The English had ordered the sepoys to use greased cartridges in their rifles, in spite of the fact that a native of Bengal would lose caste if he were to touch the fat of cows or pigs, and he would have to bite the greased cartridge to use it. Many of the soldiers in the barracks at Meerut, a military station near Delhi, refused to use these cartridges, and as a result were marched to prison. The next day, May 10, 1857, the native cavalry in Meerut armed, galloped to the prison, and released their comrades. Other regiments mutinied against their officers, and soon a large force of sepoys advanced to capture the important city of Delhi. The native soldiers there likewise turned on their English commanders, and Delhi became the centre of a great revolt.
In the meantime a mutiny had also broken out at Lucknow, in northern India, the capital of the province of Oudh. The sepoys deserted the English, and the British officers, together with all the English men, women, and children there, were forced to take refuge in the residency, or fort of Lucknow. Here a small number of fighting men held at bay a very large number of sepoy troops and a great rabble of natives. Food grew scarce, and fever, smallpox, and cholera spread among the little garrison. Week after week went by without succor, and the sepoys had almost undermined the fort, when, on September 25th, nearly three months after the siege had begun, a rescue party headed by General Havelock arrived and fought its way to the stockade. These reinforcements enabled the English to hold out until a much larger army under Sir Colin Campbell defeated the sepoys a month later and raised the siege.
For the period of almost three months before the arrival of Havelock the people in the fort at Lucknow had been the targets of a practically unceasing fire from heavy guns and muskets only fifty yards distant. The siege was one of the bravest and most remarkable in history.
The poem of its relief tells how a woman in the fort caught the first notes of the Scotch bagpipes playing "The Campbells are comin'," that told of Havelock's approach.
As a result of the Mutiny of 1857 the government of India was transferred from the East India Company to the English crown.
by Robert Trail Spence Lowell