Seven months after Gen. George Gordon was trapped in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists, a relief expedition left Cairo. Commanded by Gen. Sir Garnet Wolseley, the column pressed up the Nile toward Khartoum, 800 miles away. In northern Sudan, Wolseley sent 1,800-man camel corps under Gen. Sir Herbert Stewart directly accross country, where the Nile makes a great bend to east. At Abu Klea, a caravan stop 63 miles southwest of Ed Damer, Stewart's troops encountered almost 10,000 Mahdist followers of Muhammad Ahmed. In a desperate hand to hand on January 17, the Sudanese were repulsed with more than a thousand killed. Anglo-Egyptian casualties were 168.
Stewart's corps fought its way to the Nile two days later, but their commander mortally wounded. On January 24, the force, now under Lord Charles Beresford, began moving upriver to Khartoum, where they arrive four days later - and 48 hours too late to save Gordon.