Industrial Age · South Asia · War

1857

Cawnpore Massacre

July 15, 1857

After the surrender of the British garrison at Cawnpore, some two hundred British women and children were hacked to death by the sepoy rebels in the Bibighar, their bodies thrown down a well. The atrocity made reconciliation impossible; the British retribution, when it came, was itself terrible. The Great Revolt had produced its most famous single horror.