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Updated: July 4, 2025
W.J. Selm as secretary; the representatives chosen were General Brand and Commander J. Rheeder; and the burghers were equally determined to keep their independence. I went on to Bloemfontein, and thence by rail to Brandfort, and afterwards to the Quaggashoek Farm, where, on the 11th, I held my eighth meeting, with the commandos of C.C.J. Badenhorst. The chairman was Mr.
"The following chief officers have been chosen as Representatives for the commandos of the districts: Hoopstad, Boshof, and parts of Winburg and Bloemfontein, districts to the west of the railway line. General C. Badenhorst. Commandant J. Jacobsz. Commandant A. Bester. Any answer, previous to noon of the 11th inst., will reach me at Brandfort. "Commander-in-Chief, Orange Free State Armies."
No doubt it was to the advantage and not, as some maintain, to the disadvantage of the Free State burghers when C.R. De Wet was elected Hoofd Commandant at Brandfort in March, 1900. He, too, was but a farmer; culture he lacked, military training he had none, but the spark of martial genius had fallen and kindled in his breast.
Now Brandfort was reached, now Kroonstadt, and at last the Diamond City, Johannesburg no, not last, Pretoria lies beyond, and by-and-by the victorious forces entered the capital of the Transvaal, and the British flag symbol of world-wide empire floated over the Government Buildings. And here we pause.
But in this triumphal procession twenty-two thousand gentlemen in khaki wiped that line off the slate, and wrote, "Well done, sir," in its place, as they passed before him through the town he had defended and saved. The Boer "front" was at Brandfort, and, as Lord Roberts was advancing upon that place, one already saw in the head-lines, "The Battle of Brandfort."
Hundreds did not stop even at Brandfort, but continued over the veld until they reached their homes in the north of the Free State and in the Transvaal. In their alarm they destroyed all the railway bridges and tracks as far north as Smaldeel, sixty miles from Bloemfontein, and made their base at Kroonstad, almost forty miles farther north.
The nearest Boer post was at Brandfort, a few miles north of Karee Siding. On the right was the Winburg intervening column, 14,000 strong, under Ian Hamilton, who dragged in his train a weak supporting Division under Colvile, his superior officer in an anomalous position obliged to conform to his movements, and without authority to direct them.
We rumbled slowly on all the morning, past the same sort of country, with dead horses and broken bridges marking Roberts's track, and at Brandfort stopped to feed horses, which, by the way, is a nasty dangerous game when you are dealing with closed horse-boxes. You have to climb through a small window, get in among the horses, and put the feeds on as they are handed up.
They passed through Bloemfontein and excited the population there; then, evading roads and despising railway transportation, they rode straight across the veld and never drew rein until they reached Brandfort, more than thirty miles from Poplar Grove.
The Rev. T.F. Falkner and the Rev. E.P. Lowry marched nearly the whole way to Kroonstadt with the troops, and the latter speaks of it as the most trying march of the whole campaign. Opportunities for Christian work, with the exception of the hearty handshake or the whispered prayer, were but few, though during the pauses at Brandfort and at Kroonstadt several successful services were held.
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