On my way to South Africa I had occasion to stop at Cairo for about two weeks, waiting for an East Coast steamer; and while at Shepherd’s I was told that the commander of one of the Egyptian regiments, a Colonel Kelly, had a son who was a prisoner in Pretoria, from whom he had not heard for many months. He had been captured early in the war, and all attempts to communicate with him had proved fruitless. Colonel Kelly expressed the desire to meet me, as I was going directly to the Transvaal capital. Consequently I had the honor of a call from him. He is a magnificent type of the Irish soldier, a man who has fought in every zone and in every quarter of the British Empire; one of those men who has cut the pathway of civilization and progress for the statesman to follow. Colonel Kelly requested me to take a letter to his son and endeavor to deliver it to him by obtaining permission from the Transvaal authorities. I took the letter, and the second day after I reached Pretoria I asked Secretary of State Reitz what course to pursue so as to obtain permission to deliver the letter. Although all the officials were extremely considerate and glad to assist me in what I desired to obtain, it took me several days to get the passes required in order to see Lieutenant Kelly. Finally, having obtained the necessary signatures to several papers giving permission to deliver the letter, I drove out to the officers’ prison, which was about a mile from Pretoria, on the first slope of the foothills.
1. Staats Model Schoolhouse, Pretoria, where the British officers were first confined as prisoners of war.
2. Barbed-wire prison, Pretoria, where the British officers were confined after their removal from the city.
The prison consisted of a long, corrugated-iron building, enclosed in a barbed-wire barricade, the ground around the building covering several acres, sufficiently large for the officers to play cricket, football, or tennis. The barbed-wire entanglement was about six feet high and fifteen feet broad, and was constructed as though three parallel fences were interlaced with innumerable strands of loose wire. There was never a very heavy guard at the prison, as the impenetrable character of the enclosure made it unnecessary that there should be more than a small body of men on watch. A line of electric-light poles followed the run of the barricade all around the enclosure, and the lights were kept burning throughout the entire night, making the surrounding area as bright as day, to prevent escape under cover of darkness. Such a construction would not have long restrained the type of officers who were prisoners of war in Libby or Andersonville. The officers were fed better than was to have been expected under the circumstances, since for several months the food supply from the outer world had been cut off from the Transvaal. They were, indeed, receiving every day better rations than the officers of the Transvaal army themselves obtained. Their quarters were comfortable, each officer having an iron cot in the large room, with an ample supply of blankets and linen.
After obtaining permission to deliver the letter to Lieutenant Kelly, I drove out to the prison. I had not been within speaking distance of the enclosure three minutes when some of the officers began loud insults. They did not wait to ascertain why I was there; to them I was merely a “Yank,” coming there out of idle curiosity. A group gathered around the entrance of the barricade and called out insultingly to me and to the Boer officials who were with me, all of whom speak English with but a slight trace of accent, if any at all. Some of the Englishmen even went to the extreme of tossing sticks and stones at our party. I made some comment on this behavior to the commandant in charge at the prison, and he replied:
“Oh, do not mind them; they always do this sort of thing when any one comes out.”
Their derisive remarks were particularly pointed towards Captain von Losburg, a German-American who fought gallantly with the Boers, commanding a battery of field artillery. Many of them knew him by name, and among the English officers were a large number who had personally surrendered to him, and whose lives he had literally spared when they begged him to cease firing in battle; and yet they shouted insults to him beyond the limit of endurance. Although his arm had been shattered by a shell and he wore it in a sling, he told these officers that he would gladly attempt to thrash any one of them for their language. He had not brought it upon himself, for he had not said a word before they began to vituperate him; in fact, the same thing had happened before, so he came forewarned and endeavored not to heed their remarks. I was thoroughly amazed, and could not believe that these shameless men held the Queen’s commission; for in my estimation there is nothing more unutterably mean than for a prisoner of war to insult the man from whom he has begged his life. If it had been only myself upon whom they had poured their torrent of abuse it would not have been so strange, for to them I was an American who had cast my lot with their enemy; and they did not know, for they did not stop to inquire, whether I was fighting or not. It was almost beneath scorn, however, for them to abuse the man who had so recently befriended them.
When I entered the prison enclosure to meet Lieutenant Kelly, I was compelled to pass directly through a large crowd of officers who had gathered about the gate; as I did so I brushed elbows with a number of them, but their offensive remarks continued until I had passed into the building and out of earshot. The commandant who was conducting me asked some of the officers who were standing about for Lieutenant Kelly, saying that there was a letter awaiting him. A moment later an officer ran up to me and said, in a manner full of excitement and anticipation, “I hear you have a letter for Kelly. For God’s sake give it to me, for I haven’t had a line from home since I’ve been in this place.” I was about to deliver the letter to him when the commandant stopped him, saying gently, “I am sorry, Captain, but this is for Lieutenant Kelly.”