Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/426

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390
Jhánsí is stormed.

of three, officers of the engineers, Dick, Meiklejohn, and Bonus, and of Fox of the Madras Sappers, they succeeded in gaining a footing there. Just then Brockman, from the left attack, made a timely charge on the flank and rear of the defenders. Their persistence immediately diminished, and the right attack made good its hold. The stormers now marched on the palace, gained it after a stubborn resistance, and drove the rebels helter-skelter from the town. There they were set upon by the 24th Bombay N. I. and dispersed. But desultory fighting continued all night The Rání took advantage of the darkness and disorder to ride with a small following for Kalpí, where she arrived safely. Early the next morning Sir Hugh occupied Jhánsí. Its capture had cost him 343 killed and wounded, of whom thirty-six were officers. The rebels' loss he put down roughly at 5000.

Leaving a small but sufficient garrison in Jhánsí, Sir Hugh marched on the 25th of April for Kalpí, a place whence throughout the Mutiny the rebels had sallied to harass and destroy. On the 5th of May he stormed Kunch, defeating the rebels in its vicinity, but, owing to the heat of the day, he could not prevent their seizing the Kalpí road and marching along it. He sent, however, his cavalry in pursuit, and these, gallantly led by Prettijohn of the 14th Light Dragoons, pursued the enemy for miles. Pushing on, he established himself at Guláulí, near Kalpí, on the 15th.

Sir Hugh had been strengthened, on the 5th, by the addition of the 71st Highlanders, and at Guláulí he came in touch with Colonel G. V. Maxwell, commanding a column composed of the 88th, the Camel Corps, and some Sikhs, on the left bank of the Jamnah. The rebels, too, had been considerably strengthened, and their position at Kalpí being very formidable, intersected by labyrinths of