[61] See Map.
[62] Privates Hoffer, Maxwell, S. Osborne, Murray, R.A. Morris, and W. Tell.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ASHANTI WAR, 1873-4.
On the 9th of December, 1872, the King of Ashanti despatched from Coomassie an army of 40,000 men to invade the British Protectorate on the Gold Coast. This army crossed the Prah in three divisions on January 29th, 1873, and spread itself slowly over the country, ravaging as it advanced. In August, 1870, the garrisons on the West Coast of Africa had been reduced to four companies, two at Sierra Leone, and two at Cape Coast. This reduction, no doubt, was one of the principal causes which led to the invasion, for at that time there were only 160 soldiers of the 2nd West India Regiment to defend 160 miles of territory.
In June, 1873, the head-quarters of the 2nd West India Regiment being ordered from Demerara to Cape Coast Castle, A Company of the 1st West India Regiment embarked at Kingston, Jamaica, on the 10th of that month, and proceeded to Demerara to garrison that place. In September, the native levies that had been raised on the Gold Coast to resist the Ashantis being found utterly worthless, it was decided to send three battalions from England and the 1st West India Regiment from Jamaica, to invade in turn the Ashanti territory and dictate terms of peace at Coomassie.
On the 15th of November, the two companies (C and H) from Nassau, under the command of Major Strachan, arrived at Jamaica, and, on the 3rd of December, the head-quarters and five companies (B, C, E, G and H), under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, embarked at Kingston on board the hired transport Manitoban. Proceeding to Barbados, A Company, which had been moved from Demerara, was embarked on the 9th of December, and the same evening the regiment sailed for the Gold Coast, arriving at Cape Coast Castle on the 27th, and disembarking on the 29th, 575 strong. The officers serving with the expeditionary force were Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, Major W.W.W. Johnston, Captains Sampson, Butler, Niven, J.A. Smith, Steward, and Shearman, Lieutenants Allinson, C.J.L. Hill, Bale, Molony, Cole, Bell, Clough, Elderton, Beale-Browne, and Barne, and Sub-Lieutenants Harward, Spitta, Hughes, Burke, Edwardes, Tinkler, and Ellis.
The regiment on landing was encamped on Prospect and Connor's Hills, two heights overlooking the town of Cape Coast, and Colonel Maxwell assumed command of the garrison in the Castle.
Sir Garnet Wolseley having already driven the Ashantis out of the Protectorate after the actions at Dunquah and Abracampa in November, and having garrisoned the various stations between Cape Coast and the Prah, had, a few days before the regiment landed, gone on to Prahsu with his head-quarter staff. The Himalaya and Tamar, with the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, which had been cruising about outside for sanitary reasons, now came into the roadstead, where the Sarmatian, with the 42nd Highlanders, was already lying, and everything was ready for the advance on Coomassie.