ACHIEVEMENTS OF FIELD ARTILLERY. 
569 
wards the other points, being thus taken in flank, were captured with 
comparative facility. 
At the battle of Sobraon, 10th February, 1846, a mass of guns was 
made use of with great effect at the suggestion of the Governor- 
General, Sir Henry Hardinge, and contributed in no small degree to 
our success, even if it was not entirely responsible for it. Sir Henry 
Hardinge's account, given in a letter to Sir Howard Douglas, pub¬ 
lished in Fullom's life of the latter, says a we should have been repulsed 
had we not persisted in using 36 heavy guns to bombard the enemy's 
camp before the infantry assault was delivered. The two field officers 
of Artillery and Engineers, with the Governor-General, pointed out to 
him that, as the enemy had only field guns in their camp, the heavy 
guns being in battery on the other side of the river, our heavy guns 
and mortars might cannonade their camp at such a range as would 
preclude an effective reply on their part. Sir Henry fell in with the 
suggestion, which he recommended to the Commander-in-Chief (Gough). 
The next day these officers changed their opinion, and told the 
Commander-in-Chief that as their men would be in open battery they 
would be cut to pieces. Sir Henry Hardinge, however, took a different 
view, and pressed his opinion, backed up by that of an Engineer officer, 
Major Abbott, so strongly upon them, that they again altered theirs, 
and agreed that they would make their 36 guns very effective, and 
we agreed to make the attack." 
“ The guns began at daylight. We could not see from the haziness 
of the morning what was the effect produced, but we saw they all went 
into the camp. Only two of our artillerymen were even wounded." 
The subsequent assault by the infantry, after two repulses had been 
experienced, was eventually successful, and our left, which had expected 
to meet with a heavy fire from the enemy's batteries on the other side 
of the river, were astonished to find themselves unmolested by them. 
The mystery was afterwards explained. The Sikhs in the camp had 
been so discouraged by the bombardment which dismounted some of 
their guns, and killed their men from a distance beyond the powers of 
their guns, that they sent to the batteries on the other side of the river, 
and took away all their artillerymen to reinforce those in the camp, 
took up two of the boats of the bridge, and told their men that there 
was no retreat. Sir Henry Hardinge concludes with the following 
testimony to the effect produced by our artillery :—“ By this piece of 
good fortune we suffered a less severe loss than we otherwise should 
have done; and in confidence I will say that, if the 36 heavy guns had 
not been brought to bear, we should have been repulsed, for they did 
much execution, and produced the effect of causing their heavy batteries 
to be of no avail. Our captains of troops and batteries are good." 
This example of the employment of artillery is also alluded to in his 
“Modern Artillery" by Major-General Owen, who points out how 
much our artillery were subsequently indebted to Lord Hardinge, in 
as much as it was he that was mainly instrumental in raising it to a 
respectable strength shortly before the Crimean War. 
Chillianwallah (13th January, 1849), is not a victory of which we, 
as a nation, can feel particularly proud, for surely never was leadership 
more lacking in a battle, nor can a fight at the close of which the 
