१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

CAWNPORE AND JHANSI
station of the English. In Cawnpore, there were the 1st,
53rd and 56th Sepoy infantry, and a regiment of Sepoy
cavalry—altogether three thousand Indian soldiers. The
cavalry was wholly in the hands of the English and,
besides, they had about a hundred English soldiers. The
chief officer of the whole army was Sir Hugh Wheeler.
Sir Hugh Wheeler was an old and very popular comman-
der among the Sepoys. He had done good service in the
Sikh and in the Afghan campaigns. The Government knew
full well that the Sepoys were very much attached to him
and nobody entertained any serious suspicion that secret
societies were working among the Sepoy lines at
Cawnpore.
About the 15th of May, a peculiar agitation was to be
seen in the whole of Cawnpore city. At the news of the
doings of the Meerut Sepoys, their Cawnpore comrades
had lost their usual stolidity and looked perturbed. But,
the English authorities heard the news only on the 18th.
As the telegraph communication to Delhi was cut, Sir
Hugh Wheeler sent scouts to obtain correct information
as to the extent of the disaffection. These scouts met on
their way a Sepoy coming from Delhi, but he flatly refused
to give any information to the Feringhis ! It is a great
mystery to English officers how, in 1857, the Sepoys
quickly got from distant points news of which the English
authorities, with their telegraph system, were ignorant.¹
The Sepoys had no necessity of learning of the Meerut
rising after it took place ; for, even a day before the events,
human telegraphs had conveyed to them all detailed infor-
mation ! It is only after the English, at last, got the news
of the Meerut rising that they began to think seriously

1. " Indeed one of the most remarkable features of the mutiny
   has been the certainty and the rapidity with which the natives were
   made aware of all important movements in distant places. The
   means of communication is chiefly by runners who forwarded mes-
   sages from station to station with extraordinary celerity."—Narrative,
   page 33.
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