Cawnpore (Kanpur) was the scene of a bitter struggle during the Indian mutiny and became a symbol of the violence of that conflict. Its British garrison, besieged for nineteen days, was obliged to surrender to Nana Sahib who, on hearing of the approach of Sir Henry Havelock's relieving army, ordered all prisoners to be killed. Havelock retook the town and his forces wreaked a fearful revenge. However, the garrison he left behind proved unable to hold on and Tatya Tope, Nana Sahib's general, effected a reoccupation. It was not until December 1857 that Sir Colin Campbell's army achieved the final reconquest.

David Anthony Washbrook

Cawnpore earlier variant spelling of Kanpur in northern India, the site of a massacre of British soldiers and European families in July 1857, during the Indian Mutiny.