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After fighting the battle at Moester's Hoek, General De Wet had hardly three days' food and very little ammunition with him, yet rather than delay his march and send for more waggons, he proceeded to Wepener where, after several days' fighting, both his food and ammunition became exhausted and he was obliged to lie idle around the enemy and await the arrival of the supplies which he might have carried with him at the outset of the trek if he had cared to risk such an impediment to his rapid movements.
General Snyman made a brief reply, the gist of which was, "Come out and fight." A British nobleman, who was captured by the Boers at the Moester's Hoek fight in the Free State in April, was the author of a large number of communications which were almost as mirthful as Colonel Baden-Powell's effort.
In the telegrams he stated that he was a peer of the realm; that all doubts on that point could be dispelled by a reference to Burke's Peerage; that he was not a fighting-man; that it would be disastrous to his reputation as a correspondent if he were not released in order that he might cable an exclusive account of the Moester's Hoek battle to his newspaper, and finally ended by demanding his instant release and safe conduct to the British lines.
When General Christian De Wet began his campaign in the eastern part of the Free State there were hardly enough men left in the laagers to guard them properly when battles were in progress, and in the battles at Sannaspost, Moester's Hoek, and Wepener probably ninety-nine per cent. of his men took part in every battle.
The echoes of that battle had hardly subsided when he fell upon another British column at Moester's Hoek with results almost as great as at Sannaspost, and two days later he was besieging a third British column in his own native heath of Wepener.
When the President concluded his address the burghers raised a great cheer, and then returned to their laagers with their minds filled with a new spirit, and with renewed determination to oppose the enemy a determination which displayed itself later in the fighting at Sannaspost, Moester's Hoek, and Wepener.
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