Accordingly a reinforcement of fifty men of the Thirty-Second was sent to him. It was considered desirable to establish a place of refuge for the English residents in case of an insurrection. General Wheeler selected for this purpose the depot of the Thirty-Second Regiment, not far from the Dragoon Hospital. This place was destined to be the scene of one of the most heroic defences that ever took place since the world began.
Two squadrons of Oude Irregular Cavalry mutinied on the 27th May, killing all their officers, and then sending messengers to all the rest of the native soldiery telling them what had been done. The other native regiments followed their example, and then laid siege to the entrenchments which General Wheeler had prepared. When the proper moment for his purpose arrived, Nana Sahib threw off the mask and openly placed himself at the head of the rebellion. Under his direction the siege of General Wheeler's position was conducted; it lasted from the 6th to the 27th June, and is thus described by an historian:
"It was a siege the miseries of which to the besieged have never been exceeded in the history of the world. All the wonted terrors of a multitudinous enemy without, of a feeble garrison and scant shelter within, of the burden of women and children and sick people, with little to appease their wants or allay their sufferings, were aggravated by the burning heat of the climate. The June sky was little less than a great canopy of fire; the summer breeze was as the blast of a furnace; to touch the barrel of a gun was to recoil as from red-hot iron. It was the season when European strength and energy are ever at their lowest point of depression—when military duty in its mildest form taxes the power of Englishmen to the utmost, and English women can do little more than
sustain life in shaded apartments, with all appliances at hand to moderate the temperature and mitigate the suffering. But now, even under the fierce meridian sun, this little band of