Beschreibung:

INDIAN MUTINY]. Series of ten long autograph letters signed by Lieutenant George Cracklow, Bengal Horse Artillery, to his mother, Agra, Cawnpore, Camp Dilkusha, Lucknow, camp before Lucknow, Kaisar-bagh, Lucknow, 13 October 1857 - 30 May 1858, 54 pages, 4to and 8vo (one torn along centre fold); with two maps drawn by Cracklow, one, inscribed 'Camp before Lucknow March 11 t h 58', pen, ink and coloured washes, 220 x 262mm , the second, a plan of Lucknow showing the bridges over the canal and other features, 137 x 129mm ; together with copies of letters (2), letters to his mother by various correspondents (6), testimonials (3), draft of letter, by Mrs Cracklow to the Duke [of Cambridge], outlining her son's military career and seeking his promotion, n.d. [watermark of 1859]. Cracklow had served in India from 1852. In the first letter (13 October 1857) he describes his arrival at Agra to find the city plundered and half the bungalows burnt. An attack on the guns by sepoys was repulsed ('our arrival of which they were not aware ... put a stop to their evil purposes'). He describes his arrival at Cawnpore (October 1857) from Delhi en route to relieve General Havelock at Lucknow in a mixed force of about 2,000 Europeans commanded by Sir Colin Campbell Cracklow was accompanied by Lieutenant Thompson (a survivor of the massacre) in a tour of the sights of Cawnpore including the well which had been filled up, although there was still blood on the walls of the house and locks of hair scattered on the ground. He recounts in great detail (8 pages, 4to, dated 2 December 1857) his part in the relief of Lucknow, being guided into the city along narrow lanes by a man who had escaped from the garrison. He was in action at the capture of the Secundra fort: 'a gun was brought to bear on ... a window ... A Highlander, & a Sikh raced for the hole ... & opened the Gates & then the whole regt of the 93rd some Sikhs, & some men of the 53rd charged. I did not see who was first in; but they all went in like so many tigers ... 1700 bodies were counted out next day ... the native cloth (which burns like tinder) had caught fire, and they were burning gradually to death. Cawnpore was very nearly avenged at Secundrabagh'. Cracklow later escorted some of the women and children from the Residency before the order came to retreat. ('Sir Colin [Campbell] was walking up & down the road by the Guns, in a dreadfully fidgety state'.) In his letter of 14 February 1858 Cracklow describes the search for the Nana Sahib (to whom the garrison had surrendered at Cawnpore) who had a 500 reward on his head. In May of that year Cracklow comments that he and his troop had had barely one day's rest in the previous twelve months. A series which conveys the sentiments of a young Army officer in a campaign marked by incidents of great brutality on both sides. (25)