The Siege of Delhi: With an Account of the Mutiny at Ferozepore in 1857

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In Delhi on 21 September 1857 emperor Bahadur Shah, a prisoner of the English, sat on a Charpoy in the verandah of the house, formerly the residence of Begum Samroo. A few miles away in the centre of the Chandani Chowk, outside the Kotwals residence, the bullet ridden bodies of his two sons, stripped, save a rag around the loins, lay naked on the stone slabs.

These were the end results of the historic siege of Delhi which marked a turning point in the great Mutiny of 1857. It is not much to say that the British success which followed the subsequent operations down country was due mainly to the fact that the mutiny had clearly received a crushing blow by the captures of the great city of rebellion.

This book which contains one of the most detailed and graphic narrations of the great siege by an author who was at once a participant and witness of the events, it describes, is an invaluable addition to the literature on the great revolt.

THE ever memorable period in the history of our Eastern Empire known as the Great Indian Rebellion or Mutiny of the Bengal army was an epoch fraught with the most momentous consequences, and one which resulted in covering with undying fame those who bore part in its suppression. The passions aroused during the struggle, the fierce hate animating the breasts of the combatants, the deadly incidents of the strife, which without intermission lasted for nearly two years, and deluged with blood the plains and cities of Hindostan, have scarcely a parallel in history. On the one side religious fanaticism, when Hindoo and Mohammedan, restraining the bitter animosity of their rival creeds, united together in the attempt to drive out of their common country that race which for one hundred years had dominated and held the overlordship of the greater portion of India. On the other side, a small band of Engushmen, a few thousand white men among millions of Asiatics, stood shoulder to shoulder, calm, fear- less, determined, ready to brave the onslaught of their enemies, to maintain with un- diminished lustre the proud deeds of their ancestors, and to a man resolved to conquer or to die.

Who can recount the numberless acts of heroism, the hairbreadth escapes, the anxious days and nights passed by our gallant country- men, who, few in number, and isolated from their comrades, stood at bay in different parts of the land surrounded by hundreds of pitiless miscreants, tigers in human shape thirsting for their blood? And can pen describe the name- less horrors of the time-gently nurtured ladies outraged and slain before the eyes of their hus- bands, children and helpless infants slaughtered -a very Golgotha of butchery, as all know who have read of the Well of Cawnpore?

**Contents and Sample Pages**