The river there makes a loop somewhat like a horseshoe in shape,
and in the neck of land between the curves of the stream the Nawab had
placed his intrenched camp.
His army numbered nearly seventy thousand men, of whom fifty thousand
were infantry, armed with matchlocks, bows and arrows, pikes and swords.
He had in all fifty-three guns, mounted on platforms drawn by elephants
and oxen. The most efficient part of his artillery was commanded by
Monsieur Sinfray, who had under him some fifty Frenchmen from
Chandernagore. The Nawab's vanguard consisted of fifteen thousand men
under his most trusty lieutenants, including Manik Chand and Mir Madan.
Rai Durlabh, the captor of Cossimbazar, and two other officers commanded
separate divisions.
Dawn had hardly broken on June twenty-third, King George's birthday, when
Mir Madan with a body of picked troops, seven thousand foot, five
thousand horse, and Sinfray's artillery, moved out to the attack with
great clamor of trumpets and drums. The remainder of the Nawab's army
formed a wide arc about the north and east of the English position.
Nearest to the grove was Mir Jafar's detachment.
The English were arranged in four divisions, under Majors Killpatrick,
Grant and Coote, and Captain Gaupp. These had taken position in front of
the embankment, the guns on the left, the Europeans in the center, the
Sepoys on the right. Sinfray's gunners occupied an eminence near the tank
about two hundred yards in advance of the grove, and made such good play
that Clive, directing operations from the Nawab's hunting box, deemed it
prudent to withdraw his men into the grove, where they were sheltered
from the enemy's fire.
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