For more than forty hours General Godwin was unable to advance. His commissariat officers were very slow in issuing rations to replace the one-day’s supply carried by the troops; the gunners were equally slow in landing and transporting to the front the four 8-in. howitzers, on which he relied to make a breach in the defences of Rangoon; and it was not until 5 A.M. on the 14th that the column was again in motion. The XVIIIth and the 40th Bengal Native Infantry led, followed by the 51st and the 35th Madras Native Infantry; the 80th were in charge of the guns, and a Madras Native Infantry regiment kept up communication with the ships in the river. Working slowly through jungle so thick that paths had to be cut for the passage of the guns, Godwin avoided the enemy’s main stockades; but as his leading troops came within sight of the great pagoda, the guns on its terraces opened fire. Opposite the gate in the eastern wall, by which he proposed to force his way into Rangoon, the ground was so difficult that there was barely room for the XVIIIth and the 80th to form up in quarter columns, while they halted till the guns had made a practicable breach. The Burmese artillery played upon the easy target offered to them, and their skirmishers became so bold that five hundred muskets were required to keep them at a respectful distance from the main body of the infantry. The situation was becoming impossible when it was discovered that the gate had been opened, presumably to afford a safe retreat to the Burmese soldiers who were harassing our flanks. Godwin determined to assault forthwith, and placed Lieutenant-Colonel Coote in command of a storming party, composed of two companies of the Royal Irish, the wing of the 80th, and part of the 40th B.N.I. Under a galling fire, the column moved with great steadiness across a shallow valley, half a mile in width, and swept like a tidal wave over terrace after terrace until the Shwe Dagon was won. Then the Burmese broke and fled in panic, losing heavily in their retreat, especially at a point where part of the grenadier company of the Royal Irish fell upon them in flank with the bayonet, and in a short time Rangoon was in our hands. In the British land forces the casualties between the 11th and the 14th of April were a hundred and forty-five--two officers were killed and fourteen wounded; fifteen of the other ranks were killed, and a hundred and fourteen wounded. Nearly a third of these losses fell upon the Royal Irish: Lieutenant and Adjutant R. Doran, pierced by four bullets, fell mortally wounded at the foot of the pagoda;[151] Lieutenant-Colonel Coote, Captain W. T. Bruce, and Lieutenant G. A. Elliot were wounded; a sergeant and two privates were killed, a sergeant, a drummer, and thirty-seven privates wounded.[152] In his despatch General Godwin mentions four officers of the Royal Irish--Lieutenant-Colonel Reignolds, who was in temporary command of a brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Coote, Captain G. F. S. Call (Brigade Major), and Captain J. J. Wood, who brought the regiment out of action.