fered 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. I must pause in this
narrative especially to notice the determined hardihood and bravery
with which our two battalions of Goorkhas, the Sirmoor and
Nusseree, met the Sikhs wherever they were opposed to them.
Soldiers of small stature, but indomitable spirit, they vied in
ardent courage in the charge with the grenadiers of our own nation,
and, armed with the short weapon of their mountains, gave a terror
to the Sikhs throughout this great combat.

"Sixty-seven pieces of cannon, upwards of two hundred camel
swivels, (zumboorucks,) 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 caused our engineers to burn a part and to sink a part
of the vaunted bridge of the Khalsa army, across which they had
boastfully come once more to defy us, and to threaten India with
ruin and devastation."[21]

This stupendous battle--the climax and the close of a campaign
unparalleled in many of its circumstances in modern history--was in
itself an epitome of every thing most dreadful and most imposing, most
destructive and most heroic, which had distinguished its predecessors.
Here fell gloriously, at the moment of victory, DICK, the veteran of the
Peninsula and Waterloo, "displaying the same energy and intrepidity as
when, thirty-five years ago, in Spain, he was the distinguished leader
of the 42d Highlanders." No better man--no better soldier--sleeps the
sleep of the brave. The lists of our loss show 320 dead, while 2063
wounded bear additional testimony to the desperation and havoc of this
sanguinary action. Ancient times involuntarily rush back upon us,
recalling the youthful Conqueror of Macedon, who, radiant with the
triple glories of the Granicus, of Issus, and of Arbela, vanquished