At first it was hoped that relief would come in a fortnight, but eighty-seven weary days passed before the first help came. Then Havelock attempted it alone, with some 1300 troops, as has been already pointed out, but though unsuccessful, his advance had relieved the pressure on the beleaguered garrison, and enabled them by a bold sortie to reprovision the Residency, where provisions had run short. His next effort was after Outram had been appointed to the chief command; but the latter magnanimously refused to take the work off Havelock’s hands, and offered to accompany him simply as “Chief Commissioner of Oudh.” The army, 2500 strong, in two brigades, in which served the 5th, 64th, 84th, and 1st Madras Fusiliers, the 78th and 90th, starting from Cawnpore, crossed the Ganges by a pontoon bridge, and so brought about the first real assistance to the garrison of Lucknow. The march was opposed from the outset. There was severe fighting at the Alumbagh, “the garden of the Lady Alum, or beauty of the world,” four miles from the Residency; but the British attack was irresistible, and five guns were taken. The next stand made was at the Charbagh, or “Four gardens,” but Outram with the Fusiliers, 5th, 6th, and 84th, carried the line of palisaded guns with a cheer, and Havelock, with the 78th and 90th, dashed into the town, carrying everything before them, though every inch of ground was disputed. Obstacles had been created on all sides, and the houses prepared for defence and loopholed, were occupied. But the “petticoated devils,” as the mutineers termed the Highlanders they met in battle for the first time, drove everything before them until the Residency was reached. It was only just in time, for the mutineers had driven mines beneath the defending walls, and soon all would have been over. In the assault some four hundred men had fallen, and among them the gallant General Neill. But the “relief” was a reinforcement only. The combined garrison was too weak to force its way through the still overwhelming masses of the enemy, with so many non-combatants to guard. So Havelock and Outram were, like Inglis, besieged in their turn for nearly fifty days. During this time, Greathed, with the 84th, some of the 9th Lancers, and the 3rd Bengal Infantry, afterwards the 107th Regiment of the line, had cleared the country about Alighur and Agra; and Sir Hope Grant had reached Cawnpore with a column, and moved to Alumbagh, defeating the rebels at Canouj on the way. Here he was joined by Sir Colin Campbell, and the final relief of Lucknow was begun with Peel’s Naval Brigade, a strong force of artillery, and the 9th Lancers, 8th, 53rd, 75th, and 93rd Regiments of the line, which, with other troops, made a total of about 3500 men, to which were soon added detachments of the 23rd, 82nd, etc., and others of the 5th, 64th, and 78th.