by Azimullah and delivered to Wheeler by an Eurasian emissary. The decision to accept or reject the terms was laid before a council consisting of Wheeler, Moore and Captain Whiting of the Engineers. At first Wheeler reacted in the same way as many of the more vigorous members of the long suffering garrison and was all for rejecting the Nana’s terms, but Moore pointed out that the rains would soon be upon them and thereafter the position would be untenable. Ultimately, ‘the scruples of the old man at length yielded to the arguments produced by Moore and Whiting - and they were no drawing room soldiers; for the one throughout those three weeks had never left a corner on which converged the fire of two powerful batteries, and the other had so borne himself that it might well be doubted whether he knew what fear was. They represented that, if the garrison had consisted exclusively of fighting people, no one would ever dream of surrender as long as they had swords wherewith to cut their way through to Allahabad.’

Next morning, the 26th, Moore met Azimullah outside the entrenchment and agreed to hand over the position on condition that the defenders were allowed to march out under arms; that carriages were provided for the sick and wounded and the women and children; and that sufficient boats were found and provisioned for the journey downstream to Allahabad. The rebel leaders agreed to the conditions and soon afterwards a deputation of officers went down to Satichura Ghat to inspect the boats. The officers, having insisted on various improvements, returned to the entrenchment where the weary garrison was prematurely celebrating their deliverance. That evening Lieutenant Master of the 53rd N.I. scribbled a note to his father, the commanding officer of the 7th Light Cavalry, at Lucknow:

‘We have now held out for twenty-one days under a tremendous fire. The Rajah of Bithoor has offered to forward us in safety to Allahabad, and the General has accepted his terms. I am all right, though twice wounded. Charlotte Newnham and Bella Blair are dead. I’ll write from Allahabad. God bless you.’

Early on the 27th, Captain Moore passed between the ragged groups of survivors impressing upon them the necessity of getting directly into the boats and pushing off immediately they reached the Ghat. He evidently suspected a trap. Watched by swarms of natives who had come from the city to see the procession go by, Moore placed himself at the head of an advanced guard of the 32nd, and led out the bedraggled garrison. They left over two hundred of their friends and relatives buried in the entrenchment, together with the bodies of eleven more lying on quilts, ‘Some still breathing, though dying from severe gunshot wounds.’

As the Europeans attempted to climb aboard the boats beached at Satichura Ghat, the rebel leaders’ plan to destroy the survivors of the Cawnpore Garrison was put into effect. The native boatmen set fire to the thatch of the boats and fled. ‘Two guns that had been hidden were run out and opened on us immediately,’ reported Lieutenant Delafosse, one of the very few to survive, ‘whilst sepoys came from all directions and kept up a brisk fire’. All except three of the forty or so boats got clear of the shallows, the majority having been purposely grounded. The first boat drifted fatally towards the far bank which was lined with rebels. The second was hit below the waterline by a roundshot, but the third, commanded by Major Vibart, however, was able to come alongside and take off the survivors of the second. The native boatmen had taken care to remove the oars, and thus the only implements that could be found to propel the vessel were, as Mowbray Thomson recorded, ‘a spar or two and such pieces of wood as we could in safety tear from the sides. Grape and roundshot flew about us from either river bank, and shells burst constantly on the sandbanks.’ Trevelyan continues, ‘Whether fortuitously, or by the attraction of like to like it so befell that the flower of the defence was congregated between those bulwarks. They were Vibart; Whiting, good at need; and Ashe, bereaved of his beloved nine-pounder; and Delafosse of the burning gun; and Bolton, snatched once more from present destruction. There was Moore, with his arm slung in a handkerchief; and Bolenman, the bold spy; Glanville of Barrack Number Two; and Burney of the south-east battery. Fate seemed willing to defer the hour which should extinguish those noble lives.’ Overcrowded and with her rudder shot away the boat alternately drifted and stranded, reducing the rate of progress to half a mile an hour. The fire of the rebel gunners shadowing the stricken craft eventually ceased after the bullocks became stuck in the sand, but parties of Sepoys continued to keep up incessant volleys of musketry. Aboard the boat, the dead, entangled with the wounded, soon outnumbered the living and only with the greatest difficulty were the corpses thrown over the side to lighten the load.

Ultimately, Captain Moore was killed by a musket ball through the heart while trying to push the boat off one of the numerous sandbanks. Wheeler died at the Ghat, where his head was virtually severed from his body by a Sowar of the 2nd Cavalry. Thomson, Delafosse, Gunner Sullivan of the 1st Company, 6th Battalion, Bengal Artillery, and Private Murphy of H.M’s 84th Regiment, were the only male survivors from Vibart’s boat. They were sent ashore by Vibart after the boat grounded at Nazafgarh to fight off their pursuers, which they succeeded in doing, but on returning to the boat they found it had gone. It had been captured by the rebels and dragged back to Cawnpore where the sixty or so mainly wounded men still on board were shot. Thomson’s party was eventually offered sanctuary by a local Rajah, Dirigbijah Singh. Delafosse recovered from the ordeal to fight under Neville Chamberlain at Crag Picquet during the Umbeyla Campaign in 1863.

Moore’s wife and offspring were rounded up with about 122 others by Nana Sahib’s men after the massacre at Satichura Ghat and were taken to the rebel headquarters at the Savada House. Here they were joined by about twenty-five women and children from Vibart’s boat. They were then taken to a smaller house nearby originally built for a British officer’s mistress known as the Bibighar. On 10 July the prisoners were joined by a party of officers’ wives who had escaped from Fatehgarh and had been captured at Nawabgunge. In all, about two hundred women and children were crowded together in the small house in conditions of extreme misery and humiliation. Cholera, smallpox and dysentery carried off about twenty-five over the next few days, and, on learning that Havelock was fast approaching from Allahabad by forced marches, the rebel leaders decided it was time to expedite matters by ordering the execution of the rest. On 15 July, the Sepoys detailed to shoot them from the windows disobeyed and fired into the ceiling, whereupon two Hindu peasants, two Mohammedan butchers and a man wearing the uniform of Nana Sahib’s bodyguard were sent for. They entered the house with long knives and slaughtered the occupants. Next day the bodies of Mrs John Moore and her two children were dragged out by the hair with the rest, not all of them dead, and thrown down a well. Whether Nana Sahib was directly responsible for this vile crime remains a matter of debate, but what is certain is that it roused contemporary Englishmen to fury and blinded most to justice.

Postscript

In 1974, Bannister’s great nephew came upon the ‘India Letters’ that had lain largely forgotten and unresearched; these included the last known reference to his ancestor’s fate, an official communication, dated in March 1860, stating that he had no effects and the matter of any prize money due should be taken up with the authorities at the Royal Chelsea Hospital.

As a result of ensuing research, Bannister’s Indian Mutiny Medal was traced to a private collection. His earlier Sutlej, Punjab and India General Service Medals were beyond doubt lost at Cawnpore. The owner of the Mutiny Medal, Vivian Stuart, was a well-known military novelist and had used Bannister as one of her characters in her book, The Cawnpore Massacre. Likewise, the family loaned the ‘India Letters’ to the National Army Museum, as a result of which copies are now held in the museum’s archive; some of these, together with other copied research, are included, including Martin Fuller’s article ‘The Life and Death of Private Bannister’(Medal News, March 1998).