A Diary Kept by Mrs. R. C. Germon, at Lucknow, Between the Months of May and December, 1857 — A Closer Reading

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Authors: Germon, Maria Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: India -- History -- Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858; Lucknow (India) -- History -- Siege, 1857 -- Personal narratives; Germon, Maria Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 40,226

Reading time 175 min

Text sections 10

A Diary Kept by Mrs. R. C. Germon, at Lucknow, Between the Months of May and December, 1857 — A Closer Reading can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 40,226 words, 2 hr 55 min estimated reading time, and 10 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 18.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “India -- History -- Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #47814

Maria Germon's diary records daily life during the Siege of Lucknow in 1857, blending mundane details like meals and boils with sudden violence, as seen in entries about a European shot in the garden and a sortie spiking guns.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

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Edition quality

File: pg47814

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Charlie said the old man was resting by a watercourse in the garden with quite a little party around him, he telling them all he knew, but advising them to spread the bad news as little as possible; and then consulting with them about precautionary measures, not objecting to a suggestion from even a captain, but catching at anything he thought good. I could see that Charlie felt perfect confidence in him; but I also saw that he thought very seriously of the state the country was in, for his remark was that we were in the position of a man sitting on a barrel of gunpowder. I sat talking with him till 1 o'clock, and then went over to the G----'s, as I had promised to spend the day with them. I found them in an awful state of alarm--talking of these murders at Delhi, and wondering if So-and-So had escaped. Miss N---- had a violent sick headache from the fright. At 2 Charlie came, and at 3 we tiffed; but Mr. G---- was so busy he could scarcely stay two minutes, and all the time was talking of the preparations. The Residency was being turned out to form a place of safety for the ladies and the sick. Charlie had to leave early to superintend arrangements also. About half-past 5 I returned to his quarters, for I longed for a little talk with him before I went home. The heat had been intense all day, and the constant talking about these murders had made me feel quite uncomfortable. Charlie was still with his guards and did not return home for some time, so I lay down quietly on his bed. I felt so nervous that, when he did return, I begged him to let me stay in a chair by him all night. However, he talked and reasoned with me and I got better. He told me two companies of the 32nd Queen's were just coming into the banquetting house, and the sick from the hospital; also a lot of women and children into some rooms under his quarters. He made me a cup of tea and then would not let me stay any longer, as it was getting dusk, and Sir Henry just driving up at the moment, I started, as Charlie had to superintend the arrival of the troops. Just outside the city my carriage had to wait to let a regiment of Irregular Cavalry pass--Captain Gr----'s. They were to be stationed at the Dawk Bungalow between the city and Cantonments, to keep up communication between the two. Instead of going home I drove to the B----'s, for I was afraid of getting nervous again, sitting by myself. They were very glad to see me and again offered me a bed, but after taking ices with them I returned, telling them in case of alarm I should rush over to them, as our bungalows adjoined each other. At home I had another cup of tea, for the heat and excitement gave one intense thirst. About 9 I went to bed, taking care to have an Affghan knife (a kind of dagger) close to me. I started at a few noises, but soon slept soundly, and fortunately heard nothing of an alarm that was given by an artilleryman of Captain Simons'--a Native--that the 13th were up in arms and were going to murder their officers. The Brigadier rode off to the lines and sent for the Adjutant and Captain Wilson, when it was discovered that the report had been caused by the preparations making for a company going off with Captain Francis to the Muchee Bawun. They walked through the lines and saw that all was right, and the Brigadier returned home; but it caused such a panic amongst some of the ladies that several rushed off to the Cantonments Residency and slept there.

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Maria Germon's diary, written day by day between May and December 1857, offers a record of the Siege of Lucknow that is at once intimate and unadorned. The preface states the text is in its 'original wording' with 'no attempts at embellishment,' a claim borne out by entries that juxtapose a husband's narrow escape from a round shot with the luxury of a roly-pudding made from ottah and suet. The catalog subjects classify this as a personal narrative of the Sepoy Rebellion, but the excerpts reveal a document that is less a chronicle of military events than a domestic survival log, where the rhythms of laundry, church, and dinner persist under bombardment.

Domesticity Under Siege

The diary's texture comes from its fusion of siege violence with domestic routine. On August 20, Germon records making an 'ottah poultice' for a boil on her hand while a European is shot in the garden. The next day's entry describes a night alarm that sends her and another woman scrambling over sleeping companions, provoking laughter rather than terror. Meals are meticulously noted: stewed beef, dal, rice, chupattees; roast mutton supplemented by tinned salmon; a pudding of ottah and suet called 'a perfect luxury.' These details ground the siege in the body's needs—hunger, pain, cleanliness—rather than in strategic overview. Germon's effort to have 'clean garments' on Sunday as 'one way of recognizing the day' shows how small rituals became anchors of normalcy.

The Diary's Self-Imposed Limits

The preface reveals deliberate omissions: 'The names of those who were actors in the fearful scenes have been omitted, from a feeling of delicacy towards some who are still alive.' This editorial choice shapes what the diary can tell us. In the excerpts, initials and dashes stand in for individuals—Mr. C——, Mrs. A——, J——s' house—creating a partial anonymity that frustrates identification but also signals the author's awareness of a private audience. The diary was printed in 1870 for 'private circulation,' as a sister's prefatory letter explains, and Germon's husband, who commanded an outpost, vetted events outside her observation. Readers must therefore weigh what is recorded against what is withheld, and recognize that the diary is both a personal record and a curated document.

The Texture of Waiting and Violence

Recurring phrases like 'No news again!' and 'very little firing to-day' mark the siege as a period of tense waiting punctuated by sudden, intimate violence. On August 24, a round shot enters the house; on August 25, an attack on the Bailey Guard Gate keeps the household awake. Yet the same entry notes that a couple arrived 'both so nicely dressed; one could hardly fancy the siege was going on.' This oscillation between the quotidian and the catastrophic is the diary's structural principle. Germon does not reflect on the larger rebellion; she records what she sees and hears from her corner of the entrenchment. The result is a document that conveys the siege's duration through accumulation—of sleepless nights, scarce cups, and the longing for flowers—rather than through dramatic narrative.

Readers approaching this diary should attend to what it includes and what it omits. The catalog subjects frame it as a historical source on the Sepoy Rebellion, but the text itself resists that framing, offering instead a record of constrained domestic life under fire. The diary's value lies in its specificity—the silver mug used for tea, the bouquet of roses and tuberoses—and in its refusal to become a heroic account. It is a document best read slowly, entry by entry, for the way it makes the siege tangible through its smallest details.

That rainy afternoon, Maria Germon’s boiled potatoes and sudden gunfire blurred into one anxious rhythm, and I kept thinking how faith must stutter through such days. Hours later, I found myself flipping through "Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message With his own words which have won thousands for Christ — Inside the Classic, and his roaring certainty felt almost like a reply to her meticulous quiet. Strange, how one book simply opens another.