3rd Dragoons, whom no obstacle usually held formidable by horse appeared to check, had on this day, as at Ferozeshuhr, galloped over and cut down the obstinate defenders of batteries and field-works – and until the full weight of three divisions of infantry, with every field-artillery gun which could be sent to their aid, had been cast into the scale – that victory finally declared for the British. The fire of the Sikhs first slackened, and then nearly ceased; and the victors then pressing them on every side, precipitated them in masses over the bridge, and into the Sutledge, which a sudden rise had rendered hardly fordable. In their efforts to reach the right bank, through the deepened water, they suffered from our Horse Artillery a terrible carnage. Hundreds fell under this cannonade; hundreds upon hundreds were drowned in attempting the perilous passage. Their awful slaughter, confusion, and dismay were such as would have excited compassion in the hearts of their generous conquerors, if the Khalsa troops had not, in the early part of the action, sullied their gallantry by slaughtering and barbarously mangling every wounded soldier whom, in the vicissitudes of attack, the fortune of war left at their mercy." "The enemy's shattered forces," says the Governor-General, "were driven into the river, with a loss which far exceeded that which the most experienced officers had ever witnessed. Thus terminated, in the brief space of two hours, this most remarkable conflict, in which the military combinations of the Commander-in-Chief were fully and ably carried into effect. The enemy's select regiments of regular infantry have been dispersed, and a large proportion destroyed, with the loss, since the campaign began, of 220 pieces of artillery taken in action."[1] "Sixty-seven pieces of cannon," says Sir Hugh Gough, "upwards of 200 camel swivels (zumbooruks), numerous standards, and vast munitions of war, captured by our troops, are the pledges and trophies of our victory. The battle was over by eleven in the morning, and in the forenoon I
- ↑ General Order.
