The battle was over, and the enemy in full retreat in the direction of Lughman by about seven, A.M. Two cavalry standards were taken from the enemy, besides four guns lost by the Cabool army and Gundamuck forces, the recapture of which was a matter of much honest exultation. A great quantity of matériel and stores were, together with the enemy’s tents, destroyed, and the defeat of Mahomed Akbar, in open field, by the troops he had boasted of blockading, was complete.
The regiment had Colonel Dennie killed, and Lieutenant Jennings and Assistant-Surgeon Barnes wounded; eight privates killed, and thirty-one rank and file wounded.
Captain Wilkinson, of the Thirteenth, on whom the charge of one of the infantry columns devolved on the lamented fall of Colonel Dennie, and Captain Hamlet Wade (Brigade-Major), were highly commended in Major-General Sir Robert Sale’s despatch, in which it was also stated ‘that Lieutenant and Adjutant Wood, Her Majesty’s Thirteenth Light Infantry, made a dash at one of the enemy, and in cutting him down, his charger was so severely injured as to have been since destroyed. Captain Havelock reports in the most favourable manner the gallant conduct, throughout the day, of Lieutenant Cox, Her Majesty’s Thirteenth Light Infantry, and he was the first of the party which captured them to seize two of the enemy’s cannon.’
Armourer Serjeant Henry Ulyett, of the Thirteenth, captured Mahomed Akbar’s standard, which he took from a cavalry soldier, whom he killed.
The force employed in this successful enterprise amounted to about eighteen hundred men of all arms. The safety of the fortress was entrusted, during the action, to the ordinary guards of its gates, and one provisional battalion of followers of every description armed with pikes and other weapons, who manned the curtains, and made a respectable show of defence. Captain Pattisson, of the Thirteenth, was left in command of this diminished garrison. Towards the conclusion of the engagement a sally was made from the Cabool gate by Lieutenant George Wade, of the Thirteenth, into the fort before which Colonel Dennie had fallen, when it was observed that the enemy were abandoning it; all it contained was set on fire, and some of its defenders were bayoneted.
The enemy’s loss was very severe; the field of battle was strewed with the bodies of men and horses, and the richness of the trappings of some of the latter denoted that chiefs of rank (several being present and taking part in the action) had fallen.
The following Notification of this victory was issued by the Government of India from Benares on the 21st April, 1842:—
‘The Governor General feels assured that every subject of the British Government will peruse with the deepest interest and satisfaction the report he now communicates, of the entire defeat of the Affghan troops under Mahomed Akbar Khan, by the garrison of Jellalabad.
‘That Illustrious Garrison, which, by its constancy in enduring privation, and by its valour in action, has already obtained for itself the sympathy and respect of every true soldier, has now, sallying forth from its walls, under the command of its gallant leader, Major-General Sir Robert Sale, thoroughly beaten in open field an enemy of more than three times its numbers, taken the standards of their boasted cavalry, destroyed their camp, and recaptured four guns, which, under circumstances which can never again occur, had during the last winter fallen into their hands.
‘The Governor General cordially congratulates the army upon the return of victory to its ranks.