Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/408

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372
Movement of Hope Grant and Walpole.

of the measures decided upon for the pacification of Rohilkhand and of Oudh.

For the reconquest of Oudh Sir Colin detailed one army corps, under Hope Grant, to march to Bárí, twenty-nine miles from Lakhnao, to expel thence the rebels collected there under the Maulaví, to march eastward thence to Muhammadábád, and, following the course of the Gogra, to reconnoitre Bitaulí, thence to cover the return to their own country of the Nipál troops, under Jang Bahádur. Whilst Hope Grant should be moving in that direction, Walpole, with a moveable column, was to march up the Ganges, await near Fathgarh the arrival of Sir Colin, who would draw to himself as he advanced other columns converging to the same point.

Hope Grant carried out his instructions to the letter. He defeated the Maulaví at Bárí, found Bitaulí evacuated, saw Jang Bahádur on his way to the frontier, and then returned to protect the road between Kánhpur and Lakhnao, seriously threatened at Unáo. Walpole was less successful. Obstinate, self-willed, and an indifferent soldier, he led his column against the fort of Ruyiá, two miles from the Ganges, and fifty-one west by north from Lakhnao, attacked it on its only unassailable face, and after losing several men, and the most gifted soldier in the British army, the accomplished Adrian Hope, allowed the defenders to escape from the face which he himself should have assailed. He moved on thence, expelled the rebels from Sirsá, and was joined on the Rohilkhand side of Fathgarh, on the 27th of April, by Sir Colin.

Seaton, who had been left at Fathgarh, noticing that the rebels had collected in considerable force in front of him, had issued from that place on the 6th April, and had inflicted on them a crushing defeat at Kankar, between Aliganj and Bángáun. By this victory he secured the