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Updated: November 6, 2024
After passing through Holspruit we inclined to the west, as the road to the east would, according to my scouts, have led us right into the English camp.
All went well with the expedition as far as Holspruit, the farm which they had started to search. Commandant Pretorius, to whom it belonged, was taken by the energy of Major Vaughan, who pursued and overtook his Cape cart. It was found, however, that Alberts's commando was camped at the farm, and that the Bays were in the presence of a very superior force of the enemy.
It was my intention to break through somewhere between Vrede and Bothaspas. But my scouts brought me word in the evening that there was a very poor chance of success in that neighbourhood, for the columns had concentrated there. Other scouts, however, reported that there was a small opening at Kalkkrans, on the Holspruit; and so I decided to march to Kalkkrans.
We had hardly moved three hundred paces from where we had crossed Holspruit, when the English, lined up about three hundred yards in front of us, and opened fire. We saw that they did not intend our flight to be an easy one.
Two Prinsloos, one of them a commandant, and three field-cornets were among the slain, with seventy other casualties. The force under General Alberts was a considerable one, not fewer than six hundred rifles, so that the action at Holspruit is one which adds another name of honour to the battle-roll of the Bays.
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