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From this place there are two country roads, one direct to Stormberg, the other branching to the left toward Steynsburg, on the Stormberg-Naauwport railway.
It was hoped that the blockhouses on the railroad would have held the enemy, but they slipped across by night and got into the Steynsburg district, where Gorringe's colonials took up the running. On August 18th he followed the commandos from Steynsburg to Venterstad, killing twenty of them and taking several prisoners.
The distance from the frontier and the interposition of the mountain range in the Steynsburg district would combine to make observation of preliminary movements difficult to the enemy, except, indeed, by information from the disaffected inhabitants who abounded.
The numbers, however, are only approximate: Blesbok: About 400 in Steynsburg, and 35 in Queen's Town divisions. Bontebok: About 30 in Bredasdorp and 45 in Swellendam divisions. Buffalo: About 340 in Uitenhage, 120 in Alexandria, and 75 in Bathurst divisions. Elephants: About 130 in Alexandria, 160 in Uitenhage, 40 in Bathurst, and 20 in Knysna divisions.
On June 6th the British had a little luck at last, for on that date Scobell and Lukin in the Barkly East district surprised a laager and took twenty prisoners, 166 horses, and much of the Jamestown loot. On the same day Windham treated Van Reenen in a similar rough fashion near Steynsburg, and took twenty-two prisoners.
The change of plan was not made known to all the troops, with the result that the ambulance and ammunition wagons left the town by the Stormberg road instead of by the Steynsburg road, along which the rest of the column was marching to the new objective.
It was in fact the colliery line which had been crossed before the halt and which here curves almost to the extent of a semicircle; but Gatacre believed that he had come upon the main line to Steynsburg and judged that he was now N.W. of the Boer position; while many of the officers in the rear of the column, unaware of the change of plan, imagined that they were approaching it from the S.E. along the Stormberg road originally selected for the advance on which the ambulance and ammunition wagons had already gone astray.
A commando under E.R. Grobler and Steenkamp, chiefly composed of rebels, which had been sent by Olivier on the previous day to stir up trouble in the district, was halted for the night a few miles out on the Steynsburg road. The sound of the firing quickly called it to attention, and a position which seriously threatened Gatacre's line of retreat was quickly seized.
On the 9th of December, the night fixed on by General Gatacre to strike a blow at the Boer forces at Stormberg, Assistant Chief Commandant Grobler left that place with about nine hundred burghers, intending to occupy Steynsburg.
The Zuurberg mountains to the north of Steynsburg, the Sneeuwberg range to the south of Middelburg, the Oudtshoorn Mountains in the south, the Cradock district, the Murraysburg district, and the Graaf-Reinet district these were the chief centres of Boer activity.
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