The Third Siege of Missolonghi was a cataclysmic affair. Only a few hundred soldiers and a handful of women and children survived the fateful sortie on 10 April 1826. When the Ottomans finally entered the town, the streets were full of corpses. The victors displayed more than 3000 severed heads off the walls. But Missolonghi was not finished. Soon after the liberation of Greece, the survivors returned; by 1830 there were 400 houses and close to 5000 inhabitants. The first governor of Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias, proposed the erection of a monument to the heroes of the siege, but it was only in the fall of 1838 that the bones of the deceased members of the garrison were collected and placed in the tumulus. Twenty years later, King Otto and Queen Amalia donated the lion that adorns the tumulus and assisted in the planting of the trees that make the Garden of Heroes such an inspiring memorial.