page_title: Capture of Lucknow
section_title: Campbell's advance
hierarchical_section_title: Capture of Lucknow / Campbell's advance
caption_attribution_description: English: Map showing Lucknow operations 1857-1858.
context_page_description: The Capture of Lucknow was a battle of Indian rebellion of 1857. The British recaptured the city of Lucknow which they had abandoned in the previous winter after the relief of a besieged garrison in the Residency, and destroyed the organised resistance by the rebels in the Kingdom of Awadh.
context_section_description: Campbell's army consisted of seventeen infantry battalions, twenty-eight cavalry squadrons and 134 guns and mortars, with a large and unwieldy baggage train and large numbers of Indian camp followers. The army crossed the Ganges River in late February, and advanced to rendezvous with Outram at the Alambagh on 1 March. The army was then reorganised into three infantry divisions under Outram, Brigadier Walpole and Brigadier Lugard, and a cavalry division under James Hope Grant. A force of 9,000 Nepalis (not to be confused with the regular Gurkha units of the Bengal Army) was approaching Lucknow from the north, commanded by Brigadier Franks.
  The defenders of Lucknow were said to number 100,000. This suspiciously large and round figure reflects the fact that the defenders lacked coordinated leadership, and were largely the personal retinues of landowners, or loosely organised bodies of fighters, whose motives, dedication and equipment varied widely. The British were not able to gain any reliable reports of their numbers. The rebels were nevertheless equipped with large numbers of cannon and had heavily fortified the Charbagh Canal, the city and the palaces and mosques adjoining the Residency to the north of the city. They had however not fortified the northern approaches to the city on the north bank of the Gumti River, which had not seen fighting previously. (During the British relief moves in 1857, the ground had been flooded by monsoon rains.)
  Campbell began by repeating his moves of the relief of the Residency the previous year. He moved to the east of the city and Charbagh Canal to occupy a walled park, the Dilkusha Park, although this time he suffered from rebel artillery fire until his own guns could be brought up.
  On 5 March, Campbell's engineers constructed two pontoon bridges across the Gumti. Outram's division crossed to the north bank, and by 9 March, they were established north of the city. Under covering fire from his siege guns, his division captured the grandstand of the King of Oudh's racecourse (known as the Chakar Kothi). Meanwhile, Campbell's main body captured La Martiniere (formerly a school for the children of British civilians) and forced their way across the Charbagh Canal with few casualties.
caption: Contemporary plan of the movements during the siege, relief and capture of Lucknow
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