Capture of Lucknow The Capture of Lucknow ( Hindi : लखनऊ का क़ब्ज़ा , ) 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 ( or " Oudh " , as it was referred to in most contemporary accounts ) . Background . Oudh had been annexed by the British East India Company only a year before a general mutiny broke out in the Company ' s Bengal Army . The annexation had been accompanied by several instances of expropriation of royal and landholders ' estates on sometimes flimsy grounds of non - payment of taxes , or difficulties in proving title to lands . Many sepoy s ( native soldiers ) of the Company ' s Bengal Army had been recruited from high - caste and landowning communities in Oudh . There was increasing unrest in the Bengal Army , as privileges and customary allowances they had previously enjoyed were withdrawn . With uncertainty over their rights to property in Oudh , they felt that their status both as soldiers and citizens was under threat . When the rebellion broke out in May 1857 , it threatened British authority in several areas of India , but most particularly in Oudh , where the resentful dispossessed rulers and landowners joined with the mutinied regiments ( Bengal Native troops , and Oudh Irregular units formerly belonging to the Kingdom of Oudh ) in what became a national rebellion . From 1 July to 26 November 1857 , the British had withstood the siege of the Residency to the north of the city . When the besieged garrison was finally relieved by the British commander - in - chief , Sir Colin Campbell , the Residency was evacuated , as Campbell ' s communications were threatened . He returned to Cawnpore from where the relief expedition had been mounted , with all the civilians evacuated from the Residency and the sick and wounded . However , he left a division of 4 , 000 men under Sir James Outram to hold the Alambagh , a walled park two miles south of the city . During the following winter campaigning season , Campbell re - established his communications with Delhi and with Calcutta . He also received fresh reinforcements from Britain and built up a substantial transport and supply column . After capturing Fatehgarh on 1 January 1858 , which allowed him to establish control over the countryside between Cawnpore and Delhi , Campbell suggested leaving Oudh alone during 1858 , concentrating instead on recapturing the state of Rohilkhand , which was also in rebel hands . However , the Governor General , Lord Canning , insisted that Oudh be recaptured , so as to discourage other potential rebels . Canning wrote Oudh is not only the rallying point of the sepoys , the place to which they all look , and by the doings in which their own hopes and prospects rise and fall ; but it represents a dynasty ; there is a King of Oudh " seeking his own " . Campbell ' s advance . 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 follower s . 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 division s 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 . Capture of the main defences . By 11 March , Outram captured two bridges across the Gumti near the Residency ( an iron bridge and a nearby stone bridge ) although heavy rebel artillery fire forced him to abandon the stone bridge . Meanwhile , Campbell occupied an enclosed palace ( the " Secundrabagh " ) and a mosque ( the " Shah Najaf " ) with little opposition ; these two positions had been the scene of heavy fighting the previous November . In front of him was a block of palace buildings , collectively known as the " Begum Kothi " . There was severe fighting for these on 11 March , in which 600 or 700 rebels died . Over the next three days , Campbell ' s engineers and gunners blasted and tunnelled their way through the buildings between the Begum Kothi and the main rebel position in the King of Oudh ' s palace , the Kaisarbagh . Meanwhile , Outram ' s guns bombarded the Kaisarbagh from the north . The main assault on the Kaisarbagh took place on 14 March . Campbell ' s and Frank ' s forces attacked from the east , but Campbell surprisingly refused Outram permission to cross the Gumti and take the Kaisarbagh between two fires . As a result , although the Kaisarbagh was easily captured , its defenders were able to retreat without difficulty . Final capture of Lucknow . Most of the rebels were abandoning Lucknow and scattering into the countryside . Campbell failed to stop most of them , by sending his cavalry after some rebels who had left earlier . Operations temporarily halted while the British reorganised and most regiments fell to looting the captured palaces . On 16 March , Outram finally recrossed the Gumti , and his division advanced on and stormed the Residency . There were disjointed rebel counter - attacks on the Alambagh and the British positions north of the Gumti , which failed . A rebel force which was supposed to contain Begum Hazrat Mahal , the wife of the dispossessed King of Oudh , and her son Birjis Qadra whom the rebels had proclaimed King , was driven from the Musabagh , yet another walled palace four miles northwest of Lucknow . The last rebels , 1 , 200 men under a noted leader , Ahmadullah Shah , also known as the Maulvi of Faizabad , were driven from a fortified house in the centre of the city on 21 March . The city was declared cleared on this date . Outcome . Campbell had advanced cautiously and had captured Lucknow with few casualties , but by failing to prevent the rebels escaping , he was forced to spend much of the following summer and monsoon season clearing the rebels from the countryside of Oudh . As a result , his army suffered heavy casualties from heatstroke and other diseases . Outram had also failed to protest his orders not to advance on 14 March , which had allowed most rebels to escape . Outram was Civil Commissioner for Oudh in addition to his military command , and may have allowed his hopes for pacification and reconciliation to override his soldier ' s instincts . Rebel casualties were hard to estimate . British troops usually executed any prisoners they captured , whether armed or not . One of the prominent British casualties was William Hodson , who led an irregular cavalry unit and also served as an Intelligence officer , killed during the capture of the Begum Kothi on 11 March .