CAWNPORE, or CAWNPUR, India, capital city of the district of the same name, in the Northwest Provinces, on the right bank of the Ganges, which is here about a mile wide, 130 miles northwest from Allahabad. It is a modern town with nothing specially note worthy about it as regards site or buildings. There are several churches, a theatre, various military and other offices, high school, club, etc. It manufactures leather and cotton goods, has a large trade and is an important railway centre. In 1857 the native regiments stationed here mu tinied and marched offlacing themselves under R the command of the Rajah of Bithur, the noto rious Nana Sahib. General Wheeler, the com mander of the European forces, defended his position for some days with great gallantry, but, pressed by famine and loss of men, was at length induced to surrender to the rebels on condition of his party being allowed to quit the place uninjured. This was agreed to; but
after the European troops, with the women and children, had been embarked in boats on the Ganges, they were treacherously fired on by the rebels; many were killed, and the remainder conveyed back to the city, where the men were massacred and the women and children placed in confinement. The approach of General Havelock to Cawnpore aroused the brutal instincts of the Nana, and he ordered his prisoners to be slaughtered, and their bodies to be thrown into a well. The fol lowing day he was obliged, by the victorious progress of Havelock, to retreat to Bithur. A memorial has since been erected over the well in the form of an angel with palm branches, and fine public gardens, covering 50 acres, now surround the spot. 'Pop. 178,557. Consult Trevelyan, (Cawnpore) (London 1865).