File:P08. The Redan Battery (cropped).jpg

English: Plate 8. The Redan Battery.

This is the Redan Battery, and it is quite unnecessary for me to inform any member of the Lucknow garrison that that individual looking out of the tent, so thoroughly perforated with musket-bullets,— evidently on the watch to offer a passing friend the best of everything his scanty means may afford,— is its gallant commander, Sam Lawrence, of the 32nd Foot. It is impossible for me to call him “Captain,” although he has since obtained that rank, which was never more hardly or more honourably earned. Strange to say, Sam, although commanding one of the most dangerous posts; a volunteer, too, upon every sortie; and one of the biggest men in the garrison, escaped throughout without a scratch. Some of his comrades aver that he principally exposed his burly personage upon these desperate sallies in the hope of obtaining the wherewithal to replenish a stomach which, he alleged, suffered sadly from the uncompromising diet furnished by the Commissariat. How far this may be true I cannot tell; but it is certain that he was ever foremost on these occasions. The bridge to the left is the iron bridge leading to cantonments, which was within the range of our guns, and consequently not much frequented by the enemy. The post was exposed to a very heavy musketry-fire from the rebel sharpshooters stationed in the adjoining houses and mosques. Many men were hit in the battery by bullets that came through the loopholes. It was under that tree to the right that poor Mr. Ommanney, the Judicial Commissioner, received the wound which ended in his death. It was with the object of destroying this position that the enemy sprang their first mine on the memorable 20th of July. The attack, too, which they subsequently made upon the Redan was very determined. In fact, they evidently would have liked extremely to carry the battery; but Sam Lawrence and his band were in no mood to humour them, and their loss was always very heavy.

Sketches & Incidents of the Siege of Lucknow. From Drawings Made during the Siege, by Clifford Henry Mecham, Lieutenant Madras Army, with descriptive notices by George Couper, esq. late secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Oude. First edition, tinted lithographed title with vignette, 27 views on 17 tinted lithographed plates, folio, Day & Son, published 1 Oct 1858.