The Subjugation of the City and the Break-Up of the Force
It took several days before the city was finally in our hands, and as the casualties in the street fighting began to be very heavy, the Engineers proposed that the attackers should work from house to house picking holes in the dividing walls, thus making for themselves a covered way, in which work the Pioneers took a ready share. The advance was greatly impeded by the British and Punjab troops getting drunk, especially the former, on the large stores of liquor found within and near the Kashmir Gate, not, as is sometimes foolishly said by the historians, set as a trap by the defenders, but because the godowns and cellars of the vendors of 'Europe Goods' happened to be just within the gates, as they are to this day. Despite the fact that vast quantities were emptied by the Generals' order into the gutters under the eyes of the envious troops, there was plenty more about, and the trouble did not pass for a couple of days. It is sad that men so brave should have so fallen, but if we remember the long strain of many weeks, the tense excitements and strain of the storming, and the fact that the soldier of those days, like the classes he came from, drank, this lapse in the hour of victory, fraught with intense danger though it was, can be well understood. We may be sure that the Mazhbis, like all Sikhs addicts to strong waters, did not go without their shares, perhaps with less evil result.
Ensign Stevenson much distinguished himself during these difficult days of street fighting, in pushing with his Pioneers from house to house and in putting up a state of defence of each site that was secured.
By the 20th of September the city was in our hands, the enemy and the inhabitants gone. The great centre of an ancient power no longer defied the British, but alas, up in the camp, John Nicholson lay dying, mortally wounded in the attempts to force his weary Fusiliers to make a third attempt to storm the Burn Bastion as his column swept right along the walls after gaining the Kashmir Breach. The total loss of the tiny assaulting force was sixty officers and 1,100 men.
Yet there was little rest. General Wilson at once broke up his force into various detachments required to restore order, the most important one being Greathed's Column which was to march at once to the relief of beleaguered Agra and open up communication with the Army of the Crimea now arriving and assembling at Cawnpore. Two other columns, under Brigadiers Showers and Seaton, marched in other directions. Two companies of the Pioneers went with each, the headquarters and four companies remaining at Delhi till the end of October when they, too, marched to the south with a column, under Major Taylor, of the Engineers, and eventually joined Seaton at Aligarh, bringing his total up to four companies*. The remaining two companies were sent to Agra, where they were very useful.
This ended the Delhi episode of the First Pioneer Regiment, and it cannot be more fitly closed than with remarks of Colonel Baird-Smith, the Chief Engineer, in the "Operations of the Engineer Brigade," published with the official dispatches in G.G.O. No. 393 of 1857 as follows:
"The Punjab Sappers and Miners under their Commandant, Lieut. Gulliver (of whose valuable service I was deprived during the siege by his severe illness) and their Acting Commandant, Lieut. Home, have done excellent service, and give the best possible promise of being an efficient and soldier-like corps".+
Early in 1858 the following order (G.G.O. No. 615) appeared:
"The following orders issued by the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab are confirmed - No. 191. In conformity to instructions contained in G. of I.M.D. letter No. 1688 of 20th January, 1858, the Corps of Muzbees at present on Field Service under the command of Lieut. Gulliver, Bengal Engineers, is brought on the strength of the Punjab Irregular Force, and will henceforth or until further orders be designated the 24th Regiment (Pioneer) of Punjab Infantry".
The establishment was reduced by the Punjab Order No. 191 referred to, ten companies from the eleven into which it had grown during the siege, with an Indian establishment of twenty Native Officers, 120 N.C.O.'s, 20 buglers and 800 privates, a total of 960 Indian ranks.
* Three companies, it will be remembered, had not joined at Delhi. +At this time, there came into the charge of the Regiment by hands of Jemadar Tara Singh a treasure possession, viz. a copy of the Guru Grant Sahib, or copy of The Scriptures of the Govindi Sikhs. This was treasured in the Temple of the 32nd and Pioneer Corps centre till the disbandment in 1932, when, in a handsome glass casket, it was presented to the Sikh Temple at Delhi. The casket bears a silver plate stating that it was presented to the temple by General Sir Alexander Cobbe, Colonel of the Corps of Sikh Pioneers.
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