Second Battle of the Taku Forts

25 June 1859, Taku Forts, mouth of the Peiho

Chinese victory; allied attack repulsed

The British and French envoys came back to ratify the treaty, found the river blocked and the forts rebuilt, and tried to force their way in. Admiral James Hope's gunboats went in at high tide and got stuck among the obstructions under accurate fire from guns they had not seen. Plover, Lee, Cormorant and Kestrel were sunk and Hope himself was badly wounded. A landing party sent across the mud flats at dusk was shot down. The American commodore Josiah Tattnall, saying 'blood is thicker than water', used his chartered steamer to bring up British reserves and take off wounded. The British lost nearly 90 killed and more than 300 wounded, the worst defeat of the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century.