“These are They which Came
  Out of Great Tribulation.”

Chiseled in the wall that marks the circle of the well are these words: 

“Sacred to the Perpetual Memory of a great Company of Christian people, chiefly Women and Children, who near this Spot were cruelly Murdered by the Followers of the Rebel Nana Dhundu Panth of Bithur, and cast, the Dying with the Dead, into the Well below on the XVth day of July, MDCCCLVII.”

The story of Cawnpore has no parallel in history.  It might have been repeated at Peking two or three years ago, for the conditions existed there.  In the summer of 1857 sixty-one English artillerymen and about 3,000 sepoys were attached to the garrison at that place, where about 800 foreigners resided.  Upon the 6th of June the native troops rose in mutiny, sacked the paymaster’s office and burned several of the public buildings.  The frightened foreigners fled into one of the larger buildings of the government, where they hastily threw up fortifications and resisted a siege for three weeks.  Their position having become untenable, they arranged terms of capitulation with Nana Sahib, the leader of the mutiny, who had been refused the throne and the allowance paid by the British government to the late maharaja, although the latter had adopted him in legal form and had proclaimed him his heir.  This was one of the principal reasons for the mutiny, and without considering the question of justice or injustice, Nana Sahib satiated his desire for vengeance under the most atrocious circumstances.  Having accepted the surrender of the little garrison upon his personal assurances of their security and safe conduct to Allahabad, he placed the survivors, about 700 in number, in boats upon the Ganges River and bade them good-by.  As soon as the last man was on board and the word was given to start down the stream, the blast of a bugle was heard.  At that signal the crews of the boats leaped into the water, leaving the passengers without oars, and immediately the straw roofs of the boats burst into flames and showers of bullets were fired from lines of infantry drawn up on the banks.  Most of those who jumped into the water to escape the flames were shot down by the bullets.  And many who escaped both and endeavored to reach the shore were sabered by cavalrymen who awaited them.  One boat load escaped.

The survivors of this incident, about 200 in number, were led back into the city, past their old homes, now in smoldering ruins, and were locked up in two rooms twenty feet long and ten feet wide.  They had no beds, no furniture, no blankets, not even straw to lie upon.  They were given one meal a day of coarse bread and water, and after suffering untold agonies for fifteen days were called out in squads and hacked to pieces by the ruffians of Nana’s guard.  Their bodies were cast into the well, which was afterward filled with earth and has since been the center of a memorial park.