Chillianwallah - Day of Battle

On January 9, 1849, the 29th broke camp and joined the pursuit of the Sikh forces.  Three days later on January 12th, the regiment was within 14 miles of the Sikh army which had its back to the Jhellum River and its front covered by "a thick belt of jungle,"(the map in the last post gives a general sense of the locations).  By now William and his fellow soldiers must have known a battle was imminent.  As far as we know, William had never been in combat before and it's impossible to know what emotions he was experiencing.  Certainly from the day of his enlistment, he must have  understood that sooner or later, this day would come.

During the American Civil War, a soldier's initial combat experience was called "going to the see the elephant." It's a wonderful expression which vividly captures the uniqueness of the moment.  The same analogy doesn't work in William Winder's case because elephants were nothing new to him. Regardless of the imagery, however, it promised to be an unforgettable experience, assuming he lived long enough to reflect on it.

Map of the Chillianwallah battlefield, William was in Mountain's brigade slightly to the right of center

The next day, January 13th, the regiment resumed the march at 7:00 a.m., moving through jungle described in typical British understatement as "no inconsiderable impediment."  By mid afternoon they reached the village of Chillianwallah, about eight miles from the Sikh positions.  Because the British always had smaller numbers than any opponent in India, their preferred strategy was to attack as quickly as possible.  Given the time of day, however, Gough decided to make camp and attack in the morning.  Probably well aware of the British preference for the offensive, Sere Sing tried to lure them into a premature attack by moving his army and artillery forward and opening fire on the British.  In response, a decision much criticized after the fact, Gough changed his mind and ordered an assault.

British Assault at Chillianwallah

William Winder was most likely helping make camp when the regimental drummer began beating a call to arms.  William and his mates fell into formation, probably a column of fours to facilitate quicker movement through the rugged terrain.  As the regiment and the rest of the army advanced, an hour long British bombardment tried to soften up the Sikh resistance.  All told the British army had 12000 men which meant they were outnumbered 3 to 1, not quite Agincourt, but certainly not the best odds.  In addition the Sikhs were on the defensive where they could put their artillery skills to best advantage.

Dressed in red coats and blue pants with shako hats, the 29th most likely stayed four abreast until they were about a mile from the Sikh positions.  At that point drum beats ordered the men to move into a line for the impending charge.  If the British core strategy of attack first was straightforward, their means of implementing the strategy was equally direct.  Since their Brown Bess rifles had an effective range of only about 200 yards, William and his mates would launch a bayonet charge with the goal of "persuading [the] opponent to seek an urgent appointment elsewhere."

View of the Chillianwallah battlefield from behind the British lines - the Himalaya Mountains are in the background

For the attackers, the challenge was getting close enough to the Sikhs to carry out their plan.  During the attack the rate of march was controlled by a drumbeat designed to set a pace neither too slow (to get out of the danger zone as quickly as possible) nor too fast (to prevent sapping their energy for the final charge).  At Chillianwallah the advance was made more difficult by the "thick thorny and dense jungle" which not only slowed them down, but made it all but impossible to maintain their line.  To make matters worse, the trees were full of sharpshooters, not only firing on the 29th, but also signaling the  regiment's location to the Sikh artillery.

Chillianwallah Monument about 1853

As William and the 29th came within range, the Sikh artillery opened up with the first of three deadly forms of fire.  First came shrapnel, cast iron balls containing powder and musket balls which exploded above their heads raining "a hail of death" on William and the others.  Typically the Sikhs could fire 19 different rounds of shrapnel before the British got within 700 yards of their lines. The shrapnel bombardment was usually followed by multiple volleys of round shot, iron cannonballs fired at a flat trajectory which bounced along the ground taking out anything in its path, including soldiers.  The dense jungle may have limited the use or at least the effectiveness of round shot, but that small blessing ended when the 29th finally broke out of the jungle some 300-500 yards from the Sikh positions.

British Monument at Chillianwallah giving a sense of the landscape

With the red coats of the 29th now in plain view, the Sikh gunners opened up with canister (sometimes known as grape), large tins filled with iron balls.  In crossing that last distance,  William and his mates would have been subjected to 10 different rounds of this deadly fire. Each volley released a lethal barrage of flying metal, the closer to the Sikh lines, the denser the killing zone.  This was bad enough, but unfortunately the two native regiments on each flank hadn't maintained the pace so the 29th came out of the jungle alone, allowing the Sikh gunners to concentrate their fire solely on them.

Recognizing the center of the British line was at risk, the commander of the 29th ordered a charge. William now faced the ultimate test of a soldier.  Studies have shown that at this point adrenal and other substances create a "flight or fight" reaction.  The first impulse is to flee, but if resisted, the soldier becomes almost oblivious to the danger.  Based on what follows, it seems clear William successfully passed the test.  Although the British soldiers had marched seven miles just to get to the battlefield and then struggled through another mile of difficult terrain under constant artillery fire, they broke out of the jungle with a shout of "pride and triumph," fired a tremendous volley and launched their bayonet charge.

Text of the British monument at Chillianwallah

No longer able to use their artillery, an "immense line of [Sikh] infantry" unleashed the "infernal clatter of musketry" when the 29th was only 300 yards away.  Most likely it was at this point that William was hit in the left side with a musket ball.  Immediately after firing the Sikhs threw away their muskets and drew their dreaded tulwar swords.  The defenders used these weapons with deadly effect, putting about 60 men out of action with sword wounds alone, but they could not withstand the force of the 29th's charge and fell back, leaving the 29th in possession of the field and a dozen pieces of artillery.  However the 29th was in an exposed position and lost some of the captured artillery while beating back Sikh counter attacks.  Finally the Sikhs withdrew into their defensive lines and darkness ended the day's fighting.

British Cavalry charge at Chillianwallah

All told the 29th lost 33 killed and 200 wounded, a 28% casualty rate.  Among the wounded was William Winder.  Assuming the experience was similar to that of an American Civil War soldier, William's first sensation was not pain, but numbness like being hit with a club or hammer.  Pain, however, was not far behind followed by thirst exacerbated by being already dehydrated from the day's exertions.  To make things even more unpleasant, musket balls, unlike modern bullets which are sterilized by the heat produced by traveling at high speeds, almost always carried dirt, skin and clothing into the wound causing more pain and bleeding, almost always leading to infection.

24th Regiment at Chillianwallah 

The good news for William (and for us), is that the musket ball hadn't hit him slightly to the right as wounds to the abdomen were almost always fatal.  In spite of his wound, William most likely walked off the battlefield under his own power which was a good thing as neither side was in the habit of taking prisoners.  His destination was a hospital which was almost as dangerous as the battlefield.  Although anesthesia had been discovered, germ theory was unknown and the risk of death from infection was high.  William was listed as being in the hospital for the rest of January so his wound appears to be more than a scratch and left a scar he carried for the rest of his life.

Sikh cannon captured at Chillianwallah

After the Sikh retreat, the British army was too exhausted for pursuit and withdrew to Chillianwallah for water.  Heavy rain began at 8:00 that night and prevented the resumption of hostilities the next day, with both sides claiming victory.  The British suffered heavy losses, another regiment, the 24th lost 214 killed and another 266 wounded, casualty rates comparable to the first day on the Somme in World War I, the bloodiest day in British history. Total British casualties were about 2300 and when word of the losses and Gough's  "head-on" attack on a strong position reached England, there was tremendous outrage beginning with Queen Victoria herself.  Charles Napier was appointed to replace Gough with the 79 year old Duke of Wellington telling him, "If you don't go, I must."  But putting such a change into effect was no easy matter and before Napier reached India, William Winder and the 29th had fought a final battle against the Sikhs.