The weapon mainly used was the bayonet, the fighting was
desperate. The way was mile-stoned with detached strong buildings of
stone, fortified, and heavily garrisoned, and these had to be taken by
assault. Neither side asked for quarter, and neither gave it. At the
Secundrabagh, where nearly two thousand of the enemy occupied a great
stone house in a garden, the work of slaughter was continued until every
man was killed. That is a sample of the character of that devastating
march.
There were but few trees in the plain at that time, and from the
Residency the progress of the march, step by step, victory by victory,
could be noted; the ascending clouds of battle-smoke marked the way to
the eye, and the thunder of the guns marked it to the ear.
Sir Colin Campbell had not come to Lucknow to hold it, but to save the
occupants of the Residency, and bring them away. Four or five days after
his arrival the secret evacuation by the troops took place, in the middle
of a dark night, by the principal gate, (the Bailie Guard). The two
hundred women and two hundred and fifty children had been previously
removed.
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