The excitement of the time was, however, too great to permit the lads to
settle down quietly, and every day they rode over to Newcastle to gather
the latest news. The towns which held out in the Transvaal were
Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Standerton, Wackerstroom, Leydenberg,
Rustenberg, and Marabastadt. At Pretoria, the capital, Mr Edgerton and
Sergeant Bradley of the 94th Regiment, who escaped from the massacre,
brought in the news, and on the following day the authorities proclaimed
martial law. Colonel Bellairs, C.B., was commandant, and the military
authorities at once decided that the town must be abandoned, as, with
its gardens and scattered houses, the extent was too large to be
defended. A military camp was therefore formed outside the town, and to
this the whole of the loyal inhabitants moved out. The civilians
consisted of 975 men, 676 women, 718 children, 1331 servants and
natives,--total 3700. In addition to these were the British troops.
All horses were at once taken for the volunteers, among whom most of the
white residents were numbered. The effective fighting force was about
1000--made up of four companies of the 2nd battalion, 21st Fusiliers;
three companies of the 94th; 140 mounted volunteers, known as the
Pretoria Horse; 100 mounted volunteers, known as Norris's Horse, and the
Pretoria Rifles, an infantry volunteer corps, 500 strong. For the
reception of the women and children intrenchments were thrown up,
connecting the jail and loretto convent, and the defence of this point
was intrusted to six companies of the Pretoria Rifles, under Major Le
Mesurier. The camp was distant about a third of a mile from the jail
and convent, and the approaches were commanded by three little forts
erected on eminences around.
Several skirmishes took place in the last fortnight in December, but the
first sharp engagement occurred on the 6th of January. Colonel Gildea
took out a force of twenty officers, 450 men, a gun, and fifteen waggons
to bring in some forage and attack a Boer position at Pienness River,
about twelve miles off. Norris's Horse scouted in front, and the
Pretoria Pioneers were detached to cut off the retreat of the Boers.
The Boers were easily turned out of their position. Their defence was
feeble; but several English were killed, owing to the Boers
treacherously hoisting a flag of truce, upon which the English
skirmishers, who were creeping forward, stood up, thinking that the
Boers surrendered; they then fired, and several of our men were killed
or wounded. The Boers being largely reinforced came forward to the
attack, but were smartly repulsed. Our loss was four men killed and one
officer (Captain Sampson); fourteen men were wounded. On the 15th
another force started to attack a Boer laager, but found the enemy in
such strength that they retired without serious fighting.
On the 12th of February an ineffective attempt was made to take the Red
Horse Kraal, seven miles from Pretoria, on the road towards Rustenberg.
The force consisted of twenty-two officers and 533 men. The carabineers
under Captain Sanctuary advanced and attacked a large stone building,
1000 yards from the kraal. They were received by a very heavy fire from
the Boers, who advanced in such strength that Colonel Gildea thought it
prudent to fall back. This movement, covered by the horse, was
effected, the infantry taking no part in the fight. Captain Sanctuary
and eight men were killed; Colonel Gildea and eight others severely
wounded. No further sortie was made during the continuance of the war,
but the Boers did not venture to attack the British position.
The town of Potchefstroom stood in the district most thickly inhabited
by the Boers. On the 14th of December, when it was reported that a
large number of Boers were approaching, Colonel Winsloe, who commanded,
sent Captain Falls with twenty men of the 21st Fusiliers, twenty-six men
of a corps commanded by Commandant Raaff, and sixteen civilian
volunteers to hold the court-house. The jail was garrisoned by twenty
fusiliers, and the fort and earthwork, of some thirty yards square,
situated about 1000 yards from the court-house, was held by 140 men of
the fusiliers and a detachment of artillerymen, with two 9-pounders,
under Major Thornhill. The three posts were provisioned as well as
circumstances permitted.
On the 15th 500 mounted Boers entered the town. On the 16th fighting
began in earnest, and the firing was hot on both sides. A very heavy
fire was kept up on the prison and court-house. Half an hour after it
commenced Captain Falls was killed. For the next sixty hours the firing
continued, night and day, and one of the little garrison was killed and
nine wounded. During the night the Boers broke into a stable close to
the court-house, and from a distance of eight yards a heavy fire was
kept up. During this time Colonel Winsloe in the fort had given what
aid he could to the garrison of the courthouse by shelling the building
from which the Dutch were firing upon it. On the evening of the 17th he
signalled to the garrison to retire on the fort; but, being completely
surrounded, they were unable to do this. On the morning of the 18th the
Boers attempted to set fire to the thatch roof of the court-house; and
as nothing in that case could have saved the garrison, Major Clarke and
Commandant Raaff agreed to surrender on the terms that the lives of all
those in the court-house should be spared. This was agreed to; but two
loyal Boers, who had been captured at an outpost, were tried, condemned
to death, and shot. On the 21st of December the garrison of the prison,
falling short of provisions, evacuated it, and succeeded in gaining the
fort without loss. The Boers occupied the post, but were driven out by
the shell-fire from the fort. Mr Nelson, the magistrate, was taken
prisoner in the town by the Boers, and kept in close confinement. Three
of his sons got into the fort, and took part in its defence. Two of
them, on a dark night, on the 19th of February, got through the Boer
lines, and carried despatches from Colonel Winsloe to Newcastle,
arriving there on the 5th of March, after many perils, not the least of
which was swimming the Vaal River when in full flood.
In the meantime the attack on the fort itself had been uninterrupted.
The very first evening the watercourse from which the supply of water to
the camp was taken was cut. A well had already been commenced and sunk
to a depth of twenty feet, but no water had been obtained. Fortunately
the water-barrels had been filled an hour or two before the supply was
cut, but these only contained two quarts of water per man. The weather
was terribly hot, and the work of the men in the intrenchments was very
severe.
On the night of the 17th Lieutenant Lindsell, with some of the drivers
of the Royal Artillery, acting as cavalry, and a company of the 21st,
went out to fill the water-casks from a stream half a mile away from the
camp, and fortunately succeeded in doing so, the Boers not being on the
look-out in that direction. This gave a further supply of two quarts
per man.
The work of sinking the well had been continued without intermission,
and a depth of thirty-six feet had been attained, but still no water was
met with. A reward of 5 pounds was offered to the first party who
struck water, and the soldiers off duty commenced digging in several
places. At last, to the intense relief of the garrison, a party of
Royal Artillery men found water at a depth of nine feet. The well soon
filled, and yielded plenty of water during the remainder of the siege.
A desultory fire was kept up until the 1st of January, when, the Boers
being strongly reinforced, 2000 men surrounded the fort at a distance of
500 yards, and opened a heavy fire upon it. They did not, however,
venture to attack the little garrison. On the 5th they occupied the
cemetery, 300 yards from the fort, but Lieutenant Lindsell with a party
of volunteers went out by moonlight and drove them out. The Boers then
commenced making trenches, gradually approaching the fort; but on the
22nd Lieutenant Dalrymple Hay went out, carried the position from which
the Boers had been most troublesome, and captured four prisoners, some
guns, ammunition, and trenching-tools. From that time, although the
Boers continued to throw up trenches, they contented themselves with a
desultory fire.
The siege continued for three months and five days; at the end of that
time the whole of the provisions were exhausted. Fever, dysentery, and
scurvy had broken out, and many of the garrison had died. Out of 213
men eighty-three had been killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. In fact
an armistice between the armies had at that time been proclaimed, but
Cronje, the Boer who commanded the attack, treacherously concealed the
fact from the garrison. When only three days' quarter-rations remained
the garrison surrendered the fort, on the condition that they should be
allowed to march down to Natal.
Messengers had reached Cronje nine days before with news of the
armistice, but although he was aware of this he continued the siege to
the end, the firing during the last week being heavier than at any time
during the siege,--on two days alone 150 round shot fell on the fort.
The Boers were afterwards obliged to allow that the surrender of the
fort had been obtained by treachery, and to agree to the garrison being
reinstated.
Standerton is the first town of any size on the main road from Natal to
Pretoria, and is situated on the north bank of the Vaal River. On the
outbreak of hostilities two companies of the 94th and one of the 88th
marched from Wackerstroom to this town, and Major Montague of the 94th
Regiment arrived from Natal to take the command. The total strength of
the garrison consisted of about 350 soldiers and seventy civilians. The
Landdrost, J.C. Krogh, remained loyal and assisted in the defence,
three forts were erected on eminences round the town, two outworks and
many breastworks and rifle-pits were dug, houses interfering with the
line of fire were pulled down, and other buildings in suitable positions
were barricaded and loop-holed.
The centre point of defence was a building known as Fort Alice, 800
yards from the town, and a military camp was formed on a height one mile
and a quarter from this point. Preparations were made to blow up some
of the buildings, should the Boers carry the town, mines being dug and
laid to the fort. A good store of provisions was collected.
On the 29th a scout on a hill signalled a large number of Boers were
approaching Erasmus Farm, three miles distant from Standerton. Captain
Cassell, with sixteen mounted volunteers, went out to reconnoitre. Two
or three scouts were thrown out, and these arrived within 600 yards of
the farm; suddenly a number of Boers made their appearance, and Mr G.B.
Hall, one of the mounted volunteers, gallantly tried to cross their
line to warn his comrades of the coming danger. Galloping in front of
the Boers, his horse was shot under him; taking shelter behind it, he
opened fire on the enemy, and so attracted the attention of his party.
One man could not long resist 300, and Hall was soon killed. The alarm,
however, had been given in time, and the mounted men fell back on the
camp, exchanging shots with the enemy. The Boers now took up a position
600 yards from the camp, and kept up a heavy fire. Skirmishes occurred
daily, and the enemy harassing the garrison from a height called
Standerton Kop, Major Montague caused a dummy-gun, mounted on two
waggon-wheels, to be placed in the intrenchments; the sight of this
frightened the Boers off Standerton Kop.
On the 7th of January a Swazi, named Infofa, who had greatly
distinguished himself by his bravery in the Secoceni War, but was now
undergoing a term of penal servitude for culpable homicide, performed an
act of singular bravery. The Boers had during the night erected a small
earthwork on the outside of the Vaal River; 400 yards nearer the town
stood a house, and fearing that this might be occupied by the Putch, it
was determined to destroy it. Infofa with a party of Kaffirs
volunteered for the duty; he crossed the river with his party, and the
Kaffirs began to pull down the house. Infofa, however, took his gun,
and marched boldly away to the Boer earthwork, 400 yards distant, to the
astonishment of the lookers-on. It happened that at the moment no Boers
were present in the works, and the man reached it without a shot being
fired at him; inside he found some tools, and with these he deliberately
set to work and levelled the breastwork; this accomplished, he returned
to the party.
Until the end of the war the Boers were unable to make any impression
upon Standerton, and whenever they approached too closely the garrison
sallied out and drove them off.
At Leydenberg fifty men of the 94th, under Lieutenant Long, had been
left, when the four companies under Colonel Anstruther had marched away.
The people of the town, when the news of the rising arrived, offered to
defend themselves with the troops against attacks; but Lieutenant Long
declined to accept the offer. There were in the town 220 women and
children, and only thirty-four white men who could be relied on; there
were no defences and no water-supply, and as Lieutenant Long knew that
three or four months must elapse before a relieving force could arrive,
he decided that it would only cost the townspeople their lives and
property were they to attempt to defend the place. He therefore advised
them to remain neutral, while he with his fifty soldiers defended the
fort. This they did, and the commandant of the Boer force, Piet Steyn,
caused their property to be respected when he entered the town with his
troops.
For three months Lieutenant Long defended the fort gallantly against all
attacks. At one time the enemy set fire to the thatch roof of one of
the buildings, but the soldiers succeeded in extinguishing it, although
the Boers kept up a heavy fire; during the night the defenders stripped
off the roofs of the remaining thatch buildings, and so prevented a
renewal of this form of attack. The Boers cut off the water-supply, but
the garrison sunk wells, and succeeded in reaching water in time. The
casualties among the fifty men during the siege were three killed and
nineteen wounded. At the end of the war a general order was published,
conferring the highest praise upon Lieutenant Long and his little
garrison, for the bravery and endurance which they had shown in
maintaining for three months a close siege, and this without any hope of
relief or succour. At the conclusion of the war Lieutenant Long was so
disgusted at the humiliating terms of the treaty, and the surrender to
the Boers, that he resigned his commission in the army.
Marabadstadt, though called a village, consists of only seven or eight
houses. Sixty men of the 94th, under Captain Brook, formed the garrison
which was stationed there to keep order after the Secoceni War, as no
less than 500,000 natives inhabit the surrounding district. Fortunately
the races were being held at the time when the news of the massacre of
the 94th arrived, and the English inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who
were present, at once responded to the call of Captain Brook to aid in
the defence, and thirty white men and fifty half-castes enrolled
themselves as volunteers. The Boers attacked in considerable force,
having with them two cannons; but the fort held out until the end of the
war, the garrison making many sorties when the Boers brought up their
guns too close. At Rustenberg and Wackerstroom a successful defence was
also maintained throughout the war by the British and loyalists; but no
incidents of importance marked the siege of those places.