On January 2, 1865, a detachment of seven companies (about 500 of all ranks) of the Royal Irish, under Major J. H. Rocke, embarked for Wanganui in H.M.S. Falcon and Eclipse, the remainder of the battalion being left under Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman at Otahuhu camp. On the voyage the Eclipse ran ashore on a sandbank, but the soldiers were transhipped to another vessel, and on reaching their destination took their place in a column commanded by Colonel Waddy, 50th, consisting of the Royal Irish; 50th; detachments of Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, and a small party of extemporised cavalry, in all 963 officers and men. On January 24, Waddy moved up the coast towards the Waitotara river. The route first led past settlers’ farms, well-planted and rich in clover-fields, and then skirted native villages, deserted by the Maoris, who had left their peach-groves and patches of tobacco, Indian corn, and water-melons to the mercy of the troops. Next came a weary stretch of steep sandhills, and it was late in the afternoon when Waddy halted near a lake close to the Maori village of Nukumaru. During the march no enemies had shown themselves, and from Colonel Waddy’s report it appears that the camp was formed before the outposts were in position. When the tents were pitched piquets were sent out; among them was a party of the Royal Irish, under Captain Hugh Shaw, with orders to take up ground half a mile to the north of the camp. Shaw moved off in skirmishing order and cautiously approached a patch of bush close to the village, which it was necessary to occupy. It was not until he was within thirty yards of this bush that a large number of Maoris, lurking in the thicket, disclosed their presence by a heavy fire. Though surprised, Shaw kept his head, and remembering that he had just passed a small ditch with a fence in front of it, rallied his party behind this meagre cover, which was but sixty yards from the Maoris’ position. As soon as he had set his rifles to work he counted his men, and found that one was missing, lying hard hit half-way between the piquet and the natives in the bush. Shaw was in a dilemma. To leave the man where he was would condemn him to certain death, for at nightfall he would inevitably be tomahawked by the Maoris: to order a few of the piquet to bring him in was to expose the rescue party to very great danger, nor did Shaw wish to send men on a forlorn hope unless he himself led them. Yet, if he did head a rescue party, he was technically abandoning his post, and, during his absence, throwing upon his subordinates the responsibility not only for the lives of the piquet but for the safety of the whole camp. Shaw decided to face this risk—a very grave one, as the events of the next day proved—and called for volunteers to help him save the wounded man. Four private soldiers, Brandon, Brien, Kearnes, and Clampitt sprang to their feet and dashed headlong after their officer. In a few moments these five gallant men were bending over their comrade, whom they found still living. The air around them seemed alive with bullets, for the piquet was firing viciously at the puffs of smoke which marked the lairs of the Maori sharpshooters, while the enemy concentrated his musketry upon the rescuers. There was no time to consult how best to move the wounded man: Shaw caused him to be hoisted upon his own back, and, staggering under the weight, carried him back in triumph to the piquet. Incredible as it may seem, neither Shaw nor any of his companions were hit in this adventure. Shaw was awarded the Victoria Cross, while privates James Kearnes, George Clampitt, and John Brandon were presented with the silver medal for distinguished conduct in the field.[212]
The sound of the firing brought up Major Rocke with a hundred men of the battalion, and thanks to this reinforcement the piquet was able to maintain so hot a fusilade that the enemy did not attempt either to surround, or to close in upon them. For some hours the fire-fight raged, the natives returning shot for shot; then the musketry died down, and the Maoris stole away to the shelter of a neighbouring pah. Early on the morning of the 25th, the piquet was relieved by Captain Noblett with seventy-five of his own men, and twenty-five of the 50th regiment. On the right he posted his party of the XVIIIth near the village, while on the left his detachment of the 50th watched a deep watercourse, with banks covered by a thick growth of wild flax. On the far side of this watercourse was another piquet, also of the 50th, but not under Noblett’s command. During the forenoon not an enemy was seen; the bush seemed absolutely deserted, but it was the lull before the storm. In the middle of the day the Maoris suddenly abandoned their traditional policy of standing on the defensive in carefully fortified positions, and two columns, in all about 600 men, falling simultaneously on the flanks of Noblett’s piquet swept it before them, and pushed forward so vigorously through the breach thus made in the outpost line that for a time the safety of the camp was seriously imperilled. From the scanty details preserved of this interesting fight it appears that about two P.M. Captain Noblett heard firing on his left, where Enfield bullets were falling among his detachment of the 50th. On hurrying to the point of danger, he discovered that these badly directed bullets came from the far side of the watercourse, where the distant piquet of the 50th was trying to stem a Maori rush. After making necessary dispositions he ran back to the right of his ground, to find that there also the natives were attacking in strength; they had set fire to the bush, and under cover of the smoke were pushing fast through the village, and driving the piquet of the XVIIIth backwards towards the camp. When the alarm was given all the troops not on outpost fell in and hurried up to the front. The first party ready to move was Captain Daubeny’s company of the XVIIIth; in a short time they met Captain Noblett’s piquet in full retreat; Noblett rallied his men upon the reinforcement, and then the two detachments, extending into skirmishing order, by their steady front and well-sustained fire effectively checked the enemy. Elsewhere, however, things did not go so well, and the natives were almost in the camp before the combined effect of a charge of mounted men and the shells of 6-pr. Armstrong guns drove them back into the bush. In their retreat the Maoris abandoned twenty-two killed and two wounded, and succeeded in carrying away about seventy dead or injured warriors. In the two days’ fighting the British casualties were—officers, one killed and two wounded; other ranks, fifteen killed and thirty wounded. The losses of the XVIIIth were three private soldiers killed and twelve wounded, one mortally.[213] The General in his report favourably mentioned the names of Major Rocke, Captain Shaw, and Captain Dawson.
After this repulse the Maoris retired to a pah close by at Wereroa, a position which they deemed impregnable. This opinion General Cameron appeared to share, for he did not attack, but, hoping to entice the enemy out of his works, moved slowly up the coast. At the mouth of the Waitotara river Major Rocke and four companies of the Royal Irish were left to guard a bridge of casks, while the remainder of the battalion, recently joined by the three headquarter companies under Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman, marched with the rest of the column to Patea. Here they remained for many months in charge of a line of posts on the road between Wanganui and Taranaki, sharing in only one of the few operations which took place in this part of the country in 1865.[214]
The state of affairs in New Zealand at this time was very unfortunate. General Cameron, who commanded the Queen’s troops, was at daggers drawn with Sir George Grey, the Governor of the colony. The New Zealand ministry was wrangling fiercely with the Cabinet at home, for at the very time that Cameron announced he could not carry out Grey’s policy without considerable reinforcements of regular troops, the Colonial Office intimated that the War Office was about to withdraw five battalions from New Zealand.[215] The General was already worn out by physical fatigue and mental anxiety: the threatened withdrawal of the troops was the last straw on the camel’s back; on the ground of ill-health Cameron asked to be relieved of his command, and in August, 1865, was succeeded by Major-General Trevor Chute. About a month before the new Commander-in-Chief arrived, Sir George Grey, who had in vain urged Cameron to attack the pah at Wereroa, remembered that before entering the service of the Colonial Office he had been a captain in the army, and determined to prove to the Maoris that their vaunted stronghold was not impregnable. On the morning of July 20, he assembled a small column, consisting of a hundred of the 14th regiment, an equal number of the Royal Irish under Captain Noblett, and about four hundred and seventy colonists and friendly natives. In his plan of attack Grey allotted a duty to the regular troops which required great discipline and steadiness: they were to demonstrate, and threaten an attack upon the front, the best defended face of the fortification, while the colonists and “friendlies,” by a long and circuitous march, established themselves on ground from which the rear of the Maori works could be commanded. The two hundred regular troops pitched their tents well within view of the natives, threw out posts, marched and counter-marched, and successfully “bluffed” the enemy into the belief that a large body of soldiers were preparing for an assault. The irregulars succeeded in placing themselves unseen in rear of the pah; there was some work with the rifle, and then the Maoris, seized with panic, swarmed down a steep cliff and abandoned their fortress, almost without firing a shot in its defence. A reinforcement of fifty of the XVIIIth were brought up from the line of communication by Major Rocke, who was now in command of the regiment,[216] but they took no part in the affair. The enemy lost fifty men and many stores: in Sir George Grey’s column there appear to have been no casualties.
For the rest of the year 1865 the headquarters of the battalion remained at Patea, with detachments along the coast. In December, General Chute was directed by the Governor to prepare an expedition against the Hau-Haus who infested the country between Taranaki and Wanganui. He drew a hundred officers and men under Major Rocke from the posts held by the Royal Irish; 139 of all ranks from the 14th regiment; about 100 from the 50th, and with 45 of the Forest Rangers and 300 native auxiliaries, took the field at the beginning of January, 1866. After making himself master of the strongly palisaded village of Otahuhu,[217] he led his column on a more difficult enterprise, the capture of the Putahi pah, which stood in a clearing on the top of a hill, 500 feet in height, with sides rough with spurs, seamed in every direction by watercourses, and covered with dense jungle. Only one path led from the plain to the summit through this labyrinth, difficult in itself and rendered almost impassable by the stockades and other defences with which it was known to bristle. Chute decided to avoid this death-trap by attacking the pah from the rear. Long before dawn on the 7th of January, 1866, his troops had begun a march, which in his despatch he described as “one continued struggle through a dense primeval forest and bush, over ravines and gullies which could in most cases only be ascended and descended by the aid of supple jack, and then only with great difficulty. The distance to be traversed could not have exceeded four miles, but the obstacles and obstructions opposed to us made it a severe task for four hours.” General Chute’s method of attacking the Maori works was rough but effective. “There was usually,” writes General Alexander, “an open plateau in front of the pahs; he brought his men there to the edge of the bush, and when his line and supports and natives in reserve were all ready he made his bugler sound a single G; the men advanced from under cover, and on the double G being given a rush was made at the pah, hatchets were drawn from the belts of the men, the withes of the outer fence were suddenly cut, the palisading broken through, and the pah stormed with cheering in the smoke.” Such was his plan at the capture of Putahi. As soon as the Forest Rangers reached the plateau they opened out into skirmishing order, lying down within 400 yards of the enemy to cover the formation of the remainder of the troops, who as they emerged gradually from the bush were extended—the detachment of the XVIIIth on the right, the 14th in the centre, and the 50th on the left, with the native contingent in reserve. It was more than an hour before the soldiers at the rear of the column, breathless from their exertions in scaling precipices, had found their places in the ranks. During that time the Hau-Hau garrison, about two hundred strong, had first performed a war dance to keep up their spirits, and then fired, but with little effect, upon the troops. When Chute’s line was in order he gave the word to advance. Under a heavy but almost harmless fusilade the soldiers moved forward, as steadily as on an ordinary parade; when they were within eighty yards of the enemy the double G was sounded; they charged and burst into the pah, driving the enemy before them headlong into the bush. A general pursuit followed, in which the Hau-Haus are said to have lost considerably; then the troops were called off; the pah was destroyed and the column marched back to camp. In this affair the British casualties were two men killed and ten wounded, none of them belonging to the XVIIIth.
In the course of the next few days General Chute captured several more of the Hau-Hau strongholds, and wound up his punitive expedition by marching round the east of Mount Egmont to Taranaki, by a track believed to be impracticable for civilised troops. In these successes, however, the XVIIIth had no share, for Rocke’s party was ordered back to Patea the day after the Putahi pah was captured. With Chute’s march the war, as far as most of the regular army was concerned, came to an end. The British Government decided that the Imperial forces should no longer be actively employed, as it considered that the Maoris had been sufficiently weakened for the colonists to finish the struggle without further help from the mother country.[218] Nearly all the troops were accordingly withdrawn from the neighbourhood of Wanganui; the Royal Irish, however, remained in their old posts in the Patea-Wanganui district, which continued to be much harassed by rebellious tribes. Communication along the coast road was interrupted; small parties of colonists were frequently surprised and murdered; and the local forces were twice rudely handled in operations in the bush. Occasionally the garrisons of the posts made sorties against the insurgents, but nothing of importance occurred until October, 1866, when the Governor arrived at Patea and called upon Major Rocke for the help of his regiment in quelling disturbances in the country round Wanganui. Major Rocke was in the happy position of being his own commanding-officer, with no senior present to whom the question had to be referred. He joyfully responded to Sir George Grey’s appeal by organising a mobile column of three hundred Royal Irish and an equal number of New Zealand militia, and led the combined force to Waingongoro, where the Governor at an interview with the rebel leaders failed to persuade them to lay down their arms. Sir George Grey at once moved towards Papoia, a native village buried in the heart of the forest, believed to be strongly fortified, and known to be approachable only by difficult paths. He determined to surprise this village by an attack at dawn, and Rocke accordingly paraded his men at midnight on the 17th-18th of October. The Royal Irish led the march, preceded by a storming party under Lieutenant Pringle, who had volunteered for this dangerous duty. Silently, and with every precaution to avoid giving the alarm to their watchful enemy, the Royal Irish slowly followed the friendly natives who guided them along a steep and narrow track. At daybreak the men at the head of the column noticed that the path was leading into a glen, and a few minutes later discovered that across this glen the Hau-Haus had thrown a huge barricade, nine feet in height, made of the trunks of trees and crowned with a stiff “post and rails” fence. At this moment a number of natives, hidden in the bush, opened a heavy fire upon the storming party, but Pringle disregarded this flank attack, and with his men rushed at the barricade, breached it with axes, and drove the defenders into the bush. The rest of the column poured through the gap and swarmed into the village, which the Maoris hastily abandoned, leaving several dead behind them. This success, obtained without loss to the XVIIIth, was quickly followed up by Rocke, who, making his way across country hitherto believed to be impassable to Europeans, raided several hostile villages, which the Hau-Haus, cowed by the capture of Papoia, abandoned without resistance. At the conclusion of this three weeks’ campaign, the gallantry of Lieutenant Pringle in his charge on the barricade was brought to the notice of the officer commanding the troops in New Zealand; and two of the men who accompanied him, privates Acton and Hennigan, were awarded the medal for distinguished conduct in the field.[219] It may here be mentioned that although this affair was the last in which regular soldiers took part, it was not until 1869 that the issue of a medal for the New Zealand war was sanctioned, while not until 1870 was leave given to the regiments which had been engaged in the war to add the words “New Zealand” to the battle honours on their Colours. For their services Brevet-Colonel G. J. Carey and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. M. Havelock, Bart., V.C., were created Companions of the Order of the Bath; Major J. H. Rocke received a Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonelcy; and Captains J. Inman and T. D. Baker were promoted to Brevet-Majorities.
During the time the Royal Irish were engaged in active operations against the Maoris their casualties were—
| Officers— | |
| Died of wounds, | Brevet-Major J. T. Ring. |
| Died from accident or disease, | Lieutenants F. P. Leonard and O. R. Lawson. |
| Ensign G. B. Jenkins. | |
| Other ranks— | |
| Killed or died of wounds, 17; died from accident or disease, 39; wounded, 36.[220] | |
Until March 1867, the regiment continued to hold the line of posts between Patea and Wanganui; then the condition of the country warranted the concentration of the Royal Irish at the latter place, where they remained till December, when headquarters and six companies were sent to Auckland, with two detachments, each of two companies, at Napier and Taranaki. When the headquarter companies reached Auckland the command of the battalion was assumed by Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Elliot, who had arrived from England on promotion from the first battalion, vice Colonel Chapman, retired on half-pay. At this time the effective strength of the battalion was 861, all told.[221]