MUTINY MEMOIRS
BEING
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES
OF THE
GREAT SEPOY REVOLT OF 1857

BY
Colonel A. R. D. MACKENZIE, C.B.,
HONY. A.-D.-C. TO THE VICEROY

Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit

Allahabad
AT THE PIONEER PRESS: 1891

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE MOST HONORABLE
The Marquess of Lansdowne,
G.M.S.I., G.C.M.G., G.M.I.E.,
VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA.
THIS SHORT RECORD OF PERSONAL ADVENTURE
DURING THE GREAT INDIAN MUTINY OF
1857 IS, BY PERMISSION, AND
WITH PROFOUND RESPECT,
DEDICATED BY

PREFACE.

The reminiscences contained in the following pages were originally published in the columns of the Pioneer; and it is with the kind permission of the Editor of that Journal that I am enabled to re-issue them in the form of this little book.

They do not pretend to any merit but that of truth. In that respect they may claim to present a record of actual events, and thus to bring before the Reader, however imperfectly, a rough sketch of the great Indian Mutiny such as it appeared to the eyes of a young Subaltern Officer of Native Cavalry, who had the good fortune to be engaged in its suppression.

CONTENTS.

I.
THE OUTBREAK.

In jotting down the reminiscences and sketches contained in the following pages, my aim is to record simply and truthfully certain episodes of a stirring period of Indian military history.

Englishmen can never cease to be interested in the story of the great Sepoy Mutiny; and I trust that even so modest a contribution as mine to the narrative of some of its details may not be considered superfluous. Often have I been urged to give the semi-permanence of printer's ink to some story told over the walnuts and the wine; and at last I am tempted to take advantage of the enforced leisure which has been imposed on me by the recent regulations limiting tenure of regimental command, and placing me, with many other better men, unwillingly en retraite, while still in the prime of life and energy.

If I am compelled, in the course of these pages, to speak of myself and my own doings, I trust that I may be absolved from the imputation of being prompted by vainglorious motives; and that my excuse may be found in the evident impossibility of keeping the first personal pronoun out of a personal narrative. My having been mixed up in the events which I propose to describe is clearly an accident for which, though I may apologise, I am not responsible; and perhaps if I had not been engaged in them I should have known a good deal less about them. Whether that is an advantage, or the reverse, to a raconteur, is, of course, a matter of opinion. Certainly, a witness is much less hampered in his statements if he is not limited and bound down by the fact of his having been actually present at the scenes described in his evidence. His imaginative faculties are thereby quickened and enriched.

Hitherto, though often sorely tempted, I have refrained from publishing any account of those details of events during the Mutiny at which I was myself present; for, as will be seen, these details involve certain corrections in narratives which have been, for want of fuller information, accepted as complete. While perfectly true, in most points, so far as they