Military Service and Adventures in the Far East: Vol. 2 (of 2): Including Sketches of the Campaigns Against the Afghans in 1839, and the Sikhs in 1845-6.MacKinnon, Daniel Henry
History
Military Service and Adventures in the Far East: Vol. 2 (of 2): Including Sketches of the Campaigns Against the Afghans in 1839, and the Sikhs in 1845-6.
MacKinnon, Daniel Henry
Afghan Wars -- Personal narratives, British; British -- Afghanistan -- History -- 19th century -- Sources; British -- India -- Punjab -- History -- 19th century -- Sources; Great Britain. Army -- Military life; Sikh War, 1845-1846 -- Personal narratives, British
Early on the morning of the 21st of December, the British forces
advanced from Moodkee, having left the wounded in charge of a small
party in the fort, and marching slowly in order of battle, moved
obliquely from the enemy's position towards Ferozepore. Having marched
across about fifteen miles of country, covered mostly with the same
stunted trees as at Moodkee, and in other places with a sandy soil, on
which grain and wheat had been planted, Sir John Littler's division was
descried advancing about one in the afternoon.
Sir John Littler having left two regiments of Native Infantry to
protect Ferozepore, and eluded the vigilance of the enemy's cavalry,
who were posted to watch his division, effected a junction with the
main column unmolested by the enemy.
The position of Ferozeshuhur was then hastily reconnoitred. The Sikh
camp, consisting of a dense and confused mass of tents, encompassed the
village of Ferozeshuhur, which occupied a rising ground, and was armed
with batteries of heavy guns. The entrenchments, which had been thrown
forward to cover the village, were an irregular quadrangular figure,
of upwards of eighteen hundred yards in length, and rather more than
half that distance in breadth, and consisted of a ditch, about four
feet in depth and from six to seven in breadth, the deblai earth from
which formed a parapet, protecting the defenders from fire of grape
or musketry. Batteries of the enemy's lighter guns were disposed at
intervals in rear of the parapets, where the ground was uniformly flat,
save in the centre of the position, where it rose gradually into the
mound, covered by the mud-houses of the village, as before mentioned.
In front of the entrenchment, every obstacle to the range of fire had
been removed, and a plain, mostly bare, or producing scanty crops,
presented no shelter for the assailants; such trees or shrubs as might
have afforded any cover, having been lopped or cleared away by the
enemy.
The village of Ferozeshuhur is situated on the road between Moodkee and
Ferozepore, but the road is rarely a matter of much consideration in
military operations in India, where the country is usually flat, and
unobstructed by fences.
It was past four in the afternoon when the British forces advanced
to storm this position, defended, as it was conjectured, by an
army of more than fifty thousand Sikhs. The investing force,
numbering altogether about sixteen thousand five hundred men, with
sixty-six pieces of artillery, (six and nine-pounders, twelve and
twenty-four-pound howitzers, and two eight-inch mortars,) were formed
in two lines; the first consisted of Generals Gilbert and Littler's
divisions, and Col. Wallace's brigade, with the principal force of
artillery in the centre, and one troop of horse artillery on each flank.
The reserve force, comprising the division of Sir Harry Smith, the
cavalry, and a troop of horse artillery, formed a second line.
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