REINFORCEMENTS—ISANDHLWANA REVISITED.
During the latter part of March and April reinforcements
kept steadily pouring into Natal, and with them four general
officers—Major-General the Hon. H. H. Clifford, V.C., C.B., who
was stationed at Pietermaritzburg, to command at the base of
operations; Major-General Crealock, C.B., to command No. 1 Division,
concentrating on the Lower Tugela; Major-General Newdigate, to
command No. 2 Division, head-quarters Dundee; and Major-General
Marshall, to command the Cavalry Brigade attached to No. 2 Division;
Brigadier-General Wood, V.C., C.B., retaining his previous command—to
be styled the Flying Column.
By the middle of March the available force consisted of an effective
strength of non-commissioned officers and men—Imperial troops,
7520; volunteer cavalry, etc., 1367; Europeans, attached to native
contingents, 495; making a total of 9382 Europeans, with 5769
natives.—(P. P. [C. 2316] p. 85).
No operations of any consequence took place beyond concentrating
troops and forwarding supplies. On the 20th April, Lord Chelmsford
reported that Major-General Crealock had taken up his command
and, if transport arrangements permitted, would shortly commence
operations. Major-General Newdigate was on his way to his command.
The reinforcements alone considerably exceeded the strength of the
force with which the war was so rashly undertaken. They consisted of
the 1st Dragoon Guards, 17th Lancers; 21st, 57th, 58th, 60th, 88th
(one company), 91st, 94th Foot; two batteries Royal Artillery, and
detachments from St. Helena and Mauritius; one company and half C
troop Royal Engineers; drafts for various regiments; detachments of
Army Service and Army Hospital Corps; etc. etc.;—a total (including
the staff embarked in February from England) of 387 officers and 8901
men.
But even after the arrival of this enormous accession of strength,
further reinforcements of three battalions were demanded “for reserve
and garrison purposes.”—(P. P. [C. 2367] p. 162).
At the end of April the effective force was:
First Division, Major-General Crealock:
Imperial and irregular troops 6508
Native Contingent (151 mounted) 2707
Second Division, Major-General Newdigate:
Imperial and irregular troops 6867
Natives (243 mounted) 3371
Flying Column, Brigadier-General Wood:
Imperial and irregular troops 2285
Natives (75 mounted) 807
Making a total strength of 22,545 men available for the conquest
of Zululand.
On the 14th May, Lord Chelmsford reported: “The troops are in
position, and are only waiting for sufficient supplies and transport
to advance.”—(P. P. [C. 2374] p. 97).
The transport difficulties naturally increased with the increasing
force. The colony did not eagerly press forward to the rescue, and
although transport for service in the colony could be obtained, that
for trans-frontier work was not procurable in any quantity on any
terms.
The colonial view somewhat appeared to be, “No government has
power, either legally or morally, to force any man to perform acts
detrimental to his own interest.” No doubt the colony felt itself
more secure whilst the troops remained within its borders, and
naturally was not anxious to assist in their departure; and it may
have thought the war “was an Imperial concern, brought about by an
Imperial functionary;” and therefore the Empire should be left “to
worry out the affair for itself;” as remarked by a colonial paper at
the time.
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the necessities
of the troops, during this campaign, taxed the resources of the
colonists to the utmost. If some profited in a mercantile point of
view, and were unpatriotic enough to try to make every penny they
could out of the army intended for their protection, there were
others who acted in a very different spirit. The sacrifice and loss
of both life and property through the Zulu war has been as great, in
proportion, to Natal as to the mother country; and if the former was
weak and wicked—or perhaps only _thoughtless_—enough to wish for war,
she has now received a lesson which will prevent her ever making
so great a mistake again. While upon the one side we hear stories
of transport riders and others who lost no opportunity of fleecing
at every turn both Government and military in their necessity, on
the other hand we have equally well-authenticated accounts of strict
honesty, and even generosity, on the part of other Natalians. One
story is told of a transport rider who had earned the sum of £1500,
which was to be paid by instalments of £500 each: after he had
received two of these the officer who paid him was removed, and his
successor, unaware of previous payments, handed over to the transport
rider’s messenger the whole £1500. The honest fellow at once returned
the £1000 overpaid.
It is also a well-known fact that many of the principal tradesmen
permitted their shopmen to join the volunteer corps to which they
belonged, still continuing to pay them their respective salaries
during their absence.
The colony was not revelling in a shower of gold, as some at home
imagine: a few individuals, doubtless, thought to “make hay while the
sun shines,” but to the population at large the war was certainly not
advantageous. For some months fresh provisions were almost at famine
prices, or even unattainable by private persons.
Many farmers were with the army, either as volunteers or with the
transport train; others again had sold their waggons and oxen, and
thus had no means of bringing in their produce. The market supply
was consequently very small, and generally at once bought up for the
garrisons.
Transport difficulties, we have said, increased with the increasing
force. The 9000 Imperial troops sent as reinforcements had to be fed,
and their food conveyed to where they were stationed. Three or four
thousand horses and mules also had to be fed in a country from which
grass was disappearing, and in which supplies of forage were small.
The larger part of the troops and horses were sent up-country—some
two hundred miles from the coast—where winter grass-fires might be
expected, and nature’s stores were certain soon to be exhausted; and
thus arose the terrible strain in the transport resources of the
country.
But much more was required than was necessary. In place of the
ponderous train accompanying each column—a fruitful source of
difficulty and danger on the march by day, if a protection when
halted at night—the advance should have been made from entrenched
depôts in the lightest possible order. A rapid advance on the king’s
kraal in compact formation, and, wherever the enemy might stand, a
decisive battle fought—the result of which, with the most ordinary
care, could not be doubtful—and the war would be virtually over.
There need have been no weary inactivity, with its following of
disease and death, and the saving to the country would have been
enormous.
Supplies were pushed forward from the Lower Tugela to the Inyezane,
where a fort was constructed (Fort Chelmsford); and from the base up
to Conference Hill—the supplies required by Lord Chelmsford before an
advance could be made being two months’ with the forces advancing,
and one month’s at the advanced depôts.[169]
But little further was done through this period of indecision and
vacillation, in which plans were made only to be changed, and orders
given one day to be countermanded the next. Sickness laid its heavy
hand on many a man—exposure and inaction in the first place, then
want of proper care and nursing, gradually swelling the death-roll.
Before the war, and throughout its course, a body of ladies of Natal
were most anxious to place themselves under the orders of the medical
staff as nurses for the sick and wounded; but their offers, though
repeatedly pressed upon the authorities, were declined.
It was at this period that the following message was telegraphed by
Lord Chelmsford to the High Commissioner:
“May 16th, 1879.—General Crealock telegraphs: Messengers from king
are at his advanced post. King sues for peace. John Dunn sent to
see them. Message as follows: ‘White man has made me king, and I
am their son. Do they kill the man in the afternoon whom they have
made king in the morning? What have I done? I want peace; I ask for
peace.’ King asks for a black man or white man to return with his
messengers to say message delivered rightly. Undwana, one of the
messengers, states that he has sent to Dabulamunzi to order him to
go to the king. Message had been delivered to him by Undwana, and
he ought to have reached king yesterday. All principal chiefs have
been sent for to the king. He says army is dispersed. Chiefs have
been urging peace on king. General C. has only informed Clifford
and Lieutenant-Governor of the above. I have telegraphed back to
Crealock: ‘Tell messengers I informed king’s messenger at Etshowe
that any message must be sent to me at Colonel Wood’s camp. I am
ready to receive any messenger under flag of truce. Tell them
something more than words will be required. Supply them with flag
of truce; relax no preparations or precautions.’” End of quotation.
“I shall be glad to receive your Excellency’s early instructions. I
consider the king should not be allowed to remain on the throne, and
that the terms of peace should be signed at Ulundi in presence of
British force. I shall not make any change in my arrangements in the
meantime.”—(P. P. [C. 2374] pp. 100, 101).
To Major-General Marshall belongs the credit of performing the
long-neglected duty of revisiting the fatal battle-field of
Isandhlwana, and burying as many as possible of those that fell
there. With General Newdigate’s permission, the Cavalry Brigade
under General Marshall made a reconnaissance of the Bashi Valley and
Isandhlwana, having moved down to Rorke’s Drift for that purpose.
The left column of the brigade proceeded up the Bashi Valley,
and moving round the Ingqutu range, joined the right column at
Isandhlwana.
The reconnaissance was proposed to include burying the dead, bringing
away the waggons, etc.; but an order was received prohibiting
touching the 24th, who were to be interred by their own comrades.
The battle-field was a fearful sight—though softened much by the
kindly hand of nature. There plainly lay revealed the widely-spread
camp (or rather line of camps), the hopeless position in which it was
placed; the absolute impossibility, circumstanced as it was, of any
result but the sad one we have already chronicled. And there, too,
were the evidences of a gallant resistance, and a stand made by men
“faithful unto death.”
It was well said: “The field of Isandhlwana is beginning to give up
its secrets; the mists of fiction are being dispersed by the dry
light of fact. It has not been through mere idle curiosity that
there has been a desire to know what passed during the final moments
of that fatal struggle. There were difficulties to be explained,
reputations to be cleared, allegations to be contradicted. There was
the desire to know how those who were lost had died. To be sure that
they died with their faces to the foe; to be satisfied that their
death was not attended with any excess of cruelty or suffering. And
there can be little doubt that it is the very anxiety to be assured
of all this that stands responsible for the numerous fictions—as we
must now hold them to be—which have been circulated with regard to
what passed on that memorable day.”—_Natal Witness_, 29th May, 1879.
A short description of the spot, taken from that written by Mr.
Archibald Forbes, may be of interest: At the top of the ascent beyond
the Bashi we saw, on our left front, rising above the surrounding
country, the steep, isolated, and almost inaccessible hill, or rather
crag, of Isandhlwana; the contour of its rugged crest strangely
resembling a side view of a couchant lion. On the lower neck of
the high ground on its right were clearly visible up against the
sky-line the abandoned waggons of the destroyed column. Now we
crossed the rocky bed of the little stream and were cantering up the
slope leading to the crest on which were the waggons, and already
tokens of the combat and bootless flight were apparent. The line of
retreat towards Fugitives’ Drift, along which, through a gap in the
Zulu environment, our unfortunate comrades who thus far survived
tried to escape, lay athwart a rocky slope to our right front, with
a precipitous ravine at its base. In this ravine dead men lay thick.
All the way up the slope could be traced the fitful line of flight.
Most of the dead here were 24th men; single bodies and groups where
they seemed to have gathered to make a hopeless gallant stand and
die. On the edge of a gully was a gun-limber jammed, its horses
hanging in their harness down the steep face of the ravine; a little
farther on a broken ambulance-waggon, with its team of mules dead
in their harness, and around were the bodies of the poor fellows
who had been dragged from the intercepted vehicle. Following the
trail of bodies through long grass and scattered stores, the crest
was reached. Here the dead lay thick, many in the uniform of the
Natal Mounted Police. On the bare ground on the crest itself, among
the waggons, the dead were less thick; but on the slope beyond, on
which from the crest we looked down, the scene was the saddest and
more full of weird desolation than any I had yet gazed upon. There
was none of the horror of a recent battle-field; nothing of all that
makes the scene of yesterday’s battle so rampantly ghastly shocked
the senses. A strange dead calm reigned in this solitude; grain had
grown luxuriantly round the waggons, sprouting from the seed that
dropped from the loads, falling on soil fertilised by the life-blood
of gallant men. So long in most places had grown the grass that it
mercifully shrouded the dead, whom four long months to-morrow we
have left unburied. In a patch of long grass, near the right flank
of the camp, lay Colonel Durnford’s body, a central figure of a knot
of brave men who had fought it out around their chief to the bitter
end. A stalwart Zulu, covered by his shield, lay at the Colonel’s
feet. Around him lay fourteen Natal Carbineers and their officer,
Lieutenant Scott, with a few Mounted Police[170] (twenty). Clearly
they had rallied round Colonel Durnford in a last despairing attempt
to cover the flank of the camp, and had stood fast from choice, when
they might have essayed to fly for their horses, who were close by
their side at the piquet-line. With this group were about thirty
gallant fellows of the 24th. In other places the 24th men were found
as if fallen in rallying square, and there were bodies scattered all
along the front of the camp.
The fallen were roughly buried, except those of the men of the 24th
Regiment. These were ordered to be left untouched. General Marshall
had nourished a natural and seemly wish to give interment to all
the dead who so long had lain at Isandhlwana, but it appeared that
the 24th desired to perform the ceremony themselves in presence
of both battalions. One has much sympathy with the regiment, but
General Marshall offered to convey a burial-party with tools from
Rorke’s Drift in waggons, and it seemed scarcely right to postpone
longer than absolutely necessary what respect for our honoured dead
required. Thus, the Zulus, who have carefully buried their own dead,
will return to find we visited the place, not to bury our dead, but
to remove a batch of waggons!
In the desolate camp were many sad relics, and the ground was strewn
with them and the spoil of the plundered waggons. Scarcely any
arms were found, and no ammunition—a few stray rusted bayonets and
assegais only were to be seen.
Teams of horses were hitched on to the soundest of the waggons, till
forty fit to travel were collected on the crest, and sent under
escort to Rorke’s Drift, and meantime scouting-parties had fired the
kraals around, but found no Zulus.
“I shall offer few comments on the Isandhlwana position. Had the
world been searched for a position offering the easiest facilities
for being surprised, none could have been well found to surpass it.
The position seems to offer a premium on disaster, and asks to be
attacked. In the rear laagered waggons would have discounted its
defects; but the camp was more defenceless than an English village.
Systematic scouting could alone have justified such a position, and
this too clearly cannot have been carried out.”—_Daily News_, 20th
June, 1879.
On the 20th, 23rd, and 26th June the burial of the remainder of those
who fell at Isandhlwana was completed by a force under the command
of Lieut.-Colonel Black, 24th Regiment. He carefully noted the signs
of the fight, and reported that the bodies of the slain lay thickest
in the 1-24th camp, in which 130 dead lay (in two distinct spots),
with their officers, Captain Wardell, Lieutenant Dyer, and a captain
and a subaltern not recognisable; close to the place where the bodies
of Colonel Durnford, Lieutenant Scott, and other Carbineers, and men
of the Natal Mounted Police were found. This is described as being a
“centre of resistance,” as the bodies of men of all arms were found
converging as it were to the spot. About sixty bodies, with those of
Captain Younghusband and two other officers, lay in a group under the
southern precipice of Isandhlwana, as if they had held the crags and
fought till ammunition failed. The proofs of hand-to-hand fighting
were frequent. The fugitives’ track, too, told its tale: “Here and
there around a waggon, here and there around a tree, a group had
formed and stood at bay; shoulder to shoulder they fired their last
cartridge, and shoulder to shoulder they plied the steel; side by
side their bones are lying and tell the tale.”
Eight hundred yards from the road the guns had come upon ground no
wheels could pass, and from here the bodies were more and more apart
till, about two miles from camp, the last one lies and marks the
limit reached by white men on foot.
The fatal trail again began near the river’s bank, where Major Smith,
R.A., and others rest, a river’s breadth from Natal; across the river
it runs until the graves of Melville and Coghill nearly mark its end.
_The Standard and Mail_ of September 16th says: “It is a noticeable
fact that Cetywayo declares that his men were completely disheartened
by Isandula, and that as a matter of fact he was never able to get
them thoroughly together again after that event. He says that a large
part of the forces engaged on that occasion were actually retreating
when another part made the fatal rush.... Of course these statements
are of interest as showing what Cetywayo said, but they must be
accepted with reservation, as he has throughout taken up the theory
that he and his men had no intention of inflicting so much injury
upon us as they did.”
Bishop Schreuder, on the 3rd March, says: “The Zulus’ version of the
Isan’lwana story tells us some most remarkable things with respect
to the battle and the effect of it on the Zulus. The Zulus, after
having ransacked the camp, bolted off with the booty as fast as they
could when the English army was seen returning to the camp, even at a
great distance. The detachment of the Zulu army seen by Glyn’s column
on its way, the 23rd January, back to Rorke’s Drift, was a part of
the Undi corps and Utako (Udhloko) retreating from the unsuccessful
attack on the Commissariat stores at Rorke’s Drift. Among the
horsemen was Udabulamanzi, who says that they were so tired, and glad
that Glyn’s column did not attack them, for if attacked they would
have bolted every one. Comparatively few and inferior oxen were
brought to the king, as the izinduna appropriated to themselves the
best and most of the captured oxen; Udabulamanzi, for instance, took
home twenty good oxen. The Zulus say that the affair at Isan’lwana
commenced with a victory and ended with a flight, for, as it is the
case after a defeat, the whole army did not return to the king, but
the soldiers dispersed, making the best of their way with what booty
they had got to their respective homes, and to this day they have not
reassembled to the king, who is very much displeased with his two
generals, Umnkingwayo (Tsingwayo) and Umavumengwane (Mavumengwana),
and other izinduna.”—(P. P. [C. 2318] p. 37).
Some of the Zulu and native accounts of Isandhlwana are worth
noticing. One says the engagement “lasted till late in the
afternoon.” (P. P. [C. 2374] p. 24.) Another speaks of the fighting
when the 24th retired on the tents, and of their ammunition failing.
Another (Nugwende, a brother of Cetshwayo) says that the main, or
front and the left flank attack of the Zulu army were beaten and fell
back with great loss until the fire of the white troops slackened.
The right flank entering the camp, the main body was ordered to renew
the attack, which the English were unable to prevent from want of
ammunition.
The following “Statement of a Zulu Deserter regarding the Isan’lwana
Battle” was taken by Mr. Drummond, head-quarter staff:
The Zulu army, consisting of the Ulundi corps, about 3000 strong;
the Nokenke Regiment, 2000 strong; the Ngobamakosi Regiment,
including the Uve, about 5000 strong; the Umcityu, about 4000
strong; the Nodwengu, 2000 strong; the Umbonambi, 3000 strong;
and the Udhloko, about 1000 strong, or a total of about 20,000
men in all, left the military kraal of Nodwengu on the afternoon
of the 17th of January. It was first addressed by the King, who
said:
“I am sending you out against the whites, who have invaded
Zululand and driven away our cattle. You are to go against the
column at Rorke’s Drift, and drive it back into Natal; and, if
the state of the river will allow, follow it up through Natal,
right up to the Draakensburg. You will attack by daylight, as
there are enough of you to ‘eat it up,’ and you will march
slowly, so as not to tire yourselves.”
We accordingly left Nodwengu late in the afternoon, and marched
in column to the west bank of the White Umfolosi, about six miles
distant, where we bivouacked for the night. Next day we marched
to the Isipezi military kraal, about nine miles off, where we
slept; and on the 19th we ascended to the tableland near the
Isihlungu hills, a march of about equal duration with that of
the day previous. On this day the army, which had hitherto been
marching in single column, divided into two, marching parallel to
and within sight of each other, that on the left consisting of
the Nokenke, Umcityu, and Nodwengu Regiments, under the command
of Tyingwayo, the other commanded by Mavumingwana. There were a
few mounted men belonging to the chief Usirayo, who were made
use of as scouts. On the 20th we moved across the open country
and slept by the Isipezi hill. We saw a body of mounted white
men on this day to our left (a strong reconnaissance was made on
the 20th, to the west of the Isipezi hill, which was probably
the force here indicated). On the 21st, keeping away to the
eastward, we occupied a valley running north and south under the
spurs of the Ngutu hill, which concealed the Isandlana hill,
distant from us about four miles, and nearly due west of our
encampment. We had been well fed during our whole march, our
scouts driving in cattle and goats, and on that evening we lit
our camp-fires as usual. Our scouts also reported to us that
they had seen the vedettes of the English force at sunset on
some hills west-south-west of us (Lord Chelmsford with some of
his staff rode up in this direction, and about this time, and
saw some of the mounted enemy). Our order of encampment on the
21st of January was as follows: On the extreme right were the
Nodwengu, Nokenke, and Umcityu; the centre was formed by the
Ngobamakosi and Mbonambi; and the left, of the Undi Corps and
the Udhloko Regiment. On the morning of the 22nd of January
there was no intention whatever of making any attack, on account
of a superstition regarding the state of the moon, and we were
sitting resting, when firing was heard on our right (the narrator
was in the Nokenke Regiment), which we at first imagined was
the Ngobamakosi engaged, and we armed and ran forward in the
direction of the sound. We were, however, soon told it was the
white troops fighting with Matyana’s people some ten miles away
to our left front, and returned to our original position. Just
after we had sat down again, a small herd of cattle came past our
line from our right, being driven down by some of our scouts,
and just when they were opposite to the Umcityu Regiment, a body
of mounted men, on the hill to the west, were seen galloping,
evidently trying to cut them off. When several hundred yards off,
they perceived the Umcityu, and, dismounting, fired one volley at
them and then retired. The Umcityu at once jumped up and charged,
an example which was taken up by the Nokenke and Nodwengu on
their right, and the Ngobamakosi and Mbonambi on the left, while
the Undi Corps and the Udhloko formed a circle (as is customary
in Zulu warfare when a force is about to be engaged) and remained
where they were. With the latter were the two commanding
officers, Mavumingwana and Tyingwayo, and several of the king’s
brothers, who with these two corps bore away to the north-west,
after a short pause, and keeping on the northern side of the
Isandlana, performed a turning movement on the right without any
opposition from the whites, who, from the nature of the ground,
could not see them. Thus the original Zulu left became their
extreme right, while their right became their centre, and the
centre the left. The two regiments which formed the latter, the
Ngobamakosi and Mbonambi, made a turning along the front of the
camp towards the English right, but became engaged long before
they could accomplish it; and the Uve Regiment, a battalion of
the Ngobamakosi, was repulsed and had to retire until reinforced
by the other battalion, while the Mbonambi suffered very severely
from the artillery fire. Meanwhile, the centre, consisting of the
Umcityu on the left centre, and the Nokenke and Nodwengu higher
up on the right, under the hill, were making a direct attack on
the left of the camp. The Umcityu suffered very severely, both
from artillery and musketry fire; the Nokenke from musketry fire
alone; while the Nodwengu lost least. When we at last carried
the camp, our regiments became mixed up; a portion pursued the
fugitives down to the Buffalo River, and the remainder plundered
the camp; while the Undi and Udhloko Regiments made the best
of their way to Rorke’s Drift to plunder the post there—in
which they failed, and lost very heavily, after fighting all
the afternoon and night. We stripped the dead of all their
clothes. To my knowledge no one was made prisoner, and I saw
no dead body carried away or mutilated. If the doctors carried
away any dead bodies for the purpose of afterwards doctoring the
army, it was done without my knowing of it; nor did I see any
prisoner taken and afterwards killed. I was, however, one of the
men who followed the refugees down to the Buffalo River, and
only returned to the English camp late in the afternoon. (This
portion of the prisoner’s statement was made very reluctantly.)
The portion of the army which had remained to plunder the camp
did so thoroughly, carrying off the maize, breadstuffs (_sic_),
and stores of all kinds, and drinking such spirits as were in
camp. Many were drunk, and all laden with their booty; and
towards sunset the whole force moved back to the encampment of
the previous night, hastened by having seen another English
force approaching from the south. Next morning the greater part
of the men dispersed to their homes with their plunder, a few
accompanying the principal officers to the king, and they have
not reassembled since.—_The Times_, March 22nd, 1879.
Another account, taken by the interpreter of one of the column
commanding officers (a version of which has appeared in the columns
of _The Army and Navy Gazette_, of 11th October 1879, and is
described as a “full and accurate account”), is selected as being
corroborated in all main points by survivors of the British force,
and by the battle-field itself. It is the story of Uguku, a Zulu
belonging to the Kandampenvu (or Umcityu) Regiment, who says: “We
arrived at Ingqutu eight regiments strong (20,000 to 25,000 men) and
slept in the valley of a small stream which runs into the Nondweni
river to the eastward of Sandhlwana. The regiments were Kandampenvu
(or Umcityu), Ngobamakosi, Uve, Nokenke, Umbonambi, Udhloko, Nodwengu
(name of military kraal of the Inkulutyane Regiment), and Undi (which
comprises the Tulwana, Ndhlondhlo, and Indhluyengwe): The army was
under the joint command of Mavumengwana, Tsingwayo, and Sihayo. It
was intended that Matshana ka Mondisa was to be in chief command, but
he having been a Natal Kafir, the other three were jealous of him,
and did not like him to be put over them; they therefore devised a
plan of getting him out of the way on the day of the battle. They
accomplished this plan by getting him to go forward with Undwandwe
to the Upindo to reconnoitre, and promised to follow. As soon as
he had gone they took another road, viz. north of Babanango, while
Matshana and Undwandwe went south of it, being accompanied by six
mavigo (companies). It was our intention to have rested for a day in
the valley where we arrived the night before the battle, but having
on the morning of the battle heard firing of the English advance
guard who had engaged Matshana’s men, and it being reported that the
Ngobamakosi were engaged, we went up from the valley to the top of
Ingqutu, which was between us and the camp; we then found that the
Ngobamakosi were not engaged, but were quietly encamped lower down
the valley. We saw a body of horse coming up the hill towards us from
the Sandhlwana side. We opened fire on them, and then the whole of
our army rose and came up the hill. The enemy returned our fire, but
retired down the hill, leaving one dead man (a black) and a horse
on the field. The Uve and Ngobamakosi then became engaged on our
left with the enemy’s skirmishers, and soon afterwards we were all
engaged with the skirmishers of the enemy. We were not checked by
them” (_i.e._ stopped), “but continued our march on the camp until
the artillery opened upon us. The first shell took effect in the
ranks of my regiment, just above the kraal of Baza. The Nokenke then
ran out in the shape of a horn towards the kraal of Nyenzani on the
road between Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift (the continuation of the
road, to the eastward of the camp). The engagement now became very
hot between the Mangwane (mounted natives) and us, the Mangwane being
supported by the infantry, who were some distance in their rear. We
were now falling very fast. The Mangwane had put their horses in a
donga, and were firing away at us on foot. We shouted ‘Izulu!’ (‘The
heavens!’)[171] and made for the donga, driving out the Mangwane
towards the camp. The infantry then opened fire on us, and their fire
was so hot, that those of us who were not in the donga retired back
over the hill. It was then that the Nokenke and Nodwengu regiments
ran out towards Nyenzani’s kraal. We then shouted ‘Izulu!’ again,
and got up out of the dongas. The soldiers opened fire on us again,
and we laid down. We then got up again, and the whole of my regiment
charged the infantry, who formed into two separate parties—one party
standing four deep with their backs towards Sandhlwana, the other
standing about fifty yards from the camp in like formation. We were
checked by the fire of the soldiers standing near Sandhlwana, but
charged on towards those standing in front of the camp, in spite of
a very heavy fire on our right flank from those by Sandhlwana. As
we got nearer we saw the soldiers were beginning to fall from the
effects of our fire. On our left we were supported by the Umbonambi,
half the Undi, Ngobamakosi, and Uve. Behind us were the other half
of the Undi and Udhloko, who never came into action at Sandhlwana,
but formed the reserve (which passed on and attacked Rorke’s Drift).
As we rushed on the soldiers retired on the camp, fighting all the
way, and as they got into the camp we were intermingled with them. It
was a disputed point as to which of the following regiments was the
first in the English camp, viz.: Undi, Kandampenvu, Ngobamakosi, and
Umbonambi; but it was eventually decided that the Umbonambi was the
first, followed by Undi.
“One party of soldiers came out from among the tents and formed
up a little above the ammunition-waggons. They held their ground
there until their ammunition failed them, when they were nearly all
assegaied. Those that were not killed at this place formed again
in a solid square in the neck of Sandhlwana. They were completely
surrounded on all sides, and stood back to back, and surrounding
some men who were in the centre. Their ammunition was now done,
except that they had some revolvers which they fired at us at close
quarters. We were quite unable to break their square until we had
killed a great many of them, by throwing our assegais at short
distances. We eventually overcame them in this way.”[172]
When all we have narrated was known in Natal, the question was asked
in the public prints: “Who, in the light of these recently-discovered
facts, were the real heroes of that day? Surely the two officers who
commanded in that narrow pass at the rear of the camp.... Surely,
too, no smaller heroism was that of the fourteen carbineers ... who,
mere boys as they were, gave their lives away in order to afford
their comrades-in-arms a chance of retreat.... Any one of these men
might have had a chance for his life, had he chosen to follow the
example set by so many. They remained, however, and they died, and
only after four months of doubt, contradiction, and despatch-writing,
is it made known to the world who they were who have most deserved
the coveted decoration ‘For Valour.’”
“‘The dead shall live, the living die!’ Never was this well-known
line of Dryden’s more strikingly illustrated than by the events of
the past fortnight,” writes _The Natal Witness_ of June 7th, 1879.
“‘The dead shall live,’ the mists of doubt, overclouding many a
reputation, have been cleared up by a visit to the now sacred field
of Isandhlwana.
“‘The living die:’ the hopes of a large party in an European nation
have been extinguished by the assegais of a mere handful of savages.”
(Alluding to the death of the Prince Imperial of France.) “The
two events stand side by side in startling contrast, and suggest
thoughts which even the wisest might with advantage ponder. Turn, for
instance, to the story of the field of Isandhlwana, as now told in
plain though interrupted and awful characters by the remains found
resting near the ‘neck.’ Could it have been guessed that, while human
recollection and human intelligence failed so utterly to convey to
the world a history of the events of that too memorable day, Nature
herself would have taken the matter in hand, and told us such a
story as no one who hears it will ever forget? Four months, all but
a day, had elapsed since the defenders of the field stood facing
the Zulu myriads—four months of rain and sun, of the hovering of
slow-sailing birds of prey, and of the predatory visits, as it might
well be deemed, of unregarding enemies. Four months! and during all
that time, while the world was ringing from one end to the other
with the news of a terrible disaster, while reinforcements were
crowding on to our shores, and special correspondents were flooding
the telegraph-wires with the last new thing, all through those four
months the dead slept quietly on, waiting almost consciously, as one
might think, for the revelation which was to establish their fame,
and, where necessary, relieve their unjustly sullied reputation.
For four months was there a sleep of honour slept upon that bitter
field—a sleep unbroken by any of the noise of the war that rolled
both to southward and to northward. The defeat of Indlobane had been
suffered; the victory of Kambula had been gained; the defenders of
Rorke’s Drift had been rewarded, at least with a nation’s praise; the
imprisoned column had been released from Etshowe; all the roads in
Natal had rung to the tread of men and the rolling of waggon-wheels,
as the force which was to “wipe out” the disaster of Isandhlwana
moved up to the front. Yet still the honoured dead slept in silence.
Only the grasses that waved round them in the autumn breeze murmured
to them of their coming resurrection; only the stars that looked down
on them, when the night wind even had ceased, and the hills loomed
black and silent in the morning hours, bade them be patient and wait.
There were many and varied fates entwined in that quiet group: there
was the trained officer, there was the private soldier, there was the
man who had come to find employment in a colonial service, there were
the lads from the colony itself; all these were there, waiting till
the moment should come when their heroism should be recognised, when
the vague slanders of interest or of cowardice should be dispelled,
and the wreath of undying fame hung round each name in the historic
temple. And the moment, long waited for—long promised, as it might
almost seem, by the beneficent hand of Nature herself, who held
firmly to some unmistakable tokens of recognition—the moment at last
arrived. There could be no mistake about it. Those lying here were
those who had often been called by name by those who found them.
If one means of recognition was absent, another took its place. If
the features were past identification, there was the letter from a
sister, the ornament so well known to companions, the marks of rank,
the insignia of office. Ghastly tokens, it will be said, making up
the foreground of a ghastly scene. Yes, ghastly tokens, but glorious
tokens also—tokens enabling many a family to name those that died
with a regret no longer mingled with doubt or with pain; tokens
that will long be cherished, and which will be shown to children as
preserving the memory of lives that are to be imitated. A black cloud
has, by these revelations, been lifted from the rocks of Isandhlwana,
and many whom we deemed dead are living again—living as examples,
never to be defaced, of the honour which tradition has so fondly
attached to a British soldier’s name.”