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Updated: June 19, 2025
He was hampered with a considerable transport, his supplies were dwindling, and he did not think himself justified in risking an encounter. He therefore decided to return to the Delagoa Bay Railway. H. Grobler of Bethal, who had suggested to Botha the attack on Benson, was in the vicinity with 700 burghers, and Botha himself was again in the field.
Only a short time previously he had lost sixty-three men in an engagement, where he had been besieged in a kraal, out of which he, with one hundred and fifty-three burghers, had managed to escape. Bethal had been laid waste from one end to the other, and he had no provisions for his commandos.
The raid upon P. Viljoen in the Bethal district was so far successful that in it 200 of his burghers were made prisoners, and one of the guns taken at Bakenlaagte was recovered: while he himself not only escaped, but succeeded in putting 300 of his followers under J. Prinsloo across the recently established Brugspruit-Waterval line of Constabulary posts and in planting them in the "protected area" as seeds of future mischief.
On October 25 Botha narrowly escaped capture by two columns which had been sent after him from Standerton. Benson left Middelburg, the base to which he returned from time to time, on October 20, with a column 1,600 strong, to renew his operations on the high veld. When he reached the Bethal district he noticed ominous signs of the revived spirit.
Two other districts had still a large enough number of slaughter-cattle enough, in fact, to last for two or three months. In Ermelo, to the west and north-west of the blockhouses, and in Bethal, Standerton, and Middelburg, there was grain for one month. But the Heidelberg and Pretoria commandos had now, for the first time, no corn remaining for food.
Cowperwood have raised an issue which never should have been raised." After Mr. Carker's departure, arrived Mr. Edward Arneel, of local renown, and then Mr. Jacob Bethal, the Democratic leader in San Francisco, both offering suggestions which if followed might result in mutual support. There were in addition delegations of powerful Republicans from Minneapolis and from Philadelphia.
The new campaign was placed in charge of Bruce Hamilton, and the general idea, at least in its earlier movement, was the same as that furnished to French, namely the outward sweep of columns having for its object the rounding-up, pursuit towards the Swaziland border, and capture of the various guerilla commandos, which with the Transvaal Government in their midst haunted the Ermelo and Bethal districts.
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