4 a Through the Zulu Country by Bertram Mitford (1881) who heard accounts from Zulus quoting the words of King Cetshwayo: ‘Go and drive them across the Umzinyati [Buffalo river] right back to Natal.’
5 John Laband, Rope of Sand (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg 1995). The ‘house of Jim’ refers to James Rorke, after whom Rorke’s Drift was named.
6 Numerous primary sources reveal that Dalton strongly assisted with the command during the battle at Rorke’s Drift – only to revert to his official subservient duties the following day. Although his role was acknowledged by Chard, Dalton’s role was overlooked in official reports and his actions officially ‘downgraded’ when medals were awarded. It is popularly believed that Dalton had been a sergeant major in the 85th Regiment. He left the 85th in March 1862 having achieved the rank of sergeant. He then transferred to the Commissariat Staff where he reached the rank of 1st class staff sergeant before he retired in 1871 with the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal for nearly twenty-two years’ service. He then emigrated to South Africa. For further evidence on this aspect, see Chapter 14. See also Padre George Smith of Rorke’s Drift by Canon Lummis MC.
7 Anglo Zulu War Historical Society Journal 14, December 2003, quoting Captain Tongue who described the barrier: ‘the hospital was connected to the remainder of the defences by a low breastwork of mealie sacks two high’.
8 During the following day Witt and his wife each learned from different sources that the Zulus had killed the other. Convinced by the news, both made their way to Durban in abject sadness – only to meet each other on the outskirts of the town.
9 Chard wrote of certain actions of Adendorff but others who knew all the men involved credited Attwood with these actions for which Attwood was awarded the DCM at Pietermaritzburg on 15 November 1879. Accounts of the time reveal that Adendorff disappeared into obscurity although, later, news reached Rorke’s Drift that both Vane and Adendorff had been arrested at Pietermaritzburg for desertion. Chard’s report that Adendorff had ‘stayed to fight’ had already received some publicity and so it appears that the matter of Adendorff’s disappearance was quietly dropped.
10 Adrian Greaves, Rorke’s Drift Appendix B (Cassell 2002).
11 Corporal Anderson was buried with those killed at Rorke’s Drift. By shooting him, the soldiers of the 24th had dealt with the matter to their satisfaction. Captain Stevenson was detained by the British two days later and returned to Rorke’s Drift. He was informally ‘court-martialled’ and dismissed from his position but then appointed Captain 3rd Troop, Natal Horse; present at Ulundi, and during the siege of Pretoria (medal and clasp for 1877–8–9); Assistant Inspector, Gold Coast Police, August 1881; Government Secretary and Superintendent of Police, Gambia, December 1886.
12 Rorke’s Drift Appendix E.
13 See Pall Mall Gazette and The Defence of Rorke’s Drift – account of the painting by A. De Neuville 1879, reprinted in AZWHS Journal 13, June 2003.
14 AZWHS Journal 4, December 1998 – Colonel Bourne’s BBC radio transcription. In December 1936 the BBC conducted a radio interview with Colonel Bourne about the battle of Rorke’s Drift. In the programme he was asked about the rifles used by the Zulus; Bourne (then Colour Sergeant) was adamant that the Zulus attacking the outpost had used British Martini-Henry rifles captured earlier in the day at Isandlwana. He stated:
The Zulus had collected the rifles from the men they had killed at Isandlwana, and had captured the ammunition from the mules which had stampeded and threw their loads; so our own arms were used against us. In fact, this was the cause of every one of our casualties, killed and wounded, and we should have suffered many more if the enemy had known how to use a rifle. There was hardly a man even wounded by assegais – their principal weapon.
Many historians have queried Bourne’s account that the Zulus possessed Martini-Henry rifles but Bourne was probably correct; they undoubtedly came from Isandlwana, although not from the main battle. They came from two comparatively minor encounters when the 4,500 Zulus detailed for the reserve at Isandlwana swept behind the mountain and overran two isolated groups of British soldiers, Dyson’s troop and the RE detachment, before successfully blocking the British escape route from Isandlwana. They then formed part of the Zulu force that harried the camp survivors along the fugitives’ trail before eventuallymoving on to Rorke’s Drift.
15 Rorke’s Drift Second ‘Chard Report’, see Appendix A.
16 Major Spalding wrote:
OC No. 3 Column ordered Capt Rainforth’s Company 1/24th Regiment from Helpmekaar to Rorke’s Drift for the purpose of taking up and entrenching a position commanding and defending the ponts on the Buffalo River.
I know of no other orders touching the erection of work for such a purpose.
This company should have been in therequired position on the 20th January the dayof the departure of No. 3 Column from Rorke’sDrift for Isandhlwana. They did not arrive onthat day nor even on the 21st. Seeing this, onthe 22nd I rode over to Helpmekaar with awritten order in my pocket directing CaptRainforth positively to reach the points bysundown on that day. I met his companytogether with that of Major Upcher of the sameRegiment on their march down to Rorke’s Drift. I accompanied them. The intelligencefrom Isandhlwana met us on the way.
17 Statement taken at Pietermaritzburg, British Battles on Land and Sea (Cassell 1898).
18 Letter from Gunner Howard RA, February 1879.
19 Readers may have noticed the emphasis placed on horses in contemporary letters, diaries and journals relating to nineteenth-century warfare. Harness understood the position and importance of horses and gave meticulous attention to this aspect of his command. Through 1878 Stuart Smith, Harness’s captain, scoured southern Africa to buy suitable horses. On 6 March of that year Harness wrote that his captain had returned the previous day with forty-eight horses at an average cost of £24 13s. 7¼d. The artillerymen who mastered the care of horses in southern Africa – with small feeds and the use of every opportunity for grazing – criticized the failure of the regular cavalry to adapt to local conditions during the Zulu campaign. On 19 July 1878 Harness wrote that he congratulated himself on the condition of the horses, and, ‘if we get through the march as I hope we shall, it will be a creditable thing to the officers and men of the battery’. Colonel J.T.B. Brown RA complimented Harness on the condition of his horses on another march, to Ulundi, almost a year later: ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Harness’s horses were all native, and principally bought in the Orange Free State and Old Colony, before there had been so great a demand. They were useful and handy horses for the light guns, and Harness had them so well trained that they were very little trouble. A few mounted men used to drive them to water, or out to feed just like a herd of cattle instead of having a man to every two or three horses.’
20 Lord Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign, letter dated 8 February 1879.
21 Laband and Thompson with Sheila Henderson, The Buffalo Border (University of Natal 1983).
CHAPTER 10 Post-battle: A Deep Sigh of Relief
1 Anglo Zulu War Historical Society Journal 14, December 2003 quoting Captain Tongue of the 24th Regiment.
2 Donald Morris, The Washing of the Spears (Simon & Schuster, New York 1965) (first edition)
3 For detailed archaeological notes, see Adrian Greaves, Rorke’s Drift Chapter 17 (Cassell 2002).
4 Hamilton-Browne, A Lost Legionary in South Africa (Werner Laurie, London 1890).
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Horace Smith-Dorrien, Memories of Forty-Eight Years Service (John Murray, 1925).
9 From Curling’s original Zulu War letters, courtesy the AZWHS.
10 Norman Holme, The Silver Wreath, reference Private 913 James Ashton.
11 A Lost Legionary in South Africa, also
12 Greaves, Rorke’s Drift, Appendix A, quoting Chard’s second report. Also, officers were cautious in expressing their views, possibly because they knew that the facts were being manipulated for pol
itical reasons. See AZWHS Journal 14 for the letters of Captain Tongue – which include the line concerning press reports, ‘Look out in the Standard towards the end of the month and you will see an almost [underlined in letter] accurate account of doings of the 21st, 22nd, & 23 Jany, we have got it together; therefore, dare not say all we think or know.’
13 AZWHS Journal 4, December 1998.
14 A Lost Legionary in South Africa.
15 S. Clarke, Zululand at War 1879 (Brenthurst Press 1984).
16 A Lost Legionary in South Africa.
17 Blue Book C–2318 Enclosure 1.
18 Ibid. Enclosure 2.
19 Ibid No. 9D.
20 Ibid. No 11.
21 The Red Soldier
22 D. Child, Zulu War Journal Col. Henry Harford, C.B.(Shuter and Shooter 1978).
23 Glyn’s correspondence. By kind permission 24th Regimental Museum, Brecon.
24 These bodies are buried at a recently (2002) restored cemetry on the north bank of the Buffalo river at Rorke’s Drift.
25 Charles Reynolds, A Civil Surgeon, diary entry dated 27 January 1879 (private publication).
26 A. Greaves and B. Best, The Curling Letters of the Zulu War (Pen & Sword 2001).
27 Précis of Information Concerning Zululand (War Office 1879).
28 Letter from Col. Pickard to Col. Wood, 14 October, quoted in Ian Bennett’s Eyewitness in Zululand (Greenhill 1989).
29 Ian Knight, The Sun Turned Black (Windrow & Greene 1992).
30 AZWHS Journal 2, December 1997. When Wolseley presented Bromhead with his Victoria Cross, he did so in the mistaken belief that he was presenting the award to Bromhead’s brother who had served with Wolseley in Ashanti. Wolseley was apparently bemused by Bromhead’s lack of recognition. See Life of Lord Wolseley by Morris and Arthur, 1924.
31 Letter from Wolseley dated 16 July 1879. See WO327386 (awards to Commissary Dalton and Dunne).
32 No 1 HRH’S Schedule quoted in Eyewitness in Zululand.
CHAPTER 11 Enquiry and Cover-Up
1 Telegram from Chelmsford to the Secretary of State for War. See Appendix G.
2 Blue Books C.2242.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Curling’s letters courtesy Anglo Zulu War Historical Society.
6 Smith-Dorrien letters. By kind permission 24th Regimental Museum, Brecon.
7 Curling’s letters courtesy AZWHS.
8 Ian Knight, Reasons of Defeat at Isandlwana 1879 (Military Illustrated 1986). Account by Muziwento, a Zulu warrior.
9 Statement of Mehlokazulu – by kind permission of David Rattray.
10 Parliamentary Papers C.2242.
11 The Hon Gerald French, Lord Chelmsford and the Zulu War (Unwin Brothers 1939).
12 Unpublished papers of Lt Cochrane. Courtesy of the AZWHS.
13 John Laband, Lord Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign 1878–1879 (Army Records Society 1994).
14 Times of Natal, 5 January 1887.
15 AZWHS Journal 4, December 1998, referring to Durnford’s original orders from Chelmsford.
16 A. Greaves and B. Best, The Curling Letters of the Zulu War (Pen & Sword 2001).
17 Lord Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign, Vol. 10.
18 AZWHS Journal 2, December 1997.
19 Glyn papers. By kind permission 24th Regimental Museum, Brecon.
20 Adrian Greaves, Rorke’s Drift (Cassell 2002) p. 177.
21 The Curling Letters of the Zulu War.
22 Hansard February and March 1879 – Members of Parliament lamented Royal involvement before Parliament had been informed of Isandlwana.
23 Ibid.
24 The Curling Letters of the Zulu War. Curling moved to Wesselstrom in the Transvaal early in October 1879 where he remained until the end of November. During this period, he heard that he had been promoted captain and posted to a battery in ‘Caubal – in time to earn another medal’. He hoped that he would be able to secure home leave before sailing to India, but it was not to be and in a letter dated 25 January 1880 from Pinetown, he wrote that he expected to sail for India and the Afghan war on 4 February. In a letter he wrote during this period he mentions that of his fifty men, ten were in hospital and one had died a few days earlier, all from fever. Curling served in the Afghan war, in India, Aldershot, and in 1896 was Lieutenant Colonel OC RA in Egypt. He retired to Kent where he became a respected Justice of Peace.
CHAPTER 12 The Coastal (No. 1) Column
1 Howard Whitehouse, A Widow-Making War: The Diaries of Capt. Warren Wynne (Paddy Griffiths Associates, 1995).
2 The Gatling gun had been present during the Ashanti War of 1873, but not used in action. Prior to the Zulu War the Gatling gun had been issued only to the navy; it had originally been designed as a ship-mounted weapon to give covering fire to naval landing parties.
3 The Zulus failed to synchronize their attack and were soon driven off with heavy losses. Their casualties are estimated at 500 dead with a similar number wounded. By comparison with the Zulus, British casualties were light with two officers of the NNC and eight men killed, one officer and fifteen men wounded. This engagement is especially significant as it took place at about the same time and on the same day as the Zulu attack on Chelmsford’s Centre Column at Isandlwana and Wood’s Northern Column near Hlobane – which belies the view widely held by authors and historians that the Zulus would, for cultural and religious reasons, avoid fighting on 22 January, the day of the dead moon. This theory overlooks the evidence that the Zulus engaged the British on 22 January at four different locations, at Isandlwana, Rorke’s Drift, and Nyezane and at Hlobane. With regard to Isandlwana, these theorists would claim the Zulus attacked because they were surprised by a British patrol; there is sufficient evidence that the Zulu attack on Isandlwana was well under way when first encountered by the British patrol. See Chapter 2.
See also the Zulu War diary of Surgeon L. Reynolds dated 22 January in which he wrote, Apartial eclipse; it was prophesied the Zulus would make an attack today, which proved to be the case.’
4 A Widow-Making War.
5 John Laband, Fight Us in the Open (University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1985).
6 Ibid.
7 Ian Castle and Ian Knight, Fearful Hard Times (Greenhill 1994).
8 Anglo Zulu War Historical Society Journal 4, December 1998.
9 The Hon Gerald French, Lord Chelmsford and the Zulu War (Unwin Brothers 1939).
10 Fearful Hard Times.
11 A Widow-Making War.
CHAPTER 13 The Northern Column
1 A. Greaves and B. Best, The Curling Letters (Pen & Sword 2001).
2 See British Battles on Land and Sea (Cassell 1898), p. 244.
3 Anglo Zulu War Historical Society Journal 5, June 1999.
4 After the Zulu War, Booth became a sergeant instructor with the local rifle company until his retirement in 1898. His total army service was 33 years 182 days. Sadly, he did not live to enjoy a long retirement for he died of rheumatic fever in 1899.
5 R. Hope, The 80th Regiment of Foot (Churnet Valley Books 1997).
6 For full extract, see Narrative of Field Operations Connected with the Zulu War of 1879 (London 1881).
7 The citation reads:
For his gallant conduct on the 12th March1879, during the Zulu attack on the NtombeRiver, in having when considerably outnum-bered by the enemy, rallied a few men on thesouth bank of the river, and covered the retreatof fifty soldiers and others for a distance ofthree miles. The officer Commanding 80thRegiment reports that, had it not been for thecoolness displayed by this non-commissionedOfficer, not one man would have escaped’.
8 Lindsay Reyburn, The 1879 Zulu War Diaries of RSM F.W. Cheffins (private printing, Pretoria 2001).
9 AZWHS Journal 6, December 1999 – article by Ron Lock.
10 G. Mossop, Running the Gauntlet (Thomas Nelson & Son 1937).
11 Ibid.
12 Letter dated 31 March 1879 later published in the Illustrated London News.
13
As quoted in Natalia, December 1997 (Natal Social Library).
14 Major Knox-Leet successfully lobbied influential friends at the War Office for the VC.
15 Private John Snook’s letter to his landlord at Tiverton, reproduced in Frank Emery’s The Red Soldier (Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg 1977).
16 Private Joseph Banks, 90th Light Infantry, letter published in The Dover Express, 6 June 1879, and reproduced in The Red Soldier.
17 Ian Knight, the Battle of Khambula, AZWHS Journal 9, June 2001.
18 Sir Evelyn Wood, VC, Midshipman to Field Marshal (Methuen 1906), Vol. 2.
19 Account by an unidentified British participant, quoted in D.C.F. Moodie’s The History of the Battles and Adventures of the Boers, the British, and the Zulus in Southern Africa from 1495 to 1879 (1879), also reproduced in The Red Soldier.
20 Same correspondent, ibid.
21 Report of the Natal Mercury’s correspondent, ‘Khambula Camp, April 1st 1879’, 9 April 1879.
22 AZWHS Journal 13, June 2003, letter from Private John Snook, 1/13th Regiment.
23 Correspondent with Wood’s column, report marked ‘Camp Khambula, 31st March 1879’, reproduced in Natal Mercury of 12 April 1879.
24 The Red Soldier quoting Sergeant Jervis, 90th Regiment – letter to his brother.
CHAPTER 14 The Second Invasion, 31 May – 4 July 1879
1 A. Greaves and B. Best, The CurlingLetters of the Zulu War (Pen & Sword 2001).
2 John Laband, Lord Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign 1878–1879 (Army Records Society 1994).
3 The Zulu War and Colony of Natal (Natal Provincial Administration 1979). (From a conversation with Sir Bindon Blood.)
4 The Curling Letters of the Zulu War.
5 Ibid.
6 Anglo Zulu War Historical Society Journal 7, June 2000
7 Ibid. The prince’s mother, Eugénie, known throughout childhood as ‘carrot top’, was brought up and educated in England by Villiers, Fourth Earl of Clarendon and Foreign Secretary. Villiers, probably Eugénie’s father, continued his relationship with Eugénie’s mother until late in their lives. It was Villiers who eventually introduced Eugénie to Napoleon III.
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