"The remainder of the troops encamped at Seeah Sung were at the same time ordered into cantonments: viz. H.M. 44th foot, under Lieutenant-Colonel Mackerell; two horse-artillery guns, under Lieutenant Waller; and Anderson's irregular horse. A messenger was likewise dispatched to recall the 37th native infantry from Khoord-Cabul without delay. The troops at this time in cantonments were as follows: viz. 5th regiment native infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver; a wing of 54th native infantry; five six-pounder field guns, with a detachment of the Shah's artillery, under Lieutenant Warburton; the Envoy's body-guard; a troop of Skinner's horse, and another of local horse, under Lieutenant Walker; three companies of the Shah's sappers, under Captain Walsh; and about twenty men of the Company's sappers, attached to Captain Paton, assistant-quartermaster-general.
"Widely spread and formidable as this insurrection proved to be afterwards, it was at first a mere insignificant ebullition of discontent on the part of a few desperate and restless men, which military energy and promptitude ought to have crushed in the bud. Its commencement was an attack by certainly not 300 men on the dwellings of Sir Alexander Burnes and Captain Johnson, paymaster to the Shah's force; and so little did Sir Alexander himself apprehend serious consequences, that he not only refused, on its first breaking out, to comply with the earnest entreaties of the wuzeer to accompany him to the Bala Hissar, but actually forbade his guard to fire on the assailants, attempting to check what he supposed to be a mere riot, by haranguing the attacking party from the gallery of his house. The result was fatal to himself; for in spite of the devoted gallantry of the sepoys, who composed his guard, and that of the paymaster's office and treasury on the opposite side of the street, who yielded their trust only with their latest breath, the latter were plundered, and his two companions, Lieutenant William Broadfoot of the Bengal European regiment, and his brother, Lieutenant Burnes of the Bombay army, were massacred, in common with every man, woman, and child found on the premises, by these bloodthirsty miscreants. Lieutenant Broadfoot killed five or six men with his own hand, before he was shot down.