He had to choose whether he would fight these enormous odds or retire: he decided that to fight was the least of the two evils, and he was so far successful that he drove back that portion of the opposing force immediately in his front, and captured three guns; but being unable to press his advantage on account of the paucity of men and the total absence of Cavalry, he had perforce to fall back--a grievous necessity.

He was followed the whole way, insulted and jeered at, by the rebel horsemen.
The result of the day was to give confidence to the wily Mahratta leader; he pushed on to Cawnpore, and attacked Windham with such vehemence that by nightfall on the 28th the British troops were driven inside the entrenchment, having had 315 men killed and wounded, and having lost all their baggage and camp equipage.
Windham undoubtedly laid himself open to censure.

His defence was that, had he received the Commander-in-Chief's authority to carry out his plan for surprising the rebels, he would certainly have broken up their army, and the disaster could not have occurred.

But surely when he decided that circumstances had so changed since Sir Colin's orders were given as to justify him in disregarding them, he should have acted on his own responsibility, and taken such steps as appeared to him best, instead of applying for sanction to a Commander far from the scene of action, and so entirely ignorant of the conditions under which the application was made, as to render it impossible for him to decide whether such sanction should be given.

The march which Windham made towards the enemy on the 24th was quite as grave a disobedience of orders as would have been the surprise movement he contemplated on the 17th; but while the former placed him in a most dangerous position, and one from which it was impossible to deal the enemy a decisive blow, the latter, if successful, would have deserved, and doubtless would have received, the highest praise.
[Footnote 1: Greathed's brigade consisted of the 8th and 64th Foot and 2nd Punjab Infantry.