Always on halting a Burmese army entrenches itself or throws up a stockade, according to the condition of the ground or the abundance of stockading material. In the operations against the British not more than half the Burmese soldiers were armed with muskets, the rest carrying swords or spears and acting as pioneers. Within a day's march of Rangoon, both on the river bank and in the interior, there were several miles of strong stockades, which the Burmese erected in their effort to isolate the British in the city. General Campbell captured many of these stockades, and at each capture there was a heavy slaughter of Burmese. The king recalled Maha Bandula, the ablest of the Burmese generals, from the threatened invasion of Bengal, and ordered him to expel the invaders from Rangoon.
By the end of November Maha Bandula had an army of sixty thousand men, and appeared in force in front of the Shoay Dagon, or Golden Pagoda. The British had established a station at Kymyindaing, about seven miles up the river, where they had captured a strong stockade, and the first effort of the Burmese general was to capture this stockade, in which he was unsuccessful. For three or four days General Campbell allowed the Burmese to advance their outposts until they were within fifty yards of his lines and out of the protection of the jungle which had concealed their movements. As soon as he ascertained that they had brought all their ammunition and provisions out of the jungle and into their entrenchments he ordered an attack; there was severe fighting all along the line, resulting in the defeat and flight of the Burmese, and the loss of all the war material which they had brought to the front of their lines. From the first to the fifteenth of December it was estimated that six thousand Burmese were killed, while the English loss in killed and wounded was about six hundred.
Success being hopeless Maha Bandula retreated rapidly
