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Updated: May 26, 2025
I had sent him, two months previously, from the district of Heilbron to Fauresmith and Philippolis, in order to fetch two or three hundred horses from those districts; he had told me that he had brought the horses, and that they were with his 200 men at Droogfontein.
On the 8th of February we overtook General Froneman at Lubbesdrift, six miles to the north of Philippolis. We pushed on that evening towards Zanddrift, which we reached on the 10th of February. Then we crossed over into Cape Colony.
Not one of them all has a story of outrage. One woman, she says, was kicked by a drunken soldier, for which, she adds, he was punished. An inmate of the Springfontein Refugee Camp, Mr. Maltman, of Philippolis, writes: 'All the Boer women here speak in the highest terms of the treatment they have received at the hands of soldiers. Here is the testimony of a burgher's wife, Mrs.
At Philippolis, on their journey, they met with the French missionaries Rolland and Lemue, of the Paris Protestant Missionary Society, and also with Mr. and Mrs. Baillie, who had been appointed by the London Missionary Society to the Kururnan Mission.
The district of Boshof: the men under Commandant J.N. Jacobsz, P. Erasmus and H. Theunissen. All of these were under Vice-Commander-in-Chief C.C.J. Badenhorst. The district of Philippolis: the men under Commandants Munnik and Hertzog. Sub-district of Fauresmith: the men under Commandant Charles Nieuwouwdt. Sub-district of Jacobsdal: the men under Commandant Hendrik Pretorius.
The burghers of Philippolis and Kaapstad had surrendered en masse to the English. In the first named of these districts, only Gordon Fraser and Norval, in the second only Cornelius du Preez and another, whose name has escaped my memory, remained loyal to our cause. I mention these men here, because their faithfulness redounds to their everlasting honour.
Immediately after my arrival, General Jacobs, of Fauresmith, and Commandant Hertzog, of Philippolis, brought the news to me that troops were marching on us from Belmont Station. I told Jacobs and Hertzog to return with their men, two or three hundred in number to meet the approaching English. We were so well supplied with forage that our horses got as much as they could eat.
"On the 11th of February we, i.e., General P. Fourie's division, crossed the Orange River at Zanddrift, west of Philippolis. De Wet had taken possession of the drift the previous day, so our way was open, and as the river was low it was not difficult to ford it. With the exception of a few mules we sustained no losses. It was somewhat like a picnic, the burghers were as gay as could be.
After my men had gone northwards, those burghers of Hoopstad, Jacobsdal, Fauresmith, Philippolis, Bethulie, Smithfield, Rouxville, Wepener, Bloemfontein and the southern part of Ladybrand, who had laid down their arms and remained at home between the beginning of March and the end of May, were left undisturbed by Lord Roberts so far as their private liberty was concerned.
Now if the river was in flood these columns could press us against it, and we would then be in an awful predicament. So I resolved to cut the wire of the main line near Springfontein Junction, and from there march in the direction of Zanddrift, west of Philippolis. Before that could be accomplished we had to beat our track through the columns already mentioned.
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