LORD WOLSELEY UNDER FIRD.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5159, 30 July 1885, Page 3

LORD WOLSELEY UNDER FIRD.

The nineteenth was one of the regiments destined for China which Lord Canning's swift steamer contrived to catch en route and divert to India to aid in the quelling of the great mutiDy that had broken out with scffull an unexpectedness. The gallant "Perthshire Greybroeks" were included in the column which Sir Colin Campbell led from Cawnpore to the second relief of Lucknow. From the Dilkoosha Sir Colin had sent the " Black Watch" down the slope on the Martiniere. The Ninety third and the Sikhs had made ghastly shambles of the once beautiful Secunderabagh garden. Peel's men of the Shannon were slogging with tlfeir ship's guns into the massive structure of the ShonNujeof, preparatory to carrying it by eacalade out of the branches of a tree which grew against the walls of the shrine. Wclseley, with his two companies of the Ninetieth, wbb 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 a couple 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 " fche midst of a hailstorm of bullets, pulling down the flag of the mutineers from the staff in its roof, 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 force separating the relieving force from their environed fellow countrymen; Wolseley led detachment forward to the assault of the Notee Eahal, which in turn was taken and cleared after hard fighting and severe loss. 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 who 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 marchiDg and fighting all over Oude, whereby the late Sir Hope Grant contributed so greatly towards the stamping out of the great re Tolt, ard on the final extinguishment of which Wolseley found himself a brevet Lieutenant Colonel at the age 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.