this rebellion by the natives was quite effectively captured in a series of novels by V.A. Stuart.
"every dead British child became a slaughtered angel, every woman a violated innocent, every sepoy a black-faced, blood-crazed savage. There was little room for mercy in the hearts of the British troops... and in a debate at the Oxford Union, one speaker roused his audience by declaring,"When every gibbet is red with blood, when the ground in front of every cannon is strewn with rags and flesh and shattered bone, then talk of mercy. Then you may find some to listen." Lord Palmerston articulated the feelings of most Britons when he described the atrocities committed by the mutineers as acts "such as to be imagined and perpetrated only by demons sallying forth from the lowest depths of hell". In the early months of the British recovery, few sepoys were left alive after their positions were overrun. The British soldiers seemed to have made a collective decision not to take prisoners and most actions ended with a frenzied use of the bayonet. On the line of march whole villages were sometimes hanged for some real or imagined sympathy for the mutineers. ... Later, when prisoners started to be taken and trials held, those convicted of mutiny were lashed to the muzzles of cannon and had a roundshot fired through their body. It was a particularly cruel punishment with a religious dimension in that by blowing the body to pieces the victim lost all hope of entering paradise."
I am SO into sallying forth, and discussions of gibbets.
