The situation in Lancashire was terrible. At Liverpool a few vessels were arriving from America, under escort of British cruisers, bringing supplies, but these were mostly purchased at enormously high rates, and sent to London by way of Manchester and Sheffield, railway communication by that route being still open. This fact becoming known in Manchester caused the greatest indignation, and the people, rendered desperate by hunger, succeeded on several occasions in stopping the trains, and appropriating the food they carried. The situation in Manchester was one of constant excitement, and fear that the enemy should repeat the success they had achieved at Birmingham. The hundreds of thousands of hungry ones who flocked Manchester streets and the grimy thoroughfares of Stockport, Ashton, Oldham, Bolton, and other great towns in the vicinity, feared that they, like the people of Birmingham, would be put to the sword by the ruthless invaders. The week that had elapsed had been an eventful one, fraught with many horrors. After the success of the Russians at Birmingham, the British troops, both Regulars, Volunteers, and improvised, fell back and formed up north of the city, being practically nothing more than a strong line of outposts without reserves, extending from Dudley, through West Bromwich and Sutton Park, to Tamworth. This scheme, however, was ill-devised, for the defenders, in order to act successfully, should have fallen back much further, and concentrated their forces at one or two strategical points on the line to Manchester, as it had been ascertained from spies that a swift and vigorous attack on that city was meditated. The day following the taking of Birmingham was devoted by the enemy to the reorganisation of their forces, and the rearrangement of their transport and ammunition train. Large quantities of waggons and war stores of all kinds had been found in the town and annexed by the victors, and at Kynoch's Factory at Aston some hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition had been seized. These had been made for a foreign government, and fitted both rifles and machine guns of the Russians. Having thus reorganised, the Russians, leaving 10,000 men in Birmingham as a base, resumed their march north on the third day. The left flank, consisting of 2000 cavalry and 12,000 infantry, took the road through West Bromwich to Wednesbury and Bilston, but quickly found themselves entrapped, for on account of the many canals their cavalry were unable to act, and their transport was cut off. The miners and factory men had armed themselves, and, acting in conjunction with the British troops from Dudley and Great Barr, succeeded, after some hard fighting around Tipton and Coseley, in completely annihilating the enemy, taking 5000 prisoners and killing the remaining 9000.