Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/345

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CHAPTER XX.

FROM DEHLÍ TO AGRA AND KÁNHPUR — SIR COLIN CAMPBELL AT KÁNHPUR.

No sooner had the capture of Dehlí been thoroughly assured than Wilson despatched a corps of 2790 men, under the command of Colonel Edward Greathed of the 8th Foot, to open the country between Dehlí and Agra, and to join Sir Colin Campbell at Kánhpur or its vicinity.

Greathed set out on the morning of the 24th of September, crossed the Hindan, and marched, by way of Dadri and Sikandarábád, on Bulandshahr, punishing on his way the inhabitants proved to have committed atrocities, reassuring those who had remained loyal. He arrived before Bulandshahr on the 28th, attacked and completely defeated a rebel force which attempted to cover that town, then pushing on, occupied it and Málagarh. In destroying the fortifications of the latter he had the misfortune to lose, by an accident, Lieutenant Home of the Engineers, one of the survivors of the gallant men who had blown up the Kashmír gate on the 14th. Thence, still pushing on, Greathed reached Khúrjá, a considerable town. Here the passions of the troops were roused to extreme fury by the sight of the skeleton, pronounced by the medical officers to be the skeleton of a European female, stuck up on the roadside exposed to public gaze, the head severed from the body. They were for taking instant vengeance