Early in November reinforcements were pouring in from England, and a new actor appeared on the scene. The crisis of the Mutiny called to the post of commander-in-chief in India the best soldier Great Britain possessed. Colin Campbell was not, perhaps, a great general, in the sense in which Sir John Moore, or Wellington, or Sir Charles Napier were generals. But he was a tough, hard-fighting, much-experienced soldier, with that combination of wariness and fire which marks the Scotch genius for battle. What he did not know of the details of a soldier’s business might almost be described as not worth knowing. He had served his apprenticeship to war in the perils and hardships of Moore’s retreat to Corunna. A list of the battles and sieges in which he took part would cover almost the entire military history of Great Britain between Corunna and the Crimea. His cool skill and daring as a soldier are picturesquely illustrated by the famous “thin red line” incident at Balaclava; where, disdaining to throw his troops into square, he received a charge of Russian cavalry on a thin extended front, and smote the assailing squadron into fragments with a single blast of musketry. Colin Campbell was sixty-five years of age, and regarded his military career as over; but on July 11, when the news of General Anson’s death reached England, Lord Panmure offered Campbell the chief command in India, and with characteristic promptitude the Scottish veteran offered to start for India the same afternoon! Campbell landed at Calcutta on August 13, spent some weeks there in “organising victory”—or, rather, in reorganising the whole shattered military system of the Presidency—and on October 27 hurried to the seat of war. He reached Cawnpore on November 3, and on the 9th set out to relieve Lucknow. “Our friends in Lucknow,” he wrote to his sister, “have food only for five or six days.” This was a mistake that cost the lives of many brave men. Lawrence had provisioned the Residency better than was imagined. But the delusion of imminent starvation, which made Havelock fight his way at such desperate speed and cost into Lucknow, still prevailed, and governed British strategy. Delhi had fallen by September 20—a story yet to be told—and part of its besieging force was thus available for a new march on Lucknow.