It is curious, in view of Havelock’s achievements and after-fame, to read in the current literature of the moment, the impression he made upon hasty critics in Calcutta and elsewhere. The _Friend of India_, the leading Calcutta journal, described him as a “fossil general”! Lady Canning, in her journal, writes: “General Havelock is not in fashion. No doubt he is fussy and tiresome; but his little, old, stiff figure looks as active and fit for use as if he were made of steel.” She again and again refers to “dear little old Havelock, with his fussiness”—“fussiness” being in this case, little more than the impatience of a strong will set to a great task, and fretted by threads of red tape. Lord Hardinge had said, “If India is ever in danger, let Havelock be put in command of an army, and it will be saved.” And Havelock’s after-history amply justified that prediction. Havelock had about the tiniest force that ever set forth to the task of saving an empire. It never was able to put on the actual battlefield 1500 men. There were 76 men of the Royal Artillery; less than 400 of the Madras Fusileers; less than 300 of the 78th Highlanders; 435 men of the 64th, and 190 of the 84th, with 450 Sikhs of somewhat doubtful loyalty, and 50 native irregular horse, whose disloyalty was not in the least doubtful. Havelock’s reliable cavalry consisted of 20 volunteers, amateurs mostly, under Barrow. Measured against the scale of modern armies, Havelock’s force seems little more than a corporal’s guard. But the fighting value of this little army was not to be measured by counting its files. “Better soldiers,” says Archibald Forbes, “have never trod this earth.” They commenced their march from Allahabad on July 7; they marched, and fought, and conquered under the intolerable heat of an Indian midsummer, and against overwhelming odds; until when, on September 19—little more than eight weeks afterwards—Outram and Havelock crossed the Ganges in their advance on Lucknow, only 250 of Havelock’s “Ironsides” were left to take part in that advance. In the whole history of the war, men have seldom dared, and endured, and achieved more than did Havelock’s column in the gallant but vain struggle to relieve Cawnpore. Maude commanded its tiny battery; Hamilton led the Highlanders; Stirling the 64th; the gallant, ill-fated Renaud, the Fusileers. Stuart Beatson was Havelock’s assistant adjutant-general; Fraser Tytler was his assistant quartermaster—general. Of the Highlanders—the Ross-shire Buff’s—Forbes says, “It was a remarkable regiment; Scottish to the backbone; Highland to the core of its heart. Its ranks were filled with Mackenzies, Macdonalds, Tullochs, Macnabs, Rosses, Gunns, and Mackays. The Christian name of half the Grenadier company was Donald. It could glow with the Highland fervour; it could be sullen with the Highland dourness; and it may be added, it could charge with the stern and irresistible valour of the North.”