These native troops were under Lieutenants Watson, Probyn, Younghusband, and Hugh Gough respectively, and it is worthy of note that of these four subalterns one (Younghusband) was killed; the other three were all wounded in action, and all three lived to wear the Victoria Cross and the Grand Cross of the Bath.
Artillery Brigade—Brigadier Crawford, R.A.: Two troops of Bengal Horse Artillery, two batteries of Field Artillery, two companies of Royal Artillery, eight guns of the Naval Brigade under the gallant Sir William Peel, with 250 seamen and Marines.
First Brigade—Brigadier Adrian Hope: 93rd Highlanders, a wing of the 53rd (Shropshires), and the 57th Wilde's Rifles.
Second Brigade—Brigadier Greathed: 8th (King's Liverpool Regiment), a battalion made up of detachments of British regiments in Lucknow, and the 56th Punjab Rifles.
Third Brigade—Brigadier Russell: 84th Regiment, 23rd (Royal Welsh Fusiliers), and two companies of the 82nd (South Lancashires).
To keep open communication with Allahabad and Calcutta, Sir Colin had left General Wyndham at Cawnpore with a force of British troops. Wyndham had earned a great reputation for coolness under fire at the storming of the Redan, but he had no experience of Indian warfare, and had never exercised an independent command in his life. At Cawnpore he did not show to advantage as a commander.
During Sir Hope Grant's halt prior to Sir Colin's arrival the most energetic measures had been adopted to obtain the necessary carriage to enable the Commander-in-Chief to carry out his design of withdrawing the garrison, so that, on his assuming command, all was ready for an immediate advance; and on November 17, after some hard fighting, which entailed a loss of 45 officers and 496 men killed and wounded, the relieving force entered the Residency, and the garrison was saved. Ten days subsequently the evacuation of the Residency had been successfully accomplished, and the whole force was en route for Cawnpore, where Wyndham had suffered a sharp reverse at the hands of the mutinous Gwalior contingent.
Siege and Capture of Lucknow.
When Sir Colin Campbell withdrew the garrison from the Residency, he felt that but half of his task was done. His force was not strong enough to warrant his attacking the mutineers, and so crushing the rebellion in Oude. This must be left until the arrival of the reinforcements from England, and undertaken when he was not hampered with a large convoy of sick and wounded, women and children. In order to maintain a certain hold on the country around Lucknow, Sir Colin left Sir James Outram with a considerable force to occupy the Alumbagh—an old shooting-lodge of the Kings of Oude, situated in a park about three miles from the suburbs of Lucknow. Outram's force numbered over 4,000 men, and comprised the 5th (Northumberland Fusiliers), 75th (Gordon Highlanders), 78th (Seaforths), 90th (now the Scottish Rifles), and the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers (now the 2nd Munsters), with 450 gunners of the Bengal Artillery and 150 sabres. Opposed to Outram were, according to his report, no less than 96,000 armed men; and from the end of November, when the Residency was evacuated, until March 21, when Sir Colin finally defeated the mutineers and retook Lucknow, Outram's force was practically besieged in the Alumbagh.