Bratsigovo was the only one among the insurgent villages in the Rhodopes which survived. The insurgents there were successful in repelling the attacks of the bashibozouks and laid down their arms only after the up-rising had been put down everywhere else. The leader of the Bratsigovo insurgents Vassil Petleshkov was tortured between two fires to tell the names of his associates, but he preferred death to treason.

The most active villages in the Turnovo revolutionary district were Batoshevo, Novo Selo, Kruvenik, Byala Cherkva, Moussina, Vishovgrad, Dichin, Golyamo Yalare. The leaders of the uprising there were Tsanko Dyustabanov, Father Hariton, Bacho Kiro Petrov, Yonko Karagyozov, Todor Kirkov and others. After several bloody battles, the biggest of which took place on Mount Maragidik in the Balkan Range, the insurgents were routed by the severalfold more numerous Turkish troops. The detachment led by Priest Hariton fortified itself in the Dryanovo Monastery and repelled the attacks of bashibozouks and regular troops for nine long days. When their ammunition ended, they undertook a midnight at-tack. The majority of the insurgents perished in the hand- to-hand fighting and only 40 out of the 200 insurgents managed to escape. There, too, the Turks committed in-human atrocities, razing scores of villages to the ground and slaughtering their population.

Nikola Voinikovski

The epilogue of the April epopee was the exploit of Botev's detachment. As soon as he heard about the up-rising, Botev recruited a detachment of 200 courageous revolutionaries and took Nikola Voinikovski, who has served in the Russian army, for his military adviser. On May 17, 1876, disguised as ordinary market-gardeners, the revolutionaries, divided in groups, boarded the Austrian packetboat Radetzki at different Romanian ports on the Danube. When the boat approached the village of Kozlodoui on the Bulgarian bank, the 'market gardeners' changed quickly into their uniforms of dapper revolutionaries and took possession of the boat, forcing the crew to enable them to disembark on the Bulgarian bank.

As soon as Botev and his comrades descended on the bank, they kneeled down before the admiring eyes of the passengers and piously kissed the soil they had come to shed their blood for. From there the detachment set out for the Balkan Range, but the uprising had already been quelled, whereas the Vratsa district had not risen at all. After several fierce battles with the far superior Turkish forces, the detachment reached the Balkan Range near the town of Vratsa (Mounts Kamarata, Koupena and Okolchitsa near the Peak Vola) where it was surrounded on all sides by Turkish troops. Throughout the day on May 20, the revolutionaries kept repelling the attacks of the Turkish infantry and Circassian cavalry. When evening fell and the battle was already ending, a fatal bullet pierced Botev's heart. In order to make their escape easier, the detachment broke into small groups and thus ended its existence as a military unit.

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