Peter McManus

He held off attackers while wounded to cover rescue efforts.

Peter McManus was born at Knockanny, County Fermanagh, in March 1829. He enlisted in the 5th Regiment in October 1846 and rose to sergeant before being reduced to private in April 1857 for an offence not identified in the surviving account.

At Lucknow on 26 September 1857, McManus helped protect men trapped in a house during the relief operations. Remaining outside under cover of a pillar, he fired on the attackers and prevented them rushing the building. He continued until he was wounded. This action earned the Victoria Cross.

He was mentioned in despatches and received the decoration in India in 1858. Restored to sergeant in 1859, he died of smallpox at Allahabad on 27 April that year and was buried there in a mass grave. No civilian career followed.

Official Victoria Cross citation

On the same occasion, Private McManus kept outside the house, until he was himself wounded, and under cover of a pillar, kept firing on the sepoys and preventing their rushing on the house. He also, in conjunction with Private John Ryan, rushed into the street, and took Captain Arnold, of the 1st Madras Fusiliers, out of a dooly, and brought him into the house in spite of a heavy fire, in which Captain Arnold was again wounded. (Extract from Divisional Orders of Major-General Sir James Outram, G.C.B., dated 14th October, 1857.)

The London Gazette of 18 June 1858, Numb. 22154, p. 2958