The officers wounded were, Lieutenant-Colonel J. B. Gough (Acting Quarter-Master General), very severely; Lieutenant J. B. Hawkes, slightly; Cornet Kauntze, severely; and Quarter-Master A. Crabtree, slightly.
The Third Light Dragoons crossed the Sutlej on the 13th February, 1846, and marched on Lahore, where the British army arrived on the 20th, and encamped on that soil held sacred by the Khalsa troops, the 'Plains of Myan Meer,' where it remained until the 24th March. The object for which the army was assembled having been attained, the Third Light Dragoons returned to their former quarters at Umballa on the 7th April, having, in less than four months, marched upwards of six hundred miles, and taken a conspicuous part in three of the greatest actions recorded in the annals of British India.
On the 22nd of February, 1846, the Right Honourable the Governor-General made the following announcement in General Orders:—
'The British Army has this day occupied the gateway of the Citadel of Lahore, the Badshahee Mosque, and the Huzzooree Bagh.
'The Army of the Sutlej has now brought its operations in the field to a close, by the dispersion of the Sikh army, and the military occupation of Lahore, preceded by a series of the most triumphant successes ever recorded in the military history of India.
'The British government, trusting to the faith of treaties, and to the long subsisting friendship between the two states, had limited military preparations to the defence of its own frontier. Compelled suddenly to assume the offensive, by the unprovoked invasion of its territories, the British Army, under the command of its distinguished leader, has, in sixty days, defeated the Sikh forces in four general actions; has captured two hundred and twenty pieces of field artillery; and is now at the Capital dictating to the Lahore Durbar the terms of a treaty, the conditions of which will tend to secure the British Provinces from the repetition of a similar outrage.'
On the 4th March, 1846, the Governor-General made the following further announcement:—
'Early on the morning of the 22nd February, a brigade of British troops took formal possession of the Citadel of Lahore, the Badshahee Musjed, and the Huzzooree Bagh.
'I considered the occupation of Lahore, and the close of active operations in the field, a proper opportunity for marking, by substantial reward, the gratitude of the British Government to its faithful and brave army, which had fought so gloriously, and so successfully; and I was glad at being able thus to bring into prominent contrast, the just reward of discipline and obedience, with the certain penalty of insubordination and violence, as exemplified in the fate of the two armies, which had been so long the objects of mutual observation; the one, victorious in the field, and honoured and bountifully rewarded by its Government; the other, in spite of its exceeding numbers and advantageous positions, vanquished in every battle, abandoned by a government it had coerced, and, with its shattered remains, left, but for the intercession of its conquerors, to disperse with no provision of any kind, and to seek a precarious subsistence by rapine and crime.'
