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Updated: June 29, 2025
It was on the morning of October 12th, amid cold and mist, that the Boer camps at Sandspruit and Volksrust broke up, and the burghers rode to the war.
On this occasion we had a great deal more difficulty in escaping from the English than we had had during the previous "drive." Not only had we to deal with these large forces behind, but also with thousands of troops which were now approaching from Villiersdorp, Standerton, Volksrust, and Laingsnek, and which were extended across the country in one continuous line.
He acknowledged that he had ordered six farmhouses to be destroyed: 'The following circumstances induced me to give the order. We marched from Volksrust to Standerton practically unopposed.
General Joubert's mandate was couched as follows: "You are hereby ordered to proceed with the Johannesburg commando to Volksrust to-morrow, Friday evening, at 8 o'clock. Your field cornets have already received instructions to commandeer the required number of burghers and the necessary horses, waggons, and equipment.
We heard that there had been a skirmish on the road, and learned the particulars from one of those who took part in it, and who stayed here for two or three days before going down the country. He said that four or five young gentlemen, who were coming down with a party of women and children from Volksrust, had gone to a farmhouse to try and get food, milk, and bread for the females.
'I can't help it, he repeated sullenly, 'you must go when you're commandeered. And then he climbed down off the footboard, and I did not see him again one piteous item of Gladstone's legacy the ruined and abandoned loyalist in the second generation. Before the train left Volksrust we changed our guards.
Buller's operations in the Free State lasted two days only. On June 10 he engaged a small body of the retreating enemy and entered the Transvaal. In front of him was the Versamelberg, a spur of the Drakensberg, over which the road from Vrede to Volksrust passes at Alleman's Nek, where 2,000 Boers with four guns had taken up a very strong position.
The border-line runs about six miles north of Majuba and Laing's Nek, the last Boer village being Volksrust, and Charlestown the first English. The scenery changes rapidly; the high, bare veldt of the Southern Transvaal is at once left behind, and we enter the broad valley of Natal, sloping steadily down to the sea and becoming richer and more tropical as it descends.
I may be a little stiff at the start, but I believe that once off, I shall be right for eight or ten miles; and after the first day, ought to be able to do double that." They had been travelling at the rate of about twelve miles a day, and halted that night near Newcastle. Chris heard from the guards that they would only go as far as Volksrust, and there be put in a train.
Then the emigrant tram crawled on again. There was another night of wretchedness, and in the morning they arrived at Volksrust, the frontier town. Here they were again closely searched for arms, and what provisions remained among them were commandeered, or as the emigrants called it, stolen.
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