Carlotto, the Dutch sent the light cruiser Hr.Ms. Sumatra and the French sent aviso La Marne for the evacuation of their citizens in Nanjing. By March 26, NRA commander Cheng Qian restored order in Nanjing and successfully restrained soldiers from further hostile actions against foreign forces, while requesting the Red Cross to mediate a cease fire with foreign naval vessels. On March 27, with 70 more refugees aboard, Preston left Nanking and headed downriver. Lieutenant Commander G. B. Ashe later recalled that the Chinese had emplaced a field-piece at a river bend outside of Nanking so he ordered general quarters well in advance of the battery, but when the ship went around the bend the Chinese did not fire. By the end of that day all hostilities ended. About 40 people were killed in total. One British sailor was killed, Able Seaman from the Emerald John Knox of Glasgow and there was only one American casualty, fireman Ray D. Plumley. American forces involved in the Nanking Incident received the Yangtze Service Medal. Three U.S. Navy signalmen who maintained consular communications from the building's roof while under continuous fire were also awarded the Navy Cross. Aftermath Afterwards, the Nationalist Government issued a statement blaming the deserters from Zhang Zongchang's army for starting the attacks on the foreign consulates, and also accused the Communist soldiers within the NRA of committing atrocities which were wrongly assigned to the Kuomintang. National Revolutionary Army commander in chief Chiang Kai-shek suspected that the Chinese Communist Party and Soviet advisors in the Wuhan Nationalist Government used anti-imperialists and anti-foreign sentiments to instigate the Nanjing incident, and conspired to strengthen the communists and damage the right-wing faction of the Kuomintang. Therefore, the Nanjing incident led to his determination to violently purge the communists from the Kuomintang in Shanghai on 12 April 1927, formally ending their cooperation during the Northern Expedition and officially commencing the Chinese Civil War. In 1928, Huang Fu, foreign minister of the newly formed Nationalist government in Nanjing, reached agreements with the United States and Great Britain to settle the damages caused by the Nanjing Incident, and the Kuomintang agreed to apologize and pay significant compensation to both countries without disclosing the exact sum. Although the Kuomintang suffered financial loss as a result of this settlement, the Nationalist government did receive international recognition and established formal diplomatic relationship with two of the world's great powers