Notes

This will be a suitable place in which to introduce two tabular statements concerning the military condition of India at the commencement of the mutiny. All the occurrences narrated hitherto are those in which the authorities at Calcutta were compelled to encounter difficulties without any reinforcements from England, the time elapsed having been too short for the arrival of such reinforcements.

Military Divisions of India.—At the period of the outbreak, and for some time afterwards, India was marked out for military purposes into divisions, each under the command of a general, brigadier, or other officer, responsible for all the troops, European and native, within his division. The names and localities of these divisions are here given; on the authority of a military map of India, engraved at the Topographical Depôt under the direction of Captain Elphinstone of the Royal Engineers, and published by the War Department. Each division was regarded as belonging to, or under the control of, one of the three presidencies. We shall therefore group them under the names of the three presidential cities, and shall append a few words to denote locality:

UNDER CALCUTTA GOVERNMENT.

Name. Limits.

Presidency Division, Calcutta and its vicinity, and the east and northeast of Bengal.

Dinapoor Division, From the Nepaul frontier, southwest towards Nagpoor.

Cawnpore Division, Including Oude, the Lower Doab, and part of Bundelcund.

Saugor Division, On both sides of the Nerbudda river, south of Bundelcund.

Gwalior Division, Scindia’s Dominions, bordering on Rajpootana.

Meerut Division, Rohilcund, from the Himalaya down to Agra and the Jumna.

Sirhind Division, The Cis-Sutlej and Hill states, northwest of Delhi.

Lahore Division, Eastern part of Punjaub, from Cashmere down to Sinde.

Peshawur Division, Western part of Punjaub, on the Afghan frontier.

UNDER BOMBAY GOVERNMENT.

Sinde Division, On the Beloochee frontier, both sides of the Lower Indus.

Rajpootana Field-force, East of Sinde, and west of Scindia’s Gwalior dominions.

Northern Division, From Cutch nearly to Bombay, including Gujerat.

Poonah Division, Around Bombay, and the South Mahratta country near it.

Southern Division, Southernmost part of the Bombay Presidency.

UNDER MADRAS GOVERNMENT.

Nagpoor Subsidiary Force, The recently acquired Nagpoor territory, near Nizam’s states.

North Division, Northern part of Madras Presidency, on sea-coast.

Centre Division, Madras city, and the coast-region north and south of it.

Ceded Districts, Northwest of Madras city, towards Bombay.

Mysore Division, Seringapatam, and the country once belonging to Tippoo Saib.

Southern Division, Southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, towards Ceylon.

It may be useful to remark that these military divisions are not necessarily identical in area or boundaries with the political provinces or collectorates, the two kinds of territorial limits being based on different considerations.

Armies of India, at the Commencement of the Mutiny.—During the progress of the military operations, it was frequently wished in England that materials were afforded for shewing the exact number of troops in India when the troubles began. The Company, to respond to this wish, caused an elaborate return to be prepared, from which a few entries are here selected. The names and limits of the military divisions correspond nearly, but not exactly, to those in the above list.

BENGAL ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.

Presidency, 1,214 13,976 15,190

Dinapoor, 1,597 15,063 16,660

Cawnpore, 277 5,725 6,002

Oude, 993 11,319 12,312

Saugor, 327 10,627 10,954

Meerut, 3,096 18,357 21,453

Sirhind, 4,790 11,049 15,839

Lahore, 4,018 15,939 19,957

Peshawur, 4,613 15,916 20,529

Pegu, 1,763 692 2,455

22,698 118,663 141,361

The Europeans in this list include all grades of officers as well as rank and file; and among the officers are included those connected with the native regiments. The natives, in like manner, include all grades, from subadars down to sepoys and sowars. The Punjaub, it will be seen, alone contained 40,000 troops. The troops were stationed at 160 cantonments, garrisons, or other places. As shewing gradations of rank, the Europeans comprised 2271 commissioned officers, 1602 non-commissioned officers, and 18,815 rank and file; the natives comprised 2325 commissioned officers, 5821 non-commissioned officers, and 110,517 rank and file. The stations which contained the largest numbers were the following:

Peshawur, 9500

Lahore, 5300

Meerut, 5000

Lucknow, 5000

Jullundur, 4000

Dinapoor, 4000

Umballa, 3800

Cawnpore, 3700

Delhi, 3600

Barrackpore, 3500

Sealkote, 3500

Benares, 3200

Rawul Pindee, 3200

Bareilly, 3000

Moultan, 3000

Saugor, 2800

Agra, 2700

Nowsherab, 2600

Jelum, 2400

Allahabad, 2300

These 20 principal stations thus averaged 3800 troops each, or nearly 80,000 altogether.

MADRAS ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.

Centre, 1,580 6,430 8,010

Mysore, 1,088 4,504 5,592

Malabar, 604 2,513 3,117

Northern, 215 6,169 6,384

Southern, 726 5,718 6,444

Ceded Districts, 135 2,519 2,654

South Mahratta, 16 375 391

Nagpoor, 369 3,505 3,874

Nizam’s, 1,322 5,027 6,349

Penang and Malacca, 49 2,113 2,162

Pegu, 2,880 10,154 13,034

10,194 49,737 59,931

This list was more fully made out than that for the Bengal army; since it gave the numbers separately of the dragoons, light cavalry, horse-artillery, foot-artillery, sappers and miners, European infantry, native infantry, and veterans. The ratio of Europeans to native troops was rather higher in the Madras army (about 20 per cent.) than in that of Bengal (19 per cent.) More fully made out in some particulars, it was less instructive in others; the Madras list pointed out the location of all the detachments of each regiment, whereas the Bengal list gave the actual numbers at each station, without mentioning the particular regiments of which they were composed. Hence the materials for comparison are not such as they might have been had the lists been prepared on one uniform plan. There were about 36 stations for these troops, but the places which they occupied in small detachments raised the total to a much higher number. Although Pegu is considered to belong to the Bengal presidency, it was mostly served by Madras troops. Besides the forces above enumerated, there were nearly 2000 Madras troops out of India altogether, on service in Persia and China.

BOMBAY ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.

Bombay Garrison, 695 3,394 4,089

Southern, 283 5,108 5,391

Poonah, 1,838 6,817 8,655

Northern, 1,154 6,452 7,606

Asseerghur Fortress, 2 446 448

Sinde, 1,087 6,072 7,159

Rajpootana, 50 3,312 3,362

5,109 31,601 36,710

The Bombay army was so dislocated at that period, by the departure of nearly 14,000 troops to Persia and Aden, that the value of this table for purposes of comparison becomes much lessened. Nevertheless, it affords means of knowing how many troops were actually in India at the time when their services were most needed. On the other hand, about 5000 of the troops in the Bombay presidency belonged to the Bengal and Madras armies. The different kinds of troops were classified as in the Madras army. The regular military stations where troops took up their head-quarters, were about 20 in number; but the small stations where mere detachments were placed nearly trebled this number. The Europeans were to the native troops only as 16 to 100.

As a summary, then, we find that India contained, on the day when the mutinies began, troops to the number of 238,002 in the service of the Company, of whom 38,001 were Europeans, and 200,001 natives—19 Europeans to 100 natives. An opportunity will occur in a future page for enumerating the regiments of which these three armies were composed.