Battle of Escape Creek

Battle of Escape Creek
Part of the Second Opium War
Commodore Elliot leading gunboats to attack the Mandarin junks
Date 25–27 May 1857 Location Escape Creek, Guangdong, China Coordinates: 23°02′17″N 113°31′19″E / 23.038°N 113.522°E Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Qing China
Commanders and leaders
Charles Elliot	Admiral Sonhay[1]
Strength
13 gunboats 7 cutters and gigs[2]	41 war-junks
Casualties and losses
31 wounded[3]	27 junks captured or destroyed[1]

The Battle of Escape Creek was a naval engagement fought between the United Kingdom's Royal Navy and the Qing Chinese naval force on 25–27 May 1857 during the Second Opium War. Commodore Charles Elliot's squadron chased the war-junks at Escape Creek (present-day East River) and then, once the British ships were grounded as the river narrowed, they chased them in the ships' boats until all the junks had been overhauled.^[4]

Gallery

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  Map of Canton area showing Escape Creek near the top

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  Map of the engagements

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  Attack on the junks

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  Burning of 27 captured junks

Notes

1. Behan 1859, p. 1251
2. Behan 1859, p. 1256
3. Behan 1859, p. 1259
4. "Second Anglo-Chinese War ("Opium war") of 1856 – 1860". William Loney. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012. Retrieved 3 January 2015.

References

• Behan, T. L., ed. (1859). Bulletins and Other State Intelligence for the Year 1857. Part 2. London: Harrison and Sons.

Further reading

• Cooke, George Wingrove (1861). China and Lower Bengal (5th ed.). London: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge. pp. 15–18.