Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/154



was the centre station in that weak middle piece of which I have written as causing so much anxiety to Lord Canning. It lies on the right bank of the river Ganges, 270 miles south-east from Dehlí, and 120 above the confluence of the Jamnah and Ganges at Allahábád. From Calcutta it is distant by rail 684 miles, somewhat more by the river route. The station is long and straggling, the houses having been erected more with the view to secure pleasant and healthy situations than for military defence.

In 1857 the garrison of Kánhpur consisted of the 1st, the 53d, and the 56th Regiments N. I., the 2d Native Light Cavalry, and sixty-one English artillerymen, with six guns — five nine-pounders, and a twenty-four-pounder howitzer The station also sheltered the families of the 32d Foot, then stationed at Lakhnao. Kánhpur was the headquarters of a division. The general commanding was Sir Hugh Massey Wheeler, an officer of the highest character as a soldier. He had spent fifty-four years in India, had served with the sipáhís, under Lord Lake, in the Maráthá wars, in Afghánistán, and in the wars against the Sikhs. He was very much esteemed, and it was thought that if any man could unravel the mysteries which shrouded the early events of 1857 that man would be Sir Hugh Wheeler.

Sir Hugh had watched, with the deepest anxiety, the