NARRATIVE of the SUFFERINGS of the CABOOL FORCE betwixt the 6th ' and 13th January, 1842.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 76, 19 August 1843, Page 303

NARRATIVE of the SUFFERINGS of the CABOOL FORCE betwixt the 6th ' and 13th January, 1842.

[From the Bombay Times of Jan. 2.] We have been favoured with permission to publish the following journal of Captain Johnson, of the 26th B. N. 1., one of the late Cabool prisoners, and give it in the place of the bulk of our usual editorial matter. Although we have already had numerous fragments from the letters oggie officers of that unfortunate force, we have uSu now no where observed a narrative of events anything like so copious, so continuous, or clear as that now published. Captain Johnson took a most'distinguished part in the scenes which he describes, and was One of the very few who witnessed our calamities till the measure of our sufferings was full. We have from time to time cautioned our

readers to be, guarded a? to the Weight to be attached to the statements which have, hitherto taken the place of a collected history of Jthose sad an,a memorable events,, and ~thV appearance of each successive letter, from the only direct and .authentic sources' of information we could appeal to' — • the parties wjio spoke of what they saw. or.Knej!'— has shown, and -none' more conspicuously, than the present, how miserably .imperfect has hifneYto been the information which nets formed- the basis of all our speculations. ; We _ need- go > no farther than the opening paragraph for k most striking illustration of this. It triay be remembered that from a minute enumeration given ' by 1 the DeVU Gazette of the strength of the army at the time of the insurrection, it was uniformly concluded that from 5,000 ,to 6,000 soldiers, with from 6.00P tp 8,000 camp-follqwers, , had marched from Cabool, — and that, from 13,000 to 15,000 mea had. disappeared in tKe passes. It now appears that the soldiers did not in all amount to 5,500 fighting men;— nearly a half fewer than was believed to have perished ; while of the catnp-follbwer^ who> being unarmed and unprotected, and all Natives of the hither side of the Indus, ' fell easy victims to the climate and the enemy, 14,000 accompanied the army; Of the Sepoys, 1,200 are daiff td have been on oar return found Wandering aft beggars fa the streets of Cabool, — nearly as many more have returned from other quarters to India ; so that, from the muster-roll of fighting men not much more than 1,000 may ultimately turn out to haye permanently disappeared. Well-informed and careful observers, who formed part of the force, state that, so nearly as could be computed, ' the number of bodies of all classes observable in,, the passes, from Gundamuck to Cabool, amounted to about 3,000. Captain Johnson estimates that, of the 17,000' whd lefi, 13,000 must have perished, and we can have no more valuable' authority. According to the Fnend of India, nearly the whole of the Bengal 37th, for whose sake Ghuznie was 'destroyed, will return to Hindostan, under their officers. H. M. 44th appears alone to have suffered annihilation from the sword of the enemy. .But we shall not at present attempt the analysis of the journal, which forms one more of the series of papers now beginning tardily to appear, fronvwhich really valuable authentic history must by and by be written. , January 6, 1842. — Agreeably to yesterday's orders, we were this day ready to start for jellalabad. The force (H. ftl.'s 44th regiment infantry, sth Bengal cavalry, ' 2d Shah's, a -detachment of Skinner's horse, Alexander's 6 horse artillery guns, three mountain train do., sth Bengal infantry, 37th, '54th do., and 6th Shah's, and abotit 360 of sappers, and 4th infantry) consists of about 3,500 fighting men, and 14,000 camp-followers. By 8 a. m. the greater part of the baggage was laden. As there was only one gateway on the face of the cantonments from which the exit of the troops- was to be made, a portion of the rampart had been thrown down so as to form a bridge over the ditch. The day was beautifully clear and frosty, snow nearly one foot deep on the ground. Thermometer considerably below freezing point. Although terms (1) had been entered into with the Sirdars for our safe escort to Jellalabad,, it was fully expected that we would have to fight our way out of the cantonments, as the populace would be so eager for its plunder. To our amazement, however, the advanced party, with which I was, went out without the slightest molestation ; nor were any mOre than 50 to 100 Affghans collected at the gateway to see our departure, and riot a man was to ire seen on the walls of any of the surrounding fort*. ' The whole of our valuable" magazines, consisting of arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, to the amount of 80 lakhs, was plundered. We started at about half-past 9 a, m.; our progress very slowifor the first mile, the distance was not accomplished under two and a-half hours, owing to want of preparation beforehand. There was only one, , and that a very narrow bridge over the Nullah (not above eight feet broad, but deep), within 150 yards of cantonments, and the gun carriages, with which a bridge was to' be formed over Cabool river about a quarter of a mile from the gateway, were with difficulty drawn by the bullocks through the snow. - This delay end want of preparation beforehand were -the origin of , this day's misfortunes, which involved 'the loss"©? more than half the baggage of the force. After having been cooped up in cantonments for the last two months and five days, during which time we had lost in several engagements a great portion of our officers and pen ; and the latter tad, also suffered very severely from the want of the necessary (2) food and over-jvork; great was the delight of our sepoys J at'the 'prospect of being freed from so inclement a climate as is (to them) Cabool at this season," and the more crspeciall;jr as the firewdbd ttiat had bce'n laid in for'the Winter's consumption was already expended, and almost the whole of the fruit trees In cantonments had been cut and burned. ■Scarcely had we gone r A.'ra'ile ere an order was brought to us that tve were to return 'to'cantonments, as Mahomed Ziiman Khan had written to say* the Sirdars were not ready to accompany- us, — Io our delight, however, we shortly got another order to proceed onward, and lost no tjtae iq doing so- It was origjjg&lly the General'^'' intention tp ; halt at Bagramjk close ta the Log^r .rjLver, and a^out five milesipoin Cabqtol,; but tnewticflc counV try being a swamp, we went on about a inUe further J and halted^a't about 4v.m. At dusk scarcely any baggage 'up— luckily I had a small p^uVwhich was pitched after clearing away the "'snow 1 . Tile evening and night intensely "cold, -i— rio r food for man or beasF^oeurable, except • a very limited tjuan'tity of bhoosa. ' ' January 7. — -From the commencement of the siege' the troops have laifen almost invariably on

(1) Bills on India for 14} lakhs of rupees had been granted by the political authority- ,(Maior Pottipger). to- -the Cabool . Shrofis, and to be paid to tlfe "following. Sirdars, wfieyon their jlixt, prdnaUod'td protect tlfe force a* fir as Peshswur:'-' Mahomtd 'Zaman Khar 3 • Osm*n Kboa :, v -•„ 3 Ameen OoUab, Khan .-6 GhilzieChieSt-; .' .' » 0J •Kb.nn*heilefcn Khan . • a ' ' •— - SMhHnSe^Ukbbar Khan l Lakhs »1 *$ (4WThe ,*r9op». had- been on half rations for the whole period of jMnege, which consisted of, for fighting men,, one seer whfcat<Bfc neither ghee nor dholl; anil to camp foQUtters of, for sonsJßme put, a quarter seer of wheat orbartey. ' Onr cattle,, both public and private, were for a long time subsisting on twig* and bark of trees. Since the commencement of negotiations with the Sirdars, atta, "bat-ley, and 1 btobou/hiVe , -occasionally been-brnugbt, m pretty considerable quftatities— ■ thet former article selling repeatedly at from two' to fonr«eei» per rupee, and the latter at seven, eight, and. ten seen. The ; poorer class of our camp followers have, .'for some time -put/subsisted on such horses and- ewnels as- haie -GtS'tf ster.dtiun. ' '.' r '

•duty day and injght. Several men, fi?o*en-to death during the night,, among whom wa» Mr. Condr. Macgregor; , fife rear guard did npt arrive in our bivouac till two this .morning, having, left cantonments at suftset Yesterday, preyiousto, their quitting which the Afghans Had ent^>ed there and set fire to all the public and private' buildings, after plundering theWof what they required. '.The whole of the -valuable magazine plunder&l* by tike mob, and gun carriages b%rnt for 1 the'saice of the iron. Some fightingtT&ttw<*eii ! Bie enemy and our Sepoys took place, attouT fifty of the 64€h killed and wounded, also 7 Cornet Handyman 6t the sth cavalry killed. V A great deal of baggage and. public property abandoned in cantonments or lost on the road, among which twdhorte-aitillery 6-pounders. Officers of. the rear guard report .that the road is strewn with baggage, and numbers of men, women, and children, have been already obliged to lay behind from being benumbed with cold* .and whose fate will' be either, slavery or death. My bearer has lost' the whole of my "bedding. " Captain Boyd's (Coramt. Officer) office records, including accounts to the amount of several' lakhs of rupees, have been lost. No camp equipage; <frith the exception of two or three small ienis being up, the whole of oil? trddps bivouacked all -night in the snow without a particle of wood to light s fire. No encamping ground being marked out, the regiments, as they arrived; knew not where to go, and the whole scene was one of confusion. At about half-past 7 the advance guard moved off— no order given — no bugle sounded. It had much difficulty in forcing its Tray ahead of the baggage and camp-followers, all of .whom had already proceeded onward : jam'flng tie latter are several sepoys ; discipline is at an ( end. The whole of the baggage was not off thegrbund ere the enemy appeared and plundered vriiuLt they cduld- lay hands on. ,As the mountain train, consisting of three 3-pouriders, and dragged by yabbos and mules, was passing a small tort close- to ainttish ground, a party of Affghans sallied dUt and captured the whole. Scarcely any resistance was offered : the syces immediately absconded. As the troops advanced on their road the enemy increased considerably on both flanks, and greatly annoyed the centre and rear columns.* Before leaving Cabool, it was generally believed to be the General's intention .to proceed the first day to Khoord Cabool, and #ie, second to Tezeen, which could easily have been accomplished hai proper arrangements for leaving cantonments been made beforehand, as the distance from Cabool to Tezeen is only about 30 nuTes.. Had this been effected, how different would have been the fate of the Cabool army t we would ionly have been one night and one day and a-halfin the snow, and we would have escaped our enemy, who the first day was not ready to "follow us. It had been the General's intention to proceed through the Khoord Cabool pass to Khoord Cabool, and as it was not above one p.m. when the advance arrived at Boodkhak, having qnlycome about five miles, it was with< no, slight- degree of sorrow we got the. order to halt, thereby losing one more day (we left Ca> bool with only five, and a,half-days' rations to take us to Jellalabad, and no forage for cattle, with no prospects of getting any)', and subjecting our unfortunate troops, already nearly paralyzed with cold, to another night of the snow, and with no shelter from this inclement region. On arriving at Boodkhak the enemy had very greatly increased around our position, and we heard that Mahomed Ukhbar Khan was with them. Scarcely any baggage of men or officers remaining. I still had my paul up, and, although of the smallest description, it gave covering to nine of us for the night. During the march we were obliged- to spike and abandon another 6-pounder, the horses not having strength sufficient to drag it on. We have remaining 2 horse-artillery guns — left with scarcely any ammunition. No ground again marked out for the troops — the whole is one mass of confusion. Three-fourths of the sepoys are mixed up with the camp-followers, and know not where to find the head-quarters of their corps. . Snow one foot deep — no provisions for man or beast procurable — and the people getting water from the river are fired upon. Numbers of individuals benumbed with cold, have dropped on the road to be massacred by the enemy. 1 ■ ' January 8. — No orders given yesterday for the march. The scene of confusion at' sunrise was fearful — the force perfectly disorganized — almost every man appears paralyzed with cold, so as to be scarcely able to hold his musket or move a stes. Some of the enemy having appeared in the rear of the bivouac, the whole of the camp-follow-ers rushed tp the front, every man, woman, and child laying hbld of all cattle that fell to their hands; whether public 'or private. The ground is strewn with ammunition ' and property of various kinds. The enemy soon .assembled in great numbers—had they made a dash amongst us, we could have offered no resistance, and every one of us 'wqutd liav;e been slaughtered. After very great cxertidns on tKe part of the commanding officers, portions of ''flfeir corps were brought together. The 4*th Qufee'n*S, 'beaded by Major Thane, aide-de-camp 'to <serie'rat Elphinstone, drove the enemy off to a short distance, and took up a position on a commanding height. The General and Major 1 Pottinger .(political agent) entered [into communication with Mafcofeted Uktibar'Khan; the latter agreed to protect the troops, on Condition of Major Pottinger, late' political agdrit at Charekar, Captain Laurenqe, military secretary to the envoy and minister, and Captain M'Kenzie, assistant to do., going over to -him as hostages for General Sale's evaluation of Jellalabad!, but that the troops should not .proceed farther ' thantezeen until information should be "received of, the General* niincL This was agfeigd'to, 'ana ihe.fihee officer's "went overrto ■ the' J Siri&r. ' We^donimi^nced our march tit' abtjut mid-day ; 4he iftlrW.T. in front : w&Tiad hot' proceeded tfal'f a nnJewiien -we were heavily fired upon from 'the heights at the entrance of the -past, and? whfch increased as we «d.vanced, ko that we' had to 'run t'ae gauntlet -the whole length of this fearful defile; a distance of about five miles.. The adndree, althotigh they suffered considerably, was, by comparison with the rear, v«ry fortunate., Hoe the fccene of slaughter was- dreadful ; all baggage waa abandoned ; <tfce enemy not only :poured. in. a, murderous fire from every rack and cave in the heights on each sidf, tiut descended into the pass sword in hand, and >TeW (3) Mtoj'troinan; and child. _ The; whole road (I) Captain, tf&tm, "Deputy QrartennajdKr. General, 'and •En>lgß R.'Ocbflrxc'kifletf ; C<pt*fti stu^t,i 'Ht tKe Engineers, aotiSlly^otfndSt; TtU&n G«iffirt*n«d Scott, tad Oaptabfc

for a space of five miles, was covered with dead and dying ; the 37th N.I. lost more than half its men, and other corps in proportion. Even those who remained could scarcely move or hold a musket, from their feet and hands being frost-bitten, and, to -add to our miseries, snow began to fall on our arrival at Khoord Cabool. No provisions procurable—snow deeper than at Boodkhak — another night in the snow without shelter, my only covering was lost during the march ; no ground marked out for the troops'— scene of confusion same as On 'two preceding days. By great luck* my only two boxes that I brought from Cabool, and which contained my treasure (about Rs. 1,000), and office records- for the past two mdnths, are still saved. The few clothes I have are in a pair of saddle-bogs, which X' carried behind me oh my horse. A£y eyes at Boodkhak were so much affected by the glare of the snow, that 1. cbuld scarcely ?ee. Another, horse-artillery gun, , abandoned ifl.the pass ; we have now but one remaining. On leaving Cabool each sepoy had forty rounds of musket ammunition in pouch, and abotit sixty camel loads per regiment, with pne Hundred spare loads. We have not at present for the whole force, three camel loads in box ; and numbers of sepoys hive not a single cartridge in pouch. January 9.— Before sunrise, the same confusion as yesterday. Without any order given, or bugle being sounded, the camp-followers, among whom were three-fourths of our fighting men, had pushed on in advance ; as many of them as could, had appropriated to themselves all the public yaboos and camels — on which they were mounted ; a portion of the troops had also moved, off, and gone perhaps a mile, when, the whole were remanded back to their'.for,mer 'ground, and a' ijajtt the day ordered/ More than one-half of the force is now frost bitten' (4) and wounded: most of the men can icarcfely put a foot to the ground*. This 4 is the -fourth day that our cattle have had no food; and our men are starved with cold and hunger. Reports prevalent in camp that the irregular cavalry and minister's escort were about to desert to Mahomed Ukhbac Khan 1 ; as also that the Affghans were tampering' with our sepoys to leave their European officers and return to Cabool. Our present ! position being one of imminent peril, a proposition : was made .sp. the j3irdar to permit the Jadies,(s) and their families to go over to him for protec- ; turn ; to this* he assented ; and they accordingly ! proceeded tracer escort, at about mid-day, to a fort about a cbs^ distant, in which Mahomed Ukhb&r had taken up his temporary abode.- Inline? diately 'after their departure, Anderson's Horse, with the exception of about eighty men, vwnt over in a body IV the Sirdar ; and as they shortly Afterwards . made their appearance in company with a body of Affghan horse, .at about a mile from our bivouac, ah idea was entertained' that they intended Attacking us : all was consternation ;' several of ohr infantry sepoy^had also disappeared during ihe day, also numbers of our camp-followers. A message was sent to Mahomed Ukhbar regarding the desertion of our tn»ops, and a hope expressed that he would not encourage it ; and he sent,back one of bis chiefs (Khoda Bux Khan), to explain that any of our men deserting from us, and going over to him, would be shot. Our few troops had already been paraded to repel the supposed attack above alluded to, which, however, did not take place. The? message of the Sirdar was' explained to all the men;- at the time of doing so, a mission c)mprassee Was observed in the act of deserting roe was immediately seized, and as instantly shot dead. My own servants, too, I suppose, thought that my last hour was come, for, my trunk being open for 1 a minute, my .sweeper, who was by, made a rush at my Hg of rupees. I .laid hold, of him, tied him both hand and foot, and requested' of the Provost Sergeant, who was luckily by, to give him one hundred lashes with his cat-o'-nine-tails on his bare back. My assistant (Lieutenant Mackay) was sent over in the evening to the Sifdar.for the purpose of taking aletter for General Sate at Jellalabad, to evacuate his position. The letter was written by Major Pottinger, political agent. Captain Sturt, yesterday wounded, was this day buried. We have no means of,carrying on the sick, as all our dooly-bearers deserted or were, murdered the first.day. The whole of our camels, and yaboos have been either seized by the enemy, or, % our camp followers, and even were they forthcoming we have not a man to lopk after them. The greatest confusion prevailed all- day, and, anxiety and suspense for our ultimate fate intense. Every 'man among us thought that, ere -many hows should pass, he was doomed to die either by cold, hunger, or the sword of our ene- ' mies; for, if attacked, we might for a shortrtime hold out, nothing could eventually save us. After- our return to camp in the morning, commanding officers of regiments managed to collect on, an average 60 files per ( corps; but numbers of these could with difficulty hold a musket. Several men were frozen to death during the night No dependence to be placed on the promises of the; Sirdar. ' My eyes had become so inflamed from 'the reflection from' the snow, that I was nearly blind and the pain Was intense. Several officers Were more or less affected— one or two quite blitiß. ; IToftv continued.]

Bpti and Leightoh, severely wounded ; and Captain Troup, <M. B. toS. S.F., Lieutenant Stewart, and Dr. Cardew, slightly wounded; Lady gaje (wife of General Sale) -shot through the atm. . (4) The HinupsUßees wbo were frost-bitten never recovered the use of their limbs. .The legs of almost every man who survived retted off, and .not a man escaped with hi* toes. The whole are cripples for life. (5) The following were the ladies :— 'Lady Sale, wife of-Ge-neral Sal;, •commanding at J«Ualabad ; Lady Afacnaghteq, widow of the late Envoy j Mrs. Sturt, widow of Captain Sturt, who d»ed this day; Mrs. Trevor and six children, widow 6f .Captain freTor, murdered at Cabool; Mrs. Boyd and .two children ; Mrs. Anderson and one child ; Mrs. Eyre and one child; Mh. Mainwaring and one child. -