3 - Dancing by the Lurid Light of Flames
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Summary
Introduction
In February 1858 the superintendent of Meerut jail, H.M. Cannon, submitted the usual annual report to the government of the North-West Provinces. There was, however, nothing ordinary about his account. As Superintendent Cannon explained, he was not able to provide a formal report because rebels had either burnt or destroyed all the jail records during the previous year's disturbances. Instead, he presented a narrative of what had happened when mutiny broke out in the town. At the beginning of May, 85 sowars of the third regiment of light cavalry were sentenced to imprisonment by a general court martial, 80 for ten years and five for five years. The prisoners arrived at the old jail, which was situated about two miles from the cantonment, on the morning of 9 May. What Cannon did not mention was that these men had been tried over the previous three days for having refused to take the cartridges issued to them for use on parade when ordered to do so by their superior officer, Brevet-Colonel G.M.C. Smyth. These were of course the fated greased cartridges that allegedly were smeared in animal fat and coated with gelatine paper.
J.W. Kaye, who recorded an account of the events at Meerut that day in his classic account History of the Sepoy War in India, described what happened next. Guards brought the prisoners before their regiment. They stripped them of their uniforms and accoutrements.
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- Information
- The Indian Uprising of 1857–8Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion, pp. 55 - 94Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2007