01Arrah and the long march
When the sepoys at Danapur rose on 25 July 1857 they marched to Jagdishpur and the old Raja, already deep in debt and quarrel with the Company’s revenue courts, took command. They besieged the fortified house at Arrah where a small British party held out until Vincent Eyre relieved it on 3 August. Jagdishpur fell, but Kunwar Singh did not stop. He took his men west through Rewa and Banda towards Kalpi and Lucknow, and in March 1858 he seized Azamgarh. Through all of it he was past eighty.
02The arm given to Ganga
In April 1858 he turned home. Crossing the Ganga at Shivpur Ghat, he was hit in the arm by a British bullet. Bihar remembers that he cut off the wounded arm with his own sword and offered it to Ganga. On 23 April 1858 he met Captain Le Grand’s force outside Jagdishpur and routed it. He died of his wound on 26 April. His brother Amar Singh carried on the fight for months after. Bihar marks 23 April as Vijayotsav, and Veer Kunwar Singh University at Arrah bears his name.
