Meanwhile Colonel Neill, commanding the Madras Fusiliers, was pushing up from Calcutta. He was bent on the relief of Cawnpore and Lucknow, but was delayed on the way by the mutinies at Benares and Allahabad. In July he was joined at Allahabad by a column under General Havelock, who was destined within a few weeks to win a lasting name in history. General Havelock was a Queen's officer of forty years' standing; but he had seen more service in India than perhaps any other officer in Her Majesty's Army. He had fought in the first Burma War, the Kabul War, the Gwalior campaign of 1843, and the Punjab campaign of 1845-1846. He was a pale, thin, thoughtful man; small in stature, but burning with the aspirations of a Puritan hero. Religion was the ruling principle of his life, and military glory was his master passion. He had just returned to India after commanding a division in the Persian War. Abstemious to a fault, he was able, in spite of his advancing years, to bear up against the heat and rain of Hindustan during the deadliest season of the year. On July 7th General Havelock left Allahabad for Cawnpore. The force at his disposal did not exceed two thousand men, Europeans and Sikhs. He had heard of the massacre at Cawnpore on June 27th, and burned to avenge it. On July 12th he defeated a large force of mutineers and Mahrattas at Fathipur. On the 15th he inflicted two more defeats on the enemy. Havelock was now within twenty-two miles of Cawnpore, and he halted his men to rest for the night. But news arrived that the women and children were still alive at Cawnpore, and that Nana had taken the field with a large force to oppose his advance. Accordingly Havelock marched fourteen miles that same night, and on the following morning, within eight miles of Cawnpore, the troops bivouacked beneath some trees. On that same night, July 15th, the crowning atrocity was committed at Cawnpore. The rebels, who had been defeated by Havelock, returned to Nana with the tidings of their disaster. In revenge Nana ordered the slaughter of the two hundred women and children. The poor victims were literally hacked to death, or almost to death, with swords, bayonets, knives, and axús. Next morning the bleeding remains of dead and dying were dragged to a neighboring well and thrown in.