Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/201

192 enabled it to reach the Residency and the Mutchi Bhown, but not without grievous loss, the 32nd alone having left 4 officers and 111 men on the field. The guns of the Residency and the position of Edmonstone's company of the 32nd at the iron bridge foiled the efforts of the enemy to cross it.

Such was the disastrous fight of Chinhat, the catastrophe being due mainly, if not entirely, to the surprise effected through the neglect to post pickets in the groves beside Ishmaelganj.

During that day the troops that now held the Residency and the Mutchi Bhown did all they could to make them secure. In the morning these positions had been crowded with workpeople, and carts were passing between them, but immediately on the rumours of disaster arriving these had all disappeared. The enemy began to cross the river lower down; by the afternoon they had surrounded the Residency and penetrated the city, and both the positions came under fire. The arrival of the enemy and the investment of the Residency were so sudden, and the state of the troops was such that the immediate withdrawal of the Mutchi Bhown garrison into the Residency could not have been then attempted: the semaphores, however, next day conveyed Sir Henry's order to the Mutchi Bhown to withdraw to the Residency at midnight. As a constant intermittent fire of shells was kept up all day on the intervening ground, the enemy seem to have evacuated it; and the removal of the garrison and the desired concen-