But the battle was not yet over. A great body of the enemy still remained, holding Assaye and the ground between the village and the Juah, while the guns they had got possession of in different parts of the field played on the rear of the exhausted British troops. Pohlman’s brigade also was unbroken, and threatened an attack. Two sepoy battalions sent successively against Assaye were repulsed. Maxwell’s cavalry were still across the Juah in pursuit of the broken Mahratta battalions, and, had the Mahratta horsemen behaved at this juncture with the same spirit that had led them to charge the 74th, the day might have been theirs. At this crisis, Maxwell with the cavalry returned from across the Juah, and formed up on the left of the British line. Directing Maxwell with the 19th Light Dragoons and two of his native regiments to face Pohlman’s brigade, Wellesley took H.M.’s 78th and a regiment of Native Cavalry, and moved against Assaye. The enemy did not await the attack, but retreated across the Juah in tolerable order. In this movement, the General had his horse killed by a cannon shot. Then, moving along the whole line first occupied by the enemy (E. in plan), he recaptured all the guns, not without some severe fighting. Meanwhile, Maxwell led the 19th Light Dragoons and the two native regiments (L. in plan), to charge Pohlman’s brigade. Both men and horses were exhausted with the efforts they had made, and the attack, instead of being delivered perpendicular to the enemy’s front, was made obliquely against Pohlman’s left. The well disciplined Mahrattas reserved their fire till they could deliver it with good effect, and Maxwell fell dead pierced by a grape shot. The fall of their leader checked the squadrons almost at the moment of contact, and the British horsemen swept to the left, receiving the fire of the Mahratta infantry as they passed, at so close a distance, that several of the squadron officers had their horses wounded with bayonets. No further effort was made, the squadrons “halted, and then walked, and then trotted back.”[46] The British troops were so few in numbers, so weakened and fatigued by their exertions, as to be incapable of farther efforts, and Pohlman marched off the field without farther molestation. Thus ended the conflict. The Mysore and friendly Mahratta horse, who throughout the contest had only one casualty, would not pursue without the British cavalry, and the British cavalry were too exhausted to give them a lead. Out of the small British force, there were, among the Europeans, 198 killed, 442 wounded, and 4 missing; among the Natives, 230 killed, 696 wounded, and 14 missing. The 19th Light Dragoons, who had the greatest share of casualties among the cavalry, lost two officers killed, Lieutenant Colonel Maxwell and Captain Boyle, four officers wounded, Captains Cathcart and Sale, and Lieutenants Wilson and Young; fifteen Rank and File and eighty-seven horses killed, thirty-six Rank and File and thirty-six horses wounded, two horses missing. Of the enemy, it was computed that twelve hundred lay dead on the field, and four thousand eight hundred were wounded. One hundred and two guns,[47] seven stands of colours, and a vast quantity of ammunition and stores remained in the hands of the victors.
It was eight o’clock in the evening before the field was entirely clear of the enemy. The cavalry were then sent back to Naulniah to bring on the camp equipage, &c., which they did the following morning. The rest of the force bivouacked as best they could on the bloody field. Wellesley, who had had one horse killed, and another wounded with a spear, passed the night on the ground, close to an officer whose leg was shot off, and within five yards of a dead officer.
“The General was so overcome by his great and gallant exertions throughout the day, so overpowered both in mind and body, that during the greater part or whole of the following night he sat on the ground with his head bent down between his knees, and said not a word to any one!”[48]
Long after his victorious career was ended, he spoke of Assaye as the bloodiest battle for the number engaged that he ever saw. Of the ten officers forming the General’s staff eight were wounded or had their horses shot. The 74th and the picquet battalion were almost annihilated; one picquet half company alone had 21 killed, 22 wounded, and three missing. The 74th lost 401 of all ranks, killed and wounded. Two of the native cavalry regiments, being newly raised, were not as forward as they should have been, so that the brunt of the cavalry work was borne by the 19th Light Dragoons and the 4th Native Cavalry. Much of the heavy loss suffered by the British troops was due to the misunderstanding of Wellesley’s orders by the officer commanding the picquets, though, as Wellesley generously said, in a letter written a month later, “I must acknowledge that it was not possible for a man to lead a body into a hotter fire than he did the picquets on that day against Assaye.” The early use of the cavalry, however, prevented the total destruction of the enemy that he had intended. The exhaustion caused by their efforts too early in the battle, prevented them from entirely breaking up and routing the disciplined Mahratta infantry.
A singular circumstance is said to have occurred after the battle. Each of the Commanders of the three armies, put to death his head spy.
“Colonel Stevenson, because he suspected or believed his own to have led him intentionally astray from the road: General Wellesley, by reason of his own having given him false intelligence respecting the march of the Mahratta Army to pass the Ajunta Ghaut; and Scindia, from his man not having made him acquainted with the separation of the two divisions of the British Army.”[49]
Ample testimony has been borne to the conspicuous gallantry of the 19th in this hard fought field.
“Nothing could exceed the zeal of some of the cavalry, particularly the 19th dragoons; every officer and man fought as if on his arm depended the victory. As instances may be mentioned, Lieutenant Nathan Wilson, who with his arm shattered by a grape shot, and dangling by his side, charged on at the head of his troop. Lieutenant Alex. Grant of the Madras Native Infantry, Major of brigade to Colonel Maxwell, observing a gun pointed ready to discharge on the flank of the 19th dragoons, the match suspended on the touch-hole, with a noble impulse, in hopes of preventing it, darted forward almost on its muzzle, and with such force, that his horse stuck between the cannon and its wheel: in this situation the gun went off, as he was in the act of endeavouring to prevent it, by cutting down the artillery man. Captain George Sale was attacking a man who defended himself with a pike or short spear, a weapon with which all Scindia’s Artillery men were armed; the man’s comrade standing on a gun, made a thrust from above at Captain Sale, but it was turned off by the breastbone and glanced off diagonally across his chest; his covering serjeant named Strange, laid the man dead who wounded his officer, but in the act was himself speared through the lungs, by another man from below the gun. Captain Sale went on but begged the serjeant to fall in the rear; this however he gallantly refused, and rode out the day. Captain Sale and others afterwards saw him when in hospital, blow out a candle from his lungs—the reader will be pleased to learn that the gallant serjeant recovered.”[50]
Among other incidents may be mentioned the case of Cornet Serle of the 19th who was under arrest at the time of the action, for some disagreement with his commanding officer. At the commencement of the battle he broke his arrest, and joined his corps, and, by his gallant behaviour throughout the day, regained permission to wear his sword again.