Repulse of a Sortie, 1857. Courtesy of the National Army Museum, London. Accession no. NAM 1971-02-33-495-9. This was a strange conflict in which most of the men fighting on both sides were Indian, although the artist gives the impression here that predominantly British soldiers are fighting off the darker-skinned native forces. William Dalrymple writes that "something that is often forgotten in accounts of life on the Ridge" is that "just over half the soldiers, and almost all the vast support staff, were not British, but Indian" (189-90).
Text by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the National Army Museum and (2) mention this site. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Related Material
- The Epic of the Race: The Indian Uprisings of 1857
- Representations of the Indian Mutiny in Higher Victorian Journalism
- Review of Stuart Flinders' Cult of a Dark Hero: Nicholson of Delhi
Bibliography
Dalrymple, William. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007. [Review]
"Repulse of a Sortie, 1857." National Army Museum. Web. 30 May 2020
Created 30 May 2020