Lord Wolseley Under Fire.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 107, 20 June 1885, Page 5

Lord W olseley Under Fire.

'The Ninetieth^ was one of the regimeijits dittoed' for China iwHich "Lord .'Canning's 1 'swih steamers ,c6.ntHved''to; ; 'c^tch''en' route" 'and'diyert to Incjfa' to aid in ftp quelling of the great mutiny th&tihM' broken 1 J pixb with' so fell an unexpectedness: Th'6 '.gall* ant GreybreekV were included in ttie column which Sir Colin 1 Campbell led from Cawioporeto thesecorid relief of Lucknow. From the Dilkoosha 1 Sir Colin, had sent the "Black Watch "down- the slope on the Martiniere. The Ninety-third 'arid the Sikhs had made a ghastly shambles of the once beautiful Secunderajjagh garden. i Peel's men, of the Shannon, were slogging with their ship'sguns into the massive structure of the Shah Nujeef, preparatory to carrying it by escalade out of the branches of a tree which grew against the walls of the shrine. Wolseley, with his two companies of the Ninetieth, was sent to the left to carry the Mess House. The way to its compound wall was across the open. Wolseley 's fellows took with them acouple of light guns. So fierce was the Sepoy fire that, to use Wolseley's own quaint colloquialism^ " the bullets dropped off the tires of the wheels like peas off a drum." The Mess House was carried with a rush, Wolseley with his own hand, in the midst of a hailstorm of bullets, pulling down the flag of the mutineers from the staff in its roof, and planting in its place the British banner which he carried. Beyond the Mess House lay the .Palace known as the Motee Mahal, the last rebel post separating the relieving, force from their environed fellow- country- \ men. Wolseley led his detachment forward to the assault of the Motee Mahal, which, in its turn, was taken and cleared after hard fighting and severe Joss. This operation consummated the relief. Between the Motee Mahal and the steam-engine post, lay only Mr Martin's house, which the rebels had evacuated. Young Moorsom ran the gauntlet, and the connection was established. It was Wolseley whe greeted the avant courier of the besieged. Wolseley took part in the hard fighting which/brought about the final reduction of Lucknow, and in the energetic marching and fighting all over Oude, whereby the late Sir Hope' Grant contributed so greatly to the stamping out of the great revolt, on the final extinguishment of which Wolseley found himself a brevet Lieutenant- Colonel at the &ge of twenty-six. Quick promotion certainly, from Ensign to Lieutenant-Colonel in eight years ; but every step in rank had been honestly won at the point of the sword. — Archibald Forbes, in the "English Illustrated Magazine " for May.