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Updated: June 5, 2025
In the north-eastern and northern districts for instance, in Ladybrand, Winburg, Kroonstad, Heilbron, Bethlehem, Harrismith and Vrede there were still many families, and these could not be sent to Boshof or to Hoopstad or to the Colony. And when, reduced to dire want, the commandos should be obliged to abandon these districts, their wives and families would have to be left behind to starve!
He had already missed an opportunity of co-operating with the main advance by a westward movement from Ladysmith to Van Reenen's Pass along the railway to Harrismith, where the presence of a division of the Natal Army would have been of the greatest use.
The loss of 2000 horses and 50,000 cartridges meant as much as that of the men to the Boer army. It was evident that a few more such blows would clear the Orange River Colony altogether. The wearied troopers were allowed little rest, for in a couple of days after their rendezvous at Harrismith they were sweeping back again to pick up all that they had missed.
He had with him the Heilbron burghers, a part of the commandos from Winburg and Harrismith, and two Krupp guns. On the following day a brush took place with the enemy, who, however, speedily fell back on Ladysmith.
In the case of the British there could be no connection between the two movements, but the Boers by a land journey of something over a hundred miles had a double choice of a route by which Cronje and Joubert might join hands, either by the Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing's Nek Railway, or by the direct line from Harrismith to Ladysmith.
This army included the commandos of Ficksburg, Senekal, and Harrismith, with all the broken and desperate men from other districts who had left their farms and fled to the mountains. It was held in check as a united force by Rundle's Division and the Colonial Division on the south, while Colvile, and afterwards Methuen, endeavoured to pen them in on the west.
The Harrismith section had been pushed as far as Tweefontein, which is nine miles west of Elands River Bridge, and here a small force was stationed to cover the workers. This column consisted of four squadrons of the 4th Imperial Yeomanry, one gun of the 79th battery, and one pom-pom, the whole under the temporary command of Major Williams of the South Staffords, Colonel Firmin being absent.
I also called up Veldtcornet Beukes, with his fifty men, from Wilge River, in the district of Harrismith. Veldtcornet Beukes was a brave man and trustworthy; he was shortly afterwards promoted to the command of a division of the Harrismith burghers. My intention was to attack Colonel Firman early on Christmas morning.
The first was a hard-fought skirmish in which some of Elliot's horsemen were engaged upon June 6th. His column had trekked during the month of May from Kroonstad to Harrismith, and then turning north found itself upon that date near the hamlet of Reitz. Major Sladen with 200 Mounted Infantry, when detached from the main body, came upon the track of a Boer convoy and ran it down.
The Harrismith district near that mountain range is at a similar altitude with an identical climate. These high tracts are called hoogeveldt or highlands.
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