Page:The Sikhs (Gordon).djvu/190

154 victory. Sir Henry Hardinge referred to it as "one of the most daring ever achieved, by which in open day a triple line of breastworks, flanked by formidable redoubts, bristling with guns, manned by thirty-two regular regiments of infantry, were assaulted and carried."

The British loss was 2400 killed and wounded,—about one-sixth of their force engaged,—that of the Sikhs in killed, wounded, and drowned being estimated at 10,000. Some of the English regiments, on whom the brunt of the fighting fell, lost one-third of their strength.

On the following day a party of Sikhs came in with a request to take away the bodies of their slain chiefs, among them that of Sardar Sham Singh, whose death they all deplored, a comrade of Ranjit Singh and an experienced and gallant old soldier. He had opposed the ill-fated cry of war against the British, but, unheeded in Council, threw in his lot with the Khalsa when the die was cast, and at the head of