early morning battle started". Battle The Baluch were forced to quickly re-mobilise their army but could not do so effectively as the army was mostly raised on a voluntary basis in times of war and most of the Baluch had returned home. Nevertheless, an army of around 8000—mostly cavalry—was raised and assembled at the battle ground of Miani. Disastrously for the Talpur Amirs another 8000 troops under Mir Sher Muhammad Talpur (later known as Sher-e-Sindh or "Lion of Sindh") failed to reach the battle ground in time. Napier had already successfully isolated the Amir of Khairpur (thereafter known as the great traitor by the Sindhi) by bribery and title. Thus the Baluchi army assembled at Miani represented approximately a third of the potential military strength in Sindh. Although the East India Company later gave its troops numbered in the battle as around 2800, contemporary Talpur records indicated the armies were approximately equal in numbers (around 8–10 thousand each) with the British having around 2500 European officers and soldiers and the balance being Indian sepoys. The difference in military technology and tactics was enormous. The East India Company's army was led by professionally trained British officers and troops and the Indian Sepoys were also well trained and disciplined. They were armed with smoothbore percussion or flintlock Brown Bess muskets, which were accurate to 50–100 yards, and supported by modern artillery. In contrast, the Baluchi army consisted mostly of cavalry armed with muskets, spears and swords and some old artillery pieces acquired from Persia. The tactic was the favoured cavalry charge. Contemporary records indicate that the Baluchi army's morale was very high with the battle slogan being "we will die but not give up Sindh". Indeed, the Baluchis died in thousands, in four-to-five hours of carnage, the Baluchi horsemen charged in wave after wave and was mostly cut down long before they could reach British lines by rifle and artillery fire. When they did eventually reach British lines and, according to Napier himself in his book on the battle (Conquest of Sindh), he had to ride amongst his officers and troops to stop them from falling back in disarray in the face of the ferocity of the Baluch who had reached the British lines. Of the Baluch army of 8000 at Miani, around six thousand Baluch were killed. Reliable sources put the British casualties as 256 as kept by the East India