The relief of Lucknow was now the principal objective, and Hope Grant, in obedience to orders received from Calcutta, moved towards that city, halting at Bhantira until the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell, who, on the first news of the Mutiny reaching England, had been sent out to assume the post of Commander-in-Chief in India. The new Chief possessed the confidence not only of the Ministry in England, but of every man in the army. Probably he was the most deservedly popular General who had up till then ever commanded an army in the field. He had a wide experience of war. As a subaltern he had served in the Peninsula, been repeatedly mentioned in despatches for gallantry--a rare thing to happen to a subaltern in Wellington's days. He commanded a regiment in China in the war of 1842, a brigade in the Punjab Campaign of 1849, was in chief command in many of the early expeditions on the Punjab frontier, and was one of the very few General Officers who emerged from the Crimean War with enhanced credit. The vast majority of the reinforcements despatched from England for the suppression of the Mutiny had served in the Crimea, and to them the name of Colin Campbell was that of a man who could lead and whom they were proud to follow. [Illustration: FIELD-MARSHAL COLIN CAMPBELL: LORD CLYDE. To face page 324.] On November 9 Sir Colin arrived at Bhantira, and assumed the command of the army. Sir Colin was fully alive to the imperative necessity of withdrawing the beleaguered garrison from its perilous position at Lucknow. Sir James Outram, who, as I have shown, assumed command on reaching the Residency, was besieged by a disciplined army numbering 60,000 men. He was encumbered with 1,500 sick men, women, and children, and the Residency, over which our flag had been kept flying for thirteen weary weeks, was but an ordinary Indian building, commanded on all sides by masonry palaces, which had been converted into siege-batteries. To carry through this formidable task Sir Colin had but 4,500 men, distributed as under: Cavalry Brigade--Brigadier Little (9th Lancers): Two squadrons 9th Lancers, one squadron 21st Daly's Horse, one squadron 22nd Sam Browne's Horse, one squadron 25th Cavalry, one squadron Hodson's Horse. These native troops were under Lieutenants Watson, Probyn, Younghusband, and Hugh Gough respectively, and it is worthy of note that of these four subalterns one (Younghusband) was killed; the other three were all wounded in action, and all three lived to wear the Victoria Cross and the Grand Cross of the Bath. Artillery Brigade--Brigadier Crawford, R.A.: Two troops of Bengal Horse Artillery, two batteries of Field Artillery, two companies of Royal Artillery, eight guns of the Naval Brigade under the gallant Sir William Peel, with 250 seamen and Marines. First Brigade--Brigadier Adrian Hope: 93rd Highlanders, a wing of the 53rd (Shropshires), and the 57th Wilde's Rifles.