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I am aware of the countless threads that exist on this subject which I am linking at the bottom this post. These inputs are from various sources including that of the 36th Sikhs & the life of Lt Col Haughton, who was in Command of this Battalion when this happened .
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36th Sikhs -Saragarhi : A Story of the Brave
The ruins of Saragarhi
When the Afridi and Orakzai clans rose against the Government of India in August, 1897, LT Col Haughton with his regiment , the 36th Sikhs was holding the forts and fortified posts on the Samana range, which runs westward from Hangu, an important post situated about twenty-five miles west of Kohat.
The main positions occupied by the 36th Sikhs on the crest of the Samana ridge were the two fortified posts known as Fort Lockhart (or Mastan)and Fort Cavagnari (or Gulistan), the former being about nine and the latter twelve miles west of Hangu.Both these forts, which had been erected soon after the Miranzai expedition under Sir William Lockhart in 1881, were rectangular in form, and had stone walls from twelve to fifteen feet in height. To each was attached a small hornwork, the walls of which were very much lower. The hornwork at Fort Gulistan is an enclosure about eighty yards long by thirty broad, having the fort on one side, and being surrounded by a wall of loose stones (in local parlance, a " sangar ") on the other three sides. This wall had been temporarily improved in places by logs of firewood, and by flour bags and kerosene tins filled with earth to give a little head cover to the troops.
The Ruins of Saragarhi showing the main entrance and Fort Lockhart in the distance
In addition to these, picquet posts, somewhat similarly protected, had been established at Saragarhi (about a mile and a half west of Fort Lockhart and a mile and three quarters east of Gulistan), Dhar, and Sartop, and at the Crag and Sangar picquets. These were built to accommodate each a garrison of from 25-50 men in strength. However,at Saragarhi, which was considered the most important of these minor forts, in that through it signaling communication was maintained between Forts Lockhart and Gulistan and along the Samana range, was held by twenty-one men only.
On August 25 information was received that a large force (or "lashkar," in local parlance) of Orakzais was assembling at Karappa, near the tri-junction of the Chagru, Sampagha, and Khanki valleys.The fighting strength of the Orakzais and of the Afridis is stated to be approximately 25 thousand men each.This force was afterwards estimated at 12000 men. It was considered inadvisable by those in chief military and political authority to precipitate hostilities by attacking this "lashkar."
The advantage of the initiative was thus lost, and one or two of the minor Samana posts suffered before help could be sent to them from Hangu. On August 27 this Orakzai force made a generalattack on the posts all along the Samana ridge. The police posts at Lakka and Saifuldarra, at the east end, were captured and destroyed. Soon after daybreak the enemy appeared in force on the Samana Suk, about a mile west of Fort Gulistan, which was held by Major Des Vceux with a hundred and fifty rifles of 36th Sikhs. When intelligence of this reached Lt Col Haughton at Fort Lockhart, he started at once with two British officers and 130 rifles to support Gulistan, In the mean time Major Des Vceux had reconnoitered towards Samana Suk, but,finding that the enemy mustered some thousands,retired, Lt Col Haughton, on his arrival,seeing that he was so outnumbered that any operation in the open was out of the question, withdrew all the troops inside the fort of Gulistan,The Orakzais occupying high ground about half a mile west of the fort opened on it a fire, which its inmates found very trying.
On reaching Gulistan,it was found the enemy had planted their standards and established themselves in force on the south and west of the fort, within from two hundred to four hundred yards of the walls. They had succeeded also in creeping up and setting fire to the thorn abattis, which was pegged down and weighted with stones, a few yards outside the hornwork. This fire had to be put out twice by a sortie of unarmed volunteers from the garrison under a heavy fire at very close range. The task was one of very great danger, but it was done, and gallantly done,under cover of the fire from the walls. Sunder Singh and Harma (or Harnam) Singh were the two sepoys who specially distinguished themselves in putting out the fire. This is only one of the many gallant acts performed by the 36th Sikhs during the frontier rising of 1897-98. Indeed,that very evening, after darkness fell, a second deed of daring was done. The growing severity of the enemy's fire argued increasing numbers, but in the dark nothing could be seen. A sudden rush was apprehended. In view of this contingency a great pile of wood had been prepared beforehand about a hundred yards outside the hornwork. It was decided to light it. Two sepoys, Wariam Singh and Gulab Singh, volunteered for this difficult and dangerous bit of work. Leaping over the wall, and running almost into the midst of the enemy, they accomplished it successfully, and got back without being hit.
The Orakzais had by this time, under cover of the dark, gathered in on all sides of the fort, and kept up a heavy fire, accompanied by shouts and yells and beating of tom toms, until midnight. This fiendish noise may have been intended to cloak some endeavor to crawl up to and undermine the walls, as at Charikar in November, 1841. If so, the bonfire and the alertness of the garrison defeated any such intent. When day (September 4) broke, they had withdrawn beyond effective rifle range. Later on they disappeared altogether. Colonel Haughton then returned with his detachment to Fort Lockhart. The Orakzais, seeing this, promptly returned to the attack, and throughout the night of September 4 kept up a heavy fire on the fort of Gulistan.
Saragarhi
When day broke on the 12th, the Orakzai- Afridi "lashkar" was seen to be in force near Gogra on the east, at the Samana Suk on the west, and round the Saragarhi post, thus severing Gulistan from Fort Lockhart. Their total number has been variously estimated at from 12 to 20 thousand.It was, therefore, no longer possible for Colonel Haughton to carry aid to Saragarhi or Gulistan, as he had done twice before. The enemy turned the brunt of their attack on the little post of Saragarhi. Thousands swarmed round it;other thousands invaded Gulistan ; while a third body of the enemy cut off communication with Fort Lockhart. It was impossible for either Haughton or Des Voeux to venture into the open with any part of their small garrisons in order to aid the little party in Saragarhi. At an early stage of the attack the Pathans tried to rush the post, but were repulsed with loss. They then took shelter behind the rocks,and behind folds and dips of the ground, and so,working their way under cover close up to the walls,maintained an incessant fire on the garrison. When the rush, was repulsed, two Pathans remained behind, crouched in the dead angle, where no fire could touch them, and set to work to dig down the walls.
This was an old and familiar trick in Pathan siege tactics. The garrison inside appeared to be quite unaware that these two men were at work undermining the wall. Major Des Voeux, who saw them clearly from Gulistan, endeavored to warn the garrison by signal, but was seemingly not successful. Lt Col Haughton, though Fort Lockhart was not actually attacked, could do little more than caution Saragarhi by signal not to waste the ammunition, of which they had four hundred rounds per man.
About midday he sent Lt Munn with a small party of the Royal Irish Regiment (men who had been left sick in the hospital by General Yeatman-Biggs), armed with Lee-Metford rifles, to a point a short distance from Fort Lockhart to try and create a diversion by long-range volleys.This had no effect. While the two men in the dead angle were steadily undermining the wall,the bulk of the assailants kept the attention of the garrison fully occupied. Such an incessant fire from a range of a few yards was kept up on the parapet that the defenders scarce dare show themselves.Under cover of this fire repeated attempts were made to set fire to and force the wooden doorway.
Some say the door was of wood only, others of wood studded with iron. When the news of the gallant defence and fall of Saragarhi post reached India, and when it became known that a wooden door and want of adequate flank defence had been the weak points that caused its fall, there was, and rightly, a strong feeling of indignation against the engineering negligence or incompetence that was responsible for the loss of the post and its gallant defenders. The door of the tower that defends the railway station at Chaman was found in the same state in 1897. Arrangements were then made to have that rectified. The selection of good sites for defensible posts on the north-west frontier of India is a task of great difficulty. To get a spot which is not commanded within rifle range, and which contains within it, or close under its walls, a good water-supply, is no easy matter. For careless construction there is no excuse. The men who put up wooden doorways ought to be left to defend them.
About three in the afternoon the signaler notified that ammunition was running short. Haughton then determined to make a final effort to help them. Leaving 70-80 men of his regiment behind under the command of Lieutenant Lillie,Royal Irish Regiment (left behind sick), and 2Lt Haslam (R.E.), he, with Lt Munn and ninety rifles ( 36th Sikhs), advanced cautiously towards Saragarhi. When he had advanced a thousand yards or so, he saw the enemy swarm over the walls and in at the doorway, and knew that all was over.
What had happened had been more clearly apparent to the garrison at Gulistan, Soon after three o'clock the wall at the dead angle was seen to fall in, leaving a large breach. Half an hour later the Pathans rushed the breach, at the same time forcing in the wooden door, which had been riddled and torn by rifle-fire. The Sikh sepoys fought to the bitter end. They knew that the traditions of Sikh and Pathan warranted neither the giving nor receiving of quarter. One sepoy secured the guard-room door inside, and used his rifle till he was burnt to death. His foes admit that he accounted for twenty of them before his end came. The capture of Saragarhi is said to have cost the Afridi-Orakzai Alliance from one hundred and eighty to two hundred lives. The Pathans,having destroyed the walls of the post and set fire to the buildings, left it.
Native Officers of 36th Sikhs , Tirah 1897
Inside that little post twenty-one men fighting unflinchingly for their lives ; outside thousands of Pathans working relentlessly to take the hated Sikh blood ; at Gulistan, two miles off, the garrison, themselves invested and powerless to help, noting, with an intensity of feeling which we can hardly realize, that slow but steady demolition of the " dead angle " wall ; and lastly. Colonel Haughton and his men at Fort Lockhart watching the scene with a terrible anxiety, and doing what was possible, in the face of intervening thousands of Pathans, to create a diversion in favour of the gallant few in Saragarhi, Nothing evidently was known at Fort Lockhart of the two men who were undermining the wall. When the imminence of danger seemed to justify the effort, however perilous, to aid the little garrison, Colonel Haughton pushed with his men to a distance of a thousand yards or more from Fort Lockhart. The risk of being cut off was great. The Pathans were threatening his right flank, and could only be checked by the fire from Fort Lockhart and by a flanking party detached to cover his right. How far he could have carried his emprise, had Saragarhi continued to hold out, or how it would have ended, we know not. He was the last man to leave a comrade unaided, if aid were possible. He was, however, destined to die, not in the relief of Saragarhi, but in covering the retreat at Shinkamar.
Lt Col Haughton, Commandant 36th Sikhs
"We may sorrow for the sacrifice of these brave soldiers, but the Sikh nation, while it lasts, will never forget the glory of the defence. A monument on the Samana spur near Fort Lockhart,and a cairn on the site of the Saragarhi post, commemorate the gallantry of the defenders.
The Pulpit with the lamp stand & collection box of Mullah Sayad Akbar
( Among the most interesting results of General Kempster's expedition were the
destruction of the residence—a double-storied house with a small mosque—of the Mulla Sayad Akbar, and the discovery in it of some curious documentary evidence as to the causes of the frontier outbreak of 1897. One document found there was a manifesto from the notorious Hadda Mullah stating that "the Sultan (of Turkey) had completely crushed the infidels—referring to the Graeco-Turkish War—in Europe, and had seized the approaches to India, and that the British being cut off from reinforcements, it was an auspicious moment for all Moslems to strike a blow for Islam." Other letters purporting to have come from General Ghulam Haidar, the Amir's Warden of the Marches, and other Afghan officials,
were also found. These documents helped to throw some light on the motives which, coupled with fanaticism and resentment at or dread of encroachment, prompted the trans-frontier Pathans to rise, fortunately seriatim and not en masse, in 1897.)
A subscription, raised through the instrumentality of the Pioneer, produced a sum of about 2000 pounds, which was utilized for the benefit of their wives and families.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/battle-of-saragarhi.36709/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/analysis-of-battle-of-saragarhi-myths-and-facts.333930/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/battle-of-saragarhi.92467/
----------------------------
36th Sikhs -Saragarhi : A Story of the Brave
When the Afridi and Orakzai clans rose against the Government of India in August, 1897, LT Col Haughton with his regiment , the 36th Sikhs was holding the forts and fortified posts on the Samana range, which runs westward from Hangu, an important post situated about twenty-five miles west of Kohat.
The main positions occupied by the 36th Sikhs on the crest of the Samana ridge were the two fortified posts known as Fort Lockhart (or Mastan)and Fort Cavagnari (or Gulistan), the former being about nine and the latter twelve miles west of Hangu.Both these forts, which had been erected soon after the Miranzai expedition under Sir William Lockhart in 1881, were rectangular in form, and had stone walls from twelve to fifteen feet in height. To each was attached a small hornwork, the walls of which were very much lower. The hornwork at Fort Gulistan is an enclosure about eighty yards long by thirty broad, having the fort on one side, and being surrounded by a wall of loose stones (in local parlance, a " sangar ") on the other three sides. This wall had been temporarily improved in places by logs of firewood, and by flour bags and kerosene tins filled with earth to give a little head cover to the troops.
The Ruins of Saragarhi showing the main entrance and Fort Lockhart in the distance
In addition to these, picquet posts, somewhat similarly protected, had been established at Saragarhi (about a mile and a half west of Fort Lockhart and a mile and three quarters east of Gulistan), Dhar, and Sartop, and at the Crag and Sangar picquets. These were built to accommodate each a garrison of from 25-50 men in strength. However,at Saragarhi, which was considered the most important of these minor forts, in that through it signaling communication was maintained between Forts Lockhart and Gulistan and along the Samana range, was held by twenty-one men only.
The advantage of the initiative was thus lost, and one or two of the minor Samana posts suffered before help could be sent to them from Hangu. On August 27 this Orakzai force made a generalattack on the posts all along the Samana ridge. The police posts at Lakka and Saifuldarra, at the east end, were captured and destroyed. Soon after daybreak the enemy appeared in force on the Samana Suk, about a mile west of Fort Gulistan, which was held by Major Des Vceux with a hundred and fifty rifles of 36th Sikhs. When intelligence of this reached Lt Col Haughton at Fort Lockhart, he started at once with two British officers and 130 rifles to support Gulistan, In the mean time Major Des Vceux had reconnoitered towards Samana Suk, but,finding that the enemy mustered some thousands,retired, Lt Col Haughton, on his arrival,seeing that he was so outnumbered that any operation in the open was out of the question, withdrew all the troops inside the fort of Gulistan,The Orakzais occupying high ground about half a mile west of the fort opened on it a fire, which its inmates found very trying.
On reaching Gulistan,it was found the enemy had planted their standards and established themselves in force on the south and west of the fort, within from two hundred to four hundred yards of the walls. They had succeeded also in creeping up and setting fire to the thorn abattis, which was pegged down and weighted with stones, a few yards outside the hornwork. This fire had to be put out twice by a sortie of unarmed volunteers from the garrison under a heavy fire at very close range. The task was one of very great danger, but it was done, and gallantly done,under cover of the fire from the walls. Sunder Singh and Harma (or Harnam) Singh were the two sepoys who specially distinguished themselves in putting out the fire. This is only one of the many gallant acts performed by the 36th Sikhs during the frontier rising of 1897-98. Indeed,that very evening, after darkness fell, a second deed of daring was done. The growing severity of the enemy's fire argued increasing numbers, but in the dark nothing could be seen. A sudden rush was apprehended. In view of this contingency a great pile of wood had been prepared beforehand about a hundred yards outside the hornwork. It was decided to light it. Two sepoys, Wariam Singh and Gulab Singh, volunteered for this difficult and dangerous bit of work. Leaping over the wall, and running almost into the midst of the enemy, they accomplished it successfully, and got back without being hit.
The Orakzais had by this time, under cover of the dark, gathered in on all sides of the fort, and kept up a heavy fire, accompanied by shouts and yells and beating of tom toms, until midnight. This fiendish noise may have been intended to cloak some endeavor to crawl up to and undermine the walls, as at Charikar in November, 1841. If so, the bonfire and the alertness of the garrison defeated any such intent. When day (September 4) broke, they had withdrawn beyond effective rifle range. Later on they disappeared altogether. Colonel Haughton then returned with his detachment to Fort Lockhart. The Orakzais, seeing this, promptly returned to the attack, and throughout the night of September 4 kept up a heavy fire on the fort of Gulistan.
Saragarhi
When day broke on the 12th, the Orakzai- Afridi "lashkar" was seen to be in force near Gogra on the east, at the Samana Suk on the west, and round the Saragarhi post, thus severing Gulistan from Fort Lockhart. Their total number has been variously estimated at from 12 to 20 thousand.It was, therefore, no longer possible for Colonel Haughton to carry aid to Saragarhi or Gulistan, as he had done twice before. The enemy turned the brunt of their attack on the little post of Saragarhi. Thousands swarmed round it;other thousands invaded Gulistan ; while a third body of the enemy cut off communication with Fort Lockhart. It was impossible for either Haughton or Des Voeux to venture into the open with any part of their small garrisons in order to aid the little party in Saragarhi. At an early stage of the attack the Pathans tried to rush the post, but were repulsed with loss. They then took shelter behind the rocks,and behind folds and dips of the ground, and so,working their way under cover close up to the walls,maintained an incessant fire on the garrison. When the rush, was repulsed, two Pathans remained behind, crouched in the dead angle, where no fire could touch them, and set to work to dig down the walls.
This was an old and familiar trick in Pathan siege tactics. The garrison inside appeared to be quite unaware that these two men were at work undermining the wall. Major Des Voeux, who saw them clearly from Gulistan, endeavored to warn the garrison by signal, but was seemingly not successful. Lt Col Haughton, though Fort Lockhart was not actually attacked, could do little more than caution Saragarhi by signal not to waste the ammunition, of which they had four hundred rounds per man.
About midday he sent Lt Munn with a small party of the Royal Irish Regiment (men who had been left sick in the hospital by General Yeatman-Biggs), armed with Lee-Metford rifles, to a point a short distance from Fort Lockhart to try and create a diversion by long-range volleys.This had no effect. While the two men in the dead angle were steadily undermining the wall,the bulk of the assailants kept the attention of the garrison fully occupied. Such an incessant fire from a range of a few yards was kept up on the parapet that the defenders scarce dare show themselves.Under cover of this fire repeated attempts were made to set fire to and force the wooden doorway.
Some say the door was of wood only, others of wood studded with iron. When the news of the gallant defence and fall of Saragarhi post reached India, and when it became known that a wooden door and want of adequate flank defence had been the weak points that caused its fall, there was, and rightly, a strong feeling of indignation against the engineering negligence or incompetence that was responsible for the loss of the post and its gallant defenders. The door of the tower that defends the railway station at Chaman was found in the same state in 1897. Arrangements were then made to have that rectified. The selection of good sites for defensible posts on the north-west frontier of India is a task of great difficulty. To get a spot which is not commanded within rifle range, and which contains within it, or close under its walls, a good water-supply, is no easy matter. For careless construction there is no excuse. The men who put up wooden doorways ought to be left to defend them.
About three in the afternoon the signaler notified that ammunition was running short. Haughton then determined to make a final effort to help them. Leaving 70-80 men of his regiment behind under the command of Lieutenant Lillie,Royal Irish Regiment (left behind sick), and 2Lt Haslam (R.E.), he, with Lt Munn and ninety rifles ( 36th Sikhs), advanced cautiously towards Saragarhi. When he had advanced a thousand yards or so, he saw the enemy swarm over the walls and in at the doorway, and knew that all was over.
What had happened had been more clearly apparent to the garrison at Gulistan, Soon after three o'clock the wall at the dead angle was seen to fall in, leaving a large breach. Half an hour later the Pathans rushed the breach, at the same time forcing in the wooden door, which had been riddled and torn by rifle-fire. The Sikh sepoys fought to the bitter end. They knew that the traditions of Sikh and Pathan warranted neither the giving nor receiving of quarter. One sepoy secured the guard-room door inside, and used his rifle till he was burnt to death. His foes admit that he accounted for twenty of them before his end came. The capture of Saragarhi is said to have cost the Afridi-Orakzai Alliance from one hundred and eighty to two hundred lives. The Pathans,having destroyed the walls of the post and set fire to the buildings, left it.
Native Officers of 36th Sikhs , Tirah 1897
Inside that little post twenty-one men fighting unflinchingly for their lives ; outside thousands of Pathans working relentlessly to take the hated Sikh blood ; at Gulistan, two miles off, the garrison, themselves invested and powerless to help, noting, with an intensity of feeling which we can hardly realize, that slow but steady demolition of the " dead angle " wall ; and lastly. Colonel Haughton and his men at Fort Lockhart watching the scene with a terrible anxiety, and doing what was possible, in the face of intervening thousands of Pathans, to create a diversion in favour of the gallant few in Saragarhi, Nothing evidently was known at Fort Lockhart of the two men who were undermining the wall. When the imminence of danger seemed to justify the effort, however perilous, to aid the little garrison, Colonel Haughton pushed with his men to a distance of a thousand yards or more from Fort Lockhart. The risk of being cut off was great. The Pathans were threatening his right flank, and could only be checked by the fire from Fort Lockhart and by a flanking party detached to cover his right. How far he could have carried his emprise, had Saragarhi continued to hold out, or how it would have ended, we know not. He was the last man to leave a comrade unaided, if aid were possible. He was, however, destined to die, not in the relief of Saragarhi, but in covering the retreat at Shinkamar.
Lt Col Haughton, Commandant 36th Sikhs
"We may sorrow for the sacrifice of these brave soldiers, but the Sikh nation, while it lasts, will never forget the glory of the defence. A monument on the Samana spur near Fort Lockhart,and a cairn on the site of the Saragarhi post, commemorate the gallantry of the defenders.
The Pulpit with the lamp stand & collection box of Mullah Sayad Akbar
( Among the most interesting results of General Kempster's expedition were the
destruction of the residence—a double-storied house with a small mosque—of the Mulla Sayad Akbar, and the discovery in it of some curious documentary evidence as to the causes of the frontier outbreak of 1897. One document found there was a manifesto from the notorious Hadda Mullah stating that "the Sultan (of Turkey) had completely crushed the infidels—referring to the Graeco-Turkish War—in Europe, and had seized the approaches to India, and that the British being cut off from reinforcements, it was an auspicious moment for all Moslems to strike a blow for Islam." Other letters purporting to have come from General Ghulam Haidar, the Amir's Warden of the Marches, and other Afghan officials,
were also found. These documents helped to throw some light on the motives which, coupled with fanaticism and resentment at or dread of encroachment, prompted the trans-frontier Pathans to rise, fortunately seriatim and not en masse, in 1897.)
A subscription, raised through the instrumentality of the Pioneer, produced a sum of about 2000 pounds, which was utilized for the benefit of their wives and families.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/battle-of-saragarhi.36709/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/analysis-of-battle-of-saragarhi-myths-and-facts.333930/
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/battle-of-saragarhi.92467/
