It is the characteristic of such men as Havelock, that they can impart to others something of that dauntless courage and unflagging energy by which they themselves are animated. On the 28th of July, Havelock’s army reached Mungulwar, a village situated six miles from the Ganges, on a ridge elevated about two hundred feet above the surrounding country, where they might have held their ground against all the rebels in Oude. But their only desire was to push on to Lucknow; they might still be in time to rescue the beleaguered garrison from the rebels, who were hemming them in on every side. This desire was strengthened by the arrival of a messenger, who contrived to elude the vigilance of the rebel army at Lucknow, and reached our camp in safety, bringing with him a plan of the town, and a valuable report from Brigadier Inglis, written partly in Greek characters as a measure of precaution. Havelock saw all the danger of the undertaking. “If the worst come to the worst,” he said to his son, “we can only die sword in hand.” Death to him had no terrors: the only question was whether he could fight his way to the Residency with 1500 men, and ten badly-equipped guns. The enemy were closing in upon him in front and rear; he must cross the bridge across the Sye at Bunnee, which the rebels had entrenched and covered with their guns; he must be prepared to repel the 3000 men which the Nana had collected to intercept his retreat. With their minds fresh from the horrors of Cawnpore, there was only one desire among our men—to go on, to conquer or to die. Havelock expressed the feeling of all, when writing to the Government, on the 28th July, he said, “The communications convince me of the extreme delicacy and difficulty of any operation to relieve Inglis; it shall be attempted, however, at every risk.” There spoke the spirit of a true soldier, of one in whose mind every other consideration was subordinate to a sense of duty. The little army started at daybreak on the morning of the 29th of July, and, after advancing about three miles, reached the town of Oude, which was occupied by the enemy. Their position is thus described by the general, in the despatch which he wrote after the battle:—“The enemy’s right was protected by a swamp, which could neither be forced nor turned; his advance was drawn up in a garden enclosure, which, in this warlike district, had, purposely or accidentally, assumed the form of a bastion. The rest of his (advance) force was posted in and behind a village, the houses of which were loopholed. The passage between the village and the town of Oude is narrow. The town itself extended three quarters of a mile to our right. The flooded state of the country precluded the possibility of turning in this direction. The swamp shut us in on the left. Thus an attack in front became unavoidable.”