18 NOVEMBER 1857 · CHITTAGONG
The rising.
Three companies of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry rise against the Company. They open the jail, take the treasury and three elephants, and march out of the town with their families.
Malegarh · Latu · Karimganj
18·12·1857
Twenty-sixfellonourhill.
Twenty kilometres from Karimganj town, on a hillock at Latu by the Bangladesh border, sepoys of the 1857 uprising made their stand. Hindu and Muslim soldiers, marching from Chittagong toward Manipur, met the Company's troops at dawn. This is their story, and it happened here.
0of twenty-six
LATE NOVEMBER – DECEMBER · HILL TIPPERA
Into the jungle.
With the roads west closed against them, they turn east into the forests of Tripura. The Maharaja of Tripura sides with the British. The new plan is to cut through south-east Sylhet and Cachar, and reach Manipur.
15–17 DECEMBER · SYLHET
Eighty miles in thirty-six hours.
W. J. Allen orders the Sylhet Light Infantry to stop them. Major Robert Byng marches 213 men out of Sylhet on the 15th and reaches Pratapgarh, eighty miles away, by forced marches in a day and a half.
17 DECEMBER, NIGHT · TOWARD LATU
Twenty-eight miles in the dark.
The engineer G. N. Dodd rides ahead and learns the sepoys have turned for Latu. The tired column marches all night through hills, jungle and swamp, losing its way in the darkness before dawn.
18 DECEMBER, 7 A.M. · LATU
Dawn at Latu.
The sepoys have camped five miles off and are moving toward the Latu bazaar. Byng's men, about 155 by now, half of them Hindustani and the rest Gurkhas, Manipuris and Assamese, form up among the stalls. A hillock rises over the road.
DECEMBER 1857 – JANUARY 1858 · CACHAR
Into the hills, and silence.
The survivors slip into the jungle and cross into Cachar. A Manipuri prince, Narendrajit Singh, joins them. Hunger, wounds and British columns wear them down; most never come out of the hills.
The morning of 18 December
Ten moments on one hill.
Almost everything we know about the fight comes from one report, written the next day by the British officer who took command. The sepoys left no account of their own. Read it knowing whose eyes it was written through.
Before dawn01
Five miles off.
Dodd rides ahead in the dark. Half a mile from Latu he reports back: the sepoys spent the night at a village five miles away and will be here within the hour.
~6 a.m.02
Into the bazaar.
The detachment has barely formed up in the Latu bazaar when a Manipuri left behind to watch the road runs in. The sepoys are close.
7 a.m.03
A column 250 yards long.
They come on in good marching order, a column of sections, a native officer riding a pony at its head.
80 yards04
The first volley.
At eighty yards the firing starts. The Company's men charge with the bayonet, and the sepoys break into the jungle, then climb a hillock above the road and fire down from its height. That hillock is Malegarh.
The call05
Across the line.
From the hill the sepoys shout to the Hindustani soldiers below, calling on them to come over.
“by the ties of caste, brotherhood, and religion, to come over and join them”
Minutes in06
The Major falls.
Major Byng rides up with the colours and stands in the open, in the line of fire. A bullet strikes him; he dies within five minutes. A shout of triumph goes up from the hill.
1½ hours07
Fire from the height.
For an hour and a half the two sides trade fire. The senior subadar of the sepoys is shot through the head, and the hillock is finally taken.
After08
Twenty-six.
The sepoys withdraw south through the jungle, carrying as many wounded as they can. Twenty-six of them lie dead on the field. On the Company's side, Byng, three sepoys and a bugler are dead, and two are wounded.
Left behind09
What they carried.
About 2,300 rupees in cash, eighteen stands of arms, and brass cooking pots: the possessions of soldiers who had been marching with their families for a month.
Afternoon10
Ram Deen.
A havildar named Ram Deen is found hiding in the jungle nearby. He is tried by drum-head court martial and shot the same day. The dead are buried on the hillock where they fell.
One hill, both sides
Men of the same soil stood on both sides of one hill.
The rising carried Hindus and Muslims: Rajab Ali and Jamal Khan, Ajodhya Prasad Singh, Ram Deen. Across the road stood Gurkhas, Manipuris and Assamese in the Company's uniform. Malegarh belongs to all of them, and to the valley that remembers them.
26sepoys left dead on the hill
80miles the Company's column marched in 36 hours
28miles more through the night, to Latu
1½hours of fire from the hillock
155men in Byng's line that morning
₹2,300found left behind, with 18 stands of arms
7Company casualties, the Major among the dead
169years since, this December
The people
Names from the hill.
Some are known only from a single line in a report. Most of the twenty-six are not known at all.
Havildar · Chittagong
Rajab Ali
Named as the leader of the Chittagong rising. What became of him is disputed: lost in the jungles near Manipur, or captured and hanged at Chittagong.
Sepoy · 34th BNI
Jamal Khan
Named alongside Rajab Ali in leading the regiments out of Chittagong.
Subedar
Ajodhya Prasad Singh
Remembered in local accounts as the sepoys' commander at Latu, praised for his skill in the field.
Sepoy
Sher Khan
Named in a regional account among the rising's leaders on the march.
Sepoy
Rizbul Khan
Also named in the same regional account. Little else is recorded.
Havildar
Ram Deen
Found hiding near Latu on the afternoon of the battle, court-martialled on the spot and shot.
Senior subadar
Name not recorded
The sepoys' senior officer on the hill, shot through the head during the fight. The report never gives his name.
Buried at Malegarh
The twenty-six
Their names were not written down by the men who counted them. A memorial at the site carries the few that are known.
Major · Sylhet Light Infantry
Robert Palmer Byng
Commandant of the regiment. Led the forced march from Sylhet and was killed minutes into the fight.
Lieutenant · Adjutant
J. T. Sherer
Took command when Byng fell, and wrote the report that is our main record of the day.
Executive Engineer
G. N. Dodd
A civilian who volunteered as a scout, rode ahead in the night, and led the second company in the charge.
Jemadar
Gunga Ram Bist
An Indian officer of the Company's column, singled out in the report for directing its fire.
Assistant-Surgeon
T. Dillon
Tended the wounded under fire through the battle.
Official, Sylhet
W. J. Allen
Head of the district's administration, who ordered the column out to intercept the sepoys.
Manipuri prince
Narendrajit Singh
Joined the sepoys in Cachar in January 1858. Wounded and captured, he was transported to the Andaman Islands.
Lungla, Sylhet
Souchh Ali Khan
Forced to feed the sepoys as they passed. His family later struggled to prove it had not sided with them.
Maharaja of Tripura
Ishan Chandra Manikya
Asked by the British to stop the sepoys at the Tripura border, and did so.
Lieutenant
Ross
Led the second column that caught the survivors again after they entered Cachar.
Read it carefully
Where the record disagrees.
We set out what the sources say, side by side, rather than pick the version we like.
The date
The dispatchWritten at Latoo on 19 December, it says the fight was "yesterday": 18 December 1857.
Other accountsSome later local accounts give 19 December.
How many marched
At LatuAbout 200, by Gait's history.
At ChittagongAbout 300 in Tatwanidhi's account, about 400 in others.
The Company's losses
The official returnOne officer, three sepoys and a bugler killed; two wounded.
Local accountsByng and five soldiers killed, one badly wounded.
Rajab Ali's fate
LostEscaped into the forests near Manipur and was never found.
HangedA Bangladeshi biography says he was captured and hanged at Chittagong.
The name
MalegarhTatwanidhi calls the hillock the malgar, the treasury hill.
Ron TilaSome accounts call it Ron Tila, the battle hill.
Malegarh today
The graves are still on the hill.
The hillock at Latu sits on the India–Bangladesh border, about 20 km from Karimganj town. The sepoys lie where they fell. A memorial carries the names that are known, and the district administration keeps what was found on the field.
1 pistol2 swords3 cannons
Every 18 December the district, the Border Security Force and local groups gather at the hill for Malegarh Divas. Most of India has never heard of it. We want that to change.
Malegarh Divas · 18 December
—
days to go
Come to Latu with SYMI. We walk to the hill together at dawn, the hour it began.
Join us at Latu →The Malegarh line
Twenty-six dots. One hill.
Every piece in our clothing line carries the mark of the hill and twenty-six dots, one for each sepoy who fell. Made by a women's cooperative in the valley; the surplus goes back to the community.
See the lineMove across to see the collection