The siege of Lucknow was somewhat different.  When the mutiny broke out Sir Henry Lawrence, the governor, concentrated his small force of British soldiers, with eleven women and seven children, in his residency, which stood in the center of a park of sixty acres.  It was a pretentious stone building, with a superb portico and massive walls, and protected by deep verandas of stone.  Anticipating trouble, he had collected provisions and ammunition and was quite well prepared for a siege, although the little force around him was attacked by more than 30,000 merciless, bloodthirsty fanatics.  The situation was very much as it was at Peking, only worse, and the terrific fire that was kept up by the sepoys may be judged by the battered stump of an old tree which still stands before the ruins of the residency.  Although about three feet in diameter, it was actually cut down by bullets.

On the second day of the siege, while Sir Henry Lawrence was instructing Captain Wilson, one of his aids, as to the distribution of rations, a shell entered his apartment, exploded at his side and gave him a mortal wound.  With perfect coolness and calm fortitude he appointed Major Banks his successor, instructed him in details as to the conduct of the defense, exhorted the soldiers of the garrison to their duty, pledged them never to treat with the rebels, and under no circumstances to surrender.  He gave orders that he should be buried “without any fuss, like a British soldier,” and that the only epitaph upon his tombstone should be: 

“Here lies Henry Lawrence, Who Tried to do his Duty; May God have Mercy upon his soul.”

He died upon the Fourth of July.  Upon the 16th Major Banks, his successor in command, was killed and the authority devolved upon Captain Inglis, whose widow, the last survivor of the siege, died in London Feb. 4, 1904.  The deaths averaged from fifteen to twenty daily, and most of the people were killed by an African sharpshooter who occupied a commanding post upon the roof of a neighboring house and fired through the windows of the residency without ever missing his victim.  The soldiers called him “Bob the Nailer.”  The latter part of August he was finally killed, but not until after he had shot dozens of men, women and children among the besieged.  In order to protect themselves from his shots and those from other directions the windows of the residency were barricaded, which shut out all the air and ventilation, and the heat became almost intolerable.  A plague of flies set in which was so terrible that the nervous women and children frequently became frantic and hysterical.