The prospects for Tipu Sultan, the Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, had declined significantly during the 1791 campaign season of the Third Anglo-Mysore War.

[4] The city of Seringapatam occupied an island in the Kaveri River, which at that point flowed roughly west-to-east from the Western Ghats on its way to the Bay of Bengal.

Tipu had arrayed army, which Cornwallis estimated to number between forty and fifty thousand, along a roughly semicircular line on the northern shore of the Kaveri that covered the approaches to the island.

Since the battle was to take place at night, they would be unable to use artillery to provide covering fire, so he ordered the attacks to be made only with musket and bayonet.

By then gunfire from his left indicated that Maxwell's men had already begun their attack on Karigaut Hill, and the sounds had thrown the Mysorean troops in the center into some disorder.

Cornwallis ordered his men through the hedge; the British troops closed with the bayonet on the Mysoreans, who fled in near-panic, leaving artillery, tents, and provisions behind.

Medows strayed too far to the west in the dark, and although he successfully took the westernmost redoubt of the Mysorean line, he was prevented from approaching the island by a series of ravines and swampy ground.

Significantly exposed, Cornwallis withdrew his command to Karigaut Hill, abandoning part of his camp in the process, and leaving a detachment of men in the captured redoubt.

This enabled the Mysorean cavalry to roam freely through the area while Tipu's artillery continued to play on exposed British positions.

Tipu also used the night to withdraw his men entirely from the north shore of the Kaveri, enabling Cornwallis to completely surround the fort.

[8] In order to hasten the arrival of Abercromby's force, Cornwallis dispatched companies of Hyderabadi and Marathan cavalry to meet and escort them to the area.

On 10 February Abercromby's force arrived in camp, in spite of a sortie led by Tipu personally in an attempt to prevent the meeting from happening.